They seemed logical. Focused. Not the crazed, evil devils they'd become in the minds of the people of Barit. Whatever they wanted of those they'd stolen, it was likely not depraved, but practical.
You didn't give someone you were torturing silk and the finest Illian grapes. Unless, he conceded, you didn't know the value of the items you were taking, which could well be true.
“Why do you think they took our people?” Aidan asked.
“They need them to do something they can't do themselves.”
“But look at them.” Aidan's hands clenched into fists as they watched the sky raiders wheel three big metallic structures to the people-stealer's loading ramp. The structures looked strangely humanoid, with a bulbous glass head and strange mechanical legs and arms. One of the sky raiders touched the chest part of one of them, and the glass opened, one half lifting up. The sky raider swung up, putting his foot on what must be a built-in step, and Garek saw there was a seat inside the glass dome. The dome closed, and the strange mechanical thing stepped off the pallet that had been wheeled in, and walked into the people-stealer's hold. It moved to one side, up against the wall, and stopped, and then the glass dome opened and the sky raider got out and walked to the next one on the pallet.
“Look at that!” Aidan was as riveted as Garek as the sky raider moved the second mechanical person into place and went back for the third one. “What can we possibly do that they can't?”
The one reason Garek had come up with had placed Taya and the others from Pan Nuk on Barit. But if that was so, why bother bringing their stolen supplies all the way up here only to take them down again? Why not simply take them directly to where they were holding their prisoners?
“Garek?” Aidan was watching him.
“I thought it was because they needed something from Barit, and they couldn't breathe the air. That's the one thing we can do that they can't.”
Aidan's eyes widened. “That makes sense, but . . .”
“But where on Barit are they keeping them?” Garek nodded. “And they'd take what they steal directly there, not back up here.”
“So you think that's wrong? They aren't keeping them on Barit?”
Garek nodded. “It's definitely wrong. But they're alive somewhere. Why steal them, just to kill them? And why spend time stealing supplies, if you don't need to keep them alive?”
Something banged against the side of the sky craft, and Garek spun, saw a sky raider was pushing a metal ladder on wheels beneath them.
It was far more sophisticated than the wooden ladder Falk had been using.
“They're coming in,” he murmured to Aidan and moved toward the circular depression in the floor that could slide open.
“Hold you breath when it opens,” Garek warned as Aidan came up beside him. “The air out there is poison.”
Aidan nodded. “Do you know how to close it up?”
Garek shook his head. The door had closed automatically before, as he was lifting off. When it opened, the outside air would rush in. He needed a plan.
He drew the air in the sky craft to him, making it denser, giving it substance.
A circle of light suddenly blossomed right next to his foot, and he crouched beside it, noticed that the part of the floor that had lit up was slightly raised, easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. The door opened suddenly and he shuffled back a little, still crouched low. The air around him wanted to rush out into the hangar, and the air in the hangar wanted to flow into the sky craft. He could feel it nibbling at the edges of the tight ball of air he was holding.
A head popped up through the hole and he reached down and grabbed the sky raider by his throat and hauled him up.
As soon as he was inside, the man started to gasp and choke.
Aidan was on him before Garek could move, which was a good thing, because he needed more and more strength to hold the air inside. He could feel the pressure building at his feet as the outside air pushed, and held the air inside closer still.
He pressed the circle of light, hoping it would close the door, but nothing happened.
With a grunt, the sky raider rolled away from Aidan, his hands clawing at his throat.
Garek pressed the light button again, his eyes on the sky raider as he writhed on the ground, eyes wide as he took in Aidan and Garek. He tried to say something, to shout out, and Garek stabbed at the button again.
The door closed.
With an exhale of relief, he let go of the air and then watched as the sky raider arched up, eyes too wide and protruding in his face and then went still.
He walked over, and he and Aidan looked down at the man.
“They look more like us than I thought they would,” Aidan said.
Garek knelt beside him. This was the first sky raider he'd killed.
Usually, it was the other way around. Sky raiders killing guards.
“You held the air inside?” Aidan asked, kneeling beside him. “I could breathe the whole time.”
“It was the only way. The air in here wanted to mingle with the air outside, and vice versa.”
Aidan was silent for a beat. “You're a freak of nature, you know that? Gara didn't say a word about you to my father. When I joined and discovered what you could do, how they'd forced you to do an extra year, and sent word about it back to him, my father had someone steal the guard master's books for a night to see if there had been others like you they'd kept quiet about.”
“And?” It wouldn't have surprised Garek if they had.
“They were doing it as a matter of course. But you, by far, were the strongest they'd ever had the privilege to have walk their walls. And they couldn't even do that right.”
Garek flicked the black vest the sky raider was wearing open, and found small devices and tools tucked into interior pockets. He lifted the man's torso up by gripping his neck, and pulled the vest off him.
The fabric felt strange; smooth as silk but tough, too. He rubbed it between his fingers thoughtfully.
“It's like he's covered in velvet,” Aidan commented, and Garek gave a nod in agreement. The sky raider's skin wasn't fur, precisely, but it was very dense hair that was very short and incredibly soft.
