Along with the Grey I watched, transfixed, as more balls of light appeared in the towers. Again they danced—slowly at first, then gradually faster, until they shook wildly and shot upward as beams of light and twisted out the tops with a bang. This happened over and over again. Green, yellow, cyan, violet, orange.

I hadn’t prepared a sky fire wish this year. I was a bit caught up in my courting, and all of this traveler nonsense wasn’t helping. I wondered what Westalyn would be wishing for. I tried to come up with something, but found myself staring at the Grey, none of whom had moved an inch since the fire started. I felt my chest tighten, and had to stop myself from letting any emotions slip out.

It was just occurring to me that these Grey may not even realize what they’d signed up for. They weren’t really intelligent beings. Were we taking advantage of their stupidity? Did they think they’d just won a moment to prance across a stage and could walk away unscathed? Did they even realize none of their friends had returned after being called in previous Drawings? If they didn’t have that awareness, did that somehow make it better? I sighed and found myself glancing over my shoulder to the Grey woman beside me. She was still upright like I’d shown her, and her face—her eyes were looking at mine. Startled, I jerked my head back toward the sky.

Yellow and violet orbs had just lit the sky when I heard a clink behind me. One of the guards was unlocking the chains from my chariot. As I turned to face him he reached out for my wrists. I pulled back, but he was stronger. He wrapped cold, oversized links around my forearms, pressing them roughly into my skin. He moved to the Grey woman next.

“I’m not your prisoner!” I called to him. The woman didn’t bother to resist. “You can’t treat a Lumen this way, let alone a Ju Demma. I hope you like digging for water.”

Grey could become violent and dangerous, of course. It made some sense to chain and bind them, just in case. But we Lumen didn’t even touch one another. Being sentenced to the water pits would be less embarrassing than this; at least then you wouldn’t be treated so inhumanely.

I was shaking.

The chariots were unchained two at a time by the guards, and links were slapped easily over more Grey arms. As the last two were being bound, a creaking sound echoed from one of the distant inner-towers. Then another sound, a bit like the singing thing the Grey did, but louder and louder. The vibrations in my ear felt unnatural. I staggered a bit as the guards pushed us to form a line.

“I can walk!” I snapped, skipping into the lovely procession of Grey. I held a few more words under my breath and tried to embrace the situation with an enthusiasm strong enough to wear the guards down.

In front of me was a Grey who was almost childlike, surprisingly shorter and narrower than I was, and unclear in gender. Behind me was the tallest one of them I’d ever seen. I wouldn’t have noticed, but as he staggered along he bent his neck downward, over my head. Grey stench could be a powerful thing.

“Do you mind?” I growled, shooting him a look. He didn’t so much as blink.

“You know what I’d like to know?” I asked him. He stared back. The lack of pigment and paint in his skin made it hard to guess what he was feeling, assuming Grey had feelings. “I’d like to know how you would captain a ship. A military-grade intergalactic travelers’ ship. Would you know which levers to raise or buttons to press? Do they train you for this? Honestly, I could use some enlightenment, because the more I think about this, the less sense it makes.”

His face remained blank at first, and then his mouth opened. More Grey stench, but I watched him, wondering if he could possibly form a direct answer. I didn’t find out though, because the singing sounds began to blare in front of us, commanding all of our attention. Tens of other Grey, of all shapes and genders, came out in two lines. In their hands were these shining gold-coloured tubes. They blew into them and manipulated them by pressing their fingers to sets of valves, which seemed to change the sound. The instruments were in all sorts of shapes, with the smallest, and loudest,  ones in front. They stopped walking a short distance from us, and the noise faded to silence.

We all waited, shifting uncomfortably in the sudden quietude. Then the Grey players parted, revealing the entrance to the main tower. In front of it a figure emerged, mostly obscured by the darkness now that the sky fire had finished. But I knew exactly who we were looking at.

