Ensnared (Sorcery and Science Book 5) (2 page)

The woman uncrossed her legs and set her hands against her bottom, perching her chest forward.
 
“Don’t worry, you dear, conniving man. I will tell you precisely what you need to do.”

* * *

526AX August 16, Lord Adrian's Facility

Isis awoke with a jolt and a thump. As she pulled herself up from the cold concrete ground, back onto the equally hard stone cot, she tried to get her head around the flutter of images. A dark room. A shadowed figure. A man, Selpe perhaps? They had been talking about something. What was it? The picture, so clear just seconds before had already faded, like a dream.

Had it been just a dream? But it had felt so real—not turbulent enough for a foresight and far too linear for a mere dream. Besides, she didn’t dream in the same way that other people did. Everything she saw while asleep was tied to the tapestry of reality, no matter how loosely. Not that she understood most of what flashed through her head, but this she knew. Of course, she was probably just crazy.

Isis heard a click, and the door to the cellblock swung open. She was alone there. They wouldn’t have wanted to imprison an Elition near any others. Mysticism and voodoo would surely have ensued. Imagine that.

Footsteps, those of Selpe Diamond Edges, marched down the narrow hall and stopped outside the bars to her cell. Isis didn’t move from the bench, but she turned her head to look her captor in the eye. It was Aaron.

“Are you ready to cooperate?” he asked, his stance one of relaxed confidence.

“Send your men away,” she said.

Aaron nodded to them, and they filed out. When they were alone, he turned an expectant eye on her.

“Are you having fun playing prison ward, Aaron?” she asked drily.

“Come here, Isis.”

She stared at him for a second, then stood. The weak dose of Inhibiting Serum she’d taken to calm her mind after her encounter with Nemesis at Evergreen had left her body completely. Without it to tether her, she was trying to adjust to the dizzying whirl of her own active mind. She strode up to the bars, trying to conceal the unsteady motion of her steps, but Aaron must have seen something, for his hand twitched as though he wanted to lend it to her for support. He must have forgotten there were bars between them—and more importantly, that he had put them there.

“You know how I hate to see you like this,” he said in a lowered voice.

“Then let me out,” she challenged.

“I can’t do that. I don’t have the power.”

“Of course you do, Aaron. Who are you kidding? You could declare that I be released and that would be that. Which can only mean you don’t want to let me go.”

“It’s not so simple. I need to keep the Council’s support, Lord Adrian’s support,” he said through gritted teeth. “And so I must do what I must do. Now, Isis, when you were traveling with Jason Chanz and his bandits, did you learn anything that would be of interest to the Selpe Empire?”

“No,” she spat at him. “And King River instructed me to—”

“King River is irrelevant here,” Aaron cut in. “You are being charged with treason against the Selpe Empire, which puts you under our jurisdiction. Now, again. Tell me everything that happened when you were in the company of Jason Chanz. Start from the beginning and do not leave out a single detail, however insignificant as it may seem.”

Isis glared at him through the bars. “I demand Elition counsel, as is my right. I will say nothing until my counsel is present.”

“Very well,” Aaron replied with a grin. There was no doubt in her mind that he’d anticipated this.

She watched closely as he tapped the sequence to unlock the cell block door—red circle to yellow triangle to green circle to blue diamond—and Davin stepped inside, looking very serious.

Isis raised her eyebrows at him and lipped, “Davin, what’s going on?”

“I’d like to speak to Isis,” Davin told Aaron.

Aaron shrugged. “Be my guest. But, as you know, I have to stay here to make sure you don’t help her escape.”

“Whatever, just let me inside,” Davin said.

Aaron’s fingers danced across the panel once more, and the bars to her cell slid open. As soon as Davin was inside, he promptly closed them again. Davin nodded his head toward the far corner of the cell, and Isis joined him there, their backs turned to Aaron.

“Davin?” she whispered.

“It looks like the Selpes are using this Jason Chanz fiasco to keep you locked up in here. During his short time in Orion, he stole something from the Selpe Research Division. Then he bolted. Do you know anything about this?”

Isis frowned. “No. What do they think he stole?”

“Not think. Did. I saw the crime scene. The bodies of thirty soldiers were scattered across the archive stacks. Knife wounds mostly. Some died from the impact of being thrown. Probably a Phantom mind blast. There are few people who could have done that.”

“Perhaps it was another Phantom,” she suggested.

He shook his head firmly. “No. The cameras were melted from the inside. The windows were completely shattered. The floor had fissures. What can make fissures in
marble
, I ask you?”

Jason could. Davin was right. Only the Elite Phantom had the sheer raw power to carry out such devastation. Jason Chanz in a rage. Just what had made him so angry?

“What did he take?” Isis asked him.

Davin was so busy studying her expression that he missed the question. “What?”

“Jason. What did he take from the Selpes?”

“The Book of Memory.”

Blood dripped down Isis’s arms. She looked at her fists, which were clenched so tightly that her fingernails had punctured her palms. She relaxed her hands, wiping the dripping blood off on her pants. They were dirty already anyway.

“What are the Selpes doing with a one-of-a-kind Elition book?” she asked, working to steady her tone.

“It appears they were studying it, trying to understand its magic.”

“No.” She swallowed hard, pushing down the rage. “I meant, how did they get it?”

“I don’t know. I had no idea it was even missing.” His vivid teal-green eyes pulsed once as he looked at her again. “You know what this means, right?”

Of course she knew. It meant Jason was collecting the Recovery Scrolls, which together could show the way to any Elition alive. He was finally going after Terra Cross. The scene of carnage suddenly made a lot of sense. Jason was protective of Terra. No, ‘protective’ didn’t even begin to describe it. The drive to protect her made him downright murderous.

