“Alright,” I say. “In that case…come on, Esperanza–let’s get you in the air.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
FIONA
Okay…so Kye is in trouble.
Alittle bitof trouble, according to him, although the boom just north of where the Wrath is docked says otherwise.
“Where are you?” I ask into my comm, already heading toward the sound of the blast. I probably shouldn’t rush into danger—I am the heir to the throne of a whole planet, I guess—but I can’t help the surge of fear that overwhelms me at the idea that Kye could be hurt.
“I’m—” He pauses when another blast sounds, and I match it to a gunshot from where I’m already headed. “Shit, you shouldn’t come here. I don’t know why I called.”
“I’m already headed your way, like it or not,” I say. “What happened?”
“Well…fuck, I gotta go.”
The connection abruptly terminates, and I curse under my breath as I continue sprinting toward the port. I’m sure Orion is already on my tail—maybe even Ryker, which could turn out to be a disaster—but I can’t stop myself.
I have to make sure Kye is okay.
The dock north of us is in chaos, a light snow starting to fall on the smoking wreckage of a Hyperborean ship. It immediately reminds me of when the Naiad was destroyed, my heart pounding, but I keep plowing forward as I draw my blade. I don’t have a laser rifle with me, even though I keep asking for one, but the knife will just have to work.
I’ve been sparring for hours every day in preparation for something like this. I have to be ready.
Shouting voices sound up ahead, and I follow them with a sense of determination I didn’t know I had. Kye is in here somewhere—I’m certain of it—and I’m going to find him and bring him home, danger be damned. It’s at that moment that I see him crouched behind some debris, a laser pistol in his hand. He’s bleeding from his human arm, but he looks to have wrapped a rag around the wound.
He’s not a fighter. What the hell is he doing here?
And why are the Hyperborean guards shooting at him?
I race toward him and dive behind the debris with him, where his gaze snaps to me. “Who the…Fiona?” he says. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d get help?”
“I didn’t—” I almost tell him I didn’t think before I made a run for it, but I know he already thinks I make bad decisions, so I just don’t mention it. “I’m the help,” I say. “What’s going on?”
“Uh…I may or may not have gotten tied up in a smuggling operation?” he says. “I piloted a shuttle over here and we thought things were going smoothly, then the guards caught onto us.”
“Us?” I ask. “Who was with you?”
“Some rebels and Aramis,” he says. “I lost Aramis in the fight and the rebels got away.”
I could mock him for judgingmydecisions when he seems to have just gotten himself into big trouble—and maybe gotten Aramis killed—but I don’t think that will help. “Okay,” I say. “So we just need to escape, right?”
“Right,” he says. “But there are three Skoll guards out there and I think one of those lobster people.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “We’ve got this. If we could escape the Order of the Hunt on Alamancia, we can get out of this—right?”
“Yeah,” he says. The words are more for him than for me, I think. “Okay. Right. Let’s do this.”
I stare at him, waiting for his signal…
…and he stares right back at me.
“Well?” I say. “Aren’t you going to do something? Lead the charge? Be the big military man?”
“Uh…I was in the air force,” he says.
“Meaning?”