A/N: Did you notice the change in rating?
The Funeral of Hearts
Romance and Adventure
Rated M
English
Daniel & Vala
Chapter Four
Daniel's just about to break. He can feel it inside of himself as he surveyed the path of destruction he had just left. The torch had burnt and flickered in his hand while he journeyed down the cold, dark corridor, seemingly getting all the more darker the deeper he went. There was only two Jaffa, he had noticed. Maiming the second one made him light-headed and feel a river of cold sweat run down his spine. Ba'al. The guard he had just killed was one of Ba'al's Jaffa.
Daniel took his glasses from his pocket and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache emerging from the depths. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, hating being so intelligent sometimes. How could Ba'al do this to her? The guard at the beginning of the corridor must have been one of Ba'al's, too though it had been too dark and he had been too distracted to notice the emblem.
Daniel was better than this. He knew that much, but he'd tried so many times to find out what makes her tick and he wasn't going to give up now. Not in the slightest. He just wished Vala had used some of that good ole Vala Mal Doran bravado on whoever had kidnapped her and subjected her to such...butchery.
His heart sank standing only inches away from where his source had told him Vala should be, he felt that knot in his stomach tie a little tighter. Daniel pulled out a ring of keys he had found on the belt of the second Jaffa. Vala would be so proud. There were all similar in appearance, but there was one with a blue crystal on the hilt of it and a dull, old shine that knocked some sense into the historian. Ba'al wouldn't just put her anywhere. Quetesh was his Queen. Vala was host to his Queen. This love will most likely be his last.
He could almost see her in his mind's eye - Daniel knew she shouldn't be here, not here, not now. He wanted her anywhere but here so with a soft whisper of a curse he reached to touch the cold door and twisted the key in the lock. Hearing the heavy mechanism unlock, he ran a hand over the heavy door, ribboned with iron or some other type of hard metal. He opened the heavy door and Daniel dropped the torch he was holding, feeling an icy fist grip at his heart.
Vala, the beloved space pirate - his beloved space pirate, was laying prostrate, eagled out like a sacrificial offering with her arms encased in the metal Goauld cuffs he immediately recognised as a form of Jaffa torture. Vala, blue lipped and bloody although appearing she was sleeping. Her skin, pale and ghostly, half naked and brutally scarred on her thighs and neck. Though there was the part of his psyche that he just couldn't shake. Ba'al was here.