Alliance ch 28: Safety is a Myth

The last time Twi was in this situation, it ended with a monster barging through the wall. Memories of what happened afterward crowded her vision and stole her senses: Sep wrapped like a decaying corpse, sitting on the edge of a med-bed. He told Rifo to make Dr. Qcoice go away because she purposefully made his bandages extra itchy.

“Itchy bandages are the least of your problems,” Dr. Qcoice said. “If you didn’t do such stupid things, you wouldn’t have to wear them.”

After she stormed out, Rifo asked Sep why he claimed to have loosed a deadly rikor just because he wanted to make a wetsphere out of its acidic saliva.

Sep’s only response was a glare, his bandaged arms resting limply on his lap. Lying across from him on a med-bed of her own, Twi barely saw him through drug- and pain-glazed eyes.

Rifo sounded sullen. “They know ya lied. That’s why they’re angry.”

“It’s the principle. Authority figures are always telling me to do this or that, as if any decision I make can’t possibly work out.”

Twi attempted to sit up. “As your hrausq leader, am I included in that?”

“You’re different. You allow me a semblance of control over my own life.”

She slid off the bed unexpectedly, and only years of practice falling allowed her to alight on her toes and rise despite how her head swam. He went rigid as a tree as she brushed his bangs aside and inspected his face, now dotted with tiny hematite scars. The impermanent freckles would fade in a few weeks. Beneath the itchy bandages, his arms and hands had gotten the worst of the rikor’s dousing.

“I thank you for saving me,” she intoned, “but I do not thank your methods.”

He half smirked. “Rifo tamed the beast with his creepy stare.”

Rifo put on a cheery face as if that alone could wipe away all that was wrong with the world. “He couldn’t think of a proper plan and wouldn’t wait for someone else to, too distraught at the loss of someone so gorgeous.”

They both glared at him. Anything between them was between them and not everyone else. Sep did think Twi beautiful, and he did feel a strong attraction to her. He had told her as much the day before, but that wasn’t all he had said. The fact that everyone always assumed he would like her made those feelings annoy him, as if it were some prophecy and he had no choice.

Twi’s glare softened, making way for a sly grin. “If Sep thinks I’m gorgeous, I’d prefer to hear him say it.” Her gaze swiveled to him.

He mirrored her grin. “Unfortunately, danger shares that opinion, and I’m hard-pressed to keep its hands off you. How did you get in that pit?”

A quest for information had led her to an Aberrant stronghold near Vlavaran, and she had captured her first glimpse at the Aberrant database. Her imprisonment in a shaft lined with shattered glass had been Rogii Moshee’s fault, but never would she reveal that to Sep. The one time she had, he went after the Aberrant heir and barely made it home.

She kissed his forehead lightly. “Gravity.”

Memories of Sep always chose the most inconvenient moments to well up and burst through her subconscious. Gravity had struck again, and this time there was no Sep to break her free.

Circumstances differed in other ways, too. She had no idea how far she had fallen this time. The floor had absorbed her momentum, denting like soft padding before spitting her back out. Now, it seemed as smooth and solid as her oha’s hull, and its frigid, stinging signature was familiar in the worst way.

Six months ago, when the leaders had told her to kill Ekymé and she had followed him aboard the Isike, a mechett had attacked her. The machine’s metal had parted like water before her weapon, undamaged like the surface of a pond. Her ’netics had been unable to influence it because the metal had a life-signature of its own.

That signature surrounded her now like a downpour, everything else blurred and shrouded.

She stood and snapped open her ju’wack, hoping against seeing an army of those eerie machines. The sight of an empty, small square greeted her, lined in the silver, living metal. It stretched higher than she could see or feel.

Were Lanox and Rifo still at the top, and where had Ekymé gone? Could they hear her if she called? Or had she been teleported elsewhere like when in Aylata Tower? Her stomach flipflopped.

“Lanox! Are you there?” She sent a broadcast whisper with the shout. Whispers traveled further, but Lanox didn’t always catch them.

