† Yuen †
Yuen peered down at the prisoner, lips pressed into a hard line.
She was an assassin from the Eastern Courts, Nimara of the Black Silt Born; skeptical, slippery, hard to find, and it'd taken whispers and promises of loads of coins to get her into his palace. Most of their kind were skilled in the arts of trickery, but the Eastern Court specialized in making it violent. Assassins, mercenaries, spies, and cut throats who wielded blades, honeyed words, and enjoyed bloodshed. Their war torn past breeding some of the most ruthless fae in their modern history.
"Arise." He commanded the woman beneath him.
"Yes, your highness." She stood now facing the young prince.
Yuen reached out grabbing her by the chin and raising her head towards the light.
As with most eastern fae, her skin was green, of a pale sage variety swimming in inky currents. Long messy hair fell over her shoulders in a matching color. Forest eyes so dark they nearly ate up her pupil glared at him. Paired with pointed ears flexed back, her hostility was evident.
A thick black line, fresh and raw, permanently marked down the center of her face. Two more streaked parallel down her cheeks. Delta's deadly tattoos would serve as his security blanket. If she were to betray him, with a flick of his finger Delta could detonate the tattoos, instantly killing her. It was a rather gruesome power amongst his advisors arsenal of torture techniques.
He tipped her head to the left with a smug smile just short of sneer. Distaste dancing in silver eyes.
"Tomorrow I will stage your escape." Yuen said in a hushed voice, being sure the echo of the dungeon did not carry his words.
Her eyes widened.
He continued, "You will heed my command and hold absolute secrecy over the mission I am about to task you with. Do well by my orders and I shall arrange your freedom. Fail me and I'm sure Delta has already warned you of what will happen to this pretty little head of yours." He caressed her cheek, fingers trailing down the black tattoo.
Her eyes narrowed, knowing well what would happen should she betray him. She bit back curses, only nodded.
"Good."
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
† Nimara †
Blood, mold, and excrement permeated the air of the musty and rank dungeon. For the first day any deep breath made her gag and her head pound. She'd bitched about at some point and earned herself a beating from an irate guard.
After a week of captivity Nimara still hadn't grown accustomed to the smells.
Today she would escape its nastiness and had half a mind to pay the guard back for his poor hospitality. Surely his 'imperial highness' wouldn't be too sad about one dead guard. The sardonic nature of her thoughts dripped with poison.
She readjusted her weight, pulling some of the tension away from her chained hands. The shackles were what truly kept her imprisoned. No mere prison cell or pair of regular shackles was enough to confine a powerful highfae. There were many types of suppressant cuffs out there. Their magical abilities, locked in iron and steel, were moot in the face of Nimara's abilities.
These, on the other hand, were unlike any she'd seen before. Another one of that asshole, Delta's, little nifty inventions. They were made of a white cool substance she could neither distinguish as metal or glass. Old glyphs of the night court carved in his black ink lined their edges. Multiple thin chains connected them in short length, pulsating and made of energy. When she'd first been shackled in them they sapped at her power with such force that her knees had given out.
The door to the dungeon opened with a screech and light flooded in giving view to the poor living conditions of its prisoners. Months old straw sprinkled the floor, a bucket of overflowing feces and urine could be seen a few cells down, a man– filthy and perhaps dead–lay in a pile shadowed by the stripes of bars.
His highness' instructions echoed in Nimaras' mind.
"…a guard will come in midday for his patrol and his keys will 'accidentally' slip from his belt."
The midday guard entered, lantern in hand, and made his way to the end of the block looking from one cell to the next, ensuring all captives were where they should be.
As he passed Nimara took note of his faded leathers and jaunting gait. He walked arrogant, feet slapping stones of the cell extra loud as he went.
Then he turned at the end of the cellblock, flame from a lit torch illuminating a pale blue man with a pillowy scar running across his face and cutting through a blinded eye. He watched her, attention only leaving her to swiftly look into each cell once more as he made his way back through. When he got to her cell, his leg swung back in a dramatic fashion and he delivered a kick to the bars of her cell. A loose key on his belt fell to the ground, the sound of it clattering eaten by his bark, "Away from the bars, prisoner!"
His good eye swiftly glanced down to the key, back to her, then her cracked the tiniest of smiles and resumed his loud parade down the block. He once more kicked at bars, barking orders, then door creaked shut behind him. The dungeon shrouded in darkness again.