His incisors were long and pointed, and the pupils in his staring, golden eyes were not round but oval.
The man they'd killed was about the same height as Garek, and Garek eyed his pants and boots.
“It's a pity they're such a different color to me.” His own skin was a deep bronze, too brown to fool anyone outside, even at a distance.
“You couldn't breathe, anyway,” Aidan pointed out.
“Holding the air inside here gave me an idea. I might be able to hold some around myself, like a bubble.” He looked out the window at the cargo bay. “Maybe when they finish, I can wander around, see what clues I can find.” And he wanted to look at those mechanical people again. An idea was forming in his head and he needed to see if it would work, because without question, the loaded people-stealer was going to the prisoners, and he needed a way to get himself and Aidan onboard.
“We need to hide the body, too,” Aidan said, pulling himself to his feet.
“Yes.” Garek walked closer to the window, watching as the sky raiders moved with purpose about their business.
“I thought I'd feel happy to kill one of them,” Aidan said into the silence. “But I don't.”
Garek glanced at him. “It's never easy to take a life, but they created this whole situation. And they've managed to have it their way for a long time.”
And if he had anything to do with it, that was about to change.
Chapter 19
Taya lost her grip on Min almost immediately.
The current ripped them apart and swallowed her under with a great, icy gulp.
She fought against it, fought upward, with everything she had. Dark spots edged with orange flickered at the corners of her vision as she was tumbled end over end, until she was so confused, she didn't know which way was up.
&nbs
p; Something yanked her, got a hard, strong grip around her neck, and then her head was above rough water, Min holding her up as they barreled along.
She couldn't speak, she had to use all her energy to gulp air down, and with a sudden, sharp turn and a moment of free fall, they were spat out into what was a large, calm lake.
She blinked a few times, but she wasn't imagining it. Moss grew on the rocks all around them, glowing faintly and illuminating the vast space.
She tried to feel for the bottom, but the water was too deep, and Min towed her to the side, away from the rougher water below the waterfall.
Min must be calling her Change, because it seemed to Taya she moved too fast and too smoothly for it to be plain swimming.
They both grabbed hold of the slick, wet rocks.
Taya forced herself to find hand and foot holds and pull herself up.
She put a hand down to Min, saw the exhaustion in her face, and hauled her up beside her.
They sat side by side, feet just above the water, shivering in the cold.
Taya put her arm around Min and pulled her close. “Thank you.”
“Call it even, now.” Min managed a small smile.
“There was never a tally.”
“I know.” Min squeezed her back and then crossed her arms over her chest and hunched over, rubbing her arms to try and warm up.
Taya rose to her feet, her gaze going upward to check for the presence of shadow flyers, but this cave had a lower ceiling than the first one they'd stumbled into, and moss blanketed it, lighting the whole space better and leaving little hidden.
The rocks they were sitting on were almost up against the cave wall, but Taya saw the rocky shore widened considerably the further from the waterfall it got.
“What now?” Min asked, and her voice was faint.
“Let's move a little, warm up. And find the way out.” Taya was just relieved for the moment they were alive. Anything else would be a gift on top of being able to breathe.
She offered her hand to Min again, and they stood side by side for a moment, looking around them.
“There's a lot of shadow ore here.”
Taya looked to where Min was pointing, and her mouth fell open. A seam of dark purple glinted in the diffuse light, clear against the light brown stone of the cave wall. The seam was as high as she was in places, as narrow as her wrist in others, an undulating mother lode.
“If we told the sky raiders about this, they may get what they need quicker,” Min said.
Taya nodded. “And be done with us faster.”
Min put both arms out for balance as she negotiated the rocks along the shore. “Is that a good or a bad thing?”
“Bad.” Taya leapt lightly after her. “When they have what they need, do you think they'll take the time to drop us back on Barit?”
Min thought about it for a long time as they picked their way around the lake. “They'll leave us here to die, won't they?”
“Not if we escape first.” There had never been a lot to lose. They either risked a quick death trying to escape, or a long, slow one, trapped on Shadow.
Neither of them spoke again as they concentrated on keeping their footing, until at last they reached a smooth slab of rock on the far side of the lake.
It was still cold, but the exercise had warmed Taya. Orange light, bolder than the pale pastels of the moss, stabbed through the dim interior and Taya frowned at the sight.
“What do you think . . ?” She stumbled to a stop, looking up through a wide crack in the wall, to the sight of the Star low in a spectacular sky.
“What is it? Oh!” Min stopped beside her, and they stood for a moment, letting the warmth of the Star touch them with long, comforting fingers.
“We did it,” Taya whispered. She grabbed Min's hand and scrambled up the incline until it got too steep and she had to use both hands to pull herself up.
She was breathing hard by the time she stepped out into the open. She glanced back, waiting for Min to join her before she looked around.
They'd emerged at the foot of a stark cliff face, smooth, solid rock soaring straight up. There was nothing in front of them but the barren flats that seem to define Shadow.
