THE UNDERCITY
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Saya Claymore
“Okay, nightwalker. You have my attention,” I say as I rejoin Serun, recalling the face of the man who shot me.
“Why is everyone afraid of slayers? Even that Feeder fears them.” I shake my head in disbelief.
“We’ve been told they are our saviours. Sure, most of us believed slayers only exist in stories, but they were highly regarded. Our fantasy protectors.”
Serun takes my hand, though I’m unsure if it was an automatic movement or out of curiosity—testing to see if I will pull away and start spitting threats. Instead, my fingers slip between his, and those dewy red eyes draw ahead to the exit.
“I’m going to ask you a question. If you can answer it, you will understand everything,” Serun says, his eyes narrowing. “Why do they have feeding grounds on their side of the border when they could easily dismantle them?”
A simple question. No riddles or double meanings. Yet, my mind goes blank. Why do slayers allow feeding grounds topside? Why haven’t they pushed all the nightwalkers out? Serun’s Law states that any nightwalker who crosses the border risks their life.
Why was I trapped in a feeding ground for a decade?
“I don’t know…”
Serun pulls me into him as we step towards the other side of the train terminal. “It will come to you the more you get to know the Undercity.”
I grunt my response, and he chuckles. Serun’s hand squeezes mine, and his clawed thumb swipes across my knuckles. I should hate this—the way he makes me feel. But the more I am around him, the more I revel in his nightshade scent, practically drunk on him.
Suddenly, a new light hits me, and I flutter my lashes to adjust. When my sight returns, a city appears before my very wide eyes.
Moving lantern lights sporadically illuminate the Undercity as people with heartbeats roam across steel structures. Everything is stacked together in blocky cubes: buildings, ladders, bridges, and open staircases for travel between them.
A clanking rattle of metal comes from the right, and my ear flicks at the open elevator cages.
After a group moves inside, the last person slides the gate across with a thunk, and it starts its ascent.
Silver lights sparkle across the steel sky.
They remind me of a cluster of stars; pretty, but they do little to shed any light on the Undercity.
Below, the city is supported by an intricate webbed design, with metal crossbeams, ladders, and bridges into a downward spiral. Lanterns move like spirits through a haunted house, illuminating homes, stores, and market stalls.
It’s an entirely new world. My eyes widen, and I clutch the skirt of my gown as nightwalkers slip through the shadows of the lanterns, red eyes glowing and avoiding the light as they prowl the streets.
But it’s not the nightwalkers that seem strange.
It’s the living with lanterns, confidently wandering the streets like I imagined people would before Mother vanished.
“Welcome to the Undercity, Saya,” Serun says.
Steam escapes from the mesh flooring nearby, condensing into a haze, sending clouds across bustling streets. Murmured conversations begin to overlap, a thousand voices in my ears, while sharp red eyes watch from the gloom: dilated, aware, and unwavering.
Serun takes me deeper into his city. The radiance of my lantern reveals three paths, and we take the middle. Deep red, brown, and black colours blend with the shimmering chrome, becoming a dusky brown in the glow of lanterns.
As we pass, signs above doors describe the different wares inside: blood, clothing, and human food. My stomach growls. I haven’t eaten very much since the feeding ground. Whenever I try, my throat constricts.
Perhaps my gut isn’t ready to digest too much, and I just need to take it easy. It has been a while since I’ve eaten more than my daily bread roll and egg.
Turning away from my thoughts, I lower the lantern, realising I don’t need it as much now, thanks to the glow from others burning the city bright. An entire community lives here, with nightwalkers in the shadows, smiles on faces I’ve never seen before.
In comparison, topside is a shambles. From Emily and Manni’s stories, the people there scavenge for food—all are desperate for shelter. Down here, the rich eat the poor.
“Why doesn’t it look like this topside?” I ask, watching two men leave a store, bags hanging off their arms and jewels shimmering across pale necklines.
“Some places do. There are settlements, and slayers have barricaded parts of towns and cities off for humans to live freely in compounds. At least, they are as comfortable as they can be surrounded by nightwalkers desperate for a feed.”
Nightwalkers recoil away when my lantern hits them. Crouching low, their fingertips graze the stone and they hiss. A warning, though submissive, as they shrink into the dark.
I draw nearer to Serun, and it eases my heart. He is far too powerful for anyone to risk an attack.
Then, a nightwalker breaks through the barrier of light, pressing their head to the ground, sobbing.
She speaks Serun’s name as if he is Mother—in worship.
A god. She rambles in Daryun, giving rise to the urge to ask her what kamai means, but Serun’s grip keeps me silent.
As much as I am in awe of this place, the surrounding darkness and this nightwalker crossing into my light has a sickening flutter churning my insides.
