CHAPTER 50
DAVINA
Now
MY MIND DETACHES FROM MY BODY, assailed by a barrage of blurry images. Memories surge—scenes of a similar scenario, half a lifetime ago. Green uniforms against green trees. So much noise and dust and darkness. Knees pulled tight against my chest, and my head buried between them.
A sharp pain flares at my temples, blotting out everything around me in red, pulsating agony.
Have I been hit?
I feel no blood, no broken skin. But my focus turns inward, the pain flares, then begins to recede, leaving a foggy dizziness in its wake. I’m in two places at once: one cool and crisp, the other humid and stifling.
Massive trees. A towering crater wall. Roiling clouds. A clear blue sky.
Dust churns in the air, refusing to settle.
Something rattles me, but I ignore it. My eyes find a silhouette I know too well. One I’ve spent the past month resenting. But now, it just hurts.
Hurts, hurts, hurts.
“Lachlan!”
It all crashes back in an instant, hitting me like an avalanche, bombarding my senses until I don’t know which way is up. I’ve run out of time. A shadow blocks my sight, and I suddenly understand what the rattling was.
Someone is shaking me.
“DAVINA!”
My eyes snap into focus, locking on the face just inches from mine.
“Ar-Armand?” The name is more breath than voice. There’s no way he hears it over the surrounding chaos.
And yet.
“I’m here. I’ve got you.” His eyes are pretty. Scary, but pretty. “Where are you hurt? Can you walk?”
I look down. A dull ache pulses through my shoulders, and I stifle a groan as I try to pull them forward, agony spearing through them.
Right, handcuffs.
“Davina?”
“I’m fine.” I think?
His brow furrows as his eyes continue to scan my face. Searching for what, I do not know. “Let’s get you out of here.”
His arms slip beneath my armpits and lift. A sharp whimper escapes as pain jolts through my overstretched joints. He doesn’t let go, though, dragging me to my feet. My knees wobble as soon as my weight falls on them after two days of complete, unwilling rest.
“Shhh,” my friend soothes. “It’s going to be fine.”
We begin moving, slow and unsteady through the chaos of bodies and rubble and dust, advancing slowly towards where the light is brighter. I focus on Armand’s solid presence at my side. On the familiar fabric of his uniform brushing my bare arm, mind too numb to process anything else.
It could be seconds or minutes or hours later that, all of a sudden, the dust disappears. It catches me off guard, and I stumble over a loose stone, blinded by the sun. Only Armand’s arm around my waist keeps me from collapsing.
“What’s wrong?” he demands, slowing down to keep me at his side.
But his voice is distant, muffled beneath the pounding in my head. As if in a trance, I turn around, searching. For what, I am not sure.
My eyes lock on the crater wall ahead, two crumbling buildings set against it like ghosts. The projectiles. Their angles. Their placement—
I recognize the maneuver, I realize. I have used it myself on countless hunts . . . before.
I freeze.
Armand grunts at my side when he’s forced to stop once again. “What the—”
But I hear nothing past the roaring in my ears.
Sapless.
Zephyr.
I stumble backward, head snapping left, scanning the wreckage. There is only green, green and more green. Some of the green is sprawled motionless across the ground. Lifeless.
So much destruction.
My left knee gives up, and I begin to fall.
Someone catches me. Armand.
“Davina, please,” he growls, breath hot against my ear. His arms tremble with the effort of keeping me upright, but he’s warm. Reliable. “You’re in shock. We need to get you out of here.”
Next thing I know, Armand is bundling me into a pod, the glare of the midday sun traded for the pod’s cool sheen.
My heart aches. The cool, dry interior feels strange on my dirty, damp skin.
It takes a few blinks for my eyes to adjust to the sudden dimness.
My side hurts, but when I shift, pain knives up both arms.
Not again, not again, not again . . .
Armand crowds me deeper onto the bench, sliding next to me, and the door has barely slid shut behind him when we’re on the move. My stomach flips, nausea sloshing in the empty pit where food should be.
“Good to see you in one piece, Centurion Lachlan.”
My whole body ices over.
That voice. Its mere cadence has an echo of the earlier headache whispering against my temples.
Slowly—reluctantly—I force my eyes open, lifting my gaze. A man sits opposite me, clad in a neatly pressed suit, not a single speck on his spectacles, not a hair out of place.
The Supreme Strategos, in all his glory.
And even though I should feel relief that the Republic cares enough for me to stage a rescue, dread, bone-deep and relentless, settles instead. No matter how much I fight it, it refuses to be subdued. Because Ludwig Schloss’s gaze is intent, almost hopeful, as it pins me to the seat.
And all I can think is one word, pulsing in time with my heartbeat:
Treason.