Shai

Shai did one last gesture with her hand, then collapsed onto the cold stone floor, her back against the brick wall. “Done.”

“Finally!” Qiara declared, sitting up on her cot. “All the wards around our cell are down?”

Shai nodded weakly. “For all the good it’ll do. We’re not trapped magically anymore, but there’s still the iron bars and the guards. And there’s magic inside the iron I can’t reach, which prevents us from firing any magic outside these bars.” She’d been working at the wards for three days, in between taking time to replenish her mana. The whole time, her friend had urged her to keep going, but Shai didn’t see the point.

“You’ve done enough,” Qiara told her. “Leave the rest to me.”

Shai glanced over at her through half-closed eyes. “I still don’t believe you can get us out of here.”

“You said you know a secret exit out of the palace, right?”

“Yeah, assuming we even make it out of the dungeon.”

Qiara slid sideways across the cot until she was closer to Shai. “You still haven’t explained how you know so much about this place.”

“You wouldn’t believe me.” Shai closed her eyes.

She was home, sort of. The home she grew up in with the prince. Only now, she was a prisoner. Imagine if Jistan knew she was here, assuming he remembered her.

Better that he doesn’t, she thought bitterly, opening her eyes and looking around the filthy prison.

Her fingers brushed against her side, but only met the waistband of her pants. She kept forgetting the guards had confiscated her knife, Nahya. The vulnerability of being without it unnerved her.

“Let’s make a deal,” Qiara said. “If I get us out of here safe and alive, you have to tell me your secret.”

Shai grinned. “Deal. Although if we make it out of here dead, my spirit will tell your spirit, ‘I told you so’.”

Qiara chuckled. Then she fell silent for a moment. “I can’t believe you came back for me on that roof. We’re known for leaving every person for themselves during a heist.”

“The Cliq is known for that. I’ve been with this gang for four years and I still don’t consider myself one of you.”

Her friend nodded, brushing dirt off the cot. “You’re different from the rest of us. You’ve never killed anyone. You’ve barely even injured anyone.”

“Aren’t you glad I’m different? If not, you would be in this cell alone.”

Qiara scoffed. “But I’d still be in a cell. My chances of escape are better now, though.” She placed a hand on Shai’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure, Q.” Shai got to her feet. She wasn’t tired physically, but her veins buzzed and she’d developed a throbbing headache from exhausting all her inner mana. She wouldn’t be unmancing again any time soon.

She walked to the iron bars standing between them and freedom, then turned back to her friend. “So what now?”

“Now, we wait for a guard to show up with the keys,” Qiara said, picking her nails.

“So you’ve somehow become a dreammancer, and you’re going to use your psychic powers to make him unlock the cell for us? All while getting past the barrier that prevents us from using magic outside these bars?”

“Just trust me.”

Shai sighed, shooing at a pesky fly. It smelled almost as bad here as it did in those stables she and her mother slept in for a whole moon once. The chamber pot in this cell hadn’t been changed since they were thrown in here, and they hadn’t been given fresh clothes either. Shai’s scarf hung pitifully around her neck now instead of over her face. Qiara had tied hers around her bad ankle, so now her braids trailed down her back.

Shai knew they had to make it out of here without causing a chase. Qiara wouldn’t be able to move fast, so running wasn’t an option. Good thing they would be crawling when they reached the hidden passageway.

I was a little kid last time I went through it, she thought. I hope I still fit.

Shai was stretching her body and Qiara was massaging her ankle when a distant clank echoed through the dungeon. A door creaked open, and footsteps came toward them.

Shai lowered her arms and glanced at her friend. Qiara started fiddling with her bodice, showing more of her cleavage.

You’re going to flirt with him? That’ll never work! Shai told Qiara with her eyes.

Watch, Qiara’s eyes said back.

Shai pressed her lips together and watched as a dark-skinned man in navy blue leather and chainmail emerged from the shadows, passing by a small window where an afternoon glow shone through the bars.

