“How do you do it?” she whispered. “How can you live every day with this constant barrage of death and fear?”
Jàden wanted so desperately to return to her old life, but all roads led to death or a cage. Kale’s zankata, with its promise of safety, had ended in a graveyard. Using the Flame had resulted in waking Frank from hypersleep. And now she couldn’t even use a computer without him sourcing her location.
“I can’t do it anymore,” she said.
“You have to, or today means nothing.” Jon leaned his cheek against her head. “Look for the things that matter and hold on tight.”
“I had someone who mattered, and now he’s gone.” Bitter anger flowed through her veins. Kale was too young to die.
He stepped back, his eyes unreadable and anger etched into his features. “You didn’t answer my questions. What does Frank want with you, and why didn’t you take his offer? I want the whole truth.”
Agnar grunted, and she leaned against the stallion’s shoulder, though more for her own comfort than his. “Frank wants the Flame, but he can’t wield it without me.”
“Why? For what purpose, Jàden?” Even Jon’s blade couldn’t hold a candle to the sharpness in his words as his demeanor transformed from gentle protector to tense soldier. “What will he do with this power?”
She shied away, one hand over her ears as if that would quiet his tone. This was the secret she couldn’t tell anyone, not in her world and definitely not in Jon’s.
Below the sand and the sea, deep in the hollow caverns of the moon’s interior beat the heart of something else. An alien technology whose builders died to protect it. A gateway that sparked the technology for Hàlon’s tower gates and the key Jon carried around his neck.
She’d only seen it once, and the secret had nearly gotten her and Kale both killed. It was where she’d first met Bradshaw, a brilliant biotheric surgeon with the charm of a playboy and the heart of a rabid hound.
He’d changed after her capture—cold, distant, eccentric. He didn’t see humans anymore; he only saw test subjects.
That horrible place filled with monstrous creatures was something she wanted to forget. And by the look in Jon’s eyes, she had to tell him at least some part of what she’d seen.
“Frank won’t do anything, not until he finds the other Flame.” The heart of Sandaris had its own energy stream weighing her down, blending into her senses as if it ached for the Flame’s power.
Jon pulled out his cigarettes, cursing that they were soaked. “What other Flame?”
“An opposite from me, different as day and night. When power from both Flames unite, it creates a reaction, a fusion of energy that doesn’t exist anywhere else.” She couldn’t explain it without delving deep into physics and scientific principles Jon most certainly had never learned.
He laid his hands on her shoulders. “But why? What does he want?”
To power the inner gate. Words she couldn’t say without putting Jon in even greater danger, and she’d already torn apart his life enough. “I don’t know.”
The lie wedged into her chest. She had to let him go, cut him loose. Because next time Frank attacked, they wouldn’t be so lucky. Someone was bound to die, and as Jon’s strength flowed through her veins, it pulled with it the guilt of forcing him to be her bodyguard.
“You don’t deserve any of this.”
If she continued trying to find Kale, she would get them all killed. And her feelings for Jon were becoming more complicated by the day. She wanted him in her arms, in her bed, and every day she rode beside him pushed Kale into faded memory. “I don’t know what to do anymore except find a way off Sandaris before I get everyone killed.”
Before Frank and Sandaris pulled the Flame’s power out of her and opened the gate inside the moon. No one knew what lay on the other side, but the creatures they’d found near it were a nightmare Sandaris didn’t need. Thank the Guardians they’d never made it to the surface.
Jàden tightened her fist, hating that the only thing keeping her from a lonely insanity was Jon’s energy, but she had to let him go. She had to stop the lie. She’d kept Jon bound to her out of fear for her own life, but he deserved the freedom he and his men had worked so hard for.
A thread of light pulled away from her wrist as Jon stepped closer. He towered nearly a span over her head. “Then I’m coming with—”
Engines roared high in the clouds, and three silver scout craft raced by. Jàden pressed closer to Agnar, hiding behind his bulk until the craft were out of sight.
“The tracking beacons.”
Sure enough, they disappeared in the same direction as Naréa’s ship. Frank wasn’t messing around anymore. He’d expected her to be a broken blob of a woman, but she’d gotten away from him twice. He would use every soldier and every tracking program to find her.
“He’ll be angry now,” she muttered.
The gun pressed against her stomach like lead. If Frank could track his soldiers and monitor heat signatures, what else could he do that she didn’t know about?
She pulled the gun from her waistband and popped the firemark. “I have to get rid of this.”
She hated to let go of her gun, but its metal alloy would stand apart from the forged steel of the others’ weapons, and she didn’t trust that they could elude Frank a third time.
Jon grabbed the gun and lobbed it into the trees. “Every day, from now on, we learn to fight against those weapons. Including you.”
He grabbed his stallion’s reins and nudged her forward, but she already led Agnar toward the others. She still needed to untie her energy from Jon, but as they angled deeper under the canopy, any exertion of power might alert Frank to their exact location.
And they needed to get dry before they did anything.
But as the waves crashed over their feet, Jon threw his arm in front of Jàden and froze where he was, the horses tossing their heads in irritation.
A long, shimmering thread stretched across their path between two mangrove roots.
