Something in my chest cracked, and I wanted to scream. It wasn't fair. Why did he have to make me feel this way? Why did he have to hurt me? Why did I have to fall for a monster?
"Make it all go away…" A single tear dripped down from the corner of my eye, and I hoped he didn't see it.
He bent down, claiming my mouth in a kiss that was surprisingly, infuriatingly gentle. His hand slipped between us again, fingers moving in tight circles. It was too much. I shattered around him, my back arching off the bed as waves of pleasure rolled through me. I cried out his name, the sound echoing in the small cabin as my eyes rolled back in my head, my thighs trembling around his hips.
He followed moments later, his rhythm faltering as he buried himself deep. His whole body tensed, muscles straining as he moaned my name into the crook of my neck.
For several heartbeats, we remained frozen like that, both trembling. Then he collapsed beside me, both of us gasping for breath. The crystal's blue light cast deep shadows across our sweat-slicked skin. Neither of us spoke. What was there to say? This hadn't solved anything. If anything, it made everything more complicated.
I stared up at the ceiling, acutely aware of his presence beside me, of the heat radiating from his body. I couldn't shake the feeling that we made a mistake. That this was something we wouldn't be able to come back from.
"This changes nothing," I finally said, sounding hollow.
"I know," he replied, and I could hear the resignation there, the wall of ice forming between our bodies.
I sat up, wincing slightly at the pleasant soreness between my thighs. I needed to find my clothes, needed to put distance between us before I did something truly stupid—like curl into his arms and pretend, just for a little while.
Hours later,we found ourselves picking our way through the most unsettling place I'd ever seen. I could only describe it as a graveyard of broken ships stretching as far as I could make out in the murky First Dark. Wing ships of every conceivable design jutted from the landscape, their once-proud sails now tattered ribbons. Smaller skiffs lay scattered between them, some crushed beneath larger vessels, others merely abandoned.
"How many people have ended up here?"
Cypher moved ahead of me, his steps careful as he navigated around a shattered bow section. "Thousands. Maybe more."
I ran my fingers along the splintered wood of what must have been a luxury vessel, its gold inlay still gleaming faintly despite the centuries of decay. "Did any of them make it out?"
"A few perhaps," he said, though his tone suggested those numbers were vanishingly small.
We hadn't spoken about what happened in the captain's quarters. Once we'd dressed and gathered our things, we'd fallen into an uneasy silence, both of us pretending the encounter was nothing more than a shared fever dream. My body still achedpleasantly, but my mind was spinning in circles. I couldn't decide if I regretted it or not.
"Stay close," Cypher murmured, holding out a hand to help me over a particularly unstable section of debris. I ignored it, finding my way. His sigh was not the first in the hours that passed. The way-finder in his hand pulsed more insistently now. "We're getting closer," he said, checking the device. "The Genesis Engine must be beyond this ship graveyard. It makes sense that the ships would have been drawn to this area."
Shadows moved between the wrecks. Not denizens, something different. They slithered and coiled, lacking solid form. I felt them watching us, tracking our progress through their domain.
"What are those?" I asked, pointing to where darkness pooled beneath a listing skiff.
"Echoes, but not like the ones you've seen in the Gallery. These are older. Remnants of people who've been here so long they've started to become part of the First Dark itself."
As if hearing him, the shadows rippled in response, several of them flowing together to form a vaguely humanoid shape before dissolving again. I shuddered, instinctively moving closer to Cypher despite my decision to maintain distance.
"They won't hurt us," he said, though he didn't sound entirely convinced. "Not unless we threaten them."
We continued through the maze of wrecked ships, the wayfinder's glow growing stronger with each passing minute. The shadows followed, more joining their ranks until it felt like we were being herded rather than merely watched.
"Cypher," I said uneasily. "I don't think?—"
"Juno?" A familiar voice called out, and my heart leapt. "JUNIE!”
I whirled around, searching frantically for the source. There, perched atop the broken mast of a wing ship, was my cousin.
"KORA!" I shouted, abandoning all caution as I scrambled toward her.
She slid down the mast with the agility of a cat, landing in a crouch before racing toward me. We collided in the middle, arms wrapping around each other so tightly it hurt.
"You're alive," she sobbed against my shoulder. "Gods, I thought—when we got separated?—"
"I'm okay," I assured her, pulling back to examine her face. She looked exhausted but unharmed. "Where are the others?"
"Here," came Jask's voice from behind her. He emerged from behind a broken hull section, followed by Zoya and Vic. Their faces lit up at the sight of us.
