Blind to the world around her, Beanni could only focus on the scorching pain within her chest. It felt as though someone was clawing through her, like they were tearing their way to her heart. Pinned in place all she could do was scream. The screeching ripping from her throat made her deaf to her father's desperate, shaking voice. She felt his presence beside her but her pain was far too overwhelming to take heed of his words. She was trapped in a deep, dark abyss. Trapped in a sea of suffering. Her head pounded and her chest aflame. Tears fell across her cheeks and pooled into her ears as she fought to catch a breath; a breath that was only to be used to fuel more cries of pain.
The sound of Ethan's torment echoed from the dungeon. Oslac could not ignore such a sound filled with relentless suffering, it broke his heart and made his legs pound the sturdy floorboards faster.
"Wait!" he heard Guard Dìl Dìon hiss after him.
Once he got to the entrance to the dungeon, the guard caught up to him and grabbed the prince's arm.
"You can't just barge in there! It's not safe!" he said, pulling Oslac away from the archway, ensuring that he would stay hidden from the torturers standing just down a few steps from them.
"They must be stopped! I cannot allow this to go on!" Oslac demanded, and tried to push the guard aside. Dìl Dìon shoved him back against the wall, the sudden movement knocked the wind out of him.
"Hear me, they are bewitched, possessed, they will not listen to you!"
Ethan's pain-filled cries made Oslac wince.
"I must get down there. I told you to take me to him! I need to help him!" the prince pleaded, trapped in the guard's iron grip.
"I understand, but you cannot stop the guards, you must wait. I'll protect you from them. But there is nothing you can do for the man, not until they leave the dungeon," Dìl Dìon spelled out, staring the prince down. Oslac glared back, a fierce fire roaring deep within his mind, making his lips tremble. A heat then stung his eyes and he bowed his head in defeat. He gave Dìl Dìon a nod and watched him quickly retrieve his light orb. He drew, on Oslac's chest, an eight-pointed star within a neat circle.
"Wait, did you just draw the royal Samhun Tealia?" Oslac questioned as he watched the light magic sink in. He then looked up at the guard for an explanation. How could a guard use the royal Samhun Tealia? It was unheard of. However, Dìl Dìon's eyes drifted past him and it was clear he could no longer see nor hear him.
"Stay by my side, Prince, so I do not lose you."
"Why did you not put protection on yourself?" Oslac asked, but of course Dìl Dìon did not give him an answer, nor did he react to his voice at all, for he was deaf to it.
"Follow me," he whispered and turned towards the dungeon's entrance.
He followed him through, not knowing what the guard had planned. As they neared Ethan's cell the guards inside turned towards them. Their dark eyes piercing through the bars.
"Guard?" one addressed him. Oslac hovered by his shoulder, inches away from his light orb, which he held behind his back.
"The king sent me to relieve you of your duties. He said we shall try and get answers from the prisoner again tomorrow," Dìl Dìon lied to his colleagues with ease.
The two guards, without an ounce of suspicion or doubt set down their bloody tools upon a wooden table and without a word, exited the cell. They walked past Dìl Dìon and headed straight out of the dungeon. Oslac watched their every step, his mouth agape.
Why did they listen to Dìl Dìon so readily? This all seemed far too easy.
"H-help..." Ethan managed to strain out through laboured breaths. He was stripped to the waist with his hands chained to the cold, stone wall behind him. A streak of dried blood stained his face from a gash on his forehead and deep crimson stripes decorated his chest. The gashes oozed with blood that dripped down to his navel.
"Ethan, don't worry, I'm here!" Oslac said without thinking - Ethan, of course, couldn't hear him. The Prince shook his head, irritated at himself, he then reached out and touched Dìl Díon's light orb. As soon as Oslac's skin made contact to the light, the guard looked right at him and smiled.
"There you are," he said, then tapped the cell bars with the orb as soon as Oslac drew his hand away again.
"Ethan…" The sorry sight of the tortured man clawed at Oslac's eyes.
"Guard Dìl Dìon, unchain him," Oslac commanded. The guard hesitated, looking over his shoulder, but Oslac was not going to let him refuse his order. "Unchain him, now!"
Dìl Dìon opened the cell door, Oslac followed him inside and watched him release Ethan from his cruel bondage, then guide him to a seat. The suffering man sat with a hunched back, his arms shook and his breath escaped in uncomfortable bursts.
"Go and get Claudia!" the Prince barked out another order.
"But…" Dìl Dìon began, but was quickly cut off by the determined royal.
"I don't care what it takes Dìl Dìon! Make it happen!" He dismissed him with a wave of his hand and watched him leave the cell. As soon as Dìl Dìon reached the top of the stairs and exited the dungeon, Oslac felt a coldness sweep over him; the magic that protected him left with the guard's light orb.
Once the two of them were alone, Ethan lifted his heavy head to look at Oslac.
"Help her…" he whimpered.
"What? Beanni?" A seething anger rose from Oslac's core. "I knew it, Dìl Dìon tricked me. He lied to me! If the guards have laid one finger on her!"
Ethan shook his head, his response made Oslac's ranting come to a sudden, confused stop.
"No..." Ethan struggled to get his words out. "She g-got away... a-at the f-forest."
"She did? How?"