They followed the thread’s trail through a cluster of branches to vivid green leaves with bright orange flowers. Dewdrops glistened along the petals, attaching to several more threads that stretched high in the trees to a giant white web nearly as tall as the Ironstar Tower.
“Fuck me,” Jon said.
“Sahirä.” Lead dropped into Jàden’s gut. “There must be millions of them. Billions.”
The feathered sahirä spider, never larger than the palm of Jàden’s hand, carried a neurotoxin in its body that could knock out a grown man. But they were nomadic creatures that lived alone until mating season. The males never lived longer than a year, but the females could live more than a decade.
“Not millions.” Jon edged backwards, pushing into her so she and Agnar were forced to retreat. “These are shifters, Jàden, not animals. Sahiranath are cannibals.”
Dread fell into her gut. Spider shifters, just like the bird men. What the fuck had happened to this world? The others had all frozen, edging away from other web threads, but the only safe place now was the sea.
“What do we do?” she asked. They had no chance against that many spiders if they released their toxin into the air, and turning around wasn’t an option.
She wanted so desperately to climb on Agnar’s back and keep running until all her terrors disappeared with the tides. Everyone on Hàlon was human, or so the Guilds would have them believe.
“I don’t understand. Where did they come from?”
Maybe they’d come across another ship while she’d been in hypersleep, a parasitic sentient that could mimic human physiognomy, though even that seemed a little far-fetched.
“There are more shifters on Sandaris than humans.” Jon wrapped an arm around her shoulders, edging them backwards until the water was to their ankles again.
But even Jon’s warmth wasn’t enough to push away the ice in her skin. Her clothing and hair were soaked, and cold rain dri
zzled the landscape. She needed to get dry before hypothermia set in.
Plus, Frank could be anywhere now.
She tightened her grip on Agnar’s bridle and followed Jon away from the giant web. It stretched at least a league down the shore.
“We’re safe as long as we don’t touch any of the threads,” Jon muttered, but by the look on the others’ faces, even skirting the sahiranath would take hours.
The rain turned to a heavy drizzle, adding to her misery.
If Frank turned back, maybe he’d see more heat signatures in that tower of web than a small cluster of horsemen, but it was a very thin shot.
“I think I have an idea,” she whispered.
Death in a cage, drown in the shallows if a sahirä toxin hit her or be fed to a horde of spiders. She may have nowhere left to go, but she didn’t want to die yet.
If her idea worked, she might stay alive long enough to figure out a way off the moon’s surface. “We’re going to need some blankets and a really hot fire.”
CHAPTER 31
The Dark Isle
Jàden had no idea if her plan would work. She only hoped that the creatures within that massive tower put off enough heat that Frank wouldn’t be able to source which signature was hers. While she helped Ashe start a fire, the others strung up blankets to form an enclosed space between the mangrove trunks, creating a shelter large enough for the horses to fit inside.
Three more times the engines roared, and Jàden hated that she had to give up her gun. Twice it had saved her, but if she really wanted to appear Sandarin and ride under Frank’s radar, she had to be one. At least until his ships no longer patrolled the sky.
Soon the fire was so hot sweat poured down her neck. Jàden stripped down to her underthings and wrenched the extra water out of her clothes.
“Got this from one of Naréa’s crew.” Thomas unwrapped a thick bundle. A set of dark gray clothes lay inside. She pulled the breeches and hooded shirt on, grateful they were only mildly damp.
Black leather wrapped the hilts of twin daggers beneath, a green orb with trailing legs imprinted onto the bindings. Something about that symbol creeped her out.
She slid each knife from its sheath—one crafted with silver steel, the other obsidian steel. Each blade was also stamped with the orb and trailing legs symbol.
“You’ll wear these from now on,” Thomas said, fatigue in his voice as he rubbed muscle pain out of his arm.
She slid the weapons back in their sheaths.
Jon grabbed the bundle and unrolled the attached strips of leather, the sharp edge still heavy in his tone. “These blades will help keep you alive.”
He looped the straps around her shoulders until they crisscrossed her chest, buckling between her breasts. The daggers nestled against her back, one hilt poking over each shoulder. Once the unit was tight against her, Jon laid his hands on her shoulders. “And we have a deal—you learn to fight without magic. I help you find Kale.”
Except if she continued the search for Kale, someone was going to get killed.
An engine roared above the canopy, blue lights twinkling through the high branches.
Jàden instinctively ducked. Dropping her gaze to the ground, she grabbed a damp undershirt and wrapped it around the lower half of her face, tying it off at the back of her head.
Frank would use every tracking system he had and might even go so far as to send in drone cameras. She couldn’t leave any part of her body exposed. Pulling her hood up, she stayed close to the fire, hoping its heat would mask her own.
“I know you’re out there, darlin’.” Frank sounded furious this time, the playful taunt gone from his voice.
The others didn’t draw their weapons, though their fingers itched toward their arrows.
“Doesn’t feel right hiding like this,” Ashe muttered.
Jàden dug her fingers into the sand to hide her fear. These men at least listened to her plan, but if they took the fight head on, it could be the end of their road. “The alternative is he shoots all of you and I’m in a cage.”
