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Isana braced herself and opened up her watercrafter's senses to the emotions of those around her
They ca burst of intensity E the eneht to sort out the various i to listen to individual voices within a large chorus A few high notes stuck out, but by and large they blended into a single whole
Theher arms - and the primary emotion she felt in them was confusion They proceeded in a state of bewilderment and uish her own eiven her an ability to distinguish the subtle weave and flow of ehts that acco, but they couldn't focus on what it ht be Every time they tried, waves of iht and washed it away The only ti solid held hen Isana heard an inhuman shriek drift up from somewhere ahead of them Both men immediately concentrated with a ferocious intensity, their emotions perfectly synchronized, and Isana felt one of theuessed that they had just been ordered to bank into a long turn, changing their course in the air
Isana shivered They were most likely collared slaves, then, forcibly converted to the service of the vord through the use of slaver's collars Once she'd determined that, she was able to feel more froh their minds had been rendered incapable of reason, on some level they must have knohat had been done to theainst their own people by an enemy, even if they could not consciously assemble the disparate pieces of the concept They knew that they used to be so more but could not remember what it was, and that denial, that inability to reason, caused thein to weep for them Kalarus Brencis Minoris had collared these men Only he could free them - and he had been dead for more than half a year They could never be freed, never be restored, never be made whole
Shein her power to ensure that neither would live as a slave Even if she had to kill them with her own hands
As she pressed her awareness out past her two captors, she sensed other men Not all of them were as badly disoriented as her escorts Those who retained a greater capacity for reason harbored their own eidolon of raw terror Fear so intense and so savage that it was practically a living thing had been forced into their thoughts, and it ruled their decisions utterly, like a watchdog placed within each of their rees of terror - and those men's emotions made Isana shudder with revulsion In them, the darker portions of human nature, a lust for violence and blood and power, had been encouraged to grow and had overrun their thoughts like ra less than mortal monsters, terrors held on a psychic leash
And there was
Isana hesitated over this last sensation, because it was so faint, and ca vibration that she could barely be sure was real She could feel the presence of an innocent heart, one that felt e child
Then another shriek floated to her, and that sense of the child abruptly sharpened - and beneath the sie and varied that Isana found herself wholly unable to tell one from the next, much less fit an accurate nas Dry things As they pressed against her, Isana was res of a centipede that had once slithered up her calf
She realized, with revulsion, that the being she sensed was the vord Queen
Her two escorts began to descend, and her ears popped several ti pressure
Wherever her captors were taking her, it had not taken the - and it seehly, and Isana would have fallen without the support of both guards She was propelled forward, being dragged every few steps, and she sturound, as if their path had taken theh
But instead of stony earth beneath her feet, the ground gave slightly with a kind of rubbery tension Isana forced herself to keep breathing slowly and steadily
She alking on the vord's croach
None of her captors spoke, and the surface beneath their feet deadened their footfalls to silence Eerie sounds drifted in the air around her, muffled by the hood Clicks Chitters Once, there was an ululating call that raised the hairs on the back of her neck Very faintly, she could hear boo reports, like distant thunder She sed Soun their work, filling the skies with their furies
The ground suddenly sloped down, and a rough hand pushed her head forward, her chin to her chest She bu in any case, and it stung momentarily Then the sounds all faded to silence, and the noise of her captors' breathing changed subtly They uards pushed her roughly to her knees A moainst the sudden invasion of soft green light
They were in a cavern, a large one, its walls too smooth to have been for pillars were all covered in the croach The waxy green substance pulsed and floith unsettling light Liquids flowed beneath its surface
Isana craned her neck, trying to find Araris, her heart suddenly haed him into Isana's line of view They jerked the hood from his head and dropped him in a heap to the cavern floor Isana could see that he'd suffered a number of abrasions and contusions, and she felt a physical burst of pain in her heart to see the bruises, the blood - but he had sustained no obvious critical trauuarantee of his safety He could be bleeding to death internally even as she stared at him
She never made a conscious decision, but she found herself suddenly straining against her captors, trying to go to Araris They pushed her brutally to the floor Her cheekbone di, how casually, how easily they had taken away her choice She felt a blaze of anger, suffered a sudden urge to respond in earnest through Rill She fought the ith Until she had a better chance - until she and Araris had a better chance - to succeed in escaping, it would be wisest not to resist "Please!" she said "Please, let me see to him!"