Only her own voice echoed back to her. The metal rippled, and images flashed of a rikor crashing through it like when Sep had come for her in the shaft. The confusion and panic of that moment danced anew in her heart. She attracted disaster. She was not someone to be desired as a leader or teammate. She was the opposite of good luck.

Again, memories came unbidden.

Aboard an Aberrant transport bound for Kelis, they had curled in a storage space beneath a bench. There had been barely enough room for one person, let alone two.

Sep whispered, “Danger shares my fascination with you. We’re both idiots.”

“It’s a good thing we’re invincible,” Twi replied with a challenging smile.

“Or just fortunate. One kiss for luck?”

She pecked him on the forehead as she usually did, but he shook his head.

“That doesn’t count,” he said, and as she protested, he covered her mouth with his and kissed her until she got over her shock enough to kiss him back.

When he pulled away, she studied his face in the dimness, searching for any hint of his thoughts. He leaned back against the wall, the blue of his steady eyes nearly black. They were the same jeweled color as the emblem on his wrist, something only partially in her view as his hand tangled in her braids. So clear. Knalcal eyes were never that clear. They were always patterned or clouded in some way.

He waited for her to say something, but he had stolen her breath.

“Sep, I can’t breathe.”

He smirked. “Want to kiss me again?”

She did, rationalizing that two kisses would make double the luck.

Her kiss brought no luck, only tragedy. Only death.

An object landed on her shoulder, warm, alive, and strong. She whirled, ju’wack a crimson blur that halted shy of a familiar face.

“Ekymé?”

She should have recognized his signature—like a song she had heard on repeat for the last six months. It had an unrelenting beat, thunder and shrills but never silence. It was conspicuous at best and overwhelming at worst, and here, the living metal devoured and spit it out, stretched and torn.

“You’re crying,” he said, voice softer than the sound of his hand moving through the air. It stopped, thumb extended but not touching her. The trail of tears down her left cheek fled to him.

She stepped back, shoulders hitting the wall in this small space. “It was a trap all along.”

“Are you alright?”

She held back the “of course” that jumped to her lips. Though the animate metal had cushioned her fall, it didn’t know to take extra care with her back and ankle. She was standing, and he could see it. That was answer enough.

“We can worry about being alright once we get out of here”—her eyes ran over the mirror-like walls. Her ju’wack bathed it all in red—“wherever here is.”

Her attention drifted in the last direction left to darkness. They had dropped from above, and that was the only way out. Yet, their ’netics couldn’t cling to the walls, thanks to the metal. No materials waited to be shaped into tools aside from what they had on their person and the air they breathed.

Rogii Moshee could walk on air, hardening it into invisible stepping stones. She and Rogii had more in common than either would ever admit.

“No, Twi, that’s not a good—”

She ran and jumped, determination pushing her. Six steps propelled her up the wall before gravity denied her more, but she saw what she needed to. Another six steps would have brought her to a metal ceiling. Either it had closed after their fall, or they had been teleported after all.

She soared into a slow flip, collecting pillars of air beneath the soles of her boots. They found no traction, no matter how hard she kicked. The ground rushed at her. She wouldn’t land on her feet. Would the metal cushion her as it had before? She dropped her ju’wack, but no clattered landing found her ears.

The crunch of Sep’s bones echoed louder than the wind of her plummet.

Together, her team could get out of anything.

Sep wasn’t coming.

Arms wrapped her. Her feet tapped the floor, still trying to run, pounding the same spot over and over.

Ekymé held her tighter. “Calm, Twi. I’m here. We’re in this together.”

His heart pounded against her back, strong and steady, like the complex symphony of his signature. His Ier hovered behind him, and its silver light flooded the space more than her ju’wack had. A myriad of minute calculations kept it aloft same as many more kept him standing. Each one was a droplet. His influence was a tepid mist beating against her skin, and the Ier’s signature swam through it like impossibly cold breath. It stroked the scar on her back, promising it would have a second taste of her.

She stiffened. “If the metal is thin enough, we can cut through it.”

“It’s morphometal, Twi. Even if our weapons don’t bounce off it, it’ll repair itself before we can both get through.”

