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Fuck.
I yanked the glass door open, then vaulted over the railing and out of view. The cold metal bit into my skin as I hung off the balcony railing, and I glanced upward to see I was suspended from the side of a massive tower. The sunsteel edifice climbed toward the night sky, its golden surface shimmering faintly in the scant moonlight. Wrought metal balconies and crystal falcon heads jutted out from the walls, which were smooth aside from the sun motifs etched into the metal. A circular construct crowned the structure, and I didn’t need to see the top of it to know that it was a magnificent sundial. I’d heard the stories of this place, even if I’d never set foot here in my life.
I wasn’t just hanging off any old tower. This was the Tower of Dawn, the architectural crown jewel of Lumina, Aetherion’s capital city.
The enormity of that realization hit me like a hurricane, along with the fact that there was so muchspacearound me. Hundreds of feet between me and the ground, and an endless expanse stretching above and around me. The night wind shifted, and I flinched against the icy caress on my cheek. My breaths came faster, tighter, my palms growing slick against the cold metal. The sky seemed to press in on me from all sides, and—
“Eliza! Are you ok?”
The shout snapped me out of the panic closing in on me, and I let out an explosive breath, as though I’d been sucker punched. Before I could think too hard about it, I swung myself along the balcony railing, toward the tower wall, then leaped for the nearest crystal falcon.
I landed on the massive head, then nearly slipped right off the slick surface. Swallowing curses, I wrapped my arms around the crystal bird’s neck, then swung myself toward the next balcony railing.
I rinsed and repeated this insane maneuver, sticking to the shadowed side of the tower to avoid the attention of the guards posted on the compound walls. I kept one eye on the ground as I descended the six stories separating me from the earth, noting the alarming number of people moving about the paths between buildings despite the late hour, and picking out the guards posted along the top and outside the entrances of the stone wall that surrounded this place.
Getting out of here was going to be an absolute bitch.
Before my imprisonment, I would have been able to rappel down the tower in a matter of minutes. But my movements were rusty, my muscles weak from disuse, and I had to take breaks between each jump to make sure I didn’t fall. By the time I reached the bottom, sweat dripped from my forehead, and my body trembled with exertion. I pressed myself against the wall of the tower, sucking in gulps of air as quietly as I could as I tried to catch my breath.
A guard walked around the corner of the nearest building, and I stilled, my nose twitching. There was no mistaking the icy scent that was both earthy and metallic, reminiscent of the deep chill of night air, of cold stone and metal, punctuated with the faint but persistent note of dried blood.
This guard was a vampire.
Which meant the other guards on the wall were likely vampires as well.
And if that was true, that meant the Tower of Dawn, home of Aetherion’s royal family and one of the most important monuments in this kingdom, had been taken over by vampires.
The thought was unfathomable. How had vampires managed to conquer the city? Aetherion had the most advanced weaponry of all three human kingdoms—the aetheric cannons they shot from their airships could vaporize an entire battalion of vampires. If they’d had those airships during the Chaos War when the vampires first attacked the rest of Valentaera, we could have wiped them from the continent back when this all started. But they had them now, or at least they had when I’d been imprisoned. So why hadn’t they used them?
The guard turned my way, sensing movement, but I whipped out a stake and flung it in his direction before his eyes could settle on me. He let out a pained gurgle as the silver weapon found its mark, straight through the chest to puncture his undead heart. I barely paused to yank it out of him as I dashed past, making for the compound’s southern entrance, which appeared to be the least guarded. I felt for my inner well of magic, trying to gather shadows around me to cloak my movements, but there was hardly anything to draw on. And with only the barest sliver of moon hanging in the night sky above, there was no way for me to draw magic from my goddess, either.
Shouts rang out behind me as I cleared the southern wall, killing the two vampires guarding the entrance as I went. Arrows whizzed past me as my feet hit the cobblestones, and I zigzagged to avoid them as I raced into the crowded city streets.
The city blurred around me as I ran, phosphorescent lamps casting an eerie glow against the swirl of sleek structures. The metallic tang of the air mingled with both the frosty, death-laced scent of vampires and the warm, vibrant aroma of human life. I pumped my legs as hard as I could as I plowed through humans and vampires alike, breath sawing in my lungs as I worked to put as much distance between myself and the compound walls as possible. But I knew the longer I ran, the more people would notice me. So I ducked around a corner, cut through an alley, then casually strolled into a market square, taking deep breaths to slow my heart rate as I attempted to blend in with the crowd.
I stuck to the shadows as I walked, staying alert for any signs of pursuit as I took in my surroundings. Vendors, both human and vampire, peddled their wares from the stalls—produce, leather goods, clothing, mechanical devices. But also vials of blood, pumped directly from humans hooked up to a strangecontraption. Horror curdled in my gut as I stared at the man, who in turn stared vacantly into the distance as his master pulled a fresh vial from the machine and handed it to a waiting vampire. The bloodsucker licked his lips, then slapped a coin into the vendor’s hand before disappearing into the crowd.
This can’t be real.
A nearby clock tower began to ring, drawing my attention away. I glanced over at its crystal face, noting the hour hand was set at two o’clock. But the bell kept ringing… three, four, five… six…
A sense of dread began to form inside me, growing heavier and heavier with each gong I counted. Twelve… thirteen… fourteen… then a silence that made me feel like the entire world had slid out from beneath my feet.
It wasn’t two o’clock in the morning.
It was two o’clock in thegods-damnedafternoon.
“This has to be a mistake,” I muttered. I glanced up at the pitch-black sky, as if I might find the sun hiding in the black spaces between the stars, or peeking out from behind the sliver of moon. But that turned out to be a fatal error. That sense of vastness opened up around me, and I felt exposed, vulnerable, like I was a mouse crouching in an open field, and the stars were the twinkling eyes of some avian predator. Sweat broke out across my forehead as the feeling worsened, creeping up my chest and into my throat until it had a chokehold on me.
Vampires turned their heads in my direction as my heart pumped faster, and I struggled for breath. Recognizing the danger, I retreated, disappearing into the crowd and away from their predatory gazes. I had enough wits left about me to duck into an alley, and as the shadows closed around me, some of thepanic receded. The sounds of the city faded a little, and I was able to take in a full breath.
“Well, well. What do we have here?”
I spun around to see a vampire leaning against the brick wall, a pipe dangling from his fingers. He was well-built and handsome, dressed in a black-collared shirt and suspenders, his trousers cuffed at the ankles and his sleeves rolled up to expose his forearms. A wicked scar slashed over his left eye and across the bridge of his nose—a relic from before he’d been Turned, or a wound from a silver weapon, as vampires didn’t scar otherwise. His dark eyes gleamed with curiosity as he looked me up and down, taking in my attire. “Unusual clothes for a slave. Who do you belong to?”
“I don’t belong to anyone.” I palmed one of my stakes, clenching it tight so my hand would stop shaking. I took a step toward him, angling my back toward the mouth of the alley so he couldn’t escape. Even if I wanted to let him go, I couldn’t, not when he might grab some of his cronies and come back to finish me off.
The vampire’s eyes widened as he took in the stake in my hand, and then he laughed. “I don’t know where you found that toy, but put it down, little human. Only a real silver stake will work, and you—”
