Book 2 | Chapter 9 | What's Coming Again pt 2

The guards affixed the door to Lillia’s cage with a solid padlock. That in itself wouldn’t be too much of an issue. There were a hundred tools in her tool belt, and there was enough rust on the lock to assure Lillia that her pocket armory was enough to escape her cell.
No, the issue was, even as the two men went upstairs, what was she supposed to do if she escaped? That would put her right back into the same situation she was in before, surrounded by a bunch of swords.
At least if she made too much noise.
Theoretically, there was nothing stopping Lillia from quietly breaking out of her cell and trying to set up her Authority abilities in the belly of the ship. That said, she figured the Admiral would have an order or two to cast in defiance of her commands.
There was a lot to consider, and it was getting dramatically harder as Caelum continued sniffling to himself, tucked in the corner of his cage.
Eventually, as Lillia was staring at her inventory and trying to figure out if anything could be used as a lock pick—she did not know how to pick locks, but perhaps she was a savant!—Caelum spoke up.
“Look what you’ve gone and done,” Caelum said as he pulled his knees closer to his chest. Even if sitting was better than standing when it came to feeling sorry for yourself, it couldn’t be worth sitting in water as you did it.
Especially dirty water.
Lillia struggled to avoid picturing the blistered feet that followed your boots getting wet.
“You’ve ruined everything,” he said. Almost like he was adding it on to ensure that Lillia acknowledged the first part.
“I’ve ruined everything?” she asked. “I had a plan. I just needed you to work with me.”
“Now we’re in the brig. I’m in the brig, and I’m not supposed to—”
“Yeah, I’m locked in a cage, and I was already locked in a cage before this,” Lillia said. “I’m not loving it either.” She continued to stare at the text, as if looking at her inventory list would summon a set of keys.
“I can’t believe I just helped you off the side of the ship and you got me—”
“Thank you for helping me,” Lillia said. “Let me repay you by getting us out of here.”
“Getting out?” he said. “We can’t do that! We’ll just get in more trouble. If we go up there, they’re just going to—”
Lillia sighed. “Yeah, that’s the part I need to figure out, okay?”
“Looking to take on all those men upstairs?” The man who’d seemed catatonic when Lillia was shoved in here spoke up. His voice was hoarse and thin, but deep. “If you help me out, I can hold a sword.”
“No, no, no, no, no,” Caelum said, scrambling out of his corner and crawling to the cell wall he shared with Lillia. “Don’t talk to him.”
“Why not?” Lillia asked.
“He’s a—The—He’s a prisoner,” Caelum said. “I don’t know why he’s down here, but he’s down here for a reason.”
“Look at us. We’re all prisoners,” the man said. “If you wanna use a name, Gerand is fine.”
“No. I’m not giving you my name. You’re—”
“Princess Lillia,” Lillia said, cutting off Caelum’s stammering. “Nice to meet you…fellow inmate.”
“A princess?” Gerand asked. For the first time in the conversation, he almost looked up. Thick, brown, matted bangs covered most of his gaze, but beneath them, his eyes were sunken and hollow. “How did a princess get herself locked away?”
“I’m starting to doubt she’s a real princess. She was trying for a mutiny and—”
“Caelum,” Lillia hissed before turning back to the other man on the floor.
She was seriously wondering why everyone else was comfortable hanging in the gross water.
“I got locked away because people wouldn’t listen to me when I told them something bad was coming. Or something was coming,” she said.
“And what kind of princess wears pants?” Gerand asked.
“Look, I would change, but I’m not getting any of my dresses dirty, okay?” Lillia said. “I have lots of great dresses, frills and everything.” She crossed her arms. “I don’t see anyone pointing out the literal tiara on my head. Wheat and Silk.”
As Lillia huffed, Gerand grabbed hold of the bars of their shared cell wall, using them to support his weight. Even with the help, he still struggled to stand. Clearly, he’d been in here a long time.
Which was strange, considering none of this would have existed less than an hour ago.
“You seem mighty confident for a princess who’s been locked away on a ship,” he said. He offered a hand through the bars. His palms were calloused and cracked. Somehow, his fingernails were dirty despite his having been sitting in two inches of water for the past few days.
Lillia acknowledged the hand but didn’t take it, instead moving her crossed arms behind her back.
“You said you knew something bad was going to happen,” he said.
“I need to seize the ship or survive what’s coming,” Lillia said. “That’s what it says.”
Gerand paused and pulled his hand back as soon as she said that. “You’re—You’re in the Dungeon itself?”
Lillia lit up, hopping back and forth between her feet before stopping when the water splashed up a little too high. “Yes! Thank you!”
“What are you so excited about? We’re all in the brig,” Caelum said.
“Different dungeon,” Gerand said. “I—” He pushed off the bars, finding the strength to stand on his own. “I don’t know if—” He seemed to be searching for something in his memory, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was.
If he was one of the captured souls, at least he had a kinder existence than Havoc or Cathria. Once someone found their way into this room, it was doubtful the first thing they would try to do was kill the prisoner.
“If you’re part of the Dungeon like that—”
“This is so confusing,” Caelum said.
“Then you should know what’s coming,” Lillia continued without acknowledging what he said.
Gerand considered the thought for a moment and then slowly shook his head.
“What?”
“I don’t know about anything outside this…I don’t know how long I’ve been here.”
