Aries

I tried to pry my eyes open. My vision was blurred and everything was hazy. My skin was burning up. I was a human and this high temperature could potentially kill me. I was not ready to die so soon.

I licked my dry lips, only to find I was completely dehydrated.

“She will die if she continues like this,” a male said.

“I am trying to take her pain,” the female who asked me when I first came in said. “But I cannot.”

A childlike voice then said, “I can’t bear to see another die.”

“Is it necessary that I have to commit a felony to go in?” a voice asked. And even in that pain, I felt that voice was familiar. This brain did not know, but my soul did.

“Unfortunately, yes,” the first male replied.

Yet, seconds later, I felt a cooling sensation over me and the fire died as if its master was near.

“Arien!” The childlike voice snapped. “What are you doing?”

“I am taking her pain,” he replied. “She has been wronged. I don’t know why.”

“So many are wronged, Arien!” she said. “Will you go an take away their pain?”

“If I could, yes,” he replied.

I tried to open my eyes, but they stayed shut. Several seconds later, I was able to open my eyes and the first thing I saw was a pair of silver eyes looking at me in concern. The eyes scanned me and I took in a sharp breath.

The scent of fire and rain hit me hard. It was a scent I could die breathing.

“Thank you,” I whispered. I did not even know if he heard me or not.

He gave me a small smile and nodded and that was the last thing I saw.

*******

The next time I woke up, I did not know if I had dreamed a male with silver eyes standing out. There was not a trace of that scent nor presence.

I was about to ask the people around me about him, but I saw Andrew stand in front of me.

“Ly,” he breathed. “By the Moon, Lyra! What was Ethan thinking?”

I opened my mouth but my throat ached. Tears escapee my eyes and I shook my head. The chains dug through my wrists. Each time I tugged it, spines grew from the manacles to poke my skin. I could not believe how idiotic I had been. It was Andrew who found this method of manacles for the prisoners.

“Shit!” he swore and came closer, but the second he came close enough, a red light flared at the end of the corridor.

A guard marched down and barked, “Andrew!”

Immediately he took a few steps back and the light faded away. “Sorry, Dan! Forgot!”

“Leave as soon as possible, Andy.” A grumble followed. “Alpha would be here any second.”

Andrew nodded and gave me a pained look. When Dan left, he sighed. “I hate myself, Ly. How could I allow him to do this to you?”

I shook my head again.

“I should have brought at least water,” he muttered.

A strangled breath left me.

“I have no idea, Lyra,” he said quietly, too quietly that only because of my enhanced hearing I was able to hear him. “But guys and I are working on a plan to release you.”

I gave him a flat look.

“You think that’s impossible?” he scoffed. “Let me tell you something. It is very much possible.”

I rolled my eyes. The alpha has ordered his true mate to be thrown here. Who was there to release me?

“Or at least that planning is the only thing that’s keeping Rhaze from challenging Ethan.”

A chuckle left me. So, that’s why.

Hearing the sound, a soft smile flirted to his lips. “I truly wonder how you keep up.”

I was tempted to say about the silver eyes, but I held my tongue. What if it was all just a dream of mine?

“Dunno,” I rasped in a voice that my brain did not recognise as mine.

He took in a sharp breath. “I will find a way, Lyra. We all will. Or we will die trying.”

Before I could muster my strength to reply to him, Andrew left.

Time was a concept that I no longer knew. Before all this, I was someone who was intimately linked with the science and technology of the pack. Everything was scheduled, precise, delivered on time. Time had been my friend who never betrayed me. Until now.

“So.” A lazy female voice drawled. “What’s your story?”

I ignored her. Who knew what felony she had committed to land herself here?

“I avenged my mate, darling,” the same voice said. “Was it a crime?”

It was not those words but the pain behind her voice that made me gasp. Yes, her voice was rusty and it seemed like she had thought so much before speaking this much. As much as she had never spoken to anyone in a thousand years struck me, the pain in it hit me harder.

“My, my, my,” a male voice droned. “Is Cathara speaking?”

When I looked to my left, a shifter was grinning like a fool. There were laughter lines on his face and his deep brown eyes shone with a glint I rarely saw in anyone. It was crazy and madness with the hint of genius hid in them.

