Page 15 of Chaos Unleashed

“Fair enough,” Xerexes replies, sounding somewhat amused, but there’s also an underlying tone of worry, and I’m guessing that’s because of what I look like and the situation that I’m in.

“Did you see the guys? Are they okay? Did they get out of the castle okay?” My string of questions brings the worry I have for them to the forefront of my mind, and up until now, I had been successfully blocking it out. “I can’t feel them through the bond, and it's panicking me.”

“They are okay; they are panicking about you, although they know that you aren’t dead,” he replies.

I frown, wincing slightly when it pulls open the cuts on my face. “How could they know that?”

“They . . .” Xerxes response gets cut off, and he makes a frustrated noise, “Apparently, that isn’t something that I’m allowed to tell you. The fates insist that you find out on your own and at the right time.”

“That’s stupidly frustrating, but at least the fates allowed you to tell me that they’re okay and they know I’m not dead. That’s better than the information that I had a few minutes ago.” I reply, knowing that I’m lucky to have the information that I do, “What can you tell me?”

Xerxes magic fills the air again, and I wait as his pages start to glow before they flip open, each page-turning rapidly until they finally stop moving and I look at the page that they’ve stopped at, reading through it thoroughly to make sure that I don’t miss any information I have no idea if the words are going to disappear after I’ve read them or even if Xerxes himself is going to disappear.

“Huh, so there’s a key fragment that’s kept in Hades' personal vault, which is in this castle. Me being here is probably the only chance we’re going to get to get it since no one living can enter the Underworld under normal circumstances, and I’m sure as hell not willing to kill one of the guys in order to get the fragment, especially since they wouldn’t be able to get it out.” I say to Xerxes, grateful that he’s still here even though he’s given me the information that he came to give me. “But why haven’t the princes got it if it's in there? Surely they know it's there?”

Xerexes's pages glow again, and he hums with interest as he answers me, “Only Hades himself can enter the vault, and no matter what the princes have tried, they can’t get in.”

“Okay, that makes more sense, and that is probably why they want to know where he is so badly,” I muse out loud. Refocusing on Xerxes I add, “I don’t suppose whichever god sent you to me added how to get out of the cell?”

“No, that’s not within my pages; I’m sorry, Farren, I want to help you, but I don’t know any more than what they’ve allowed me to know.” The pages take that moment to glow slightly, and he adds, “It says to use your magic.”

“I know, don’t worry,” I reassure him and then add, “I don’t suppose the wise ones have said how to use my magic since it's suppressed under at least one hundred spells all woven together?”

“I’m sorry, Farren,” he replies regretfully.

“That’s okay, it’s not your fault.”

I sigh and then admit quietly, “Without that information though I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to get out of here.”

Chapter Six

Farren

Unsurprisingly, my revelation is met with silence, Xerxes understandably not knowing how to respond.

“Am I right in thinking that you have the gift for picking spells apart?”

I nod, “I do, but I can't use it to pick the spells apart when its been cut off from me,” I pause, not wanting to sound crazy but wanting to get his opinion; I decide to add, “but I swear that it's trying to pull the spells apart from behind the bindings, is that possible?”

Xerexes hums while he thinks, “It could be; there are very few people that have actually had the ability, so I can’t be certain. You may be able to coax your magic to work from this side of the bindings though.”

“I’ll try anything at this point; I know that it's going to be impossible to get out of here without some help from my magic.”

“Try connecting with it like you would when you need to do a particularly difficult spell, go into a meditative state, and see if you can coax it through the bindings to start picking some of them apart. You need to be aware that some of the spells may have traps built into them that you could trigger if they’re undone, and you could experience some nasty side effects.”

“It can’t be anything worse than what I’m experiencing or will experience here. I may as well try now since I’m being left alone, and there's no telling how long that's going to last. If I’m too deep and someone comes, hide. I don’t want them finding you, that would be really fucking bad.”

“Okay, I will, I’ll try to pull you out first though.”

“Thank you,” I reply.

I hope he does what I’ve asked. I don’t want him in the hands of the princes; the torture that they would put him through would be horrific, and the information that they would have access to would definitely mean that they could do some severe damage, considering that they are already doing plenty of damage without having access to the information makes me dread to think what they would do with it.

I take a deep breath, trying to block out all of the pain that my body is in, the thoughts of my men, H, the princes, torture, everything; I push it all away and sink into my centre, my eyes slipping closed. Usually, when I slip into my centre where my magic resides, I get this overwhelming sense of peace and immediately feel better. This time though, I’m just hit with a wave of pure anger, I can barely feel my magic, and I fucking hate it; not only that, but it’s mad as hell at being trapped, as in the kind of anger that wants to destroy everything in its path.

Coming face to face with my magic makes me worry about how I will cope with not being able to get into the Void. I have no idea how long I’ve got before I start to feel the adverse effects of not going into the Void, but I do know that it’s pretty serious if I don’t get in. Not only did I experience that firsthand, but Monty was pretty sure that it would get more extreme each time.

I can’t dwell on that now though, I need to see if I can convince my magic to try and pull apart the spells from the other side. I take another grounding breath and refocus myself. I don’t know how long I spend immersed, but it has to be quite a while. The good news is that I managed to unravel two of the spells, and picking them apart didn’t have any adverse effects; the bad news is that it took me so long and, as far as I can tell, didn’t give me any more access to my magic. In order to get through all of the spells and entirely free my magic, it's going to take time, and I fear that it will take more time than I have.

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