“Maybe if you tell them you have an Itlantean prisoner on board—”
“Itlanteans shoot first and ask questions later,” Nol replied.
Another rumble made the floor clatter beneath us. I felt sick as the ship listed to the left, and the smell of smoke filled the air. Flashbacks of Celestrus and Primus chased through my head. I clutched at Nol without thinking, and he held onto me as if it would save his life. An explosion sent sparks flying across the ceiling, and we fell forward. I covered my head with my arms as Nol crawled on top of me, shielding me.
“We need to get out of this hall,” he yelled in my ear. “Your room is more protected.”
More sparks rained down on us. The lights flickered. The metal plates beneath my hands clattered. I swallowed and nodded, trying to think through the panic flooding my body. All I could see was the explosions when Celestrus sank, when Primus fell.
I shut my eyes. “I don’t know if I can move.”
“You can,” Nol said. “You can do this. Breathe. We’ll do it together.”
My head was spinning. I sucked in a lungful of air.
“Good,” he said above the boom of another explosion. “Again.”
I breathed in and out. My mind cleared, and I could feel the floor beneath me again, the slats biting into my palms and legs. “I’m ready.”
Nol rolled off me and I pushed myself to my knees, and then climbed to my feet as the floor pitched again. He grabbed my arm, half-dragging, half-supporting. Together, staggering at times, we reached my cell. Nol stopped at the door while I stumbled inside alone. Crimson light bathed half his face as our eyes locked.
“Strap yourself in,” he said. “I have to report to my station.”
In that moment, we were not enemies, just two people with destruction raining down around us. I reached out and clasped his hand. He squeezed back once.
Words surged through me, words I would not say. I stepped back.
The door closed, and he was gone. The light on the wall flashed, casting a lurid red glow over the room. I went to the bunk and found a weathered pair of straps. I snapped them around my waist as the ship tilted with a metallic groan.
The ship was diving.
I pressed my back to the wall and shut my eyes, prayers on my lips. Footsteps rang out in the hall, and I willed them onward to safety as the floor steepened. It was strange to feel comradery with the enemy, but in this moment, we were all the same, scuttling away to safety together, fearing for our lives.
After an eon of heartbeats and rapid breaths, the alarms fell silent, but I stayed alert, my brain spinning, my body tensed for the sounds of explosions.
Finally, when I could resist exhaustion no longer, I slept.
~ ~ ~
I dreamed of an island green with palm trees, and Kit laughing as he swam in a pool the color of a sky. When I woke, I was hollow with the pain of longing for something other than the metal cage that held me fast and the swirl of confusion about my family and my future. My cheeks were wet, and when the door opened, I realized I’d been crying. Footfalls whispered on the floor, and then hands touched my arm. A voice murmured, and it was Nol.
I gazed up at him. He hovered over me, his face an outline in the darkness, and I could just barely make out his expression. I wasn’t afraid. I scooted over and let him wrap his arms around me because I was so small and sad I would take comfort even from an enemy. He was warm and solid, and he didn’t say anything, but his breath made my hair flutter as he held me, and my pulse quieted and I felt oddly safe, like a clam in a shell. I listened to the sound of my heartbeat in my ears, counted my breaths, and slowly, I relaxed.
We stayed that way for hours, not speaking, just holding and being held. Finally, when my breathing was even and slow and my pulse steady, he slipped away, and the room was too empty without him until I was asleep again and dreaming of the sun.
CHAPTER THREE
THE DRON SHIP reached Basin the next day, as Nol had promised.
I waited in my room-that-was-a-cell, listening to the sounds of the ship as it docked. Footsteps clipped past my door, but they didn’t stop for me. I laced my fingers together and waited on the bunk, forcing myself to be still although I wanted to pace.
Nervousness rioted in my stomach and danced along my veins. Even in the midst of it, I thought of Nol and how he’d held me, and how I’d felt safe in the circle of his arms. I didn’t understand it, and I was still angry with him, but I wanted him with me at the same time. The conflicting nature of my feelings made me even more restless.
