Chapter 59

CHAPTER 59

ALINA

M oisture on her lips and tongue.

Fire sliding up and down her arm.

Wake up.

Nails drilled into her fingertips.

But I don't want to.

A burning throb cleaving in her shoulder.

You have to, little human.

The familiar voice tempted her from the warmth of her slumber.

A palm on her cheek, water against the seam of her mouth. She licked it off her lips.

"There you are," the deep voice murmured into her ear, ghosting over her skin.

"Threxin."

Hard fingertips brushed hair from her forehead.

"Are we dead?"

"You must open your eyes to find out."

But what if I open them and we're dead?

And he chuckled. Which meant they couldn't be dead, right?

Alina tried to take a deep breath, but the pang in her chest prevented her from taking more than a tiny gasp.

Shit.

Steeling herself, Alina looked.

"Shit!" She gasped, jerking upright, then dropped back as her ribs protested.

The expanse around her kicked her pulse into a frenzy. They were dead.

"I'm unconscious," she said, staring up at the expanse of blue above. Blue as big as space, only all wrong.

Calm down. You're either dead or you'll wake up soon.

It was falling right on top of her. She brought her arm up to protect her face, as though she could keep the blue from crushing her.

She twisted her head to the side, squeezing her eyes shut. When it fell on her she didn't want to look.

"Alina," the voice coaxed again. "It is a sky."

What the fuck?

"The sky. We are on a planet."

When she managed to open her eyes again, Alina refused to look up. Even the glimpse of blue in her peripheral vision threatened to make her heart jump out of her throat when she let herself focus on it. So instead she twisted her face into the brown and green stuff below. At least it was close. At least it was beneath her and wouldn't fall on her.

It smelled weird.

It got on her lip and she licked it away instinctively, and God, it was gross. Pungent, gritty, and a little salty.

The chuckle at her side made her turn her face a little.

There he was. "You look…"

He looked horrible. His apertures were dull and limp, his spikes flaccid at his scalp. There was so much blood, all over him. She looked down. All over her.

Alina forced herself to get up, propping herself with one arm—the one not attached to a shoulder that now throbbed as if shattered. She ignored the pain in her ribs and the dagger being driven through her skull as she took him in .

It wasn't enough. Wincing, she sat herself upright and put both palms on the sides of his face. He felt solid. Not like a dream or a nightmare. She traced the line of the aperture beneath his cheekbone and watched it flare to subtle life beneath her. He closed his eyes, leaning into her touch.

"You're alive," she concluded.

Threxin's mouth quirked into a tired smile. "Very alive."

She finally registered something other than the sound of his voice, and that was thousands of voices whispering all around them. She frowned, refusing to look up at the terror overhead but casting her eyes around the solid surface beneath them.

"What is that?" She could not find the source of the noise.

"I believe it is called wind. We had it not on Apth, but… I had heard of it."

Wind.

And the whispering?

"The trees."

Alina had to look then. She cast her eyes further and saw it… Brown tree trunks with thousands of green leaves on each, flickering all around. Talking.

That was when she registered the people too. Human and uhyre, spread on the dirt-grass plane all around them. Most were injured, some were walking around.

Many seemed unsteady on their feet, the humans especially—glancing up at the sky only to cast their eyes back down to their feet.

Someone got sick.

Beyond them, far beyond, was the remains of Colossal . Her home was a smoking, smoldering heap in the distance.

"How many…"

"Five hundred humans dead by the count so far, but there will be more. Many were trapped in the common residence deck that ended up… somewhat flattened."

Alina's stomach dropped. God, they must've been terrified. They didn't even know we were about to jump, much less crash land on… on…

"And the uhyre?"

"Mostly fine. But Renza is missing."

Renza…

"Where are we?" Alina asked.

"Kann-01, by my account," someone said behind her.

Alina recoiled with a near shriek when she first turned around to look at Orion Halen. He stood there with half his face burned off, his cheek splayed open and mangled. "The jump was… off. But at least it got us somewhere habitable."

At the expense of over five hundred people… And maybe Renza.

But if Threxin hadn't jumped, they'd all be dead. This was by all account a success, and now they were on…

"Is this New Earth?" Alina looked up at her old commander for an answer.

Orion glanced over his shoulder, where Alina noted Kaia already on her feet. She looked relatively undamaged and was hauling sacks of something into a pile on the ground.

"It'll have to be, because we sure as hell aren't getting off this planet as long as we live."

The finality of the statement was both intimidating and weirdly relaxing. There was nothing to think about here. No more plotting or planning to find another place.

They were here, and the air was breathable.

Alina turned to Threxin, who was scanning the clusters of humans and uhyre all around them.

They were here in the dirt. Real dirt, with real trees.

She studied the hard lines of Threxin's face as he assessed the situation.

They were here, and many people had died. But the one who mattered most was alive.

Threxin turned his attention back to her then, flooding her with an aggressive burst of possessive reassurance and a light that made her insides threaten to jump out of her skin as she reached toward him.

He grabbed her face in both hands and pulled her into his mouth, proving to her that she wasn't asleep. No kiss tasted this real in a dream. Alina dug her throbbing fingers into the earth, clutching at dirt for further proof as she reached for him.

Mine.

And she wasn't sure which of them thought it, and it didn't matter.