But neither listens.
The hairs on the back of my neck raise, and I know the beast of my nightmares is closing in.
Gabe grabs a teardrop-shaped object coated in a black shell from his pouch, along with an igniter. He stokes it and tilts the fire onto a wire jutting from the bottom of the shell.
Kalden reappears from the forest, sprinting back towards us.
Towards danger.
Has everyone lost their sun-damned minds?
Kalden unsheathes one of his throwing knives, discreetly running its sharp edge against his glove, all without halting his stride.
I look away, hoping the movement blurs any footage the camera in my helmet might’ve captured of his subtle treason. My head whips to the right, anxious to see if Gem took notice, but her helmet is angled toward the man at my left.
Gabe stops running altogether, and I choke on a scream.
He spins on his heel, aims the weapon, and launches the shell into the air. The missile arcs across the dune, aimed perfectly toward the charcoal-skinned blur leaping down the hill some sixty feet behind us.
“Gabe! Run, dammit!” The words finally rush out of me asIwonder why he’s standing there with the Sol closing in faster than any human could.
Gabe finally unfreezes, darting forward several steps before crouching onto the ground.
Once the creature is three leaps away from Gabe, the missile explodes.
Black powder and smoke erupt in a dense cloud that billows skyward impossibly fast, enveloping the entirety of the Sol. The already overcast sky darkens considerably as smoke laps onto the low-hanging clouds. Gem tugs me into the sand beside her as the wave of thick black air disperses over us.
Seconds feel like minutes as visibility slowly returns. There’s movement in the fog ahead. I roll onto my hands and knees, bracing myself for the end.
But the figure ambling through the dissipating smoke isn’t a Sol.
“It worked,” Gabe chokes out with a manic laugh.
I rise to my feet, dusting the sand from my pants. “What worked?”
“Is it dead?” Gem and I ask our questions simultaneously.
Gabe doesn’t respond to either of us, so Gem shuffles forward to see for herself, knuckles tightly wrapped around the hilt of her poniard.
“It’s not moving,” she calls from ahead. “Unconscious, at the least, if not dead.”
Kalden, who’s caught up to us, tips his head at the still-expanding blackness shrouding our surroundings in a false night.
“What is that?” When Gabe doesn’t immediately answer, Kalden grabs him by the front of his guardsman vest. “What did you do?!”
“I-It’s something I’ve been developing for a while now. I thought if we could find a way to make nightstone airborne, we’d be able to disarm the Sols and protect ourselves from exposure without having to wear all of this.” Gabe gestures at his helmet and full-body leathers.
His words pull at a long-buried memory.
“Do you ever wonder what it would be like?”I’d asked Gabe a lifetime ago during what used to be our typical evening cuddles. I’d woken from a dream where he and I had decided to explore the world above. In the dream, I dared to envision what it might feel like—the sun’s warmth and the sheer openness of not living in a cramped underground city.
“Of course I do,”Gabe had admitted while rolling me further on top of him and rubbing circles on my back. His eyes had gotten that glazed look—the one he’d always get when dreaming up all the ways he could bring about a better future—as he continued,“I love this city, but I love our people more. And they deserve to have the option of seeing the world beyond the confines of tunnels and caves. You know, I’ve explored the concept of building polarized dome structuresabove the entrances. We could use them recreationally, maybe. Or even as residences, if there’s enough interest. But father is skeptical of the cost and longevity, not to mention the impossible logistics of sending enough guards to defend the construction from attacks. As long as the Sols are still lurking above us, we’re stuck here.”
I’d shifted myself atop him, longing to erase the building sense of hopelessness tugging at his perfect lips.“If only it could be night all the time.”
I said it casually, hoping he’d catch the implication of desire in my tone as I kissed his neck. In no way had I meant it to be a true solution.
Yet Gabe had perked up. He’d grabbed both sides of my cheeks and stared at me like I’d solved some great mystery.“That’s it! What if we can make an airborne version of nightstone that bonds with the atmosphere? Even if the sun rises, it won’t touch the earth. We could explore and expand above without worrying about the Sols using their power, or becoming a monster ourselves.”
