The first spear tore the flesh of her thigh as it wheezed past her and splintered the top of the tree she was on. The second spear missed her, but the third one struck right in the buttock and jutted from the front through the front side on the left of her groin. It hit her midair when she was leaping to the next tree. Giera fell to the ground with a soft thud, the thick layer of snow taking the impact of her fall. The place where she fell was immediately colored red. Giera tried to get up. The spear wedged to the ground, fixing her buttock on its place. Her mind became dizzy and she saw white stars in her vision. She caught hold of the spear, as she breathed heavily, to break it, but she found Ileus towering over her with his boot on her injured thigh. 

"Giera," he said through his clenched teeth. "Why did you kill the healer?" he hissed without wasting time. He needed information and he needed it badly. 

She let out a pained laughter and then coughed blood.. "I will not tell you!" 

"Then I have other ways of making you spill it out," he replied and then knelt in front of her with one knee. 

"Fuck you! You can torture me as much as you like, but I will not say a word," she said as she leaned back away from him. If only she could crawl a little back. The spear was inflicting excruciating pain. She knew she would heal fast only if the spear was removed. And she was so used to physical torture that it hardly affected her. This was nothing for her. 

Ileus tilted his head, his golden eyes boring into her black ones. "Have you heard of mental torture?" he asked, his tone unnaturally calm. 

She laughed again as she tried to wrench the spear out. A guttural roar left her mouth as she moved it an inch out. She was aware of the soldiers standing around her, each with an arrow or a baton or more of the crude spears they just made. "Yes, I have heard of mental torture. Gone through it a number of times." She hissed a painful breath. "My king made me the best spy. What do you think my training was, you—" She couldn't complete the sentence as a blood curdling scream came out of her mouth. 

"I was talking about different mental torture, Giera," said Ileus. He had entered her cell. She felt as if someone had scraped through the insides of her brain. Ileus had stabbed the place where he was now standing—right in the center of her mind. "Do you know what kind of torture is this?" he asked as he tried to locate the memory that had something to do with Kaizan. He came across the memory in which she killed the healer. 

"Get out!" Giera shouted as a thundering headache pounded her on the inside. Blood started oozing out of her ears. What was it that he was doing? How could he enter her mind? Was she hallucinating? Her body fell on the ground. She found her body stiffening. 

"I have just entered Giera. Do you know anything about Kaizan?" he asked, his voice feathery soft. He followed the memory and it led him to the cave. "Open it for me, demon," he ordered her. She resisted, but it was futile. He had opened the door of the memory. He walked into a dark room that was so dimly lit. The memory was very clear. There were people with dark cloaks and were hooded. He couldn't see their faces. They had surrounded someone. Kaizan. 

He was slumped unconscious in front of a woman wearing a deep green gown that matched her intense green eyes. Rolfe's mother. So Siora had him. "Where is the cave located?" he asked in a lethal voice, ready to strike her fatally inside. 

All he heard were her sharp exhales. 

"Where is the cave?" he asked again and pressed his thumb on a vein that throbbed near him. He heard her screaming. 

"No, please, no!" she finally whispered a few words out. "It is— it is—" Giera had never been subjected to this kind of torture. She knew that Ileus was known as the Dark Wizard, but she ridiculed all because she thought that he was nothing more than a spoiled prince. However, today she came to know that he was the Dark One. "—located on the west… an hour from here…" She panted for speaking even that much was gargantuan effort. "Please come out," she said. "Please…" 

But Ileus moved to another memory and came to know the exact location of the cave. Once done, he pulled his dagger out and stabbed her deep right in the center. With that he came out of her cell and watched her screaming with pain. Her screams echoed through the mountains. He held her face as she watched him with shock, her eyes half-lidded as she held onto the last thread of her life. "You messed with the wrong person, Giera," he said and then got up. Others watched the Dark Prince with sheer fear. Ileus looked at General Yion and gave him the location. 

Giera watched them all as they flew away, her eyes slowly closing shut. She had never come across a force like him and as she breathed her last, she pitied the fate of Galahar. 

Ileus reached the cave in less than thirty minutes. The mouth was covered with a huge boulder but he could easily see the lights from the torches burning inside through the small gaps on the fringes. Kaizan's scent was strong here. Fury rose in his chest when he remembered how heavily he was chained. With a roar, he removed the boulder and entered the cave much to the surprise of every soldier there. They all got up from their benches and looked at him. With a wide stance, muscles bulging and neck corded in tension, he asked in a low, dangerous voice, "Where is Kaizan?" He caught a movement on the side and knew that they wouldn't give up. Before they could attack, he launched himself at them. He grabbed the necks of two demonesses and snapped them together. Others joined him in fighting the queen's soldiers. 

"You will never find him!" said one of them who had leapt at him with her sword. She arced the sword in a way that it sliced his chest. He bared his fangs at her. Enraged to the point that he lost reason, he held her wrist when she attacked next, snapped the bone and then slammed the same sword into her throat. She gurgled blood out as her hands wrapped around her neck to stop it. Fenzer dropped dead on the ground. Someone stepped over her body and attacked others. 

They were all dead in no less than fifteen minutes. Ileus entered inside and surveyed the place. "Find Kaizan!" he barked. 

--- 

Anastasia was exasperated. She was tired. She was waiting for Ileus to return because she was getting mentally drained. Her thoughts would run to Kaizan every now and then. 

A knock pounded on the door. Her eyes darted to the door wishing that they had come back with blood. A messenger opened and said, "Queen Siora is here." 

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