Page 117 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

Stay— he said, the word cutting sharply as if he’d meant to add something else.

Kye!

Stay where you are.

My heartbeat surged into my throat. The oxygen produced by Aegir’s little aero plants was too thin here, too shallow. Like breathing through a straw.

What’s happening? I demanded, a wave of ice freezing every vein.

Kye didn’t answer. I paced for a moment, my hands shaking too hard to even try to still them, before I remembered I had never been one to pace or hide or wait in safety while those I cared about might be threatened. This wasn’t the right corridor anyway. The right one had more turns, more dips and hikes, more puddles along the floor. I shifted to the entrance and a figure stepped inside, blocking me in.

Aegir blinked in surprise at the look on my face. “What is it?”

“I have to go.” Something was wrong. Something was happening. And I was here, at the bottom of the ocean in Venusia, while everyone I loved was there, dealing with the wrong thing without me.

Aegir stepped into the corridor with me. “It’s better to wait here. It might be nothing.”

“If you truly thought it was nothing you wouldn’t ask me to wait.” I grabbed hold of his wrist, ready to yank him out of my way. “Show me the way out, Aegir. Or I will blast a hole through your colony wall.”

52

Kye

Pheolix snatched at Selena’s arm, but she’d already flown beyond his reach. Her dress ripped as he fisted the skirt instead, a handful of silk that he tossed behind him as he ran after her. The time for hesitation collapsed, and the rest of us ran, too.

Pressure squeezed against my body. Invisible weight, like the air had grown dense, or like I lay somewhere miles below the surface of the ocean. A compress that wrapped around me and squeezed so tight I waited for my head to explode.

So tight, I didn’t feel my feet leave the floor. Not until cold stone slammed across my back. My lungs collapsed on impact, my feet dangling somewhere below me, something warm oozing from the base of my skull, the taste of copper sharp on my tongue. I pried my eyes open.

Thaan stood alone below. At least, a blurry man stood below who looked like the taller version of Cain, the quiet little scribe I once believed to be Pheolix’s assistant. His gaze passed over us as sharp and unbothered as a dairy farmer counting cattle, salt-and-pepper head tilting softly to one side. “Where is she?”

My eyes opened and closed, but I couldn’t bring him fully into focus. The room below sat so still it felt like it was spinning, my stomach along with it.

“Diara,” moaned a voice next to my waist. I turned my head, wet and sticky against the ceiling, to find Hadrian’s face at my hip. Beside him, Diara hung as if her clothes had been spiked to the stone, head flopped forward and eyes closed.

Thaan paced slowly below. He stopped. peering over the ceiling again. “Where, Selena?”

“Not here.”

My head swung to find the voice. It was somewhere just beyond sight, low to the floor.

Nails bit into the palms of my hands. Arms. Legs. Neck. Somewhere across the ceiling came the soft gargle of someone choking.

“Well, then,” Thaan said softly, “let’s go find her.”

The nails loosened, and in the snap of a moment I realized I was about to fall. Hadrian grabbed Diara’s stays, jerking her to him as he twisted to land first. My hands and knees braced for collision with the stone below, and the world turned upside-down, the ceiling and the floor trading places. White pain shot through the point of my elbow, dirt and dust coating my tongue in a soft plume.

Hail fell around us like glass. It bounced off my arms as I covered my skull, splitting flesh where it landed. I sat up after they all fell, welts over the backs of my hands, taking Diara from a panicked Hadrian, turning her over and swiping my fingers through a thick forest of strawberry hair to find her face.

The floor jolted, and she was ripped out of my hands with a languid tug. Rough stone scraped and bumped down my spine, the ceiling of the hallway reappearing overhead as I was dragged back toward the servant stairs. My heels dug fruitlessly into the floor, fingernails clawing at anything they might find. Thaan’s steps echoed ahead.

We followed him like we’d been attached to strings. Seven bodies thrashing for footholds, fighting for the ability to stand. One unmoving.

Selena walked behind Thaan, her words sharp and distant. Angry.

Leihani, I called as I slithered over the first stair. Are you there?

Yes.