"You'll have, maybe ten minutes to free yourself and exit the dungeon. I would not count on it, so leave as quickly as possible."
Yuen's directions fresh in her mind, Nimara stuck a foot through the bars and silently pressed her thin soled slipper around until she felt the keys beneath her toes. She inched them forward, quietly dragging them into the cell.
Hands behind her back she took the keys and guided each one into the lock before the perfect fit slid into place. A twist and she felt immediate relief. The crushing fatigue of the cuffs lifted and she swiftly caught them before they could clatter to the ground.
She stood up, her knees popping and rubbed her sore wrists.
A light shuffle came from the cell across from hers as its captive perked and called to her in a hushed whisper. "Care to help out a fellow inmate." He kept his voice low, not wanting to alert the other prisoners or any guards.
Nimara ignored him with a smirk yet held a finger up she was sure he saw.
It took only a moment for vyra to begin circulating through her body, finally able to reconnect with the energy of the universe. She was weak and malnourished, not as strong as she could be, but she had enough in her to escape the current shithole she was in.
The vyra gathered in her blood and bones, lighter in the higher realm, and she let it seep from her fingers. Slim gnarled green roots spread from her skin, snaking their way around the bars of her cell. The prisoner across from her, with eyes built for the dark, watched on in fascinated horror as the roots secreted an acid so foul the metal began to drip and melt away. Little ribbons of smoke wisping where they burned.
The fae were creatures of nature and their powers often correlated to the flora they were incarnations of. The Pale Moon Kudzu, and its very first blossom had created the assassin. A rather beautiful vining plant whose milky flowers grew from branching racemes in tapering cylinders. Beautiful blooms that only appeared with bright moons.
Prolific foliage often overtook every last area of surface it vined up. Under the soil its roots spread out, their toxic nature strangling and killing other plants. It could easily swallow a forest and poison its soil.
Nimara stepped through a hole in the bars, her noxious roots making quick work of the iron and steel. Her feet crunched through metal drippings as she approached the other cell. Inside she could see the huge shadow of a man, two glowing pink rings staring up at her. Only the vypnyr were so large in stature with black eyes and glowing irises.
She wore a viscous smile as she swung the keys in his face.
"I'll help you on one condition." Her voice was a cruel promise, smooth and melodic.
The vypnyr swallowed hard, knowing exactly what it was the fae wanted. "Yes?"
"Give me your name."
.
A young boy falling into a nearby lagoon had served as a 'distraction' to the guards and she had slipped out of the dungeon unnoticed. Just as the guard had been suspicious, she assumed the accident was staged as well.
Smoothly she traveled in the shadows. Quickly made her way across the city, blending with crowds and diving into alleyways at the sight of guards.
In the easternmost section of Kisiian was the prince's personal stable. An ornate building with all the amenities a horse belonging to the imperial court would require. Nimara rolled her eyes at its opulence and thought out how if she were a horse she'd tear up the place, destroy her stall, shit all over, nip and kick at anyone who got too close. Empty of servants, away for lunch, a saddled steed awaited her. A dusty coated stallion with wavy pepper hair and gentle eyes.
She took an old trail from the sandy dunes of the city, then cut into the forest that edged it, horse steadily galloping along forgotten roads.
Fifteen minutes out an escort joined her, just as the prince had instructed one would. He guided her deeper into the imperial lands where the paths became less evident and the trees grew thick.
The hooded man handed her a sealed envelope then instructed her to remain to the right, enter the oak grove, and ride to its end. A few more paces and he split away from her, disappearing into the trees and grass.
The grove came into view. A small trail lined perfectly between cranky oaks with the thickest trunks she had ever seen. The ancient overgrown lane led to a dead end and she rode towards it as instructed.
Hesitantly she pulled on the reins. The end of the trail neared, a thick wall of trunk from the largest of the oaks marking the end of the old lane. But the horse rode on, as if it could see something she could not.
She took a deep breath, galloping steady and only a couple meters from the tree.
A creaking snap abruptly sounded out and had the horse letting loose a whinny. Then a blast of golden light lit her vision and a mass of swirling energy created a wall between the oaks. It was soaking in bittersweet forgotten magic. It's vyra pulsing, strange and foreign to her. She flinched as her steed powered ahead and they hit the old portal in a blinding flare.
It swallowed them, shivering before collapsing with another flash.
The forest was once again empty and silent. The only trace of her passage were the hoof prints left in the soft grass of the grove.