I considered. And scud, she was right. I needed some time. Plus, a shower sounded so nice. I called M-Bot and Hesho to let them know, then went to the room Peg indicated. It was an enormous suite—of the ridiculous type.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to the shower. I made the mistake of lying down on the bed first. And after the fighting, the chaos, the tension of my decision…I just found myself unable to stay awake.
And so I drifted off.
Interlude
As I slept, someone tried to talk to me.
I wanted to talk to him.
Something stopped me.
It was another cloud, like before. Like the prison that Brade had put around me. Though…it felt different. Like a march set to different words. Same sounds. New song.
I fought through it, but no matter which way I turned, I got lost. I tried telling myself that none of this was real, that there were no places here. Nowhere to go. I merely had to…make myself be somewhere else…
It was hard to think through this fog.
“Spensa?” Jorgen’s voice. “Spensa, I can feel you.”
I…I can’t feel you…
“You seem distant. Why? What is wrong?”
I’m lost.
“I can barely hear you. What was that?”
Lost…
“Spensa, things are tough right now. I… Everyone is looking to me for answers. I could use someone to talk to.”
He needed me. That need made the haze thinner, and I thought I saw the way. I moved toward it, but each footstep was sluggish. I was lost. Hadn’t I been…warned…about that?
But I was tired.
Just. So. Tired.
Moments later, I was asleep.
Part Five
Chapter 37
I awoke to luxury. I didn’t think I’d slept a full night—but then again, I didn’t know what “night” really meant in here. I yawned, feeling…unsettled by my dreams. As I considered, I looked to the side—and found Hesho sitting cross-legged on an oversized chair right next to the bed.
“I watched you in your sleep,” he said. “To make certain you were safe.”
Awesome.
I mean, yeah, I realized some people would have thought that was unsettling. Not me. Alien bodyguard watching for assassins? Scud, how could a girl not sleep more soundly under those circumstances?
“How long was I out?” I asked.
“An hour,” he said. “I wrote the time down to remember.”
“Clever,” I said to him. “I’m going to grab a shower. Maybe wait outside while I do?”
“I shall be on the balcony,” he said. “The view is excellent. I shall also send for the machine-who-thinks; he wished to be notified if you rose.”
A short time later, I walked out onto the balcony wearing a freshly laundered jumpsuit, my hair still drying. Hesho sat cross-legged on the floor here, in his warrior’s coat and trousers, a small sword across his lap as he meditated. M-Bot’s drone hovered out here too. He’d sent it up—interrupting me in the shower, actually. I hadn’t been too indignant. I mean, in the past I’d cleansed literally inside his cockpit, so it’s not like he hadn’t seen me in that state.
I’d sent the drone out here anyway. It didn’t contain his entire consciousness; he’d simply decided to start using it as, well, a drone was normally used.
I settled down on the floor of the balcony, my back to the glass door separating it from the bedroom, and looked out. Over the red rock hills, inward.
Toward the lightburst.
That blazing expanse appeared like an explosion frozen mid-detonation. A gigantic sphere of light that felt as if it should be consuming all nearby. It was distant, but closer than it had ever been.
I’d assumed it would be my ultimate destination in here. It was, after all, a way out. I’d crossed pirate territory; I’d helped subdue the Superiority. Now only one thing stood between me and the lightburst: the region of the belt called No Man’s Land. The place where the delvers were strongest.
My short nap had only muddled things more. I remembered Jorgen’s voice. I couldn’t leave him, could I?
It wouldn’t be permanent, I thought. Just a…short break. A year or so. Exploring. Fighting. Keeping the delvers away.
But in here, years seemed to have an eerie way of becoming decades. I felt…as if I were on the edge of a cliff.
I had to be honest with myself. The offer from the delvers wouldn’t have been enough to keep me here, not alone. I had no reason to trust them, and every reason to press forward while my enemies were unstable. The desire to stay had far more to do with my own heart. And the emotions I felt growing there. Emotions that I couldn’t help but see as cowardice.
I tried to imagine the heroes from the stories laughing at my sudden indecision. But strangely, I instead pictured them understanding. I…I’d been born into war. I’d barely had a childhood. My father had died in the fighting before my eighth birthday. My heart had been flayed by losing companions while flying, though I could no longer remember their names or faces.
I’d never had any other options in life. It was fight or be destroyed. But now I’d seen that wasn’t the only way to live. It was the first time in my life I’d actually had a chance to escape the war. I had to consider it. How could I not?
Neither Hesho nor M-Bot spoke for a time; the three of us merely sat in silence. We were like an audience for one of the military parades back home. Except our entertainment was the distant, incredible burst of light.
“Is that what a sun is like?” I finally asked.
“No,” Hesho said. “I close my eyes, and the light batters my eyelids—but there is no warmth to accompany it. It is like the ghost of a sun. The corpse of one, left behind after all the heat has fled.”
“It is a little like a sun,” M-Bot said. So far Hesho had taken his presence as normal, though I’d cautioned the kitsen not to speak of him to others. “Only very wrong at the same time. It is much smaller than one, for example.”
“That’s small?” I asked. From how close we were, the lightburst took up a good chunk of the horizon.
“For a star, yes,” M-Bot said. “That sphere, gauging by my best readings, is a fraction of the size of Earth’s moon. It could perhaps be a neutron star if this were the somewhere—which would make Lord Hesho’s metaphor particularly acute. At any rate, it certainly shouldn’t be so cold for how much light it releases.”
I leaned forward and tried to imagine the feeling of sunlight. The vast majority of my ancestors had lived in a place where warmth came from the sky. I’d never felt so distant from them as I did at that moment, sitting before the strange light of the nowhere. Contemplating my cowardice.
I’d learned, in my time with Skyward Flight, that I wasn’t a coward in the traditional sense. I didn’t fear battle. I wouldn’t run from danger. But…here was a different opportunity. A way to run from the war, and even responsibility, in their entirety.
“The delvers told me,” I said softly, “that they’d leave me alone if I agreed not to continue on the Path of Elders. They even implied they’d back out of the deal with Winzik.”
“Curious,” M-Bot said. “Why would they make such an offer?”