The stimulation of a rune varies depending on the complexity of its mechanism. The invocation of a higher rune generally involves uttering the correct incantations. Some even requires certain instruments such as the dhupa, candles, or other such apparati.

—Of Runes and its Crafte, by Remminsk

25

↝ A UNION OF BLOOD ↜

Someone else was in the dungeon.

Isla forced her two hosts to a stop while she listened. There it was again: a cough, and the heavy clink of chains against stone. Did Rajini Amarin keep a prisoner?

Isla's heart sank deeper into her stomach with every step she took, crossing the chamber, peering into each prison as she passed. The fire channel lit each cell just far enough that only their furthest corners remained shrouded in a semi-darkness. The first three were empty, the fourth scattered with bones, and the fifth belonged to a skeleton.

Hidden in the half-dark, Isla could only make of it its spindly limbs. It sat, curled against the wall, knees bent and long hair draped over its face. It lifted its head, and Isla tripped over herself.

One of her guards steadied her, and to him she handed the torch. 'Get in there.'

The cell door was rusted and bent off its hinges, kept shut by a simple lock clamped between its bars. Isla's torch-bearer drew out a dagger and forced it loose. The door opened with a screech. Inside, the prisoner scrambled into a corner. In the guard's approaching light, Isla could make out more of the prisoner: a spectre of barely more than skin stretched over bone. A face gaunt and impassive. She must have once been chained, but her hands had shrunk enough for them to slip out of its cuffs.

'Tamma?' Her whisper must have carried, for the prisoner looked in her direction from where she was crouched.

Ifrit's breath – it can't be. Isla rushed to join her torch-bearer into the cell. The block reeked of piss and human waste. It was desolately empty. No bed, no sheets to keep off the wind howling from above. Not even a layer of straw. Only in one corner lay an empty bowl, looking as though it had been licked clean.

'Come.' Isla did not know what to think. She was not even sure what – or whom – she was seeing before her. 'We won't hurt you.'

The girl shirked closer into her corner. She would not even look Isla in the eyes.

'What's your name?' Isla whispered. She needed to know, and the earth was spinning beneath her feet.

The girl whimpered, but made no attempt of responding.

Isla's patience was running thin, or perhaps it was her dread reaching a crescendo. She coasted around the prisoner's mind, found it barely conscious. There was something broken about it ... something vacant. She tried to ignore the stench and dropped to her knees. 'My name is Isla. Do you know me?'

The girl's gaze was as empty as her mind. Isla took her gently under the chin and forced the girl to look at her.

'I come from Arikit,' she said slowly. 'I lived there with my family. Do you know the place?'

The girl twitched and said nothing.

'It's a fishing town. My father would spend his days out in Dowser's Cane, and we would wait for him, my sister and I.' Isla's throat closed. She was surprised how fluidly the memories came. 'We had a platform. Up in a weeping fig. He'd always bring us back something pretty. Riverglobes, shells, or even just a water lily. Our mother would teach us how to make them into wreaths.' She paused before she choked on her next words. 'She was a good teacher. Chani Prijanskar. Is that familiar to you? And my father, his name was –'

'Alain.' She spoke so gently Isla almost mistook it for the wind.

Yes. She gazed long at the skeletal face before her, trying to find any semblance to the girl whose image Haana had kept. Her chin was just as pointed, but the plumpness in her cheeks were gone. But those eyes ... 'You have his eyes.'

'Alain Ametjas.'

'No.' Isla steeled her voice. She took the girl by the shoulders and tried again. 'Prijanskar. Don't you remember them, Tamma? Don't you remember your sister?'

She must have struck something, for the girl gave into a sudden, piercing scream. 'No! No! I don't know!'

'Hush, it's all ri—'

'Please! I don't know where she is!' she cried again and again, as though invoking the ghost of a pain long gone.

Her words cleared Isla of all doubt. She staggered to her feet. The girl before her was indeed her sister, and it was evident now she had been questioned ruthlessly, pulled apart for a single shred of information on her.

Isla stood, leaning against the bars for a while still, trying to get a hold of herself. The rage, the sadness, the relief ... it was overwhelming, and she could not be overwhelmed. Not now. Not with two fully-armed guards at her thrall.

What had they done to her? The tears were hot against her cheeks, and she scraped them off like mud from her boots. She could not even recognise her sister. One of her her men lifted Tam Mai off the ground. Her sister was motionless in his arms, staring blankly at the ceiling, but at least she had fallen silent again.

Sir Edric had been right. Her sister was gone. Perhaps not in the way he suggested, but she may as well be.

