stupid of me to accept the pills so blindly.”
Tauran hugged him tight in return. “But it’s Falka! I trusted him. It was my idea to ask, and I vouched for him!”
“You couldn’t have known,” Kalai said, gently. “He’s always been good to you.”
Tauran swore. “Catria tried to warn me. In the bakery. I went with her to visit her father. I think Falka’s feeding him the same pills.”
Kalai raised his head. “Villy? Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know. None of this is making any sense.” Tauran sighed.
Kalai’s stomach clenched for a whole other reason. “There’s something you should know.” He told Tauran everything Sparrow had said. About the burned documents and the execution of the old archivist. “The blood under the rug. The scratched words on the floor. It’s a warning.” He studied Tauran’s face closely.
Tauran had remained silent throughout, but his body was tense and tight as a bowstring. “Aihiri was a rebel,” Tauran whispered, although he sounded more uncertain than Kalai had ever heard him before. “He betrayed the guard, somehow.”
“And the stolen documents?” Kalai asked cautiously. Tauran looked on the edge, teetering dangerously. The last thing Kalai wanted was to hurt him. He had been hurt so much, already.
“I know, I know.” Tauran pressed his palms against his eyes. He took a heavy breath. “I have to talk to Falka. He’ll have to answer for this. All of it.”
“Tauran,” Kalai said quietly, making him raise his head. “I’m running out of the pills.” He felt guilty for saying it, and ashamed of admitting it. Guilty for putting yet more on Tauran’s already burdened shoulders. Ashamed for getting himself addicted like the poor lost souls stalking the fringes of the ruined city district, high off their minds on redcloud root.
For the first time, Tauran’s eyes lit up. He took both Kalai’s hands. “I spoke to the physician about that, too. She wants to see you. She says she knows a way to wean you off the pills, safely. So you don’t have to get sick like this again. We can go first thing in the morning.”
Kalai’s heart swelled suddenly with deep affection, banishing the nausea and the fear threatening to overtake him. Yet again, Tauran had his back. Even amidst his own wretched mess. Kalai slipped through his grasp and pressed himself against Tauran’s chest. In the shelter of Tauran’s arms, he felt safer than ever before.
“Please be careful,” Kalai whispered. “Falka has the power to hurt you.”
“Don’t worry,” Tauran murmured against his hair. “He won’t.”
* * *
It was dark by the time Tauran made his way to the Sunrise Tower, streetlights flickering to life around him as workers on ladders ignited the gas in the round, orange-stained glass chambers. Conversation and laughter filtered form a nearby bar, but the normally infectious atmosphere did little to soothe Tauran’s nerves.
When Falka had taken Tauran under his wing, Tauran was barely twenty years old. Falka had been well aware of his boisterous nature and his disregard for authority. But he still gave Tauran a chance, saving him the shame of returning to his mother’s home in the country, useless and without a job or education. Tauran had been a nobody, the poor son of a dead father and a mother who had struggled to keep her family fed. Tauran had done nothing to help them. After his father’s death, Tauran had hardly been able to stand the walls of their home. They felt constricting, choking him. He had to get out. Out and up, into the skies. Although he hadn’t known the latter until Falka had granted him a chance and a future. Tauran owed him everything.
The skies had been his home, and now he could never return to the only place he’d truly felt at peace.
It was Andreus’ fault. Andreus and his rebels.
The guard at the gate gave Tauran a look of relief when he saw him. “Sir,” the young man said. “The baby titan has been screeching for you all day. Falka told me to inform you as soon as you returned that she’s giving all the recruits a headache.”
Tauran resisted a sigh. “I’ll take care of it,” he said, without slowing down. The recruits’ headaches would have to wait.
He found Falka in the tower entrance hall, taking reports from a ground soldier. When Falka saw Tauran, he gave him a crooked smile. “Good to see you back. Leyra has been a wild thing all afternoon. I sent a few caretakers up to soothe her, but they