Lillia wanted to argue that point. She wanted to explain that he should have reset every time in the room, but what good was that going to do? Maybe he had simply died so many times that he didn’t know who he was anymore.
Maybe each time the Dungeon reset, the only memory there was to take was the memory of what had just happened.
That was bleak, but it would explain it.
“Okay,” Lillia said. “Even if you don’t know how this room works—if I break you out, will you help me figure out what’s going on?”
Gerand didn’t respond right away. He turned, looking over his shoulder. When Lillia tracked his gaze, she realized he was looking at a sack of raw potatoes. They did not look clean.
After that moment of spud-based consideration, he offered his hand again. Lillia still didn’t take it, but that was an agreement.
“Okay, first things first.” Lillia held out a hand to Gerand—pointedly too far for him to shake with his grimy fingertips—and spoke:
“By my authority as Lillia of House Ashvalin, rise as the princess’s champion, Gerand.”
“Admiral! Admiral, the prisoners are colluding.”
“You’re one of the prisoners!” Lillia said. “Do you want to collude and get out of here or not?”
Caelum pushed himself against the door to his ‘cell,’ rattling the lock as hard as he could.
On the other side of Lillia, Gerand was standing up straighter as he looked at his arms with fascination. The rose-gold glow of Lillia’s Blessing enthralled him, reflecting off the deep brown of his eyes as the darkness around them seemed to fade.
“If we break out of here, we’re just going to get into more trouble,” Caelum said. He was still backed against the far wall, as if being on the other side of the cell made it better.
“We’re already in the brig. What else are they going to do?” Gerand asked. The light on his skin was already beginning to fade, but the energy he’d gotten from it lingered afterward. “Better to break out and try our luck than wait for whatever the lady’s talking about.”
“We don’t know what could be worse than that—You don’t know the Admiral. You don’t know the kind of man he is and—”
“Princess said it’s bad,” Gerand said, “and I’ve never known a princess to lie.”
“Thank you, Gerand.”
“Unless she’s lying about being a princess. You know, with the pants and all.”
“Do you want help getting out of here or not?” Lillia asked. As she spoke, she called Hooke to her hand. The sharp pick on the back side should fit between the bars and through the ring of the lock. She couldn’t pick a lock, but maybe she could find a way to force one.
Caelum’s eyes went wide, but to his credit, he resisted shouting that Lillia had a sword and the guards needed to come quick.
Gerand, on the other hand, pressed up against the bars after Lillia summoned her weapon. She expected him to comment on her pulling a weapon from nowhere or ask for a weapon himself.
“Are you a Princess of the Hobgoblins?” he asked.
That wasn’t what she saw coming.
Lillia slipped Hooke into the slot, twisting it so the sharp spike stuck fast within the loop of the shackle. She tested the stability of her new leverage. Even with just a small push, she felt the lock groan and almost give.
“What makes you think that?”
“Never thought I’d see a princess with a Makreaver.”
Lillia pushed on Hooke’s handle, almost putting all of her weight onto the blade. The lock groaned, and she heard something inside creak. She was close, even if it hadn’t come loose quite yet.
Maybe Escallier, one of her many tutors, had a point when he spent a set of months teaching Lillia about the workings of siege weapons. It certainly hadn’t been this point, but it might have been some other one.
Escallier. That was another name to bring back to Rickshaw. Now that skeleton could eat his words. She could remember everyone from back home; she would simply need to run into a relevant challenge within the Dungeon to have their name come to mind.
“You use that thing a lot?”
Lillia checked the bars of the cell, trying to find if there was a way for her to use them as extra leverage. She wanted to kick the sword handle—or stand on it—but she couldn’t climb up them herself.
“How did you get one?”
“I am trying to focus, thank you,” Lillia said. Hooke was still wedged in the shackle of the lock, standing out and proud, but Lillia didn’t have the upper-body strength to break it.
“Give it to me. I can try,” Gerand said.
Lillia turned at that. He was tired, gaunt, but his wide shoulders showed that he would be stronger than her, even in that state.
She could only recall Hooke if it was in her hand and—
“Trust him to let you out. He’s just gonna take your sword and run!” Caelum said.
Lillia avoided instinctively nodding along. She’d been getting there.
“I’d never disarm a lady,” Gerand said. “Let alone a princess. She couldn’t have that weapon unless she won it in battle or it was gifted to her.”
“So? He’s just going to steal it and—”
“Look. If she won it in battle, I don’t want to cross her like that, and if she was gifted it by one of them…” Gerand gave Lillia the once-over. His spine straightened. “Then I don’t want to cross her like that.”
Lillia asked the next question. “Why not?”
“Takes a lot to earn a hobgoblin’s trust. Especially looking like you,” he said. “Wouldn’t wanna take you for granted.”
Lillia met his eyes. For the second time since he’d woken, they seemed less hollow than they had been. Some of the resignation had been replaced with drive.
She dislodged Hooke from her padlock. It felt heavy in her hand, almost like it didn’t want to go.
Still, she turned it around, holding the blade for a brief moment before offering the handle to Gerand through the shared wall of their prison.
“This blade is called Hooke,” she said.
“I will take care of it,” Gerand said. “At least as much as I can while using it to break open a lock.”
Lillia chuckled. “You’d better. It was given to me by a Hobgoblin named Havoc. He’ll…”
Lillia knew where the sentence had been going, but she hadn’t been ready for the recognition that flashed across Gerand’s eyes when she said Havoc’s name.