How long had she been kept down here? Without the fire, she would have been trapped in utter darkness. Only rats and stench for company.

Isla wandered back towards the fire channel. She could not believe it. After all this time, she had finally found Tam Mai. Now she only needed to rid them of the beast responsible for all this. Which reminded her. They had to be on their way, and –

And what?

She stopped in her tracks.

Her plan was to have Rajini Chei slayed. But Tam Mai had been imprisoned here, and there was no way Rajini Chei could have pulled that off.

Had Kiet not told her his mother kept a private menagerie in the labyrinths? It would be far too risky for Rajini Chei to trespass time and time again, simply to keep a prisoner and feed her. Rajini Amarin would surely have noticed.

Isla searched her pockets, cursing all the daemons of the epperstrom. Pepper came scurrying out, a jittering mess as it scrambled onto her shoulder. 'Here it is.' She found her note and held it against the light. Its seal was still in tact. Isla took the salamander off her shoulder. 'One last thing, Pep, and then I promise – we'll find a way to get you home.'

The element twitched its nose, turned its head towards the fire.

'Pep! I need you to focus. We haven't much time.' Isla winced. The throbbing in her head was becoming far more pronounced. 'You know what to do. Find her. There should be an opening somewhere above us. Just follow the wind. It will be faster that way.'

Pepper took the note in its mouth and disappeared into the darkness. Isla prayed it would stay on course. Something was terrifyingly off with the element. Its presence ebbed restlessly, like it was fighting itself. Now bright with intelligence, then fading with a touch of something chaotic.

'Here.' Her torch-bearer called, a voice devoid of any cadence or emotion. He had found the entrance to the guard chamber.

Isla followed her guards into the room, closing the door behind them. The torch-bearer lit the cressets mounted on the wall, revealing a large table and set of chairs thick with dust. Mugs and flagons stood frozen in time, as though its users had just left in the middle of a drinking game.

'Change of plans,' she said, laying out her map upon the table. Behind her, Tam Mai sneezed. At least her body still responds to the world. 'We need to find the closest exit.'

But there were none. Isla studied the map, following every possible path with her finger. All the doors led off to more chambers; the nearest exit resurfaced up into Rajini Amarin's eastern gardens, but they would first need to circle through more dungeons.

The night was far from over, and Isla was sure their pursuers would soon find them. Especially if her suspicions were true. She took a crossbow and set of bolts off a rack and prodded her torch-bearer through the eastern door.

Another dungeon greeted them; a gaping blackness until Isla had the fire channel lit. She briefly considered, once the flames settled into a soft glow, that the light would leave a convenient trail for their pursuers. But the alternative was no better, stumbling into a trap in the dark. This dungeon was much longer than it was wide, and many of its stone slabs concealed springs ready to send its victims to a burning death.

Isla limped along the footlight, taking care to avoid the traps marked on Kiet's map. Her guards tailed her every step. She glanced back occasionally, reassuring herself that Tam Mai was indeed with them.

'This should lead to the eastern passage.' Isla folded the map and tucked it into the inner folds of her syarong. They had arrived at the far end of the dungeon, and after a long deliberation of the wall, Isla flung herself against it.

Dust scattered from the cornice, but the exit did not so much as shift. Of course. She dusted the mouldy surface, revealing a keyhole. And no key. Unless they could somehow blast through the stone, they would have to circle back and take a longer route.

'You.' She turned to her torch-bearer, rifled through his mind and found that hint of a tamed power. 'You're blooded. What is your theurgy?'

She gave him enough room to speak, and he used it to spit at her feet. 'Nothing that can help you!'

Isla sent a tight pulse. She smiled as he squirmed, teeth clenched against the pain. 'I won't ask again.'

The torch-bearer growled. 'I'm a mind-bender.'

A telekinetic. He can lift things with his mind. He had his uses, but not in getting them through the door. Isla discovered the other guard was a mind-reader. Even more useless.

There was no other way about it. They would have to double back. If they took the passage through the coal cellar, they should –

A loud crash reverberated through the dungeon. Shattering clay; wood breaking against stone. Isla stepped in front of Tam Mai, still motionless in the guard's arms. The noise emerged from the guard chamber from which they had come. Isla latched into her hosts, ignoring the throb in her head.

They watched the doorway, its frame underlined by the fire channel hissing between them. Isla cocked her crossbow as the door creaked to a slow open. She loaded her first bolt, heart thumping in her chest, and took aim.

But nobody entered.

Odd.