Shades of Grey

TOURNESOL— FEBUARY 1844

The mob of people cackled and laughed as they pulled us forward — their hideous tinted faces dancing around us, rejoicing in gales of malicious laughter.

“Please! All we want is to see Verrilius!” Liam begged.

“Oh you’ll see him,” Navix replied. “But first we must ensure that you are not a threat to Verrilius or to the fine citizens of Tournesol.”

Ryder gave an enraged cry before spitting onto Navix’s face.

“You’re damn right we’re a threat, you fat monster! If you’ve hurt the Maisling in any way we will—”

Ryder didn’t get a chance to finish his threat. Navix had brought the butt of his weapon across Ryder’s face, silencing him and sending the crowd into gales of horrible laughter.

“That’s not the proper way to get what you want,” Navix replied, calmly wiping the saliva from his face.

“Please!” I begged, trying to keep my voice even. “Just let us see Verrilius. All I want is to have my Maisling back, and then we will leave.”

Navix gave me a knowing half smile and focused his attention on me.

“So you are the Hunter he seeks?”

I frowned, casting a confused glance at Liam and Ryder. They both shrugged at me.

“If he wants me, he can have me. Just release her,” I reasoned.

Navix just laughed.

“Oh he’ll have you, but not before we do. Into the Pit!” he ordered to the crowd.

The rest of the crowd cheered in dark excitement. I hung my head in regret. All I had done was put them in danger. All I ever seemed to do was put people in danger…

“I’m sorry,” I replied under my breath. “I should’ve come alone.”

“Shut up, Grey,” Liam retorted. “If we weren’t here, there’s a good chance they would have beaten you to death. So just stay quiet and brace yourself. Things are about to get very difficult..”

The command was as much for himself and Ryder as for me and I allowed myself a minute smile. Despite my guilt at having allowed them to come along, I was glad they were here with me. Selfish as it may have been, it was nice not to suffer alone.

Navix then pushed us forward through a door that sat between two strangely intertwined trees. I fell through the door and down a staircase to a cold, stone room with only one window looking out to street level as Liam and Ryder fell through two other doors.

Navix followed me into mine and I shuddered at the growing number of cackling, fat hosts of Midian outside, eager for a glimpse of the Hunters stupid enough to sneak into a city where Hunting had been forbidden.

“Enjoying your stay so far?”

I turned as Navix strode confidently toward me while the crowd watched through the barred windows along the street outside.

“Remove that disgusting uniform!” commanded someone. “It makes me sick! Burn it to pieces!”

He gave me a lascivious grin and reached for the latches of my uniform, but I was quicker. In less than a second, I held my lit Flamesword inches from his fat neck, stopping him in his tracks.

“Just try,” I sneered.

I then heard pained cries from Liam’s and Ryder’s separate cells. I instinctively looked towards the door, unfortunately allotting Navix an opportunity to bring his foot into my stomach with power I did not expect. My Flamesword flew from my hand along with the breath from my lungs. He leaned forward, pushing me into the wall and compressing my stomach, glaring at me with unparalleled hatred.

“You have no power here,” he growled maliciously. Another scream came from Ryder’s cell.

“What are you doing to them?!” I shouted. “Please stop!”

I tried to protest, but he just leaned in further, impairing my ability to breathe.

“No,” he growled simply.

He then removed his foot, but I could only collapse to the floor in a weakened heap, leaving me no choice but to let him denudate me. He took all that I had until I cowered naked against the stone walls in horrified embarrassment.

“She’s so revoltingly thin,” sneered a man who crouched at the window. He spat at me with oddly skilled aim and laughed along with the crowd. “As though she has yet to see a decent meal!”

“Cover her up, she’s disgusting,” someone else sneered.

Navix obliged and threw a thin, diaphanous black cloak at my feet. I hurriedly threw it around myself as the crowd outside began to disperse, already disinterested my broken presence.

“Grey?” I heard Liam choke through the wall several minutes after the townspeople had returned to their daily business.

“Liam? Are you alright?” I asked, crawling towards the wall.

“I’m fine. I’m fairly certain I have three broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder, but other than that I’m doing wonderfully. How about you?”

I looked down at my naked, beaten form.

