Cytonic (Skyward #3)(13)

“Contemplating my life’s choices, Miss Nightshade,” his voice said from below. “How is your grip, if you don’t mind me asking?”



“Solid, for now,” I said.

“If you start to slip, I’d request that you inform me. As your would-be rescuer, I will not allow my weight to hasten your demise! Better that one should fall than two.”

“Don’t talk like that!” I said. “What would happen? Would you fall forever?”

“At least until you cleverly acquired a ship and came to my rescue!” he said. “I’d hope my performance up to this point would earn such a turnabout. But let us simply hang on!”

Fortunately, I’d positioned myself to grip not just with my fingers but my whole arms. I was fairly stable, all things considered.

We eventually pulled to a halt near the rim of the fragment, where M-Bot had stuck his light-line. There were a few centimeters of slack left, but he couldn’t retract that while I was clinging to his boxy form.

“You’ll have to climb up first,” I said to Chet.

“Right, then!” Chet said. “Sorry in advance!”

He started pulling himself up by my jumpsuit. I focused on keeping my grip. My hands were slippery from my sweat, and Chet’s weight as he climbed threatened to jostle me free. Eventually however, he was able to grab something on top of the fragment and haul himself up over the side. I sighed in relief.

His hand reached down a moment later, and I accepted the help, letting him heave me up onto the surface of the new fragment. Bits of dirt and sand rained off the side, sprinkling against M-Bot’s hull as he hovered up. We were on some kind of desert fragment—it was covered in sand, broken only by occasional bits of scrub plant life.

Nothing here appeared immediately threatening. Chet and I looked at each other, then both of us deliberately scooted away from the edge before collapsing and letting out exhausted sighs. My arms ached and my heart was still pounding. But when I glanced at Chet, I discovered he was grinning.

And…scud. I felt the same way. There was something incredibly thrilling about our wild escape. My friends called me crazy for this sort of reaction, but Chet seemed to get it.



“We had no business surviving that,” I said to him.

“None whatsoever!” he agreed. “But it is the most fun I’ve had in ages.”

M-Bot’s drone turned from me to Chet, then back to me. “You’re insane!” he said to us. “Both of you!”

“We simply appreciate life, abomination!” Chet said, dusting his clothes off and standing up. “Nothing brings you more of said appreciation than nearly losing that which you value.” He walked back to the edge of the fragment and put one foot up on a rock, leaning forward as he studied the jungle fragment. It was drifting away from us at a slow speed.

Standing like that in his flight jacket, I had to admit he cut an impressive figure. He reminded me of…well, someone from one of the stories. The people I’d dreamed about meeting, even imagined myself joining in an adventure.

But I couldn’t help being wary. Running into him here so quickly seemed coincidental. But what did I know? Maybe this strange place was full of heroic adventurers. You couldn’t ask for a better ambiance. Because as Chet stood there staring outward, the jungle fragment drifted far enough to the side for me to finally make out the source of light in this place.

A gigantic, expansive bright sphere of light rose halfway over the horizon. It looked like a bomb frozen mid-explosion. Though it was difficult to tell from my vantage, it felt like hundreds—maybe thousands—of fragments led toward it, each with a different terrain.

A thousand little worlds of adventure, leading like a broken roadway toward that enormous sphere. Was that a sun? It looked far too big, and was too close. I mean, yes, it was probably hundreds and hundreds of kilometers away—but suns were supposed to be millions upon millions of kilometers away.



Plus, it didn’t seem to be producing any heat, and I could look directly at it without trouble.

“We call it the lightburst,” Chet said, turning back to me. “It’s where the delvers live. The center of everything, in here. I assume from your expression that you’d like some answers?”

“That sure would be a nice change…”

“And you still intend to follow the Path of Elders?” he asked.

“That’s why I’m here.”

“Then our journey begins,” he said, walking over and offering a hand to pull me to my feet. “Join me, Spensa Nightshade, as we head toward adventure and I do some explaining.”





“All right,” I said as we started across the desert. “First question. How can this place be the nowhere? I’ve been in the nowhere before during hyperjumps. I think I’d remember flying chunks of stone and monsters with teeth in their noses.”

“An astute observation. What you experienced before is the inside of the lightburst.” Chet spun around, both arms extended as he walked. “We are outside it now—in the belt, which is a boundary area. Things of our world—like time, individuality, matter itself—have leaked into the belt. Like how you get brackish water between an ocean and a river.”

“I’ve…never seen an ocean,” I said.