by Reese Hogan
Keep it together, she told herself. Ignore the voice that says he deserves it. Ignore the voice that says it’s too late. Ignore the voice that wants to hurt him for what he’s done. Keep it together, or you will lose him. For good.
Chapter 20
KLARA YANA’S COMMUNICATION
Klara Yana stared at the black-streaked rock wall directly in front of her. Sharp rocks jabbed into her side, her shoulder, and her head, where Cu Zanthus’s coat provided a thin cushion under the stitched gash on her scalp. Pale sunlight made a bare splotch far away, on her right, but where Klara Yana lay was heavily in shadow. She was in some sort of giant cavern, she realized, with a chunk knocked out of its ceiling. Wind whipped at her from the dark depths of the cave, sending a substantial chill through her thin shirt. An ashy smell hung thick in the air.
Shrouding. This was the same place the submarine had gone… or at least somewhere similar. There’d been water pouring in there, just like from a real ocean. But the realm – the realm itself was the same. It had to be. She looked at the dekatite mark on her palm, then closed her hand around it, fast and instinctive. The implications were mind-blowing. Nowhere near a dekatite source, with only a piece of arphanium. But where was the shrouding realm, exactly? She’d never gotten a straight answer out of Blackwood about that. It certainly didn’t seem like the center of the world. Nor was the rock surrounding her dekatite, which could hardly make it inside the dekatite.
But it was out of Lyanirus’s grasp. And for now, that was all that mattered.
She pushed herself up. Her body reminded her with a thousand stabs of fresh pain what she had just gone through. She moaned through her teeth, but managed to stay upright in the biting cold. She pulled on Cu Zanthus’s Belzene jacket, buttoning it and rolling up the sleeves.
The arphanium pipe. She’d dropped it the moment she’d landed. Her stomach turned over. She’d almost assuredly need it to get out again. In the haphazard rock field, it could have rolled off anywhere – could have easily fallen beneath some boulder too huge for her to move. Painfully, she knelt, peering in the dim light for even a hint of its glow.
She finally saw it, under an overhanging edge of rock, and ducked down to retrieve it. She was careful not to use her dekatite-marked hand. That might send her right back into Lyanirus’s clutches, and even this desolate place was better than that. Her other hand, though, was drenched with blood and left the crystal slick with it. She slipped the arphanium into her coat pocket and huddled under the big rock for a moment, sheltered from the wind, and evaluated the damage.
Even through the blood, she could see the gaping gash across the base of her forefinger, the ragged pieces of flesh barely attached. If she didn’t get it cleaned and bound, she would lose the finger, if not the hand. She ripped a strip from the bottom of the drab shirt she wore and wrapped the wound as tightly as possible, passing the cloth around her palm a few times before tying it off. A lightheaded buzz hummed through her ears; shock and blood loss battling for control. But at least she was no longer losing blood, and her training at the NIC had taught her how to push the pain aside until later. How to embrace it, even, as evidence she was alive.
That’s what she did now: the wound on her head was proof the cement step hadn’t killed her. The gunshot wound was a fortunate distance away from her stomach. And the finger… well, hey, she still had it.
She ran her other hand over Cu Zanthus’s coat, and smiled when she found a military-issue chocolate bar in an inner pocket. She ripped the foil off a corner of it and sank her teeth in, remembering just in time to welcome the shooting pain in her jaw as a sign that it wasn’t broken.
She sucked on the bitter chocolate to soften it as she considered her options. Her relationship with Lyanirus was beyond repair. Even if he didn’t suspect the truth yet, he’d never trust her again – and that was before she’d vanished without a trace, taking Cu Zanthus’s arphanium shard with her. Because of Lyanirus’s high rank, her chances of retaining her position at all were almost nonexistent. Her hope of getting the clearance she wanted… gone. Her hopes of finding her ama… gone. And these things, she reminded herself, were best-case scenarios. If Lyanirus did suspect the truth about her…
Then sooner or later, she knew she’d end up in the same nightmare that Blackwood would. Imprisoned, abused, violated, forced to use these powers to increase Dhavnakir’s empire. And yes, she’d planned at one point to help be part of that change, but now… now all she could think about was her ama and Dela Savene, such strong women, mistreated and used by their own government. Something inside her couldn’t bear the thought of CSO Blackwood ending up like that, too.
