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“You are not allowed to scare me like that again,” she whispers.
“I will do my best to disappoint fewer bridges.”
“That was terrible.”
“You are smiling.”
“I’m furious with myself for it.”
The chamber shudders violently.
A new path opens along the far wall, illuminated in silver light.
Behind us, Choir soldiers regroup inside the smoke.
In front of us, the ruins beneath reality continue waking from their billion-year sleep.
Anita brushes her thumb once across my bloodstreaked cheek before stepping back toward the scanner.
“Can you walk?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
“Frequently.”
She exhales a shaky laugh and shoulders the archive case again.
Then she moves beside me instead of ahead of me as the new passage opens.
Not behind.
Not protected from the danger.
Beside me.
The distinction settles into my chest harder than any confession could.
Brakk shoulders Sira carefully. “All right, doomed lovebirds. Let’s go offend ancient cosmic security systems somewhere else.”
Together, we run into the opening corridor while the awakened archive begins hunting everything inside it.
CHAPTER 19
ANITA
The corridor the ruins open after the transit chamber curves inward above us in layered black ribs, each one threaded with silver light that pulses faster as we move. The air has become warmer and heavier, filled with the sharp scent of scorched minerals from Ghar’s wound, the sterile bite of ancient machinery, and the faint copper tang of blood that seems to cling to all of us now. Every step carries a vibration up through my boots. It is not quite sound, not quite motion, more like the planet thinking underfoot.
Ghar walks beside me.
He should not be walking at all, but he’s a Vakutan. They’re nearly unkillable.
He keeps his weapon low but ready, his shoulders squared through sheer stubbornness. His blood is still on my hands. It has dried in the creases of my knuckles and beneath two fingernails, and no amount of rubbing against my pants has made it disappear.
I keep glancing at him.
He keeps pretending not to notice.
