I enter the bathroom and close the door. My clothes are still on the limestone floor near the bath. Gathering them, I shrug the leather top over my bandaged ribs, pain stabbing in my side. Cold sweat breaks out on my brow. I refuse to call Reykin to help me. I don’t even know if he would. Instead, I reach behind me, holding my breath against the agony, and tie the laces myself. The pants are a little easier to manage. I don’t have my boots, but I’m not sure I could put them on anyway.
Glancing in the mirror, I’m not surprised to see deep-blue and -purple bruises on my shoulders and arms. Cuts from shattered glass and thorns still mar my skin, despite the round of skin regeneration therapy. In short, I’m a mess.
I rummage in a drawer near the sink, finding toothpaste. I rub some on the tip of my finger and clean my teeth. When I’m done, I use a smear of toothpaste to write the coordinates of my Halo Palace apartment on the mirror.
Both Hawthorne and Reykin are on their feet, sizing each other up, when I exit the bathroom. “Let’s go,” I order Reykin, holding my side. His eyes widen in surprise. I don’t think he realized the extent of my injuries. The black robe had covered a multitude of wounds. Now they’re a billboard on my skin.
“Roselle,” Hawthorne growls between clenched teeth. He doesn’t understand what’s happening here.
“It’s okay, Hawthorne.” I try to give him a reassuring smile. “He won’t hurt me. He’ll take me back to the Halo Palace where I’ll be protected. You don’t have to worry.”
“Who is he!” Hawthorne demands.
“If I tell you, he’ll kill you. Trust me, Hawthorne, it’s better this way. I’ll see you soon.”
Hawthorne is visibly shaking with rage. He points at Reykin. “If you hurt her, I’ll rip your heart out.”
“It’s already gone,” Reykin retorts. The belligerent firstborn Star gestures to the door. We pass through to a small garden and into the shadows of a coming dawn.
Chapter 10
The Nature of Dawn
I hold my stinging ribs, silently cursing Reykin.
Speckled with stones, moss, and prickly things, a path winds through the majestic trees and shrubbery. The stones dig into my bare feet. Reykin trails behind me. My pace is slow because every step hurts. He touches my elbow. I ease my arm away from him, even though I could use the support. We trudge along the path, and every few steps Reykin glances behind us, maybe expecting to see Hawthorne. He won’t. Hawthorne is stealth itself. He won’t try anything, though, not with Reykin training his fusionmag on me.
We make it to the tree line near the lake. Just inside the copse, a black airship rests beneath a small pile of fir boughs. Reykin pulls them off the concealed airship. The sun hasn’t broken the horizon, but the gray shadows are pushing back. Reykin opens the copilot door for me. I hold my breath, carefully climbing onto the seat. He closes my door and rounds the airship.
Once inside the two-seater aircraft, Reykin tucks his fusionmag into the black holster on the side of his chest. He spares little time getting us into the air. We fly low, skimming just above the leafy canopy, avoiding detection. The set of his jaw tells me I’m in dangerous territory with him. I’m confused about why, but I’m unwilling to ask. Nor will I explain myself to him. It’s time he learns that he doesn’t own me.
“Have you ever thought about the nature of dawn?” I ask. Reykin doesn’t answer. “I have. When you’re a soldier, you think about those things, especially because you hardly ever see the sunrise unless you’re in battle.” He doesn’t look at me, but he’s listening. “I’ve heard it said that dawn is the light, asking the night for permission to exist.”
Reykin snorts rudely.
“I agree,” I reply, watching the sun break the plane of the horizon. “I don’t subscribe to that either. I believe dawn is the violent overthrow of night. But night is always still there—just on the periphery—waiting . . . and at the end of the day, it comes to claim us all.”
“I thought you were dead!” Reykin shouts. My fingers curls on the armrest in reaction to his violent outburst. “Witnesses saw you push a man through a window at the top of the building. Sea-Fated divers are dragging the lake beneath the social club searching for your body.”
“People think I’m dead?” I ask.
“No one survives that fall!”
“I had hoverdiscs on. One of them continued to work. How did you find me?”
“I infiltrated the secure access at the Halo Palace and located your moniker tracking . . . and then I waited. At first there was nothing. You were just gone. But then, I got a ping. It faded in and out, but it was there. The readings were bizarre: spotty location, alarming health readouts, hypothermia, distress. I was sure you were alive, but being tortured.”
“My ribs are broken. I soaked in a bath of ice water last night. If you think that I derived any pleasure from it, I invite you to try it. I’ll even break your ribs for you.”
He makes a growling sound that raises the fine hairs on my arms. “I thought you and Trugrave . . .”
“I know what you thought, and it’s none of your business!” I retort.
“It is my business! I can’t hide you like I hid your friend Hammon. Most people know you on sight.”
“Don’t try to shame me, Reykin. You spent the whole night and an entire day in my apartment alone with me. You’re a firstborn. It’s the same thing.”
“That was different!”
“How was it different?” I ask.
“It just was. I wasn’t in your bed with you all night. Dune wasn’t standing by the social club’s lake, demanding it be drained.”
I cringe. “Does he know I’m alive?”
“He doesn’t know for sure yet,” Reykin admits.
“You knew I was alive when my moniker showed the coordinates of Hawthorne’s home,” I press. “Why didn’t you tell him then?”
He ignores my question. “Tell me, why is Hawthorne still alive? Your brother didn’t kill him. Maybe your new firstborn Sword changed his mind and decided your brother and mother were the safer side?”
“Hawthorne would never do that.”
“Desperate people do desperate things,” Reykin replies.
“He’s alive because of you,” I murmur. Reykin’s eyes narrow. “I know it was you who saved him. You erased every trace of our escape from the Sword Palace that night.”
“I did that for you, not for him.”
“That was dangerous. It could’ve alerted them to the fact we’d infiltrated their systems.”
“They’ll never find anything.”
“Do you think my family are the ones behind the attack last night?”
“Yes.”
“Is there evidence in any of their communications? Something we can use?”
Reykin frowns. “I don’t know. I need to dig in and search for it, and that will take a while, but I know a few things. It wasn’t Gates of Dawn who attacked last night, and I’d rule out the Rose Garden Society, seeing as how quite a few of them are dead now. They wouldn’t shoot up their social club. Media outlets have already been calling it the ‘Rose Goddess Massacre.’”
“Why ‘Rose Goddess’? Why not ‘Rose Garden’?”
“They’ve been interviewing survivors all evening. The accounts of you defending Sword-Fated firstborns is becoming legendary. Complete idiots who attended other balls, like the one Grisholm and I were at last evening, are actually upset that they weren’t at your party to see the Goddess of War smote the Gates of Dawn.” I give him a side-eyed look. He stares at me derisively. “You didn’t think The Virtue would call out your mother, did you? The Gates of Dawn are a good scapegoat. It makes the continued conflict more palatable and you more of a heroine. The Virtue is biding his time. This attack binds Salloway closer to him. Their common enemy is proving to be a many-headed dragon.”
I gaze out the window at the landscape flying by. Large tracts of land stretch as far as I can see. It’s so green, the kind of green that you never see in the city. Horses startle and run from our low-flying airship.
I watch for a long time. Reykin communicates with Dune, letting my ex-mentor know that he found me. When the messaging between them ends, the silence grows.
“I want to see my father,” I murmur.