Page 29 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

“Send warriors,” Syin says.

“Yes,” Adran says. “Send warriors. And keep Kessa inside where her sensitivity can be monitored without placing her in the open.”

I turn slowly toward him.

“Do you practice saying things badly or is it a natural gift?”

“Kessa knows the route,” Virn says before Adran can answer. “The old markers. The ground. The weak shelves near the basin.”

“And Rhazek knows the device,” Rosalind says.

I close my eyes. Only for a second. Long enough to see exactly where this is going and not long enough to stop it.

“No,” I say.

Rosalind gives me the look. I hate the look. The look says I’m smart enough to know the answer already and stubborn enough to make her say it anyway.

“No,” I repeat, because my dignity deserves witnesses. “Absolutely not. I am not being paired with the bleeding sky problem.”

“She should not be,” Rhazek says, unwantedly coming to my defense.

I open my eyes and glare at him.

“Do not help.”

His face doesn’t change. “I am not.”

“You sound suspiciously helpful.”

“I am saying you are a bad choice.”

“Oh, good. Much better.”

He holds my gaze without flinching, which is annoying, so I glare harder. It doesn’t help, but at least it’s something.

“You are loud, stubborn, under-armed, and too willing to move toward danger when your body should choose distance.”

“Thank you for the assessment, cracked-wing doom statue.”

“You are also the only one here who felt the direction before the light showed it.”

I stop talking. I hate him a little extra for finishing the argument I wanted to win.

Rosalind looks between us, and for a second I can’t read her.

“Then we’re agreed.”

“We are aggressively not agreed,” I say.

“You will take Syin, Renn, Orek, and two route runners,” Rosalind says. “Rhazek goes because he can identify the core. Kessa goes because she can find the safest path and feel the pulse before it opens the ground. Nobody goes alone. Nobody touches active green light. Nobody bleeds on alien metal unless they want Merra to invent new medical language over their corpse.”

Merra nods once. “I already have several phrases ready.”

Rhazek shifts, and his wing scrapes the wall. The sound drags over my nerves.

“He cannot go,” Merra says, pointing at him as if she can nail him to the stone with one finger. “He is held together with rage and my bandage work, and I resent the insult to both.”

“I can go,” Rhazek says.