(Author's Note:Just a short little chapter, since the next few should be pretty long! I will warn you not to feel bad for Zaire's mother, because the next Zaire chapter will be a flashback, and you'll see why she is a monster!)

~Zaire~

Though Talon insisted that they depart at once, Zaire demanded for some time. He told Talon (as well as himself) that he just needed a book or two to keep him occupied for the long journey. In truth, he hoped he could put off the trek until Agron reported Dessa's reappearance, though he knew it was unlikely that he would have the respite of hearing she was safe before he left. So he used his borrowed time in the palace library, scouring for books on thralls. If he could learn anything in her absence about how thralls worked, perhaps when they were together again, he would be able to help her figure out how to control the power. 

Unfortunately, among the thousands of tomes, he could find nothing, which was quite suspicious. Not even fictional, cautionary tales? Any mention of enthralling had to have been scrubbed - destroyed or hidden away. Zaire swallowed a growl of frustration building in the base of his throat. It would seem that he would have to divulge the new development to Talon after all, because if anyone could find out if written word of thralls were stored somewhere in the palace, and why, it was the new Dark King.

Defeated, Zaire dragged his feet as he made his reluctant exit, empty-handed. And of course, he would narrowly avoid a collision with Eon in the corridor. Despite Talon's initial violent outburst over Dessa's abduction by the former sovereignty, he had forgiven Eon. After all, Zaire had agreed by omission to watch over and protect the little doll the night before it had happened, therefore relieving Eon of his bodyguard duties. Eon was sent to check in on her that day when she didn't show up for her shift, only because Zaire had been too blind to realize who and what she was, and how susceptible it made her. He had foolishly assumed that she would be fine in the daylight, and that the biggest threat to her safety were hungry Fae attacking her on her walk home at night - he didn't think it was necessary to shadow her in the morning. But apparently, Eon had been secretly escorting her to and  from work for weeks, under Talon's orders, until Zaire threw his petty tantrum, causing Talon to take his crewman off the assignment. And regrettably, the very first day that Eon wasn't in charge of her care, Zaire's negligence allowed her to be kidnapped and imprisoned. 

Eon was the one to shoulder the blame and Talon's subsequent wrath, when he told him that her front door was wide open, that she was missing, and that the smell of her blood was in the air. It wasn't his fault, yet he was nearly killed for it, anyway. Needless to say, the few instances that Zaire and Eon ran into each other since that day, it was extremely awkward - a mouthful of guilt for both that neither of them desired to address, swallowed down instead like bitter cough syrup. 

Zaire nodded at him curtly, stifling a scowl. His little doll was making him soft, he realized with chagrin. Feeling guilty for Eon almost getting murdered in front of him? It was ridiculous! Zaire had planned to slaughter the male himself not so long ago, just for harboring affections for Dessa - and that was before  Zaire was even aware that she was his yet-to-be-bound mate. If anything, he should have finished the job that Talon started! Ugh.

Eon returned the nod and quickly glanced away, his stoic facade firmly in place as they sidestepped around each other. Zaire was disgusted with himself for the intrusive thoughts that shoved to the forefront of his mind while he strode away. He wondered if Eon would have loved Dessa if given the chance, if she didn't belong to Zaire. Would he have freely given what Zaire withheld from her?

Fuck, now he was irate.

 Zaire attempted to brush it off as he went to join Talon in the courtyard, where they would survey their mode of transport and go over the game plan. In the designated area they had agreed to meet, Talon was standing before an odd-looking spectacle. An extravagant carriage was being fitted with a team of royal, domesticated Hounds in the front, and behind, was a dense metallic compartment on wheels - roughly the size of a broom closet - attached like the caboose on a train. 

Without glancing over at Zaire, Talon told him that there were shackles attached to the ceiling of the compartment, and the metallic alloy would ensure that the prisoner would not be able to draw off of any emotions or dark energy outside of the glorified box. A sentry scampered up to hand Talon a strange, bulky contraption, then, and he gave the order for the palace and courtyard to be temporarily evacuated, before he began to lead Zaire toward the hidden entrance to the forbidden dungeons beneath the palace. As they descended the stairwell, he explained in a hushed tone that the contraption was a high-powered UV device that rivaled sunlight - a tool that would effectively blind her after centuries spent in the darkness, which would aid their efforts to shepherd her during the transition. 

