Fall of Sky City (A Steampunk Fantasy Sci-Fi Adventure Novel) (Devices of War) (18 page)

I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. I followed him into the plane and found the nearest crate to collapse onto.

He pulled me up, draping one of my arms over his shoulders. “Do ye remember my warnin’ about the effects of using yer gift too much?”

I did. “I remember you whining about how we were using the wrong components, and that what I wanted to do had never been done before.”

He nodded. “Ye would remember tha’.” He took us to the stairs that led up.

I grabbed the rail and pulled myself up the steps, trying to remove my arm from around his shoulders.

He didn’t let go. “Ye should learn how ta use that gift of yers differently.”

“They wouldn’t teach me anything.”

“Nix was probably afraid of what ye’d do if ye ever learned to stand up ta her.”

I nodded and looked around for Haji.

He’d found Yvette and the two of them disappeared into the cockpit.

“Ye worry about ‘im,” Joshua said, motioning toward Haji.

“Yeah.” I paused to watch them disappear. “He lost his Family and then his best friend. He’s changed.” I shook my head. “He’s different.”

“We’re always changin’.” Joshua guided me over the mid stair landing and up the other half. “But the big thin’s have a bigger impact.”

“I just want him to be okay.”

“I’m sure he will be.”

I nodded.

Joshua opened a door and let go of me. “Here ye go. Sleepin’ quarters.”

Sure enough. A double bunk sat in wedged in the far corner. There were other things too, but the only thing I was interested in right then was a bed. “Thanks.”

He clapped me on the back, sending me stumbling into the room. “Ge’ some sleep.”

I didn’t hear him shut the door. I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

* * *

I woke up to silence.

I hadn’t realized just how loud the past day had been until I opened my eyes and there weren’t any sounds; not the plane settling around me or sand falling against the skin of the plane, or even people talking. Just. Quiet.

I was okay with that.

I turned onto my back and stared at the bottom of the bunk above me, which was flat. There was obviously no one in it. I lightly drummed my fingers against my chest and let my mind go empty.

A lot had happened, a lot I didn’t want to think about and probably wouldn’t. My feet weren’t itching to move, so it was a good time to reflect, whether I liked it or not.

The pain in my head was minimal. I couldn’t hear her voice. Aside from a faint pattering against my skull, I would have thought I’d beaten whatever this compulsion was.

But I felt her. She was waiting.

How could I escape when I was still under Nix’s control? That didn’t even make sense.

Something I had promised? Really?

I closed my eyes and allowed myself to remember the times Nix had tried to break me, reform and train me. She was very good. It wasn’t all about torture. No. I wasn’t so tough that I thought I could handle anything. I had my limits. My father had done a good job in teaching me where those limits were, but he’d done nothing to teach me how to withstand the torment of pleasure.

Torment. Pleasure. I draped my arm over my eyes and sank deeper into the bunk. Together, they didn’t even make sense, but it had worked. While straight beatings and starvation had only fueled me, a little alcohol, maybe a drug and a little pleasure worked perfectly.

What had I promised?

I would have promised just about anything.

Glossing over the details, though, I couldn’t recall what I might have said, might have given away. Would I have really promised that I’d always come back to her? Even in my worst moments? Really? Had the torment ever been that bad?

I shook my head. No.

Then what had she wrought from me? What would I be willing to give away? What oath would I have been willing to make upon my soul?

A chill swept down my spine and my eyes sprung open, seeing her darkly lashed eyes peering deep into mine, feeling her hand on my lower abdomen, the fan of her breath against my chest.

“You are mine,” she’d whispered.

I’d done everything I could to school the contempt from running across my lips as I’d shivered from the touch of her fingertips.

Her lips ran up my chest to my collarbone, her tongue darting out, tracing the line of it. “Tell me.”

I closed my eyes and turned away.

Her hand rose to my bound one. “I can keep you like this all night. I can keep you like this for days.” She rose, straddling my hips, her bustled skirt draped over my legs. “As you well know.”

I stared at her, fighting to relax my jaw.

“You want to go back to classes, don’t you? To spend time in your precious laboratory?” She flexed her hands, running her nails down my chest.

I arched into them, unable to stop myself.

The corner of her lips rose, and she lowered herself over me, bringing her corseted chest to mine. “Tell me you’re mine.”

I nodded.

She put her fingertip to my lips, her breath whispering along them. “With your words.”

I opened my mouth to force out the words, to make it stop, to regain some semblance of manliness, of pride, but the only thing that came out was a stark, “I am.”

She smiled. “No. In the language of your old home. Tell me.” Her fingers ran along my jaw, as if to coax the words.

They were stuck somewhere in my throat.

She reached between us and took hold of me.

I bucked violently, needing release, aching with it, but I did not want to with her, in front of her, because of her. I would do so on my terms.

She wasn’t having it. Her hand moved. “Just tell me.”

I held off for as long as I could, her body grinding on me as her hand caressed me. I just wanted her gone. I wanted to escape, to get out of there, to be free of her.

I threw back my head and yelled in my native language, “I am yours.”

She stilled, a triumphant smile lighting her expression. “And no one else’s,” she said in my tongue. “Only mine.”

I stilled with hopeful relief. “Only yours.”

Her smile widened as she crawled off the bed and sauntered to the door. “Remember that. Do not ever forget it. You are mine, Synn.” She stopped at the door. “You always will be.”

That had to be it. She’d been able to get many promises out of me. Not to meet her gaze at dinner unless she ordered it. Not to speak to anyone unless she told me it was okay. Not to touch anyone. Not to allow anyone to touch me.

