Note:
Good news, guys! They’re– I mustn’t spoil it. Never mind. Read on. I’ll just give you this: No cliffy, this time, unless you count… never mind. Read on. 
Hahaha!!! Enjoy!
Hearts!
Jules
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CH. 14
I found myself, soon enough, sitting against the wall of a cold, damp, smelly, rock chamber underneath the tower, with Alexine. We were chained to the wall, with huge metal links that seemed impossible to penetrate without the key. The bars of the cell were thick and there was little space between them, thus not even enough room to fit my head through. It was dark and dank, and we had been defeated. Alexine seemed to be crying next to me. I wasn’t sure, but my shoulder was wet, so I guess there were tears. I didn’t do anything to comfort her, since I expected she’d snap at me if I did, so I just kept firm and silent. She wept just as silently. I wanted to do something, but there was nothing I could do. I don’t think I’d ever seen her cry before. I wonder if she’d ever cried before. She probably had, when she was a baby, or when she fell off the chair as a toddler, or something. But not like this.
A few times I heard footsteps pacing the floor, but no one ever passed our door. Or maybe they did, whenever I almost drifted to sleep, but I could not tell. Finally, I saw someone. Alexine had stopped crying by then.
They unlocked our chamber door, and three men came in. They were different than the ones that had originally taken us down, but they were just as scary looking.
“Maa,” they demanded. It meant ‘name.’ They wanted our names.
“Alexine Ebonyine-Clyre girsal,” she said, sounding a bit confident.
“Maa,” he demanded of me.
“Liamo Rileyne tadar.”
A slow smirk settled upon the man’s face. It made me feel uneasy, thinking about all the things he might do to us, but I tried to keep steady. I did not look over at Alexine.
The man attached a new chain to the ones we already had around our wrists, then unlocked them from the wall, so we were being held where we were by him, instead of the rocks.
He led us up to the first level, into another room, where a tall young man stood.
“Gia fodhud yinne,” he said.
That means, “I’ve found you.”
“Ryah,” Alexine growled from next to me.
“Leanna Tenadii mett. Gia an fhere. Gia ang lonkingor. Constodang, nin no leana,” he said.
That meant, “Leave Tenadii now. I am the heir. I am going to be the king. There will be consequences if you do not leave.”
“Wurr lient?” Alexine countered.
It meant, “Like what?”
“Gia ang dekillant tado.”
That meant, “I will kill him.”
He went on, “Ai, no supenroe ang supen yinne.”
That meant, “And then, no superhero to save you.”
“Notimm!” Alexine shouted at him.
That means, “Never!”
“Yinne notimm dekillant tado, yinne notimm dekillant tagir, ai yinne notimm ang lonkingor! Gia ang rost yinne!”
That translated to, “You will never kill him, you will never kill anyone, and you will never be king! I will stop you!”
“Yinne ang?” You will?
“Gia ang!” I will!
Ryah let a quick chuckle escape, then cleared his throat. “Gyin ang sheem hette.”
That meant, “We’ll see about that.”
A silence overtook us. The tense mood was hard for me to follow, as they both seemed to shoot glares at each other that told stories and threw threats.
After a time, Ryah muttered, “Gia ang relitine pisonrett hitte timm.”
I searched my brain. What was pisonrett? Did I ever learn that? Was it…
He pulled a vile from his pocket and grinned with a hint of evil in his eyes. The liquid inside was purple and bubbled up towards the cork plugging the vile. My eyes widened, as did Alexine’s. He was going to poison her for real. That’s what it meant. It meant, “I will really poison you this time.”
“Hette no seidnatbaye. Hette relitine pison. Relitine pison,” Ryah explained.
Translation is, “This is not seidnatbaye,” which is a plant found in Tenabii, “This is real poison. Real poison.”
He snapped his fingers. The men brought us back down to the dungeon and re-chained us. Alexine hit her head on the wall over and over. When I was sure the guards were all out of earshot, I spoke in English.
“Alexine,” I said.
She paused the hitting of her head to turn my way. “What?”
“Why did he say he was going to poison you for real? When did he try?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. When did you learn the word poison?”
“I guessed.”
“Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Is he really going to?”
“What do you think? He said he would and he held up a vile of pure snake venom! He’s gonna kill me to get the throne.”
“When did he try before?”
“Didn’t I say I don’t want to talk about it?”
“Yes, you did. I still would like to know. As the guy that’s going to save you… I want to know. I want to know what happened to you up until I met you.”
“I guess… Okay. Once upon a time I was born, Ryah got jealous, decided to put a fake poison into my milk, made everyone think I was dead, stole me away and put me with a family of humans. Eventually learned Tenbian and found out about my fairy heritage in fairy books, did research, then had to move to your town. Met you. Denied any knowledge of the eyes thing. Knew exactly what the eyes thing meant.” Alexine slowed down her speaking and repeated, “I knew exactly what the eyes thing meant.”
“Then why’d you deny it?”
“I didn’t want you to be the one. I didn’t want you to go on a possibly perilous journey into an unfamiliar word with an unfamiliar language and everything. I didn’t want to put you into such a sticky spot.” She slowed down even more. “I care too much about you. Why should I put you in such trouble? Of course, I eventually thought over that, remembering that you were the only one that could help me. That’s the only thing I don’t know, though. Why you’re the only one that can help me. Well, anyway…”
“You didn’t want me to help you?”
“It’s not a thing of arrogance, or anything! I just didn’t want you getting out of your way to help me. I care too much to let you get hurt.”
“You knocked me out of a tree, instead,” I recalled, smiling.
“Unintentionally!” she protested.
“Yeah, but you did.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t mean to.”
By now, I just had to start laughing. She stared a moment, then understood why. She laughed, too.
“Okay,” she admitted, “that wasn’t the best fallback plan. I suppose that also, I owe you one, since you have to go through both.”
“Falling out of a tree, getting dragged by guards I couldn’t see, running from men in black, being captured by men in black, having to face Ryah and watch you two bicker, being locked in a dungeon… I think you owe me a few.”
“We’ll figure something out.” Then, her smile faded. “If we get out alive.”
“We’ll figure something out,” I repeated. I reached out and placed my hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her.
And then, Alexine looked at me. What she did then reminded me of Andrea, or Andrella, in Tenbian. She made me think of her, when she looked up at me. Like the many times before that Andrella had done this, Alexine stole a smile from me.
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