Ocean County Jail
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The door to the cell opened and Sergeant Rorrok stepped in. He was a tall man with thick, dark hair and a beard streaked with gray. His eyes were sharp, his jaw square and strong. “You’re up early,” he said, looking at the prisoner sitting on her cot, head bent over a book.
“I always sleep until the sun’s up,” Kari replied as she looked up from the pages of the spellbook. She didn’t have to look far down the page before it became clear that the information was not going to be easily understood by the sergeant—the text was written in Elvish.
But then again, most elves had some knowledge of Elvish as well. The language was one of the oldest known languages, and even many dwarves had some grasp of its structure.
But Sergeant Rorrok was human—he spoke only the common tongue, which meant she would have to explain things more than she’d wanted. But it was too late for regret now; he was already staring at her expectantly.
Kari glanced back to the door and saw no other guards around. “Is something wrong?” she asked, trying to keep the nervousness out of her voice. This man had tortured Kari once before and had put her in this cell, where she could do little more than read while the days dragged slowly by. Now it seemed that he expected some response from her.
Rorrok nodded curtly. “There are no others here at the moment, so I’ll come right to the point: you will go to the front gate.” He paused. “With me.”
“Yes sir,” Kari said, looking up with a smile but still holding it off her features. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what his plan was. They’d been keeping an eye on her and knew about her affinity for water magic—a lot of people knew of it since she’d used the same magic to rescue a dragon hatchling last year, after all.
But if the sergeant wanted to talk now, there was no reason for Kari to refuse. And he hadn’t said anything yet about what they planned to do with her, either. If they wanted to kill her, he was going to have to work very hard to make sure they couldn’t find another mage-priest in Ocean County who might stop them first.
So instead of refusing or arguing with him, she simply waited patiently. When he turned away to speak to someone else outside the cell, Kari closed her spellbook and stood up from the cot. After she’d stretched her body a bit, she walked to the cell’s window and looked at the guard outside.
He returned her gaze as they both stared at each other through the small opening without saying a word. Kari smiled when the door opened behind her and the sergeant led her by the arm down the hallway and along the long corridor that led toward the front gate. “Where are we going?” Kari asked quietly, glancing at the sergeant.
“Back into the city,” he replied. “There are things I need your help with.”
They arrived at the main hall near the gates and Sergeant Rorrok motioned Kari to sit on a stool across from him. There were two men waiting for them, one with a pair of short swords strapped on and dressed in armor made out of metal plates.
That armor wasn’t new to Kari. The Iron Wolves were based nearby in Ocean County, and their captain often brought a contingent to raid the lands of the orcs, goblins, and lizardmen.
The second man wore plain robes and his hood was pulled tightly against the wind blowing in through the open windows. It was obvious he wasn’t a soldier because his hair and beard were unkempt, and he didn’t carry weapons beyond a single dagger.
Yet there was still a sense of power in him that Kari felt. She recognized him as a priest; she’d seen one of his kind before when the cult of Tiamat had attacked and nearly wiped out her family. But she didn’t remember ever seeing the face of such a powerful priest.
He was tall for a man, almost reaching six feet—he was certainly taller than Sergeant Rorrok himself. His dark hair fell just past his shoulders and was streaked with gray, but there was not much gray to it—the rest of his hair was pure black, and his eyes were deep set above narrow cheeks.
When Kari saw the priest’s gaze upon her, she realized that he knew who she was and why she was there. He looked at her like some might have looked at a prize horse. Kari tried not to feel self-conscious as the man’s stare lingered upon her, wondering what he thought of her.
The fact that he had a strong enough presence that he could draw attention away from Sergeant Rorrok suggested that the priest was important to these people. Perhaps even more important than Rorrok himself.
“You are welcome to sit here, if you prefer,” Rorrok offered politely. The sergeant had sat down on the opposite side of a wooden table, and he patted the chair beside him. It seemed that everyone wanted to be polite with her, which made it all the harder for Kari to tell if she should trust any of them.
Even though Sergeant Rorrok had saved her from certain death when she’d been captured last time, she wondered if the others were merely trying to use her for some ulterior purpose.
As the priest watched her, Kari took the opportunity to study him more closely. He was young—younger than her, anyway—and she guessed he could easily pass for a human with those pale skin tones. His eyes weren’t blue, but instead, a bright green, and the faintest hint of a tattoo peeking out from beneath his robe’s hem.
It was only one little rune, a stylized triangle that had no particular meaning she could discern. Kari noticed another tattoo—a snake coiling around his throat like a collar—but he didn’t seem aware of it. He spoke with a thick accent that sounded vaguely southern or northern, although Kari suspected it was simply that this man came from one of the northern kingdoms.
And while he had a slight air of arrogance about him, he didn’t appear particularly threatening.
She decided to test him, so she folded her hands together on the tabletop in front of her and looked directly at him, meeting his gaze without blinking or moving away. “So, Priest,” she began, “you know that I’m a priestess and that I can cast spells.”
His expression did not change. “And I am well aware of the fact that you are the most gifted of your order. We have studied your talents and abilities for years. You have done great deeds since you first left the Order.”
“Really? What has my family done for these people?” Kari asked, keeping her tone calm and level. Her mother had been one of the few clerics in her family, and she’d always known that there was something special in her that separated her from everyone else.
She’d always assumed it was a gift from God, a calling to serve Him by serving others. Maybe these priests had never considered anything other than that, and perhaps that was why they’d chosen to worship Tiamat in the first place. Or perhaps it was because her family had been a part of the Order for generations before it had gone to ruin.
But the priest’s eyes widened slightly as Kari spoke.
“What do you mean?” Rorrok asked, standing up suddenly from his seat on the far side of the table.
Kari glanced at Sergeant Rorrok and shrugged a little bit, then pointed at the priest. “He just implied I was somehow responsible for the downfall of the Order,” she explained.
“That is ridiculous!” Rorrok barked angrily. “How could you—”
Sergeant Rorrok stopped abruptly and his anger drained away, replaced with confusion.
Kari turned to look at the priest again. She saw something like regret in his eyes for having spoken too freely. “Priest,” she said calmly, “do you think that I’m here for any personal gain? Do you think I’ve come here to steal from these people, or take advantage of their hospitality to further my own ambitions?”
The man swallowed nervously and nodded slightly.
“Then explain to me what happened to the Order,” Kari pressed. “My uncle, my father, and the rest of the Order died because of this Tiamat worship. If I’m truly guilty of any crime, it seems it would be the same thing these people have suffered, right?”
She knew that was stretching it a little bit, but Kari also wanted to see if this priest truly believed that she was the cause of whatever had happened to her family and friends. She wasn’t about to start blaming herself for something she hadn’t even personally done yet, but she also couldn’t ignore the possibility that it was a possibility.
She might not understand everything that had gone wrong with the Order, but she did suspect it was something her family had done and now she had to figure out how to fix it.
Rorrok was still staring at Kari, and he appeared ready to jump into an argument with her over the matter, but finally, he sighed and nodded a couple times.
“Very well.” The priest stood up and walked toward Kari.
As he approached, he lowered himself onto his knees before her. He reached forward slowly and placed both hands upon her arms, looking up at her with pleading eyes.
Kari was unsure what he intended to do next, and she kept her guard up against any attack he might attempt. When his hands met flesh and skin, though, Kari realized he was trying to hold her hands together on the tabletop, and when she tried to pull hers free, she found the man had a surprising amount of strength.
He continued holding them there until he leaned forward and gently kissed her knuckles. Kari blinked in surprise, wondering where the man had learned such a gesture.
The End