Page 3 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

I blink, his words not making sense. Renn’s wings rustle, jerking halfway open then closing.

“Fire? What? Where?” I ask.

“East ridge. Past the broken cistern markers,” Penr says, swallowing hard. His eyes are wide and his face is pale. He blinks several times then leans forward and says in a whisper. “It came from above.”

He points one trembling finger up.

Above.

For a moment, all I can think of is Sera standing in the council chamber after the source throat closed, her face white, her hand in Kavor’s, both of them saying the same impossible thing in different ways. Something answered. The sky was not empty.

I shake off my surprise and move fast. Penr stumbles after me and Renn keeps pace.

“Rosalind’s already been sent for Virn. Syin is at the east watch.”

“Adran?”

“Someone told him.”

“Unfortunate.”

Penr makes a strangled sound that might be a laugh if there was time for such things.

By the time we reach the outer passage it’s clear that the news is spreading. There’s no public alert, or bells, but I feel the tension in the air. Guards move with controlled urgency. Runners slip through side routes. Zmaj speak in low, clipped phrases. Humans gather at door curtains, eyes wide, mouths shut, knowing better than to ask.

I push them all aside before their fear can feed my own.

At the eastern gate chamber, heat pours in like an opened furnace. The canyon beyond glows under the twin suns, all red stone, hard shadow, and a sky too clear and too bright. A thin smear of black smoke marks the horizon beyond a distant ridge.

Syin stands at the gate with six Zmaj warriors and three human guards. His scaled face is carved into the expression I’ve learned to hate most on him, the one that says he has expected disaster all along but is too magnanimous to find satisfaction in being right.

“Stay inside,” Syin says when he sees me.

“No.”

“This is not a route matter,” he says, narrowing his eyes.

“Everything is a route matter if people may need to run from it.”

“This came from the sky.”

“Then we definitely know its route.”

Renn makes the mistake of breathing too loudly beside me. Syin’s tail snaps once against the stone and he turns all his attention on the young Zmaj.

“You are not command,” Syin says.

I step in front of Renn.

“No. I am a route runner. I’m the one who knows where to walk and where not to. This is, literally, my job.”

Syin stares. I stare back.

I’m afraid. Of course I am. Fear has become my second spine. But I’ve learned something practical about fear. If I give it a job, it stops trying to eat me from the inside.

Syin looks away first.

“Do not slow us,” he says.