My mind went still. What exactly had I given up when I’d promised to be hers?

How was I going to get it back?

CHAPTER 16

THEY FOUND US

I soon
got tired of lying around with only my thoughts to keep me company. They weren’t really fantastic thoughts to begin with, and they weren’t helping me figure out a way out of there. I had no idea where “out of here” we needed to go. Without a radio, I didn’t know how to get in touch with the Great Families, or if the other tribes would even let me back in.

The soft pounding in my head was like a gentle knock, reminding me that no matter where I went, Nix was always with me.

I was contaminated by the Hands. I was afraid to admit how much Nix had really changed me. In my heart, I knew I would never be a Hand. It wouldn’t happen, but how much had I changed while in their care?

Part of me was afraid to find the
Yusrra Samma,
afraid of finding out I was no longer an airman, that I no longer had what it took to live free.

I ran a hand over my scalp, my fingers tangling in my hair. I needed to get a grip. Of course I had what it took to be an airman, to live free on the only home I’d ever known. It was going to take more than an entire season with a psychotic woman to change that. I was an El’Asim. I was never, nor would I ever be a Primus.

I pulled myself off the bunk, my stomach growling for food, and headed down to the cargo bay. No one was there.

No one was in the cockpit, either.

I listened intently for the sounds of anyone, but heard nothing.

I headed toward the stairs and went down where the makeshift lab was. Empty.

Alarm shot through me. I went back to my bunk and searched the other rooms. I could tell that a few of the bunks had at least been slept in, including the one over mine, but they were all empty.

I went to the cargo bay, my steps a little faster this time, and headed toward the tail of the plane. The door was wedged. It wouldn’t open and it wouldn’t close.

Voices.

I sighed with relief and followed the sound.

Sang was high in the sky, and Kala was nowhere to be seen. The pale sand shimmered in the bright blue-white light of the smaller sun. Yvette sat on a beetle leg, her chin propped in her hand, staring into the small fire they’d built. Joshua lay sprawled on the sand, one arm bent, supporting his head. Haji was stooped over something in his lap, intent on whatever it was. Keeley sat cross-legged on the other side of the fire, both hands behind her, her head thrown back, her long red hair loose and trailing in the sand.

“Ah, so the man finally awakens,” Joshua said brightly, barely glancing in my direction.

Yvette shot me a dark glare. “While you were getting your beauty sleep, the rest of us were working.”

“Sorry.” I walked past Yvette and maneuvered around the fire to sit between Joshua and Keeley. “How long was I out?”

“A day and a half,” Keeley said, still staring up into the sky.

“Really?” I placed my hands behind me and stared up into the sky. It was bright. I blinked, my eyes tearing and sat back up. “Sorry.”

Joshua threw some sand into the air and watched it fall back to the surface. “I told ye tha’ would happen, but would ye listen ta me? Nooooo. Why? Because you bloody well know better.”

I groaned. For the love of sky, how long was I going to have to suffer through the I-told-you-so’s? “Okay. I hear you. I just didn’t understand the full impact of what you were saying.”

“And now ye do?”

I opened my mouth to say something smart-assed, but yawned instead, my mouth falling wider and wider, the yawn overtaking my entire body. When I was done, I gave him a “what do you think” look.

He gave me a bored smile.

“So what are we doing?” I asked.

“Well,” Yvette said, crossing her arms over her chest, “while you were sleeping, Haji managed to fix the radio.”

I looked at her with excitement. “Did you hail the
Yusrra Samma
?”

She shrugged, raising her chin and looking elsewhere.

She and I never got along, but was it just me, or were things now getting worse? Was there something I’d missed? Had I done something wrong?

Haji didn’t look up from what he was working on. “We hailed a passing ship, someone we trust. He said he would pass word along to Isra.”

I ducked my head and grinned. “She’s alive.”

He didn’t look up from what he was doing, his tone distracted. “Apparently so.”

Relief washed over me. “What are you working on?”

“Not telling you,” my best friend said. “You are compulsed. This will help us, but not you.”

I rolled my eyes and turned to Joshua. “What do we have in the way of rations?”

“Luckily, Keeley planned ahead and was able ta procure some foods tha’ store well.”

“The Hands were planning on an attack that might keep the city isolated, I think,” Keeley said to the sky. “They had whole teams of people working on ways to prepare foods so they could be stored for years at a time, some for an entire turn.”

My eyebrows rose. “An entire turn? That can’t be healthy.” I shot her a look of question. “Can it?”

She shrugged. “We had some already, and they seemed okay.”

“Okay?” Haji muttered. “You have a very odd sense of the word okay. They were disgusting.”

“But you didn’t die,” she said. “You could have.”

“That is a very loose definition of the word,” Haji said.

I chuckled. “Well, I’m hungry. Could someone point me in the way of the horrible tasting food that won’t quite kill me?”

Keeley stood up, brushing the sand from her clothes. “I’ll show you how to heat them up.”

I pulled myself to my feet and followed.

She was quiet as she rummaged through one of the crates and pulled out a dark bag of a substance I hadn’t seen before. It looked like the underbelly of an octoartus, but it was a dark brown instead of the brighter colors they tended to be. She pulled out a bar, broke it, shook it and then put it back in the bag. She set it down and waited.

I perched on one of the crates and waited. “How long does it take?”

She just stared at it, her blank gaze filled with boredom.

It took several minutes before she said it was ready. I took the bag and peered inside. It looked…mildly vile and possibly disgusting, but after scooping some of the sludge-like substance in my mouth, it turned out to be not too bad. I still finished it quickly, having no wish to linger over the “meal.”