Karr hadn’t meant to cry. He hadn’t meant to let out that awful, revealing little squeak. But Cade wasn’t here. Cade was running errands in the small market just beyond the ship docks, and Karr…
Karr was utterly alone.
The two pairs of boots turned towards the dash, facing the space where he hid just below them, in the shadows.
He saw knees appear. Then the shadowed face of a man, as he knelt. “Hello, little one.” His teeth were jagged and golden, sharp as a shark’s as he smiled. “You can call me Jeb.”
It was dark when Karr woke, gasping himself back into the land of the living.
He cataloged several things at once:
There were ropes around his chest, binding him,a prisoner.
The cave he sat in was dark, but not so fully that he couldn’t make out its vastness, broken by the distant light of what must be a crackling fire, for he could smell the telltale scent of wood smoke. He tried to glance left and right, but his skull hissed in pain, and the throbbing worsened… which Karr promptly remembered came from the very same young woman who’d stabbed him in the chest, days before.
Think, Karr.
He looked around as far as his bindings would allow him. The rock itself was red. Not a muted brown or grey, like most planets. But a deep, bloody crimson shot through with veins of deepest purple, as if the rock had been prepared by an artist’s hand: the same rock that made up the Bloodhorns that surrounded the valley.
If any luck was on his side at all, he might not be too far from where theStarfallwas docked. Had the crew seen him get taken? Had anyone noticed he was gone? By now, they had to have seen his helmet, left behind.
He was still breathing. Stillalive,without it.
Buthow?
Panic began to set in, for with each breath he took, more of the Dohrsaran air entered his human lungs.
How long did he have, until the poisonous atmosphere got to him? And if he ever got back to the safety of theStarfall,would there be long-term effects?
He took another shuddering breath. There was no telling how long he’d been out for. Surely by now, Cade was searching for him. Until then, Karr simply had to get himself to stay calm.
Nothing good was ever accomplished under the guise of panic.
All around him, twisting spirals of rock jutted into the black abyss above. Creatures huddled in the corners of the cave, some of them only visible by their dimly glowing green eyes, the slits of them flashing as they blinked, then reappeared again.
Somewhere behind him, he thought he heard hissing. Perhaps a snake, which gave Karr one more reason to panic.
Relax,he told himself.Settle your mind.
He’d been in plenty of sticky situations before, but never one quite like this. At least not without Cade or another member of theStarfall’s crew. Jameson was always his closest comrade. If she were here, she would have made a joke. Something to calm him first, before she got them both to thinking.
Footsteps sounded ahead.
Karr looked down at his bonds, wriggling side to side as he tested the strength of the thick rope. But he could scarcelybreathe,let alone move to get free. His hands were numb from the mere tightness of it.
Think,he told himself again.Just think!
His brain had always been his greatest asset. But the voice in his head sounded like Cade’s,and when he thought of Cade… he thought of what his brother had recently become.
The footsteps grew louder, and soon they were joined by the flickering orange glow of a torch coming around a thick, spiraling red stalactite. And the person holding it must be…
The woman from his nightmares.
There she stood with her blue-and-brown hair, and an old worn leather hat perched atop her head, the wide brim dipping her features in shadow. Her shorts were tattered and torn, but her ankle-length duster looked sturdy enough. Leather boots came halfway up to her knees. She walked with the confident swagger of someone who did not need protecting, and as she came close, jamming her torch into a small hole in the ground, the light kissed the weapon attached to her leather belt.
Black-and-blue steel that Karr knew well. Suddenly his chest ached again as he beheld the sword. As if his body remembered the feeling of the blade eating its way through his skin.
“You stabbed me,” Karr said.
