“You can’t even walk.” He lifts me in his arms. His body is rigid. He takes me up the stairs to the deck and lays me on a soft-cushioned, legless lounge chair. From a nearby recessed shelf, he grasps a big, white towel, which he lays over me. I’m grateful for it and the fact that it has stopped raining.
Closing my eyes, I intend to rest for just a second. When I open them again, the sun is out. There’s a vermillion-colored, kitelike umbrella flying over me. It’s blocking the worst of the sun’s powerful midday rays. Kyon lounges on another legless deck chair with a whole command center of electronics surrounding him on hovering modules. He’s watching something on one screen and making lists on another at the same time. I can’t hear what he’s listening to, though, because he’s using an earpiece.
My deck chair is all the way reclined, but when I sit up, the back of it comes up to support me. Kyon looks my way. “Your lunch is ready.” He gestures to the floating tray beside me.
“Thank you,” I reply before I begin to eat.
Kyon watches me for a moment, and then he glances back at his screens. “You’ve been monitoring the future—often, haven’t you?”
I don’t see a point in lying, so I reply, “I see things.”
“Did you see anything else last night?”
“And if I did?”
“Then I want to know about it.”
“Because we’ve established a circle of trust?” I reply sarcastically.
He shakes his head. “Your loyalty is so misplaced, Kricket.” He turns one of the hovering monitors to face me. It shows surveillance footage with a time stamp running at the bottom of the screen. My pulse quickens when I see myself on it. I’m strapped to a metal chair in a desolate cell, being brutally beaten by a Rafian soldier—a Brigadet. He punches me in the stomach, and then he follows it with an uppercut. It’s clear that he has knocked me unconscious, but it doesn’t stop him from hitting me until another soldier forcefully pulls him away from me. He spits on me as I sag motionless in the chair, dripping blood from a multitude of open wounds.
Adrenaline surges into my bloodstream and I’m no longer hungry. I have to turn away. “I don’t want to see anymore.”
“It’s footage from the Ship of Skye,” Kyon says with anger he can’t hide. “This is what happened to you before I found you shackled to a pole.”
“I know where it’s from,” I murmur. It’s the interrogation that Trey told me about—it happened. Even if I can’t remember it, it was real.
“Nice friends you had, Kricket. They did this to you,” he says with contempt.
Looking at the monitor again, I watch as I’m struck again and again. “It wasn’t my friends.”
“They’re all part of Skye. They brought you there and allowed this to happen to you.”
I turn away from the gruesome scene playing out on the monitor. Swinging my legs off the lounger, I get up from the chair. The towel on my lap slips to the ground as I bump into the hovering tray, knocking my plate off of it. It shatters on the deck as I hurry down the stairs to the sand. I turn up the beach and run blindly away from him. I don’t know where I’m going and I don’t care, as long as I can get as far from Kyon and the interrogation on his monitor as possible.
When I’m no longer able to run, I slow and walk along the shore, panting and clutching at the stitch in my side. To my left, a wide, grassy path comes into view. Wanting to get off the beach and out of the blistering sun, I turn onto it. It takes me into a grove of palm trees. The trail is lined with conch shells and tropical flowers, which I avoid, because one never knows about the flowers on this ridiculous planet. The path becomes steeper as it wraps around a hill. The trees become thinner. I notice I’m above the beach. There’s a waterfall coming off the cliff face in the distance; it pours into the sea below. Nestled on the cliff near the waterfall is the hangar that I saw on the satellite maps in Kyon’s office.
Continuing to follow the grassy path, I eventually come to the hanger. It’s made almost entirely of glass, with enormous wood beams supporting a metal roof. It reminds me of a longhouse, but on a much grander scale. I walk up to the glass-paneled wall, and it opens for me, granting me access. Inside, there is every kind of airship imaginable and some that are, to me, unimaginable. It feels like a museum with shiny vehicles all polished to the hilt of perfection.
I wander to the airship nearest to me. Etharians call it a trift—it’s a kind of plane, but there are so many different types that “plane” isn’t an adequate description. I don’t know what this type of trift is called; it’s so different from the ones I’ve seen up close, which are only a handful, really. The outside of this one has scales, like dragon skin—muted brown with freckles of green and gold. I run my hand over the hull, and it feels like hardened leather. It’s shaped like a bat. I’d look inside it, but I don’t even know how to get into it.
In the center of the building, a group of hovercycles is arranged in a star pattern, with the rear of each cycle meeting in the center. I walk around them. They’re mean looking. Powerful. One appeals to me more than the others. “Unlace compartment,” I murmur next to it. The hood lifts up, exposing the interior. I slide onto the wide, ice-blue seat, placing my hands on the grips.
“You chose the Ensin hovercycle,” Kyon says from across the room, by the entrance to the hangar. I refuse to look at him.
“No, I didn’t. I chose the blue one.”
He comes closer to me, his footsteps echoing in the cavernous room. “They’re each made from the best manufacturers from the five houses of Ethar. This one is from a company I own in Alameeda.”
It’s hard not to be impressed, but I try anyway. “You design hoverbikes?”
“No. I pay people to design hoverbikes.”
“Oh. What’s this one called?”
“The Empress.” There’s something in his tone that makes me look up at him.
“I had no idea it was female,” I murmur.
“Would you like to pilot her?” he asks.
“You’ll teach me?” I ask breathlessly. I want so badly to learn to drive this. It can get me out of here—be the thing that helps me escape.
“Only if you don’t waste my time. You want to learn, correct?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” I ask rhetorically, running my hands reverently over the curves of the bike.
“No,” he frowns at me. “Especially not priestesses.”
“Why not?” I ask. They’d have to be out of their minds not to want to learn how to do this.
“It’s not seen as feminine,” he says. “It’s beneath them. And dangerous.”
“That’s silly,” I snort. “I want to learn how to pilot every single vehicle in your garage.”
“Hangar.” He moves past me to the hoverbike I just vacated. I go to Kyon. He sits on the hovercycle and lifts his arm, indicating that I should sit in front of him. I hesitate for a second. I should’ve picked a different kind of vehicle, but it’s too late, and I want to learn how to fly this one. I climb onto the seat in front of him.
Being this close to Kyon always scares me. I expect him to hurt me. It’s like being near an exotic animal, like a lion. Even if the lion has been somewhat domesticated, in the end, it’s a ferocious beast and it’ll probably wind up tearing your head off.