CHAPTER 18 ADRIA
CHAPTER
ADRIA
I’m still adjusting to the elevated power of this body, now blessed by the Diakópsei itself.
I deliberately order every muscle to seize, to cease, before I collide full force with Kori and squash her into a bloodstain into the stone floor, which would thoroughly make my point but also end her existence.
Even I’m surprised by the power in my launch, the rattle of her helmet when she hits the floor.
I need to stop and steady my heavy breathing behind gritted teeth before I can continue the lesson at all.
By the Beyond, I only meant to imply any one of my people could kill her. Not to feel that newly constant bloodlust rise to the occasion like an overeager volunteer.
I mean every word that shudders out of me. “I could kill you like this.”
She says nothing, hardly even breathes, and it only fuels my rage. She needs to understand, if she’s going to spend any amount of time on this side of the planet, how dire that situation will always be, no matter how we deflect the tension into friendly verbal sparring.
“Any one of us could, without even trying.”
Are her eyes wide, behind that ever-present mask?
Is her heart finally beating an overdue warning?
It’s impossible to tell, and it only stokes my frustration.
Every time I’ve tried to scare some common sense into this girl—up to and including bringing her to behold the very source of the radiation that could kill her—she’s deflected the attempt entirely.
“If I were to curl my hands into fists, I’d break your wrists,” I say, just barely testing the joints with my claws, quivering along the gloves’ thick fabric.
Even now, she says nothing. Witless, brainless girl. Braver than sense, kinder than the dark could ever deserve. She doesn’t belong here.
“If I were to lean my full weight on you, even just increase the pressure to make you talk …”
I can’t risk pressing my knee into her rib cage. Not unless I want to put the entire ransom at risk. But the tension in my limbs perched above her is nearly unbearable. I force my right knee back, like a drawn bowstring, and press the tension into the floor instead of her heart.
A light, warm brush of fabric, and I freeze. Presumably to hold herself still, Kori has managed to lock her thighs around my knee, holding us both in place. I don’t think about how close my knee is to where her legs meet. I don’t think about how warm and soft her skin might feel beneath the suit.
“I’m speaking to you now,” I nearly snarl, conflicting tensions warring through me, “because I’m trying to teach you a lesson before you learn it with your life. But if I wanted to …”
I bare my teeth, just enough to remind her my lips conceal fangs. Be afraid, I plead silently. Be afraid. If she never learns fear, she won’t last long here.
If I can’t instill it, I’ll never be the monster this kingdom demands of a queen.
“You’ve made your point,” Kori breathes, barely audible, voice balanced on a freezeblade’s edge and wavering.
I tell myself it’s her terror’s overdue arrival. I tell myself I don’t somehow know, in my entire body, that her unknown eyes are holding mine fast, hardly blinking, unable or unwilling to look away.
“I should hope so,” I counter, but I don’t draw back just yet.
I feel like an ice sculpture, frozen in place, but heat waves roll through me all over. Might as well use this to further the lesson—order her to squirm free, maybe even to retrieve the freezeshot gun.
“Your one and only advantage, Kori, is that nightfolk know what we are. What we’ve evolved to be capable of. So any one of us might make the mistake of underestimating you.”
“But not you.” The sarcastic edge is gone, exposing the raw underbelly of sincerity.
Her chest heaves with heavy breaths and mine rises and falls in sync, and I swear, I can nearly feel the shape of her through the armor, curves that would fit so neatly into mine despite what I’ve become.
“Kori …” I shake my head, trying to clear it. “You smuggled sunlight to my door. You’re on a quest to breathe being into metal.”
You could break me in ways I can hardly express. You’ve already pried my armor loose and swept your eyes across wounds even I hardly dare to see.
“I know better than to expect any less,” I conclude. I set my jaw, refocus myself. “Now break away from me. Pretend it’s life or death. Get that shotgun back,” I instruct, gesturing in the freezeshot’s direction with one wingtip. “Regain control.”
Time passes at an unbearably slow speed. I’m coiled like a spring, waiting for her move, but not at all prepared for what she actually does. Just one arm, reaching up toward my face; one gloved hand, resting delicately, tenderly, against the high arch of my cheek.
She can’t feel me, I’m sure, through the layers of armor and fabric that guard her from the planet, but she knows I can feel far too much of her.
