CHAPTER SIX #3
Right. I lowered myself toward him, wrapping my arms around his neck.
In one swift movement, he stood, caught my legs in his hands, and pitched my weight forward so that my chin was resting on his shoulder. Our cheeks pressed against one another.
His body was warm despite the cool night air, and I could feel the rounded muscles of his shoulders, back, and arms against me. There was something about the way his hands cradled my thighs that was both firm and gentle.
“Ready?” With my face and neck against his, I could feel the vibration of his voice in his throat.
“Ready,” I confirmed, a bit more breathlessly than I would’ve liked. My heart was hammering again, but it had nothing to do with the fact that he was climbing onto the railing next to Nya, about to free-fall from my seventh-floor balcony.
Nya jumped first, sailing to the ground with the grace of a cat.
Kieran dropped his hands from my legs, holding out his arms to steady himself.
All my feelings about being this close to him abruptly vanished. I was going to be sick. I squeezed my eyes shut and tightened my legs around him.
“You know,” he said, turning so his lips brushed against my ear, making me shiver involuntarily. “That shirt looks great on you.” His tone told me he wasn’t referring to the fabric or the color. “But I think your look the other night is my favorite.”
The stupid nightgown.
My eyes snapped open just in time to see the silver twinkle in his eye. Then we were falling.
It was over quickly, yet also seemed like it would never end.
As soon as I felt the rebound from Kieran’s feet hitting the ground, I took stock of myself. My stomach was in my throat. I tasted blood…I must have bit my lip. My arms and legs were shaking violently, wrapped as tightly around Kieran’s neck and waist as humanly possible.
Kieran gagged and yanked my hands down to his clavicle. “This may come as a surprise, but if you choke me out while we’re falling, our chances of survival decrease drastically.”
“Sorry,” I muttered. I wondered what our chances of survival would be if I vomited on him mid-fall instead. My throat tightened as if in preparation.
“No worries,” he called over his shoulder, jogging across the grass.
Nya was already on the other side of the road, in front of the brick high-rise. She ran straight at the building, then jumped at the last second, using her momentum and magic to catapult her up ten stories.
“I don’t think I’m going to handle this jump any better than the last one,” I said, dreading every step that brought us closer.
“You handled that last one just fine.” Kieran scanned the street, checking for patrolling Enforcers before sprinting across. “Besides, this isn’t so bad on my end. The feeling of you trembling and gasping, legs wrapped around me—”
“You may have distracted me the first time with that,” I interrupted. “But it’s not going to work again.”
Kieran laughed, the movement bouncing both of us. “Who said I was trying to distract you?”
That irritability that I felt the night of his and Nya’s second visit creeped up again. It only intensified as Kieran pushed off the ground and we catapulted through the air, landing so hard on the roof that my teeth clacked painfully against each other.
Jumping upwards had been better than falling, but I still felt nauseated and dizzy. My discomfort made me suddenly bold.
“You know,” I said. Taking a page from his book, I tilted my head so my lips brushed against his ear. I lowered my voice to a whisper. “It’s no fun being toyed with. That is what’s happening, right? Are you teasing me, Kieran?”
His steps faltered, and his breathing hitched. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Which would offend you more—if I was messing with you, or if I was serious?”
I didn’t know. And I was suddenly terrified to know the truth. “What would offend me most,” I said, creating as much distance between us as I could with him still carrying me, “would be if you dropped me because you’re screwing around. Pay attention.”
I was being a coward, and we both knew it. But as we reached the other end of the roof, he said, “Noted.”
We continued in silence.
Kieran bounded from rooftop to rooftop, somehow managing to keep Nya within view. I wondered if it was the magic or his own strength and endurance that allowed him to do this so effortlessly.
I tried to maintain an awareness of where we were in the city. But by the eighth jump, I was staring at the inside of my eyelids and wishing for it to be over.
“Doing okay?” Kieran asked after a particularly long leap.
I realized I had groaned out loud. Normally that would’ve embarrassed me, but I was too miserable to care.
