“Unknown visitors present unknown risks. My primary directive is to ensure your safety, Liora. I cannot do so if you are exposed to unassessed dangers.”
She wanted to argue, but the words caught in her throat. Her whole body was trembling, and she wasn’t sure if it was from fear or excitement or some impossible combination of both. Another person. After six years of nothing but Ari and Pip and her own reflection in the glass.
A male person.
She’d seen images of men in her books, of course—drawings and photographs from the world that existed beyond her tower. She knew, intellectually, that roughly half of humanity was male. But she’d never actually seen one.
A man was coming to her tower.
She leaned further over the wall, straining her eyes as if she could somehow see through two kilometers of dense jungle. What would he look like? Would he be kind? Would he be able to answer the thousands of questions that had built up over years of isolation?
Would he stay?
“Liora.” ARIS’s voice was gentle but firm. “I strongly recommend that you leave the walkway and return to your rooms. There is no benefit to?—”
“Wait.” Something had moved at the edge of her vision, a disturbance in the canopy about a kilometer away. Birds rose in a scattered cloud, their cries echoing through the air.
And then she saw him. Just a glimpse of a tall figure moving purposefully through the undergrowth.
A man.
Her hands were still clutching the wall, but now she could feel her pulse beating in her fingertips. Her whole body felt electric, alive in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
Someone was coming.
After twenty-one years in her tower, someone was finally, finally coming.
CHAPTER TWO
Baylin swore as a spike-covered vine wrapped around his arm. In his excitement at finally reaching his destination, he’d been careless enough to miss the treacherous vine. He quickly severed the vine, then winced as he carefully pulled it free. The gash was deeper than he expected, bleeding sluggishly in the humid air. His Vultor healing abilities would handle the wound, but he suspected it would add to his already extensive collection of scars.
No matter. He shrugged and returned to his journey, keeping a closer eye on his surroundings this time. A few meters later he pushed through a tangle of undergrowth, and the jungle abruptly gave way. He took two steps into the clearing and came to a dead stop.
The tower rose before him like something out of the old stories—ancient stone the color of weathered bone, climbing seven stories into the sky. It emerged from the cliff face as if it had grown there, the same rock continuing seamlessly from natural formation to deliberate construction. A pair of massive wooden doors, half-overgrown with vines, stood recessed into the stoneat the base. To the left, a small window was covered in a thick layer of grime. There were no other windows on the ground floor, but several tall windows ringed the upper floors and there was a small balcony about half way up. At the very top, what appeared to be a tiled roof caught the morning sun.
He’d found it. After countless nights of questioning whether he’d lost his mind, chasing a ghost from a centuries-old book, here it was, solid and real and impossible.
He allowed himself a single moment of satisfaction before his tactical mind reasserted itself. He circled the clearing’s edge, staying close to the tree line as he assessed the structure. The tower was roughly fifteen meters in diameter at the base, with a small one-story extension to the side. The stone showed no obvious signs of decay despite its apparent age. Vegetation had been cleared in a perfect semi-circle around it, the grass cropped short and the soil packed hard.
The structure appeared lifeless, but when he pulled his scanner from his pack, he could read the power signatures emanated from inside the structure, strong and steady. He remembered when Ember had found the reference—a single entry in an old journal belonging to her father. Her curiosity had driven her to investigate further and she’d discovered that the tower had been receiving twice yearly supply deliveries for twenty-two years.
The impact on the vast Duvain business empire was negligible, but the question of why it existed at all, and why her father had hidden it, had troubled her. They’d traced the coordinates to this region, a section of the planet so remote and overgrown that even the most detailed surveys showed nothing but uninterrupted jungle. No one had noticed because no one had been looking.
He’d immediately offered to investigate. Technically, the investigation fell within his duties as part of her security team, and besides—he’d needed to get away. The routine of protection and patrol had been wearing grooves into his mind that felt too much like the ones he’d tried to escape when he left his pack.
Rykan, Ember’s mate and Baylin’s former pack leader, hadn’t objected at the time, but he’d pulled him aside afterwards.
“Are you sure you want to do this? I know you didn’t promise to stay forever, but after six years apart, I thought it would be longer than a few months.”
“I’ll be back,” he promised. “It’s just... hard to stay in one place now.”
Ever since he’d finally given up on the chaotic remains of the pack Rykan should have led, he’d been unable to settle. A tangled mixture of guilt and restlessness had driven him from one place to another. His time with Rykan and Ember had been the closest he’d come to finding peace, but it wasn’t enough.
“I’ll go and investigate, then come back and tell you what I find,” he promised.
His friend’s eyes had searched his face, then he nodded. “Fine, but be careful. There’s something strange about this whole thing.”
The jungle had been a relief, in its way. Every obstacle had required his full attention. Every night had brought new sounds, new scents, new threats to evaluate and neutralize. He’d been too busy surviving to think about the guilt that sat like a stone in his chest, the knowledge that he’d abandoned the people who’d depended on him.
