Page 72 of The Space Between Stars

Void.

This would not be his tomb. His kicks and pulls became more frantic until, finally, the stone ceiling of the vein gave way to more water. He pushed upward, suppressing the reflex to choke.

Void.

He’d miscalculated. He should have tested the distance. Fire filled his lungs.

Time stretched. Time cracked.

Time was just enough.

His head broke into clear, sweet air, gasping and coughing. In that short minute, he’d forgotten just how good it tasted to breathe.

He had emerged into a pool in what looked like a dim mausoleum. Torchlight from the walls stretched to the ceiling. A waterfall cascaded from a vein in the ceiling where it met a far wall fifty meters away.

Calver swam toward a stone dais, elevated inches above the pool. He clambered out and flopped onto his back, clothes cold and heavy, heart still thrumming in a frenzy. Waterways laced the floor, leading to the multitude of veins which spiderwebbed in every direction. This was the aqueduct’s central maintenance ward; he was beneath the imperial palace.

Another shape trudged knee-deep through one of the waterways, carrying a lantern and bucket. Calver’s coiled muscles relaxed when he realized that it was another Tume’amic: shirtless, ribs protruding, veins visible on his shaved head. The boy caught sight of him and approached. The flickering light from his lantern made visible the inky brand on the inside of his elbow.

He raised his recessed chin at Calver. “Trying to escape?” He spoke Tera’thian. Calver recognized, with surprise, that his mind didn’t have to translate anymore. Again, he wondered how much time had passed.

He came to a weary crouch, prepared to fight should the boy turn out to be an enemy.

The boy only shrugged. “Yeah, you’re not the first. I run into one of ours in the main aqueduct twice a year. Pointless, though. There’s no outlet from the palace.”

Calver’s hopes deflated. Knowing the precautions the emperor took on palace securities, he should have guessed the royal compound would be self-contained. He was trapped.

The boy rubbed the back of his neck. “I can try to get you into the palace. You can look for another way, but… they’ll mill you when they find you. That’s what happened to the others.”

Mill was temu’amic code for murder. Milled at eighteen. Milled in the coliseum. Milled if they failed to produce offspring within a year’s time.

Calver nodded.

“Don’t you talk?”

The question would irk him until the day he died. Calver jerked his chin sideways.

“Yeah.” The boy chuckled mirthlessly. “They’re definitely going to mill you. Let’s get you into the laundry ward. Slim opportunity there, but it’s better than here.”

He set down his bucket. It held mortar, a spatula, and a sharp edging tool.

He followed Calver’s eyes toward it. “There’s a dumbwaiter down here. Extended from the kitchens in case of drought, but they’ve never needed it. It’s just a safety hazard now. I was told to seal it off.”

An exit.

Calver stood and lifted the bucket.

“Ahm. It’s over here.” The boy splashed across the room, unminding of the water; he wore hip-high galoshes. Calver followed, trudging in his already waterlogged clothes.

At the far end of the maintenance ward, a patch of wall looked to have been freshly bricked off. The mortar was still slick in the lamplight. Calver’s newfound optimism fizzled.

“You wouldn’t want to go that way anyway. It’s too small. Goes directly into the throne room. The kitchen above us uses it to send refreshments up when the king has to sit for a long audience.”

Calver definitely didn’t want to wind up in the throne room.

The screech of metal on metal sounded from the opposite end of the ward. A light glared from above, illuminating a stairwell that led along the wall to the floor. Someone else had entered.

Calver flipped the switch at the side of the distortion lamp, and its light was extinguished. Following instincts he didn’t understand, he pulled the edging tool from the mortar bucket and used it to break and pry apart the glass globe encapsulating the lamp’s rotating core. Without it, the core was small enough to fit into the side of his boot. He stuffed it to the bottom.