“It was her,” he says, steadying me. “We saw it. We felt it.”
Vaughn’s voice turns skeptical. “And you presume to bring her back with us. On a ship. Across the sea.”
Skies, I hadn’t thought of that. But frankly, there is no time to waste playing out potential scenarios now. “Are you going to pull this door down or stand there debating with us?”
Vaughn sighs and steps up to the cage, muttering the whole time. “Just what we needed on this already harebrained adventure. A feral prisoner who will sink our one remaining ship before we’ve made it halfway back to Hylios. Can’t wait for the return journey. Gods, say what you will about this family, it’s never boring…”
“Watch your fingers,” I warn quietly. “I’m getting the inkling she is not going to be cooperative.”
Scoffing, he wraps his large hands around the bars and jerks the door off its hinges. Before he can even set it aside, he’s pelted in the face with a rock.
“Fuck!” he roars, clutching his bleeding temple. “That’s the thanks I get for getting her out of there?”
The girl scuttles back into the corner of her cage, pressing herspine to the stone wall. She looks like she’s trying to make herself as small as possible. But there is not a lick of fear on her face. Only savage wrath, coupled by the bloom of insanity in her eyes.
“We’re here to help you,” I tell her. “We won’t hurt you.”
She stares at me, unmoved.
“I’m Rhya,” I try, gesturing down to the top half of my mark that peeks over my bodice. “I’m a Remnant. See? I’m like you.”
She has no reaction.
Is it possible she does not know what she is? I myself had been ignorant of my own power when Penn first discovered me…
I send out a pulse of maegic, trying to connect with her, but feel nothing in response. That could be due to the ore around us, or the very nature of our elements. For air and earth are natural foils, diametrically opposed in power and compatibility.
“Soren, can you try to connect with her?”
“I have been. Her mind is like a hedge maze. One made of lethal thorns.” His eyes shift from the girl to the other end of the corridor where Melité, Alaric, Harpina, and Arwen have disappeared. “We don’t have time for this. The tide is already coming in.”
“I know.” My teeth dig into my bottom lip. “But we cannot leave her here in Efnysien’s hands.”
“No. We cannot. Gods know, he has grown powerful enough already with constant access to her blood.” He runs a hand through his hair in frustration. “But reasoning with her does not seem to be working. And dragging her out by force could prove deadly for us all, given her reactivity.”
Vaughn drops into a crouch by the threshold, eyeing her warily. His temple is still bleeding. “Come on, quakes. Get out of there.”
She does not move a muscle. Perhaps she doesn’t like her nickname.
“You can’t actually want to stay here,” he continues, striving for a cajoling tone. “If you do, you’re even madder than you look.”
I take a few steps closer, stopping short when the girl bares her teeth at me in warning. “Vaughn, give her a minute. She’s scared.”
“She doesn’t look scared,” Soren notes wryly. “She looks like she wants us dead.”
Vaughn abandons all civility, his voice turning blunt. “Two choices. You can come out or I can drag you out.”
Another rock whips at his head. This one, he manages to duck. Barely. To his credit, he does not seem alarmed by the attack. In fact, a slow grin works its way across his broad face as he stares at the disheveled prisoner. Something like respect shines in his eyes.
“Option two it is.”
He is remarkably quick for such a large man. I always forget that about him until I see him move. The girl also underestimates his alacrity; she does not even have time to resist before he’s reached into the cage and plucked her out like she weighs no more than a feather.
“There now,” Vaughn says, his arms a vise. “Settle do—Ow!” He looses an oath. “Infernal hells! The she-devil bit me!”
“I did warn you,” I remind him, smothering a laugh. But all my amusement fades when the ground beneath us begins to vibrate again.
Gods, no.