Chapter 262: Dead Women Don’t Gasp
At this exact moment, Nicholas Shadowfell was punching walls. Renwick Lunaris was running through the dark. Maddox Drakencrest was departing for Greyhall Crossing. Tharos Stonehowl was in a laundry chute. Landon Solveil was unconscious. And Guinevere Lunaris was falling through a cloud city. The coordination across the continent was flawless.
Hey, Gwen. I’m here. Take a deep breath. Tell me what happened.
Guinevere Lunaris was gathering symptoms like they were limited-edition trading cards. Hallucinating. Glowing. And now hearing a dragon’s voice in her head. The one she had left in her bed.
Your fear just spiked so hard I almost shifted. Tell me what I’m feeling. Tell me why.
What could she say back to the voice? That she had woken up somewhere with no memory of how she got there? That she wasn’t even entirely sure if it was real? The only thing she did know was she was falling through the sky to her imminent death.
The wind was so loud it replaced thought. No words. Just velocity and the raw, animal understanding that the next thing she touched was going to be the last thing she felt.
Whatever this is, fight it. You hear me? You don’t get to stop fighting. Not tonight. Not ever.
FWOOMPH.
The velocity bled out of her in one breath. Something beneath her went dense, warm, soft. No impact. No pain. Just warmth.
Oh, she thought. So this is what dying feels like.
Then her ribs expanded with a breath she didn’t choose and dead women don’t gasp. Something had caught her. Pressure thickened around her like warm cotton, pressing against her stomach, her arms, her legs, conforming to her the way a good pillow would.
You’re alive. I know you’re alive because I can feel your heartbeat and it just slowed down. Now open your eyes and tell me where the hell you are.
Her eyes snapped open.
White. That’s all she saw. She lifted her head to orient herself.
She was on a cloud. A goddamn cloud. Water vapor was what caught her.
A sob left her chest. It came from somewhere she couldn’t control, somewhere below her ribs, below her lungs, from the place where three days of surviving had been stacking bricks on a wall that had just collapsed. She pressed her hand against her lips because if she let the next one out she wasn’t going to stop.
Shouts boomed from above, guards closing the distance. They were still chasing her.
Voices. I can hear voices through you. How many and are they armed?
"Stop right there! Keep your hands where we can see them, do not move! You are under arrest by order of the High Citadel for trespassing."
Guinevere, who the fuck is that?
She couldn’t breathe. Her hands were numb. Her heart was hammering so hard her vision was strobing. The guards were closing in, shouting orders she couldn’t process because Kael’s voice was in her head and her body was glowing and she was lying on a cloud that shouldn’t be solid and none of this was real, none of it, none of it.
Then a warmth flooded into her chest like someone had opened a valve. She wanted to let it in because it made her feel better. But that died the instant the cloud beneath her blazed bright in answer.
Let me see, baby. I’m trying to but I can’t.
"TARGET IS HOSTILE. FIRE AT WILL!"
In Lunaris, that meant arrows. Here she wasn’t sure what open fire meant. Another sob came out of her mouth before she could stop it.
Someone is shooting at you. I heard that. Are you hit?
CRACK.
Blinding white light split the air, and with it, a burning heat sensation. Did they shoot her? Her body was so numb she wasn’t sure.
The cloud didn’t give her a chance to figure out what it was. She fell through water vapor then landed flat on her stomach on something hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs.
CRACK.
Another flash of white light.
Then silence.
I can feel your panic and it’s scaring the shit out of me. Answer me. Right now.
Her hands and limbs were shaking. The kind that comes from the core, from the place where the body stores every terror it didn’t have time to feel in the moment.
I’m okay, just a little lost, she thought back to him.
She was lying to imaginary Kael. This was fine.
Her eyes adjusted to see obsidian black stone. Then voices rounded the corner. Two shadows were growing taller with every boot-fall.
She pushed herself off the floor and moved. Three doors down the corridor. First one, locked. Second, locked. Third gave.
The room looked like a storage closet. Shelves. Crates. Dark. She closed it behind her without a sound.
She slid down a wall and pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. Head down. The position of a girl who had met her limit for the day and was sitting in the dark hoping the dark would hide her the way the light wouldn’t until she could find her courage again.
A warming sensation came back.
Let me see, baby. I can’t help you if I can’t see. I’ll figure out where you are.
She blinked, glancing down at her glowing hands. At least this room wasn’t glowing.
You’re in a supply closet. Okay. Not ideal. But I’ve worked with worse. Actually no I haven’t. This is the worst.
She let out a weak laugh and wiped her eyes.
Go to that crate. Let me see the label.
She stood, legs shaking, and moved towards a crate. Her glow was giving her just enough light to see a label that she didn’t recognize.
Kael?
Silence.
Please don’t go.
The silence was louder than the guards. Louder than the fall. Louder than every alarm bell that had been screaming in her head since she opened her eyes under a stranger.
Kael was gone. Imaginary or not. The one voice, the one thread, the one thing tethering her to anything that felt real, was gone.
"Okay, Guinevere. You are going to figure this out," she said to the dark. "You are not a crybaby."
On another continent, Kael Ashenvale’s chest was heaving. Of all the things that had happened, losing her before he could see the damn crate, mid-sentence, was the thing that he couldn’t swallow.