PreCursive

  The few floors were very simir to the sed one. Each of them was structed in a simir manner, with eight cells in total. Ohird floor, we found that there were actually two adults mixed in with the children instead of just one like the sed. However, one of them was in a bad shape.

  Coaxing the child to the bars, we got a stuttered expnation out of them that the shivering form of an older man was one Mr. Craight. Apparently, he had got some kind of illness some time ago, and the Guards were unsympathetic to it. Grey immediately melted the lo that particur cell and ushered Aurum i was time for the healer that we had brought along to do his job.

  Before we left, I made sure to carefully hand the Sculpted several of the potions that Grey and I had brewed for this possibility. Aurum took them from me warily, uo meet my eyes anymore. Unphased by our bypy, Grey ordered Aurum to che with each of the prisoners once he had stabilized Craight, and then do the same with the other floors. We left Venix on that floor in order to guard Aurum and start breaking people out. I’m pretty sure the massive Antium was more than up to the task.

  Ohird floor, we discovered that this level was draftier thahers. There were actually a few sets of thin, slit-like windows set into the walls of a few of the cells.

  This wasn’t a good thing. Those windows were letting in too much cold sea air aing it colle the small fines of this floor. I don’t what was keeping the chill from reag the lower floors, but this one was uniquely chilly.

  Everyone on it was sie degree.

  Grey, Sylvia, Bel and I immediately got to work breaking cell locks so we could start administering potions. Some of them were so ill, however, that there wasn’t much that could be doh just potions. These kids needed actual medical attention, and the four of us just weren’t up to it. We gathered up who we could and started moving them off of this level to the one below us. At the very least were able to get them out of the cold. We told Aurum to prioritize them, for now.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t all. We found our first dead prisoner on that level, when we were moving the children.

  In one of the cells was a small, curled-up body lying still underh a threadbare b. I…

  I had a hard time looking at them.

  Just the thought of what these bastards had allowed to be doo a child filled my heart with an impotent rage. I wao scream and thrash and break something. How could these people do this? How you even call yourself human, if you inflicted such suffering on a child? And for what? Because some fug sver old you that they were the children of rebels?

  Nothing could ever justify this.

  I wasn’t the only oo be affected, either. While I couldn’t see Sylvia’s face through her still-raised hood, I could see Bel’s.

  The pirate Captain had the darkest look I’d ever seen on her sharp features. Whenever one of the children couldn’t see her, a profoundly murderous look would emerge, poihrough the thin windows at the ships we could see faintly.

  Grey though, was just tired. All his fire from earlier seemed to drain from his slight form at the sight of the dead child. With an almost careless gesture, he melted away the lo that particur cell and stepped ih heavy steps.

  Gingerly, Grey k down to pick up the tragic figure and held it in his arms. Nudging the b out of the way slightly so he could see their face, he sighed heavily at what he found. “I reize this one,” He said to me mournfully. I was the only one up here with him right now, as both Sylvia and Bel were downstairs with Aurum assisting with the rest of the sick children.

  I was silent for a moment, taking iragic se. Eventually, I stirred. “Who is it?”

  “Lady Turnold’s niece,” Grey said tiredly. Carefully, he covered the pirl's face again with the b. “Samantha, I believe her name is. Was.”

  Lady Turnold…

  I reized that name. She had been at the war cil, all those weeks ago. The stern woman who had questioned Grey about Azarus and me. She…didn’t deserve this.

  Nobody did.

  Silently, the two of us exited the cell and walked doweps to the third floor, where Aurum, Sylvia, and Bel were w. Wheepped onto the nding, Bel was the first to notice us. At the sight of the still form cradled in Grey’s arms, she visibly snarled before f it down. I don’t think she wao scare the children more than they already were.

  Grey approached her. “Please, take her down to the first floor Isabel,” Grey asked her wearily. “We still have two more prisoo free.”

  Gingerly, Bel accepted the tiny form from Grey. Looking down at it, I could see the woman choke something down, and then nod tightly at Grey. She hunched over the form in order to better hide it from view, and then wordlessly started walking away toward the lower stairs.

  Meanwhile, Grey turo nod at me aured back to the upper stairs. He didn’t wait for a response before climbing back up them. He didn’t o, anyway.

  I was right behind him.

  ……………………………………..

  As Richard Everfield had told us, there were only two cells on the fifth and st floor of the tower. The floor itself was much smaller thahers had been, with only a small walkway iweewo cell doors. These cells were much more like the ohat had been in the rest of the building, with rge wooden doors on them.

  They were much more eborate, however.

  These doors were covered in runiscriptions, and I could feel the Mana wafting off of them. Whatever kind of warding scheme had been built into these cells retty damn powerful. I would have thought that Grey would know about them, but…

  Grey was staring at the obviously ented doors with an irritated look on his face.

  I sighed. “I’m guessing these aren’t part of your design?”

  Grey snorted, not turning to face me. “A brilliaion. No, I’m not familiar with this particur entment but I reize elements of it. I believe these are suppression wards. Essentially a broader form of entment simir to a sve brand, they suppress a person’s Status within a certaihese are likely the only reason the octs have yet to break themselves free.”

