Page 72 of Cage of Starlight
Sena grits his teeth. “It’s nothing.”
He makes it to his feet this time.
Tory steps in front of him. Something strange and unfamiliar wriggles in his stomach at the pallor of Sena’s face and the bluish smudges beneath his eyes. “Wrong answer. Try again.”
“I . . . may have fractured a rib during our plunge.”
“Hitting the water wasn’t so bad. Did you land on something?”
Sena’s breathy chuckle turns into a cough. “Somethinglanded on me.” He stretches out, winces. “In any case, the break is tender but not debilitating. It was merely unwise to move without consideration for it.”
Tory swallows an apology (Sena might tell him it’suselessagain) and packs up in silence. He works fast so Sena doesn’t have to—an apology in action, not words. With dry shoes, socks, and clothing thanks to last night’s fire, the work is nearly pleasant.
Sena sets a brutal pace. A few minutes into their journey, he breaks the silence with a grimly cheery, “In any case, our injuries are the least of our concerns. We’ll be dead in three days if we can’t get back. Two days, now, I suppose.”
Tory nearly tumbles down the hill. “We’llwhat?”
“Standard protocol, remember? We’re high risk. Just because they don’t know how best to use us doesn’t mean they’ll risk us falling into the hands of enemies who might. Our Cores will be deactivated after three days. If we’re dead, we wouldn’t notice, and if we’re alive, three days without contact usually means a soldier has defected. It’s reasonable, but in our case, extremely unfortunate.” He waves a hand toward where his communicator would be if it had survived the fall.
The steepness of the rocky terrain increases as they go. Sena says, “It will be like this for a while. Most of Westrice is high above sea level. Be careful.”
Tory isn’t the one who needs to be careful. He positions himself behind Sena, not liking the way his steps weave. It’s not protectiveness; it’s pragmatism. Tory can’t navigate for shit. He can’t let their terrain expert fall and get impaled on a rock. “Doesn’t sound like we have time for careful.”
“True. Two days, if we’re lucky and use every hour of daylight and then some,mightget us back to the Compound. We don’t—” Sena nearly misses a step in a clump of damp, decaying leaves. Tory’s hands go up to catch him. He drops them with a sigh he assures himself is frustration and not relief when Sena finds his balance again. “We don’t have the luxury of assuming we’ll run into a patrol. We’re as likely to run into enemy soldiers as any of our own.”
They march to the crunch of fallen leaves, the low hum of the wind, and the staticky rush of the distant sea. Sena’s looking worse and worse as the day wears on, face beaded with sweat. Silent, he puts all his focus into walking. Tory, grudgingly, focuses on watching Sena walk.
The result is that neither of them notice their pursuers until it’s too late.
For almost an hour, shreds of yellowed flatlands have flashed between the trees and hanging vines. They’re almost out of the woods when Sena stops.
“Tory.”
Tory’s hand goes to the knife on his belt at Sena’s tone, but Sena shakes his head, a minute motion. “We’re surrounded.”
Someone emerges from the trees.
Arlunian. Short and slim, with dark hair braided and twisted into a bun. Slick pink scars cover his hands and wrists. He can’t be older than seventeen, but he paces toward them like the gun at Sena’s side and the knife tucked into Tory’s belt mean nothing to him.
Tory recalls Sena’s words. In enemy territory, they’re likelier to be killed than captured.
The boy takes in their attire, lips drawn back in a snarl. He knocks two thick thumb rings together, and a shower of sparks lights the air. The sparks converge and swell into a ball of flame in the boy’s hands, lighting mahogany eyes gold and red. The boy slings the sphere when it’s as big as Sena’s head.
With instinct born of training, Tory diverts it into the woods where it bursts against the thick trunk of a tree, sizzling and spitting. The second comes too fast on its heels, aimed at Sena’s chest.
“Sena!”
Tory curses, frozen where he stands, but the ball of flame sputters out before reaching him. Relief floods Tory. Right. He spares a moment to be grateful for Sena’s strange power.
Their attacker spits, “Null,” at the sight of the dying flames and withdraws a wicked hunting knife. In fluent if lightly accented Westrian, he says, “You want to do things the ugly way? I will not pass up an opportunity to gut a pig.”
He slashes before Sena can raise both hands and say more than, “We’re not here to—”
Sena arches away from the swing, so smoothly Tory wouldn’t be able to tell how much pain he was in if he didn’t already know. “Tory, stay back!”
Sena flings a glove off and catches the sides of the blade on the downswing with bare fingers. He doesn’t touch it for more than an instant, but it’s long enough. The deadly glint of the blade goes dull, then brittle, then reddish with rust like it bore thousands of years of wear in the space of a breath. When it leaves Sena’s grip, it does so in flecks and fragments.
The boy drops the useless hilt, staggering back as Sena presses a bleeding fingertip between his lips to suck off the blood. The blade must have nicked him.
