CHAPTER 2
LISTEN TO YOU BREATHING
I’m violently ripped away from myself. My consciousness leaves my body. Hovering above me for a moment, I see Kyon holding my cold, lifeless form. He notices the change in me immediately. He knows I’m no longer there. Shaking me in anger, he growls when I don’t open my eyes. “Kricket,” he snarls, knowing somehow that I’m still here. He pulls my lifeless body up from the sand, gripping my shoulders; he shelters my wet body from the pull of the sea.
My attention wanes from Kyon because I’m everywhere and nowhere; woven in the air with only one thought: Trey. I become a compass needle searching for north. In no time, I’m miles high, scorched by heat even when I’m bathed in darkness that only the light of the Etharian moons relieves.
I travel over the water. It glows beneath me with an ancient, iridescent fire. A galaxy of stars burn beneath its surface, but the Sea of Stars doesn’t last. I flash forward, crossing over cities I’ve never been to before, past mountains and wilderness that harbor herds of creatures for which I have no names. In the moonlight, the abandoned husk of the City of Amster slouches. I recognize it from the time that I had traveled through the restricted area with Trey on my way to Rafe. It sits in a valley and grows haphazardly into the horizon. Waves of decrepit buildings crest the landscape in currents.
What I know of this city is that a plague called Black Math decimated it more than a thousand years ago. Ancient walls that were built up to the clouds are crumbling now. The wind whistles through their broken windows, echoing low, sorrowful moans.
I arrive at a dust-covered junction where buildings meet to form a triangle. Abandoned vehicles line the streets. Weathered by time, they resemble the skeletons of decaying beasts. No one stirs to disturb the quiet of the rusting boneyard.
I lurch sideways, being tugged to marble steps in front of a gothic, gray stone structure. I move like a ghost through the tangle of vine and vegetation that clings to the twisted stone railings. I don’t use the entryway ahead, but instead surge through the solid wall as lightning into a metal rod. Dust-covered marble floors inlaid with gold greet me on the other side. Above me, cathedral ceilings with fresco paintings of elaborate detail spreads out as if they were tattoos on an aging sailor. Their fading colors still portray the beauty of a bygone era.
Movement draws my attention. Around me, soldiers like matchstick men with fiery eyes and thin, well-honed bodies keep watch at strategic points. They’re ready to take fire and give it. Clad in feather-light high-polymer vests, they’re heavily armed with sophisticated weaponry. Their sharp eyes look right through me, invisible as I am, not being of their time but, rather, days behind them.
This building is a gateway, I think. They’re defending something.
I don’t remain with them, but lurch through grand cathedral-like chambers until I pass through the outer wall onto a raised stone terrace. Outside once more, my whole perspective changes in an instant. It’s an oasis in a wasteland of decay. Gone are the dilapidated shell buildings; they’re replaced by a small, sparsely lit city. It’s concealed under an iridescent dome, which rises into the night sky.
I’m drawn down the stone steps with a swift yank. Lamps hover on either side of the walkways near grassy thoroughfares. I ghost-move by the floating lights that resemble elaborate Aries’ heads. Its wrought-iron horns coil around its ears. Passing beneath one, I see that light shines out from the bleating ram’s mouth.
My attention shifts to the buildings. They’ve been patched up with repurposed items. One of the majestic gothic-style edifices has an awning made from the blade of huge turbine windmills that used to generate power for the ancient city. Sturdy, herringbone-etched columns, bearded by leafy vines, holds it up. Another building clearly had a domed capital at one time, but now it has a flat metal roof with wicked-looking aircraft crouching on its brow.
A pair of hovercycles power up and take off. Quiet and stealthy, the cycles draw closer. I note the riders are the same type of matchstick men whom I saw when I first entered this city. They drive slowly, patrolling the empty thoroughfare with just the low hum of their vehicles to mark their progression.
I hurry forward and pass through an archway. It’s guarded on either side by gigantic statues of sword-wielding strongmen. I spare only a brief glance at the statues’ maniacal expressions, their laurel crowns of blue-green patina, and their general nakedness—only enough time to make sure the statues remain inanimate.
I pass over a thick concrete slab bridge that was added over a dry moat. A courtyard greets me on the other side. This must’ve been the residence of the mayor or some other figurehead of the city. It’s a headquarters now, inhabited by more matchstick men built for war, if the dull fire in their eyes is any indication.
The cavernous old building houses a flurry of activity. Sophisticated control rooms make up most of the ground floor. Monitoring stations wrap around central holograms amid the backdrop of the ornate, gothic chambers. The holograms map out and scrutinize sections of Amster, but others monitor a variety of places on Ethar. I recognize the Isle of Sky—or what’s left of it. In the war-torn streets of Rafe’s city, just outside the courthouse where I was made Manus’s ward, the wounded and dead lie in piles in the streets while Alameeda Strikers, wearing eerie, snake-coiled gas masks with owlish eyeholes, point flamethrowers at them and turn them into billowing-embered bonfires.
The Amster soldier nearest me watches the carnage playing out on the holographic screen. His expression changes from stoic to fearful. It unnerves me as much as the scene in the holographic image. I don’t want to see more. I keep moving, skirting another hologram—this one of a pristine city where fireworks of every color burst and shatter the skyline with brilliant-colored letters spelling out the Etharian word for V I C T O R Y in the darkness. The scene draws a crowd of soldiers. Their passionate eyes are made shiny by the colorful light before them, painting their faces burning red, gold, and umber.
Time won’t wait for me to figure out what’s going on. The invisible chain I’m dangling on tugs me toward the wide stairs in the corner of the room. The black uniformed Amster soldiers on the staircase don’t know I’m there. I pass through them uncontested and rise up the uneven flagstone. It winds around inside the walls like a spiraling seashell. I reach a landing. A commissary encompasses this floor. I don’t stop, but continue to climb, following the urgent tug.
Behind me there’s a loud clatter. Giffen stands in front of an overturned chair amid a roomful of soldiers who continue to move and talk around him. His handsome features bear the expression of someone who has had all the hairs on the back of his neck stick straight up. His long, sandy-colored dreadlocks fall behind his shoulders and away from his face as he turns his head. His eyes, as they dart in my direction, are unexpectedly intimate. For a moment I think he sees me. He flexes his hands in an animalistic way as he straightens his broad shoulders, but his green eyes leave me and scan the area, searching for the source of the change of energy in the air. I’m glad he can’t see me. I’m not here to talk to him. I hope he thinks I’m a demon rising from the dead.
Without pause, I’m dragged to the top of the building. I pass through a large carved-stone threshold into a high-ceilinged room with dormers that lead to the rooftop outside. Unoccupied, hovering cots line the walls in rows. The lighting is so dim that anyone could hide in the crevices of the room undetected. A low hum of a distant machine captures my attention. In the last hoverbed in the corner I find Trey. My nonexistent stone heart squeezes tight like a phantom limb.