  “I’m guessing they’re pretty strong, then,” I said tiredly, drained from the euation. Normally I ehese little micro-lessons with Grey, but not now. Not after the quiet horrors that I’d seen in this tower.

  Grey seemed like he wasn’t in the mood either. “Strong enough,” He said shortly, before pg a hand on his sword. “However, they won’t be an issue. I’m capable enough myself.” Drawing his blue and white longswrey marched up to the cell on the left. Gripping the hilt of his bde with both hands, Grey violent stabbed his sword into the wood of the door. Despite being made of wood, and with Grey’s siderable strength, it only peed an inch with the sound of a tortured shriek of metal for some reason. It was as if the door was solid steel instead. However, I don’t think Grey cared. “Drink, Stelrum,” He said coldly.

  The almost stone-like material of Grey’s sword began to glow with a harsh bck light. The tendrils of bck light crawled down the length of the azure bde and infiltrated the surface of the door. Just underh the wood surface of it, I could see those tendrils spread out, occasionally peaking through it as if they were curious worms. Slowly, the ey of the wooden door started to glow the blue color of trated Mana, before dimming. Somehow, I could see the bck light that ‘Stelrum’ was emitti’ the Mana somehow. Whe dregs of blue light had dissipated, the tendrils of hungry bck power retreated bato the bde, befrey withdrew it from the door.

  The entire process took only seds.

  When it was dohe door seemed more fragile somehow. Where before it had resonated with a strength born from its entments, now it seemed like it was evehan a normal sb of wood. I tentatively reached out and id a finger on it, only for the entire door to colpse into ash the moment I did so. I jerked my finger ba surprise.

  I was caught off guard by a voice eg out of the cell.

  “So,” I heard an oddly hollow voice ring out of the oddly rge cell, before the rhythmic thumping of wood on stone approached the light outside of it. “They finally sent someoo the rescue, I see.” Stepping into vieerhaps the oddest Sculpted I had ever seen.

  This must be Woodrick.

  As I’d e to expect he’d be, his body was shaped from solid wood. Oak, if I had to take a guess. His form was that of a muscur human man, with intricate muscles sculpted from smooth bark visible across his exposed torso. The only thing he was wearing was a set of priss tied around his waist. He was tall too, even more so than I was. I might clock him at around six and a half feet tall, so not quite Venix height if I had to guess. But it was his face that drew my eye.

  Ingruously, it looked like he had a beard.

  The beard itself was entirely formed from rich green li and moss that molded itself to the shape of his handsome features. It was long, too, reag down to the base of his neck. On a human man, I’d call his features chiseled. But since he was wooden, I guess I could say it was whittled instead. Like Sylvia, he had the same kind of artig ptes that formed and simuted the human face, only made of wood. Like her, there were dozens of them, each fitted together seamlessly. From his head fell long locks of li and moss, twisted together into what looked like dreadlocks. His eyes were the only things about his body that weren’t made anic materials.

  They were stone.

  Carved to look like humahey looked oddly fluid set into his sockets. They were also intricately structed, out of what seemed to be three different kinds of stohe sclera looked to be made from white and bck flecked granite, while the pupil seemed to be made from solid ks of obsidian. However, the actual iris of his eyes seemed to be carved from a rich red ruby. They glowed out of the darkness of the cell, fixed on me. I watched as somehow, the pupils in his stone eyes tracted just like a human’s would, from the light outside the cell.

  “However,” The Sculpted man said idly. “I don’t reize you.”

  I bli him. “Ah. I’m with him,” I said, jerking my thumb over my shoulder.

  Who I could only assume was Woodrick looked over my shoulder. He made a noise of realization, seeing who else was here. “Is that you, Grey?” He called out, rexing slightly. I turo look, and saw that Grey was already marg up to the sed cell door. He lifted his left hand not holding Stelrum and waved over his shoulder, saying nothing.

  I was startled when Woodrick appeared at my shoulder. “I suppose he’s focused on freeing whoever’s iher cell,” He said casually.

  My eyebrows shot up. “You don’t know who’s in there?”

  Woodrick turo look at me. “Mmm, no. I was captured after that cell was locked up. Whoever’s in there has been here lohan I was. They sure do make a ruckus sometimes, though.”

  “I see,” I said quietly, watg as Grey stabbed his bde into the sed cell door. “Well, I’ve never met her, but I’m told it’s supposed to be someone named ‘Lady Honoka’.”

  “What?” Woodrick said, startled. “That ’t be right. Honoka was free when I was ambushed. Whoever’s in that cell has been there at least before I was captured.”

  I turo look at Woodrick sharply at that. “Wait. If it’s not Honoka in that cell, who is?”

  Woodrid I stared at each other for a moment, before realization stole across our faces simultaneously.

  I spun around, outstretg a hand towards my mentor fruitlessly. “GREY, STOP!” I shouted desperately. “IT’S A TR-”

  I was too te. I could tell that Stelrum had already eaten the entment on the door wheuro look at us in fusion.

  Something massive exploded through the doorway, in a thunderous hail of stone and ash.