The silent alarm prickled against my skin, into my tastebuds, the warm, metallic pulse raising the hair on the back of my neck. It took everyone a few moments to process. Precious seconds of stunned silence. The sensation wasn't out of place at the Palace. A handful of incidences occurred every week. But this was the MieVicor, the most remote, strategically hidden Rest House on the continent. Only three people total knew it's precise location.
SHIELD BREACH and INTRUDER flashed red across every guards com screen. The alarming confirmation was the slap in the face everyone needed for it to fully sink in.
Barely two minutes later, I slid to a halt in the entrance hall. Pharro Gonreem waited with team one beside the doors, his customary scowl far more disapproving than usual.
A silent ripple in the air carried his words to me alone. "Not knowing the exact day doesn't excuse such a dismal response time. You knew it would happen at some point. This level of surprise is unwarranted."
I replied in the same manner, creating that sound tunnel directed only to his ear. "His instructions were to leave her at the gate. This isn't a proximity alarm. It's a shield breach. Meaning the intruder is already on the grounds. Did he send word he was coming today? Or is this something else?"
Pharro didn't reply. He waved his hand and the huge, iron, entrance hall doors groaned open.
I gazed out at the soggy expanse of green, every muscle tensing, the poisonous rain an endless barrage. Nothing alive should be able to breach the powerful shields. Not without permission. Not without it killing them.
My com beeped. "Scanners confirm the rain will stop in two minutes. The break will last for twelve," I announced.
Twelve minutes. A thoroughly vulnerable break in the cold, endless downpour that accompanied this time of year in Northern Fairudin. The longest window we'd had all week.
I lifted my com. "Do we have a location yet, Vix?"
"A dozen orbs near the Northwest Tower are malfunctioning," the woman responded. "Each one we've sent blinks out before it reaches the tower wall."
The atmosphere around us seemed to freeze in place, those gathered exchanging alarmed glances. What could survive passing through our shields without permission, survive the rain, and blind our surveillance team?
"It's him," Pharro said, again, only to me.
"The Northwest Tower is one of the farthest points from the gate."
"That's why it can only be him."
"But his cargo doesn't have permission to come onto the grounds. Doing so would kill her."
He didn't have anything to say to that.
I scanned the skies, projecting my Poeir as far as it would go. But there was nothing. Not the sound of a ship. Not even a thought.
My com beeped.
"Cloud break!" Surveillance announced.
The dim, dreary world burst into sunlight. I hid my wince, pressing my sunglasses more firmly in place, the edges digging reassuringly into the contours of my face so not a sliver of light could get in. A shiver rippled through scales hidden just below my skin. But I held them back, kept them hidden. I couldn't risk putting anyone more on edge than they already were. "Gonreem and team one will take lead. Everyone else, hold position." I glanced over my shoulder at the gathered team, Pharro beside them, the older man's jaw set with anticipation and urgency. "Clock starts now. Move."
The steps were slick, but no one dared fall. The chill, spring breeze was painful enough, rustling the wet grass around us, carrying that thin veil of burning moisture to our noses and across any exposed skin.
The tower came into view in minutes—the black spires perched atop it, the blue-black ConCiagon flag with the white eagle thrashing in the wind. Surveillance orbs bobbed above a single point near the tower wall, that point just out of sight below the slight incline. The differently sized spheres still moved, held aloft by their own power, but they weren't glowing like they should have been.
A fresh hiss of unease slithered along my spine. We were close enough. There was no reason I shouldn't be able to hear thoughts by now.
"There!" I pointed.
The team immediately broke off, spreading out so as to come at the area from all sides.
A bloodcurdling scream filled the air.
"No!" Pharro yelled, his pace doubling, nearly overtaking me.
But I topped the incline first, halting steps away from the writhing, blood-covered creature, its wraith-thin body going still as death.
"What the hell is that?" Dellsen slid to a stop beside me, slightly winded. "Is it still alive?"
Colier appeared on Pharro's other side, his five other team members forming a perimeter around us. "Who is it? Have all guests been accounted for?"
Neither Pharro nor I responded.
I sank slowly into a crouch beside the creature, unable to tear my eyes away. We'd waited a year and a half—for this?
Dellsen's eyes shifted from Pharro back to me. "Why do I get the sense neither of you are surprised to see her?"
I ignored him, brushing the girl's dark, filthy hair aside. Blood coated the sharp, lower half of her face, down her neck, across her skeletal chest and abdomen, her thread-bare clothes stained in mud and blood. A single, inch-wide ribbon lay stark across her throat, the material perfectly white, a startling anomaly against the horror covering her.
I tore my eyes away and peered up at Pharro, his pale, green ones wide. "What the hell did he send us?"
Colier shifted. "I thought the shield was supposed to repel and exterminate. Not accept and emaciate."
"The shield didn't do this," Pharro growled.
"But it's dead though, right? It can't possibly still be alive."
