“I don’t know,” he said yet again, but when she squeezed his shattered wrist, he screamed, “Level seventy-four, with the other Harvested!”
Those words made Ysira see red.
She slammed Ertagaz’s head against the wall, smashing his skull flat on one side.Easy.She was not sure whether she’dactually meant to kill him, but . . . it was so, so easy. He slid to the ground, leaving a smear of brain matter and blood. Red blood, like hers. She did not dwell on that.
She examined the helmet Ertagaz had pointed out and tentatively held it up in front of her face, trying to peer through it. Firm, flexible material slithered over her neck and scalp. After a few seconds of panicked fumbling, she realized she could retract it by pressing on a spot below her ear. Though its smooth, featureless surface was pitch-black from outside, she beheld her surroundings with perfect clarity. It limited her peripheral vision and smelled of something pungent, but she could breathe. More importantly, it protected the base of her skull—her demon—from external trauma.
She searched for an exit, finding only that sealed metal door to what she assumed was the rest of the . . . they’d called this sky-bound structure astation.There appeared to be no other routes outside besides another compartment for dirty clothes, labeled with a pictogram like the one in her washroom. A pile of bloody fabric lay in a heap below.
Ysira stuck her hand into the chute, feeling around. A sucking sensation pulled at her skin. She might have to dislocate a shoulder, but she could fit in there.
It was a foolhardy course of action, and she had no real plan, but what else was she to do? Wait for Tharanoth to return and extract
more of her memories? Do exactly what he’d asked of her and sit at his beck and call? Let him do as he pleased with Neri?
Not a chance.
She would not allow her child to suffer at the hands of these monsters. Neri would not endure what she had. She’d kill everyone on this vessel before she let that happen.
And if her captors hadn’t expected her to break her own hand to get out of her shackles, they wouldneveranticipate her to trysomething like this. They had no idea how badly she could be broken and still survive.
Ysira was almost grinning as she climbed into the chute feet-first—and dropped.
20
JUDGMENT
YSIRA
When Ysira’s vision faded in from a red blur, she was sitting in a pile of soiled laundry. No,sittingwas the wrong word.
Something—several things—had ruptured. Bones snapped back into place. She coughed up a mouthful of blood. Her passenger writhed and worked, unmistakably incensed with her.
It took another several minutes to regain her full range of motion. She collected the helmet from where it had landed beside her and climbed unsteadily to her knees, then her feet. She’d fallen into an enormous metal bin beneath a gaping black chute. At first, the greater area called to mind the docks below Zivora—vast and brown and creaking, smelling of age and industry—but the walls vibrated with an off-kilter thrum, blasting heated air from invisible vents, almost as though they breathed. As though she’d been swallowed whole, soon to be digested, by some monstrous beast.
A horrified exclamation escaped her as a bundle of filthy clothing dropped from above. Peeling a pair of someone’sdrawers off her head, she scrambled out of the way and leapt to the grated floor. Her fresh, silken clothing was torn and stained. She’d lost her pants, which was just as well, because it seemed she’d soiled herself in the fall.
Grumbling under her breath, she dug through the bin for something intact to wear. She did not relish the notion of roaming these corridors unarmedandunclothed.
By the sheer volume of laundry, this vessel had to be home to hundreds, if not thousands, of people. But it proved a struggle to find anything in her size. Ysira was tall, and generous in the hips and chest but not unusually so. Every blasted item of clothing in this bin seemed made for the likes of Ertagaz—short, narrow, and delicate. When she finally found pants that fit over her thighs, they barely covered her knees.
Tharanoth and the other gods aside, was everyone on the station like Ertagaz? Perhaps long-lived, as he’d implied, but so very breakable? A slow, vicious smile tugged at the corners of Ysira’s mouth.
She put her helmet back on and searched the area, an unsettling blend of the otherworldly and the ordinary. For every detail that reminded her of home—tools, clothing, machinery—she encountered several for which she had no name. She trusted nothing and touched as little as possible, choosing the most familiar, least organic-looking thing available for a weapon: a short, sturdy hammer. She jogged along the grated floor, tossing it hand to hand, once again marveling at how light and swift she felt.
At the end of the grated walkway, she located a set of doors and, between them, a smooth panel covered in shapes and numbers. Though she recognized the numbering system, she could not discern its purpose. When she tapped a number at random, the panel shifted to show a pictogram of an eye.
She was still trying to make sense of it when the doors scrolled apart.
The woman inside wore a high-collared grey uniform. She looked similar to Ertagaz: a smaller, weaker version of the Zivoran gods. Emerald eyes went wide when she saw Ysira. She stumbled back. Ysira stepped into the tiny, windowless room, and the doors slid shut behind her.
The woman lifted her wrist to her lips, speaking rapidly into a device. “It got out.” She backed into a corner, as far from Ysira as the cramped space would allow. “Repeat,it got out?—”
Ysira snatched the device away and pinned the woman to the wall—gently.She couldn’t kill this one just yet.
“Show me how to get to level seventy-four.”
“You c-can’t,” the woman stammered. “Your biometrics aren’t in the system.” Her gaze darted sideways to the panel of numbers.