Davin echoed her thoughts. “He’s going after my sister. And he will cut through anyone who stands in his way.”

Isis said nothing. There was no point. It was all true.

“Ok.” He cleared his throat. “Let’s tackle one problem at a time. In the absence of Emperor Hayden Selpe, who cannot be reached at the moment—”

“Convenient,” grumbled Isis.

Davin did not pause to comment. “The Selpe Advisory Council has branded Jason Chanz a thief and named you his collaborator.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Davin shot her a hard look.

“Ok, I told Jason the Diamond Edges were coming for him, but I didn’t know he’d stolen anything. And I certainly didn’t help him kill thirty soldiers.”

“Of course you didn’t. But we have to prove that. I’m working on it, but in the meantime, you need to give them something—some bit of information—that will make your loyalties clear and draw suspicion away from you.”

“What does King River say to all this?”

“He went off on one of his secret trips right before Hayden’s party.” Davin frowned. He didn’t like being kept out of the loop. “So, he’s also unreachable at the moment. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me for now,” he added, eyeing her hopefully.

Isis’s heart dropped to her stomach. She knew Davin’s affection for her meant he would do everything in his power to keep her safe, but he was not his father. Without King River to intervene, her chances of making it out of there unscathed had dropped significantly.

“Do you have anything on Jason Chanz? A weakness, perhaps?”

His words tore Isis from her reflective silence. “What?”

“That kind of information would be an excellent show of good faith on your part. So, what do you have?”

“Davin, no.”

“No you don’t have anything, or no you won’t share it?” he asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“Neither, ok?”

“He is not your friend, Isis. Jason Chanz is a conniving, manipulative, cold-blooded killer who uses everyone and everything to get what he wants, then spits them out when he no longer has any use for them.”

“As opposed to your Selpe friend there?” Isis countered.

Davin looked her in the eye, and his face grew red. He snatched a hold of her arm. “He’s gotten to you, hasn’t he? Just as he got to Terra.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Davin,” she replied, shaking him off.

“She fell for it too. We were only children, but he was exactly the same back then, even at the age of nine. His ‘I may be cold and egotistical on the outside, but I am a tormented soul with real feelings deep inside’,” Davin mocked in disgust. “That brooding routine. It’s pathetic.”

“You don’t know him.”

“Neither do you.”

Isis sighed. This conversation was going nowhere. King River and Lord Adrian would waltz together across the imperial ballroom floor before Davin ever had a rational discussion about Jason.

“Look, Davin, the truth is I don’t have anything to tell you. Jason is a remarkably skilled Elition.”

At that, he cringed.

Isis ignored him and continued, “But he is also a man and therefore not invulnerable. The Selpes don’t need me to tell them that. He has no magical weakness, nothing that will make him drop dead instantly.” She tried to laugh lightly, but it came out as more of a pained grunt. “Come on, this whole thing is ridiculous. Just pull whatever tricks you have out of your hat and get me out of here.”

“Feeling the burn of withdrawal?” Davin taunted.

“I’m handling it. Even if my head feels like it’s about to split open,” she sulked.

“I don’t know why you take that garbage anyway.”

“You wouldn’t.” Isis hugged her chest, trying to steady her jitters. “Now, if you really care about me, you’ll find some way to make the Selpes release me.”

“It doesn’t work like that. You need to give me something to give them,” he told her.

“For the last time, I don’t know anything about Jason Chanz!” she blared at him.

Isis looked over her shoulder, where Aaron had perked up at her raised voice. Great.

“Davin, I don’t know anything. You’ll have to think of something else,” she said in a hushed voice.

“Maybe not.” He set his mouth close against her ear and whispered, “Jason is after the Recovery Scrolls.”

“But how does any of this help the Selpes anyway?” She looked into his stubborn face. Once Davin had an idea in his head, he hung onto it for dear life. “Wait? You don’t mean to… Davin, you would sacrifice your own sister just to get to Jason?”

“Who said anything about sacrifice? Terra will never be in any real danger,” Davin said, turning to leave.

She caught his hand, stopping him in his tracks. “What are you going to do?”

“You let me worry about that. You wanted me to get you out, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Trust me,” he said, smiling.

He motioned to Aaron, who opened the cell door for him. And then after whispering, “Take care of her, Aaron,” to his friend, he left the cell block.

With Davin gone, Aaron stepped up to the bars, so close he could touch her. Then, with a wide smile, he said, “Now, where were we?”

His tone was light and pleasant, as though they had just been interrupted amidst smalltalk about the unseasonably cool weather.

“Try not to enjoy yourself too much,” Isis shot back and retreated to the bench, plopping a bit too hard down onto it.

“I can’t help it. Your company is most enjoyable,” he replied with his usual charming air.

Isis sighed. “Not now, Aaron. This is hardly the time.”

“Hardly the time? Why, this is the perfect time!” he declared. “I’ve wanted to have a long talk with you for so long, but you’re always rushing off. It’s almost as though you’re avoiding me.”

“Imagine that,” she said dully.

“Well, here we are now, and you have nowhere to run off to. Finally, we can talk. Just the two of us. Uninterrupted.”

Isis sat on her hands and rocked, brushing her shoes against the ground. “Then talk.”

He took a deep breath and turned in a tight circle before beginning. “So, Isis, it’s like this. You know how I feel—”

He was cut off mid-sentence by a familiar click. A blinding splash of grey-green light spilled into the hall as someone entered, and a moment later Lord Adrian came into sight.

“Aaron, I need to speak with you,” he said, puffing up his chest. He always tried to make everyone think whatever he had to say was the most important thing ever in the history of the world.