“That sounds exhausting.”
He smiled a little. “I didn’t mind it. It was an adventure, and they were my home. Still are.” There was a warmth in the way he said it.
“Who were you chasing?”
“There was another group that Harthon knew from his past, and we spent most of our time hunting them. But there were other people, too. Sometimes we’d be hired to take care of rebels and stuff like that,” he answered, and I tried not to give away my pleasure at unraveling a new layer of Harthon’s past.
Time to push. “What was that group from his past?”
He cleared his throat and pushed away from the table. “That’s something to ask Harthon,” he answered. “Let’s run another sequence and call it a night.”
That was a wall if I’d ever witnessed one.
* * *
Empty darkness surrounded me, but I wasn’t as scared as I perhaps should have been. The darkness was more like a woolen blanket than a void, the air comfortable.
A ball of light appeared before me, suspended in the air. It swirled, much like the walls of the Domus that Harthon had shown me from afar.
A tugging pulled on my ribs at the same as the ball began to move, slowly floating away from me. I knew that tugging. It was the same one that pulled me up those tower stairs to the south-facing window. I followed.
The ground was uneven but soft beneath my feet, lumps rolling under my soles that reminded me of tree roots in the forest. I glanced down, seeking to confirm my thoughts, but I couldn’t find my feet in the blackness, the light contained close to the ball.
It was a miracle that I wasn’t tripping over myself.
When I glanced up, it was to see the light curve to the right. I adjusted my path, pulled after its gently sloping path like a magnet.
There was a flash of green to my right. I paused only long enough to see a single tree branch reaching toward me like an arm, three vibrantly green leaves dripping from its end.
Leaves that werealive.
I gasped, running my fingers along their veiny flesh, reveling in their color and beauty. No deadness threatened their edges, no dry patches marred their surface. They were perfection, soft and supple beneath my fingers, standing strong from their stems.
Sharpness dug into my breastbone. The light hadn’t paused with me, and I’d allowed it to trail too far away. I ran to reach it, the uncomfortable feeling receding as I closed the distance, and then it began to ascend.
A slope formed beneath my feet, and I climbed with the light, not questioning where it might take me but accepting that it was right. Maybe it would show me another branch. More of those stunning leaves I’d only ever seen when I was younger and a few rare trees still clung to life.
It leveled out, turned sharply to the left, and continued loping forward. Something hard and unmoving met my thighs.
That wouldn’t do.
We couldn’t be separated again.
I lifted one leg, straddling it, bringing my other leg over and pushing off—
“Etarla!”
Cold air beat against my face. I opened my eyes.
And my heart dropped from my body.
I was suspended in the air, only an inch of the tower’s window sill beneath my bottom, my feet dangling stories above the Citadel as cavernous shadows stretched before me.
The arm digging into my stomach yanked me backward before Icould even understand what was happening.
“What thefuckare you doing? Have you lost your damned mind?” The charged words were followed by a slew of curses as I was dragged from the sill and drawn into a solid wall.
I recognized the voice as my heart began to pound with adrenaline.
