Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Silvery light illuminates the gnarled branches of the tree line ahead. Even with the dense cloud cover, the sun’s brilliance is already more than the dull violet lights my sensitive eyes are accustomed to. If this is dim, how much brighter will it be when the sky clears?
I inhale, catching a sweet floral scent mingling with the earthy marram grass, the forest ahead greeting us through the wind. It’s a nice change from the musty aroma that lingers throughout most of Caligo, despite the spiced fragrances they mix into the bioluminescent liquid to cover the stench.
I’ve spent most of the past thirty hours preparing myself for the horrors awaiting us above.
Scorching heat. Formidable terrain. The scent of death closing in.
I hadn’t once considered it might be . .
. pleasant. Since dawn broke a handful of minutes ago, a comfortable warmth has permeated the steady breeze.
Not too hot, but enough to chase off the chill beneath my leathers.
If it weren’t for the weight of the steel resting atop my forearms or the sheathed weapon bouncing against Gem’s thigh or my ex-husband’s panted breaths, maybe we could forget that we’re running for our lives.
Maybe we’d find enjoyment, even, in the shifting landscape and how the golden hues of the sand spill into lush greenery.
A low rumble cuts through our silence.
Gem glances over her shoulder. “Guess the storm’s back.”
Though the thunder had relented a minute after the guards parted ways with us, the reprieve seems to be ending. Yet when a second, third, and fourth thump reverberate through the charged air, unaccompanied by the telltale flash of lightning, alarm bells ring in my mind.
A screech pierces through the gentle wind, shattering the last remnant of the blissful illusion.
“Shift!” Kalden shouts from the front of our group—our signal to shift into speed sprints.
I elongate my strides, but my cadence suffers as the added impact makes my booted feet burrow further into the sand.
The ground rumbles in time with the thudding impacts, growing closer by the second.
Kalden is the first to disappear beneath the forest’s canopy, and the others soon follow.
The dense woods won’t stop our assailant, but it might slow them down—or better yet, weaken their magic from the stifled sunlight.
I want to scream at my legs to move faster, but my legs aren’t the issue.
A familiar aura smears the edges of my vision, and my stride turns sloppy.
Gem and Gabe slow.
“Don’t you dare!” I yell at both idiots while clenching my fists, releasing the folded blades from my cuffs, readying to slice the palm of my gloves as soon as their backs are to me.
But neither listens.
The hairs on the back of my neck raise, and I know the beast of my nightmares is closing in.
Gabe grabs a teardrop-shaped object coated in a black shell from his pouch, along with an igniter. He stokes it and tilts the fire onto a wire jutting from the bottom of the shell.
Kalden reappears from the forest, sprinting back towards us.
Towards danger.
Has everyone lost their sun-damned minds?
Kalden unsheathes one of his throwing knives, discreetly running its sharp edge against his glove, all without halting his stride.
I look away, hoping the movement blurs any footage the camera in my helmet might’ve captured of his subtle treason. My head whips to the right, anxious to see if Gem took notice, but her helmet is angled toward the man at my left.
Gabe stops running altogether, and I choke on a scream.
He spins on his heel, aims the weapon, and launches the shell into the air. The missile arcs across the dune, aimed perfectly toward the charcoal-skinned blur leaping down the hill some sixty feet behind us.
“Gabe! Run, dammit!” The words finally rush out of me as I wonder why he’s standing there with the Sol closing in faster than any human could.
Gabe finally unfreezes, darting forward several steps before crouching onto the ground.
Once the creature is three leaps away from Gabe, the missile explodes.
Black powder and smoke erupt in a dense cloud that billows skyward impossibly fast, enveloping the entirety of the Sol. The already overcast sky darkens considerably as smoke laps onto the low-hanging clouds. Gem tugs me into the sand beside her as the wave of thick black air disperses over us.
Seconds feel like minutes as visibility slowly returns. There’s movement in the fog ahead. I roll onto my hands and knees, bracing myself for the end.
