in Red’s pulse. It quickens, followed by a surge of warmth, some sense of fear and delirium. It’s the only thing that brings a determined smile to the edges of my lips. He’s close. If Adena does what we came here to do, then soon these Ghosts will be breaking out of their confines in a rage.
I wait until there’s a clearing, and then dart to hide behind another glass room. I can feel myself edging close to Red now. I turn to look down the aisle of glass chambers—until my gaze rests on the creature inside the room I’m crouching behind.
Inside is a Ghost. No, it’s a silhouette I recognize all too well. A human, crouched, half transformed, with blood trickling down his arms and legs as they hyperextend into the elongated limbs of Ghosts. But it is his eyes that catch me off guard.
They are a bright, searing blue, surrounded by cracked, bleeding skin.
Corian. It’s Corian. It must be him.
Everything in me freezes. Corian’s body, lying in the middle of the forest after I’d been forced to end his life. He’s here—the Federation took him and brought him back to their labs. I stare in horror at his face peering back at me, those blue eyes now bloodshot and twitching with pain and anger.
I had not just failed Corian on the battlefield. I’d failed him in the final vow of a Striker to his Shield—to make sure that he dies a clean death, that he doesn’t end up in the hands of the Federation, doomed to be twisted into a creature that is no longer human. To become a war beast of the Federation itself. And suddenly I’m there in the forest again, standing over my Shield’s fallen body, his blood dripping from my blade. I’m kneeling in the dirt beside him and sobbing in silence, willing him back.
Corian is here. It has to be him.
But no! I’d carried him back to the defense compound myself. I’d seen his body laid to rest during his funeral, had been one of those to light him with fire.
I close my eyes, willing my heart to calm.
When I open my eyes again, I realize that the Ghost inside the chamber isn’t Corian. His eyes are different, the tormented features of his face are slightly longer, his cheeks deeper set than my former Shield’s. Through his nearly unrecognizable frame, I now can see that this Ghost was once someone else.
Not Corian.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Everything here feels wrong. Through my link with Red, I can sense a rivulet of what I think is terror. I realize that his heartbeat through the link isn’t rapid because he’s anxious about our presence here.
He’s trying to warn us.
Red, I call to him. Red, what’s happening?
His answer slices through my mind. Get out.
Then the space where I’m crouching suddenly floods with brightness. I’m momentarily blinded by an intense, white light.
Through our link, Red’s warning heightens into horror.
“Well. You’re here now.”
A familiar voice over me makes me look up. Through my watering eyes, I see the silhouette of a gaunt young man.
It’s the Premier. The silver thread of his collar shines in the light, and his eyes are narrowed at me in curiosity. A faint smile plays on his lips.
“You’re the one I saw at the bathhouse,” he says in that rasping voice. He speaks to me in Maran this time, which is how I know he’s figured out who we are. “And you’re the one bonded to my Skyhunter.”
27
Red senses the instant I’m captured. It’s a merging of his fear and mine.
I wince at the sudden brightness. All around me, the Ghosts stir out of their uneasy sleep. Snarls and the gnashing of teeth surround me.
Red, I try to call through our link. But it’s no use. All I feel through our bond now is extreme terror and despair. Somewhere else in the space, I hear the sound of blades scraping hard enough to cut lines into glass walls. He’s not far now. I can feel his rapid pulse increasing.
The Premier watches me closely. It’s as if he were searching for evidence on my face that I can sense Red through a bond, and when I meet his eyes, he gives me a smile.
I grab for a dagger—but my fingers barely brush the blade’s hilt before someone hits me hard in the neck, and a searing pain shoots through my limbs. Then guards are on me, pushing me hard