“Lunch,” the man grunted, placing the two trays in his hands on the floor and sliding them through the hole just wide enough for the food. It was Shai’s favorite type of dungeon food—gruel with a side of rock-hard toast. Better than the lumpy oatmeal she had this morning where she found a surprise inside—a dead beetle.

Qiara stood, grimacing as she limped forward to the bars. “Thank you, fine sir. You’re looking dashing today in that uniform.”

“Quiet, thief,” the guard snapped, pushing a stray dreadlock of hair behind his ear. He shrugged off the straps of two water canteens from his shoulders and also slid them into the cell.

“It’s true! You’re just the type of man I like.” Qiara put her chest against the bars. “I see you even have markings on your neck.”

On one side of his neck, he had a bird-and-vine symbol, and on the other side, he had an image of a sword.

“Yeah, what’s it to you?” the guard snarled, but he was looking down at the girl’s chest now. He looked very young, probably a rookie RDP guard, and maybe his naiveté would be to their advantage.

“What do they mean? I’m just curious.”

“This one is the sigil of Casland and this is a sword to represent my status as part of the Royal Defense Patrol.”

Qiara flashed him a voluptuous look. “I think men of the RDP are so attractive. I even enjoyed the way the men who captured me had their arms around me.”

Shai gave a hard roll of her eyes since neither Qiara nor the guard were looking at her.

And the guard was not fooled. He sucked his teeth in disgust. “Your charms won’t work on me, girl.” He started to turn away.

“Wait!” Qiara called, reaching through the bars. “I…I miss male company. I just wanted to make conversation. I know you would never be interested in bedding someone like me.”

“That’s right,” the guard said, turning back to her and crossing his arms.

“Then just stay and chat for a while. I’m sure you get rather bored while doing your job. When I mentioned your markings, I remembered the time I got this one, right here.” She gestured to the marking of the Goddess on her left breast. “See? You can come closer for a better look. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Qiara ran her fingers seductively over her breast, and Shai palmed her own face.

The guard seemed to be falling for it though. He took a couple steps toward their cell. “It is rather nice.”

Qiara giggled. “You can get closer. I won’t bite.”

The man obeyed, walking forward till his face almost touched the bars. “When did you get it?”

“A couple of years ago, at some artist’s stall. She had such bright, colorful dyes, so I asked if she could draw this on me. Want to touch it?”

Shai chanted in her mind: This is not going to work, this is not going to—

The guard started reaching through the iron bars of the cell…past the anti-magic barrier.

Qiara wrapped her fingers around his wrist and sent a jolt of electricity through his body. He convulsed, his eyes wide in terror, for about three heartbeats. When she released him, he sank to the floor, but not before her hand darted out and snatched the ring of keys from his belt.

Shai’s mouth still gaped as Qiara reached outside the cell, fumbling to get the key in the lock. Then with a click, the cell door opened.

Qiara smirked, twirling the key ring around her finger as she turned back to her stunned friend. “Electromancing has its uses too.” She opened the door wide. “Since you seem to know this place so well, I’ll follow your lead.”

Shai stepped over the guard, giving him a concerned look. “Is he dead?”

“No, just unconscious. But you know I have no problem killing.”

“I’m hoping that’ll change one day.” Shai hurried down the dungeon corridor, Qiara at her heels, limping along. “There’s still the guards at the dungeon exit to contend with.”

They went by other cells, whose prisoners catcalled to them as they hurried past. Shai had to remove more magical wards at the next door, but these weren’t nearly as complex as those around the cell, which was fortunate because she hadn’t replenished much mana yet. It took her five minutes to undo them, and it took Qiara only five heartbeats to dispatch the two guards waiting outside the door, using streaks of white lightning from her palms.

They went up two flights of stairs, then came out of another heavy iron door. It was warmer out here than in the damp, chilly dungeon. Shai stared down the hallway in front of them with its gray stone walls, candled sconces, blue carpet, and black statues. A wave of emotion rolled through her at the familiarity of it all, and she choked back a sob.

“Shai? Where to now?” Qiara asked, breaking her friend’s trance.