All of the Dark Realm knew of the dungeons, yet no one was permitted below but those who wield the crown. The cells were built far enough apart that the prisoners were damned to spend the rest of eternity starving for the emotions of others, physical touch, and blood. Not only that, but the air was so dank and stagnant that deep underground that the quality was nothing like the undulating wisps of dark energy that swirled in the endless night sky above which fueled the Dark Fae. In the dungeons, the air was so thoroughly leeched, as dead as can be, giving the prisoners nothing to draw from. 

However, knowing the conditions wasn't the same as experiencing the environment firsthand. Zaire was already sickened from the distance between him and his mate, but the further that they ventured into the bowels of the dungeons, the more ill he felt. This wasn't Talon's first time coming down, but Zaire could taste how he still felt trepidation. They must have gone down three hundred steps before Talon explained that the wide walkway between the cells was purposely constructed in such a way that no one would pass through the prisoners' vicinity, and thus feed them with their emotions. 

As they neared the bottom of the stairs, Talon took a steadying breath, and Zaire steeled himself for the moment he would lay eyes on his wretched mother. It was eerily silent as they traversed the walkway, only their footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. His wings were whipping back and forth behind him, responding to his mounting rage. Talon's cerulean eyes glowed in the pitch-darkness, flashing him a warning look. Zaire ground his teeth together, his claws flexing in anticipation, wishing this was a belated execution rather than a fucking transfer.

"This might sting a bit," Talon grunted, just before he switched on the UV device and flooded a cell to the right with the brutal rays. 

And it did sting, even though the light was being directed away  from them. Zaire's eyes watered slightly, blurring the image of his mother laying in a heap in the furthest corner, but he could hear her weak hiss of agony clearly. The bars rattled and creaked as Talon opened the cell.

"Rise, Celeste," Talon barked at her. 

Zaire blinked back the burning sensation, watching her struggle to stand. When her face tilted up, he could see that her once-soft cheeks were sunken in, her visage absolutely skeletal now, from decades and decades of deprivation. It didn't bother him in the slightest to see her withered like that, but looking upon her squinting eyelids gripping her intact eyeballs had him lunging forward before he could stop himself. Luckily, Talon snatched him by the shoulder immediately, propelling Zaire behind him. 

He knew that his mother's eyeballs would have regenerated long ago, but witnessing those orbs resting inside her eye sockets was still a nasty shock, nonetheless. His shadows were infantile the day that he plucked those eyes out of her face, and they had only a fraction of the power back then that they had now. Zaire had to restrain the shadows from ripping them out all over again. His chest heaved from the effort, and he staggered back a few feet when she stepped forward.

She whimpered pathetically as Talon commanded her to move, never once letting up on the light blasting her face, and the two of them made sure to stay outside of her vicinity while they escorted her out of the dungeons. She stumbled multiple times, crying that she was too weak to go on. 

"Let me drag her," Zaire growled when they were halfway up the stairwell, losing his patience with the process, and Talon appeared to consider the option.

"P-Pathos??" 

How could she have recognized his voice?! He was only a child when he saw her last! She had to have surmised it was him by some other reasoning! Hearing her utter that unholy nickname tattered his last shred of constraint, and without waiting another second for permission from Talon, he latched his shadows around her wrists and ankles, and jetted up the rest of the way, dragging her along like a sack of potatoes. 

Zaire tore through the empty palace and out to the courtyard. The crunching of Celeste's bones, and her woeful shrieks of pain were music to his ears. His shadows tossed her into the metal box, and they were affixing her into the shackles just as Talon apparated beside him. His mother was gulping down greedy gasps of fresh air, her eyes squeezed shut against the UV light that Talon threw in the box with her for good measure, before he shut the compartment with an unceremonious slam. 

The two of them shared a weighty look. The trip would be quite merciful for her, compared to the torture she would soon endure under Ghast, and the searing brightness of the Light Realm. If anything, the emotional-starvation, the UV light, and the fractured bones were a generous preparation for what was to come. 

"I am proud of you, Zaire," Talon said after a heavy sigh, sounding way too fatherly for his liking.

Zaire bristled, shaking his head at the sentiment. Sure, he didn't slaughter her, thus inciting war with the Light, but he hadn't exactly kept his cool, either. 

"Fuck off. Let's go," he grumbled, climbing into the carriage. 

Once Talon had sent an envoy to lift the evacuation notice for the palace and courtyard, and the coachman was alerted that the "cargo" had been stowed away, he joined Zaire in the carriage, and they were finally on the move. It would take a day and a half to get to the In-Between, leaving way too much time for the two of them to talk. Zaire knew that the first thing he should speak to him about was his mate's newfound power, but when he looked at his friend, all he could think of was the day he ran to Talon for help after gouging out his mother's eyes.