Apologies for the history lesson in this chapter, but I just wanted to create an interesting past for Aksua. Anyway, this chapter is a bit short, but it was either this one or the next, and I thought it would be best for the escape to be detailed in a single chapter. Plus I just wanted to get one out, because I had severe writer's block while writing this despite already knowing what I want to happen.
Caiellis had barely slept at all when he woke up again from an empty void – as his connection to Sancturia and mana had been severed, his dreams were either expanses of nothingness or the fateful night of Emili's demise. Though the void was preferable to having to relive the night of his mother's death in excruciating detail, which was often the content of his nightmares, the fact that he couldn't visit Orzhova made him feel hollow. Even when he hadn't spoken to her or passed her trial, she had a presence in his mind, and Caiellis was only just realising how much he missed that.
Despite his sixth sense being deactivated due to the sinister black metal inhibitor encircling his thin wrist, the boy still felt a strange, distracting sensation in the back of his mind that disappeared whenever he focussed on it or tried to identify it. It was calling him to the lower palace, that much was certain, and he should be able to get there if anyone but Tradax spotted him – Cai could just say that he was exploring with the clearance of the Master of Rapture.
He currently shared a room with Alexander, the older boy sleeping in the bed to the right and snoring loudly, arms wrapped around himself. They had both agreed to stay in one room in case something was to happen – the sons of Marik were in enemy territory, and said enemies consorted with demons, so the Welkalites could be plotting anything. Mostly, Caiellis knew that his big brother wanted to protect him and the easiest way to do that was to be in the younger boy's vicinity. Cai wished that he had his watch with him, but as he had taken it off to prevent it from being damaged in the team battle yesterday, so it would probably be still in the academy, forgotten. Judging by the fact that it wasn't yet light, the time was likely about two or three o'clock, but the Welkalites would still be active in their celebrations and indulgences.
He tried to shut his eyes and go back to sleep, not wanting to wake up his brother who would be on high alert anyway, but now that he was awake the reprieve from reality just wouldn't come. Feelings of anticipation warred with trepidation in his mind, thinking about the escape plan that would happen today. He kept playing out different scenarios in his mind, wondering just how they could break out of Usnaan against the entirety of the Welkalite military forces, even with access to two potent First Sisterhood Angels.
Cai sighed quietly and sat up in the plump bed – both him and his brother had dumped the vast majority of the absurd amount of cushions on each bed onto the floor, but it still felt like he was being suffocated by the soft mattress. He was obscenely glad that even though he was royalty, he wasn't treated like this in Lucael.
Cai silently slipped out of the quilt, picking up his sheathed relic blade and wrapping the scabbard's belt around his slender waist – as the princes only clothes were the ones they had come in, Tradax had provided them with new garments. Despite the fact that he didn't want to wear Welkalite clothing, he had grudgingly put on some red pyjamas after Alex told him there was no way the younger boy was sleeping in his Lucaelian heir outfit, as it was battered, singed and splattered with some blood. It had incensed Caiellis a bit that Alexander hadn't followed his own advice and kept his own clothes on, just taking off the leather jacket before going to bed, though the junior Lucerna supposed that his brother's attire hadn't been battle damaged.
He had resolved to investigate the disturbance in his mind, and slowly crept across the room to the door, casting occasional glances back to Alex to ensure the older boy wasn't waking up. As he neared the doorway, the seventeen year old mumbled: "Caiellis?"
The named froze, hoping that either his sibling was having a dream that concerned him or that the older boy was still in half-sleep and would fade back into unconsciousness if he didn't make any sudden movements. When a few seconds had passed he was satisfied that Alex had gone back to sleep, he turned back around and inched towards the door. Cai blinked in astonishment when he walked right into a large figure in front of him.
He stumbled back and Alexander grinned wolfishly at him – the older boy could be extremely stealthy and fast if he wanted to be (both brothers could do so but Cai required magic to augment his speed), much to the chagrin of Caiellis over the years, as when they would spar his brother would often be in one position and then suddenly be in the right place for a counter. Alex would always naturally be taller and faster than him, and their gap in strength seemed huge because of their age difference.