“I’m fine.” It felt like the right thing to say, but I couldn’t find the strength to make my voice sound convincing.
“I guess it’s safe to say that you get motion sick.” Kieran’s chuckle was comforting somehow. “No jumping from cliffs or diving from waterfalls for you.”
“You actually do all of that?”
“Sure. Not a lot of cliffs in this area, but if you keep heading north, you’ll come across some great spots.”
I thought about all the things he must have seen and experienced Outside, all the life he had lived. And then he was picking up speed again.
I braced myself.
We must have descended to a shorter building, because we sailed forward but also fell for much longer than I had anticipated. I pressed my face against the solid expanse of his shoulder, willing the contents of my stomach to stay put.
“I would stop if I could, to give you a break.” His voice was near my ear again. “But we have to keep moving.”
There was nothing teasing in what he said. But despite how awful I felt, my body still reacted to the rumble of his voice and the feeling of his breath against my skin.
I stifled another groan of misery. I was a ball of frustrating and uncomfortable sensations, and I needed them all to stop. Immediately.
Kieran must have sensed how I was feeling because he said, “Hang in there. We’re about to jump down onto the street, then it’s up and over the wall.”
The wall. We were going to cross the wall.
Nya was still about fifty feet in front of us, but she had paused to balance on the cornice. I opened my eyes just in time to see her hold her arm high, flash a thumbs-up, and fall soundlessly. Beyond where she had been standing, the silhouette of the wall loomed. Closer than I had expected.
“Hang on.” Kieran reached his left arm across his body and over my shoulder, holding me against him. His grip was tight to the point of pain. Not a good sign of what was to come.
I buried my face in his shoulder again, this time to stifle a scream.
When I felt the resistance of the ground, I could have wept with relief.
Then we were at the base of the wall.
One hundred feet tall, the pride and joy of Cyllene.
The wall was constructed at the beginning of The Awakening.
Television channels, radio stations, and written publications had foregone all other news in favor of reporting on the strange happenings around the planet.
The stories both frightened and fascinated the public, and people speculated about what all of this meant for humankind.
There was a running joke that maybe another ten years would find us all riding on the backs of our unicorn steeds.
Then the reports of deaths start trickling in.
Corpses mutilated in ways that baffled authorities.
Encounters with creatures who were initially enchanting, but went on to suck the very life out of their victims. Phenomena like the wind that I had researched for Cato, where one gust brought madness and violence.
These occurrences started to snowball, overwhelming police and filling hospitals to capacity.
Then the floodgates opened. People were dying by the thousands.
And thus…the wall. A desperate attempt to keep the now-hostile world at bay.
Every construction company, every individual with skill in building, and even citizens who were unskilled but willing to learn…
they all banded together to erect the wall.
Other cities did the same, and the remaining news outlets reported on the ventures with mixed opinions.
Some questioned how a concrete barrier was going to keep out magic.
In most cases, people could neither physically see nor understand the mechanics of how magic worked.
But others questioned what else, exactly, they were supposed to do in order to keep their families safe. And that question was met with silence.
In an astounding two years from the day the team broke ground, a one-hundred-foot-high, forty-foot-thick cement wall encased the whole of the thirty miles of Cyllene.
One massive, drawbridge-style gate sat on the western side.
Wards—protection spells deployed by an enchantress who was willing to offer her services to Cyllene for a price—were placed around the top of the wall in the form of special inscriptions on the surface.
Protection against leaping, climbing, crawling, and other wall-breaching things.
As an additional safety measure, steel spikes were also adhered to half of the perimeter of the wall, with the remaining half left empty due to a shortage of steel.
Long before the wall was completed, but especially once it was, everyday people were forbidden to come and go from the city.
Those who wished to enter Cyllene could only do so under special circumstances.
Those who wished to leave were told they could never return.
Enforcers were the only exception. However, if they displayed unusual behavior or symptoms upon their return, even they could be declined reentry.
Patrols along the perimeter of the wall could be irregular at times, but the gate itself was heavily guarded.
All of this and more on the history of the wall, I knew from the Library.
Yet none of that prepared me to cross it.