Oblivion Heart (Darkling Mage 4)

There had to be a reason that Mammon wanted the Tome of Annihilation so badly, and I was pretty sure it didn’t involve some light weekend reading. My heart thumped with the uncertainty. I had to know, and every step that brought me towards Mona only ramped up my curiosity and anxiety.

All around the hollow of the Prism, arranged along its walls, were the individual jail cells. Each couldn’t have been more than ten feet in width and length, separated from the corridors by the same diamond-hard crystal that made up the rest of the crimson prison.

Most of the cells were empty. Here and there I’d find signs of life: a pair of slippers laid out on the floor, the silhouette of someone seated on the edge of their bed. Imprisoned within the safety of one cell, a hulking shape far larger than a man kept slamming against its crystal barrier. Not as a reaction to my presence, I was sure of that. The thing had been hammering against the wall long before I came, its thumping like a low, steady bass accompaniment to Mona’s mournful song, and to the pounding of my heart in my ears.

I turned the corner, and there she was, unmistakable, the shape of her hair stark against the red crystal of her prison, a thin shadow encased in cold ruby. I sifted through my backpack for one of the implements Carver gave me, hearing a distant grunt in the back of my head when I nudged Vanitas by accident.

Ah, there it was. The gem’s ambient warmth helped me find it. It was globular and bright orange, like many of the amber and citrine jewels Carver liked to wear and enchant. This stone wasn’t set in a ring or an amulet, just a loose gem that had a series of minuscule carvings etched into its surface.

I rubbed the gem as Carver had instructed, then skidded it across the floor until it hit the base of Mona’s wall. The mystic eyeball up in the corner wasn’t focused on her prison just then, whirring as it turned its dead gaze down the opposite corridor.

Carver’s jewel cracked open with a faint hiss, plumes of pale fire rising from the fissures on its surface, slowly consuming the wall that contained the siren. I watched as her silhouette faltered, then backed further into the safety of her prison.

The gem served to dispel the enchantments keeping Mona in her cell. Theoretically, I could have shadowstepped in, but Carver correctly assumed that I would need to destroy more and more wards as I penetrated the Prism. Better safe than shredded into a thousand tiny pieces mid-shadowstep, right?

I pulled out two more of the tools Carver had laid out for my safety, chewing on my lower lip as I remembered his instructions.

“These go in your ears,” he’d said.

“So they’ve got like a silence charm cast over them?”

They looked like ordinary old earplugs to me, those squishy ones made out of silicone or foam that conform to your ear canals to stay in place. Turns out they were regular earplugs, as Carver explained with a wry grin.

“Good enough to protect you from sirens, I can assure you. Though you may find a different use for them considering your destination.”

That was a dilemma, for sure. I was infiltrating to rescue Mona, but I couldn’t very well listen to what she had to say if my ears were blocked up, could I?

I watched from the darkness of the alcove as Mona pressed her back against the far wall of her cell. She was dressed in a gray smock, likely something the Lorica assigned to all its prisoners. She looked relatively normal, almost the same as the night of the concert – except gaunter, perhaps. Afraid. And I didn’t like what I was about to do next, but it was a necessary step.

Literally. As the watching eye whirred and swiveled back down our chunk of the corridor, I shadowstepped, sinking into the Dark Room, tethering my mind to a spot just a few feet away. From our angle, the watcher couldn’t see that the prison wall was missing. We had time to talk, for as long as none of the guards walked by.

Well, and as long as Mona didn’t start screaming her head off. I popped up in a shadow as far away from her as possible, my hands raised in placation. I grimaced as she took a deep breath, poised to shriek, but I took several tentative steps towards her, one finger going to my lips, another chopping in the air across my neck.

“Please,” I hissed. I pulled out my earplugs. “Don’t. I’m only here to talk. I’m here to help you.”

Mona’s fists unclenched, the air going out of her in a slow huff. She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing. “Wait. I know you. You’re the guy from the concert, the one who climbed the railing.”

I nodded hurriedly, glad that we were past me having to restrain or silence her.

“You tried to get up on stage. When you saw what was happening.” She looked down at her hands. “When you saw what I’d done.”

I held up my hands as I approached, showing that I meant her no harm. “I don’t think you did that yourself, Mona. Let’s be honest. Something took over you.”

“Then you believe me,” she said, her eyes filling with tears again. “I haven’t done anything to hurt anyone. I didn’t even hurt you, tonight.” She held out her hands, uncurling her fingers, trembling. “Look at me and tell me I’m a murderer.”

“You aren’t,” I said, as firmly as I could. “I believe you.”

She blinked slowly, her huge eyes wet, one hand looped around the wrist of the other in a tightening, uncertain circle.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“A friend,” I said. “Someone who believes you’re innocent.”

She scoffed. “Tell that to the Lorica. Tell that to the bastard who comes here every night to try and break me.”

I frowned. Everything I’d known of the Lorica pointed towards justice, towards doing the right thing. Would they truly stoop to torture?

“Did they – did they hurt you, Mona?”