“Shut it, Miguel,” the vampire snapped.

“It’s so lovely hearing your voice after so many years,” the shifter grinned. “Like after a thousand years.”

She snorted and then cleared her throat. “Ignore him.”

I gulped. A thousand years? How long had she been here?

“I lost count, darling,” she said shrugging. “Perhaps two thousand years ago?”

A gasp left me. “Yo-you can read my mind?” I shuttered.

She nodded. “That’s my gift.”

“You have read my mind?” I asked. “You entered it without my permission?”

She clicked her tongue. “Don’t be so offended. If I had not shut your mind yesterday night, you would have died from the heat and your mate mating with another female.”

She shut my mind? Had I truly dreamt of that male?

“You got your powers back, Cat?” Miguel asked.

“Don’t call me that,” she warned. “Yes, Miguel. I got it back.”

“How?”

“Well,” she drawled. “Whoever was the new alpha.” She cocked her head towards me. “Your mate, I presume, has... not given a second thought about the security here. As much as the prison’s magic lingers to tether me here, I can feel it relaxing. Give me a few more months and I can free myself.”

I took in a deep breath. “If you know so much about me, why did you ask me to tell my story?”

“I can feel your mind slipping away to the void, darling,” Cathara whispered. “I figured keeping you talking was the only way I could stop it.”

Miguel snorted. “You care?”

Cathara gave him a hard look. “She just lived twenty winters, Miguel. She has been thrown here, in the dungeons where creatures who have committed unspoken felony resides for a mistake that’s not hers. If anything, her mate is the one who should be here. Not her. Of course, I care!”

Another voice came from the cell opposite mine. “Really convincing, Cathara.”

The voice was high-pitched, almost childlike. It had a touch of coolness to it like it did not have a single care in the world. When the face of the voice appeared out of a sudden, I let out a cry.

I had heard this voice in that dream-state of mine. I no longer knew what was real and what was a hallucination. I no longer cared.

Before I was a small girl. Her face was young, so young, but her green eyes held time. It held wilderness and space and freedom that my soul yearned for. Her ebony hair was cropped to her neck and she kept looking at me with those big eyes of hers. But I still could not find what she was.

“See?” Miguel said, snapping me out of my trance. “Even Skye agrees!”

“Skye?” Cathara asked. “I thought your name was Veila.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “I changed it two decades ago. I have heard Veila for a long time,” she said dragging the vowel.

“What were you doing when she changed her name?” Miguel asked.

“Nothing you need to bother about.”

“I spy a question in your eyes,” Skye chirped at me. “Ask away.”

“What are you?” I breathed.

She pretended to think. “Tara. Stea. Seren. Stella. I can keep telling.”

“She is a fallen star,” Cathara replied glumly.

Skye let out a cry. “Way to ruin the fun, Cat.”

“A star?” I choked.

She smiled brightly and it was then I was able to see the glint in her eyes. The glint that said she saw the welkins and tasted the true freedom in her skin. It said how she wandered with the wind and fate took her sweet time to cleave between worlds and discover them all for herself. How she lived shining so brightly.

She smiled. And that spoke many words. How many poets had she and her friends inspired?

“Yes,” she said. “A star.”

I blinked at her. “What are you doing here? You could walk away-”

“Only if it was that easy.” She cut me off with ease.

“What do you mean?” I asked her in a tiny voice.

“I was thrown here by the Warriors of the Moon themselves,” she said. “They are quite strong to throw me here.”

“Warriors of the Moon?” I tested the words. “They aren’t a myth?”

Cathara laughed. “I forgot how naive the parents grow their children nowadays. They are so true, girl.”

“Yep,” Miguel affirmed. “Met Leo and Gemini when I was a wanderer. Even last-”

One glare from Cathara shut him up.

Skye laughed and her voice showed me a glimpse of the freedom she missed. “Leo and Gemini? Gotta say they all were pretty fun. I miss those days.”

“They are real then?” I asked again and I felt stupid. Of course, they were real. Miguel and Skye knew them.