She wouldn’t leave him behind, and he wouldn’t leave her. Wherever there was one Adjuvant, there was always another. Were Lanox and Rifo still together? Could a teleporter steal Ekymé away, even with his arms around her like this?

She leaned back into his warm chest. It blocked out the Ier’s whispered promises, and his signature was better than the metal’s strange resonance. The weight of his arms kept her grounded in the present.

I betray Sep, allowing Ekymé to embrace me like this.

Her teacher’s words at the gala reinforced that guilt. Do not let yourself get attached to him.

He spoke into her ear. “We have to be smart about this. We can’t waste our energy or breath.”

He thinks we’re sealed in, that this is all the air we have.

She turned, searching his face. Lit in profile, his pyrite pallor glowed. Normally, his monochrome shades hid the edges of his features in a vague, smudged blend, but here the contrasts drew sharp, disjointed shapes. The whisps of greenish chrysolite in his eyes could have been flames. Nothing about it should have been comforting.

“We’ll find a way out, I promise.” The words wafted over her cheeks.

She kissed him. No logic drew her lips to his or said if she pulled hard enough, she could breathe him in. It was wild, reckless stupidity that tangled her hands in his jacket and dove in when his mouth parted. A tingle rose from every touch of his fingers. Her sense had gone, but her senses had not, and they wanted more.

She stood on her toes, fingers combing into the small curls on the rear of his neck. His hold tightened and lifted her.

Her back spasmed. Her knees buckled, and she was stone. He didn’t let her fall, but now his touch burned, and she pushed him away, shins clacking on the metal floor. Her stomach churned. What had she done?

“I’m sorry.”

He knelt, forehead to hers. “Don’t be.”

“It’s not safe to love me, Ekymé.” The tears were back, hot and ridiculous as they dripped from her lashes.

“Safety is a myth.” His fingers wove into her braids and pulled her back to him.

Her hands found his jawline, his throat, the collar of his shirt. His kisses trailed a similar path on her, each starting slow as if he expected it to be denied. She didn’t stop him and didn’t stop his hands from gliding lower or hauling her onto his lap. This was want and greed, not wisdom. This would get one or both of them killed, but she shoved thought aside and took his lips again.

The Ier dropped and closed as he fell back. Darkness pounced on them. Its false weight clung to her, whispering she would never see again, and she almost understood the Zalerit fear of it.

She scrambled off Ekymé, and when he followed her, hands on her hips and a burning kiss landing on her temple, she said, “No.”

He paused, retreated a hairsbreadth in the dark, and cleared his throat. His voice was still strained. “No?”

“No.”

He respected it, pulling to the opposite corner of the square. Frustration fizzled and shimmered, a visible cloud to her Mind Talents even in the dark. Spikes of hurt and regret prickled its hollows as he recovered the Ier and turned it back on. Longing glazed his eyes.

She closed hers. “Does the metal have a weakness?”

He swallowed hard. “Electricity.”

She nodded, careful not to meet his gaze as she opened her eyes. She would too easily fall into him again. So, she focused on the objects produced from the pouches on his belt: a rope, his datapad, a zap-cord. She sat in her corner and tried not to waste the air as he fiddled these things into something they could use.

Her thoughts stampeded. She snatched at a few and toyed with them like a feline with prey. Was this trap K’alaqk’s or Sirvette’s? Whose did she prefer it be?

“I want the future to be not like the past,” Atok Quanko had told her when she first awoke in Aylata Tower. “I want it to be better.”

He had called himself an instrument for change, one piece in an orchestra conducted by K’alaqk. He had said she would be even louder. Could she help bring much-needed change to Napix?

Ekymé stood and tried his makeshift taser on the wall. The metal wilted away from its arachnid coils of lightning. Solid rock lay beyond it. The same rested beneath the floor.

With sparse, efficient words, they determined the ceiling had the best chance of not being lined with rock, and Ekymé set about modifying his device to fly. The first attempt launched it only half as high as he could have thrown it.

