With a deep sigh, Kolden pulls the key out of the lock, and I feel him shift closer, like he’s crouching. Voice hot on my ear, he says, “I was ordered to look after Calah while the High Master was away.”
My thoughts scatter, turning my insides into a battleground.
He had the chance to save these people, and he didn’t.
He. Fucking. Didn’t.
That crystal dome rumbles so violently my entire body trembles.
What will be left of me if the dome erupts? What will be left of him? So much has happened since I built it. I have no idea what’s grown beneath. What I’m going to be forced to face once I finally lift the lid.
I look over my shoulder, right into broody blue eyes, and Kolden winces, as though I just struck him with something sharp.
Funny, since that’s exactly what I’m considering.
Hunched behind me, he hangs his head, keys dangling in his limp hands. “I—” He sighs, keeping his attention cast to the ground. “Very few of them will come to me, but I can help by opening the doors.”
He pushes to a stand and, without even a glance my way, walks to the next cell to the internal tune of my creaking dome while soiled words gather on my tongue.
Not now, Orlaith. He’s not the priority now.
These people are.
I slather another layer of light on my dome and focus my attention forward.
Gaze fixed on where Kolden was crouched, the girl is unmoving, the color drained from her skin, hair a blaze against her sickly pallor.
The shadows beneath her eyes are so dark and daunting.
She’s got a look to her I’vefeltbefore, in my chest. Like some parasitic leech that takes greedy gulps of your will to climb out of bed in the morning. To think.
Tobreathe.
It’s the look of someone who feels trapped inside their body.
“I’m just going to clear the other cells,” I whisper, giving her a soft smile even though she’s still looking straight through me. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
No answer.
Another creak of my dome as I pin my hair into a bun, then dart to the next opened door, smiling at a man with a shock of brown hair. He’s bound in a filthy blanket in the corner of his cell, looking up at me with big eyes that split my chest despite the fact that everything’s tucked so deep.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “We’ve come to get you out.”
His brow buckles. “You can’t be real. You were dead.”
His words steal my breath.
I shake my head. “Not dead. I’m very, very real—I promise. And we don’t have much time, so—”
“I’ve seen what dead looks like,” he says, chilling me to the bone. He untangles, bracing himself upon the stone and pushing to his full height, though his body stays stooped from spending too long crouched in the corner. “You were dead.” His harrowing gaze slides to the mangled cluster of people shuffling past. Placing a trembling hand on the door, he staggers out of his cage.
Strange.
Brushing his words aside, I focus my attention on coaxing more people out of their cells, their dazed and confused expressions turning to sheer terror as we ease around the edge of the feeding arena, past the sleeping monster.
I leave the bedraggled group in the tunnel with instructions to wait, then go to help the remaining captives.
Thirty-three bony, trembling, wide-eyed men, women, and children later, I pause by a cell containing a red-haired lady who’s tucked on her mattress with her back to me. I try to pull the door open, but it won’t budge.
