CHAPTER 15 KORI #3
A short while later, the only thing I know for sure is that I haven’t accidentally gone backward.
Where I’m going remains a mystery, and the more turns I have to memorize, the more I fear I won’t be able to find my way back.
But I can’t turn back until I’ve found something useful, either for Aspect’s awakening or justifying my crimes to the Daylands, or this will all have been for naught. So I trudge on into the nothingness.
Besides the battle cacophony beyond the fortress, the only sounds are my mask-filtered breathing and Aspect’s squeaky new leg.
And then, low, shuddering straight up my spine—rumbling. Growling.
“Aspect,” I gasp. “Against the wall. Now.”
Unfortunately, Aspect chooses the wall opposite me, leaving my immediate surroundings encased in impenetrable dark.
Out of the void, six glowing red eyes blink and lock on me, then tilt in casual observation.
I go stock-still against the wall. The eyes creep closer, close enough that hot, rank breath from the unseen creature fogs up the outside of my helmet.
Something drips onto my visor. It traces down my mask, dripping to the stone floor.
My knees are knocking worse than Aspect’s ever have, legs jittering together, fear abruptly alive in my whole body, a scream struggling to break out of my throat.
The growling rises. It vibrates through my ribs like a bass drum.
Something thick and hot lashes out toward my face, too quickly for me to react, trapping me against the wall.
In my fright, I stagger, knees hitting the rocks below, the strange sensation smacking against my helmet, blocking my view.
It takes an embarrassingly long moment for me to register that what’s blurring my vision is saliva—the pressure on my helmet, twin lapping, flailing tongues.
“Aspect,” I breathe, barely audible even to myself. “Light, please. Slowly.”
Aspect tilts their head to reorient the spotlight, revealing the hulk that stands before me. At Chloe’s insistence, I’ve studied precious memories of Pagomènos’s early animal inhabitants, so I know what a dog is supposed to look like, though they’ve been extinct for generations.
This is definitely not the natural state of a dog.
Its body warps, surges, into a trio of thick necks, each adorned with its own canine head.
Two are characterized by lolling tongues that tease my mask, the red eyes playfully bright; the third head snarls, eyes more like starship error warning lights, rotten gums flecked with spittle, tongue relentlessly chewed, coated in both dried and fresh blood.
Is it one dog? Three, somehow merged into one?
In the memories I’ve studied, humans patted them on the head, called them good.
“Good … dogs?” I open one gloved palm, willing my hand not to shake, and lay it against one of the two friendly foreheads. “Good dogs. Very … good … dogs.”
The beast nuzzles into me, nose wet, midnight-black fur coarse but soft.
An absurd peace rolls through me. I could close my eyes and stay here forever.
Maybe this is why early Pagonian settlers brought dogs to the planet.
I already want to smuggle this strange specimen back to my quarters, stroke its muzzles with my fingers until it falls into a pleasant sleep.
“What is it, Kori?” Aspect pleads at an unholy pitch and volume.
The dog (dogs?) recoils, whining. The sound is like air slowly escaping a punctured radiation suit.
“Aspect, careful,” I whisper. “It has six ears, and they’re very sensitive.”
“Sorry!” Aspect shrieks, still grating, before applying the instruction and dropping their voice to a mechanized mumble. “IsthisbetterKoriisAspectmakingyouhappynow?”
“Yes, that’s better, thanks.” I turn my attention back to the dog. “Hey, hey. Hey. It’s all right. I’m a …” Trespasser? Prisoner? Temporary resident? “Friend.”
Head Three, the rightmost head, spits a gross lump of saliva on the floor.
I nickname it Grumpy. Head One (Silly) and Head Two (Sillier) loll in opposite directions, but with matching dorky expressions of amusement, tongues sprawling, gazes wide and hopeful.
I gently massage Silly and Sillier while side-eyeing Grumpy, who pointedly looks away.
“Odd.” The cold, heavy voice lurches from behind me like a startled snowbank. “Usually, Russ accepts cuddles only from me.”
Aspect mutters a four-letter word I definitely didn’t intend to teach them just as Adria, in all her towering winged glory, steps out of the dark.