Braced on her other arm, she leans up so that her mask’s filtered breath brushes hot and fast against my swollen throat.
“And what makes you think, Adria … that you’re the one in control? ”
I close my eyes. Images dart past me in the darkness. Mother’s skull, caving in like old wood. Father’s throat twisted and snapped like dead branches. I’ve seen what I am now if I dare to lose control. I have a civil war to quell, a kingdom to uplift, a ransom to earn.
And by the Beyond, damn it all, I want to know what her face looks like under the mask.
My tongue blessedly sticks to the roof of my mouth before I can say anything I regret. Less blessedly, but nevertheless conveniently, there’s a shout down the hall, and the unmistakable whizzing blast of freezeshot freshly fired.
Shortly after my parents’ reign ended, I discussed a tracking chip—or, less invasively, a bracelet—with my advisors, should I require immediate assistance.
Father always had Mother, but I, an unpartnered queen thus far, too often found myself alone.
Thaane wisely warned that a tracking chip could be hacked and exploited.
But now, what wouldn’t I give for the assurance that help is coming?
Footsteps and freezeshot thunder in calamitous conflict down the halls.
“Move,” I snarl through reflexively bared teeth, stumbling back and away from Kori, on all fours like a thoughtless beast.
My head is hazy, fogged with useless want that quickly transmutes into anger instead, the only emotion that still feels safe. That anger thunders through me in a hot bolt of adrenaline.
Somehow, I let the only girl I cannot crave distract me, invade me, begin to dissect all the most private parts of me, without even a proper glance from her eyes or a touch from her unguarded skin.
And now, judging by the sounds of struggle echoing down the cavernous hall, the unblinking eye of the Beyond has seen my absurd abandonment of royal duty and ensured that we’ll both pay the price for Kori’s presence in the dark.
I step forward, wings spread and claws bared, casting Kori into total shadow at my back. “Stay behind me.”
“We’ve established I can fire a gun,” she retorts.
“Then stay behind me with the gun”—I sigh, even as she lunges for the fallen weapon behind me—“if it makes you feel better.”
Kori fumbles with the freezeshot gun’s weight distribution, ultimately electing to hold it balanced against her shoulder with two hands, despite the intended one-handed grip by a nightfolk wielder.
Her breaths, even filtered by the mask, come hard and fast. My own thoughts pinwheel with equally threatening speed.
Infuriatingly, precious little of them are about the political significance of another attack by Azarii’s rebellion.
Kori is here because of me. I am alone, and far from well rested, with my pulse pounding in my throat, because of her.
We will both suffer for this almost, for this fleeting impossibility, and should her blood fall on my head …
will it even be distinguishable from all the lifeblood I’ve already shed?
I am sick and tired of visiting graves, atoning in salt water for necessary sins that will never wash away.
“Consider this another history lesson,” I say, fighting to keep my own voice steady and assured. “Once, the records will report, Azarii’s rebels came for his queen when he thought her distracted.”
The footsteps rattle along the stone hallway, echoing off the molded walls, growing ever closer.
My enhanced hearing catches the rumbling reload of freezeshot canisters, the click of fingers wavering against triggers, the heavy exhales of rebels who think they are finally close to their prize.
Battle lust roars through me and blacks out all else.
The planet’s own energy pulses, sparks, and crackles at my clawed fingertips, rolls into dark projectile orbs against my palms. “And then the girl from the sunlight truly saw what the shadows can do.”
In the following instant, several things take place at once.
A cluster of armored rebels lunges through the training room’s doorway, firing a flurry of freezeshot rifles. I thrust my hands forward to unleash my gathered energy. And Kori gives the freezeshot rifle another
sincere try, her own bolt careening off an attacker’s helmet. The weapon’s recoil once again drives her to her knees; the rifle slides back across the stone in a clatter of pebbles and dust.
“There, Kori, you’ve helped,” I shout in her direction, even as I toss the nearest rebel aside, my claws embedded in his chest despite his weak attempt at protective gear.
“Now, please, if you want to live to assist me again, find cover and stay there until everything goes quiet. All right?” I hope she can feel my eyes locked on hers, whatever color they might be.
Damn it, I wish I knew. What I’m about to do is something they’ll never be able to unsee. “And if you can … close your eyes.”