Shai turned left. “This way. But we have to be careful. Guards are probably patrolling—” She turned a corner and froze so suddenly that Qiara bumped into her. Shai stopped breathing as her heart did backflips in her chest.

Qiara gasped when she saw who stood in front of them. “The prince! Quick, run!” She instinctively reached for her hidden knives, but they’d been confiscated long ago. She then tried pulling at her friend, but Shai was rooted to the spot.

Prince Jistan stared at her open-mouthed. His amber eyes held hers prisoner as they stood only a few feet apart.

“Shai! We have to go! What’s wrong with you?” Qiara demanded, tugging the immovable girl.

Shai’s shock was their downfall. She couldn’t tell where they came from, but suddenly she and Qiara were ambushed by guards who grabbed them roughly from behind.

“It’s back to the dungeon for you girls,” a fair-skinned guard with salt-and-pepper hair said.

Shai barely registered anything going on around her as she continued her staring match with Jistan. It was when the guard spun her away that the daze was broken, and the hopelessness of her situation settled in.

“Wait!” cried Jistan, holding up a hand. “Who…who are these women?”

“The thieves from The Cliq,” the guard answered. “The ones who stole the Diamond Gem of Irisei.”

Shai winced, closing her eyes in shame. She’d never wanted the prince to know what she was.

“Both of them?” Jistan asked, the pitch of his voice rising in disbelief. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Is there a reason why you’re so interested, Your Highness?” asked the salt-and-pepper-hair guard who seemed to be in charge. As he spoke, shackles were clanked onto the girls’ wrists. A shiver wracked Shai’s body as the cold metal touched her skin.

“I-I was only curious…do you care to explain how they escaped the dungeon?” The prince slid back into his composed manner as he raised an eyebrow at the lead guard.

The guard frowned, looking chagrined. “Well, they are rather powerful mancers. One of them is an electromancer, and the other is an unmancer.”

Jistan blinked. “Did I hear you correctly? An unmancer?”

“Yes, sir.”

The prince turned away, rubbing his chin in thought. Finally, he said, “I want both of these prisoners brought to my study. I need to have a word with them.”

Panic rose in Shai’s chest. What was he going to have done to them? If he was anything like his father, it would end in bloodshed.

The lead guard looked taken aback. “Are you sure, my lord? I know you wanted to interrogate them, but surely you wish to do so in a more secure location after we’ve—”

“Do not question me, or my father will hear of it. I want them in my study, now.” His voice was so commanding, so different from the tone Shai remembered.

“Yes, Your Highness.” The lead guard bowed his head, then motioned for his men to take the prisoners away. Qiara cursed when they forced her to take quicker steps on her bad ankle.

As they were marched past the prince, Shai kept her eyes down, unwilling to meet his again. She wasn’t sure she’d like the expression on his face now that he knew about her.

They went down long corridors and rounded three different corners, the shackle chains rattling as they went. Several memories flooded Shai’s mind as they paraded past certain rooms.

There’s the doors leading to the library where Jistan and I learned how to read and write from a scholar…there’s the parlor where we once broke an expensive vase while playing…there’s the room where Jistan’s mother, the late Queen of Casland, used to practice her harp…

Shai’s chest clenched. The queen’s untimely death was what set Shai and her mother’s lives in a downward spiral. It led to their banishment from the palace.

They finally entered a sparsely decorated room with a massive portrait of Jistan hanging over a hearth. A couple of armchairs were in front of the fireplace, where embers burned low to keep the room from getting too warm. Lit braziers provided flickering light since there were no windows here, and a mahogany desk stood on one side of the room, strewn with parchments. The guards marched the prisoners to stand in front of it.

As the friends stood together, the guards lingering behind them, Qiara leaned over and hissed, “All of that work escaping for nothing! And all because of your girly obsession with the prince’s good looks!”

Shai whirled on her. “That’s not what it was about!”

“Then what was it about? It’s like he turned you into a sculpture.”

“Prince Jistan is a chronomancer, remember? He can freeze time, so we never would’ve escaped.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. He was distracted and you could’ve undone his magic!”

