Page 105
He nodded. “I did. Before it vanished.”
“Are the words still on the chip?”
Ryneth shook his head. “No. They disappeared.”
Daven dragged his attention off Ryneth and back to his uncle. “I brought him here because I remembered you once saying Aunt Norma used the phrase.”
Milanov nodded slowly, his gaze dropping back to his sleeping wife. Her body had gone slack, her breathing returned to normal.
One of the nurses cleared her throat softly, waiting until Milanov looked at her before speaking. “Imperial, we need to make the patient comfortable. If you don’t mind, we need a little space.”
Milanov took Norma’s hand again.
“Go,” he told Daven. “Let me think about this. About what this could mean.”
They closed the door behind them and walked back into the guarded hall.
Ryneth slid his hand into Daven’s larger one as they made their way down the corridor. He’d received messages from both Kylix and Cyprian, but Daven couldn’t bring himself to care right now. His mind was full. To see his uncle, the Imperial of Helion, this broken… it bruised his heart. To see Norma…
“So that was her,” Ryneth whispered. “The royal consort. And she’s been like that all these years?”
“She isn’t ill,” Daven said as they moved down the hall. “Her body rejected the Dariux injections they gave her. It should have killed her, or changed her, but instead…” He glanced back toward the closed door. “She stayed.”
Ryneth was quiet for a few steps, his hand still in Daven’s. “And she’s been like that all these years?”
Daven nodded. “Ever since.”
They kept walking through the white corridor, guards posted at intervals, the air too clean and too cold after what they’d just seen.
Daven glanced down at their joined hands, then back at him. “I don’t think she’s the only strange thing in this building.” His grip tightened slightly. “Look at us. Whatever happened when it locked, you’re under my skin now.”
Ryneth swallowed. “That’s not reassuring.”
Daven’s mouth curved, faint and dangerous. “That wasn’t the point.”
They stepped out of the building toward the car.
“What’s that? You’re hungry again?”
“That too. But there is this noise in my head. Do you have that too?”
Ryneth stopped and took both Daven’s hands in his. “What do you mean?”
Daven shrugged. “It’s probably nothing. It’s just loud.”
And it was.
A vibration ran through the stone beneath their feet.
Ryneth’s fingers tightened around his. “It isn’t you,” he said. “It’s coming from outside.”
They both turned.
Behind the hospital wing, beyond the rows of graves, a shuttle descended through the sky.
It came in fast and controlled, dropping behind the graveyard on a low, steady hum that didn’t sound like any Luminary craft Daven had ever heard.
What the fuck was that?
