25. Skylar

25

Skylar

"What happened?" Tylan asks me as I return from my meeting with Yar. Like my guards, Tylan waited in the public center of the Janu sector to give me privacy to meet with the Ehan Janu.

With each breath, a thrumming energy courses through my body. The ship is a comforting presence, like a hand on my shoulder, and I feel the vacuum of space, the ship's movements and something of our direction. It's wild.

I consider blurting the entire thing out, but while I trust Tylan, this feels like something I should speak with Tan about first. "Janu stuff," I say, keeping it vague .

"As you say." Tylan's brow furrows. "What next then?"

As usual, my two Masg guards trail us like shadows from the Janu sector. Though I've tried to get to know my various guards, they aren't the most sociable. Today, one has his helmet up and tinted.

"I need to speak with Tan," I say. "About something Ehan Janu Yar told me."

"It isn't about the illness, is it? I heard another Janu had taken ill?"

"Besides apprentice Kal'dahna?"

Tylan shrugs. "I do not know. Tan is on the bridge."

I bite the edge of my bottom lip. "This feels important, but Tan is already burning his candle at both ends, trying to find the missing Gice Kohath and dealing with the ship system issues. The change in my connection to the ship will not make a difference in the next few hours.

"I should probably just return to our rooms," I say.

Tylan nods, and we walk a few more paces before they cock their head, tapping at their earpiece to receive a personal com message. Tylan's tail swishes as they nod, listening.

"Understood," Tylan says in Asheraah, a word I'm surprised and happy to recognize.

Tylan looks at me. "I got a ping. There is an emergency with my bondpair's child."

"Go!" I make a shooing motion.

"I should not leave you alone."

I laugh, glancing back at the two slabs of armored muscle flanking us. "I'm just going back to our rooms. If anything happens, these two should be more than enough."

Before Tylan can protest again, I give them a light shove. "See to your family."

Tylan hurries off and I continue to the Raiva's quarters. Our quarters.

At the entrance, the helmeted Masg steps forward. "Have to clear the room," he says, nodding to me to enter the code. Confused, I do as I'm told, and he steps inside.

"What happened?" I ask my other, friendlier looking guard. Do they suspect the missing Gice Kohath might have snuck into the Raiva's rooms? Thinking of that stinger tail, and the moment Tan had his hands around Quayl—or the fake Quayl's—neck when I saw his shell, I'm reminded of the phrase, "If you see one, there are hundreds in the walls."

I shiver.

The Masg comes back to the main room and waves me in. "All clear."

We pass each other, and I go to the food dispenser. Hopefully it's not glitching again. I could use something hot and sweet. I've just asked for my Yahila when I hear the door open.

"Tan?"

I look over to see one of the two Masg guards striding toward me. I don't see the other one, and that feels wrong. My stomach goes to ice as I'm hit with a rush of fear.

Something in my head whispers RUN .

Behind me, about ten paces, is the door to the bathing room. I take a step back, grabbing handle of the steaming mug of something that smells like burning socks. Yeah, it's glitching again. Why have bad luck when you can have worse luck?

"Let me see your face," I say, trying to keep my voice calm.

The Masg takes another step to me, and I meet the action, getting another two steps closer to the bathing room. I can close the door and then hit the com. Or dive into the pool. Or…?

I don't know, but it's better than staying here.

"You…" the Masg hisses. "I should have killed him quickly on the field of challenge. But I needed it to look real."

It's not just the missing Kohath, some, it's Quayl. "I thought you were dead?" I blurt out. The gig is up, so what does it matter, anyway?

Quayl retracts his helmet. It folds back into the shoulders of his armor, and I see him, scales white, eyes a burning orange. "So you see us but you don't. Interesting."

I throw the Yahila at his face and run. Behind him, he screams once, following it with a gravelly series of hisses and curses. I'm just at the bathing room door when he grabs me.

Fex!

I twist, trying to bite, but my teeth just slide over his armor as something stabs into the side of my neck.

"I will pass my regards to your bokdazi," he whispers as the world goes dark.

I wake, bound at the wrists and ankles, in darkness. It's chilly, but the air smells like rotting. My stomach twists, and I swallow down the urge to throw up.

By the stars, where am I? Kicking outwards, my toes hit something soft. A sticky liquid clings to the skin of my toes, and I have a bad, bad feeling.

If Quayl and the communication tech and the healer were replaced by these Gice Kohath, what happened to their bodies?

I scooch backward until I hit something hard. A wall. But not a bulkhead. It feels more like the wall of a cargo container.

By the Stars, I'm in a cargo container with something rotting. Please, please, let it be food and not—

I'm not thinking about that. Or why Quayl, or whatever that was, didn't just kill me and stuff me in a cargo container like the others—

Nonono!

Not thinking about that.

Thankfully, he tied my arms at the front and not the back. I lift them over my head, feeling for a roof. Nothing. I hobble to my feet, using my shoulder on the wall to hold my balance. It's cold in here, and I'm grateful for that or the smell would be much worse. Goose pimples cover the bare skin of my neck, though the skinsuit is keeping me warm enough I don't shiver. I reach up again, and my fingertips brush a ceiling.

That's something. So I know the rough dimensions of my prison.

I have to get out of here. I feel along the walls as best I can, avoiding the side where I felt the rotting meat— not thinking about that—hoping to find a button or seal. Anything to open this thing. But no luck. And also, there are no insects in here. Or rats. All ships have rats. So if they're not in here, that means this container is pretty well sealed. It also means I might be running out of oxygen, if they aren't pumping it in somehow.

Every time I think things can't get worse, they do.

Sit. Breathe.

What in the Stars? I hear the voice in my mind. It presses against my forehead like a comforting touch.

Sit. Breathe.

Might as well. It's not like I have any better ideas. So I sit and close my eyes, trying not to smell what I'm smelling as I breathe.

Focus.

I'm not sure what I'm focusing on, but I follow the sense of the voice, and some of my panic eases.

What are you?

Starshadow .

The ship?

Yes.

Can you help me?

Join.

In my mind, I see, no I feel, an outstretched hand. And I take it.

Communicate. The whisper is louder in my mind.

Help! Help! Help! I scream in my mind.

No.

Connect.

Connect.

Connect.

Okay, so I need to connect somehow. And help isn't doing it. I think of my connections here. My connection to the ship. To Tylan. To Tan.

Tan, my bokdazi.

I put all of my love and terror and hope for our future and bundle it together with as clear a sense as I can of my location. Being a Janu is all about navigation. And I follow the spiderweb of that connection, reaching for Tan.

Tan.

Tan.

Connection initiated.