Page 53 of Sixth
Lume’s answer was a faint vibration in the air, asound that wasn’t sound. Apex paused on the ramp, scanning the horizon before stepping ahead of her. His white hair caught the electric glow, gleaming like forged silver.
“This way.” He didn’t need to say more. The bond between them pulled like gravity. She followed.
The wind wrapped around them, cool and wet. When she stepped beside him, the world narrowed to the heat radiating from his arm. The pulse of his heart echoed through the Valenmark—arhythm that matched her own until the lines between them blurred.
Her pulse climbed. She was aware of him in every way that mattered: the power in the curve of his back, the quiet that lived in his stillness, the controlled violence in his every breath.
Her boots slid on glass grit as they dropped behind a stack of fused pillars. The wind shifted and carried a scent that reminded her of hot coins and rain. She found herself watching the way Apex moved when the ground turned treacherous. He never wasted effort, not a single step. He simply altered momentum and the ship inside his body obeyed. It always startled her that someone forged for war could make danger look like a kind of grace. She wanted to touch that steadiness, to know what it would be like to have that calm affixed to herskin.
“Recommend path B. Surface charge density is lower by twelve percent,”Core murmured, voice a cool ribbon at her wrist.
“Show me.”
A faint thread of light traced across the canyon floor. They climbed a narrow slope where the stone had liquefied and re-hardened, glazed smooth as a mirror. The sky above flickered with sheet lightning that didn’t crack so much as breathe, aslow surge that rolled from one floating plate to thenext.
Far overhead, acontinent drifted, its edges glowing with slow lightning. Silver tethers snaked from its underbelly downinto the atmosphere, shimmering like strands of a web. They looked delicate until the currents pulsed through them, and the entire plate shuddered as though alive—tethers pulsating, flexing, dragging the massive landmass back into balance. The motion sent ripples of light across the clouds, aheartbeat of the planet made visible.
Emmy caught her breath, awed and uneasy. The whole world seemed to be suspended on threads of silver, beautiful, but on the verge of breaking.
The canyon trek gave them no peace. The magnetic storms above spilled tendrils of light that lashed the rock faces, filling the ravine with shifting glare and shadow. Emmy’s hair stood on end from the static charge. Once, when a flash hit too close, afilament of electricity crawled down her arm like a living thread. Apex caught her wrist and closed his hand around it, grounding the spark before it could bite deeper. The light flared between their joined skin, then vanished. His grip lingered a fraction longer than needed.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
He inclined his head. “Do not fall behind.”
“I’d like to see you try to lose me.”
The edge of his mouth almost curved—almost—but then the world exploded again. The bridge they’d been crossing shuddered, the left side shearing away in a hiss of molten glass. Emmy yelped as her boot slipped on the smooth surface. The cable clipped to her belt snapped taut, jerking her sideways. She swung out into empty air, the canyon yawning beneathher.
“Emmy!” Apex’s shout wasn’t loud but it carried the full power of command. He dropped to one knee, line between them straining, both gloved hands braced on the anchor post. Themuscles along his forearms stood out, silver cords under the skin. “Do not look down. Move your right hand higher.”
“I can’t—”
“You can.”
He pulled once, asurge of energy that lifted her enough for her boot to catch a shard of metal still clinging to the edge. She scrambled up the last meter, grabbed his arm, and fell against him when she reached solid ground. He wrapped his other arm around her automatically. The sound that tore from her was half sob, half laughter.
“I hate bridges,” she gasped into his chest.
“I noticed.”
Her cheek was against the fabric of his uniform, hot and rough under her skin. His breath ruffled her hair. For a moment, the storm seemed far away, their world narrowed to the space between two heartbeats. Then he stepped back and checked the gear clip as if nothing had happened.
“You did not panic,” he said finally.
“I screamed.”
He glanced down at her hand still gripping his sleeve. “You lived.”
She managed a shaky smile. “You’re a terrible comfort.”
His eyes softened. “You are alive. That is comfort enough.”
The words landed somewhere deep in her, and she could not quite breathe past them. She fell into step beside him again, the ghost of his hand at her back even when he wasn’t touchingher.
Lume tucked close to Emmy’s collarbone, fur shivering, eyes wide and luminous. The little creature’s hum matched thefaint tick in the Valenmark, and the two sounds braided into something that kept Emmy’s breathing steady.
She reached up and touched Lume’s furred side with a fingertip. “You’re doing great,” she whispered. “We’re almost there.”
