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Chapter 114

Figures, I hit the floor on my sprained ankle.
It snaps on impact, and it's all I can do not to scream.
I jam my fist in my mouth and bite down, my incisors piercing the skin on my knuckles, but I clench my teeth harder until the searing pain subsides and I can breath.
"Crap." I sum up my condition in one quiet word, and, blinking back tears, I take deep breaths and orient myself.
Okay, take it in steps, Ash. I'm in a hall. The walls are as black and glassy and flawless at the exterior, with a thick scarlet carpet stretching down the hall. Pillars are placed strategically ever five feet or so on either side of the hall, and in between some of these pillars are doorways leading to further rooms.
One of the swords fell next to me, and I pick that up.
I drag myself up on one of the pillars, gritting my teeth against the biting pain, and I'm about to limp through the closest doorway, when I hear the growling and gasping.
I freeze, listening. Wolf like snarls, mixed with human panting come from somewhere down the hall to the right. My wolf-boy is down there somewhere, and, abandoning caution, I hop noisily on one foot down the hall, losing my balance sometimes and crashing into pillars, but I keep going until I reach the last door, which I lung at.
The door slams into the inside wall, and my heart stops.
Somebody is kneeling on the ground in the center of the bare black room, bare except for the pillar at the far end, on which rests a glass case with an age-yellowed scroll on display inside. The actual Order, written over a hundred years ago by the creators of the City and the original survivors.
I almost leap forward to tear it to shreds, on impulse, but, as irrational as it is, in my heart the somebody on the floor might be a little more important than the scroll.
Coal's muscular back is bare, the bandages removed, exposing the still-bloody slashes from a metal whip. The corded arms are suspended on either side by heavy chains, fastened taught high on either wall. The furry black wolf tail droops, his fists are clenched, his head is bowed with the mop of black hair falling over his face, his ears laid back flat to his skull.
"I hear you." He growls, in a low voice I've never heard before. A voice full of hopelessness and rage, a fury simmering in the shadows, just waiting to be unchained. A voice that freezes my heart in irrational fear. "Come on, get it over with. Do what you like to me - I won't talk!"
"Coal," I whisper, rushing (limping, more like it) to his side, ducking beneath the chains and cupping his face in my hands. "What have they done to you!?"
I cry in despair. The claw marks on his chest are still evident, the scar on his face stands out icy and pale against the skin. On either forearm, carved into the flesh by a knife, are the bloody, glistening words "ROYAL". As if he would forget it.
Quickly, I raise his sword and slice one chain then the other. Coal's arms drop to the ground in their heavy cuffs, and he collapses, gasping and rolling his shoulders.
After a few minutes he seems to come to, and unsteadily he gets to his feet.
"Ash!" His blue eyes find mine and his head rises as he runs a shaking hand through my hair. His eyebrows disappear into dishelved hair, then lower. "You shouldn't be here."
"Wh-Why?" I frown at him, wondering why he isn't shouting in joy.
"You need to go." He shakes his head, and now his eyes take on a panicked look. "Now. Forget about me. They can't hurt me." He attempts a grin, which somehow makes him look handsome, regardless of the bruises riddling his face.
"Go. Now! Before-" He's cut off in mid sentence by a new voice.
"Too late for that, I'm afraid."