“I didn’t have enough mana for that.”

“You could have tried!” Qiara gritted her teeth. “If he orders us executed, I’m going to strangle you before the noose does!”

Despite everything, Shai grinned. “Then I’ll have to tell you my secret as a ghost after all.” But the prince wouldn’t order her death. Would he? He seemed to recognize her.

Qiara narrowed her eyes at her friend as the door behind them opened and the prince entered the room. Shai tensed, her eyes falling to the floor.

Jistan came around, his boot buckles jangling, and leaned against the edge of his desk. He folded his arms in front of him, studying the two girls, especially Shai. Finally, he glanced at the guards and barked, “Leave us.”

The guards traded looks, then one said, “Is that wise, Your Highness?”

“They’re shackled, so they can’t use their magic. And I have mine if they get unruly.”

The guards hesitated another heartbeat, then marched out of the room. Shai held her breath, wondering if Jistan was about to yell at them.

As soon as the door closed again, the prince’s woodsy scent was suddenly in Shai’s nostrils, and then his arms wrapped around her in an embrace.

Qiara’s jaw almost detached from her skull as it fell open. Even Shai’s brain took a moment to catch up as she blinked several times, but she had to admit she loved the feel of the prince’s warmth against her body.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” Jistan said. Then, as if he hadn’t been in control of his body and now he was back to himself, he pulled away from her, looking just as bewildered. “Sorry. I…I thought I’d never see you again, Shaielle.”

She smiled at him, her cheeks heated. This close, she could study every line and curve of his face, every blemish and imperfection, although there weren’t many. He’d lost his baby fat since she last saw him, and he had a new scar above his eyebrow. Because he was older, practically a man now, another new feature was the stubble growing from his jaw. She imagined how prickly it would feel if she reached out and touched it…which of course, she couldn’t do. She shouldn’t even be thinking like that.

“You know each other?” Qiara cried, staring back and forth between them, until her eyes stayed on Shai. “You never told me you were acquainted with the Prince of Casland!”

“I’m not,” Shai said, staring at Jistan. “But we were friends a long time ago. When we were kids.”

Jistan nodded. “She used to live here. Her mother was my mother’s handmaiden, so we played together when we were little. And when we were ten, Shai and her mother…” He met Shai’s eyes, then looked away. “They left.”

We were forced to leave, Shai thought with gritted teeth. Her old hatred for Emperor Akeil flared.

The prince focused on her again. “You’re part of The Cliq now?” His voice was incredulous.

Shame replaced Shai’s fury as she grimaced. “Madame Kalyssah, the leader of The Cliq, helped me and my mother when we were at our lowest. She took us in and gave us a home.”

“And in return you just had to become a thief and steal valuables for her?”

Shai narrowed her eyes, her initial trance at seeing him completely broken. She didn’t like this air of superiority about him. He always treated her as an equal when they were younger. She stood taller as she remembered she was speaking to a royal, not her childhood friend. “What is to be the punishment for our crime? Back to the dungeon, or to the gallows?”

“We’ve done away with the gallows, we’ve switched to the guillotine. Chopping off heads is much more effective.” Jistan kept his expression impassive, but his eyes contained a hint of mirth.

Shai stared back at him, not amused by his joke.

“R-right, I should get to the reason why I brought both of you here,” he continued, rubbing the back of his neck. “My guards tell me one of you is an unmancer?”

“Yes, I am,” Shai replied.

“You’re the unmancer?”

“You don’t have to look so shocked.”

“That’s not…what I mean is, that’s perfect! And you must be the electromancer,” he said, regarding Qiara.

“Yes,” the girl answered. “The name’s Qiara; my friends call me Q.”

“Very well. Q, Shai, I have a proposition for you. I would be willing to pardon both of you for all the crimes you’ve ever committed.”

Shai and Qiara traded looks of disbelief, then the former asked, “And what do you want from us in return?”

Jistan smiled. “I want you to do what you’ve been doing. I want you to help me pull off a heist.”