Thought and wrestled and told himself he didn’t need the woman, but he knew inside that he did. For the damned energy trackers weren’t keeping pace with the Antheon, a thing that constantly moved and flickered and was impossible for even the greatest programmers on his crew to pinpoint.
Without Thali, Cade didn’t think he’d find the mother-source of the Antheon.
They could dig for weeks. For months, and only find small fragments here and there.
Geisinger needed itall.
And with Karr out there… Cade didn’t have time.
So he walked out of the brig. “Cut her down,” he said to the soldiers standing guard.
When she was free, she lifted her gauntleted hands to Cade like a queen. “The sword?”
“You can have it when we find the Antheon,” he said. But he called for it and showed it to her like a prize dangled before a dog. Her eyes had glittered as she beheld its glory.
“Very well, Wanderer,” she said. “We have a deal.”
He offered her his hand, but she didn’t need his assistance. She was strangely strong, despite the torture. Her pale eyes were alight as she looked to him from behind her wolf mask and said, “Then it is time we begin.”
Chapter 35
Sonara
Sonara woke with the taste of blood on her lips.
And Duran licking sand from her hair.
“Leave it, beast,” she groaned, but she let her hands fall against his soft muzzle, breathing in the taste of him. Her spirit brightened as the soul-ember between them blazed hot and true. He always found her through it, like a siren song that called him home. “Blast, it’s good to see you, Duran.”
In part because she loved the insufferable beast. But also, because seeing Duran meant she was alive, for there was no way she’d ever see him in Hell.
She smacked a kiss onto his nose. “You’re just too pure.”
She propped herself up on an elbow and took in the scene around her.
The sunlight was blinding, Dohrsar’s double suns beating into her skin as the wreckage of the pod unfolded. It had cracked in half, like the discarded shell of an egg. Wires and computer paneling had gone dim, the entire flight down from theStarfalllike some kind of sick dream now. The world had looked like it was melting as they fell,Karr cursing as he barely managed to control their descent.
Judging by the position of the suns, the long shadows sweeping across the Bloodhorns, it was late afternoon. Sonara shivered as she glanced past Duran, who busied himself with searching for some sort of snack in the wreckage of the pod.
During the descent, they should have seen the Dohrsarans running free, out of the dark tunnels and into the Deadlands day as the light-wall fell.
A sickening sense of dread spread like a poison through Sonara’s guts, but she hadn’t the time to consider it. She looked for the others, panic rising in her. But the headache… oh goddesses, it was pounding.
And now that she thought about it… her right arm was on fire with pain. It wasn’t quite cooperating, as Sonara tried to push herself onto her hands and knees.
With a groan, she stood, walking on wobbly legs until she pressed her arm against Duran’s broad backside. Goddesses, it was going to hurt.
“Still, beast,” she commanded.
He simply huffed and swished his tail in her face.
Then she gritted her teeth, and, with a muffled shout, popped the arm back into place.
“Goddesses be damned, Sonara. You always do such… flattering things.”
Sonara froze, the pain dulling at the sound of that voice.
She turned slowly, and there he sat astride Razor, the afternoon sunlight bathing him in burnished gold.