"Where are you off to, little dude?" he asked, grinning at his little brother's shock. He hadn't actually been asleep much himself, sensing Caiellis's restlessness in the fact he was constantly moving or adjusting his position. He had instantly detected the younger boy edging to the exit and wondered why he wanted to leave without informing his sibling, not that Alex would ever let him go into the palace in his own. He enjoyed the mixture of bewilderment, admiration and annoyance plastered on his little brother's gaunt face, and playfully shoved the small boy backwards. It was good to be the older brother.
Downcast, Caiellis replied: "I couldn't sleep so I was just going for a quick walk."
"You're a terrible liar," Alex stated, ruffling the mop of brown hair on his brother's head, "So really, where were you going? And why didn't you wake me up and tell me?"
"You just looked so adorable when you were asleep, I couldn't bring myself to wake you up," he flashed a smile, trying to act as much like Alexander as possible to annoy the older boy. "Watch it, kiddo, only I can say things like that. Big brother perk. But seriously, Cai, tell me where and why you were going before I force you to."
Though his tone was playful, Caiellis knew that he had pushed the middle Lucerna enough, and uttered: "So I assume that means you can't feel it?"
"Feel what, Cai? And stop being so vague and mysterious. You're starting to annoy me," a growl entered Alex's voice at the end of his words. Why is Caiellis being so damn enigmatic? Is it really that hard to just tell me where he was going?
"It is a sensation in the back of my mind, calling me to the lower palace. If I had use of my magic, I would have able to pinpoint what it is and tell you," Caiellis explained, automatically rubbing the malicious metal that dug into the skin on his right wrist. He hoped that his intent eyes would convey a further point: If I can detect something without my mana, it is surely something significant. It could help us in our escape plan, or prove to be detrimental to the Resistance.
Judging by the understanding in Alex's blue orbs, his older brother had hopefully caught on to the underlying message – they had agreed not to talk about the plan in case someone – or something – was listening in. The teen nodded his head, and Caiellis continued, "Since I couldn't sleep, I was just going to take a look. I should have woken you, but I thought you would want as much rest as possible."
"Good job I awoke when I did, I would've had a fit if you were gone," Alex chuckled, "You can detect something with the suppressors? Is yours on properly?"
"I think so," Caiellis reaffirmed the statement by trying to summon mana, pulling at the metal wristband – they had already established the futility of the act last night, when Alexander had attempted to remove Cai's but instead making it dig in more. That was how they were designed, the more interference from those without the key the more they tightened. Luckily, it wasn't yet cutting off his blood supply.
"So, are we going to go back to sleep or check this thing out? Personally, I don't think I should be encouraging you considering something could happen, but it's your choice." Alex asked, breaking the youngster out of his reverie
"We will investigate," the boy stated in his manner of fact royal pronouncement way that he had recently developed, and slid past his brother to the door. Alex grabbed his arm, the hand wrapping fully around the boy's bicep, and warned: "But no unnecessary risks, alright? If there are too many guards, or something dangerous is going to happen, we leave immediately. Understand?"
"That's fine. Though we are going to have to be stealthy. Don't want that bastard Tradax finding out about our little trip," Caiellis grinned, and Alexander softly chastised with: "Language, little dude. Lead on."
.*.*.*.
The brunette sat in her cell, casually examining her nails – even though she hadn't left her incarceration for seven years, they were perfectly manicured. Everything about her was disturbingly flawless, from her unblemished and milky skin to her impeccably kept brown hair that swept down her shoulders. Nor did her body structure suggest that she had been imprisoned in the most high-security facility in Welkas for years, the woman's form lithe and shapely when she should have been emancipated and insubstantial. However, she had gorged enough to last several hundred years.
