Adria leads me through her labyrinthian fortress. I may not be chained, but I might as well be physically tied to her; even if I were to make a run for it, Aspect clunkily in tow, I could never navigate this place on my own.
Since I was unconscious for my journey into the fortress, I never got a full, proper look at its layout—it was nothing more than a malformed, inky silhouette in the distance, brutally lit by a single enormous blue light at its highest point. But from what I can gather as we weave through countless hallways, up and down staircases, and farther and farther from the prison quarters, the nightfolk fortress is a concentric collection of rectangular levels, getting narrower each level up. The prison was along the far west side, and we seem to be making our way … east … I think? But I can’t shake the feeling that Adria is making this route deliberately convoluted, ensuring I can’t navigate the fortress without her help.
As we twist our way from the fortress’s westmost point to the east, Adria starts to lean almost onto her front limbs, practically proceedingon all fours, somewhere between a walk and a run. It should serve as a reminder that she and her people haven’t been merely human since the Cataclysm, but instead it dredges up the most peculiar memory for me.
As a child, when Chloe called me for dinner, I’d ascend every shelter stairwell on my hands and knees, laughing, insisting that my scuttling was faster—or, at the very least, more fun. She used to scold me without even a flicker of amusement, saying that only a Shadowlands mutant would traverse a staircase in such a way. Part of my brain knows I should see a predator’s charge in Adria’s movements, but now that I know her by name, I can’t help but see echoes of a child’s amused experimentation instead.
Those limbs, swollen with muscle, blue-white skin stretched over them like worn parchment, could tear my chest wide open, shred me into ribbons—but instead, she uses those powerful arms as secondary legs to casually scramble through halls where she could just as easily walk.
Adria doesn’t even glance behind her to ensure I’m following. Whether it’s because she trusts me not to run or knows she could obliterate me if I did, it’s impossible to tell. Aspect follows our captor at an eager clip. I can’t help but do the same.
After so many turns, ascents, and descents that it’s useless to track, we arrive outside the Pagonian-plated safe room. Most of the shadow fortress’s interior is uneven, the rock forged by radiation into something like a living system, twisting veins and arteries of rock meeting somewhere into a heart beyond my knowledge. But the plated section, safe for dayfolk, is entirely artificial, physically constructed instead of born of strange power. Its walls, floor, and ceiling are smooth and metallic, almost medically austere. I’ve never seen Ednit’s living quarters back in the Daylands, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they looked very much like this.
Adria gestures to the door with one claw. “Everything you need should be inside. I’ll leave you be.”
I swallow. “How do I know I’m not walking into a trap?”
“Oh, Princess,” Adria says, the moniker sliding coolly down my spine, “you were trapped the moment you set foot in the shadows.” She almost smiles. “But, at the very least, remember my ransom. It’s in my best interest to preserve your health.” She presses one claw into a control panel, opening the room’s first sliding door. “You’ll have to go ahead of Aspect so the air lock safely purges all radiation. When I call for you, they will deliver the message.”
Aspect wobbles on their new leg. “New chip—in Aspect’s head!” they proclaim, tapping their poorly drawn face. “Beeps when—new friend is coming. Very—annoying—to Aspect.”
Lovely. I grind my teeth. “And what if I need you, Adria? I somehow doubt there’s also a summoning microchip under your hair.”
She laughs. It should be a heavy, shuddering sound, given the eight-foot hulk that stands before me, but it’s icicle brittle. “The air lock will seal behind you. Aspect can leave as needed to recharge. If anything else organic sets foot in that chamber again before I permit it, I will know. And the results will not be pleasant.”
“So it’s another prison, after all.”
“Do you want to escape that sun-forsaken radiation suit or not?”
She isn’t wrong, but my sharp tongue betrays my better sense again. “Don’t flatter yourself. I somehow doubt girls are rushing to take their clothes off at the sight of you.”
I don’t know why I’m surprised that nightfolk can blush, but the blooming crimson streaking her blue-white cheekbones startles me. She truly stumbles for words for a moment, clawed fingers grasping as if for lost language. One wing curls a bit, as if to hide her face.
“If a prison is anywhere you can’t simply leave,” Adria says, “I don’t see how your so-called home in the Daylands is any different.”
That lands like a blow to the back of my head. What’s the difference, really, between my underground shelter below the sunlight and this shadowy chamber beyond its reach? One maintained by my mother,daylight’s queen; the other by my captor, the shadows’ queen. Both more concerned with my long-term value than my present well-being.
“Then at least I’ve had plenty of practice,” I snarl, and step into the air lock.
The door slides shut behind me. Lights flash blue and red, cold smoke filling the room from every angle as stray radiation is purged from my protective gear. After a brief stretch, the next door opens and admits me to my new living space. Aspect follows, the air lock revoking any radiation from their system that hasn’t already been absorbed as their power source.
Without even stopping to take in my new living space, I half pull Aspect, half fall into them, hugging their cold, metal form as tightly to myself as I can despite their many uncomfortable angles and edges. I didn’t even know I needed to cry, but now I’m sobbing, just clutching Aspect to me, their head buried in the crook of my neck as tears stream unbidden down my face. My eyes burn, and my mouth tastes like salt. At some point, my knees give out, and I’m kneeling on the floor, still clutching Aspect, my whole body shaking.
“I thought I lost you,” I gasp between sobs. “I thought I lost you.”
Aspect gives their head a littlenoshake against me. “Kori will need—to try harder—to lose Aspect.”
When the tears finally stop, at least for the moment, I release Aspect from the crushing hug and take in my new surroundings. There’s a proper shower on my right, a changing area adjacent, and a comically oversized bed on my left, as if the nightfolk forgot that over six feet of bloated muscle is atypical for their daylight counterparts. The ceiling houses harsh pale tubes of white lighting, which are all automatically activated by movement, so there isn’t even a lamp in sight. No personal effects, no signs of life. It must really have been generations since any dayfolk set foot in the Shadowlands. Leave it to me to break tradition again.
I want to be angry, especially at Adria, but as soon as I let that anger gain a foothold, I find it’s mostly anger at myself. Foolish girl, launching herself like a shooting star into the darkness, wishing for an impossiblememory capable of instilling a machine with aself.I could’ve stayed home. I could’ve made the best of lonely days in our underground compound, focused on tinkering with Aspect and doing my assigned readings, and hoped that one of the readily available memories on the Morpheus Market would finally do the trick in my quest for Aspect’s awakening—but no, I had to test the boundaries of my assigned space. I had to fall into the endless abyss just to see if it had a bottom.
And this is definitely rock bottom.
But Aspect is with me again, so even at the end of myself, I find the will to keep moving. To keep fighting.
I trespassed in the Shadowlands to find a memory capable of awakening Aspect. The shadow queen may have me securely on a leash, but I’m hardly bound in place. And now I’m completely immersed in a world entirely different from my own, set apart from any memory I could’ve possibly bought on the market. Anything here could be the secret to awakening Aspect. I just need enough courage to walk further into the dark—even when I can’t see my own hand in front of my face, even when a single false step more could spell the end of everything.
First, though, I need to wash off my lingering terror.
