Page 69 of The Dragonrider and the Void
Instead, she observed. Memorized their routines. Studied the runes that covered the walls of her prison. Something about them nagged at her consciousness, a detail just beyond her grasp.
The third time the door opened, twilight had fallen, and the guards brought torches to light sconces on the wall. But these weren’t ordinary guards. The pair that entered wore the dark robes of the Magi Order’s elite, their faces stern beneath silver-threaded hoods.
“Marcel Heartfell,” the taller of the two said, the voice echoing strangely as if multiple people spoke at once. “The King requests your knowledge.”
Lark raised her eyebrows. “And if I’m not inclined to share?”
“Then we are authorized to extract it.” The shorter mage stepped forward, withdrawing from his robes a thin Sapphire wand embossed with runes, the entire length of it glowing with cold blue light. There was no telling how much magical energy had been infused into those runes.
Lark recognized the design. It was a mind probe. A tool used to break through mental barriers of even the strongest magical beings. The pain was said to be excruciating.
“I’m flattered,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “The King sent his best interrogators.”
“We serve a higher purpose than mere kings,” the taller mage replied. “The Void Drinker has granted us visions of what follows the Flashover. A world remade with true magic, not the fragments we currently wield.”
They approached, the shorter mage raising the wand. “This will go more smoothly if you do not resist.”
Lark squared her shoulders. “That seems unlikely.”
The wand touched her temple, and her world exploded into shards of pain.
Images crashed through her mind: memories flaring to life, then discarded as the magi sought specific information. She felt them searching for Venrick, for the ritual pages, for her allies’ locations. And for what she had found in the Gossamer Mines. She blocked them out, not willing to show them what occurred in the tunnels under the Everburning Forest. They pressed her hard here, prodding her to reveal if she’d taken any precious metals from the dwarves’ mines. Lark focused on painful memories from her training under Barrik. She flooded her consciousness with the grueling exercises and harsh lessons to withstand magical torture.
The shorter mage growled in frustration. “She’s misdirecting us. Push harder on anything to do with the alloy.”
The pressure intensified, pain radiating down her spine. Lark retreated deeper into her mind, seeking shelter in her bonds. Though suppressed by the runes, the connections to White Eye and Nix remained, thin threads she could follow inward if not outward.
She sensed White Eye’s rage first. It was a bonfire of emotion that threatened to consume the entire bond. Her dragon was hidden in the mountains beyond Astral City, fighting the instinct to attack the Keep directly. Lark pushed reassurance through their tenuous connection, trying to convey that rashness would doom them both.
Beyond White Eye’s fury, she felt another presence. The corrupted hatchling Hardin had rescued had somehow connected to White Eye and their shared optical markings.
The mage’s probe dug deeper, and Lark gasped as it brushed against her memories of the Northern Sanctuary, of the Void Drinker’s escape. She desperately redirected, focusing on the pain of her broken wrist that day in Red Lodge, magnifying the sensation until it nearly overwhelmed her consciousness.
“Enough!” the taller mage snapped. “We’re not getting the right information.”
The mage withdrew the Sapphire wand, and Lark slumped forward, breath ragged. Her skull throbbed as if someone had taken a hammer to it.
“We may need to have the Archmagus intervene.”
“No,” the shorter mage hissed. “Hierro will never allow us to advance if we go to him for help again. We stay the course.”
“The half-elf escaped with the ritual pages,” the taller mage said to Lark. “How did you alter the wards enough to pass through them?”
“Why don’t you take these bindings off, and I’ll show you,” Lark managed through gritted teeth.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Killing trained Paragons and members of the Magi Order is what you do best, Marcel. Maybe I’ll give you a shot, if you tell us where the rebels are hiding in the Everburning Forest,” the shorter mage said.
“Like ash,” Lark forced out.
The taller mage studied her for a moment, then sighed. “This is becoming unproductive. We’ll try again tomorrow. Perhaps by then, you’ll recognize the futility of your resistance.”
They left her trembling, sweat-soaked and exhausted. As the door closed and the locks engaged, Lark leaned her head against the cool stone wall, focusing on steadying her breathing.
She survived the first interrogation.
Time blurred as she drifted between consciousness and fever dreams. Her mind felt completely raw from the magi’s probe. In her dreamlike state, she saw fragmented visions. White Eye stalking the Vermillion Keep’s dragonriders along the cliffs south of the city wards. Through his eyes she learned that he only flew under the cover of darkness, taking out any dragon and rider pair who went hunting for him beyond the protection of the wards. Repeatedly, Venrick passed through hermind’s eye, stumbling through dark tunnels while inky black corruption spread across body. She saw Hardin probing at the Keep’s wards, trying to locate where in the Keep Lark was being held. And she saw Cheyanne and Sasja sneaking through shadowed streets, having whispered conversations and bribing Keep Guards for information.
From the natural light in the slotted ceiling overhead and the sound of dragons hovering to land or their wings slapping against the stone perch upon takeoff, she had an idea of where she was. Lark understood that she was just beneath the dragon perch atop the Vermillion Keep. If she did manage to escape from here, she’d have to get past dragons, their riders, and a host of trained magi and Knights, not to mention the wards Hardin had warped to allow her entry.
