Maybe Chloe didn’t try to kill me. But why did she lock me away underground like a living fossil for my entire life, if all along, the radiation wouldn’t kill me? Did she know? For how long? Nothing makes a fraction of sense anymore.
The nightfolk at large don’t know that I was exposed to the radiation, nor that it didn’t kill me like it should have, so Adria can at least keep that close to her chest, provided Thaane doesn’t sound the alarm. But will withholding that detail be enough? How close is Adria’s throne from being entirely usurped by her advisory council—or even by Thaane himself?
I want to hate him so badly. But Ididbring desert monsters to the Shadowlands; Ididdistract Adria from the ongoing civil war. All that (and more) is true beyond doubt. His words linger like splinters beneath my skin:She doesn’t belong here, Adria. She never did.
So, are Thaane’s protestations and deference to the Shadow Court’s judgment really any different from Adria’s overtaking her parents’ throne? Any different from what I’m doing, returning home to investigate how deep the false science of radiation poisoning goes? He’s only trying to protect his people. If my mother had fallen for a nightfolk trespasser, and let our dayfolk settlement fall to pieces in turn, would I have acted any differently than Thaane has?
He’s right: I don’t belong here. My return home is long overdue.
But when I tell Adria as much, she physically lifts me from a sitting position on the floor to the edge of her bed. “As long as I’m queen,” she says, brushing stray hairs out of my face with one claw, “you will always have a place here. But right now, you need torest.You’ll need all your newfound strength before long.”
“I will sleep in my own bed, thank you,” I insist, uselessly pushing against the barrier of Adria’s extended arm.
She gently pushes me back into the mattress. Russ, for good measure, jams two of his heads into my knees, trying to keep me in place. “Your bed is snapped clean in two.”
Aspect wiggles one raised arm for attention. “And underneath—Kori’s broken bed—is the perfect bed—forAspect!”
I roll my eyes. “You are arobot, Aspect. You don’t even sleep.”
The mech crosses their quivering arms in a picture of defiance so eerily akin to myself, I wonder if I’m anywhere near qualified to be a mech mom. “Aspect can—say recharge—issleep—if Aspect wants.”
“And you want to sleep in the serpent attack’s rubble? Of all the things,that’swhat you want? Your first conscious act, with sentience bestowed upon you, is to have a snooze in some abandoned wreckage?”
“Aspect—is making—CHOICES,” Aspect declares, idly scratching Russ under one of his chins as they do so.
“Well.” Adria laughs under her breath. “I suppose that settles it. I’ll walk Aspect back to their—ah—bed, and you’ll get some rest here while I clean up the political mess those accursed snakes left behind.” She extends an open hand and adds, “And repair that crack in your armor, while I’m in the business of fixing things.”
Arching my eyebrows, I pin Adria with my eyes, even as I drop my collapsed section of the damaged armor into her palm. I’m far too tired to bother removing the rest of it right now. There was always that unspoken tension between us, even when the helmet concealed my face, but now that my gaze can properly meet hers, I’m enjoying the rush of newfound power I hold to make this massive, mighty warrior of a woman go silent and still with a glance. “You need to sleep, too.”
“I will if I can. Don’t worry.”
“But I’m inyourbed—” I start to say, even as Adria ignores me entirely.
“Your priority right now isyou, Kori,” she says, walking Aspect out of the room, blowing out the assorted braziers on the wall as she passes. Russ patters heavily after both of them. “No matter how much you resent me for it.”
The electronic door slides shut with a final hiss behind them, leaving me in darkness. I lean back, groaning, and stare up at where the domed ceiling would be if I could see anything at all. I even lift a hand to wiggle my fingers in front of my face, but it’s totally lost in the inky blackness. Sighing, I close my eyes, not seeing much use for keeping them open anyway. At some point, I drift into a restless sleep.
It’s the dream again, because of course it is. Manacles holding me to the medical table. The invasive prick of a needle at my wrist. Strange weight muddling my head, as though my skull were full of water. My mother’s voice:Kori, can you hear me?
In this rendition of the dream, though, my subconscious mind must retain some small spark of knowledge that Chloe and Ednit alike havebeen lying to me my whole life. I thrash in the chains, my skull bashing into the table over and over until I’ve left a pool of blood on the medical-grade parchment beneath me.Get away from me!My voice, corrosive as acid, burns my throat.I’m not like you!
Something else seizes my wrists, then, real and substantial, a soft and tender touch utterly unlike the chains holding my spectral self down. I swim up out of sleep and into the knowledge that I’m flailing in waking life, Adria’s hands holding me safely against the bed until I cease to struggle.
“Sorry,” I mumble, still halfway lost in sleep. “Sorry, sorry …”
But Adria shushes me and crawls in beside me, carefully turning me over so her massive body curves around mine, a protective fortress of muscle around my shuddering frame.
“Sleep, Kori,” she breathes.
I’m shivering too badly for that, unaccustomed to the Shadowlands’ cold, so she covers my body with her good wing, a welcome brush of velvety warmth.
I fall back into a dreamless slumber.
When I wake, I’m only half-sure I didn’t dream that up, too—the real, undeniable weight of her body against mine, the blanket of her wing, the brush of her mouth at the shell of my ear.Sleep, Kori.For a ridiculous instant, I wonder if she’s even coming back, or if this is how I find out that our romantic bond was all in my head from the start.
Then the door slides open, and she’s standing there again, visibly weary but nevertheless smiling at the sight of me, her wing already half healed.
“Hey,” she says.
