her foes.
She’d still been searching for it when her horse had bucked, sending her tumbling…
Ceres forced her mind back to the present, because there were some places her memory didn’t want to linger. The present wasn’t much better though, because outside, Ceres could hear the screams of a man who was obviously dying.
Ceres made her way to the window, fighting her way to the very limits of what her chains would allow. Even that was an effort. She felt as though something had scoured her inside, wiping away any of the strength that she might have had. It felt as though she could barely stand then, let alone fight her way clear of the chains that held her.
She managed to get there, wrapping her hands around the bars as if she might pull them out. In truth, though, they were almost the only thing holding her up right then. When she looked down at the courtyard that lay beyond her new cell, she needed that support.
Ceres saw Lord West’s men there, standing in line after line of soldiers. Each still wore the remains of his armor, although in many cases pieces of it had been broken or torn from them, and none had their weapons. They had their hands bound, and many were kneeling. There was something sad about that sight. It spoke of their defeat more clearly than almost anything else could have.
Ceres recognized others there, rebels, and the sight of those faces brought an even more visceral reaction. Lord West’s men had come with her willingly. They’d risked their lives for her, and Ceres felt responsibility for that, but the men and women below were ones she knew.
She saw Anka. Anka was tied at the heart of it all, her arms strapped behind her to a post, high enough that she couldn’t possibly sit or kneel to rest. A rope at throat level threatened to start choking her every time she dared to relax. Ceres could see the blood on her face, left there casually, as if she didn’t matter at all.
The sight of it all was enough to make Ceres feel sick. They were friends, people whom Ceres had known for years in some cases. Some of them were wounded. A flash of anger ran through Ceres at that, because no one was trying to help them. Instead, they knelt or stood, the same way the soldiers did.
Then there was the sight of the things they were waiting by. Ceres didn’t know what many of them were for, but she could guess, based on the rest. There were impaling poles and blocks for beheading, gallows, and braziers with hot irons. And more. So much more that Ceres could barely begin to comprehend the mind that could decide to do all this.
Then she saw Lucious there amongst them, and she knew. This was down to him, and in a way, down to her. If only she’d been quicker chasing him down when he’d issued his challenge. If only she’d found some way to kill him before this.
Lucious stood over the soldier who was screaming, twisting a sword thrust through him to bring a fresh sound of agony from him. Ceres could see a small crowd of black-hooded torturers and executioners around him, looking on as though taking notes, or possibly just appreciating someone with a twisted flare for their profession. Ceres wished that she could reach out and kill all of them.
Lucious looked up, and Ceres felt the moment when his eyes met hers. It was something akin to the kind of thing bards sang about, with lovers’ eyes meeting across a room, only here, there was only hatred. Right then, Ceres would have killed Lucious in any way she could, and she could see what he had in store for her.
She saw his smile spread slowly across his features, and he gave the sword one final twist, his eyes still on Ceres, before he straightened up, wiping bloodied hands absently on a cloth. He stood there like an actor about to deliver a speech to a waiting audience. To Ceres, he simply looked like a butcher.
“Every man and woman here is a traitor to the Empire,” Lucious declared. “But I think we all know that it is not your fault. You have been misled. Corrupted by others. Corrupted by one in particular.”
Ceres saw him shoot another look in her direction.
“So I am going to offer mercy to the ordinary ones among you. Crawl to me. Beg to be enslaved, and you will be permitted to live. The Empire always needs more drudges.”
No one moved. Ceres didn’t know whether to be proud or to scream at them to take the offer. After all, they had to know what was coming.
“No?” Lucious said, and there was a hint of surprise in his tone. Perhaps, Ceres thought, he genuinely had expected everyone there to willingly give themselves over into enslavement to save their lives. Perhaps he really didn’t understand what the rebellion was about, or that there were some things worse than death. “No one?”
Ceres saw the pretense of calm control slip away from him then like a mask, revealing what lay beneath.
“This is what happens when you fools start listening to scum who want to mislead you!” Lucious said. “You forget your places! You forget that there are consequences for everything you peasants do! Well, I’m going to remind you that there are consequences. You’re going to die, every last one of you, and you’re going to do it in ways that people will whisper about every time they so much as think of betraying their betters. And, to make sure of it, I’m going to bring your families here to watch. I’m going to burn them out of their pitiful hovels, and I’m going to make them pay attention while you scream!”
He would do it, too; Ceres had no doubt of that. She saw him point at one of the soldiers, then at one of the devices that were waiting.
“Start with this one. Start with any of them. I don’t care. Just make sure that they all suffer before they die.” He pointed a finger up toward Ceres’s cell. “And make sure that she’s last. Make her watch every last one of them die. I want her driven mad by it. I want her to understand just how helpless she really is, no matter how much of the blood of the Ancient Ones she boasts about to her men.”
Ceres threw herself back from the bars then, but there must have been men waiting on the other side of the door, because the chains at her wrists and ankles went tight, dragging her back to the wall and spreading her out so that she couldn’t move more than an inch or two in any direction. She certainly couldn’t look away from the window, through which she could see one of the executioners checking the sharpness of an axe.
“No,” she said, trying to fill herself with a confidence she didn’t feel right then. “No, I won’t let this happen. I’ll find a way to stop it.”
She didn’t just reach into herself then, looking for her power. She dove down into the space where she would normally have found the energy waiting for her. Ceres forced herself to go after the state of mind she’d learned from the Forest Folk. She hunted after the power that she’d gained as surely as if she were chasing after some hidden animal.
Yet it remained as elusive as one. Ceres tried everything she could think of. She tried to calm herself. She tried to remember the sensations that had been there before when she had used her power. She tried forcing it to flow through her with an effort of will. In desperation, Ceres even tried pleading with it, coaxing it as though it were truly some separate being, rather than just a fragment of herself.
None of it worked, and Ceres threw herself against the chains holding her. She felt them bite into her wrists and ankles as she threw herself forward, but she couldn’t succeed in gaining so much as an arm’s length of space.
Ceres should have been able to snap the steel easily. She should have been able to break free and save all of those there. She should have, but right then, she couldn’t, and the worst part was that she didn’t even know why. Why had powers she’d already used so much abandoned her so suddenly? Why had it come to this?
Why