"Th-the moon…" Ethan's answer failed to satisfy Oslac's confused mind, however he let him carry on. "P-Prince, you must go to her..." he panted with urgency. "As soon as you can." He reached out his hand to grab Oslac's arm, his face twitching with the effort. "She needs you!"
The burning had ceased for a moment, giving Beanni time to breathe. But she couldn't trust this time of quiet for she could not be sure how long it would last. Would she lie there for hours or minutes there was no way to tell. Her breath came in stressed bursts as she lay in the darkness, focusing on the numbing pain that clung to her chest and head. Her wrists and legs also hurt with exhaustion, which she couldn't understand, because she hadn't moved for so long.
"Bay?" she heard her father's softened, baritone whisper. "Beanni, can you hear me?" the man croaked. He sounded so scared.
Beanni let out a small moan, turned her head towards her father's voice and dared to open her eyes. She was lying in her bed, she was safe at home, in her room, with her father watching over her. She had no idea how she got there and indeed what was wrong with her. She thought about Oslac and his broken arm, she also thought about Ethan, and her mind spiralled into despair again. It was as if there was something inside her pulling her into hell.
She began to panic.
"No! No please… Please!" she called out. She couldn't see, she couldn't think, she waited for more burning, for more torture. It didn't come, but that didn't stop her tears from falling. Uncertainty ruled her life. She feared each and every moment.
A warmth surrounded her as she felt her father's embrace and his breath upon her brow.
"What is it, Bay? What's wrong?" he asked and hugged her tighter. "Please tell me. I want to help you."
But, of course, Beanni didn't know. She had no idea how anyone could help her. All she did know is that she failed. She failed to return Ethan to his rightful place, failed to save Dillan, to save Natanstrelle, and now she was being punished for ever believing she could. This dark chasm she found herself in was growing ever wider, ever deeper. Trapped with no way out, floating in a sea where light could never reach her. All she could do was shout into the abyss, without anyone to hear her. No one could understand her, she didn't even understand herself.
Oslac knocked three times then stood back, so many words whirled in his head as he rushed to piece together all that he'd rehearsed to say during his journey to the west side village. He had no other choice but to walk, for his light orb was still in his father's custody. With Dìl Dìon's help he escaped the palace grounds and headed straight for Beanni's house - the only place he could think of to find her.
"Your Highness?" Beanni's Draoicis-Lus mother answered the door. "What are you doing in Iarest?"
"I must see Beanni," the prince answered soberly.
"You can't, not now, she's..." she began but was interrupted by a deep voice from within the house.
"Let him in, Lorren!"
With a slight nod, Lorren stepped aside and gestured for Oslac to enter. He then followed her through the quaint kitchen towards a wooden door, which opened into a claustrophobic corridor. There, standing in the dim lit, windowless space, was Lorrus, eagerly waiting for him. The terrified looking man grabbed Oslac's upper arm and took him straight into Beanni's room. All of his worries tumbled from his mouth in a series of rambling, which Oslac could not make head nor tail of. He could glean only one detail from his ranting.
"Bay is sick?" Oslac asked once they stopped in front of her open doorway.
"I've never seen anything like it, Your Highness," Lorrus' bottom lip quivered, then he looked away as a tear fell down his mahogany cheek. "I don't know what to do - what I can do…"
Without another word, Oslac walked past him and entered Beanni's room. There she lay, peacefully on her bed. Her sheets covered her up to her waist and her long, messy curls flopped over either side of her pillow. Her hands lay still at her sides. Her tan skin glistened with sweat and her face looked peaceful as she slept. Oslac took up a seat beside her and reached forward to stroke her unmoving hand, but just as their skin made contact Beanni's eyes flew open. With a rasping inward gasp, she arched her back and let out a haunting scream.
"Bay? Bay! What is it? What's happening?"
She then turned towards him, a haunting look plaguing her blue eyes. "Help… Me…"
He then saw a cut upon her forehead open up and blood began to trickle down her face.
"Lorrus!" he yelled for Beanni's father. "Lorrus, she's bleeding!"
Lorrus rushed into the room, to his daughter's side. He took her face into his hands and studied the gash on her forehead, confusion taking over his desperate stare. "What is happening?" Fear suppressed his voice so that it came out as a strained whisper. "What is happening to my little girl?"
Without so much as a beat after he spoke, Beanni ripped herself away from her father's grasp and threw herself back onto the bed.
Stunned and helpless, the two of them watched her writhe and squirm as she let out another blood curdling scream. Deep dark red lines began to appear at her chest, seeping through her cotton nightie. In a panic, Lorrus ripped away the cloth revealing three deep gashes carved across her chest. He then shouted towards the open door.
"Lorren! Call for a Slànacus, now!"
The blood rushed in Oslac's ears, as he stumbled back, away from the bed. With wide eyes, he took in the sight. His mind went reeling. The wounds that appeared on Beanni matched the injuries that were inflicted on Ethan perfectly.
"What kind of curse is this?" he questioned under his breath. "How can…"
A sudden thought then came to the prince. He left the room without a word.
"Your highness! Don't leave!" Lorrus called after him.
But he had to, he had to get back to Astrid palace, back to the dungeon. He had to find out what was happening to his best friend. He had to get Ethan.