Her beauty was dazzling, which was why there were no guards stood outside of the enchanted cell – even with the wards that prevented mana usage, the cage bars constructed for the same metal as the inhibitors, they had no chance against her charm. However her hazel eyes didn't match the purity of the rest of her, the brown orbs full of malice and condescension. After all she had done for the ungrateful Welkalites, they had gone and locked her up in this dingy chamber. She wasn't at all concerned, she had nothing to fear from them, but it was so boring being stuck there. She wanted to feast, feel the blood of her victims run down her flesh as they realised they were helpless against her allure.
Aksua thought back to the events that led to her present circumstances, she had taught the Masters of the Welkalite Orders of Passion how to enter in an Infernal Bargain, sacrificing their Summonings to be able to conjure powerful demons. That had been after she was forced to flee Lucael after she was almost killed. Aksua was born over a hundred years ago, when she had been abducted from her village by the vampires of the darkness that had demanded tribute – instead of killing the teenage girl, they "gifted" her with the power of vampirism and taught her how to use Black mana. The elders of the clan had sensed a great potential within her, and after a few years of learning their ways they planned to use her as an offering to the Bloodchief of the vampires, Kalitas, firm ally of the current Lucaelian monarch Xarius and overall ruler of all clans.
She had been forced to please him, become his slave while he abused her, pretend that she loved him to survive. The vampires had become lax in the years of decadence, gorging on the tributes they were sent by Xarius from the fearful populace. Aksua built up a hatred for her forced lover, and that burning hatred grew and grew until Xarius was overthrown and the new Queen Matrice led a fiery crusade in the darkness of Lucaelian lands, purging the vampires from existence before returning back to their cities. She used the distraction of the siege of Kalitas's nocturnal palace to murder to ruler, sealing the doom of her species and fleeing into the abyss, into the inner darkness – the only shadow remaining in Lucael now the power of the Lucernas had grown and grown.
Aksua learnt new, darker powers in her time in the shadows, falling under the tutelage of one of the greater demons of Sancturia (second highest in rank to Archdemons, but the most powerful demonic creature that could manifest itself in reality without needing a Summoner) – her master had never told her his true name, telling her it would rend her flesh and shatter her mind into pieces, just giving her a Summoning of Black mana. The demon wanted to be known as the Perverter of Truth.
Aksua knew she was being manipulated in some way, but didn't care. She finally had enough power to get her vengeance on the society that had betrayed and abused her. Aksua went on bloody rampages throughout the villages, leaving them full of exsanguinated corpses as she drained every last innocent dry, gorging on the blood and the feeling of ecstasy that came with it, after all the years with her meals carefully restricted by Kalitas to keep her subservient. She travelled from village to village, killing them all and feeding but destroying each in a unique way to make it appear that the attacks were the caused by different creature of the abyss so that the Lucaelians would not launch a crusade to hunt down and slay her.
Eventually, after about eighty years, when she had consumed enough blood to last several centuries, the sensation of bliss that came with feeding faded, becoming more and background and less and less pleasurable. Desperate, she thought that increasing the quantity of her meals would bring back the ecstasy, and recklessly attacked a Lucaelian city, the now-annihilated Vectura, city of Transportation. There she was confronted and assaulted by trained soldiers and killed them all. After feeding upon a battlemage, Aksua then realised that quantity was not going to help her, but the quality of her victims mattered a huge amount. However, before she was able to put this into action, a Lucerna confronted her. She did not know that the royal family was active in the city she had chosen, and was almost killed by the young man, who Aksua would later know as Johnias. She retreated back into the abyss to nurse her wounds for seven years, and when the king's brother betrayed him and began building armies in the darkness, even turning Vectura into an abyssal city, Aksua saw an opportunity that she couldn't miss.
Johnias welcomed her into his midnight citadel, and asked her to do one very special task for him – drain his brother Marik, monarch of the Kingdom of Light, dry. He promised her that Lucernas, in his words the strongest magic-users in the world, would be far more delicious than anything she had ever experienced. To that end, she set out to seduce the king, taking the place of one of the captains of his army and slowly becoming closer to him.