But the figure ambling through the dissipating smoke isn’t a Sol.
“It worked,” Gabe chokes out with a manic laugh.
I rise to my feet, dusting the sand from my pants. “What worked?”
“Is it dead?” Gem and I ask our questions simultaneously.
Gabe doesn’t respond to either of us, so Gem shuffles forward to see for herself, knuckles tightly wrapped around the hilt of her poniard.
“It’s not moving,” she calls from ahead. “Unconscious, at the least, if not dead.”
Kalden, who’s caught up to us, tips his head at the still-expanding blackness shrouding our surroundings in a false night.
“What is that?” When Gabe doesn’t immediately answer, Kalden grabs him by the front of his guardsman vest. “What did you do?!”
“I-It’s something I’ve been developing for a while now. I thought if we could find a way to make nightstone airborne, we’d be able to disarm the Sols and protect ourselves from exposure without having to wear all of this.” Gabe gestures at his helmet and full-body leathers.
His words pull at a long-buried memory.
“Do you ever wonder what it would be like?” I’d asked Gabe a lifetime ago during what used to be our typical evening cuddles.
I’d woken from a dream where he and I had decided to explore the world above.
In the dream, I dared to envision what it might feel like—the sun’s warmth and the sheer openness of not living in a cramped underground city.
“Of course I do,” Gabe had admitted while rolling me further on top of him and rubbing circles on my back.
His eyes had gotten that glazed look—the one he’d always get when dreaming up all the ways he could bring about a better future—as he continued, “I love this city, but I love our people more. And they deserve to have the option of seeing the world beyond the confines of tunnels and caves. You know, I’ve explored the concept of building polarized dome structures above the entrances.
We could use them recreationally, maybe.
Or even as residences, if there’s enough interest. But father is skeptical of the cost and longevity, not to mention the impossible logistics of sending enough guards to defend the construction from attacks.
As long as the Sols are still lurking above us, we’re stuck here. ”
I’d shifted myself atop him, longing to erase the building sense of hopelessness tugging at his perfect lips. “If only it could be night all the time.”
I said it casually, hoping he’d catch the implication of desire in my tone as I kissed his neck. In no way had I meant it to be a true solution.
Yet Gabe had perked up. He’d grabbed both sides of my cheeks and stared at me like I’d solved some great mystery.
“That’s it! What if we can make an airborne version of nightstone that bonds with the atmosphere?
Even if the sun rises, it won’t touch the earth.
We could explore and expand above without worrying about the Sols using their power, or becoming a monster ourselves. ”
I blink back to the present.
Eleven years. That’s how long Gabe’s been working on making nightstone airborne.
And he’s finally done it.
The vapor now stretches above us like a foreboding black cloud.
“How long will it last?” Kalden demands, fists still clenching onto Gabe.
Hearing this much emotion break through his controlled, stony facade sends a fresh wave of pinpricks down my arms.
Gabe, though, seems unfazed as he basks in his accomplishment. “We carbonized the nightstone so it could easily form a strong covalent bond with the oxygen in our atmosphere.”
Gem crosses her arms tightly around herself. “Are you saying you turned nightstone into a greenhouse gas?”
Gabe nods. “The carbon nightoxide molecules are dense, so their rate of dispersion is low. Which is why we struggled to find a sufficient method for infusing it into the atmosphere. The missile has to be a specific weight and ignited with a temperature of at least twelve hundred degrees.” He shakes off the dazed expression and blinks down, as if just noticing Kalden’s grip on his vest. “To answer your question, it could take a day or two for the carbon nightoxide to decay, though some of the finer nightstone particles may linger in the air for longer.”
Kalden finally releases him with a shove and stalks towards the fallen Sol a few yards away.
“What’s his problem?” Gabe asks, coming down from the high of his experiment proving successful.
Gem shrugs. “Maybe he’s pissed that you stole the hero moment from him.”
“A hero, huh? I guess I did. What about you?” Gabe angles towards me, and I can hear the smug grin in his voice. “Aren’t you glad I’m here now?”
