Before us, the city prison rose proudly atop a set of tall stone stairs. It was a simple building, a cube made entirely out of reddish bricks, like most of the city. But the windows were small and fitted with bars, while the glass was smoked. Whoever was sentenced to this place was looking at a dark and gloomy life.
“There really is no reason for you people to put Inalia in this place, too,” Taeral blurted. “If you want to punish us, as the outsiders, by all means, go ahead. We’re innocent, anyway. But Inalia had nothing to do with this.”
Eira tried to speak, but Trap cut her off. “That’ll be up to the high chancellor to decide, not you.”
“It’s not fair. She was just helping us!” Taeral replied.
“Remember what we talked about,” Raphael muttered, eyeing him carefully. “Let’s not stir up any trouble. Yet.”
We allowed Eira and Trap to escort us up the stairs and into what I could easily classify as a Cerixian police station. Armed Forces soldiers roamed through the place, buzzing up and down the corridors with paperwork or cuffed prisoners. There weren’t many criminals in this building from what I could tell, since most of the cell blocks were empty. I figured that would be a natural occurrence, given how clean and tidy the entire city was. Crooked elements were bound to be scarcer here than on other worlds I’d learned about.
They took us to one of the eastern cell blocks, but Inalia was taken by a couple of soldiers to the western part of the building. That pissed Taeral off, and then some!
“Where are you taking her?” he snarled.
“Relax! She’ll be fine,” Trap replied, cool as a cucumber. He’d been through these motions one too many times. We certainly weren’t his first arrest, and we weren’t going to be his last. “She’s a high-level Cerixian. She doesn’t belong with the plebe.”
“Gee, thanks.” I chuckled.
“Will she be safe there?” Taeral asked.
“She’ll have her own cell and a soldier to keep her safe, hydrated, fed, and comfortable at all times,” Eira replied.
This part of the building was semi-lit and a drab gray. I caught glimpses of prisoners in dark red overalls slumped in their beds, watching us go by from behind bars. I wondered if they’d make us wear such dreadful garb, as well. I’d rather be naked.
Our cell was spacious enough, with padded benches mounted against the walls, wide enough to serve as beds, too. Eira took our cuffs off, then motioned for us to go in. We didn’t object, and Trap pulled the cell door shut and locked it. The key returned to one of the small leather boxes mounted on his uniform belt.
“What now?” I asked, carefully analyzing both Trap and Eira from head to toe. I let my tongue slip out and discreetly tasted the air for their chemicals. People left traces of themselves wherever they went. Sometimes, I could learn more about them from these scents than from their own words.
“You’ll stay here until the high chancellor has the Fire Temple and the templar’s house investigated,” Trap replied.
“How will we know if the investigation is conducted fairly and thoroughly? This is absurd,” Amelia said.
“Listen, we all know you can get out of here, if you want to,” Eira murmured. “Don’t. Just let them do their dance. They’ll let you out, eventually.”
“If you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear,” Trap added, then walked away, joined by a reluctant Eira.
“He knows we can zap ourselves out of here, and he doesn’t seem at all concerned,” Raphael mused, watching Trap and Eira disappear behind a corner. “Surely he also knows we’re innocent, hence why we’re in no rush to get out.”
“What kind of circus is this?” Taeral replied. “Nalyon Martell is one hell of a thorn in our side. I’ll bet you all the gold on Neraka that he’s the one who got us in here. What’s he playing at?”
“That frustrated baboon? It’s probably a petty play for power,” Amelia said. “Trap and Eira clearly haven’t mentioned anything about our abilities, otherwise they’d be trying a lot harder to keep us in here and away from the people.”
“Maybe they’re letting him hang himself with this dumb move. We obviously had nothing to do with what happened,” Taeral muttered. “I’m worried about Inalia. What if her fire gets out of control and Nalyon hears about it? There’s no telling how her emotions could influence her.”
He had a point. Inalia had killed one of the cultists with the purest of fires. What if she panicked? What if claustrophobia set in? “Taeral, you can always teleport yourself over there and check up on her,” I said.
“I don’t know what cell she’s in, exactly,” he replied.
“We should talk to GASP,” Amelia suggested. “There’s a lot of monkey business going on in this place. The high chancellor’s assistant is devious, and I’m also willing to bet he’s corrupt. What if he knows more about the cultists?”
“That’s a possibility,” Varga said. “I saw deceit and fear in his aura.”
“He reeked of it,” Herakles agreed.
I, too, had caught whiffs of it. Nothing about Nalyon Martell inspired anything good, but I was inclined to believe that, even if he was implicated in any way, he was nothing more than an eventually disposable pawn. He didn’t strike me as smart enough to pull off an interstellar cult fueled by some rogue Hermessi.
No, there was more to this. We were missing something, and getting ourselves put in jail wasn’t helping.
Varga
An hour passed as we bounced theories and conclusions off one another. The only clear and undeniable fact in all of this was that all the incidents we’d survived so far were somehow connected. Other than that, we didn’t have much else to go on. Cerix had active Hermessi—that was another thing we knew for sure. Heck, we’d seen it with our own eyes. On top of that, we knew of one Cerixian with powerful fire abilities, strong enough to kill one of the cultists. Oh, and the Cerixian cultists also wielded fire like it was easy-breezy.
“At the risk of repeating myself, we’re in quite a mess,” I eventually said.
Taeral paced the length of our cell, back and forth. Another hour of it and we’d have a groove in the stone floor. Eva was calm, stealing the occasional glance at me. Her aura flickered in a multitude of colors, and she was impossible to read. But I admired her demeanor, and I noticed her emotions flaring whenever I caught her gaze.
Herakles and Raphael had made themselves comfortable on the benches, while Riza leaned against the iron bars. We still had our weapons—which made me think our temporary imprisonment was more of a show of force, or maybe a test of our compliance at best. It was either that or they actually thought our blades wouldn’t do much against their Cerixian rifles. Either way, I was thankful. Even with my abilities, I still felt more comfortable with my knives and sword.
Amelia typed away on her tablet, careful to hide it whenever one of the guards passed by—the last thing we wanted was for her to be left without it. Eira could’ve mentioned something. She could’ve taken the tablet away herself, but she hadn’t. She was trying to help us, and I felt it made up for her having to arrest us, in the first place.
The cell next to ours had six Cerixians in it, all of them scrawny and dirty, most likely picked off the streets. I casually walked over to their side, willing to strike up a conversation and see if they’d tell us anything.
“What are you boys in here for?” I asked, offering a dry smile.
A young male stepped forward, narrowing his red eyes at me. “You’re not from Cerix.”
“That obvious, huh?” I chuckled.