Her teeth are nearly bared, her visage locked into rage beyond words, but when she looks to the dog, her ruby lips curl into an amused smile, teeth kept inside.
Russ bobbles over to Adria, even Grumpy seeming mildly pleased at her arrival. Silly and Sillier lick at her wrists, pawing at her chest. Adria lowers her head briefly to accept a loving lick from Silly.
“I thought you would’ve been fighting,” I say, before I can think better of it.
“My appearances on the front have done little to intimidate the rebellion. Even less so to convince them that their cause is wrong, and I am the queen the Shadowlands deserves,” Adria says, wiping dog saliva from her cheek with a clawed hand.
“My advisors have deemed it better to prioritize my safety, keep me inside these walls.”
Oh, do I ever know what that feels like. A pang of foolish empathy flutters in my chest.
“My soldiers will hold the gate.” Adria’s eyes travel pointedly up and down my body, and a blush burns my face. “Your assigned chamber was meant to hold you.”
Russ has taken the bite out of Adria’s voice, slightly softened the glass-sharp edges of her ever-serious face. Despite my worst fears, Adria
isn’t going to harm me. I can’t help but feel that she is, in fact, toying with me, not unlike her pet.
“If you wanted me to stay put,” I venture, “clearly you should’ve assigned some of those soldiers.”
“Clearly,” Adria echoes.
My mother would berate my snark, reminding me that the future Daylands monarch ought to be calm and dignified, but Adria has so far only ever pushed back with equal force.
It’s infuriating that I can’t seem to break through her steely exterior, but exhilarating to be answered in kind instead of deflected.
Even knowing my face is concealed by my mask, I dare her to launch a comeback with my eyes.
“If I didn’t know better,” Adria says, sauntering closer, “I’d say you were hoping to invoke my wrath. But I think you’re just too curious for your own good. And to barrel straight into Russ … You must have a death wish.”
She laughs, that same youthful, brittle sound from before, and again, it does something ridiculous to my heart rate. I’d love to deny it if not for the floating notification inside my visor, concerned for my health.
“I should order you back to your quarters.”
“But you won’t,” I bite back; and then, after a moment’s pause: “I should retreat of my own volition.”
“But you won’t,” she echoes.
Silence stretches between us, thick and palpable.
Adria breaks it with a blunt question. “What were you looking for, stubborn girl?”
I could snap back reflexively, challenging her to duel me with jabs and barbs, but her voice dares to ask me for honesty, maybe even promises some in return.
Information on your people, I mean to say. Something to redeem me to my government. Something to fully awaken my friend.
But truth is a slippery thing, and it slithers out of my grasp and seizes a sentence all its own: “I showed you something of me and how it felt to look upon the sun. I’d like to see something of you.”
“You might have asked me.” Her voice is a low growl.
“Better to ask forgiveness than permission.”
“The Shadowlands do not forgive. But there’s more truth in the dark than you know, heiress. You only have to let your eyes adjust.” She lays a hand on my forearm, claws splayed but not piercing, grip firm but not painful. “Follow me.”
It’s not really a question.
Aspect glances at me. “Aspect stay—with Kori?”
The logical thing would be to ensure a witness, even a mechanical one, for whatever’s about to happen.
But something in the careful pressure of Adria’s fingers over my armored wrist sends sparks through my arteries, turning my blood to lightning.
I want to see whatever she’s deigned to show me, and I don’t think I want anyone else to share that moment.
“Go back to my chambers,” I tell them. “Power down outside the door. Recharge as much as you can.”
“Be safe,” Aspect says, among the most human mannerisms they’ve learned as of late.
But I’ve already invaded the planet’s forbidden side, plunged headlong into its rebel queen’s twisted psyche. I’ve long abandoned safe. I want the thrill of forbidden knowledge.
I want to see what memories pulse in this strange, monstrous girl’s mind, beyond any other dayfolk’s reach.
Aspect retreats the way we came. Silly, Sillier, and a reluctant Grumpy follow them, apparently eager to continue making new friends. Four canine paws stammer happily down the hall and out of earshot.
Adria’s hand hasn’t left my arm. Her other hand presses into the small of my back, urging me forward without threatening to break my armor. “Come,” she says.
Drunk on possibility, I follow.