But that Saraya had seen only this one guard was concerning, for surely, within the heart of Dragon’s Teeth, she should have met with far more resistance. Tempting though it was to revel in such good fortune, it rather made her uneasy, as in her experience, no such luck ever came without some equal measure of disaster. Such a price was one that she had paid more often than once, and yet, superstition was not enough to deter the acrobat from taking advantage of the luck regardless.
Saraya thus strode along the granite walk with cautious confidence. Of course, treading through the central garden was not once mentioned by the assassin, but nevertheless, Saraya believed that doing so would grant her the best chance of actually finding Myria. Explicit though they may have been, Develli’s directions were incomplete, and the exact location of the dungeon itself had been conveniently left out of his verbal map. Whether intentional or not, the omission required Saraya to deduce the final whereabouts of the Slayer herself. Fortunately, Saraya had assumed this would fall to her from the very start, and because of this, as well as her having never intended to follow the assassin’s instructions as described, she had hoped to widen the area of her search by only vaguely doing as told.
The central garden Develli spoke of had therefore become her target; the path that would hopefully lead her straight to Myria rather than serve as the jester’s guide. It seemed to Saraya that the assassin meant to have her circle around this place; a waste of time from what she could tell, given the course that he’d depicted. And, indeed, the route so far had proved a painless way of moving forward. In being able to spot guards from afar she had encountered far less trouble, and without the need to check around corners she was making great time toward her goal. Ahead of the assassin’s schedule she would reach the place just as he’d said, and could start expanding her search for Myria, wherever she may be.
“It goes lower,” Saraya muttered as she approached the tower, running her hand over the freezing stone.
Saraya nodded in agreement. If Alter was right and this was a prison, then Myria was likely here. It was an assassin, after all, who had taken the Slayer captive, and an underground cell was the perfect place to hide a secret prisoner away.
Keeping the tunnel’s location in mind so to not lose her bearing, Saraya glanced around the garden for the nearest way inside. She found it quickly, and silently she slipped back into the fortress to creep again down the inner halls. Soon enough she arrived back around at the tower keep, where a thick oaken door, unwatched and unguarded, met her upon return. Pushing against it, she found it locked, yet was hardly deterred by this minor setback. Calmly she reached into her pouch and grabbed out her lock-picking tools, and like the chains of Develli’s wrists, this imposing barricade too succumbed to her thieving skill.
Beyond the door then were two paths. The first, to her left, was a thin stairway spiraling clockwise sharply upwards. The second was a stairwell also, though it stretched out straight ahead before angling into the ground. Standing at the top of it, Saraya could see that this path likewise circled downward after a short distance, and was clearly the route she had spotted while in the garden before. Thus the acrobat started into yet another descent into the underground, though this time, there were no glowing plants or creeping fungi to light the darkening stairs.
In no time at all, what little light there had been waned so low that she could barely see, and digging into her hip satchels again, Saraya pulled out a thin wax candle and a small container of tiny sticks. Given to her by Kiln and Karn, each stick was tipped with some concoction that was intended to catch fire, but Saraya hated using the twins’ invention because they exploded half the time. Alas, she had no other way to quickly light a fire, and so didn’t have much of a choice but to risk their use. Cautiously, she begrudgingly pinched a match between her fingers and swiped it across the tower wall. It lit instantly, the tip flaring wildly before just as suddenly dying down; enough, at least, that Saraya could use its sparking flame to light the candle wick.
Simply thankful to not be the one ablaze, Saraya began down the steps again under the guide of candlelight. For some time she followed the stairs around and around again, until another glow began to appear upon the walls ahead. Thinking that it was possible for someone to be waiting down below, Saraya slowed her descent to a tip-toeing crawl and strained her ears to listen. There was nothing she could discern however, outside of her own footsteps and breathing, but being careful nonetheless, she kept her progress slow. When finally she stepped down onto a landing she dropped this pretense completely, having found herself inside a gloomy little room where only a short wooden table, one matching chair, and a broken chest resided.
“A guard post,” Saraya said as soon as she realized where she was, and noticed that, like the stairway above, this place was too unwatched. Unlike the pitch black stairwell though, the room was not quite so desolate, as a rusty old lantern had been hung up on a hook to prove the jail in active use. Now that she had this new source of light, Saraya doused her candle and tucked it back away, brushing the dried wax from her glove where a few thin streaks had fallen. Not wanting to waste her own resources, she took the lantern from the hook and walked across the room to the next set of stairs. These, she found, went even deeper into the earth, and Saraya assumed that the prison itself was just beyond this point. Spying a set of keys hanging beside the stairwell upon a peg, she took them before setting off again down into the dark.
Soon her feet found a floor again, but this time it was ill kept, and comprised of dirt nearly as much as it was of cobbled stone. As dead and abandoned as the room above, the dungeon was freezing cold and exceedingly grim just as all prisons seemed to be. The cells, she noted, were of the sort dug straight into the surrounding ground, and gave the room a rundown appearance that only added to the general gloom. There were eight of these cells in total: four on each side of a central hall, with a door of iron bars affixed to every one.
