Void Domain, Book 04
Chapter 001
Cold.
Juliana peeled her cheek off the cold floor, wincing as she did so. Her skin stuck to the black metal tiles as if she had been lying there for hours on end.
But that was impossible. She had just been in class…
Juliana pressed a hand to her forehead. Her head felt about ready to burst open. Every thought sent another needle into her brain.
Shaking her head, Juliana grit her teeth as she took stock of her situation.
It didn’t take long. The room was roughly the size of a large closet. Completely unfurnished as well. Every square inch was covered in palm-sized tiles of the same black metal. The door as well, though the door did have a small barred window. It was not big enough to fit her head through.
The only source of light was a faintly pulsing orb of white light that had been inset in the center of the ceiling. Each pulse brought with it another thump of her headache. Whether that was because of the light itself playing havoc on an already existing headache or some magical effect, Juliana couldn’t tell.
The faint pulses did reveal a second form collapsed against a wall.
“Shalise,” Juliana croaked out. She descended into a fit of coughs. Her throat was cracked and dry. Licking her lips did nothing to moisten them.
Crawling over, Juliana put a hand on her friend and tried shaking her. “Shalise,” she coughed out, “wake up.”
Shalise made no response except to slide down the wall. Before her head could hit the floor, Juliana reached out and carefully set the brown-haired girl’s head down on the ground.
She was breathing, Juliana could see that much. But another minute or two of shaking the girl did not help.
Juliana turned away. She pulled herself to two unsteady feet. Leaning against the wall for all the support it could offer, she pinched her eyes shut.
Her head was killing her.
They were clearly in a prison of some sort. Neither of her wands were around, though she still had her ring foci and Ylva’s ring along with her clothes. Attempting to activate her ferrokinesis fizzled out. The magic simply wouldn’t gather.
Which Juliana expected. Only a fool would build a prison and not ward against magic.
It was a good thing she had decided to study medieval armor towards the end of the previous school year. Had she still been relying on her ferrokinesis to provide joints, she would be utterly immobile with suppressed magic.
Opening her eyes, Juliana stumbled to the door. She had to stand on her tip-toes just to see out the window.
More cells. Identical doors to her own lined the wall opposite from her door. A narrow catwalk extended out from both her own door and the doors on the other side with a small gap between. There were at least two rows of cells above and two rows below the floor her cell was on.
She couldn’t see the rooms adjacent to her cell, but Juliana had no reason to doubt that they were cells as well.
A big prison, Juliana thought as she slumped back from the door.
Losing her balance, she fell back against the floor and only managed to keep her head from hitting the hard tiles by quickly moving her hands in the way. The weight slamming her hands into the floor still sent a needle of pain through her knuckles and into her head.
Juliana groaned as her headache redoubled its efforts to rend her mind.
She lay there. Juliana shut her eyes to keep the pulsing light out and simply lay there. She didn’t even try to think of anything until her headache receded to more manageable levels.
They were in class. History. Juliana was playing with her ferrokinesis. They had to leave in the middle because something happened. Something bad.
Remembering hurt. And wasn’t much use, if she was honest with herself.
Whatever facility she had ended up at wasn’t a small-scale hole in the wall. That meant there would be people. Guards and other prisoners. Presumably, they’d be fed at some point. Hopefully they would be given water too.
A light groan from her cell mate roused Juliana from her thoughts.
“Shalise,” Juliana said as she crawled over, “are you okay?”
“My head…” Her voice came out as a dry rasp as well. Shalise propped herself up on one elbow while she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
Juliana scooted back. “Please don’t.” Their cell wasn’t large enough and it definitely lacked the necessary ventilation.
When Shalise made no heaves or gags, Juliana cautiously moved back to her side. “Do you remember how we got here?”
“Where is here?”
“We’re prisoners of some sort. I haven’t seen any writing or signs to tell more. I don’t think it is Eva’s prison.”
“P-prisoners?” Her voice came out at a high enough pitch to cause both of them to wince.
After a moment of mutual silence, Shalise scrunched up her round face in thought. “There was fighting. And you drew a circle… a summoning circle.”
In the blink of an eye–much faster than Juliana thought she could move–Shalise reached out and slapped Juliana across the cheek. Pins and needles laced through her face. Doubly so as Juliana lightly bit her tongue.
“You pulled me on top of it and now we’re prisoners? Why do you even know how to draw a summoning circle?”
Juliana reared back at the volume of Shalise’s anger.
“I stole a book from Eva.” Juliana flinched back and waited for Shalise’s slap. When none came, she continued with her head hung. “I just wanted to get stronger so that I could help out.”
A second slap–one she had been waiting for–came without delay.
“You beat students years older than us with hardly any effort. You train with your mother. Don’t complain about not being strong.”
“Not strong enough!” Juliana grit her teeth while counting backwards from ten. She didn’t open her mouth until she hit zero. “Not strong enough,” she calmly said.
“In case you forgot, I was right by your side while you were being eaten by zombies. I just stood there, frozen. There wasn’t any earth around to attack with. Even if there had been earth, I wasn’t in the right mindset to fight. I had some metal, not as much as I carry around now, but enough to fight with at least.
“You sat there, getting eaten in front of my face. It wasn’t until Arachne knocked that zombie off of you that I snapped out of it.”
Shalise went silent for a minute.
An agonizingly long minute.
Juliana’s throat was still parched. Talking loud and so much did it no favors. It was all she could do to suppress coughing in Shalise’s face.
“And you thought stealing a book from Eva would help? You didn’t even get her help learning? Now look where you landed us.”
“It wasn’t me!” The knot in Juliana’s throat tightened. She couldn’t help the coughs that erupted.
But it wasn’t her. She couldn’t even remember drawing a summoning circle. Even if she had drawn one, Juliana couldn’t see how that would wind up with them in prison. Not unless some demon hunter or mage-knight found her out. And even then, the later would likely need some specific contract about it. Unless there was a general bounty out on diabolists that she didn’t know about.
Shalise stood up, looking far more steady on her feet than Juliana had felt just a few minutes prior.
Before she could take a single step, she fell down and landed on top of Juliana.
It wasn’t her fault.
An earthquake had started.
Juliana pulled Shalise into a hug and maneuvered herself on top. Even if her ferrokinesis wasn’t active, she could still feel the plates of metal coating her body. It was much better protection than fleshy skin in the case that anything fell on them.
Walls cracked and Shalise trembled as the tremor wracked the prison. More than a few of the palm-sized plates of metal pulled loose from the walls. They crashed down against the ground with far more force than should have been possible.