Page 111 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

I glance at him.

“That sounded almost protective.”

“It was an order.”

“There’s my boy,” I say, giving him a half-smile.

He ignores me, which is probably wise. I’m not sure where I’d go with it next, if understanding or rage would answer whatever he came back with.

We work along the ridge instead of toward the seam. I force myself to look at the ground and not back toward where Rhazek vanished. Boot prints cut through a patch of loose sand, then disappear over stone. A few body lengths away, Renn crouches beside a crack at the base of the ridge and holds up one hand.

Syin and I carefully make our way over to him.

Warm air touches my face.

Not desert heat. This comes in short breaths from inside the stone and carries the smell of metal, dust, and something bitter enough to coat the back of my tongue.

“There,” Renn says.

A green reflection flashes deep in the crack, then disappears.

Syin looks at me. “Another entrance.”

“Or they want it to look like one.”

The crack is too narrow for Rhazek and barely wide enough for Syin, but the stone around it is broken instead of carved. I step back and study the slope. A slab leans away from the ridge a little farther up, leaving a dark cut behind it.

I climb to it and find another boot mark pressed into the sand and dust.

“Here.”

The opening behind the slab slopes down under the ridge. There’s no guard and no alarm which bothers me. It makes this feel more like a trap.

Syin sees my face. “They want us inside.”

“Probably,” I agree, staring into the passage.

“And we are going anyway.”

“You have a better idea?”

Renn makes a quiet sound that might be a laugh. “Good plan.”

“I have worse ones if you’d like options.”

The two Zmaj look at each other, then say nothing. Renn’s wings rustle and Syin’s tail snaps across the sand. I pull the bone-handled knife from my belt and check the little packet of salt and ash in my pouch. Then I crouch and enter first.

The passage drops quickly. Sand gives way to black metal under my boots, old enough to be scratched and pitted but not dead. Green light leaks through narrow seams along one wall.

Once.

Pause.

Again.

Then a second pattern answers beneath it. The false version of my count. It’s close to what happens between us, but not quite. I stop.

Something pulls through the connection between Rhazek and me. Pain first. Then anger. Then a hard refusal that feels so much like him I nearly laugh. He’s awake and whatever they are doing, he’s fighting it.