Twi returned to her thoughts. When they had arrived in Lakol District, Ekymé had shared a frantic surge of memories. He had told her to find his friend, Ject Sirvette—he meant safety—but also to avoid him.

Somehow, despite all impossibilities, Sirvette lived up to that conflicting description. He had tried multiple times to kill her. He had also protected her. She couldn’t explain it, but in the deepest corner of her heart, she understood it. Twi herself was a queen of contradictions, after all.

Ekymé tried the taser-grapnel again. It sizzled somewhere above, then returned, trailing smoke, and Twi welcomed the acrid stench as a distraction from the sweet, grassy taste that lingered on her lips.

One kiss for luck.

She should not have kissed him. She should not have kissed him twice.

The grapnel flew, trailing rope like a comet’s tail. It found a home, and Ekymé’s elation thundered like a supernova. She tried not to look at him, but the reflective walls offered a view of every angle.

She snagged another thought and played with it, aloud this time. “This reflective environment, do you think it would be a dream or nightmare to a lightcurver?”

Ekymé paused in testing the rope and swallowed after a silent moment. “I guess a nightmare.”

Her head tilted as if allowing ball bearings to roll into place. Would it be like Mind Talents in a crowd or a hall of glass to her ’netics?

“The hoard of reflections would be overwhelming?”

He gave his full weight to the rope. “Probably. In legends, heroes always take light away, except…” One hand above the other, he climbed. “I don’t want to talk about monsters.”

She pulled her feet in and rose. “The lightcurvers or the so-called heroes who killed them?”

“Lightcurvers are monsters. They can’t even talk without hissing.”

“That makes them monsters?”

His Ier traveled with him, far enough above now that darkness nudged her from all sides.

He was a chandelier clothed in black and gray. “It makes them creepy.”

Twi could think of much creepier things than lisps, but she took the rope in silence.

What little hearts are stuffed with often remains untouchable.

He reached the hole in the ceiling. Faint coils of lightning nibbled at its edges but shied at his touch. “Wouldn’t someone have noticed?” he whispered to himself.

She abandoned him to his thoughts and concentrated on scaling the space between them despite her aches. Gripping the rope with her legs as she reached above wasn’t so bad. Neither was supporting that status quo with her arms. Yet, every finger’s breadth of upward progress demanded a thousand screams from her lower back, as if she tore the flesh from it over and over.

Ekymé offered her a hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, she accepted it, staring into the shadows beyond him. Her ’netic senses described a vast space with countless stone bridges. Glass stairs lined distant, marble walls, room after room waiting behind them.

“We must have been relocated several times as we fell,” he said, Ier in hand and held high to inspect an arched bridge above. “This is Mount Gulik. It’s just across the bay from where we were, but it’s too far for a single teleportation.”

“The inside of a mountain is so recognizable?”

“We’re in Zaranik’s palace.”

Zaranik, the most influential man on Zalerit when the Napix arrived. They termed him a king, though his own never called him that, even when he led their defense.

“I thought it would have been destroyed.”

With a jump, Xlack caught scrollwork along the bridge’s underside and swung onto its top. “Drin preferred not to destroy when he could collect. The first Ravida even lived here for a time. The third had it buried.”

Again, he volunteered to help her up, and she took the assistance. Worms with needles for noses slithered beneath her scars. She had no strength to waste on pride.

His touch lingered this time, and she wished she didn’t want it to. She hoped he didn’t see it.

She met his gaze. “They would deign to live in a monster’s home?”

Letting go of her hand, he headed toward a glistening staircase, face carefully blank. “You know the story of Sibsi Uanik?”

Twi did, in fragmented pieces of quotes collected from the Aberrant database.

She is beautiful, but no one sees her, only my rendition of her.

I am beautiful, but no one sees me, the face behind her mask.

—Sibsi Uanik, the Lady Lightcurver, about Arique Smirazi, Empress of Napix

She followed. “A little.”

“Emperor Drin was infatuated with Arique Smirazi, a Sereh he had kept at court for years to ensure her brothers’ loyalty.” He glanced back, pointing with his eyes at the weakened spots in a glass step. “During the conquest of Zalerit, all the Smirazi died when they sided with Vozin, but instead of killing Lady Arique, Drin made her his empress.”

