Standing in the shadows in front of me were twelve armored guards. For a second, we stared at each other. And then my eyes shot around. This hallway was a lot darker. The carpet had vanished, leaving only chilly stone under my toes. No perfumes scented the air, and the dim lighting was even colder. There were no other people within sight or even my hearing range.
“Excuse me, Miss Uvgamut,” one of them began. He was the one with the Disruption Blade. The others had an array of guns. He sounded perfectly polite, but that made no difference. “May I ask where you’re going in such a hurry?”
“My ship,” I breathed. “I wasn’t welcome there, at the ball. I just want to go home.” I want to see my friends and wrap myself in my furs, I almost added, but seeing my small form reflected in his polished armor made me not want to sound any more vulnerable than I already was. I straightened my back, trying to stand taller.
His eyebrows rose. “Miss Uvgamut, I’m very sorry. That’s not possible.”
Worry arced through me like a static charge. My voice hardened. “Why not?”
His hand dropped and he spread his fingers wide at the soldiers behind him—a signal to them to fan out and start circling around me, I realized, when they started to do so. “Miss, would you come with us, please?” But he said it in a voice that didn’t sound at all like a request.
All my internal alarms started screaming at once. This felt very, very wrong. But now, my confusion vaporized. I was no longer off-balance. My breath quickened, my muscles tensed, and my weight shifted to the balls of my feet. My body was telling me exactly what to do.
It was telling me to run.
I spun in place, and I ran. I heard the Bladeguard swear and issue a soft command; before I made it ten steps and heard their boots pounding on the ground behind me, I knew I wouldn’t make it. They were faster than I was, especially with the damned gown tangling around my legs.
“Sub her!”
I didn’t know what that meant, and I didn’t want to find out. I halted, gripped the long straps of my shoes in either hand, and pivoted in the same breath.
One of the heels whipped the first guard in the face, probably destroying his cheek in the process, while the other one crushed the second guard’s hand and sent his pistol spinning away. My vision began to darken.
“Get her before her eyes go!”
One of them tackled me. His sizable mass brought me to the cold, hard ground. My dress tore, but the damage to my body was worse. My breath left me in a rush, my ribs creaked, and my shoulder screamed.
Scream. I opened my mouth and let out a shriek that practically vibrated the walls. The guard who’d tackled me clapped a hand over my mouth, mashing my lip against my tooth. I tasted the metallic flavor of blood.
I jerked my head, and my teeth sank into his hand with all the strength in my jaws. I tasted his blood then, even through his glove.
He shouted a curse. His other hand ripped free from underneath my weight and cuffed me over the head. My temple bounced against the ground, and stars flashed in my vision, brightening the rapidly encroaching darkness. They weren’t the subtly twinkling stars of the still sky, or the liquid streaks of an engaged Belarius Drive. These were violent stars, bursting and popping like high-speed supernovas. Only then did my teeth let go of him.
Somebody seized a handful of my hair, breaking some of the jeweled strands braided into it. A tinkling rain of gems on the hard floor accompanied the sting of an injection in my neck.
The stars burst all over my body then, tingling, weighting my limbs with their impossible gravity. I couldn’t move. I could barely protest as two guards lifted me up by my arms and began dragging me down the hallway, away from the direction of the ball or any help. Into the darkness.
But the darkness was barely in my eyes anymore. I tried to reach for the Shadow beckoning at the edges of my vision, and I couldn’t. Whatever they’d given me kept me from it, just like it kept me from lifting my head.
My eyes rolled back under heavy lids, and a different sort of darkness claimed me.
I opened my eyes only a few more times before we arrived, enough to know that I had no idea where I was, and that they’d carried me, silently, for a long way. Long enough for me to wonder at the inefficiency of not using a chair or bed equipped with hover jets, or even old-fashioned wheels. But maybe they didn’t want to draw more attention to themselves than one limp body could already bring. All the turbolifts we took, dropping us deeper into the depths of the citadel, seemed to be for private use only.
After we passed through a pair of thick, alloy doors—any opulence in the décor long since abandoned—I realized, with a sickening lurch, that the room almost looked familiar, even in my blurred, murky vision.
It was white, lined in counters, cupboards, and shiny equipment. The closest object that I could make out in the center of the room was a long table, outfitted with straps and blinding spotlights. An operating table, nearly identical to the one on the Treznor-Nirmana destroyer. Other tables were beyond it, but I had trouble focusing that far.
I couldn’t fight nearly as much as the last time, however, as they hefted me, gown and all, onto the table. The bindings bit into my arms and legs as they positioned and tightened straps, but I was unable to even tug against them, let alone break them.
The guards blurred into the background. Maybe some of them had left, but I couldn’t tell. Time passed, but how much I wasn’t sure. Maybe only a half hour. Maybe hours. Voices faded in and out, and my shoulder blades grew sore and cold from the metal surface of the table.
Eventually, I heard a voice that caught my drifting attention. It was vaguely familiar, and angry, unlike any of the other voices. “What were you thinking? She isn’t supposed to be here.”
“Apologies, my lord,” the Bladeguard replied in his polite, steady tone, “but she was attempting to return to her ship to leave. She resisted, and we had to act fast. This was the only place we could take her where she wouldn’t be seen in this condition.”
“Did she see?”
“Her eyes have been open intermittently.”
There was a sigh. “The damage is already done, thanks to you, but perhaps we can control it. If this sets us back, there will be repercussions.”
“Yes, my lord. Should we move her?”
“This is the most secure place at the moment. We don’t want anyone else getting their hands on her.” The voice was only irritated now, the anger under control. “We’ll move her elsewhere when all our guests have departed. Stand by, for now.”