Cathara nodded. “Yes. They all are real. In fact, Libra came to my ascension ceremony.”

“Ascension ceremony?” I glanced at her. Who was she in her coven?

“I was the omicron of my coven,” she said like it was no big deal. “Like an alpha to a pack.”

“Omicron?” I whispered. “How?”

“I ended up here?” she chuckled. “As I said, I avenged my mate.”

I kept looking at her. As an omicron, she held absolute power over her coven. Her word would be a command none of the vampires would be able to deny. Much less hurt her mate.

She sighed. “I adopted a half breed. He was born of a vampire mother and a warlock father. I knew his mother, so when they passed away in a war, I took him in and my mate and I raised him as my own. I don’t know what happens to him, exactly nor was I able to detect what went in his mind. One day when I was in the Northern coven for a festival, I felt the bond between my mate and me rip. I rushed towards him, but I was too late.”

She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. “He was tortured before he was killed. Next to him, laid my beautiful daughter. She was just three years old. Her mind was shattered and I could not save her. I held her as she died.”

A streak of wetness trailed down my cheek and it was only then I realised I was crying for the vampire I barely knew. Skye kept looking with a straight face while Miguel was blatantly crying.

“This gets me every time,” he sniffed. When he realised that we all were staring at him he wiped his tears and said, “Continue. Don’t stop on my account.”

“Miguel,” Skye warned. “Seriously?”

“What?” he protested. “Have I been there, Cathara, I swear I would have avenged your mate. You have been a good friend for about a thousand years.”

“The only friend, more or like it,. And you are here just for six hundred years. Don’t exaggerate it to thousand,” Cathara muttered. Then she cleared her throat. “I lost it then. Gave in to the bloodlust. The Nobles deemed that I was not fit to be an omicron. During my Haze, I nearly wiped off a smaller Magyc tribe. Barely two witches and three warlocks survived. I was thrown here for genocide.”

I stared at her. “How did you survive?”

“First five hundred years I spent grieving over my dead family,” she said. “The next, guilt ate me alive for killing so many witches and warlocks. I took another five hundred years learning to forgive myself and now, I have been planning to escape.”

“Very busy,” Skye commented. “At least your timeline makes sense. I came down here to hunt my sister and her family. Half-sister to be more precise. See where my vanity and pride got me. I don’t blame the Twelve for putting me here. If I were them, I would have killed me.”

“Half-sister?” Miguel asked, wiping his tears away. “How could you have a half-sister? You are a star for Moon’s sake!”

Skye rolled her eyes. “I am Alioth, daughter of the Northern Star and Ursa. I was the alpha warrior of Moon’s beloved daughter, Luna. My mother was my father’s companion before she left us to give her protection to the Royal lineage. She found a mate for herself and had a family here. I came down to see them.”

Miguel stared at her. Then he glanced at me and the shunned omicron. “Can you believe her?”

I just continued staring at the young star. How did she appear like that anyway?

“I can,” Cathara said. “She is a star. Anything is possible for her.”

“So,” Skye drawled. “Tell us your story, Miguel.”

“Why mine?” he whined.

“We know Lyra’s,” Cathara said. “And as much as we know yours, Lyra does not know yours.”

“I am a Phoenix shifter,” he said in a dry voice. “With the heritage of a siren. Dunno how. But yeah... that’s my story.”

“Does not end there,” the star taunted.

“Yeah,” he nearly snapped. “I burned a siren tribe because I was unable to control my fire. Happy?”

“Still hating yourself then,” Skye commented.

“Skye,” Cathara warned. “He lost his mate in that fire. Go easy on him.”

She shrugged. “So Lyra, who was the wolf who came here?”

I took a moment to realise who she was talking about. “Andrew? He is my friend.”

“Friend?” Miguel said. “I don’t believe that.”

“Excuse me,” I said. “He has my friend for more than seven years. He is one of the young shifters whose age is close to mine.”

“And that’s where the problem is,” Cathara said. “He is into you, Lyra. Poor boy had been hoping you would be his mate. And you would have been.”

“What?”

Skye snickered. “People these days. They don’t know anything do they? Assuming the worst of Luna.”

