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“Get some rest,” he says. “Your eyes are heavy and your body is weak from trying to heal your wounds. Sleep, and we will be closer to the city in the morning.”
I am really tired.
“Equs…”
“Yes?”
“I think they got me with one of their arrows…”
“What?!” He is suddenly deeply concerned. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think about it. But my arm…”
He’s right. I am sleepy. So sleepy. He’s grasping my arm and shouting, but it suddenly sounds like he's underwater. Or maybe I’m the one underwater. Maybe I’m sinking…
Ten
Blaire
He fucking slipped me something. Either that or I time-traveled most of thirty days and thirty nights, because the next time I open my eyes, we are overlooking a massive cave mouth that opens up to a massive underground ravine, which contains two remarkable things. First, the wreckage of a massive spaceship, presumably the one that crashed here thousands of years ago. And second, a city built up in it and around it.
It is like finding myself on the verge of an entirely new world, one that has been beneath our feet this entire time. It’s amazing. It’s also somewhat creepy. I’ve never liked caves. I like open spaces. I like being able to run and roam. Whatever is down there is complex and dark and…
“It’s quite the sight, isn’t it.”
“It’s a really big hole in the ground,” I agree, not wanting to sound too impressed, and definitely not wanting to be taken down there.
I’m noticing something else too, now that I’m drawing my attention away from the underground city opening for a second. I feel better.
“How long was I asleep?”
“You’ve been fighting the poison for almost an entire thirty days, but you’ve turned the corner, and you’re well. Or, almost well.”
I really do feel a lot better. There’s no pain in my body, and the fog which had claimed my head for what felt like an eternity is clear. I stand up - and immediately fall into Equs’ arms. That’s something else I haven’t felt in ages, the hard muscular embrace of a king who is holding me captive.
“Careful,” he says. “You haven’t walked in a month. You’re weak.”
He must have been attending me the whole time. Cleaning me up, dealing with… I blush at the thought of what he or his aides must have seen and done with me.
“I’m not weak…”
“I know you like to be outraged and offended,” Equs says gently. “But perhaps try enjoying the wonder around you first. This is a sight few will ever see.”
He’s got a point. This is incredible. The city is simply insanely beautiful. It is lit with a green and gold hue, the structures matching the strangeness of the general outline of the crash and the ravine. Some of them are rounded and sleek, others are sharp and tall. It’s just structures and bridges and aliens everywhere, wandering about.
I realize that the wild horses and the great plains above are not the primary residences of these aliens. Their king may be a great wild rider, but these are ground-dwelling creatures, inherently. Or at least, their ancestors were, before my ancestors got here and apparently fucked a whole bunch of them.
This is not a place for Equs, I know that much. He looks like he belongs in an underground city as much as a bird belongs under the sea.
“You don’t spend much time here, do you?”
“I don’t. I loathe the place. But it is pretty at first glance, and it will provide a secure and safe home for you.”
“No, it won’t.”
“Why not?”
“I live my life on the back of a horse under the open sky. This is a cool-looking city and all, maybe I’d go out for dinner here, but there’s no way I’d live in a hole in the ground, even a super cool one.”
* * *
Equs
She is a woman after my own heart. She is also a woman who spent the last twenty-nine days recovering from serious injuries sustained during captivity. The overworld is not safe for her, or for anybody else either.
“You can’t keep me here,” she tells me, her eyes full of purpose, her chin set with determination.
She’s wrong. I can keep her wherever I please. But I doubt I can keep her happy in captivity. She yearns for freedom and open spaces just as I do. That is the reason the underworld fortress is inhabited by officials, women, and the young. I am not a king to sit inside fortifications and expect my warriors to lay down their lives for me. I am the king. I am the tip of the spear. There is no room on that tip for a woman. Especially not one I have come to love over the last thirty days and thirty nights of tending to her nearly insensate self.