Although Klara Yana had repeatedly scorned her for discarding and sending away her comrades, Blackwood had also prevented Vin from beating her on the submarine. She’d saved her life in the lab. She’d forgiven her for bringing dekatite on board. And every time she’d struck out on her own – every time – it had been because she was putting herself in danger while trying to protect others.
Klara Yana let out a slow breath. How had she ever thought Belzenes had no sense of camaraderie?
She finished the rest of the bar numbly. The harsh truth was, no one else could help Blackwood. No one else would. If Klara Yana didn’t want her falling into Lyanirus’s hands, it fell on her and her alone to do something about it.
And after she got Blackwood safe, she decided, she’d kill that sadistic psychopath Lyanirus. Before he had the chance to ruin her career. And, more importantly, before he ever got his hands on her again.
The cavern suddenly darkened, as if in response to her mood. It wasn’t just cloud cover; it went from being shadowed to nearly pitch black in a second. Klara Yana’s head darted up, her eyes sweeping the dark confines. She suddenly realized how quiet it had gotten, too. The wind had died, or at least cut back to the point where it felt like silence after the incessant howling. No… not silence, exactly. There was a subtle rasping from all around – part scrape, part slither – as soft as autumn leaves being blown across a road.
Klara Yana crept up the jagged rock jutting from the depression her arphanium had fallen into. She turned her head toward where the patch of sunlight had been, and barely held back a scream. Something was submerging into the cavern. As she watched, the giant head – or was it a body? – had just cleared the opening, sending a slash of light through again. The head… body… was about the size of a small house, and shaped like a balloon. It was covered top to bottom in some sort of drooping spikes. Giant eyes ringed its girth, blinking out of synch with one another.
The body was supported not by legs, but by tentacles. It was these that made the rasping sound. They spilled all throughout the cave, draped over rocks, climbing the curved walls, wrapped around huge slabs. All of them were in motion, sliding slowly in every direction as they lowered the heavy creature. Klara Yana watched as one muscular tentacle, almost as thick as her body, glided over the boulder she’d sheltered under and flowed back toward the monster. Klara Yana took her gaze from the creature only long enough to confirm that she had already been surrounded. She inched her hand toward her right pocket, where the arphanium pipe was.
Something opened beneath those myriad eyes – a mouth of some sort. And it spoke, in a deep, resonating voice.
“Torthu-ara-caeg.”
Klara Yana’s mouth fell open. A language. Should she try to answer? Was it talking to her, or just talking?
The safest option seemed to be to stay quiet. She resumed sliding her hand toward her pocket, moving as little as possible. The huge body lowered even closer to the rocky floor, until it hovered barely above head height, its impossibly long tentacles stretching as far as Klara Yana could see to hold it aloft. Everywhere she looked, they writhed like giant highland snakes, making loops and curls on every side. The end of one approached her face. Even in the dim light, she could see wide suckers when the tapered end flicked up – and what looked like sharp, black barbs lining it. She ran a tongue over dry lips as she finally g
ot a hand into Cu Zanthus’s coat pocket and wrapped it around the smooth chunk of arphanium pipe. It was her wounded hand rather than the dekatite-marked one, unfortunately. She started pulling it out.
As if the monster sensed it, the closest tentacle shot forward. Before she could react, it had wrapped twice around her body, pinning her right arm to her side. Her hand spasmed open, and the arphanium dropped back into the deep pocket. The tentacle lifted her, bringing her closer to the thing’s body. It crushed her so tight, she could feel every bruise in her ribs. The gunshot wound in her side erupted in torment. The spikes she’d seen pricked through in a few places, but thanks to Cu Zanthus’s thick coat, not as badly as they might have. Yet. She struggled to breathe through the pulverizing strength, terrified the creature would bring her straight to its mouth and eat her. But instead, it kept her hanging some distance away, narrowing or widening its various eyes at her.
“Yola-krona. Niss-machi. All-ono.”
Klara Yana’s marked hand was still free, but her other hand completely blocked the pocket with the arphanium and was pinned down. Even if she got to the pipe, would she be able to get away? Would the shrouding technique work again? She tried not to think about Blackwood’s words at the lab – I saw the bodies in Desert Crab’s first accident. They were torn up, mutilated…
“An-mal-da-caeg!” The creature shook her, rattling her to her teeth. Another tentacle whipped up to join the first, grabbing her left leg. Klara Yana screamed as she pictured it being ripped clean off.