“Luna as in the Moon’s daughter?” I asked.

She nodded with mirth in her eyes. “Luna does give a significant half, not to complete you. But to make you imperfect. You both learn together. She did this because she lost her dear friend to the clutches of love. Never did she want to lose another soul to that. So she gave each of her sisters’ creation a soul mate. But when the mates reject each other, she allows them to choose their mates. And the bond they have with their chosen is stronger than the one she gave each at birth. But alas, no one seems to love their chosen strong enough to rival the bond she gave. Hence leading to a belief how cruel Luna is.”

I kept staring at the star. “You mean to say,” I began slowly. “That if I love someone, the bond between me and Ethan would snap?”

“Yes,” Cathara said.

I kept my silence. Why did no one know this?

“I bet it has something to do with the Nobles,” Cathara said after a length. “They were so against the bond formed by us.”

I tried to sit down, but the chains around me prevented me from doing so. If anything, it pulled my hands higher up, forcing me to stand.

“Do you even eat?” I asked. “I mean...”

“We know what you are trying to say,” Cathara said. “But do know one thing, this part of the dungeon was built by the Moon’s most trusted general himself to throw his prisoners here. This one predates the age of the soil it rests upon. And the five dungeons are connected in some sort of way. This dungeon allows us to live, has the magic to keep us alive no matter what without any food or water. Even air.”

“B-but,” I spluttered.

“The technology,” Skye sighed. “The prison accepts that technology to cover its age. No one apart from the prisoners knows the true story of this. Even you don’t. But don’t worry. As days pass, it will whisper it in your ears itself.”

“So... the technology is useless here?” I asked.

The shunned omicron gave me a grin that made my inside go cold. “Of course.”

I shook my head. “But why are you all here? I mean you all have helped me so much. I bet you have redeemed yourself.”

At this Skye began laughing in a language that was too cold even for a star. “You have not seen what we all are capable of. There is a reason why this is one of the last floors of the dungeon.”

“Last floor?” My voice was hollow. “But my brother said on the thirtieth floor.”

Cathara laughed without any humour. “Stupid! The dungeon is utterly stupid. This dungeon opens the floor that you deserve. None can control where to put the prisoner. The dungeon chooses. The dungeon chose this cell for you. I wonder what did this prison ever saw in you? I read your mind and there is nothing malicious.”

Silence fell over us. But it was soon shattered by the sharp breath of the Phoenix shifter. “What if? What if the dungeon had sent her here to save us? To take us out?”

“Keep dreaming,” Skye commented. “I was there when this prison was planned, Miguel. The prison knows only to allow the prisoners in. Not out.”

The star and the shifter began arguing and the banter suited Skye better than it did with Miguel. In another world, I would have mistaken them for a father arguing with his daughter. But now, I knew who was older here.

“Then give me one good reason why Lyra is here! Arien came here last night!”

I gasped loudly. “So... So, I was not dreaming?”

At my words, both stopped. Miguel shared a look with Skye.

Cathara then asked, “You remember?”

I nodded slowly. “I remember seeing someone with silver eyes.”

Cathara shook her head. “You might be officially the first person on whom his powers did not work on.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Cathara sighed. “While I did shut your mind, Ar-Arien was the one who eased your pain. He came to talk with Skye.”

Miguel narrowed his sight on her. “Why was he here by the way?”

Skye shrugged. “He just told me where he is. That’s all.”

“He came to tell you that?” Miguel asked. “I feel a bit weird.”

I could not help it. “How could Arien come here?”

Ignoring me, they continued their conversation.

“What if you are right, Miguel?” Cathara asked finally breaking their banter. “I do feel the hold this prison has on me relaxing. And not to mention Skye is getting her ability of illusion.”

Skye opened her mouth to say otherwise, but she closed it. “You’re right,” she mumbles.

The vampire turned to me. “Perhaps, Lyra, the prison chose this cell for you to release us after all. We have been here too long.”

What do you think of Skye, Cathara and Miguel? Want to know more?

Any idea about the Warriors of Moon?

Anyway, I hope I can update the next Saturday.

Until then,

~Quill