“He took all my weapons.” I clutched my stomach, still sore from Navix’s fat foot. “And I think he left a permanent dent in my stomach. Ryder? How are you?”

The only answer we received for a moment was a long, pained moan.

“I’ll be fine,” he said through the moan.

I held my head in my hands, mortified that I had agreed to let them accompany me into the city.

The next morning, Navix smoothly entered my cell at the crack of dawn, bursting through the door with a loud crash that shocked me out of the feeble sleep I had gotten the night before.

“How are you feeling today?” he asked cheerfully, as though he were a relative coming to call for a social visit.

I gave him an unintelligible moan of pained hunger in response, having not eaten since leaving the Underground. I slowly adjusted my position and moved my tangled hair out of my thin face.

“Excellent,” Navix said. “Now, down to business.”

He cleared his throat, as though he were an actor about to recite a Shakespearean soliloquy, but he then stormed angrily towards me and gripped my neck with strength I had not expected from his large frame.

“Who do you work for?” he sneered.

“No one,” I choked.

The man laughed hideously as he released his iron grip on my neck and dropped me to the floor. He walked across the cell, looking through several papers in his hands. Once I had recovered my breath, I dared to speak again.

“I only seek a meeting with Verrilius. That is all! I mean you no harm!” I cried, my voice shaking both from the cold air and the pressure of Navix’s hands.

He then rejoiced in uproarious laughter.

“Hunters always intend harm!” he cried through his laughter. “That is the very basis of the entire ‘profession’ as you would call it.”

“Why do you all hate Hunters so much?” I asked. “We only seek to protect you.”

He turned his head to me sharply and kicked his foot roughly into my side. I coughed, taken aback by the sudden blow.

“We hate them because they are murderers! A mad Hunter murdered three of Tournesol’s most beautiful young women! Hunters cannot be trusted. Verrilius himself was attacked by a mad Hunter leaving him scarred and disfigured.”

“That was one Hunter!” I shouted. “You cannot judge an entire populace on the actions of a single individual!”

Navix brought his foot across my jaw in a strong, swift movement. I spit out a long stream of blood and two of my teeth. He laughed in amusement.

“Oh you childish girl, the entire profession of Creature Hunting is based on doing just that: eliminating entire races based on the actions of one. That’s why the Hybrids were so eager to help in our attack on your school.”

I fell backward in shock, recalling the centaur’s reference to ‘the magus’.

“V…Verrilius planned the attack on the school?!” I barely managed to whisper.

“Of course. Avian-Centaurs are too dumb to implement anything as complex as that sort of assault on their own.”

Navix laughed and I covered my gaping mouth, hoping that Liam was hearing all of this.

“They lied to me…” I whispered under my breath.

Navix suddenly turned towards me, invidious intent in his eyes.

“Who lied to you?” he asked directly. My eyes widened, catching my blunder.

“No one,” I said confidently.

Navix stormed over to me, grabbed me by the hair and threw me across the room into the wall.

“You know where the Underground is, don’t you? Where is it?! Are there many Hunters there? Oh, Verrilius and the King will see fit to reward me so very highly if I can unearth the location of the Underground! Ha!”

“Please…!” I barely managed to gasp as he kicked me in the side in between questions. “I know nothing!”

Navix then propelled me into the corner of the room where the loose brick was located and strode after me, gripping my neck with his thick hand and pulling me toward him. He leaned over me and whispered directly into my ear, playing with my hair in a disgustingly volatile way.

“Your pleas for mercy hold no ground here. We have seen the light, what the Creature Hunter really is and it isn’t the St. George that legend has made them out to be.”

Suddenly (and mercifully) there was a knock on the door. A large woman with a round face and a triangular shaped frame entered the room, forced to waddle under the tight constraints of her dress.

“Navix, Magus Verrilius has been made aware of her presence and he requests that the three of them be brought up to his castle.”

My heart leapt at this stroke of luck.

“Very well,” Navix sighed in disappointment, he had yet to finish his ‘inquisition.’ “Sharia, you can take her. I’ll take the other two.”

Sharia walked forward, shifting on her feet in a stiff dress that nearly bound her thick legs completely together. She hooked a copper shackle around my neck attached to a chain she held menacingly in her fat hand.

Navix sighed, looking me up and down.

“So repulsively thin…” he critiqued. “What a waste.”