Carefully placing her toes between webs of near-invisible cracks, Twi picked up the story. “But she had switched with Sibsi, daughter of Uana and Zaranik.”

Ekymé nodded. “This was her birthplace, and she convinced Drin to live here.” Another glance shot over his shoulder and caught on her. “He would do anything for Lady Arique.”

Twi fought not to look away, to narrow her stare and not fall into his. “Despite how she hissed.”

He stopped and turned to face her. Strained glass chimed beneath his heels. “No recordings of her still exist. If she hissed, someone should have noticed, so maybe she didn’t. Maybe she was that good at lying.”

“The deceit kept her alive.” Twi ducked around him, heedless of the drop or the lack of rail separating her from it. “Adjuvants are similar. We survive by hiding. Are we monsters?”

He swallowed, otherwise motionless. Why did she goad him like this, daring him to realize the universe would deem them enemies? 

Because loving me will destroy him. I cannot let him love me.

Then why couldn’t she continue up the stairs? What held her in place, facing him, with the gravity of a star?

Memories bled in: Sep’s arms around her. She belonged there, his heart tapping her back, his signature tiptoeing over her skin.

Blood streamed down those arms, cobalt mixed with Kelis green. His icy aroma fell beneath the insectoids’ burnt metallic stench. His bones crunched. His weight pressed upon her, face against her neck. No breaths stirred her hair.

The arms around her were Ekymé’s, longer, grayer, more hesitant. The blood remained. The weight remained. The stillness remained, and it hummed.

Your fault. Your fault. Your fault.

‘It’s not real!’ Ekymé’s voice. But he was dead, wasn’t he?

How had he died? These were his dripping arms. What cut him? Why would his blood be blue and green?

She raised a hand and touched the gray sleeve. It was dry. The blood didn’t smear. It wasn’t real, though the arm was. It gripped her too tightly. She couldn’t breathe.

‘Sorry, but you jumped off the edge.’

She hadn’t, had she? He had grabbed her for no reason. She should hurt him lest he decide that was acceptable. It was not. It absolutely was not.

“Let me go.” She said it. Her voice scraped through her throat, and her mouth shaped the words, but she didn’t hear it. So, she screamed it, again and again, but no matter how loud, no matter how her throat tore, her ears said there was no sound. Everything was normal. Everything was okay, except that Ekymé refused to release her.

‘My embrace is torture, I know, and I’m sorry, but I won’t let you jump.’

Why would she jump off the glass staircase into never-ending darkness? Why would he think that?

Were they running? No, she wasn’t. She flew. It wouldn’t matter if she jumped. She could fly. She just had to prove it to him.

Glass shattered. The stone floor was hard beneath her hip, her shoulder, her cheek. She rolled, righted herself, and came face to face with him. Blood streamed from his brow, gray as a sea beneath starlight. She touched it, and it spilled over the crooked scar she had received on Kelis, washing away its silver brilliance with leaden ink.

“You’re bleeding.” Again, she knew she said it, but her hearing claimed she didn’t.

His lips moved in silence. “Am I?”

He’s faking it. He’s lying. Make him pay for that.

His hands cupped her ears, but even without them, she couldn’t avert her gaze from his. Chrysolite lightning cracked over the gray and black seas of his eyes. His voice thundered. ‘Don’t listen to them. This is how felere hunt.’

Felere are only Magni myths. He’s tricking me again. Hurt him.

Why would he, though? They were a team. What did he want?

Me, my body, more than I’m willing to give.

His arms surrounded her again, pressing her against his chest as he struggled to rise. ‘Stop helping them. I’m trying to shield you.’

But they didn’t exist. It was just an excuse to touch her like all the times she had made up a reason to touch Sep.

Or maybe they did. When he fell, this time, he didn’t get up. The whispers had been a trickle, a mildly uncomfortable mist. Now, they were a deluge of hail.

Continued in chapter 29

Thank you for reading!