RYIN
The bed shifts, pushing me out of slumber. Talia rises and I expect her to go into the bathroom, not to head toward the wardrobe in her room—as if there were not an entire closet full of clothes just down the hall—and dress quickly in the dark. The low illumination through the crack under the door shows me her movements. She slips on pants and a snug tunic. Soft slippers instead of her boots. This puts me on alert. What does she have planned?
She glides out the door and I'm on my feet in an instant. Locating my clothes and pulling them back on. I wait in the doorway as she disappears into the servants’ room. After a few seconds, I follow her, rushing forward to stop the door to the stairwell from closing completely.
Her light footsteps creep one level up, and I follow. She hasn't noticed me, and I'm used to sneaking around the Citadel.
The door to the forty-seventh floor is operated by biometric sensor. No Fai are allowed, so I’ve never been up there, but this is her destination. She presses her hand to the sensor and the door snicks open. I wait as she disappears into the hallway, then race up the steps, skipping three at a time to catch the edge of the door once again before it shuts.
This is insanity. I try to talk myself out of following, but a quick check on the other side shows that I can still enter the stairwell from this level if I need to make a getaway. Of course, if there are guards here, then a lone Fai on a forbidden floor means guaranteed time in the locker, if not worse.
Talia pauses in the hallway, wringing her hands, apparently caught in indecision. My own choice crystallizes before me. Whatever she’s contemplating, I want to know. The stairwell door closes behind me and I come to her side. She stiffens but doesn't turn around. However, her lack of fear and the defeated slump of her shoulders lets me know she knows it’s me.
“You're a light sleeper,” she whispers.
I match her volume. “We have to be. We can be called day or night.” She winces visibly and I'm sorry for inflicting that slight dig, but I’m also hurt by her secrets. Of course I’m not exactly entitled to them, but still.
Finally, she spins to face me fully, her eyes blazing. “Go back. I didn't tell you I was coming here for a reason.”
Hurt is a spiraling bloom within me, but then I see the fear lurking behind her expression. “What are you doing here?”
“Going to the vault.”
“Why? In the middle of the night?”
She crosses her arms and seals her lips shut.
“I've been ordered to accompany you everywhere.”
“You are not allowed in the vault.” Her jaw is tense.
“So, I will stay outside.”
She glares at me, an expression I'm not used to seeing on her. It mars the placid quality she usually possesses. I trace the crease in her forehead with my finger to smooth it, and her eyes widen.
Her nostrils flare but I see the acquiescence before she speaks. “Fine.” Though she worries her bottom lip with her teeth, as if nervous about my presence. I should go back, leave her to whatever it is she's doing. For all intents and purposes, she is the princess and not in any danger. And yet…
And yet, she is. Sometime tonight, Von will give the word and I will have to kidnap her. If I refuse, someone else will do it. The wrongness of it beats within me. Can I still go through with it? How can I not? I should warn her, should have done so earlier, but she starts marching forward before I can speak.
I straighten and remain the customary three steps behind her as she walks the empty hallway. The closed doors on the left are unlabeled and our path draws us nearer to the main elevators. Just beyond them, guards stand on either side of a door with three sensors embedded into the wall.
Talia nods at them, a grizzled, gray-haired soldier and a narrow-eyed younger man. They bow to their princess and eye me suspiciously.
“Fai are not allowed on this floor, Your Grace,” the younger man says.
Talia tilts her chin. “This is my personal healer. He accompanies me everywhere. What if I fall ill suddenly? He must remain nearby.”
The soldiers share a look that’s almost comical. They have their orders, but they’re also duty bound to obey the princess.
“He’ll stay right here with you all here to watch him.” She glances at me over her shoulder. “Stay. Be good,” she says with both a smirk and an apologetic gleam in her eye.
I merely stand at military rest, arms clasped behind me. I ignore the scrutiny of the guards while Talia engages the sensors one at a time. The last one takes a drop of blood from her.
What could she possibly need from the vault at this hour that would have her sneaking away to retrieve? Why would she refuse to tell me? The questions beat at me until the door slides open and she steps through, disappearing inside. Then, I’m struggling not to lunge after her.
My daimon flares, desperately wanting to come to the surface. I clamp down on it, squeezing my eyes shut as it tries to break free. The guards would be spooked if I called it forward. They would certainly call theirs and then there would be a fight.
While the door was opened, as Talia was walking across the threshold, I felt something inside there calling to me. Tugging at me.
I need to get inside that vault.
