But I can’t help the small gasp that escapes my lips. It ricochets off the marble and draws eyes. I let my body slump and cough hard to cover my reaction.
Toriben is on me in a heartbeat. He moves with complete silence, kneeling at my platform’s edge, the line of his jaw set to “interrogation.”
“Pollen,” I say, voice rough, coughing still. “Or smoke. Incense is strong.”
He doesn’t buy it, but he doesn’t press. He signals for a priestess to bring water, and the creature glides over with a goblet. I take it with both hands, spill a little on my dress for good measure, so I have another chance to move.
The psychic wave is still breaking through me. I choke down the water, focusing on the coolness of it in my throat.
An image comes—a woman’s hand, reaching through a wall of fire, fingers spread. The skin is dark and smooth. The nails are bitten short. Dana. A biome of hot sand, a sky so cloudless, and Dana’s face, jaw clenched, eyes rimmed red. Elena explains what she needs me to find. She's handing the job to me.
My stomach drops. I can reach Dana. I can reach all the other Starfallen women. But I’ve been careful. Sneaky. They don’t even know I’m there. It has to be that way, so Jarrett doesn’t know.
The message is more than clear, though. Elena can’t reach Dana—so I have to be the link. We’re all in danger from whoever brought us here to Xytheos.
I push her out of my mind, hard and fast, before I’m caught. My arms and legs buzz with pins and needles, and for a second my vision tunnels. I blink hard, try to steady my breath.
Toriben keeps watching from two steps away. If he thinks I’m a threat, he’ll act. I don’t think he would dare to hurt me, but he’ll tell Jarrett. I need to look as harmless as possible.
I push my hands flat against the chair, forcing the tremors to still. My body is a wreck—every nerve ending scorched—but the exterior is solid. That’s all that matters right now.
I wait for the world to settle. When the aftershocks fade, I let my eyes sweep the room again, slower this time, letting every detail root me in the present. The courtwives haven’t moved. The guards haven’t changed formation. Even the incense smoke curls the same way as before. Toriben returns to his post.
But I know, in my chest, that the next move is mine, and I have to do it now, while Jarrett remains distracted. If I wait until I’m alone, until night, Jarrett will be in my head.
I brace, then reach for Dana.
The psychic bond is a taut line, invisible until I pull on it, then bright and raw as a power cable stripped of insulation.
I slip around Jarrett’s wall.
The world recedes—the marble, the blue light, even the pressure of the dress at my ribs. It’s all gone. I’m flying blind, one thought at a time, seeking Dana in the psychic dark. I hope the body I’ve left remains masked.
The connection snaps into place, and my skin warms under a sunlit sky. I taste salt, and a grit that sandpapers my tongue. There’s a wind, constant, whispering over every exposed inch of my face. The light is white and bright, and the sky is cloudless. Dry.
I force my voice into her head, using the shape of her name to cut through the static.
Dana.
The world tightens. I feel her awareness lock onto me, her anger braced like a wall. She doesn’t recognize me, not at first. She’s been alone too long, fighting something I can’t see, and every instinct tells her to kill the intruder. Maybe she knows Jarrett’s got a wall on her. I have to let her know it’s me. Really me.
I send the number twenty—twenty Starfallen, twenty left alive on Xytheos. She pauses, the wall softening just enough for me to slip in the message.
I picture New Terra. I picture the old world, the ruined sky, the bunkers where we survived. She’ll know I’m a friend, even if she can’t pick up my name. I send the words—danger, bioweapon, Xytheos.
I don’t have time for more. The High Lord’s awareness rouses on the edge of my mind, a cold press against my temples, seeking the source of the connection. I can’t risk him seeing us.
Dana doesn’t understand. But the High Lord is closing in, his presence a vice tightening on my skull.
I sever the link before he can find me.
The recoil hits hard—a snap and a tearing pressure behind my eyes—and I fold forward in my chair, one hand braced against my temple. My breath stutters. I force a cough, then another, sharp and ugly, fighting against the corset as if it’s crushing my lungs.
The chamber’s eyes are all on me. Jarrett will see every second of this through their eyes.
Toriben is watching me closely. His gaze flicks to the way I can’t quite draw a full breath. He touches two fingers to the side of his throat. “Sovereign,” he says quietly. “Sophia is unwell.”
The words are barely out before he’s beside me, gripping my arm. He pulls me to my feet as another cough tears out of me.