I blinked, my far superior hearing catching the faintest thump of a heartbeat.
Dellsen sucked in a sharp breath. "Are those bullet holes?"
They were. Three of them. A near perfect triangular formation in the center of her chest, difficult to see amid the rest of the dark blood. I pressed lightly against the outside of one. Blood didn't ooze from any of them. In fact, what sat at the surface was icy to the touch. She was icy to the touch—solid and corpse-like.
She'd been shot in the chest, felt like a corpse, and her heart was still beating?
I stood. "She's alive. Get her to Colleena immediately. Seven minutes re—"
Her eyes flew open, bloodshot, and jade green.
Everyone took a startled step back.
Even me.
But not for the same reason.
Her mind was blank. Unreadable. Entirely Blocked. Like Pharro's.
Shit.
Her skeletal fingers clawed into the grass. Her wild eyes darted frantically around, her chest heaving, a horrible hissing sound emanating from the holes in her chest with every shallow, gasping breath.
And then words spoken in another language ripped from her bloody, cracked lips. Words I recognized easily. Because it was my first language; a language I hadn't heard or spoken in a long time. From a home I hadn't seen in almost thirteen years.
"What is happening?" she wheezed. "What is happening? What is—"
Pharro dropped to her side before I could warn him against it and grabbed her face between two, glowing palms. "Shh shh shh shh. You're safe," he said in the same language. "This is a safe place."
"Does anyone know what they're saying?" Dellsen asked.
I ignored the question.
She began to shake and sob, the sound so full of effort the very act had to be excruciating.
"Tritteon, keep her still while I check her over," Pharro said in words everyone could understand, his expression one of devastation.
I obeyed, pointing a hand at her. The air rippled outward, solidifying over the top of her body until only her chest struggled up and down with her labored gasps. With the underside of her soaking in the wet grass, undoubtedly burning her, my Poeir wouldn't be able to surround her completely. So I didn't even try.
Her question rang like a warning siren over and over in my head. What the hell was happening? How had the Oria gotten her here? Not only where, but what had she come from? Who had done this to her?
But most importantly, why couldn't I hear her thoughts?
Pharro's eyes glowed, the pale green turning moon white as he looked her over.
Thunder rumbled somewhere behind us, the grass prickling up in response.
"Three minutes," someone yelled from a way off.
"Shattered ribs and sternum," Pharro said roughly, a slight hitch in his words, like he was trying to contain his fury. "Pierced lung and two small fractures in her left hip bone. Her spine is intact, however. We can move her inside."
"We should've brought a stretcher," Dellsen said unhelpfully.
"Too late now." Pharro motioned to the only human among us the rain wasn't poisonous to. "Colier. Carry her inside," he said, and stood.
Colier hesitated, regarding her fearfully.
"Colier," Pharro repeated sharply.
The man nodded, but hesitated further.
"Oh, for the sake of everyone who doesn't feel like burning up today," Dellsen snapped, pushing him aside. "She's a half-dead girl, you idiot. And the rest of us have minutes if you've forgotten." He unhooked his weapon, handing it off to Pharro.
"Dellsen, the ground is soaking," I warned.
"Uniform is waterproof."
"Your hands are not."
He rubbed them together. "Better the hands then all of us while we wait for this coward to grow a pair."
Colier swore under his breath. "Alright! I've got it!" He passed his weapon to Dellsen, ignoring the scowls of everyone around him, and sank into a crouch beside her.
Her eyes darted toward him, wild and terrified. "Don't—touch—me," she gasped between breaths, again in that language only Pharro and I knew.
Colier shot me a look.
I nodded before he could ask, showing him my hand, the air still rippling around it. "I haven't released her. I'll keep her still."
He nodded and swallowed hard, ignoring her gasps and cries of pain as he slid one arm beneath her back and the other under her legs.
But he paused, his gray eyes widening. "Sir, she's dry. The—the ground is dry."
Pharro's gaze darted upward, scanning the sky. "At least some care was afforded." The air rippled around his hands and, a second later, Colier moved back as the girl rose, weightless, into the air.
"Keep her torso level," Dellsen said unnecessarily.
"I've got it well in hand, Hyle," Pharro scowled.
Dellsen sniffed but didn't reply.
Pharro stepped closer and pressed one hand to the girl's back and the other to her ribcage, his eyes resuming their glow. "This should numb the worst areas for a few minutes."
Her eyes shuttered in obvious relief.
"What did you—" she began. But she drew in a sharp breath as he laid his glowing palm across her forehead.
Above us, the sunlight vanished, plunging the world back into its perfectly dreary dimness, thunder rolling its precursory warning.
"Relax. I won't do it again if you break it," Pharro cautioned.
Her eyes began to close, but she fought to keep them open. "Why are—?" Her words slurred. "Why are—? Why—"
But he kept a firm hold until her eyes rolled into the back of her head.
************