“What?” I say, not understanding. My voice shakes like the surface of a water glass. Or is it my whole body that’s shaking, harder and harder, even though every shake brings with it a jolt of stabbing, vicious pain in my—
Oh, stars above, my left arm.
Aspect’s head is cosmetic compared to this. I look like a discarded marionette. A shoulder should never, ever twist at that angle, almost inverted on itself from instinctually attempting to break my fall. I want to scream and scream, but all that comes out is a child’s terrified whimper. “No, no, no, it hurts, ithurts…”
“Aspect will find—help.”
“Aspect will stay right here until I can stand up.”
“Aspect—is not sure”—they move to rise, pushing up with their hands, but their feet are wobbly, ringed with smoke—“that Kori—or Aspect—should stand. But Aspect would rather—it were Aspect.”
A second heartbeat throbs in my shoulder. Only continuing to quicken, my breaths rattle my whole body, intensifying the anguish. Logically, an arm injury shouldn’t prevent standing on my own two feet, but even shifting my weight on the ground makes the shoulder pain surge so severely that I see stars, and not the twinkling ones above us. I stare, woozy, into the vast dark landscape. I’m still alive, but it feels like the shroud has come for me already.
“We have to find Alpha. They’re the only one who can help us.”
“Others must—live here?”
“Others,” I echo, my throat constricting. “Not like us.”
And here we are, guarded only by the mountains spearing into the darkness behind us. On every other side, we’re completely exposed. Worse predators than the Passage’s sand serpents likely live here, and I don’t even know what to watch for. If random nightfolk stumble upon us, they could do anything they want to me, torture us both for sport instead of simply letting me die.
I feel through my pockets with a shivering hand; miraculously, my Morpheus sphere for trade remains intact, but my ruined comms tablet meets my flesh as pricks of broken glass. Likewise, I can feel two unevenly broken halves of the “business card” given to me by the Morpheus Market gremlin.
There’s no way to signal for help. Nobody who knows we’re here. Even if I reset Aspect’s installed tracker to be accurate—presuming it even survived our crash landing—I strongly doubt it can transmit across the entire planet. It was never meant to mark travel further than the Passage’s midpoint. For all her desperate attempts to control and micromanage my movements, Chloe has really, truly lost track of us, and at possibly the only time when I don’t want that. Even my mother, incandescent with rage at what I’ve done, would bring grateful tears to my eyes right now.
The truest dark I’ve ever known watches and says nothing.
Aspect moves their hands to my good arm, just under the armpit, poised to lift. “Aspect—helps—Kori stand?”
“That won’t be necessary,” I start, but the mech is already heaving me to my feet with all the force I’ve managed to install into their spindly, squeaky frame.
Ithurts, oh, how it hurts, and I’m shrieking just to prevent biting clean through my own lower lip, but I find my footing.
“Kori stands!” Aspect proclaims, hands brought together in celebration, even as their own footing on their smoking feet remains uncertain. “Now—where?”
I look up to whereCharon—or what’s left of it—remains wedged in the mountains. Absent the covering dome, the cockpit caved in on itself. One side of the wings seems gone entirely, the other bent at assorted strange angles, a proud bird brought low and humbled, reduced to a smoking, burning husk. Tears sting my eyes. But as my gaze wanders farther up, hope bursts anew.
Like a primitive Earthside spear,Charonimpaled itself in the second of five consecutive stone spires.Meet me at the Second Spire.We’ve reached the agreed-upon meeting place after all. And Alpha is nearby, bearing the memory that may finally awaken Aspect’s potential—and hopefully a method of exiting the Shadowlands before the other nightfolk realize we’re trespassing (or Chloe realizes I’m gone).
Despite everything, a smile overtakes me. “I think we’re exactly where we need to be.”
CHAPTER
8
ADRIA
The Shadowlands prison has occasionally housed dayfolk trespassers—defects from their arrogant, isolated society, foolishly convinced the dark would be more welcoming—but not since long before my birth. This is a cage not for rebellious dayfolk but for criminals of the night.
Like our freezeshot weapons, all four walls of each stone cell have integrated wiring to channel a thin layer of deadly cold energy, continually sourced from the Shadowlands’ freezing climate. Rather than metal bars, a wall of freezeshot shimmers a holographic blue. Only the floor remains mere stone beneath a prisoner’s feet, and if they move too suddenly, a sheet of agonizing cold slides into place there, too.
Upon seeing me, Thaane lurches to his feet, triggering the floor’s freezing wall. The energy spears straight through his ankles, and he collapses, knees pulled close to his chest, rage giving way to immediate regret. “My lord,” he gasps.
“Don’t patronize me,” I say, standing just outside his cell. “You’re lucky your gift doesn’t involve your voice, or you wouldn’t be talking at all.”
The hallway is lined with additional imprisonment gear, depending on the unique talents of each nightfolk resident. Muzzles for those who, like me, can call the Diakópsei’s power from their throats. Manacles for those who rely upon their hands. Adjustable restraints for wings, tails, and the like.
Thaane’s wrists are bound securely together to prevent his morphing any stone floors into breakable glass, but I saw no need to bind his mouth. He spits on his cell’s floor, the saliva turning almost immediately to ice.