Something skittered away through the scrubby, woody bush that covered the plain in front of them, rustling branches and clicking pebbles together.
Taya looked in the direction of the sound but there was nothing to see. It was probably one of the small creatures that looked like slithers with short, stubby legs that were common around the camp.
Taya lowered herself down on a rock and closed her eyes, letting the last of Star's rays warm her eyelids.
With a sigh, Min sat beside her, bumping her with her hip to get a little extra room.
“You want to stay here for the night?” Min's voice was thick with exhaustion.
“No. But I don't want to wander around in the dark, either. We've got shelter and water here. I think we'll have to stay.”
“Good. Even this rock looks comfortable enough to sleep on.”
Taya chuckled. “Say that in the morning.” Her stomach rumbled and she rubbed it. Ketl had attacked them around mid-morning, so they'd missed lunch and dinner.
“What will we do if the sky raiders ask us to show them where we came out?” Min lay down on a flat, warm surface, eyes closed.
“I don't know.” She'd have to fake confusion and stupidity. Not that difficult, because the sky raiders saw them as a lesser form of life. “We pretend we don't know. That we just wandered around, lost.”
Min snorted. “That's just about true, anyway.”
Taya grinned, and lay down beside her. The heat of the rock was delicious through her tunic, warming her for the first time since they'd been trapped in the mine shaft.
The Star was low on the horizon, taking the vibrant oranges and reds with it like an actor exiting with a flamboyant swirl of a cloak. High in the indigo sky left in its wake, Barit was clear, a crescent of white and blue.
She couldn't look away, her longing for home sharper than her hunger, and a tear tracked down her cheek.
“What's wrong?”
She turned her head, found Min watching her.
“I miss Garek.”
Min was quiet as they both looked up at Barit again. “Tell me about him.”
Taya shifted a little, moving to a new spot, chasing the heat. “He was the town guard before Garamundo called him up. He walked the walls of Pan Nuk. Not that we actually had walls to walk.” She smiled at the thought of her sleepy town having a guard walk like Gara. “He kept us safe, and broke up any disputes in town. Kas and him never saw eye to eye over me, but they were a good team. Pan Nuk was a happy, peaceful place with the two of them running things.” Although it wasn't enough for Garek. She'd started to understand that toward the end. He only stayed because she was there.
“And then he was called up? To Garamundo?”
“Yes. Our district has to provide one guard a year between five towns. It was Pan Nuk's turn when Garek had been town guard for three years.” And Haret's turn the year after, but they'd had no one to send who was stronger than Garek, and Gara wanted the strongest they could find when the sky raiders started patrolling the skies.
Couldn't blame them, not really. She understood West Lathor needed the best protectors they could get when they were facing a war with an enemy they'd never seen before. But she could blame them for never allowing a single visit.
She'd wanted to see him so badly.
She'd had one long trip since he'd left, to Juli, the capital of West Lathor, where the liege lived, to bring a beautiful golden throw as a gift to the liege's daughter on her marriage. Kas would've tried to send someone else, but Taya had made the throw, and her gift had been chosen to represent the whole district.
Even though Juli was famous, built at the top of a waterfall, one of the most beautiful cities in all of Illy, she'd wished the wedding ceremony was being held in Gara with every step she'd taken on her journey. She
wanted to go past Gara on her way back, but Kas had blocked her every move. No family was the rule while you walked the walls, he'd told her, time and again. Family distracted you.
Garek would get into trouble, and so would she.
She wondered what the town master and guard master in Gara had ever sacrificed? Whether they'd ever had to give someone up for two years with unreasonable rules attached.
What could it honestly have hurt to let her and Garek be together, even for a day?
Her body had absorbed all the heat it could from where she was lying, and she moved again, searching for more, and winced when her injured side pressed against a sharp ridge of rock. She'd been too cold to feel her scrapes until now.
She looked up, and found the sky was almost black, dark enough for the light generated by the moss in the cave behind them to be visible, spilling out through the crack. Barit glowed, too, as the Star's light struck it from below.
Kas would be raising the alarm back at camp. Maybe demanding they dig into the tunnel. She just hoped he'd listened to her and hidden his knife.
“What do you think's happening back in camp?” Min's thoughts must have been following the same trail as hers.
“Trouble, I'm guessing.”
“Yes.”
They lay quietly, and as Taya drifted off to sleep, she hoped that trouble was all on Ketl's side.
Chapter 20
The sky raiders drifted out of the cargo bay in small groups or individually. No one watched a clock or was ordered out that Garek could see.
They worked hard and stayed until the work was done.
A few minutes after the last one left, the lights dimmed, causing both him and Aidan to tense.
“The lights knew when they'd gone and weren't needed anymore,” Aidan murmured. “I didn't think it was possible when you said it before, but you're right. The sky raiders have learned how to control light.”
It was just one more amazing thing in a string of them. If, when the sky raiders had arrived, they'd come and asked the people of Barit for what they wanted, they could have exchanged some of their knowledge for whatever it was. And none of this would have been necessary.
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