The shackle’s itched around my neck, legs and wrists. The cold iron making my fiery spirit dull and weakening my internal fires. The Zarian’s were known for their lack of leniency when it came to assassins.

Yet this somehow seemed far crueller than torture, it was a slow death that coldly crushed my nature. Cold iron worked on most Faen species to varying degrees.

For sprites it quelled our nature as each of us are attuned to a different life element.

For Faeries it weakened them considerably until they shrivelled up and died. For trolls it stopped their regenerative properties.

So on and so forth.

It just plainly sucked ass, for a better term.

The damp coolness of my dungeon-like cell in the Zaria capital added to my discomfort. The damnable Vice-Admiral William Hopkin’s had managed to burst one of the heat gauges laced throughout my suit. Causing a semi-kinetic wave of heat and force to emit from my suit. Those lucky final shots he had taken at me had been enough to throw my balance and miss taking his head.

Now I sat here slowly degrading away, a failure to my guild and mistress. A door slid aside down the hallway and I heard several muffled groans from other prisoners, each of which I had been surprised to realise were Lightmoon Elves.

I hadn’t known there were any hostilities, between the empire and Dias’andries. If there were then certainly these few were being kept as hostages.

The web spun further. This information would impact my guild greatly, if it was true and not just some simple assumption on my part.

“Prisoner. Stand,” barked a harsh voice before my cell. The dungeon was dimly lit by old powdered torches. It was purely pretentiousness for they chose to keep their dungeon in the style of the old world.

I climbed weakly to my feet, feeling the weight of the chained heavy ball attach to my feet shackles. I wouldn’t say a word. No matter how they tortured me, or offered me, I would never betray my family.

“This way,” the praetorian gestured with his stun rod. I nodded minutely and stepped slowly out of my iron cell and instantly felt a tiny bit better.

“Move, prisoner,” the guard order me, and pressed the inactive rod into my lower back. If I hadn’t been shackled I wouldn’t burst my wings out in a flare of intense light. Then I would’ve either picked up the heavy ball attached to me and hit the guard with it. Or I’d just simply thrust the stun rod up into the praetorian’s neck.

But I could barely move faster than a slight shuffle as we slowly wove our way out of the dungeon. The interior remarkably shifting as we exited the cells. Now a soft cushion grey plastic clung to everything.

The guard nudged my shoulder to the right as we came upon a T intersection. Then we moved past more secure doors and the thick glassy panels for each showed a different contained species of xeno. Some were really big, ugly, and mean looking. Trolls I guessed. And a few doors pounded in their frame as whatever was inside tried to escape and thrash out at us.

Then I was lead to a small secure room, filled with glassy walls and camera’s in each corner. A middle-aged man with slightly pointed ears stood on the opposite side of the glass wall.

He wore black uniform with no insignia displayed on the breast of his uniform jacket, or on the shoulder. I guessed this one to be of the special operatives the Zarian empire was suspected of having.

“Good morning,” the man greeted me, calm and clearly. His face masked into a cool expression. I let out a trickle of my life perception magic, humans were not well attuned to magic.

And I immediately recoiled as a black aura seemed to fill the man. It twisted and coiled up, a long formless limb stretching out towards me. Like the tail of a scorpion. I immediately snapped back my control of my focus and shoved my perception as far down inside myself as I could.

“My name is Kiluan. And I’d like to ask a few questions if you don’t mind?”

He raised an eyebrow at me, but all I could see was that thick formless tendril filling my vision. I nodded, saying nothing and trying not to shuffle nervously as the black ethereal limb began to blanket my face.

I breathed deeply through my nose and out through my mouth.

I had not notice whether the cameras were still active when I’d walked inside this room. Hopefully someone was monitoring this conservation.

I didn’t know whether knowledge of this man’s power was known to the empire, or if he kept it concealed. I had to be careful.

“Now. What do you know of a man named, Marcus Haze?” I blinked and tried not to show my surprise. Yet my mind raced to the Vice-Admiral quarters, his conversation with Marcus Haze. Then my mind raced to Soshan giving me instructions on the target, and where to find his whereabouts.

The slight mental slip was all it took for me to realise what this black ethereal limb was, it gulped on my memories as if it could see them. And looking through it I saw dust-like particles passing along the limb each carrying a fragment of my memory like a snapshot.

He didn’t even need to hear my reply to get answers.

“Next question. Do you know what happened on Ardenai-Prime?” he asked me, and smiled widely like he’d caught his prey. His mouth displaying his fangs to me.

This novel is the work of Rhys Thomas. If you are reading this and it has not been published by Rhys Thomas, then this work has been stolen. Please report this to Amazon and me at email: [email protected]