Hoping that Myria was here somewhere, Saraya quickly set to checking every cell in turn. Unfortunately, the low lighting of her lantern made this process slow, and caused moldy lumps of old hay bedding to look much like human bodies. This forced the acrobat to scour through each room individually to make sure there was nothing missed, which startled a fair few nests of rats that had made the prison their home. It was only when reaching a back-corner cell that Saraya finally found somebody sleeping, though in the dimness of her light it was hard to make out who. She squinted, forcing her eyes to further adjust to the darkness of the cove, and by doing so she could just make out the red of the prisoner’s long hair.
“Myria!” Saraya called into the cell, hoping to hear an answer. But nothing came, and in its wake the jester’s heart began to race. A sense of foreboding swiftly swallowed the silence, and fearing the worst, Saraya scrambled with the keys to unlock the iron door. Even before she’d pried it all the way open, the jester rushed in to the Slayer’s side. “Don’t be dead,” Saraya whispered as she dropped the lantern at her feet to kneel. “Please don’t be dead. Fawln take it, Myria, don’t be dead!” Intending to shake the woman awake if her words failed to rouse her, as soon as she touched Myria’s arm the woman reacted with a painful groan. Immediately the tightness within Saraya’s chest eased away, and withdrawing her hand, she felt herself relieved enough to be able to breathe again.
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“Thank the Kayll for that,” Saraya answered. “I’m just glad to be in time.”
Having heard the acrobat speak, Myria grumbled into the ground before she slowly attempted to rise. Favoring her arm, and through pain and struggle, the woman eventually managed to push herself up enough to sit, though she nearly collapsed back into the wall for all the effort it took to move. “You?!” She then choked out in shock upon recognizing Saraya’s face, and though she went to say something more, her exhaustion overpowered her. It took a few moments for the woman to recover, but once finding her breath, she continued on. “What in the five ringed hells of Agonis are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you, obviously,” Saraya stated, highly vexed by the harsh greeting. “Though judging by your tone of voice, you weren’t expecting me.”
“Should I have?” Myria weakly scoffed, sounding almost angry.
That Myria sounded so upset only confused Saraya, and turning partially away, she became downcast. “You’re welcome…” she uttered somewhat sadly, this seeming to blunt the edge of Myria’s unwarranted ire. It was enough, at least, that it caused the woman to slump further into the wall, and letting out a heavy sigh, she coughed when the frigid air hit her parched and aching throat. “Can you walk?” Saraya asked once the minor fit had run its course.
“Yes,” Myria began, her voice still hoarse, “though I will require your aid to do it. The assassin girl did not much injure my legs, but after everything else she’s done, it pains me greatly to move.”
Saraya paused briefly at Myria’s mention of the assassin, having failed to notice until now how obviously injured the woman was. Made visible by the weak lantern light, Myria’s face held proof enough of the suffering she had endured. Much of the Slayer’s face was bruised with the left side having swelled, and her eye was gashed over and in such a state that it was almost forced wholly shut. Several tears had also been ripped into the woman’s overcoat, and there was little doubt that hidden beneath it was more bruising and broken bones.
“I’ll help you however I can,” Saraya assured, trying her best to console the Slayer. “And I’ll get the both of us out of here without fail.”
“If you can, I will be surprised…” Myria started to say, her skepticism tempting the acrobat to become crestfallen again. But then the woman finished her thought, “…surprised, but grateful,” she said.
This caused Saraya to smile, though it faded quickly. In truth, as happy as she was to have found Myria, to have earned a portion of her thanks and trust, there was something about the red-headed Slayer that still weighed on Saraya’s mind. Over the many days they had spent together, Saraya had begun equating Myria ever more to Lady Veil, as they both possessed the same commanding strength that the acrobat admired. It thus disturbed Saraya greatly that Myria would act so weak; that she would willingly allow herself to be captured with no plan of escape.
“Why did you do it, Myria?” She asked the Slayer suddenly. “Why did you just give up and let them take you without a fight?”
Caught off guard by Saraya’s query, Myria fell silent for a while. Up until now, the woman had thought it strange that it was the jester and not a member of the Valor who had come to rescue her. It made sense, though, that the girl would appear if she had witnessed Myria’s capture. Saraya heeded no chain of command and was recklessly impulsive, so if she but wanted to save the Slayer, then of course she’d get here first.
“So you hadn’t yet left,” Myria muttered, knowing this must be true. “You were there when all this happened.”
“Of course I was,” Saraya confirmed. “Why else would I come all this way to get you out? But what I don’t understand is why you let them take you in the first place. You’re a Valor captain, aren’t you? And a Slayer! You could have easily taken that caster.”
Slowly Myria inhaled, breathing in as deeply as she could with multiple broken ribs. “I know not what you think of me, Saraya, but I am not so strong as to win every battle through guts and will alone.”