I respond with a knee-jerk, “No.”
“Seriously? That thing was seconds away from sinking its talons into you.”
I tilt my chin up. “That’s one less Sol for those of us who need to prove a kill. We could’ve handled it without you.”
More like Kalden could’ve handled it. Me? Unlikely.
I retrace my steps back up the dune, sparing myself from Gabe’s gloating.
Inky smoke rises from the bare, charred corpse. The area around its heart took the brunt of the explosion, judging by the gaping wound splaying out its chest cavity. Any trace of the golden light flooding its veins has been extinguished, along with the unyielding thirst in its now colorless eyes.
It almost appears . . . human.
Well, a human with skin blackened to a crisp. But those parted lips? They might’ve been soft and rosy once. And the dainty, upturned nose reminds me so much of Taurance that a pang stabs my chest.
Who was this person, before they became this thing? Do they have a family? Is there someone out there right now missing them as fiercely as I miss Taur?
Stop empathizing with it.
Regardless of what it might’ve been once, there’s no humanity in the Sol sprawled before me. If our positions were reversed, it certainly wouldn’t mourn me.
Kalden, who’s knelt beside the creature, presses his gloved fingers against the pulse point on the side of its neck, right above what looks to be a collar. Seconds pass, and he lowers his head.
The gesture is so close to tender mourning that I freeze in place.
“Dead.” Kalden confirms what we both already knew, voice returning to neutral as he rolls back on his feet.
“That’s great, right?” I ask, taking a cautious step forward.
He shakes his head as he walks past me. “A life lost is never something to celebrate.”
I double my pace to match his. “Even if it’s our enemy?”
Kalden halts. “How are those who revel in the death of someone who was once human any better than the monsters they’re taught to fear?”
I place my palm against the forehead of my helmet, covering the camera inside, and whisper, “You can’t let them hear you say that.”
“Why?” Kalden challenges. “What can they do to me out here?”
My mouth falls open, then shuts.
He has a point. We’re already living in one of the worst-case scenarios. The only alternative that could be worse is imprisonment in the Abyss, but would Chancellor Bren risk the valuable lives of his men by sending them out to detain us? Doubtful.
I suppose he could have us arrested, if we return home at the end of this.
But that’s a big if. Assuming Gabe has enough nightstone missiles for each of us to kill ten Sols, what happens when we miss or encounter more creatures?
My teeth bite into my inner cheek as I imagine what would happen if we face another ambush, but without the intervention of the explosive.
As if he senses the direction of my thoughts, Kalden sighs. “Focus on right now, not tomorrow or next week or a future that isn’t guaranteed. If you don’t stay in the present and stay alert, that could be you.” He tilts his head at the smoking corpse.
I roll my eyes, though he can’t see it. “You’re awful at motivational speeches, you know that? Why do you always end these pep talks with some vague threat about my imminent death?”
Kalden leans in so close I can see my reflection in the polarized lens of his helmet.
“Because your will to live is what drives you. Not because you fear dying, but because you fear losing. You believe your death would confirm you are too broken, too weak for this world. So, you push forward out of spite, to prove yourself wrong—that you are worthy of existing.”
Heat floods my cheeks, and I think I hate him a little bit. I hate how much he sees through me. Hate how his words pry at unhealed wounds. Because he’s right. I’m not convinced I’m worthy of existing.
“But you’re wrong.” Kalden’s low voice thickens. “If you die, it won’t be a confirmation that you don’t deserve to live. It’ll just be a tragedy.”
My knuckles clench, and my blade cuffs retract.
Part of me hopes he believes I intentionally sheathed the blades. But if this conversation has taught me anything, it’s that the man across from me is too observant for my own good.
A raindrop spills onto his helmet, saving me from whatever humiliating comment he was sure to make. Two more droplets fall on mine.
Kalden leans back, glancing at the blackened sky, then at the tree line at the base of the hill. “We should keep moving. Get further beneath the canopy before the storm picks up.”