The contessa wore a headpiece of solid gold that shimmered in what light remained from the resting orbs inside the towers. It was half a circle—rounded on top and flat on the bottom, with five long, pointed arrows extending from the band on her head outward. Between the arrows small orbs of light hovered in place, bouncing cautiously between their dividers, but never crossing over. Orange on her right, violet on her left, and the central one, which sat a little higher than the others, was glowing bright electric blue, matching the orbs currently resting in the towers.

Lumen usually painted themselves to accent their natural tones: blue, violet, and even pink. The contessa chose gold. Bright, shimmering gold. If not for the smooth texture of her face, it would have been difficult to see where her skin ended and the headpiece began. Her eyes were deep, dark pools, almost like the Grey, but larger. And painted down her cheeks were white holy markings that only the founding family could bear.

Her robes were stark white, which only made her more radiant. On her shoulders sat an enormous, cloth-covered pauldron, which draped fabrics of red and vibrant orange down her front, and over her back like a long cape. Two Grey held the cape above the ground behind her. In contrast with the gold, the contessa’s top lip was painted black, and the bottom one red. Sharp white teeth reflected the light around her as her face broke into a smile.

“Welcome to the Planetary Palace,” she began, surveying the twelve. Her voice was soft but commanding. She gazed at the group before her, surveying each individual one by one. Her eyes found me.

It was like the very sight of me had interrupted her. Her brow narrowed and her lips pursed—a distinct Lumen expression signaling she was highly offended. She managed to raise her left hand, enforcing the silence among us, while she appeared to be gathering her thoughts.

One of the guards shifted in place. It was probably on the tip of his tongue to spill the entire story of my drawing.

“Guards,” she let out at last, remaining completely still. “The usual with the Grey. The Lumen follows us to the Celebration Chamber.”

Finally this’ll get sorted. The two men in red took a moment to exchange hand signals. They were most likely worried about what their punishment would be for treating me so poorly. I hoped Jiyorga would get an earful too.

The contessa led the procession toward the entrance gate. The Grey were slow-moving creatures, who mostly wobbled their way there. I noticed, near the front of the line, the round-faced Grey woman still standing with her back straight, while the rest hunched over. Maybe she’d taken my chariot tips as an order. I supposed now that made sense.

The guards had taken the front and back position of our happy little lineup, undoubtedly making sure we didn’t run out of the giant crater. I sighed. If I had my say in their punishment, it was going to be relentless.

We passed the two front towers as the orbs faded from blue to violet, calmly dancing in place behind the translucent dark stone. The contessa set foot in front of the tower with the door. She brought her hand up to it and it opened inward before she could make contact. She led us inside.

“No guards here, Your Fairness?” one of the red asked, clearly not knowing how a Lumen could get by without someone like him.

“This palace obeys me,” she replied. Her voice had a quality to it that made me want to hang on every word, and left me disappointed whenever she stopped talking. She was young of face despite being centuries old. In a way she reminded me of one of my ancient relatives who taught me histories as a child.

As she walked through the entrance, orbs of light illuminated around her matching the color of those in her headpiece. We were crossing a narrow corridor over an enormous dark pit that stretched the entire base of the tower. Other corridors ran parallel or crossed one another at various points throughout the room of black emptiness. The more orbs we lit, the more shaky my legs became.

When we approached the end we reached a long, downward staircase. A crater halfway through the planet’s surface wasn’t deep enough for royalty, apparently. I had heard rumors that the sand dungeons weren’t limited to the prison. Maybe the Grey would be spending a night half-drowned in cold desert while I was given a glass of mead to set this thing straight. My insides twitched at the thought.

When the front of the group reached the bottom of the stairs a yellow orb illuminated a corridor in front of us. At least I thought it was a corridor. It wasn’t until my own feet hit the stone floor that I saw we were in a room. A single room taking up the length and width of what had to be an entire tower.  

