The floor beneath us bucks again. I move to catch myself against the wall with one arm, but I don’t have to; Neo’s telekinesis prevents my skull from slamming into stone.
Beyond our shared cell, the attack is only getting worse. For all I know, Adria could be pinned down already, surrounded and outgunned, broken wings pinned to the floor, a fresh freezeblade poised above her throat. I shouldn’t care. But that’s never stopped me before, and it’s sure as hell not going to stop me now.
“By the Dreamgiver.” I curl my hands into fists. “Adria’s going to get herself killed. And I can’t even make my best attempt at a battlefield distraction.”
“About that,” Neo says. When I turn to look at him, his smile beams like a flaming brazier in the dark, cold cell. “A standard telekinetic must have clear sight of that which he intends to manipulate. An overcharged telekinetic …”
Outside our cell, the button on the wall audiblyclicks.
“… can break many rules.”
I throw my arms around Neo’s frail form before I can think any better of it. I’m probably crushing him with my explosive joy, but I’m too euphoric to be sorry. “Neo, you wonderful criminal genius, you’ve given my stubborn ass a second chance I shouldn’t take.”
“But you are, of course, going to take it.”
“You know me so well already.”
Another miniature earthquake rocks the floor beneath us. I catch myself with both arms flung wide, while Neo does the same with an uncomfortably bent leg. He manages a laugh anyway. “It was a pleasure meeting you for myself, Kori of the Daylands.”
“Wait.” My head suddenly aches. “If you could’ve hit that button at any time … why the hell were you still in prison?”
Neo smiles faintly again. “I sinned against my god. Then I broke the laws of my queen, and also freed her greatest rival from his cell—Azarii, whom I have now also betrayed by not scrambling the queen’s mind entirely. Everything I thought I knew has inverted upon itself. When I was dragged before Adria to answer for my crimes, it seemed the least I could do … to try. To do somethinggood.” He heaves a heavy breath. “I hoped, truly of my own free will, to alleviate Adria’s pain, as my sister sought to alleviate mine; and barring that, Kori, I hoped to ease yours. You had the look of someone who badly needed to talk.”
“Is it that obvious?” I step away from Neo and toward the now-nonfrozen cell exit, but catch myself and turn back to ask, “What about you? Where will you go?”
“I’ve done what I can for my queen, and perhaps for her last tether to hope. I’ll go to find my sister, and perhaps … perhaps, Kori, I will take a lesson from you, and I will not forget. I will carry this all with me. And I will try to make something of myself.”
I can’t help but smile at that. “Best of luck, Neo.”
“When you find Adria,” he says, “she may rage and thrash against fate, but I think she’ll be happy to see you.”
I can only hope so.
CHAPTER
22
ADRIA
One sun serpent would be nightmare enough, and the creature didn’t arrive alone.
The entire front of Kori’s room has already been reduced to rubble, the beast crushing Aspect, Russ, and me into the far-left corner by her bed, threatening us all with an ugly, unceremonious death. The wall behind us gives way, too, and we’re staggering through smoke and stone and serpentine snarling, out in the adjacent hallway now, me coughing, Russ barking, and Aspect continuing to beep like a confused comms tablet. The hallway is no longer fully formed either. Patches of the floor and walls alike are both gone. Outside stars wink at us through the gaps.
Where the walls remain intact, half the hallway’s braziers are still lit, shimmering and shuddering, while the other half have gone out in the scramble, leaving strange patches of uneven shadow. The odd silhouettes are only worsened by the assorted tapestries on the wall waving in the wind generated by the serpent’s massive body—no, two massive bodies now, both moving terrifyingly fast.
And these twin predators are definitely not alone. The sounds of outside combat are even punchier with so many holes in the walls allowing increased noise to break through. Blasts of supernatural nightfolk energy, barely singeing the reptilians’ scaly hides. The swing and slash of serpent fangs as long as swords. Kori’s mother spared no expense to bring her back under submission, dead or alive.
I have only a single small comfort—even Azarii’s rebels aren’t obtuse enough to attack me and my fortress while we’re besieged by animals that would gladly slaughter them, too.
The fur along Russ’s back stands on end, all three of his heads curling their lips and snarling at the two serpents nearest us. “Triple dog, no!” Aspect cries. “Triple dog—must—be careful!”
“They’re not wrong,” I intone, petting the central head, trying to soothe my pet. “Russ, don’t get yourself killed. Stay back.” The leftmost head spits a ball of slobber on the ground. “That’s anorder.”
I’ve no sooner given it than the nearest of the two sun serpents lunges directly for me. I roll to evade its bared fangs, my knees ripping on the scattered rubble, but I’m clobbered by its spiked tail instead, the impact brilliant in the purity of its pain. My lungs are clean out of breath, the oxygen punched out of me. Needlelike appendages embed all along my chest. At least these barbs aren’t tinged with poison. It’s the fangs I really have to worry about, capable of disabling me entirely so the monster can swallow me whole.
Aspect takes a painfully long stretch to realize thatpanickingdoesn’t mean they have to stay put while screeching at the highest possible volume. They double back toward Kori’s original quarters (or what’s left of it) and slide underneath the bed, which is already buckled from the serpents’ havoc. Aspect looks like an uncomfortably self-aware piece of stashed luggage. I would laugh if I weren’t fighting for my life.
I’m pure adrenaline and emotion, despite my best attempts to resist the latter’s inexorable hold on me. I’ve called it weakness, treated it likesickness, but now it becomes my strength. It fuels every pulse of energy from my swinging fists, every snap of my wings, every increasingly desperate dodge above or below or just barely out of another fang’s snapping range.