That had been a mistake, and once again Aksua was almost murdered by a Lucerna. Knowing that she couldn't flee into the darkness, as Johnias would be very displeased by her failure, she escaped into a changing empire – Welkas. There she met a budding member of the Order of Rapture, Tradax, who she gave knowledge of Infernal Bargains to in exchange for letting her reside in the city and feed – Aksua was too weak to fight for herself. She also taught the other members of his little sect – Arendus, Gretia and Ershun – how to contact demons. However, after the man used his newly acquired Demonic Summoning to gain control of the Order he locked her away, fearing her power to overthrow him and trapping her in this cell.
Nevertheless, Aksua was still a vampire, so her physical senses were far more receptive than her magical, which had been nullified, and when she felt the two members of Lucaelian royalty enter Usnaan it was a perfect moment to kill two birds with one stone – to escape and satisfy her hunger for Lucerna blood. To this end, she used discreet magic that bypassed the wards to try and contact the princes, lead them down here. She knew that they would already be planning an escape, realising that they were captives by utilising her ultra-perceptive hearing to listen in on their conversations with Tradax throughout the palace. She had many abilities that she had not revealed to the man when they had worked together, and this was one of them.
The mana inhibitors had at first prevented the princes from hearing her call, but luckily the younger boy was an exceedingly prominent mage, managing to detect her faint signal and convincing his protective brother to go down into the dungeons with him. Aksua inhaled deeply, relaxing her limbs and ensuring she looked as attractive as possible – as she had been turned into a vampire at the young age of twenty, Aksua was very beautiful. The fact that she had consumed so much blood in her life meant that she had a functioning circulation, and while Aksua still had a pale Lucaelian complexion, she wasn't deathly like the others of her now-extinct race. Her charm would work better on the older boy, Alexander if she remembered correctly – when she had started a relationship with Marik during the civil war, subtly influencing him with her coercive powers of seduction, the king had told her about his two young sons, ten and six at the time, and how he hadn't seen them for two years.
Aksua composed herself, running over what she was going to say in her head, offering the boys to help them escape if they could get her out of this cage. She would easily be able to release them from the mana inhibitors, and together they could flee from Usnaan – after that, Aksua would finally feast on Lucernan lifeblood. The two teenagers stumbled into the dungeon, both of them alert but still sleepy. She flashed a flirtatious smile as her eyes locked with the handsome blue orbs of the blonde, the eyes widening in shock as Alexander saw the most alluring woman he had ever laid eyes upon. They continued to stare at each other for a few seconds, longing welling up in the older boy's chest as she winked at him.
"So me and Alexander have answered your call. Who are you?" Caiellis cut in, interrupting the short connection between the two, leaving Alex dazed for a second. She turned her gaze upon the smaller prince, who returned the look sternly, his expression hardening. "Hello. My name is Aksua, and I am a Lucaelian, like you."
"I'm not entirely sure the darkness constitutes part of the Kingdom of Light," he replied evenly, hatred evident in his tone. Aksua blinked, surprised at his realisation of that already – maybe Marik had warned his sons about her. She doubted that the king would want to tell his boys about the little affair he had with a servant of Johnias, especially after she tried to kill him; Marik's main reason for letting the pretty Lucaelian captain get close to his was because he craved comfort after the death of his wife, evacuation of his children and the betrayal of his twin brother. Aksua had realised that the king never truly loved her, which didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, he was still too attached to his dead wife and former lover. However it was still a possibility, however slim – she would know whether he had or not if the boys revealed her true name, as she had told Marik that the night she went to kill him. "Whatever you want from us, vampire, you aren't getting it."