The walls, like the floor, were made of rough, dark stone wedges—individual pieces that just happened to stay together, by the look of it. Along the walls were many strange instruments. The contessa motioned to her crew of Grey to put theirs back, but there were hundreds of others. Some gold-colored with valves, and others completely different, with strings, skins, keys, and other components I’d never seen. It was hard to tell from where we stood, but it looked like the far wall was empty. In the center of the oversized room was a floating tray, filled with paints and brushes. The inner-floor’s stone was covered in rich fabrics and pillows, surrounding tables filled with books and writing pads.

The guards began removing the bindings on each of the Grey, but not me.

"You’re putting them to work? On their last night here?" It was out of my mouth before I knew who I was speaking to.

The contessa held my gaze long enough to watch me crumble with embarrassment, then spoke. "Friends, please make yourselves at home here. Meals and mead will arrive in due time. Let the guard know if you have a favorite and we’ll make it happen. You are the reason we are going to get our treasure back this time, and we offer what little hospitality we can in exchange for your sacrifice."

I had to stifle a laugh. The Grey tell someone what they want? Even if they could speak fluently, I had no idea what a Grey would want. An order of rocks? Some slop from their home palace pale? I’d never seen a Grey take a bite of any of my family’s food.

I followed behind the contessa and the two guards. As we exited I remembered there was no door—nothing to lock. What if the Grey roamed free? Could the contessa just will them to stay? Confine them mentally in the bottom of this tower?

We made our way back up the staircase. When we got back to the open corridor a new set of stairs appeared in front of us. It formed out of nowhere, jutting off the side, extending to a nearby floating bridge. It was steep too. Funny how I hadn’t really made note of the distance going down, but each step on this was excruciating. It was downright embarrassing, watching the contessa and guards ascend it effortlessly while I trailed behind, coughing and wheezing. I wasn’t trained in resistive combat like the red cloaks, and I didn’t have the advantage of living here. We regular Lumen weren’t cut out for this sort of exercise.

When we finally reached the bridge, myself in a heap, we took a right, heading back toward the palace entrance. I was exhausted, but it was almost a relief to walk in a straight line. I just had to keep my nausea under control so I wouldn’t fall off the edge. Doors started to appear as we walked along the sides of the free corridor. Not exactly doors; more like the outlines of doors, drawn in thin white lines of light. They all had different shapes drawn at their centers: suns, stars, moons, planets, and various space creatures. I found myself studying each one we passed, mesmerized by them. I nearly bumped into one of the guards as we came to a stop in front of a door with a star and a key on it.

The contessa took something from within her robe around her neck and raised it to the door. The thin lines began to radiate, filling in the door-shape solid white, and then materializing into an actual slab of stone. It opened without her touch and she entered.

With how well the Grey had been treated, I prepared myself for luxury as I trailed behind her and the guards.

No light appeared at first. I had to follow by the light of her headpiece, but it didn’t activate any other orbs this time. I saw her take something in her hand again. A moment passed in silence, and then at once the room became white. I shielded my eyes in shock.

When I managed to lower my chained hands away from my face I saw that she was holding a staff. An oversized, majestic staff that couldn’t have come from Palunia. Another ancient treasure, no doubt. It was silver in color, with red runes writ across it from bottom to top. The top of the staff was a flat circle, which acted as a bed for the light source. It was some kind of white gem—not too large on its own, but powerful in its light. I’d never seen a white gem before, but it was too bright to get a closer look.

After a few minutes of gawking at the staff I finally noticed the room. It was a fraction of the size of the lower one. The walls here were plain sandstone. The contessa was now sitting in an old burgundy fabric chair, and motioned for me to take one across from her. There was no goblet in her hand. Behind her a wall of bars enclosed a row of prison cells. Stunned, I gulped and took my seat without a word.

"Guards, will you leave us?" she requested, her eyes darting swiftly around the room without making any contact. She’d set the staff casually across her lap. I was still drawn to its light, but the brightness kept stinging my eyes and forcing me to look away.

The two red cloaks stepped out and the door swung back into place, resealing itself and disappearing into the sandstone wall.

Next Chapter: Blinded by the Light