Page 138 of The Garnet Daughter
I pause and look back at the city’s wall and the distance I have covered. Soldiers move across the top, watching me below, among them 99.
“When you get to the turrets, they will lock on you. Do not panic,” he says.
“What do you mean lock on me?”
“They will track your movements,” August chimes in. “You will hear them humming.”
I slow my steps even more, now nervous I will be cut down by the enormous guns atop the Viathan platforms once I pass them, that they will mistake me for the enemy. My mind can’t even form a question as to how they know the difference.
“They won’t shoot me?” I ask plainly.
“You are safe. I promise,” August says firmly.
When I come to the first turret, it buzzes like there is a great honey hive within the structure, ready to spit angry bees instead of murderous light. I sidestep past it, keeping my eyes on the barrel of the gun placed upon its peak. And just as 99 said they would, my next step captures its attention and it adjusts its neck toward me as if I have called upon it, locking on.
“Keep moving slowly,” 99 instructs. “August is assisting the commander in the beacon tower while he’s in the air.”
I look up to the sky over the city, overcome with a wave of homesickness from knowing he is out there. Just as Omnesis said, every cell of my body vibrates with imbalance without him. There is nothing to ground me, nothing to keep me from folding away into the space between.
I approach the mass of corpses littered within the turrets’ reach and freeze.
“You are about to cross the ward,” 99 says.
“Stay within it.” August’s voice is stern but distracted by his other tasks.
“Is he coming forward?” I ask 99.
“No.”
I weave past the lifeless bodies of the ones who suffered eclipse delirium, trying not to look upon their faces, pale and with burned-out eyes.
Finally, I can make out the army in front of me, the pillar of light visible through the thick fog that has filled the valley.
“We are almost finished,” 99 updates.
I move a few more paces ahead, sensing the last bit of safety from the ward.
First Son watches me, walking slowly through his army to the very front of the lines. He knows I’m about to breach the ward. He can sense that I am closer and now so is he.
I pause, waiting for him as I will myself to stop trembling.
Any moment, they will let me know the beacon is disabled, that the weapon First Son is relying on will fail.
First Son strides forward, breaching his front lines like a moth to a flame, but then pauses, looking out to me from across the battlefield.
I want to fold back, deep into the comforting film of the Estate’s ward, but I can’t.
And when the beacon is disabled and I do fold to August’s ship, what is to stop him from leveling the city whether I’m here or not?
He’s not going to come within our range. His army is firmly planted where it is with no intention of coming closer to the walls. They don’t need to.
Omnesis said they have weapons beyond ours, so what if this is just the start? What if he commands his armies to do much worse when he doesn’t get what he has come for?
I can’t just fold away to safety, not when an entire city will be left to defend itself alone.
A dark shape in the sky captures my attention. Omnesis soars above a cliff and then perches upon it, watching the scene below.
A fleeting thought I had in the birthlands to defeat her comes to mind, of folding the distance to the space between, that if I could control it, I could let her go halfway, leaving her in that darkness. And now I can’t let that thought go.
