“Oh, but I’ve forgotten my manners.” I leash my fury, press only its barest edge into my clenched hands. “Welcome to the Shadowlands, heiress. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a dayfolk tourist.” Her thin breaths go murky, distant. “Enjoy your stay.”
Kori, heiress of the Daylands, goes limp beneath me. I press two fingers to where her glove meets armor at her wrist, though, and a pulse faintly ticks beneath my touch.
So she’s alive. Good. Now would’ve been a terrible time to lose all control. I step away from her limp body, reaching to retrieve her fallen Morpheus spheres from where they lie. A single light blinks on the surface of each sphere. Bright red. Access denied, and brute force will hardly be enough to change that.
“Kori.” The mech drags itself toward me by its hands, busted leg abandoned. I almost forgot about the strange amalgam of metal and apparent emotion. “Kori. Kori.”
“Don’t worry,” I say, turning my attention back to the mech. “We’ll prepare accommodations for two.”
“I revoke—my request—for adventure,” the mech says, before I crush its vocal box with my foot.
Once upon a time,
the princess of sunlight slipped into shadow,
and fell, and fell,
and fell …
CHAPTER
11
KORI
The moment I’m conscious, my hands fly to my throat, grasping at restraints that aren’t there. I come to, coughing and rasping, still feeling the press of a monster’s claws at my neck, cutting off my oxygen. Only then, with both hands fully mobile, do I realize my left shoulder’s been restored to its proper angle. I feel around the joint with my right hand, testing; I give the arm a full rotation; even then, nothing hesitates, and nothing hurts. A dayfolk doctor resetting the joint would’ve advised physical therapy and medication for what was certain to be prolonged pain in the aftermath. But however the nightfolk healed me, it was with something beyond science.
My fingers trace the grooves of my full-body protective gear. From helmet down, the suit is unbroken, my flesh fully guarded from Pagomènos’s deadly energies. A monster she may be, but the nightfolk warrior who attacked me didn’t want me dead.
Whatever she does want, I need to get out of here, wherever here is. I blink rapidly, waiting for my surroundings to come back into focus, but I’m swallowed up by total dark. Abruptly, it hits me like a smack—I’minside a fully enclosed structure. BeforeCharoncrashed, I saw a massive azure pyre in the distance, serving as an alternative light source. But even that light can’t reach me here. And my helmet/mask is designed to reduce extreme sunlight, not illuminate the unseen.
Cold snakes down my spine, settles in the pit of my stomach. The suit’s heat resistance doubles well enough as cold resistance, since it’s internally self-regulating, but I’ve never tested it over long periods before. I could die here. I could freeze to death, and it would be so very slow.
“Aspect.” My voice is raw, strangled. I cough again. “Aspect, are you there?”
Silence.
I swallow a sob, or maybe a scream; if I don’t let it out, I won’t have to know. I would give anything for that stammering mechanized voice right now. I’d renounce my title as heiress of the Daylands (I may want to do that anyway). I’d part with another childhood memory. I’d shove that entire failed birthday cake down my throat and like it.
“No, no, no, no …” My voice is terribly steady, filtered by my mask, but my panic rises anyway. I stuff it down.
A plan. I need a plan.
Step one: Figure out where the hell I am. Slowly, gloved fingers splayed, I crawl backward (or is it forward?) until I meet a wall. It’s chilly stone, smoothed to perfection, more solid even than bone. I’m definitely inside a nightfolk building. I worry at my lip with my teeth. There must be a door somewhere in this chamber.
I pivot what feels like 45 degrees, crawling until I meet an identical stone wall. Pivot again. This time, my fingertip brushes something strange and cold, and I make the mistake of plunging my entire hand forward. A sensation like arctic lightning spears through my bloodstream, my veins turned to ice. I scream and lurch away, knees pulled to my chest, teeth chattering something fierce. I might as well have turned my single clip of heatshot ammo on myself.
The heatshot pistol.
When I’ve gathered my composure, I reach for where the weapon ought to be sheathed at my hip, but just like my faithful mech, it’s lost in the endless blackness.
Suddenly, it’s all too much. Tears well in my eyes and my throat, and I swear, even though I can’t see anything, the darkness shimmers. “No.No.”
I’m defenseless in forbidden territory, captured by a monster with unknown intentions, unable to contact my mother or even my mech, the only one who knew where I was going. My comms tablet was destroyed in the crash, which also leftCharonbadly damaged and embedded in the Second Spire. My only functioning Daylands weapon is gone. So is my sight. And this wall of sheer freezing power is impassable.
“Stars above. This can’t be happening.” I grasp the sides of my mask so hard, it’s a wonder it doesn’t snap in half. “This can’t be happening.”
In the distance, beyond my chamber, wind rushes suddenly. Swallowing, I pull myself up to my feet, prepared to meet whatever’s approaching. An interrogator, maybe. Or an executioner. I’ve broken both dayfolk and nightfolk laws, crossing into forbidden territory to make an equally forbidden trade. A quick death is more mercy than I legally deserve.