Two on one are odds I’m willing to try, but I hold myself still with every bit of willpower I possess. It’s harder and harder to do as the minutes tick by. My daimon is impatient with me; it sensed something when the door opened, something it desperately wants to feel again.
Finally, Talia returns, looking annoyed and somewhat defeated. She stands there blocking the closing of the doors, and that's when I feel it more fully.
My soul.
Is inside.
I meet her gaze, my eyes widening. Wonder overtakes her face. I cannot hold it back any longer. The daimon leaps forward, causing the guards to stiffen.
Before they can react or even shift, Talia screams and collapses in the doorway, forcing their attention to her. My daimon’s power shoots out, instinctively checking her for injuries. But it finds nothing. She’s perfectly healthy, and she’s given me a distraction.
I spring at the guards, whose attention is on the crumpled form of their princess. With their inattention and my superior strength, it takes only a moment to knock them both unconscious.
I fish out their handcuffs and restrain them, leaving them sitting, backs against the wall. While I take care of them, Talia rises, keeping the door open. “What happened? Why did your daimon come out?”
I rise, the spirit within urging me forward. “I can feel my soul in there.”
I brush past her and run into the space, past the little sitting area and into the warehouse. It’s nothing but row after row of shelving. I am wild, frenetic. I rise into the air and fly down the first aisle.
“Wait!” Talia calls, but I can’t slow down. My daimon can’t bear to because it senses the one thing that would make me, us, whole again. Our souls connect our bodies to the spirit plane—it’s like they exist in both places, just like bliss does. Somehow the walls of this vault must hide them from us—how could we have been living in the same building as our souls all this time, been this close, and not known?
The shelves race by as I soar toward the thing that’s pulling me like a tether—one hooked straight into my remaining souls.
I pass boxes, baskets, buckets of objects overflowing some shelves. Many of the things here I don’t recognize: Nimali treasures, salvaged from the old world. Electronics and gadgets that don’t work any longer take up a great deal of space. Artwork, sculptures, paintings, furniture. So many useless objects and trinkets that they find valuable.
I draw to a stop suddenly, almost like I’ve hit a wall. I’m at the back corner of the vault and my daimon is practically seething with rage. I float to the ground and find myself standing before an oblong, black box that radiates…evil. That’s the best way I can describe it. I’m tempted to open it, but another tug pulls me away.
On the other side of the row are trays marked with indentations, like smaller versions of the egg cartons used before the Sorrows. Inside each notch, a soul is nestled. The tiny spheres glow with inner light, an inky darkness tinged with purple for the shadow souls. A deep indigo for the voice souls and cerulean for the memory souls. Dozens and dozens of souls—one for every drudge in the Citadel.
I’m frozen in place, staring at the souls before me with tears in my eyes.
Talia comes up behind me, breathing hard. She takes a look at me and then at what I’m staring at. “Is that them?”
I nod, unable to form words.
“No wonder I couldn’t find them all the way back here.” Then she disappears around the corner.
She’s back in moments, a large tote bag in her hands. With a glance at my immobile form, she begins grabbing handfuls of souls and dropping them into the tote bag. An inauspicious way to handle something so precious, but it won’t actually harm them. When that’s too slow, she upends an entire tray, dumping its contents.
My bones unstick and I begin helping her. Filling the bag with the souls of my people. A few drop and slide away on the ground, but I crouch to retrieve them. We will leave no one behind. Mine is here somewhere, but I don’t have time to linger. Having it in my possession right now, being closer to my shadow soul than I have been in years…I blink away the tears and finish gathering all the souls.
Once we’re done, Talia is ready to leave, but I stop her with a hand on her forearm. I turn back around to the box on the shelf behind us. I grab it and tuck it under my arm, hating the feel of the thing.
“What is that?” she asks as we head back toward the entrance.
“The trammels.”
She misses a step and I steady her, then take the bag of souls from her grip and sling it on my shoulder. It’s heavy; this is the most precious cargo I’ve ever been entrusted with.
Before we leave, I turn to her. “He’ll know it was you.”
Her lips part and her eyes shine with unshed tears. “Then I guess you’ll have to take me with you.”
I press a quick kiss to her lips and we cross the threshold back into the hallway. The guards are still out cold, thank the tors. One of them has slid down to the floor and lies on his side, eyes closed.
We’ve done it—Talia’s plan, the one she wanted to keep secret for some reason—has worked. I’m only moments away from being whole again, to having my soul back and being able to leave this place once and for all.
That's when I feel the sharp pain in my head. An overwhelming presence in my brain, erasing all other thoughts. Von's voice blasts. “Now!” he says. “Take the princess now and bring her to the basement level. We escape tonight.”