By the time Ximena stirred again, Allen was sure that it had been at least a few hours since she had dozed off.
She sat up slowly, steadying herself with her arms as she sighed heavily.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep." She grimaced in their direction.
"It's fine. You need the rest to heal." Allen answered gently.
"At one time this wouldn't have knocked me as badly," she spat, "I would have bounced back in a day or so…well, that bitch wouldn't have ever been able to get close to me back then. It took Eromaug himself to immobilize me while his cronies did his dirty work. Ha! She would have been fried if she so much as stepped foot near me or my family back then!"
Her anger burned brightly in her eyes but as her shoulders sagged and her head dropped, Allen could feel himself filled with nothing but pity for her. She had been through so much, suffered so much down here all these years…it really was a testament to her inner strength that she hadn't lost her mind already.
"Narcissa left a little while ago….pretty much after the screams stopped." Greyson said grimly as she nodded her head resolutely.
"Right," She sniffed, reaching across and grasping the pot that Orynn had handed her first and peering closely at it as she picked at the inside of the lid.
"What are you doing?" Allen asked curiously, inching closer to the bars again with Greyson at his side.
"I saw it before. There's a small recess under the lid with some paper inside. I think it's a letter of some sort. Actually, it was quite ingenious of them to think of folding it this way and putting it in before re-adding the covering…ah! There we are…got it." she announced triumphantly as she retrieved the folded piece of paper.
Allen and Greyson crouched next to her near the bars, watching with bated breath as she unfolded the paper and began to read.
"Well?" Greyson pressed impatiently and Ximena tutted.
"Lexi is gravely ill," she murmured, "But Aoife is working on treating her."
"Wait..Aoife is…functioning normally?" Greyson exclaimed in surprise.
"She's not a fucking robot," Allen snapped before turning back to Ximena, "Did they manage to fix whatever Narcissa broke in her?"
"I…I don't know," Ximena answered finally, "They sealed Lexi's souls…well, Narcissa did, with a binding that was outlawed centuries ago…Aoife is treating the infection and is hopeful for her recovery. She's going to work on the seal whilst she heals her, even just a fraction of a break on the seal is more than enough for Lexi's soul's magick to begin to work on eradicating the seal."
A slow smile spread across her face as she turned to them excitedly.
"They are working on an escape plan. They have a rough plan, but it needs to be altered slightly to ensure that they can free us as well."
"Are you sure?" Greyson blinked doubtfully, "What if it's a trap?"
"No," Ximena said as she shook her head, "There would be no benefit to planning this as a trap..we're already here so what could they hope to achieve?"
"A false sense of hope to torment us and rip it away at the last minute?" Greyson snorted humorlessly.
"I don't think so. That hybrid, his name is Orynn. Narcissa mutilated and experimented on him as a hatchling. He….he should have been a dragon. But now, he's a genetically altered hybrid thanks to that bitch and her brother." Ximena spat, "He can't talk, although somehow he is able to mindlink with Aoife, so communication is possible through her."
"Wait…are they mates? I thought she was already mated to Felix though?" Allen frowned.
"I think it's more the connection they share through their magick. Somehow, Orynn shares the same wild magick that both I and Aoife do. There were only two families left in the past century and when I was taken, that left only Lexi as the sole living member of my bloodline with our magick. Then later, when Aoife's family was eradicated, she became the sole representative of her line of magick. Honestly, I had no idea that Dragons were able to share this line. It's incredibly ancient and gifted from one of the Goddesses."
"Selene?" Greyson asked, cocking his head curiously.
"No," Ximena answered, "Her magick is ordinarily focused on the lunar cycles and gifted only to those of wolf or Lycan blood…there hasn't been one of Selene's line for centuries. For Aoife's line, I cannot say the true origins as it's a closely guarded secret, but as for mine, both Hecate and Eir created the line that runs in both mine and Lexi's veins."
Allen and Greyson blinked at her silently. Neither one of them wanting to admit that they had no knowledge of the significance of what she had just said, but Ximena read their frozen expressions easily enough and chuckled softly.
"It's okay. It's not important for you to know the ins and outs of our bloodline. Once we are out of here, if you desire, I can teach you alongside Lexi. You will need to understand the intoxicating hold that power over life and death can hold in just that one soul of hers. When it comes to her Daemon soul…" Ximena exhaled slowly and shook her head, "That's a whole other problem that you and my husband need to sit down and talk about."
They nodded as she passed the letter through to them and she relaxed back onto the wall a little, smiling to herself.
"So all we have to do now is endure the horrors here for a little longer and wait for the signal." she said softly.
"Signal? For us to do what?"
A wicked glint flashed in her eyes as her grin spread.
"To entice Narcissa close enough, and hold her in place so that I can fry whatever is left of that bitche's twisted and depraved soul." She grinned, "Eromaug may hold a large chunk, of it to keep bringing her back and to keep her bound to him, but without the root that is dug deep inside of you, keeping it in place…there won't be any coming back for her."
"Can you do that?" Greyson asked in an awestruck voice, "Kill a wraith? Permanently?!"
Ximena laughed as her smile spread wider.
"My dear boy, with this incredibly rare concoction right here," she said as she indicated a vial no bigger than her pinky finger, "my magick will be restored to full strength and I can end anyone's life that I choose to…probably not Eromaug though, unfortunately."
"Then, can't we escape sooner? We can kill her, take her keys and let ourselves out of here. Then…" Greyson suggested but she held a hand up to quiet him.
"And go where?" She questioned with raised eyebrows, "Even if we can escape, there is no way out of here without a direct portal from Eromaugs realm to where we need to go and none of us are capable of that…but according to that letter, Orynn and his mother are."