In the end, it was not Nol who fetched me, but uniformed guards. Garren was with them, and he sneered at me but didn’t speak. They secured my hands with restraints and marched me into the corridor. My stomach twisted as the metal floor clanked beneath our feet. The door at the end loomed before me like a closed mouth waiting to suck me into a frightening unknown. I didn’t know what to expect this time. What was Basin going to be? A burst of blinding sunlight? Another floating island-ship? A rusted, groaning underwater interior like this one?
No one had given me any protective covering, so perhaps there would be no blinding sunlight incapacitating me.
Nevertheless, I braced myself as a hatch door opened before us with a hiss.
The glow that washed over us was blue and slippery-quick, dancing across our limbs as we climbed a ladder to the ship’s dock. The sounds of my ascent echoed as if through a vast chamber. I smelled dankness and dirt. The air was cool, the walls around us arching stone.
I exhaled in a mixture of relief and surprise.
We were in a cave?
A webbed ceiling of glass held back the water above, melded against walls of uneven stone. Cool blue light from massive glowing circles fell over rock formations that sprouted from the ground like trees. Orange and yellow lights glowed from sconces set in the walls.
Men and women in different colored uniforms unloaded goods from the ship, carrying crates and dragging cables across the ground, calling instructions to one another as they worked. A few glanced my way as Garren and his guards led me to a hole in the wall. I didn’t see Nol or Tack.
When we stepped through the archway of stone, I gaped in astonishment.
A city stretched before us, carved from the rock, a great basin like its name. At the top, another shield of material, this one a patchwork of seamed metal, kept back the sea. Pathways zigzagged down the sides, and homes and shops glowed as little pricks of light in the rock walls. It was more like the Village of the Rocks than any Itlantean city, but still, I saw signs of devices and power when I looked for them. The light that gleamed from the windows and doorways of buildings was steady and bright. Cables strung overhead. The soft hum of machinery came from my left.
A soft twilight from the sea above bathed everything in blue.
I’d been expecting... Well, I didn’t know what I’d been expecting. The Dron ships were not as new or sophisticated as Itlantean ones, but this blend of old and new surprised me. Everything looked well-worn, patched a dozen times, or cobbled together from scraps. There was a kind of beauty to it, and I felt strangely at home.
“This way,” Garren said gruffly.
We ascended one of the paths that spiraled around the edge of the basin wall. Children ran past us, laughing as they tossed a ball between them. A few women paused their work cleaning fish to stare at us. At me. They wore their hair up in a series of knots and buns interwoven with beads. They wore tunics embroidered with different color thread, and bracelets on their wrists.
“Pappy! You’re back!”
One of the children broke from the rest and hurled herself at Garren’s legs. A girl of perhaps four, with bright eyes and scrawny limbs. I half expected him to shove the child away, since it was Garren after all, but instead he reached down and tousled her hair. His expression didn’t change, but his mouth was not quite as tense as he looked at her clinging to his knees.
“Pappy,” she squealed. “You’re home! Maman said you would be gon
e for days longer. I want to show you my drawings.”
“Shh,” he said gruffly. “Go find your mother. I’ll see your sketches later. I have to take this prisoner to her cell.”
The child stared at me without fear before turning and running to join the other children again, and Garren growled for us to keep moving.
We kept climbing up, past shops and houses. The path steepened, and my legs burned. Then Garren halted before a door of rusted metal.
“Here,” he said to me. One of the guards opened it, and I stepped inside, expecting a cold stone cell.
Warm light glowed from sconces at the front and back of the room. An archway of stone led to a hollow carved in the rock, complete with a bed and mirror. A basin and pitcher sat atop a chair near the door. There were no windows except for a slit in the door, but the walls were draped with woven blankets, and the room did not feel like a prison.
