A dull ringing sounded in her ears, and she could feel a throbbing pain on the back of her head. Yasmina could only see pitch black, and it took a moment for her to realize that her eyes were closed. Her lids were so heavy that it took great effort to open them. When she did, she saw metal bars on a wood floor. She also noticed that they were moving. She didn’t totally understand what was going on, but she remembered Aidan and Ardeshir and immediately attempted to bolt up to find them. At that moment, she realized her hands were tied behind her back. She grunted from frustration and used her stomach muscles to flip herself over. To her relief, she saw Aidan and Ardeshir laying next to her and still breathing! They were still alive, but now she needed to figure out what happened.
Ardeshir woke up next and gasped when he saw his paws were bound together. He sniffed the air and observed, “We’re heading towards Rogamaith!”
“Rogamaith? So that means we got captured by knights!” Yasmina figured out. “They must be taking us to the dungeons. They ambushed us at Bothar Ri! But how come they didn’t kill us?”
“Try not to complain about that decision too much,” Aidan weakly joked. He rolled over and came face to face with Yasmina. “They must want some information from us, like who we are and why we were heading to Duanolc.”
“They probably want to confirm our idenities too,” Ardeshir added. “They were under orders to find three travelers, but they won’t know it’s us that Daeva wants. The longer we hold out information, the longer we’ll stay alive.”
“Unless they send Dorian down to the dungeons; he’d probably recognize us.” Yasmina frowned. She closed her eyes and concentrated hard on sending powers to her fingertips, but she found that the magic coursing through her veins hit a road block. “Ugh! The rope is slowing down circulation to my hands! I can’t use my magic to get us out of here! Sorry guys!”
“It’s okay,” Aidan responded gently. “We’ll figure out something.”
“How can you be so calm?” Yasmina probed. “Even when all evidence is to the contrary, you always have faith that things will work out! How can you continue to maintain optimism no matter what?”
Aidan replied, “Well, my mother always told me when there’s a will, there’s a way. I’ve always found that to be true. In case you haven’t noticed, it keeps proving itself right. Our instincts helped us survive the Shadow Path. It’s also how I found you. I trust them completely, they’ve never steered me wrong!”
Yasmina’s heart skipped a beat when he mentioned finding her as a victorious feat, but she didn’t have time to contemplate what it meant because they suddenly stopped. The three of them instantly fell silent, and their nerves were palpable. The back door swung open, and a pair of armored hands grabbed them and stood them up on the ground. Yasmina saw a tower with light-colored stones, and its simplistic beauty left her awestruck! She didn’t have much time to marvel at it because a knight pushed her forward and gruffly ordered, “Move!” She saw a wooden door at the bottom of the tower, which she could only assume was the dungeon entrance. As they walked, Yasmina ardently tried to conjure her magic, inwardly echoing Aidan’s sentiments on never giving up, but it was to no avail. She knew once they passed that door, their odds of escaping were a lot slimmer. She wondered what miracle would save them now.
The knights took off their ropes and threw them inside a dungeon cell that had stone walls and floors, hay strewn about the space, and a small window with metal bars high above them. The knights shut the heavy, wooden door but opened a rectangular, metal peephole to address them. One knight questioned, “Who are you?”
Yasmina responded, “Does it matter? No matter what we say, you guys will just convict us as if we were who you were hoping for!”
All but two knights left, and the two remaining ones turned their backs to them in order to guard the door. For a moment, no one said anything, but after a while, one of the knights couldn’t help himself, “We found your wand. We know who you are.” Yasmina, Aidan, and Ardeshir stayed silent, and so the knight added, “They’re going to kill you, you know!”
“Sarid, don’t!” the other knight hissed.
Sarid argued, “Eamon, they’re going to find out soon anyways, what are we supposed to do? Let them sit in the dungeon all night wondering what’s going on? Let their worries fester to a maddening level?”
