Page 68 of The Garnet Daughter
The machines pour the hot liquid into the mug, snapping me out of my brain’s rambling thoughts. We need to focus on getting to the rock formation and finding that temple. All of my energy should be spent figuring out exactly how I’m going to approach Omnesis before we arrive so I don’t get us both killed.
And then maybe after . . .
No, I can’t think of after either.
Because then I will have to tell the others the truth about the ritual, about what I did. My plan stands. After I fix this mistake, I’ll tell them and go back to Frith and do my best to forget any notions of destiny or greatness. It has only brought me misery and cost others greatly.
I was right to leave August before, and when I do for the last time, I will have to let him know why, because he deserves so much better and I cannot provide that to him.
I sip the too hot tea and pray it settles my stomach and fills the empty pit the reminders to myself have carved out. I pace, going over what I remember of the spell book until I can calm myself enough to retrieve it.
Outside the clear glass wall of the mess hall, I can see a round object placed on the tabletop used for removing items from the lockers on the wall behind it. It’s not quite a corridor and not quite a room, one that connects the front and back of the ship and used so frequently, I would have noticed the object when I came up to the cockpit earlier.
I approach it as if it were a wild animal, but as I get closer, I realize it’s one of the drones. I pick up the heavy egg and study it.
How did it get up here?
The drones are still scanning. I glanced at the map before I fled the cockpit. Did another one malfunction and August left it behind? Why would he bring it up here though?
I turn it over and see some damage to the programming panel, scratches like a metal tool was used to pry it open.
That’s odd.
As I place it back down to go ask August, I notice a shadow in the threshold of the doorway.
My thoughts try to make sense of another person on board, rationalizing that Commander Wesley has changed his mind and joined our mission again.
But that’s not possible.
The mysterious figure is one of a broader man, his posture alert but swaying slightly, like a Frithian owl watching its next meal.
The danger does something strange to my vision, blurring in the corners with each shallow breath I can manage.
Dark armor I do not recognize shifts as they step into the room. Tubing runs along the edges of their chestplate, the color a dull, gritty black and nothing like the Viathan armor I am familiar with.
My body screams to fold away, but I’m too disorientated to think of a place to fold to. The man watches me as he slowly steps forward, as if I will pounce on him if he approaches too hastily. His mouth is covered with a rag, his brows knit together in a hard line.
He raises a gun from his hip slowly and steadily until it’s aimed at me.
I step back again, closing my eyes and willing myself to picture the cockpit. Not August’s ship, not Frith. Any room on this ship that is not here.
My back bumps into a hard corner and my attention snaps to the intruder again, locked in on me and edging forward across the space between us.
Then another figure standing in the room catches both of our focus.
The man’s eyes flare with rage just as the loud ringing of August’s gun firing sounds, sending several angry blue streaks into the man’s abdomen, chest, and face.
He crashes to the metal floor as if he were dropped from the sky, lifeless and crumpled onto his own weapon he never had a chance to use.
August stands with his weapons held out, his jaw hard set until he is sure the man is no more. He looks deadly, not like the warm, charming August I just left in the cockpit. This version is all Viathan ruthlessness.
I press my back to the wall. The shock of seeing a stranger stalking toward me only for him to be taken down moments later in such a brutal way is paralyzing.
And then a soothing hand cups my face, August’s frantic eyes searching and terrified. “Are you harmed?”
I shake my head, holding on his wrist and gulping down each exhale to catch my breath. “The drone,” I manage to force out.
He glances over his shoulder, and every muscle goes rigid against me, his blown-out pupils scaring me, like he has seen something far worse than the intruder. “Fold us to the cockpit now!”
