In fact, she was terrified.
~1~
Where am I?Why am I here?
Two questions Piers didn’t like asking.
At least he still knew his name, although even that felt a little hazy at the moment.
Standing perfectly still, he looked from side to side, his eyes narrowing on the unfamiliar surroundings.No, not just unfamiliar. Totally and completely foreign.
Tension gripped him. His hands curled into fists. He couldn’t process what he was seeing. He had no words for this.
All he knew was that he’d gone through a long dark tunnel before popping out into a bright, blaring, incomprehensible metropolis.
This must be why babies entered the world wailing. If he weren’t a grown man and a warrior, he’d want to wail, too. This place was awful.
Thank the gods, infants didn’t remember. Life was traumatic enough already, especially when you had no idea what was happening. Or why. Something Piers could attest to right now—and then some.
Words magically flashed on the side of a tall building. The letters weren’t familiar to him, but for some reason, he could still read and understand them instantly.Welcome to the Big Apple.
Piers frowned. That made about as much sense as the rest of this.
Sudden movement kicked up around him, in front and behind. He stayed where he was—apparently in the center of a wide, two-way thoroughfare. Strange, box-like units of transportation zoomed past without any horses or oxen to pull them. Many of them were yellow.
His heart galloping faster than a centaur, he turned in a slow circle. On all sides, buildings rose higher than any he’d ever seen in his full thirty-one Thalyrian year cycles. Endless windows climbed them, but instead of being deep-set, open arches, the windows contained reflecting glasses.
Suspicion stirred inside him. Windows like that were for people who hid things.
As he gazed skyward, an enormous, winged beast roared overhead, discharging a trail of smoke behind it. Another shiny sky dragon crossed the first one’s path, leaving writing above him. Piers stared at the two intersecting tracks of cloud fire. Did thatXmean something?
Surrounded by objects and sights he’d never encountered let alone imagined, he knew with absolute certainty he was no longer in Thalyria—or at least, not on the known continent.
Was he dead? Could this be the Underworld?
That didn’t make sense. The Underworld followed a pattern. You arrived on the Plain of Asphodel. If you had your obol—he checked his pocket, feeling the hard little nugget of the coin there—you handed it to Charon for passage across the River Styx. On the far side of the Styx, you either walked into a normal, everyday afterlife, or you followed the golden path to a glorious one in Elysium.
This definitely wasn’t Elysium. And Piers didn’t think it was the Underworld. Surely, he’d rememberdying?
So, what was this Big Apple? And how did he end up here?
Andgods,the noise. The place stank, too. Like everything else here, it was a smell he didn’t recognize.
Jaw tight, eyes sharp, and hands ready for battle, Piers stayed where he was on the little island in the middle of the loud, zooming boxes. Buildings loomed over him like giants upon giants. More dragons soared overhead, their skywriting unrecognizable to him.
Worry thumped in his chest. If he knew what qualified as a threat here, his assessment of the situation would be far easier.
The last thing he remembered was traveling toward Castle Tarva to try—again—to talk to his brother Griffin and Griffin’s hot-headed harpy of a wife, Cat. They’d been holed up behind castle guards and high walls for days after successfully conquering a second realm and bringing Cat two thirds of the way to ruling all of Thalyria.
Fury stabbed Piers in the sternum. Cat’s warmongering and lust for power had nearly gotten most of his family and friends killed. One friend didn’t make it.
The knife in his chest twisted, and Piers growled, the sound covered by the terrible roar of the colossal city. Cat’s fault. All of it.
Piecing his jumbled memories together made other things fall into place. Everything until… Was it mere minutes ago? Hours?
Uncertain, he shook his head. His youngest sister Kaia had been with him on the road to Tarva City. They’d seen Griffin and Cat in the distance, riding out to meet them. He’d been so angry. So worried and angry. His family in danger.
What else happened?
