"Give you my mind?" Anna wasn't sure she heard correctly. "I hope you're not suggesting I become some version of them." she sniped.
Maylin shook her head. Her irritation made her slip in her efforts to heal Dalen slightly and the other grimaced in pain. "I'm sorry, Dalen." Anna moved to the entry to keep an eye out as Maylin spoke.
Her fingers dipped downward now and then to get to the more deeply wounded flesh like one would press keys on a piano. "I am not her. My son is not her."
Anna's eyes darted for a moment to see look at the viscious wound, wincing in sympathy at the sound her friend made. "I know that. I apologize. What are you suggesting?"
"This is delicate work and I have to see. I have to sense my way through the wounds, so that means I have to be here. The spell for the ley lines and the protection spell that comes with it are complex, even for a well-trained mage, and not something I could teach you."
"However, as the half-mages are conduits for Drexa, you could be so for me. We would be connected. We would share thoughts. And when you reached the lines you would know what to do and be able to draw on my skill to do it. "But you would still be you. You would still own you. And when the spell is broken we will each be as we were."
Anna looked over her shoulder as she reasoned it through. "But didn't Deres say that she can do what she does because she has power to spare because of these magic pools. If I joined with you that way and took yours to do this, doesn't that leave you vulnerable?"
She let go a small sigh. "Between that and this...I would be vulnerable. As I say, it is not without risk. But, with luck, I would be finished or nearly so by the time you reached the lines. We can meet halfway and then proceed onward to the center of this place, where I suspect she is."
Anna pondered. The plan seemed sound even though she loathed the idea of leaving them behind and in an even more vulnerable position. The alternative though, was nothing she would allow to come to pass. "All right, what happens?"
The layer of gray light between between the mage's hands and Dalen's ripped back darkened. "I will be finished with Anna before the pain returns." Straightening from her position from over the wounded soldier, she turned to Anna, studying her eyes and liking what she found there. "You have no fear."
"Because I would do this for her even if it meant I was your slave, so it doesn't matter."
Maylin looked clearly uncomfortable at the notion and her tone was stiff. "That won't be required."
"And I trust you. I trust your magic." An honest smile found her lips.
Maylin swept a hand through her hair to let go of some of that discomfort. "Thank you. It means a great deal to me that you do. Now, all you need do is relax. Calm your mind. Think of something that brings you peace."
Anna's mind went immediately to writing at her small desk at the end of every day. Sometimes it was just a few paragraphs. Sometimes she reported for duty having had only a few hours sleep because she couldn't stop the words from flowing. There was only her, the paper, the pen, and the words born there. She felt the gentle touch of Maylin's fingers at her temples, then at the nape of her neck near the base of her skull while she heard Maylin whisper in an ancient tongue.
That she understood.
As the consonants and vowels came together, they did so like pieces of a puzzle until the word and meaning were clear and the intuition of what came next. She sensed Maylin in her mind, her presence stepping carefully through her thoughts, not wishing to touch what Anna didn't wish to share.
Even if Anna could speak, she would have had no words. She saw the spires as though they were her home. She saw all the buildings of the city of Adar and the gray blanket of the sky around it that let rays of sun peek through, beautiful in its own stark way.
Then she saw things that needed no special gift to describe or understand. She saw a girl being carried on her father's back through a perfectly-manicured park. She saw pleasantly raucous dinners with parents and a sister. She saw quiet moments studying magic tomes that needed no book; they simply scrolled on glass sheets as the young woman looked to her teacher for understanding.
She saw love and more than one broken heart through the eyes of another, and she saw, through those eyes, a woman lay behind a dark-haired boy, petting him as they whispered while she allayed his fears as he sought sleep.
Anna saw that and more, and she knew the other, in some ways, more intimately than her own family. The images slowly evaporated from her conscious mind, but the sense of the other was still there.
"You still belong to you and you always will. Do you see?"
Anna nodded, the look of awe still there. She felt there was so much to talk about, but there was no time. She pulled the cuffs and chains from her belt, locking each to the pommels of her daggers and the larger cuffs to her wrists to keep her daggers with her. "Take care of Dalen."
"That was the point of all this, young lady. We will be all right. Hurry now."
She knelt and gripped Dalen's hand as if to share her strength. You hold on and I'll see you soon."
Dalen nodded. I'll just...stick around here for a bit. Good luck, Anna."
Anna lingered for a moment longer before she scanned the pathways around the entry. Having now an idea of where to go on her own, feeling the ley lines at the edge of her senses pull her down one path, she threw caution to the wind and began to run, hoping she could be insanely fast just long enough.
***
Neral was far more annoyed at being left hanging, wrists overhead, captured by emerald green vines than the fact that she was naked, toes just above the dirt. It hardly mattered who saw her. Military life had a way of stretching boundaries and chipping away at modesty.
The remaining vines had retracted upward, leaving them alone and freedom, or at least the chance for it tantalizingly close. Those that held them seemed aware enough that they would tighten to the point of cutting off their circulation if they sensed too much movement, but loosened their grip somewhat if their captives seemed docile. Even the thinnest of the vines had a rigidity to them when need be that could feel like steel cuffs.
As Neral had surmised, the slaves masquerading as refugees in need and the slave Neral had rendered unconscious simply waited for the trio to be overwhelmed, stripped them without word or ceremony and left them hanging for, by this time, a fair stretch of minutes. "I was a fool."
Dion shook her head. "For trying to help someone? No. It was a trap, yes, but we could have been caught in a thousand ways from the moment we arrived to now. In some ways it was only a matter of time."
Elan agreed. "I would have done the same if that matters to you at all, sir."
She took a breath. "It does. Thank you. But I'm done wallowing for the moment. We should consider how we might escape."
The line of thought was interrupted by the harshness in an all too familiar voice. "You really are a stupid bitch, Neral."
The general looked to her left and closed her eyes, her heart sinking into her stomach upon seeing Bryana strolling in with a sway in her step that suggested the place was hers. The neckline of the black dress she wore plunged so that even a fraction of an inch more would have exposed her areola. The bit of fabric that covered her breasts formed a diamond at her midriff, exposing her belly and the head of the serpent tattoo that seemed to eye them all by itself. The skirt slid up the side, exposing leg all the way to the curve of her bare ass.
Around her neck was a pendant, the ruby in the center surrounded by runes carved into the yellow gold. The jewel seemed to feed off the light in the room, each facet seeming to work in tandem with the others.
Following behind her was a tall, bone white woman with black eyes and a far more graceful glide. Neral found her oddly beautiful, the deep, red gown she wore drawing a stark contrast to that unnaturally pale skin.