Ashe clenched his jaw, clearly unhappy with her biting words. These men didn’t understand how powerful Frank was in the cockpit of his ship. One flip of a switch and he could kill them all.
She gripped the sand so tight she was certain the others could see the fear hammering her heart.
For nearly an hour, the ships hovered above the canopy. Why wouldn’t they leave? Perhaps Frank saw through her ruse and was just waiting for something.
Jàden was certain at any second that Enforcers would rappel through the trees. Keeping her hood low over her eyes, she peeked through the hole above the blankets. Shimmering gossamer threads glistened in the late morning light. “The spiders.”
“They’re after the sky beast,” Andrew muttered, sliding in close beside her. He and Ashe were so identical she could barely tell them apart, except that Andrew was far more serious than his twin. He pointed to a hole in the canopy where a silken thread attached to one wing.
“How big are those things?” A chill crawled along her skin at the idea of giant spiders.
“In many ways, they’re human, but a single thread of their web is strong enough to hold a full-grown buck in place.” Andrew gestured toward the captain. “We should get out of here.”
“Agreed.” Jon picked up one of his now-dry cigarettes from near the fire and lit it. “Pack everything except the blankets. If the webbing holds that ship when it tries to leave, that’s our signal to get out of here, nice and slow.”
Jàden quickly packed all her belongings and stuffed them inside Agnar’s saddle bag, sparing the stallion a moment to scratch his cheek. But he flattened his ears and snorted at her. Something was bothering him, probably because he was stuffed into another stall when he wanted to ride.
“That web won’t hold those ships.” Not if the pilot pushes the thrust. But then, she’d also never seen a web as tall as a gateway tower. All the things she’d learned in her biology classes might be useless knowledge now.
Peeking out between the blankets, she searched the mangroves rooted along the shore for any sign of more web. If the sahirana surrounded them with the same silken threads, they might never escape.
“We should leave now,” Jon said beside her. “Nice and slow while the shifters are distracted.”
“We’ll be exposed.” She pointed toward the ships. “Those webs won’t hold—”
“Do you trust me, Jàden?” His dark brown eyes pinned her in place, a strong intensity burning in their depths. As if to punctuate his words, a surge of strength breathed into her skin from their bond.
“Yes, of course I do.”
Jon touched her chin, tilting her head to meet his. “Then trust my instincts. If we don’t leave this place now, we never will.”
Fire burned in her gut at his closeness, at the edged expression daring her to fight him on this. But she didn’t want to fight. She ached to pull him close and feel the softness of his mouth against hers.
By the Guardians, she wanted this man.
But she couldn’t give in to the energy tangling them together. One intimate kiss could forge their energy as one, and she’d never be able to free him.
She bit down on her lip and turned away, grabbing Agnar’s saddle and pulling herself up, something she didn’t have the strength for a few weeks ago.
They pulled down the blankets, and Jàden rolled hers into a bundle as she followed Thomas into the labyrinth of tree roots.
Jon stayed behind, getting everyone else out before he climbed onto his stallion, holding a lit stick like a torch.
Sahirä web was flammable, and one touch of the fire might set the whole tower ablaze. Trusting Jon’s instincts should have been easy.
Except now they were exposed to heat signature tracking, camera drones and anything else Frank might throw at them.
Jàden had to bite down hard on her lip to keep from bolting through the high roots.
Fear pounded in her ears as she clutched Agnar’s reins, white fire surging through her veins. She couldn’t lose control of her power, not with Frank looming overhead.
“Sit up, Jàden. Act Sandarin.” Thomas nudged his horse beside her. “This is your training until we’re out of this place. Act like you belong here.”
As he trotted ahead again to guide them around stray web threads, she wove her fingers through Agnar’s mane hairs and sat up straighter, trying to emulate the others. Twice she had to duck under a stray thread. Even one brush against it would have her trapped by its sticky fibers, at least according to the others.
An engine roared, and a ship veered off into the jungle.
Maybe they weren’t watching her like she’d thought and something else had their attention.
Anything could lurk in the trees. The spiders had to feed on something, and she hoped it wasn’t only humans.
“Let’s pick up the pace,” Jon shouted.
She followed his gaze to the sea, a small dark blot on the horizon. At first, it seemed Naréa might have turned the Darius back, but a ripple of power whispered through the burned skin on Jàden’s hip.
The Rakir followed them.
“One more problem we don’t need,” she said.
Another of Frank’s ships roared louder and veered off toward the sea, but halfway through its turn, it hovered in the same spot. The pilot gunned the engines, blue fire cutting a swath into the trees as it shot over Jàden, smoke billowing out of its wing.
The top of the web tower burst into an inferno, the merest whisper of screams on the air. She nudged Agnar to a trot as they stumbled onto a muddy road winding through large rubber trees with strangler figs wrapping trunks and branches in a thicket of vines.
“Keep a steady pace,” Thomas hissed at her. “Slow and steady.”
One ship remained overhead, its engines whining as if something stalled them out. An explosion rocked the upper canopy, the force of the blast so strong it startled the horses.
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