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He shakes himself. If anyone was here, they’re long gone.
He’s careful going down the first few disintegrating steps, but it quickly becomes easier. He loses sight of the entrance within a few minutes. The stairs go on for a long time, taking him deep into the earth. There’s no sound but the tap-tap of his footsteps—he’s utterly alone.
Eventually the stairs end, opening up to a small landing, and on the far side is a door that sits ajar.
Arsene grips the edge of the door and pulls. It’s jammed, at first resisting the weight of his muscle, but with brute forcehe manages to edge it open just wide enough to get through. Beyond it is a hallway with doors on either side. One door opens to a room lined with cupboards and drawers. The next is the same. And the next.
He groans. Of course, it wouldn’t be easy to find the serum. No map exists, and he has no sense of how big the bunker is. He’ll have to search everything.
There’s nothing in the first room but junk. He pulls everything out of the drawers and cupboards, even taps the walls for hidden panels, but it yields nothing. The second room is just as empty, and the one after. It doesn’t take long for his patience to run try, and soon he stops searching carefully and just upends the drawers in frustration, rifling through useless papers and rolls of gauze and boxes of particle masks. It doesn’t matter if he’s meticulous, because there’s nothing there.
Each empty room is a blow. He never considered he could get this far and fail.
If he can’t find the serum, he’ll have to find another way to help Nur. And will he condemn his people to fading fertility, empty nurseries?
He puts out the torch to conserve it and slumps to the floor, resting his head against the wall. His body aches and his head throbs. Dust scratches the back of his throat. When he coughs, everything coming up bitter with corruption. Will he be forced to admit failure and return to the camp?
Two promises war in him. Duty says to go on. Just one more room. And after that, one more. And after…until his strength runs out and he forgets what daylight looks like. After all, as a soldier of New Yden he’s only good for one thing.
But his primus stirs, telling him he can’t leave Nur alone for much longer. Even as strong as it is, their bond stretches tight. Nur needs him. Soon the caravan will be ready to move on, and their window of opportunity will slam shut.
Just one more.He drags himself upright.One more. Then I’ll go back.
Chapter 40
ARSENE
He turnsthe corner to find the next door.
This room is different. The door opens to a narrow space that’s glassed off from the rest of the room. Behind the glass is a huge steel locker. Opening the second door, he finds a decaying canopy leading to the box itself, with the door at the other end fixed with a massive wheel for locking and unlocking it. A plate of numbered buttons guards the wheel.
In the corner of the canopy hallway his torchlight catches on a pile of discarded clothing and an old, familiar-looking pack. Hairs rise on his arms. Carefully, he kicks the pack open, raising dust into the still air. Something scrapes the concrete floor under his questing foot. He brings the torch closer: pieces of a sword, old and rusted. It’s the same make as his.
Triumph and terror surge through his veins. Someone was here. An angel. Confronted with the ghost of another presence, the back of his neck tingles.
He thought he was ready for the truth—he knew the Council sent others before him, and he knew they must have failed. But reality is a blow.
If others failed, why would they expect me to succeed?
The answer he doesn’t want to think about rises to the surface: they didn’t.
But he will. He has something the others didn’t: a mate who needs him.
Arsene tries the wheel first, but it’s too obvious. It doesn’t budge. The button plate does nothing, long since dead. He tears the rotted canopy open to get at the rest of the room and examine the locker, but its smooth sides are inscrutable. Frustration mounting, he paces back and forth. He’s not clever. He’s not made to solve riddles or think his way past ancient technology.
Did the other angel give up? Did he abandon his Yden-made things here and flee into the Deadlands, stumped by an impossible task?
He kicks the door. The hollow thud is mocking. The Council was right about him—he doesn’t think things through. If he had, he would’ve gone to Nur before he left. Made sure he was safe and fed.Talkedto him. But he was so set on doing things his own way.
Strategy isn’t his arena. But brute force is. That, and making the best of the situation he’s in.
He wedges the torch into the door handle and opens his pack. Hands stiff from cold and exhaustion, he pieces together his sword. A sword is more than just a blade—angels undergo long months of gruelling drills before they’re allowed to pick one up. Arsene has had this same sword since his promotion from infantry to rapier, and even if he were to leave the battlefield for good he would keep it as a trophy of his many campaigns.
He slides the sword between the spokes of the wheel so the blade extends past the edge of the door. With a grunt, hewrenches.
Nothing.
Muscles protesting, he puts all his force into it and pulls again. And again. It takes him several tries to move it even a single hair—finally, with a groan, the wheel gives.