“But you could have beaten them,” Saraya insisted. “I know you could have won.”
“Only at the cost of another’s life,” Myria interjected, after which she sighed quietly to herself and sadly shook her head. “You are still young, so perhaps you have yet to experience something like this. Though, Kayll grant that you never will. Or maybe it is because your view of the world is skewed that you’ve come to think this way. Either way, the reason I chose to surrender is because I would have regretted it had I not. I could hardly have lived with myself if I had chosen to abandon my men to die, and so I chose to give up myself so that they might escape.”
“But they were soldiers,” Alter countered, her words heartless, “they are supposed to die for you.”
“Because I am their captain, yes, and in warfare it is expected that such sacrifices are to be made. But I am, at heart, a Slayer, not a soldier, and any Slayer worth his Arm would never sacrifice a comrade to save himself. So too would I never knowingly abandon an ally that I may run away. Even if such a choice means that I will die, then I would gladly accept my fate. I’d rather be proud in my final moments than live with the regret.”
Saraya fell silent, not sure how to respond, and sunk back onto her rump to contemplate what the Slayer said. “You gave up yourself to save your friends,” she muttered silently, feeling somehow ashamed that she had only now realized this. Deep within, she had known that this was going to be Myria’s reason all along, for it was the same reason Saraya had for coming to Dragon’s Teeth like this. Myria was in danger, and that alone had caused Saraya to jump into peril to save her friend without a second thought. They were the same. She’d known this. The only difference between them then, was that Saraya had never once possessed the need to choose surrender over a fight. And now the acrobat had to wonder, if ever she became so pressed, could she do as Myria did? She honestly didn’t know…and she was unsure if she wanted to.
“Now I would know something,” Myria began, pulling Saraya from her thinking. “I want to know why you came for me. You said yourself that your debt is paid.”
“I came because,” she started to say, “because I would have regretted it had I not. I don’t have many people I can call friend outside of…outside of the life I know. And since I don’t have many of them, I want to keep the ones I make.”
“Outside of the life you know?” Myria reiterated, saying the phrase as a question in a purposeful attempt to pry.
Saraya would not clarify though. She would not give away the circus. And in her refusal to further explain, she somberly turned away.
“I see,” Myria responded softly, willing to leave the subject be. She then closed her eyes for a few short moments and spoke again not long after. “You are an enigma to me, jester, and make friends far too easily. But, if I am to be honest, I am thankful that you do.”
“Because it meant that we’d rescue you?” The soured Alter flatly quipped before Saraya could stop her tongue.
“No, because I think it is not so bad a quality to possess; perhaps one even enviable. Your actions here make me ashamed that I was unwilling to risk the same for you.”
Saraya released a weak, wry chuckle. “You needn’t worry about that,” she said. “Not everyone should be so trusting. If I was a bit more stoic like you, then I wouldn’t have gotten tangled up with the assassin the first place.”
Myria snorted just a little, the closest thing to a laugh that Saraya had ever heard her utter. “True indeed,” the woman sternly agreed, though she said it with a small smile.
“Yes, of course…” Saraya slowly began, having forgotten in all their conversation that they were still inside a prison. Now reminded, she jumped to her feet and offered Myria her hand, flashing the woman a friendly grin. “We can talk later, if you want, but for now let’s just get out of here.”
Myria nodded her agreement and likewise offered up her own hand, this signaling to Saraya to come and help her rise. This was not an easy thing to do however, or so the acrobat was quick to realize, for Myria had not been exaggerating when she said that simply moving caused her pain. Through enough trial and error though, both slowly began to figure out the best way they could manage, but they only succeeded in getting Myria to her feet before they were forced to stop.
“Wait,” Saraya whispered to the Slayer suddenly in a hush, loosening her grip so that the woman could lean against the wall. Myria almost muttered something, likely to ask what was going on, but Saraya raised a hand to quiet her so that she could better hear. Instinctually she slowed her breathing, waited, and listened. As she’d thought, though the sound was faint, there was indeed a noise clacking down the tower stairwell and echoing into the jail.
“As do I,” Saraya muttered in reply, feeling her anger rising. Without giving it a second thought, she sharply turned toward the cell door and quickly snatched up the old, dim lantern. “Someone’s coming,” she told Myria as she started walking away. “You stay here. I’ll deal with it.”
If the Slayer had meant to say something back, Saraya didn’t give her the chance to speak it, for her steps had already carried her from the cell and out into the hall. The blossoming anger within her chest was quickly morphing into a thirst for vengeance, spurred into being simply because of Myria’s abused and broken state. Even if she believed she could, Saraya had no ounce of desire to avoid the oncoming fight. No one willingly entering this place was any ally of hers, and the only thing Saraya wanted to do was hurt those who’d dared harm Myria. Whoever it was that was coming here, they would sorely regret returning, for the acrobat had every intention now of turning this prison into a grave.