Safe.
He was safe, and he wasfree.
“Come here, Karr,” Cade said. He took his brother in his hands, then pulled him off to the side.
Sonara saw the moment he noticed the change. The way Karr’s shoulders probably felt far thinner than they usually were. The way he smelled different, moved different…
“Now,” Sonara said, “It is time you learned, Wanderer, what happens when you cross the Devil of the Deadlands.”
She looked pointedly at Karr, and grinned.
“The punishment is grim,” Karr said. But his voice was nothisvoice. It was too high, too airy and feminine. Karr’s very bodyrippledlike a coin dropped in water. And then he was changing. Morphing before their very eyes, until suddenly Cade was holding the shoulders of a young woman, dressed in Karr’s suit.
But upon her face… a mask made out of a wolf’s skull.
“Hello, Wanderer,” Thali said.
Cade stumbled back in horror as the illusion fell, revealing that his brother wasnothis brother… that Markam’s curse had painted Thali into Karr.
“Take the Devil alive,”Cade gasped, his whole body trembling with rage and disgust andfear,heavy upon him as Sonara’s own curse thrashed.“Kill the others.”
His guards aimed.
But Markam had saved just enough of himself for one last push.
And just like that, Sonara felt his curse wrap over her body as his hand closed tight over hers. And together, they disappeared.
Cade’s soldiers fired, but Sonara and Markam had already moved, lunging to the right and sprinting towards the loading-dock door.
She could see the others now. TherealKarr, and Azariah, their previously illusioned bodies now in full view at the loading-dock door as Karr placed his hand upon the scanner and furiously typed in a code.The door whooshed open.
Three steps away, and they’d be inside.
Cade’s soldiers shouted, turning at the source of the noise.
“Karr!”Cade shouted.
The real Karr stepped aside from the doorway to let Sonara, Markam, and Azariah dive in.
A bullet lodged into the metal just beside him.
“No!” Cade shouted, but the door was already sliding shut.
The look on his face was one Sonara would remember forever.
Pained and broken, twisted in agony as he stood there, helplessly fooled by his own brother while a group of outlaws snuck aboard his ship and locked it from the inside.
Chapter 29
Sonara
It was eerily silent as the door slid shut behind them.
As if they’d stepped through another veil, or a portal into another world.
The only sound inside theStarfallwas Markam groaning, as he dropped Sonara’s hand and slumped to the floor, eyes closed and head leaning against the cool metal. Shadows poured from his nose, a look of pure agony on his face.
“He did it,” Karr said. “I can’t believe hedidit.”
