He leapt, legs pushing with all the strength he could muster. Time seemed to stop as his body flew into the air, suspended, nothing but him, the air, and the chain. His claws struck, the magnetized nodes digging in, sparks flying as the appendages ground, the magnets kissing the smooth steel chain link. His legs flailed in the emptiness, his shoulders strained, careful to only detach the magnets when he was certain he could maintain the grip. He swung sideways, kicking his leg up. Lojen grunted as he found clear purchase over the rounded lip. He threw himself over the ledge, away from the epic drop onto a rounded, yet comfortably secure section of the chain. Panting.
“Lojen. Ruane. You clear?” It was Emre’s voice, and it sounded like he was running up a mountain in a thunderstorm.
Ruane crawled along the chain toward him, he could hear her spikes striking the steel.
“Remind me to kill you later, Emre.”
There was soft laughter in his earpiece, followed by a grunt, a few fired gunshots, and more hurried breathing. “Take a number. Be safe. See you on Gargantua.”
His sister stopped down by his boots, legs hunched under her. “That was fun, wasn’t it?”
“You have problems.”
XXV
Cadrianna
A GUNSHOT RANG in the alleyway behind her, but Cadrianna was only focused on the portal at the base of a stair the rebels had fled into.
Drawing the Strix, she separated it into twin blades. Weapons in hand, she descended, ready to end things. She was swallowed by darkness, the air musty and dank. Her eyes adjusted quickly. Above were dozens of thick copper tubes supplying aetheric energy. A single hall in the dark, a small set of orange lights just below where the ceiling met wall, batting in rhythmic patterns.
Cadrianna moved, a calm about her. She was in her element, after all.
“BE WARY, CAD. I HAVE A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS.”
Can a daemon enclosed in steel have feelings, Strix?
“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.”
Do I? I’m not certain of anything anymore. Except for Brynn.
“O CAD…”
After a hundred paces, the tunnel branched into three directions. Each looked the same.
“Godsdamn. What do you think, Strix.”
The Strix was silent, thinking perhaps? Then it spoke, “BODIES TO THE LEFT. MAYBE A DAY OLD. MUST BE SOLANINE’S SCOURGE.”
“The Gutter King must be desperate. Desperation breeds rashness.”
“DON’T UNDERESTIMATE HIM, CAD, HE IS A PLUCKY ONE.”
“Plucky? Do you even know what that word means?”
“I’M WELL PLUGGED INTO THE YOUTH THESE DAYS, WITH THEIR SAYINGS AND SUCH.”
Cadrianna shook her head. “Whatever you say, Strix.”
Sliding through the darkness of the lefthand tunnel, Cadrianna ignored the corpses as she found a door closed tight, barring her from her prey. A massive lock glinted in the mild titian of the blinking light.
She could feel it in her bones, the Gutter King was here. She didn’t know why she felt such conviction, but she did. He was here.
The quickened pulse of blood rushed into her heart as she summoned Void Form, Cadrianna gave a solid kick to the door as the wails of the dead blared. The hatch slammed inward with a groan, dust flying from the rusted hinges. A row of linen-covered corpses greeted her. Slipping just inside the doorway, she scanned every corner. Empty besides the dead.
A cold hand clamped over her mouth from behind. So cold her body went still, almost like the chilly winters of northern Kanja turning her into an ice sculpture. The Strix fell from her hands as hoarfrost tingled across her flesh, the metal so stinging she couldn’t hold them any longer. She struggled against the hand, but despite the apparent daintiness of it, it held her contained, rooted in place.
Her entire body felt of ice.
A mouth moved near her ear, she tried to turn her head to see her assailant, but she couldn’t move. The smell of the desert sands tingled her sense, breaking the feel of ice. A voice spoke. “Hello, Cad, it’s been a long time, my beloved wife. Val?”
Em—
Something hard smashed into the back of her head and she fell…
…into a darkened room with arches of umbra. Looking around, she saw her father and mother, brother, too. Emre and his parents, the regent and regentress. A table with glass bottles between the family members. Liquids and tiny, solid pebbles in the cruets.
Her memory. Gods, it was so real.
The vision scintillated. Her body felt frozen, frost prickled her flesh, her hair felt slick. Cold, so deathly, enveloped her, drawing her down into the memory like a seagandr pulling a drowning man to the inky depths of the ocean.
It was the memory of the day her life ended. But this time it was different, for she wasn’t seeing it with her own eyes, but those of another, she realized.
Valeria Dunleith watched from the shadows of an arch made from chiseled stone. A babe wailed in her arms; the child barely weaned. The bikrome cradled the bundle of swaddling, soothing the babe within, whispering soft words.
O, it was too much. “Is this the price I must pay for my betrayal to Canlon?” she whispered to the babe. “This can’t be the path, my Divine.”