“Someone will bring you food shortly,” Garren said, and then they shut the door behind me, leaving me alone.
A moment of claustrophobic panic clawed at me, but I shoved it down. What would Tallyn tell me to do? I breathed deeply through my nose and focused on examining the room instead of surrendering to fear. I wasn’t interesting in trying to break out. That wouldn’t accomplish much for me at present. Perhaps, though, I could learn something useful from my confinement.
The bed was soft, the mattress stuffed with dried sea sponge. The blankets were made from a fabric I couldn’t identify. It smelled faintly like grass. The basin and pitcher were metal, and covered in scratches and dents. I drank a little of the water inside, and it had a metallic taste that lingered on my tongue. I used a few splashes of it and a corner of the blanket to wash myself clumsily.
The blankets on the wall caught my attention next. Bright threads of every color embroidered the edges with images of ships and sea. I stepped closer, examining them. Images collided and blended together, fish and waves and cities. The embroidery went all the way around the entire blanket.
The images told a story. I looked closer, trying to determine where it began. A city, tall and slender, with spires and arches. A sun glowed in the sky above the towers, so it must be a surface city. A Dron city?
I moved on to other images. The same city, its spires now engulfed in flames. A man with his hands outstretched and ships flowing from his fingers into the sea. More cities, these surrounded by fish. Battles. Images of death, dying. I couldn’t make sense of some of the images, but I studied them carefully.
Another blanket depicted what I supposed were Dron ships, dark and bulky, exploring the ocean. The borders showed battles between sleeker, silver ships, with many explosions.
A piercing sound split the quiet, the clang clang of an alarm, a shriek. My heartbeat spiked, and I ran to the door and pressed my eye to the slit. I couldn’t see much, just the pale blue light and a strip of houses on the other side of the basin. What was happening? Was it an attack?
Sweat soaked my skin as memories of Celestrus and Primus flooded my head.
Footsteps thudded outside the door, but no one stopped or tried to enter. I stayed there, trying to see, while the alarm droned on and on like a crying infant that could not be comforted.
Then, abruptly, it stopped.
The silence rushed back in, and I sat back, ears ringing, wondering how precarious the position of this city could be. I waited for the rumble of explosions, the shudder of the earth, but the ground was still. The air smelled dank, but free from smoke. I counted heartbeats and waited.
Waited.
Waited.
Nothing.
My stomach pinched with hunger, and a restless feeling prickled my skin. I chewed my lip in frustration, resisting the urge to bang on the metal to attract attention. Fear still wrestled in my stomach. I scraped my hands along the metal, and the sound echoed through the room.
If we were being attacked, surely I would hear more.
Wouldn’t I?
I crossed to the bed and curled into a ball. I couldn’t get out. I needed to think through my options again instead of going mad with waiting. If I wanted to get out of here, I had to be smart.
I began to review my ideas for escape plans.
~ ~ ~
A knock on the door woke me from my anxiety-plagued doze that was haunted with dreams of Merelus, my mother, and Nautilus. I shook off the fog of sleep as I slid off the bed and drew myself to my full height, expecting Garren. I didn’t want to look vulnerable in front of him. The lock scraped, the door groaned open, and my spine stiffened in anticipation of Garren’s surly face.
The figure who stepped inside was yellow-haired and slender, with broad shoulders and eyes that pierced me when they met mine. Not Garren.
I was surprised at how glad I was to see Nol in the split second before I remembered who we were to each other now. Relief rushed through me instead of anger. His gaze was steady, sending a spark through me that was both a shiver and a shudder. He looked at me now as if he were preparing to do battle.
He was my enemy. It was getting harder to keep them straight. My mother’s face swam before my eyes, and I blinked.
Nol was with the Dron. I couldn’t trust him. But I wanted to anyway, especially after the way he’d comforted me after my nightmares, the way he’d be gentle and kind.
“What was going on?” The words rushed out of my mouth, tumbling over each other. “I heard alarms. Were we being attacked?”