Eamon differed, “I’m sure they have a vague idea of what’s going on. If you open your mouth, we could get in trouble! Our jobs, or worse, our lives, aren’t worth it!”
“Why do you do it?” Aidan inquired. “Why work for people who are so sinister?”
Eamon replied, “What choice do we have? There isn’t a lot of work out there, and we have families to feed!”
“But you once worked for a noble king and queen,” Aidan disputed. “How could you carry out their orders? That makes you just as culpable for these monstrous acts as they are!”
“Hey! That’s not true!” Sarid objected. “We have no choice but to obey their commands. Besides, if we weren’t here, the situation would be so much worse. We were the ones that convinced them not to kill you on the spot! I couldn’t do it, it was just wrong!”
“Plus, if we weren’t here, the kingdom will have less protection,” Eamon explained, “and right now, Caragsona needs as much protection as it can get! Especially if King Kahlil does declare war on us!”
Aidan’s eyes widened in shock and agony upon hearing this. “Our country is on the brink of war with a trade partner?”
Sarid confirmed, “His kingdom for sure, and I suspect others may follow suit.”
Aidan slumped to the floor with a very far away look on his face. Yasmina could completely understand why Aidan felt so much anguish at the idea of Caragsona possibly going to war. His kingdom was already falling apart from within, so an outer threat could destroy the country! She loathed the thought of it too, but she couldn’t think about it right then. She could sense a vulnerability in Sarid and Eamon, and she wasn’t sure how, but she had a hunch that this could lead to their escape! She went up to the peephole and probed, “Doesn’t it bother your conscious to sit back and let this happen?”
“Of course it does!” Sarid snapped, clearly stung by her remark. “Our will doesn’t matter though; we’re subjects to the king!”
Yasmina countered with, “Did you swear an oath to protect the king or the kingdom?”
Eamon answered her, “We’re sworn to protect Caragsona, but what difference does it make? Dorian rules the kingdom and-!”
“There is a difference!” Yasmina interrupted. “You can something to protect the kingdom! You know why we were on the Shadow Path. It had nothing to do with whatever lies that Dorian told you! I’m sure he painted a horrible picture of us wreaking havoc without real purpose except to sow seeds of mayhem against a supposedly innocent and pure king. You know that isn’t true, don’t you?” Sarid and Eamon didn’t say anything, but they hung their heads guiltily. “You know what needs to happen to save the kingdom! You can make that happen!”
“No we can’t!” Sarid said ruefully. “We have a responsibility to our family and to the land. Without us, everything would become so much worse! We need to preserve our lives, and defying Dorian would get us killed!”
“If you don’t help us, you could end up dying anyways from all that is happening!” Yasmina pointed out. Sarid and Eamon didn’t say anything, but she could see on their faces that they knew it was a possibility. She prodded them further, “How long do you think you’ll last? You’re a mortal, and you work for a king that’s controlled by a witch. Do you really think they have your best interests in mind?”
Near tears, Eamon croaked, “We can’t just let you out! How would we explain that without losing our heads?”
“You’ve already figured out that I’m a witch,” Yasmina told them. “And I’m sure you think that because you took away my wand that you disabled my powers. What you don’t know is that while the wand channels our powers, our magic lies within us. I don’t need to have my wand to curse you!” She pointed her entire palm on the peephole and inwardly concentrated on letting out a bunch of energy. It didn’t take long to create an electric bauble that shot out of the dungeon cell, hit the wall on the other side of the hall, bounced back, and knicked each knight in turn. They felt a sharp sting as the spell dissipated. Yasmina leered, “So, like with Dorian, you have no choice but to obey me. If you don’t open this door, I’ll destroy this door and take you with it!”
Sarid and Eamon looked startled at what just transpired, and Yasmina suspected that the fact that she went from a helpless victim to a formidable adversary in mere minutes probably disturbed them. The knights looked to each other, and Sarid reasoned, “We can tell him she overpowered us and we had to do it.” Eamon clearly had misgivings about the idea, but he relented and slowly cracked the door open…
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