or Dreama, or any of the rest of the people who’d lingered in the hangar to watch us enact this scene.
I could have sworn some of them sighed, and Nina, a shadow on the edge of the crowd as usual, was smiling and weeping at the same time. When I flashed her a look in question, she just shook her head and kept on grinning. Beside her, Birdie made a sweeping motion with her hand, indicating that I should leave.
I was working on it, and this wasn’t easy. None of this was easy.
Breathing especially had become difficult.
Little as I wanted to address it, nothing had changed with me physically since the tunnels. I still couldn’t pull in a breath, and from experience, I knew what this meant. Back in my world, it would mean a treatment regimen, a lengthy isolation in a med ward. Here? All ancients and holies… What was I supposed to do here?
And how was I going to give Astor the night he deserved when my medical reality had intruded like this? I couldn’t tell him. Them. I couldn’t tell any of them.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait long to find out how I’d handle it.
My chest tightened until I couldn’t take another step, couldn’t catch my breath. I stopped moving, disentangled my hand from Astor’s, and bent over, placing my hands on my knees. I didn’t know if that helped or not, but that was what I’d always done when it got that bad.
I didn’t know why. I’d never understood it. But it was as though as the cage that constricted my lungs and the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears took over my existence, I had to hold on to my knees. This was a bad one. I didn’t know the last time I’d had one this bad.
But they’d warned me… It was why I needed a new heart.
“Bianca?” Astor placed his hand on my back. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head, and he winced.
“What can I do for you?”
There was nothing. Without medical care, there would be no making this better. And suddenly, that didn’t matter because there wasn’t enough air in the world. I gasped, my knees giving out, and Astor caught me as I fell. There was some kind of commotion, but I couldn’t lift my head. Life was just getting enough air. In and out.
Was there a transport parked on my chest?
I was lifted off the ground. Strong hands. I wasn’t alone. There was comfort in that. I wasn’t alone. Really, for the first time in my life.
In. And out.
Med wards have that certain disinfectant smell, not unlike the Reamer compound, which is sort of the opposite of comforting. They also have certain sound, an arrangement composed of the beeps of monitors, huffs of breathing machines, and the odd clink of mechanical surgeons switching appendages. Sometimes, the whir of a saw or the gurgle of fluid being dispensed will punctuate a beat. No one talked in a med ward. I always thought it would be the loneliest place to die.
The reality of my end, here in this strange and violent and dirty and beautiful world, was far different. There were voices all around me, warm and worried, the voices of my men, and behind them, my people. Running, calling, murmuring encouragement to me. I wanted to thank them, to reassure them that this was okay, I was okay with dying and had been preparing for it for so long.
But they wouldn’t listen. They wouldn’t understand.
For them, my death was not inevitable. It was extremely evitable.
More footsteps, running. I couldn’t see anymore, even with my eyes open, and I no longer attempted to fill my lungs with each inhalation. They wouldn’t fill. I just needed to avoid panicking.
You guys, my guys, you don’t have to worry. It’s really okay.
But I didn’t have air to speak. Everything inside me was slowing, preparing to pack up and move on. I closed my eyes, no longer struggling to see.
I felt weightless and thought it was some new symptom, a transition maybe, but then there were hands on me, lifting. They were moving me. To Astor’s lab, probably, but the smells weren’t right.
The blur of light through my eyelids became a blur of black.
And the smell changed. Gone was the dust and sweat and food and exotic plants. Now I was in a ship. My spaceship. Heading to Jooron Five to get my new heart. Mechanical heart. Not a lover’s heart, a