The Silver Ring (PJO)

Chapter 33

When I was close enough, with one fluid motion, I wrapped my arm around his throat, and squeezed. He tried shouting in surprise, but the only thing hat came out of his mouth was a weak gurgle. Then, he started struggling, trying to bean me on the head while also trying to wrest out of my grip. 

The only thing I had to do to make him shut up was knee him in the groin. He gave a pained groan, then fell unconscious. 

I dragged him to the bed, then arranged his body underneath it as though his lungs had just suddenly failed. I looked at his prone body and said, "Sorry about this." 

Then I started choking him again until his heart stopped. I immediately mist traveled out of there, to my comrades. I didn't feel bad about killing a dictator, since it would definitely save countless of more lives.

When I appeared next to Renda, she asked, "Did you do it?"

"I don't think the guards are going to be happy in the morning," I said. Then, on her signal, I mist traveled all of us back to our dorm. 

Renda patted me on my back. "Your power is going to help us so much, buddy."

"So, what?" I said. "Are we number nine now?"

"Unofficially, yes. Officially we'll be announced tomorrow morning," Renda replied. "I gotta tell Benson. You guys get some rest."

That's when we all realized we weren't the only people in our dorm. In fact, there was a beautiful woman a few years older than me leaning on the closed doorway, who had masked her aura. 

"So I guess I got woken up for no reason," Eon said dryly.

Everybody immediately paled. "W-we're very sorry for this inconvenience, General Eon," Renda stuttered out. 

Eon in response merely let out her aura, which almost made me stumble back in shock. It was as powerful as two primordials combined. "Let's all go to Lady Void, shall we?" She phrased it as a question, but everybody knew it was an order. 

But before anybody moved, I spoke up. I didn't know what talking to Void entailed, but it was probably nothing good. "Anything that just happened was directed by me. It's my fault."

Eon paused in the midst of stepping through the doorway. After an agonizingly long pause, she motioned for me to follow her. Everybody else let out a silent breath of relief, but then looked at me in worry.

Justin mouthed, It was nice knowing you.

I hurried out of the door, hanging a few feet back from Eon. We walked in unnerving silence down flights of stairs, doorways and rooms. 

Having gathered my courage, I was about to ask where we were going, but the words died in my throat when we went down one more flight of stairs. The walls suddenly turned to dark, forbidding, and uninviting stone as though we had entered a new dimension. Instead of fluorescent bulbs, there were torches on either sides of the walls, that seemed to be burning eternally with no fuel.

At the end of the hallway, there was a door made out of metal. It had an aura, indicating it was enchanted, making me deduce that it wasn't made of mortal steel. The two guards on either side bowed upon seeing Eon and opened the door. She walked in, and I gulped before joining her.

Before the door slammed shut behind us, I observed that the metal was at least seven inches thick, probably to keep whatever was inside from getting out. I only had a second to observe the area—which I quickly deduced was a dungeon—before my back was violently slammed against the bars of a cell by Eon. 

Her eyes were ablaze with anger. "Listen here," she hissed. "I want to know the real reason for why you're here."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said, barely covering my desperation from leaking into my voice.