18. Serena

Sweat trickles down the sides of my face. Dried blood rests on my bottom lip, evoking a metallic taste every time my tongue swipes across the broken skin. My body feels sore and I wake up tied against a chair.

I make the mistake of believing I'm alone, so I don't fight the urge to call out for Cinis. I miss his protection, I miss his presence. But for some reason, he couldn't fight back against the dark elves that came to take me away.

Why is that? What did they do?

"You truly are a silly human."

My eyes narrow at the dark elf that emerges from the shadows. I suppose he was waiting for me to wake up. He pushes himself off the door that keeps me away from the rest of the world and approaches me with loud footsteps.

I swallow hard. "Where am I? Is this a shack?"

"How observant."

Besides the chair I'm tied to, there's nothing much in this small space except for a few other wooden chairs lining the walls. If this is where I'm going to die, it's a pretty lackluster location. There is nothing distinctive or notable about it.

"Are you thinking about that monster of yours?"

"Cinis," I spit, annoyed at his callous tone. "He's not a monster. You're far more brutal and monstrous than anything he could ever be."

"You flatter me far too much," he replies bluntly, rolling his eyes. "But you're deluding yourself. He was nothing more than a failure."

"You're wrong."

As I take in more of his appearance, I notice my mother's amulet resting on his chest.

"And who are you, anyway?"

"I would think you might have heard of me," he says. "After all, you seemed plenty familiar with Arcanis Hightower, who was under my employ when your pet killed him."

I shake my head.

"I'm Aldris Elruca," he says. "I'm the one calling the shots. Others thought to come here and take your kind back, but I was the only one who showed the initiative. There's much we can do with your kind in the name of science."

My stomach turns at the memory of seeing my friends' bodies destroyed by the dark elves during their ritual. Their mangled corpses rest strong on my mind, my loneliness only amplifying the pain I thought I was successfully burying.

I can still remember digging their graves.

"Were you disappointed when we killed him," I ask, rubbing my wrists together. If I keep doing this, perhaps I'll wear down the material wrapped around them. I start giving it a try, thankful that my body conceals what I'm doing. "Were you friends?"

He chuckles a bit before brandishing his hand and slapping me across the face.

"Arcanis was a disappointment," Aldris says. "You might have thought you accomplished a great deal, retaking our towers like that, but we can create more in seconds."

I feel the soreness radiating across my cheek. Despite the pain, I smile slightly.

"Why don't you behave, and maybe I'll treat you a little better," Arcanis suggests. "After all, you're going to be here quite a while."

I clench my jaw, not wanting to retort in fear he might do something to me. Instead, I indirectly focus on my wrists moving together. The friction starts to cause me some pain, but I keep going in the hopes that my plan might work.

"But yes, to answer your question, I knew Arcanis," he says. "We hail from Tlouz. Arcanis, being the inquisitive mind that he was, wanted to find a way to make this continent a better place for dark elves. We had both heard of your unnatural colonization here, and we wanted to bring it to an end. A human's most vital purpose is creating more dark elves. It's unnatural that you defy that."

It takes everything within me to hold back my grimace. Of course, he would think that. The dark elves don't have any respect for us. Any semblance of freedom we get, they swoop in to snatch away from us.

"So that's why Arcanis came here. To study. To observe." He punctuates each word firmly. "He captured some humans and documented everything he learned about them. Then, he sent the information back to me. But something curious started to happen. The humans started dying inexplicably at first."

I scoff. "They were being put in horrible conditions. Why is that so surprising?"

"No, no, this was different," Aldris presses. "Their skin would turn red at first, before turning black and hard. This was especially prevalent along their fingers and toes. The longer we kept them alive, the worse it got. Obviously, this was not a good thing. We needed the human subjects to be alive for an acceptable period of time. We don't have an unlimited supply. To have them die prematurely was a shame."

Aldris cracks his neck by rolling his head around in a circular motion. I flinch at the loud crunch. He doesn't glance my way. He continues talking after a brief pause.

"Some of our own were being affected by the cold, so Arcanis needed a way to keep everyone warm."

