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“He’s got to be here somewhere!”
The familiar voice echoed down the long, empty passages. Hungry, cold, and just exhausted enough to worry about hallucinations, Percival de Rolo rested his head against the stone wall behind him and stared out the grate to the empty corridor beyond.
“We’ve accounted for everyone in the registry. Sister, are you sure—”
“He’s here! I know it!”
Percy tried to lean forward, but the accursed manacles around his wrists held him too tightly to the wall. He slumped back, cursing, staring up at the bloody things while he waited for his friends to find him.
Bloody things…quite literally. The cuffs had been cutting into his wrists for close to two days now. It hurt down to the bone when he moved, and the pitiful condition he’d been left in added a slight tremor to his body that exacerbated the issue.
“This one’s still alive—get Pike, if she can wake him up we can get some answers.”
It was hard to tell from the voices who had come for him. Vex’ahlia was easiest to pick out, her voice rising in worry even as her tone remained commanding. Vax, too—but of course they would have come together. He and Vax had had their differences, but he knew the half-elf would move heaven and earth to help his sister find her beloved. He even thought he heard Keyleth a time or two, but her voice didn’t carry as well.
Feet thundered past, close enough that he could have shouted for them were it not for the horrible collar latched around his throat. Anything more strenuous than shallow, measured breathing was choked out of him, which left him voiceless except for the faintest whisper.
“Maybe there’s a secret passage? Grog?”
“Punch through da walls! Got it!”
A thunderous crash echoed through the empty halls of the labyrinthine prison. They were going the wrong way, but he was almost sure that was Scanlan with Grog. The bard would be clever enough to notice the trail of footprints in the dust if they happened upon the right hall, marking the path his tormentors trod on their twice-daily visit to his lonely cell.
Something slammed into the wall behind him. Percy gasped, then gagged as the collar seemed to constrict around his throat. He wasted several precious seconds focused on calming his breathing enough to dissipate the darkness encroaching on the edges of his vision, and missed the words shouted by his searching friends.
“There’s nothing this way. Did you get anything out of him, Vax?”
“He’s bloody useless. We’re never going to find de Rolo if we keep this up.”
They were so close. Just on the other side of this wall. If only he had some way to communicate to them, but he was shackled too tightly to move.
“Fuck this!” Vex’s voice rose in a shout. “Trinket! Find Papa!”
Percy winced, both at the roar from the angered bear that had just been unleashed, and from Vex’ahlia’s choice of words. He had never agreed to be considered the bear’s parent, no matter what Vex thought…though he’d take all the teasing in Exandria if it meant seeing her lovely face again.
“Dis way, boy? Well, just lemme get that wall out of your way.”
Another crash, this one closer, and there was a faint stirring in the air of his prison. He tried to tilt his head toward it, desperate for some hint of fresh air after so long in this wretched dampness.
Then footsteps. Voices. Ever clearer, and ever closer.
“Yo! Percy!”
“Percy?
“De Rolo?”
“Percy!”
Vex’ahlia burst around the corner, bringing light and life—and a bear—into the dust and darkness of his prison. “Darling, what have they done to you?”
He couldn’t answer. He managed to smile at her, though the anguish in her eyes cut him to the heart. He mouthed her name, fighting a losing battle against the strangling collar around his neck. His breathing was too quick, the lump in his throat to big to swallow. He was going to choke to death here, right in front of his beloved, right as she appeared to save him.
“Vax! He’s down here!” Vex called over her shoulder, but her brother was already sprinting after her out of the darkness.
“Hang on, Percy,” Vax breathed as he dropped to one knee at the cell door. Percy fought to hold still, to slow his breath, as his anxiety mounted with every moment Vax fiddled with the lock.
It finally sprang free and Vex shouldered her brother aside to make her way into the cell. “What have they done to you?” she repeated in a whisper.
“The collar needs to go first,” Vax commented. “Hold his head still, Vex.”
“That lock looks strange.”
“Damn it, it’s trapped.”
At Vax’s words, panic rose in Percy’s chest. His eyes flicked to Vex’s, tried to focus, but his breath was starting to catch in the collar. She noticed and gently turned his head to the side, away from where her brother was working on the lock.
Long, strong fingers combed through his hair. “You’ll be free soon, Love. All of this will be over.”
He tried to swallow, but the collar was too tight. His vision was fading in and out, shaking hands pulling at the shackles that bound him to the wall.
“Got it!”
The collar popped free. He sucked in a breath and coughed it back out, choking and greedy for air. Vex had risen up to her knees to wrap her arms around him, careful not to jostle the chains that still bound him to the wall as Vax leaned up to study the contraption holding his arms. She was kissing the top of his head, his cheek. Murmuring reassurances that his spinning mind couldn’t quite decipher.
“Screw this. Oy! Grog!” Vax stood up, rushing to the door. “Need you to break something!”
Percival let his head sag against Vex’s shoulder, letting her presence quiet the lingering fear in his heart. “Thank you,” he rasped, choking and coughing on the simple words.
She kissed his forehead, then his lips, brushing gently over the wounds left by a cruel guard’s fists. “I will always come for you.”
He couldn’t quite muffle his laugh. “Is that a double entendre?”
“Oh, probably.” Her strong fingers rested against the back of his neck, rubbing soothing circles in the knotted muscles there. “Most things are.”
Smiling, Percy let his eyes close as the sound of their friends’ return grew louder. “Especially with you, my love.”