It drifts through the Isle of Skye’s dark airstream, it’s anchor weighed, and at first it looks like just a planetary shadow against the night. As we near it though, the shadow pixelates. Blocks of different-colored blacks and grays hide the stars behind them like the intentional censoring of a deviant film image. The hovercycle sends out a pulse of light; it strobes the shadow. Then, a pulse of light from the desaturated night sky engulfs us. The cycle reacts, lurching as it’s drawn forward.
I squeak in fear and Trey immediately reassures me. “Shh, it’s okay.” He rubs my hands with his. “It’s a tractor beam. They’re bringing us in.”
A shimmering, scrolling line etches in the sky; it carves an elaborate Victorian keyhole opening. As we pass through the keyhole and beyond the shield, the camouflage recedes and the tractor beam disengages. The light from a massive cityscape is visible on top of an elliptical, metallic base. Trey flies us closer and it’s clear that Skye’s headquarters is a world onto its own—a world incased in a floating transparent bubble. Inside this shield, Ethar’s moon is visible and so close that I can see the dark blue craters in its surface.
As Trey takes us closer to the bottom portion of the fortress, we’re dwarfed by the etched hieroglyphs of modern-looking warriors. These massive carved soldiers with a myriad of deadly weaponry conceal the very real cargo doors, gun slits, and other defensible weapons that track us as we pass.
My head spins as we travel upward and pass elaborate, vine-covered terraces with living quarters, and still more canons whose barrels could swallow us whole. Finally, we reach the top of this massive orb, flying over a city of jutting skyscrapers with causeways that run between the towering structures. Ships of every size and shape scramble near us at dangerous speeds. The unfamiliarity of it all is doing nothing to ease the shock of this night.
Bypassing this city on top of the world, we descend to the other side of the ellipse. The surface of the round landing deck illuminates as we approach it. Trey quickly opens the hatch of the hovercycle. As he rises, he takes me in his arms and holds me to him for a moment. Then he kisses my temple before he crushes me to him again. I’m grateful for his arms around me because he’s the only thing keeping me from falling.
“Kricket,” Trey says my name and it betrays his raw emotion. He touches my face as it rests against the hollow of his neck. The backs of his fingers caress my cheek before his large hand slips behind my neck, tugging me to him so that our lips meet. His kisses are pure emotion, filled with a savage urgency that’s brought on by anger and fear. They speak to me with an unrestrained truth: I can’t lose you.
My heart, that I have tried so hard to make stone, beats furiously. All I want is to be in your arms, my lips convey as an answer to his. I cling to him as if someone might try to tear us apart.
The sound of the other hovercycles arriving makes Trey lift his lips from mine. “I love you,” he whispers quickly before his men come nearer. Unwilling to let me go, he picks me up. He strides along the terrace to an arching portico with Jax and Wayra close behind us. At the end of the hallway, sleek, glass-paneled doors disappear into the ceiling ahead of us as we enter a glass enclosure. Grid-like patterns of light shine on me from above, scanning every inch of my body. Next, the opaque glass wall in front of us dematerializes. This allows me a view of the bustling crowd of Cavars within the floating city.
Jax and Wayra speak to the armed Cavars stationed near the entrance while Trey lowers me to my feet. Gazing around, I’m amazed by the vastness of the fortress. It’s like some sort of elegant mall with interconnecting walkways above and pod-like vehicles that move through transparent tubes fast enough to make them just a blur of color.
“This is…”
“Skye,” Trey finishes for me.
“I should have known.”
“Why?” Trey asks.
“Because you guys are always so literal.”
A smile touches his lips, the first that I’ve seen tonight. It causes his eyebrows to lift a bit. “Yes. Is that bad?”
“Depends.”
“On what?’
“On what they want from me.”
“Agreed. I’m working on aligning those stars we talked about, but for the moment, the stars are still hot enough to scorch us,” Trey replies, leading me through the twisting luminous hallways.
I’m already lost in this labyrinth. “Where are we going?” Every passageway looks exactly like the last.
“My quarters,” he replies, and my heartbeat drums in my chest in anticipation of seeing where he lives.
The passageways abruptly become posh with wider portals, alcoves, and soft lighting. Coming to enormous double doors at the end of an elegant hallway, Trey says, “Gennet Allairis.”
Immediately, the doors lift, allowing us to enter before they close again. My mouth drops open, seeing an entire wall of glass on the other side of the room with an unimpeded view of the brilliant moon. I hold Trey’s hand as I walk over the black marble floor. Descending a few stairs to a sunken seating area in front of the glass, I peer down at the skyscrapers below.
“What is gennet?” I ask absently, not ready to look at him yet.
“It’s a rank—like general,” he replies, reaching out to touch my cheek.
“You were promoted? No more Kesek?”
“Yes, that’s right. It means that I can decide the missions I lead.”
“So, tonight was—”
“My first official mission as gennet,” he replies. “I received your message.”
“Message? I didn’t send you a message,” I frown, looking into his violet eyes.
He brushes my hair back from my face and smiles down on me. “I was uninvited to your swank…Manus let me know that it was by your insistence that I not attend. You wouldn’t have done that unless something really bad was going to happen.” His fingers trail over my cheek and down to my neck, making me shiver.
“How did you know that?” I ask breathlessly with my eyes on his lips.
Leaning near my ear, he says, “I know you.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Then what am I thinking?” I try to stop the tears from clouding my eyes.
“I had Victus lie to Manus—I’m no longer engaged to Charisma.”
“You’re not?”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m not. I knew things were bad for you. I knew that Manus was forcing you into the engagement. I was trying to make things easier for you by letting him think I was still engaged until I could find a way to get you out. You didn’t believe that I’d walk away from you after everything we’ve been through—after the promises I made to you when we were last together?”
“I didn’t know—”
“You can trust me with your heart, Kricket,” Trey says as if he’s speaking directly to the organ in question. “I won’t allow Manus near you. All the wealth in the world won’t keep us apart, I promise you,” Trey says. He takes me in his arms and hugs me again.
“What about your family? Manus told me that he’d crush you and them if I didn’t agree to be his consort,” I explain, feeling desperate.
“I’m a Gennet of Skye. I’ll crush him if he tries.”