That's when his eyes snap towards me. He smiles, but there's something empty in his eyes whenever he looks at me. Hatred, contempt, apathy. At that point, I know that he doesn't see me as a living being. He only sees me as a nuisance.

A human who ruined all of his plans.

"We found a strong connection here between this plane and the primordial plane of fire - a leyline running between our worlds, deep underground - so we wanted to channel that energy, and use it to aid our efforts," he says. "But your stupid amulet..."

He pauses.

"I'm sorry. It's quite useful. It just has a nasty habit of getting in the way. Where did you get it?"

I say nothing in response, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. He pauses, before clearly expressing disappointment.

He really wants me to humor him in spite of everything he's done. Do his men not soothe his swelling ego enough?

"Anyway… we sent sacrifices over there to die, in the name of creating a portal. We could reach the elemental plane by moving deep underground, across the leyline. But that's deeply inconvenient and not all reliable."

He smacks his lips, pausing to ruminate.

"But imagine our surprise when instead of summoning heat through the sacrifice of your dear friends' souls, we bring your elemental friend instead?"

Aldris runs a hand along his chin.

"I suppose it's our fault, to an extent. We should have done more research into the nature of the portal. We should have predicted that your amulet might interfere. But that's neither here nor there."

He shakes his head.

"Your friend won't be interfering anymore," he says. "Next time, you'll find we're much more prepared."

"What do you mean?" I can hear my heart in my ears. What has he done to Cinis? "Where is he now? Have you spoken to him?"

Now, it's Aldris's turn to narrow his eyes on me. He smirks, tilting his head slightly.

"You two were living together, weren't you? In that stone building. Did you build that together?"

My fists clench, and I momentarily stop rubbing my wrists together. "What have you done to Cinis?"

"I must admit, you two surprised me. I never would have guessed that a monstrous creature and a human woman would find anything to bond over. I suppose desperation pushes us to extreme lengths." Aldris laughs to himself. "Arcanis would have loved to learn more about this odd relationship between you and Cinis."

"Where is he?"

"Don't worry about that," he says swiftly. "Cinis is an afterthought to me. He showed his true nature when he butchered Arcanis and all of his students. He's useless. A monster throwing a tantrum. It's a shame things turned out this way, but my ambitions will not go unrealized."

His ambitions. Right.

His desire to dominate and enslave all of the humans on this continent. We have done our best to escape the clutches of the dark elves, but still, they've decided to follow us all the way here. How is that fair?

When will they leave us alone?

Before long, Aldris becomes too enthralled by his own plans. I start tuning him out on purpose, not really paying him much attention. My true focus is on releasing myself from these binds before any serious danger comes my way.

I'm sure Aldris has some sinister intentions with me once he's done talking. I won't make things easy for him.

He likes to think that humans are easy targets. That we will bend over and submit to the will of the dark elves. Not here. Not on Prazh.

We're finally starting to find some semblance of normalcy on this continent. The likes of Arcanis and Aldris want to stop us, but it's not going to happen.

And once I find and reunite with Cinis, I'll make sure that neither he nor any other dark elf threatens us again.

"Are you listening to me, human?" Aldris says, stepping my way. I stiffen. "Cinis mentioned that your name is Serena. Is that true?"

"It is."

"Fascinating that you bother naming yourselves at all."

He smiles.

"Rest assured that you're little more than livestock to use, capable of carrying our offspring to term. I think it speaks a great deal to your hubris that you even pretend to erect societies. It would be so much easier just to live among us. We'd give you everything you needed without any of the struggle."

Aldris is passionate about this topic, I can tell. So much so, that he devotes an unfathomable amount of time talking about how he plans to decimate the human morale of Prazh and subject any disobedient human to brutal torture.

What an idiot. That'll never happen.

I sigh, then close my eyes. Cinis. Please don't leave me alone. I can't do this by myself.

My wrists ache, but I finally get a good enough angle to feel the knot that binds me together. I suck in a deep breath. Freedom is within reach, but I'm running on borrowed time.