"Is that so? Alex, what do you think about that?" Aksua utilised the abbreviation of the teen's name in an attempt to seem more familiar with him – maybe she could get him to convince his little brother that she would be worthy of help. The fact that Caiellis used the term "vampire" meant that the kid had managed to recognise the signs of the condition that Aksua had never truly been able to erase, although after the extinction of her race most of the Lucaelians had never heard anything about them, much less knew that they had even existed at one point. Obviously this boy had researched very deeply into the creatures of the abyss, more than his father and brother had done, despite the former having to wage a war against them.
"If you are a servant of Black mana, then you won't be receiving any help from us," Alex mumbled, averting his eyes from the prisoner and instead preferring to look at the stone floor. He knew he was going red, which was embarrassing – the middle Lucerna had always thought he was very confident with the fairer sex, but couldn't deny that he wanted Aksua. Caiellis was right, traitors did not deserve aid, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to refuse her if he met her eyes. Concentrate, he roughly admonished himself, Ignore her charm! She is clearly trying to manipulate you. Your little brother's safety is far more important than any attraction you have towards this bitch! He steeled himself and looked straight at Aksua, glad his little mental chat had allowed him to focus his priorities and become immune to her charm.
Aksua smiled – let's see him try to resist when I am out of this cage – and turned back to the younger boy. The barriers of resolve they constructed to try and withstand her glamour were absolutely adorable, as was the older boy's protectiveness of his younger sibling. She detected that Alex strengthened his determination with thoughts of his little brother. This could be useful to control them in the near future.
"If you aren't willing to help me, then I suppose I can't aid you in escaping Usnaan," she sniffed petulantly like a small child would, delighting as Caiellis's features twisted into an unamused scowl. "Such a shame. We would have had so much fun together."
"How can you help us leave?" Alex asked despite himself, knowing his little brother would be disappointed that his instincts had led them down here and convinced they should get something out of the venture. Cai was busy analysing the situation in his mind – Aksua was clearly a vampire, she must have been the last of that race, otherwise she would have denied it by now, making his earlier assumptions correct. Apart from freedom, the only other reason he could think of for wanting to help them was to drain them. Nonetheless, the Resistance's plan for getting them out had been very vague, not revealing details about how they would combat the entire army of the Welkalite capital. Maybe having some unexpected assistance could turn the tide in their favour – but right now Caiellis wasn't going to consider the notion of freeing Aksua, not now they already had escape plans.
"Tradax leaves the keys to this cell in his private sanctum," she moved closer to the bars and lowered her voice. Aksua knew this because of other abilities that she had never divulged to the Master of Rapture – in fact her own Summoning, Nocturon, was spread throughout the Palace of Desire, ready to follow her mental commands. The boys need only retrieve the key from it and unlock the cell. She whispered conspiratorially, "I have powers in place that would allow you to easily get it, and once you let me out I can easily destroy the mana disablers of yours. Then, with the forces of light and darkness combined, we can easily defeat those that try to stop us and escape."
"We already have darkness on our side," Caiellis uttered gloomily, "We don't need yours."
"Quite right, young Caiellis! Put the wench in her place!" an amused voice boomed down into the stairs, and all three of them cracked their heads around in stupefaction and Tradax smiled down at them. "Anyway, do you not think it is a bit past your bedtime? I don't want to be a strict parent, but if you insist on going out of your room in the middle of the night I might have to post guards."
Alexander sensed his little brother bristling at the honeyed barbs Tradax spoke, and placed a restraining arm around the younger boy's shoulders, though he shared his resentment. How dare this bastard even think to call himself our parent...
Aksua glowered angrily at her captor, smouldering frustration heavily present in her captivating gaze, as the Welkalite sneered back. This was inconvenient.
"How nice of you to visit, Tradax," she spat, wishing she was able to use the full extent of her magic, then he wouldn't be smiling. "How many years has it been?"
"Too many, it seems. Have you forgotten who rules this empire?" he gloated back, spreading his arms wide.
"Jarred Redhand?" Alexander offered sarcastically, winking as his little brother grinned in approval.
"Get back to your room. Now," the man ordered, and the boys both slunk off. Caiellis needed some sleep anyway.