I’m not entirely safe here.
Serun pulls me away from the groveller, moving us forward. “Jax told me that if we went to a settlement, I would have to work like people did when Mother was still around. Is it true?”
“Yes. A strange human custom I never understood. Some would even work themselves to death to keep a roof over their heads, and others starved if they couldn’t work. Work was life, such that it was.”
“How does it work here, then?” I nudge my chin towards the shops.
“Nightwalkers and humans work, but it isn’t a requirement.
Everyone is fed and has a home, but anyone who wants more can work if they so choose.
I care little for the human custom—but if they don’t like the fact that they’re given a blood bag a week, they are free to leave and hunt topside or seek a Feeder to drink from. ”
“I don’t like that,” I murmur. “Humans are still seen as cattle, no matter where we go.”
“It’s life. When life strives to survive, it takes from others. Humans did the same to actual cattle, or does this concern only stretch to your own kind?”
My eyes narrow. He’s good; I’ll give the Lord of the Undercity that. He knows how to twist the knife and spin words in his favour. I don’t know how to respond. Before nightwalkers, humans were on top, and we slaughtered livestock to eat meat and more.
Another nightwalker hisses, shying away from the light.
I step closer to Serun again, our shoulders bumping. His shadows quiver, and a soft look melts the red in his eyes before they dilate and his shadows flow down and spool onto the ground, cutting away the steam and thickening it into black streams.
“What did you do before Mother left?” I ask, silently accepting I had lost the other argument. “Surely you didn’t appear after she vanished? You hinted at being older, or did I misunderstand when I was drunk on your venom?”
Nearby, nightwalkers enter an elevator cage with a human holding an oil lantern.
Wires and machine wheels spin, lifting the cage along the outer wall of the building until they reach the fourth floor.
Metal clanks and grinds, rattling in a way I don’t particularly trust, but none seem bothered as they file out of the daunting contraption.
“It’s complicated. I’ve been around for what seems like an eternity, but I only remember being in Naylen for almost a century.
” His eyes narrow, and the shadows suffocate him to stillness, as if frozen in time.
“I have lost pieces of myself along the way. I can’t fully remember when I was alive—at least nothing good. ”
He is a mystery, even to himself. A nightwalker who became lord. An experiment claimed by Naylen, but when? I was raised knowing of his existence through Serun’s Law.
“Did you infect everyone?”
“Do you want the truth or a lie?” His voice drops low—a warning.
“The truth.”
“Yes, in Naylen. I cannot attest to the rest of the world.”
“Did you do it for power?”
“Not at first.”
He is being direct again. I’ve noticed that when he becomes short with his words, he wants the conversation to end, but I know if I keep asking questions, he will answer them.
Shadows curl around my waist, luring me closer to him until we stop dancing around the idea of proximity and cling to one another. My hand on his tightens, and heat flushes my face, tingling down my neck and prickling around my now aroused nipples over a fucking touch.
Even though he just told me he infected people for power. My mind feels skewed, and I don’t know if it’s because of my nightwalker side or if I have always had this deep inside me.
A side street opens up, and all three paths connect. Serun’s grip on mine tightens, and I am pulled back just in time as two children holding neon yellow illuminated sticks race past, bliss on their faces and tickled red cheeks.
They are…human. There are human children in the Undercity.
Was Jax right? Do they take children?
I move to reach for the boy dressed in blue with short black hair, the tension swelling in my throat as I think of Cole. He smiled the night we escaped. His first smile that felt organic—real. Then that fucking creature punctured him with its tail.
But before I can do anything more than raise my hand, the children are already disappearing from sight, neon sticks visible until they reach another sphere of lantern light. A human is standing by two nightwalkers, and a clawed hand touches the boy’s shoulder. He smiles up at them, unafraid.
Innocent.
“Nightwalkers…take children?”
“Adopt,” Serun says. “Maeve finds lost children on the streets topside, and she brings them here. Her soul often gets in the way when it comes to them, especially when they tell her the same tale. Their parents went to scavenge, never to return—likely slaughtered by topside nightwalkers.”
I press my lips thin, biting into the flesh with my fangs.
In the end, I let the conversation go. There is no use raising the issue now, in the middle of the street, surrounded by nightwalkers who may hear and attack me for suggesting the idea of change. Gather more information, then talk to Serun.
There is also the looming thought of returning home after I find Cole.
“Will you come with me to Cherry Bloom? I’m not sure I can face anyone there, especially him…Now that I think about it, I doubt Cole and I would survive it.”
More of his shadows coil around me, tenderly ghosting against my skin. “Wherever you go, I will follow.”