With a start, she remembered the shrouding vehicles were attacked when someone brought dekatite onboard. It must be what the creature wanted. Frantically, she fumbled under her coat and shirt, and pulled the Broken Eye out from under her breast wrap. She thrust it out in front of her, holding it between her fingertips so it was fully visible.
Several of the eyes swiveled pointedly toward it. The creature’s mouth opened wider, terrible teeth bared and massive.
Then, before Klara Yana could react, something huge and dark dropped through the cave’s opening directly above the creature’s head. The monster bellowed as its bulbous shape was hit, and the tentacles gripping Klara Yana’s body suddenly loosened. She plummeted through the coils. Pain erupted as her battered body hit hard rock, and she immediately began sliding down the slanted face of the boulder she’d landed on. She grappled for a grip, barely clinging onto the Broken Eye with her marked palm. Somehow, the hand with the injured finger saved her, snagging on an outcropping and halting her descent. The finger pulsed in red-hot pain. She gritted her teeth and looked up.
The creature that had grabbed her was being dragged away, tentacles flailing against the walls in a desperate, but futile, attempt to stop itself. Then, without warning, they abruptly ceased. The tentacles fell to the rocks around her with heavy, grotesque thumps. One of them barely missed hitting her foot.
Klara Yana peered down the tunnel, her heart thumping. A dark smoke swirled toward her. She jerked back as tendrils of it reached for her. No, it wasn’t smoke… more of a dark mist. It left beads of moisture across her face and hands. Shivering in its chill, Klara Yana managed to pull herself up to a flatter part of the huge boulder and climb back to her feet. The hand not holding the pendant hovered over the pocket with the arphanium in it. But she didn’t grab it yet – whatever this was, it had saved her from the other monster. Still… that didn’t make it a friend.
A form began to take shape from the mist, although not a completely solid one. It slightly resembled a person sitting in front of her rock, with legs bent to either side. But there were at least four legs, and while two arms gripped the rock’s surface, another propped up the vague shape of a head. Long ethereal hair drifted down in waves of mist, breaking off continuously like spray from a waterfall. Only a deep gash showed where one of its eyes should have been. The other eye was deep green with bright golden flecks. Not exactly the same shade as Klara Yana’s, but definitely close. Klara Yana’s gaze went from the one remaining eye to the missing one and back again. What in the name of the gods…?
“Kinnen,” the creature said. “Redit-itres-kora-caeg.”
“Um… this?” Klara Yana held out the dekatite pendant again.
A distinct look of irritation flashed across the being’s face. She brought up a massive hand and used it to close Klara Yana’s fingers back over the pendant. The giant hand was warm and rough, despite the cool mistiness of the being herself. Its grip was strong enough to make Klara Yana gasp. It was, without a doubt, the same hand she’d felt in the submarine.
“You,” she whispered. “That was you. Outside the submarine. Wasn’t it?”
“Da. Caeg.” The creature repeated the words slowly, as if speaking to a child.
Caeg. The same thing the first creature had asked for. It must not be the dekatite, then. Reluctantly, Klara Yana put the dekatite away and brought out the piece of blood-stained arphanium instead. “Is the caeg this one?”
The being’s head jerked back, and a hiss escaped her lips. One of the huge hands shot forward. Klara Yana stepped back, burying it in her pocket again.
“No. I need it,” she said. “I need it to get back.”
“Norg-ahelb-caeg-machi!” the creature snarled.
Klara Yana’s heart pounded. Blackwood had said the creatures were drawn to dekatite. But even if that were true, clearly it was the arphanium they wanted. And there were only two things Klara Yana knew arphanium was used for: lights… and getting in and out of the shrouding realm. What if that was what these creatures wanted? What if that’s why the submarine had been attacked?
She took another step back, until her heels hung over the edge of the flat boulder. “No,” she said shakily. “No, I can’t let you come back to Mirrix. I’ve heard what you do. The people you kill. No one would be safe!”
“Okel-mara!” The monster’s hand lunged for her again.
Klara Yana took another step back, pitching her body forward and digging her boots in for traction as she slid down the steep decline of the huge rock. She leapt off halfway down, twisting and landing deep in the crevice between two boulders as big as tanks. By the time she hit the ground, her body was screaming in pain again, but she had the arphanium clutched in her non-marked hand.
