CHAPTER 14
“KAI.”
Avan’s voice cut through my drowsiness. Fingers skimmed my cheekbone. I leaned into his touch.
“Kai, wake up.”
Something in the way he said my name made my eyes open. Light streamed in through the cracks of our small shelter, muted like twilight or early dawn.
“You need to see this,” Avan said, before maneuvering his way out into the open.
I rolled onto my back and immediately wished I hadn’t. Every muscle in my body screamed.
“Drek.” I pushed myself up. Once outside, I could see why it was so hazy. Fog had rolled in overnight, making the Void appear even more ominous and surreal. I couldn’t see ten feet in front of me.
Goosebumps spread down my arms. Fog, especially this dense, required moisture. The Void was nothing but dry earth.
“Look,” Avan said.
I followed his line of sight. Then I blinked a few times to make sure I was seeing this.
A bridge loomed ahead, a stone arch that rose out of the scorched earth and disappeared into the fog. The bridge spanned at least thirty feet in width, aged to the point of decay.
“Was that there last night?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“I don’t think so,” he said grimly. I wished he’d pretend it was no big deal, like everything else we’d run into since leaving Ninurta.
I wrung the strap of my bag. Questions collided in my mind: What if it’s a trap? But how can we not take the bridge? It’s practically an invitation. “Well, we won’t have to keep walking through all this dust.”
“We’ll have to thank him for being prompt,” Avan added. “It’s too bad we forgot a gift for the host.”
“I’ll improvise,” I said, thinking about the knife.
Now that the path forward had literally been presented to me, I didn’t know if I was prepared for it. My clammy palms suggested I wasn’t. I had been so focused on just getting through the Outlands and then the forest and the Void that, aside from bartering with the Rider, I hadn’t thought about what else I’d do when we found him. Or if I’d even get the chance to offer the trade.
Still, at the end of that bridge was Reev. That was all the reason I needed to move forward.
We approached warily. The bridge appeared solid enough. I had been half expecting it to vanish like a mirage.
I paused at the first step from black dirt to dusty stone, but Avan didn’t hesitate. I followed, stepping carefully.
Holes blistered the stone, and whole sections had crumbled at the outer boundaries. We stuck to the middle where it seemed sturdiest, despite the fissures throughout. Tall unlit lampposts, more rust than metal, braced each side in intervals. We couldn’t see where the bridge ended. I began to wish I’d had breakfast first.
Movement above made me look up. We hadn’t seen birds, or any signs of life, since the forest. It was easy to lose all sense of direction in this fog. Maybe some pigeons had gotten caught in it. I scanned the edge of the bridge, following the vertical line of the nearest lamppost.
It wasn’t a pigeon.
Atop the lamppost, where it bent over the bridge to form an inverted L, crouched a gargoyle. Its long body huddled above the busted lantern, wrapped in smoky threads. It watched us with wide, flat eyes, claws clacking against the flaking rust, tail twined around the post. Frills extended from the sides of its head, quivering as if caught in an invisible wind.
Avan reached for my hand, and I squeezed his tightly.
Something else moved on our left. My gaze darted that way. A second gargoyle sat atop another lamppost, its tail flicking behind it.
“The knife,” Avan whispered.
I reached for it, afraid to make any sudden movements but just as afraid the creatures would pounce before I could grab it. We made our way slowly down the bridge, feet shuffling against dust and loose stones. The urge to turn and run seized me, but I forced my legs to cooperate. My quick breaths sounded deafening in the silence. Now I saw that one of the creatures occupied nearly every lamppost along the bridge. The gargoyles balanced at the tops, some straight and alert and others reclining on folded legs. All of them watched us.
It’s true, I thought, horrified. The Rider did tame gargoyles. What if the rest of the rumors were true as well? What if he did feed them . . .
I had the hilt of the knife in my hand when a voice rang out:
“You won’t need that.”
I jumped, yanking the knife from my bag. Avan stepped in front of me, blocking my view. I scowled and elbowed him aside.
A figure emerged from the fog—a boy, wiry and a bit disheveled and probably no older than Avan. He waved affably.
I looked between the boy and the gargoyles, my body still strung tight. I didn’t lower the knife.
“The gargoyles are trained to identify Ninu’s sentinels,” the boy said, gesturing to the creatures guarding the bridge. “Which you’re obviously not.”
I looked at Avan, who lifted his pierced eyebrow as if to say “Your call.”
Still hyperaware of the gargoyles watching us, I said, “We’re looking for the Black Rider.”
“I figured,” the boy said. His eyes were bright blue in the muted light. “Why else would you be here?”
Then he turned and strolled back up the bridge. He didn’t even check to see if we would follow. I lowered the knife to my side, shifting my weight from foot to foot as I watched his outline grow faint in the enveloping fog. Following him would be crazy.
“Kai?” Avan said. I realized that I still held his hand tightly in mine. He pulled me forward.
I nodded, and we hurried after the boy.
The fog was so thick that the fortress seemed to float in the clouds. It looked as if it had been carved from a cliff, jagged and impossibly high, with only a few windows far at the top. More gargoyles prowled along the battlements, pacing back and forth like the Watchmen along Ninurta’s walls. Others were stationed on jutting perches, as perfectly still and menacing as their namesakes.
Amazingly, people patrolled the high ledges as well. Their figures looked small and indistinct as they stood guard alongside the creatures.
Avan gave my hand a reassuring squeeze, and I relaxed my white-knuckled grip on the knife. I didn’t know if it was fear or anticipation that had my heart pounding in my ears.
A silver door swung open as the three of us approached, the dragging sound of metal on dirt climbing up the fortress wall. Once we’d stepped off the bridge, the ground was black, which meant we were still in the Void. I didn’t know how the Rider was hiding this place, but I doubted we would’ve made it here if he hadn’t shown us the way.
Inside the door, lanterns hung from the rafters on chains, lighting a cavernous hall, empty save for some broken benches pushed against the walls. A few of the lights quivered weakly. Our shuffling footsteps echoed around us.
The stone beneath my feet vibrated as the door swung shut behind us. I kept walking. I had to stay focused.
“I would introduce myself,” the boy said, “but I haven’t decided on a name yet. I was called G-10. Might as well go with that for now.”
G-10. Not even a name. Was he a hollow, then? But he looked so normal.
My eyes scanned the shadowy corners of the hall. I saw only layers of dust and cobwebs. I kept expecting an ambush. I was glad it hadn’t happened yet, but this strange welcome worried me.
I looked at Avan, but as usual, his face gave nothing away.
We passed through the hall into a corridor with a low ceiling and a sallow rug stretched over the floor. The corridor forked up ahead. The boy turned left, but I looked right.
I dropped Avan’s hand, inching forward to see more. A glass door opened into a courtyard. The air here was bright and clear. It smelled different: warm and sweet instead of the cool dryness of the Void. The clouds hung overhead, bloated and yellow with no sign of the fog that cloaked the fortress and the bridge. Bushes weighted with flowers lined the swept path, and a single tree rose on a grassy patch at its center, its branches providing shade to a wrought-iron table and matching chairs.
My eyes fell on the blade of my knife, still clutched in my fist. What was I doing ogling a courtyard in my enemy’s house?
Behind me, G-10 and Avan waited. G-10 smiled. I didn’t see any malice in his eyes, but it had to be there. When he turned to continue on, the breeze from the open door shifted the high collar of his tunic and revealed a red tattoo at the base of his neck.