“Who is she?” the male voice asks.
“She’s why we’re here. Find out what’s wrong with her and fix it.”
“Yes, Brother Kyon,” the male responds with a military tone, knowing exactly who Kyon is. I feel a dull pain stick my arm. The blond male hovering over me says, “I’ve injected her with nanobots. They’ll circulate in her bloodstream. I should know what ails her momentarily.”
“I’ve cut her hair twice in the span of less than a few parts. Nothing should be ailing her,” Kyon says, and he sounds worried. About me?
“Is she the rogue priestess? The one we’ve come to rescue?”
“She is. She’s also my intended consort,” Kyon says between his teeth. “If she dies, I will make sure you follow not far behind her.”
All business now, the curer responds with a clinical tone, “We can’t assume her physiology is exactly like that of other priestesses. She deviates from the norm with her impure Rafian DNA. She needs to be studied.”
“Your only concern should be in keeping her alive. As I said before, your life depends upon it.”
There’s a pause while the curer scrutinizes a handheld gadget as it makes sporadic blips and beeps in his hands. He exhales a breath. “She’s dehydrated. Cutting her hair wouldn’t solve that. Her electrolytes are depleted and she’s anemic—when was the last time she has eaten?”
“I don’t know,” Kyon says sullenly.
The curer clucks his tongue in a shaming way. “As her intended consort, it’s your job to know. She has an abnormal amount of adrenaline in her bloodstream. Has she suffered a shock of some kind?”
Kyon grabs him by the throat. In a sinister voice, he says, “Rehydrate her and give her a nutrition supplement.”
“Right away,” the curer rasps. When Kyon releases him, the Alameeda medic gets up from his knees next to me and hurries away.
Kyon sits beside me on the floating cot; the fingers of his hand brush mine once, but he doesn’t move to entwine them. His touch is feather-light, almost wistful. “We’ll be home soon. It’s peaceful there—on the Loch of Cerulean. You’ll be safe. I’ll train you to obey me so this never happens again.”
I bite my tongue. He moves his hand away from mine when the curer returns.
“This is a rehyde-pack,” the curer explains, holding up a chrome cylinder the size of his palm. It’s time-release.” He holds the cylinder against my skin. From the bottom of the tube, a small, needlelike tail elongates before it digs into my skin, finding my vein. “She should be fine as soon as this runs its course.”
“How long?” Kyon questions him.
He shrugs. “Less than a part.”
I struggle to bring their faces into focus. My cheek moves on the cushion, finding a cool spot. I try to see where we are. It takes me a second to recognize the saber-toothed open mouth of the saer-shaped carved columns above me that line the gallery. I’m in the rail station of the Premiere Palisade Building. My eyes search for the staircase that leads up to the gallery. When I locate the stairs, I realize where they go: to the skywalk over the reservoir—to Trey’s building—to his apartment.
I begin to feel more lucid as I process that the whole place is crawling with Alameeda soldiers. They’re using this area as a base of operations. Troops cluster around officers who are using the station’s holograms to study the aerial combat maneuvers taking place outside in the airspace above our position. My eyes move on to just beyond them, falling upon a pile of bloody bodies pushed into a heap in the corner—not one of which has blond hair. Panic hits me and with it comes the urge to vomit again.
My head rises from the cot; I turn away from the dead, finding Kyon’s blue eyes watching me. I let mine slip out of focus. Feigning the panic of delirium, I whimper, “Don’t lose the white rabbit! We have to follow him!” I allow my head to rest upon the cushion again.
“Eh?” the curer says beside me, his fascination with me piqued. “What’s a rabbit?” he asks Kyon, who glowers at him in response.
Coldness seeps beneath my skin. I begin to shiver uncontrollably, but I’m okay with it because it makes me sound more credibly incoherent. “You killed Kenny,” I groan with my lips chattering, “you bastard . . .”
Kyon scowls at the curer, who immediately says, “The shivering is normal. It’s standard with rehydration—it lowers her body temperature. Her delirium should end quickly.” The medic pats my arm. Kyon glares at his hand on me, and it is quickly removed. The medic uses his hand instead to wipe his sweaty brow, apparently taking Kyon’s earlier threat to heart.
Kyon strokes my arm, trying to get my attention. “Kricket?”
I groan again, “The eagle has landed . . .”
“Brother Kyon,” a clipped, military voice says from somewhere behind me. “We’ve located the Regent. We’re attempting to move him now. He’s in medical stasis, but there’s a problem with the regulator.”
“Have someone else see to it,” Kyon responds with a wave of his hand in a dismissive gesture, returning his concerned eyes to me. “I’m attending to my priestess.”
“Brother Excelsior wants to consult with you on this matter,” the soldier replies in an insistent tone.
The name makes a noticeable difference upon Kyon: he stiffens and exhales a frustrated breath. “Very well,” he acquiesces. “I’ll be there momentarily.”
The soldier’s retreating footsteps tap on the marble floor. Kyon glowers at the medic beside him. “You have to stay with her. Do not let her out of your sight. Am I clear?” he asks.
The good doctor swallows his anxiety and replies, “I understand.”
“Give her a sedative; I don’t want her to panic if she becomes lucid.”
The medic immediately reaches into his pocket and extracts a needlelike gun from it. He holds it up to the light and calibrates the needle with the dial-like gauge on its side. He draws the needle toward me when Kyon grabs his wrist. “That’s too much. You’ll render her completely unconscious. She’s small. She needs half of what you have there.”
The doctor dials back on the tranquilizer. He holds up the gauge on the readout for Kyon to approve. Kyon nods his head. “Good.”
Leaning forward, the curer holds the sharp instrument to my neck and pulls the trigger. A pain jolts me and I have to stifle the torrent of swear words I want to rain down upon his head. Instead, I murmur, “Did you try the znous? They taste lovely.”
Kyon reaches out and gently rubs my cheek with the back of his fingers. He has an unguarded look, one I’ve never seen from him before as he murmurs, “And you are very lovely in your madness.”