“Galene!” the creature said from behind her, her voice urgent.
Klara Yana froze. Slowly, she turned around. The creature was up on the rock she’d just jumped from, staring at her with that one eye that seemed so bright even in the shadows.
“Did you say Galene?” said Klara Yana.
“Galene. Da-caeg.”
It’s just a coincidence, thought Klara Yana. Some sound-alike word from their language. And yet… there was no denying the similarity of the creature’s face and its single eye to Vo Hina’s – to Klara Yana’s own goddess. Vo Hina, whom Galene Marduc had slept with. No. It’s not possible.
“Icseni. Peraga.” The creature was back to speaking very clearly now, as if she could somehow drill the words’ meanings into Klara Yana’s head. She pointed one finger to the arphanium Klara Yana held. “Dacaeg.” She reached down and picked up a craggy rock from the ground, small enough to fit in her hand. “Peraga.” She closed her fingers and squeezed tight. A sharp crack echoed through the cavern, followed by a muffled grinding. The being opened her hand and particles of crushed rock fell in a cloud of black and gray dust.
Klara Yana’s mouth went dry. “You want to crush my arphanium? Destroy it? I’d be trapped here!”
“Norg-bivorna.” The being pointed to the creature she’d killed, behind her.
Klara Yana felt a headache coming on, nowhere near the gash on her scalp. What was the creature trying to tell her? She wanted the arphanium. No doubt there. But to destroy it? Was it a ruse, to trick her into handing it over? It had been the hand from the submarine, she was sure of it. Had she been trying to get the arphanium then, too? But why destroy it?
A sudden flash of light lit up the cavern, searing into Klara Yana’s retinas
as strongly as Cu Zanthus’s shock grenade had. Klara Yana staggered back with a yell, an arm flung over her eyes. She could still see the bolt of lightning that had come through that hole in the ceiling, like an afterimage burned into her brain. Rock shattered with a deafening crack as the strike hit the ground. Just over the noise of the rolling thunder, Klara Yana could hear the voice of the creature she’d been speaking with.
“Galene! Falb! Falb!”
Klara Yana blinked her eyes open, squinting through tears. She could just make out the creature with the single green eye.
“Norg. Bivorna!” the creature said again, gesturing frantically overhead. Bivorna. Klara Yana looked from the dead creature she’d first pointed at to the hole overhead. The space had darkened again. Another monster? Were they the Bivorna? With that lightning, it had seemed like gods-cursed Shon Aha!
Shon Aha. What if he’d been the one to strike Blackwood? And this creature – Vo Hina? – had been the one to… No. Not possible!
“Galene!”
Klara Yana wrenched her gaze back to the creature. It slowly dawned on her that every time the creature had used that word, she was trying to get her attention. Like a name. Does she think I’m Galene? But what sense did that make?
The shrouding creature looked overhead one more time, then back at Klara Yana, and stabbed with a single finger at one of her own palms. “Da-caeg!” she shouted. “Falb! Falb!” Then she threw her arm out in a frustrated gesture that surely meant the same thing in any language: Go! Get away!
Klara Yana didn’t wait to be told again. She hastily transferred the arphanium to her dekatite-marked hand and closed her fingers around it. The world went dark.
Chapter 21
KLARA YANA’S INFILTRATION
Klara Yana fell to her knees in a crevice of stone, her eyes squeezed shut against the sudden brilliance and warmth of the midday suns. Waves crashed nearby, and the air was humid and salty. The abrupt change from the shrouding realm was disorienting enough to send her head spinning. She’d only been thinking one thing as she closed her hand around the dekatite pipe: Not back to Lyanirus! Not Lyanirus! Blackwood’s face had flashed through her mind, and Kheppra Isle on its heels, where she was sure the leuftkernel was heading after his soldier’s report. She slowly squinted her eyes open again, taking in the craggy black dekatite surrounding her, the pair of crabs on the rock close by, the plume of smoke swelling high overhead and hazing the pale blue sky. To her left, the sea sparkled as far as she could see. Kheppra Isle. Without even intending to, she’d directed her own shrouding. She tucked the arphanium into her trouser pocket and slowly lowered herself until her hands touched the solid rock, anchoring herself firmly back in her own world.