We.
Strange how quickly they became we when facing a common danger.
Nol set a plate of food on the chair beside the pitcher of water and shut the door. He leaned against it, crossing his arms. His hair flopped into his eyes. “It was only a drill,” he said. “We have them often here, as Basin is at the edge of the perimeter between Dron and Itlantis waters. We have sensors placed all along the bottom of the sea between here and Volcanus. If any warships approach, they’re triggered. We don’t have the ability to fight back and win, but we can at least give ourselves enough time to run, at least most of us.”
A drill. My muscles felt like noodles at the confirmation that I was safe. No soldiers would be marching through the city to seize us. Not today. I sank back onto the bed.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
I rubbed my forehead, trying to smooth away the agitation I felt. “I’m fine.”
I knew he understood, although I didn’t articulate the terror that lanced through me at every hint of invasion. Even though I’d escaped unscathed from two of Nautilus’s attacks, the effects on my psyche lingered like shadows.
Nol’s eyes tightened.
He knew.
I didn’t want to bleed emotions before him. Not now. Not when I wanted to be strong and tough. A memory of the night before flashed over me, he and I in the dark, not saying anything, and I flushed and lifted my chin.
I would be strong.
“Why do you stay here if you’re so close to Volcanus? If this location is so precarious? Shouldn’t you leave? Go somewhere else? Somewhere safer, far away?”
Nol sighed. “The Dron cities are overcrowded as it is, strapped for resources, food, supplies. We don’t have the resources to build new ones. This city is old, and it has many living in it. Evacuation is a sore political topic, one that is met with a great deal of resistance whenever it is broached. There are those who would take your view of things, however. The drills are the latest compromise, made to balance our retreat with defense.”
“Where would you go if an invasion happened?”
He sighed in a way that suggested he’d already spent sleepless nights considering this question. “There is no good place to receive refugees. Some would go to floating bases, some to other cities. It would be chaos. Hopefully, it never comes to that. We’d need time to leave, and Nautilus seems to favor quick strikes.”
We were both silent. He watched me, and I remembered that night in Celestrus, when the garden sphere burst, when he gave me the air from his lungs and pushed me toward the
surface, toward life. The night when we were wrenched apart and our paths split, one to the Dron, one to Itlantis.
What if our paths had reversed? Would I be here? Would he be Itlantean?
No, not Nol. He would have escaped long ago.
“This isn’t so bad,” he said, observing the room and then me again. He pointed to the tray. “You should eat.”
I love you, he’d said. My mind flashed back to the soft lights and loud music of the ball when he’d danced with me, whispering warnings in my ear as we turned in tandem together, locked in the mockery of an embrace even as we threatened each other, surrounded by smiling strangers in their finest clothes.
But he was with them now, no matter what he might whisper to me. He was not the same Nol. I had to keep reminding myself of that, lest I forget. This was probably an act again, designed to lower my defenses so I would tell him whatever they wanted to know. Even his kindness to me in the midst of my nightmares... an act?
I ought to know. I was a Graywater. Apparently, it was in our blood to work similar machinations on everyone we knew.
“How long am I going to be a prisoner here?” I asked. “Garren took me because of my connection to Valus. Is that why I’m here? Is that what they want with me?”
“You’ll be brought before the leaders soon. They’ll decide what to do with you.” He paused. “Garren made a rash decision. It won’t be supported by anyone else, not at this juncture. We’re hiding from Nautilus here, not trying to attract his notice.”
Relief was heavy and sweet, but I didn’t have the luxury of relishing it. Not being given to Nautilus did not mean I was safe.
“What are my options then, if I’m not to be bartered away to Nautilus?”
He rubbed a hand through his hair, noting my expression. “I don’t know. You could be sold back to the Itlanteans with the right amount of convincing, or they might want to keep you indefinitely as something to bargain with if we are attacked by Nautilus. They might want to force information from you.”
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