The ground rumbles around me, and my eyes snap open and widen. The kernel is no longer in my hand.
Instead, before me, stands a giant rhino. Or maybe it’s the size of a regular rhino—I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been this close to one before.
Its skin is leathery and gray, and when it snorts, mucus lands on the ground. It bucks its head, and I hold back my reaction, not wanting to get gored. But when it meets my eyes, I see something I never witnessed in my nightbeasts: obedience. It’s not tame, but it seems willing to submit. Why? Because I’m its creator?
I run my hand along its cheekbone, then shoulder, then back. It holds still. I mount with the help of a nearby boulder. There’s a small dip in its spine that gets the closest to imitating a saddle, but that doesn’t mean the back of a rhino is comfortable.
“Let’s go to the Tunnels,” I prompt.
It swivels around. I lurch for a handhold, but there’s nothing. No mane, no bridle, not even feathers like on the phoenix. I do the only thing I can: I drop low and hug its form like I would a horizontal tree trunk. It takes a while for me to meld with the rhythm of its lumbering gait. Once I think I’m stable, I dare to lift my head. We’re in the midst of the abandoned houses, where the snakes attacked me and Larry. From what I can tell, we’re making good time.
I’m thankful this creature seems to know where the Tunnels are. After half an hour we enter fog, and the rhinoceros slows but stays on target. I pat its side as it heaves and snorts.
“Slow down, big guy. Catch your breath.” There’d be no sneaking up on the Tunnels with this loud mouth-breather.
I slide off his back. “You stay here for now, okay?”
He paws the ground and then flumps down on it with the impact of a level-4 earthquake.
I creep through the mist, not entirely sure how far I am from the Tunnels, but I must be close. Luc’s map runs through my head as I navigate past rubble and houses and then . . . nothing. No trees, just sparse grass poking from dry rough ground. The same type of ground I landed on with my hands and knees the first moment I exited the Tunnels.
A few more gentle steps and the fog clears, revealing the crackling campfire of the Vetters. Beyond it are the four cages built around the exits to the Tunnels. The crooked, dying tree is still off to the side of the campfire, and the ring of keys gleams in the firelight. Two men and a woman huddle around the campfire, drinking their coffee.
Meanwhile, each Tunnel cave is filled with three or four to a cage. Most sit and cower—Fears. But there are two who stand and shake the bars, pounding their fists against the wood. Occasionally shouting at the Vetters to explain, to let them out.
I remember that feeling.
Confusion. Entrapment. Anger. This cage only makes it worse for them. They need answers: they need freedom. How long have these dreamers been trapped here? While their physical bodies deteriorate in the Real World?
Some of them might have kids in Castle Ithebego. When I think of it that way, I lose focus of the keys altogether. I left the castle to stop Luc, but these people need help too.
“We’ve got enough for each of our quotas. Let’s load ’em up.” A Vetter tosses a final splash of coffee into the fire, and it hisses when the liquid hits the coals.
“Not while whatever’s going on at the coliseum is still happening,” the female Vetter says. Her face is turned away from me, but I recognize her voice. “I want no part in that battle. I’ll take my chance here with the nightbeasts and dreamers.”
It’s Helene.
Helene is a Vetter? After all she’s gone through to reunite with her daughter, now she’s enabling the coliseum Games?
I pull up short as her head turns slightly. In the flicker of the campfire, I catch a glimpse of her face. I’ve seen that face, but younger. Same freckles, same narrow nose and wayward curl by her ear.
Helene is Heidi’s mom.
One of the men speaks up. “We have a quota to fill, and I want to get paid. I chose Vetting for my conscription. They can’t make me ride some skybeast in the Emperor’s war.”
“Barys . . .” Helene sounds weary. “Let’s just finish our coffee.”
The lead Vetter, Barys, rises with the other man. “Get working, Helene, or I’ll report you.” He crosses to a cage cart. Helene takes one final slow sip from her tin cup, then joins him.
I want to believe she’s undercover, has some ulterior motive. But she checks the harnesses of two cougar nightbeasts hitched to the front of a much larger transport cart, like she’s done it a hundred times.
I have information that could get her on my side. At least briefly.
I know where Heidi, her missing daughter, is. If I can only get her alone . . .
The Vetters lead the cougars and cart to the first Tunnel cage. The Fears who are trapped inside shy away. A brief light sparks.
“Did you see that flash?” the male Vetter, a short, tattooed man, exclaims. His hands jerk away from the cage lock.
“I didn’t see anything,” Helene says with a shake of her head, picking up where the tattooed Vetter left off with the lock. She’s fibbing. The tension in her shoulders gives her away, but the other two Vetters don’t seem to notice.
“I saw it,” Barys says. “There’s a Spore in here.”
“Who was that?” the first Vetter demands from the Fears. “Who made that light?” The Fears keep silent, eyes wide. One woman whimpers.
“I’m not risking getting that close to a Spore,” Tattoos mutters to Barys. “Quota or not. I’ll take the penalty.”
Barys stares him down. “Kill them. Dead Spores count toward our quota.”
“Kill them?” Helene repeats, voice jumping an octave. “These are real people—not nightbeasts.”
“Better safe than sorry. It’s what the Emperor would do anyway if he saw the spark. We need to protect the citizens.” Even I can tell Barys says this to assuage his own conscience, not because he cares about those in the coliseum.
He draws his sword. Tattoos does too. Helene stands numb.
The Fears move away from the edges of the cage. Some back all the way up to the Tunnel, but even then they don’t retreat back inside. I don’t blame them. When I first got out of the Tunnel, I was happy to die anywhere as long as I was free from that darkness.
They really are going to kill these people.
