Cytonic (Skyward #3)(62)

“I guess we’ll see,” I told her.

She swore softly. “A person needs more than muluns, girl. Think for a moment. You can’t survive in this place alone. You need allies, friends, support.”



“Spensa,” M-Bot said, temporarily muting the comm, “look at Chet.”

I glanced over my shoulder and around the seat’s head support to where he sat scrunched up behind. The older man’s eyes had glazed over. He stared ahead, insensate, and didn’t respond when I waved my hand in front of him.

Something began streaming up around him: a glittering, silvery haze. The reality ashes. I felt it too, as they spun around me, like they were…disintegrating?

Being up here was destroying them, perhaps to keep us from losing ourselves. I gritted my teeth and leveled out the ship, not gaining any more altitude.

“Peg is talking again,” M-Bot said quietly.

I nodded, having him restore the comm line.

“You’re going to start feeling it soon, if you haven’t already,” Peg said. “Can you remember yourself, girl?”

“I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Are you? Can you remember the faces of your parents? Your friends from home?”

I tried not to listen—but I didn’t dare turn off the comm. Because scud, she was right. What did they look like? The reality ashes seemed to be struggling to keep me from forgetting my identity, and I felt my memories begin to fade.

“Maybe you can fight through an entire armada on your own,” Peg said. “I don’t know. But the longer you stay up there, the more you will lose. And traveling on your own will be bad for you, even if you aren’t so high. Your address back home, your most passionate moments, the names of your lovers. They’ll blur. Your life will become like a smudge on paper—a black smear where words used to be.”

I hovered there, infinity stretching in all directions. Dominated still, however, by the lightburst. And in there, I could feel the delvers. They were hunting for me. Out here, up high, they could find me. And in revenge, they’d do to me something alien, something terrible. They’d take my self. My identity. My memories.



“Something odd has been happening lately,” Peg said over the comm. “I have reports of people becoming like delvers, with glowing eyes. You can’t fly alone, Spin. It’s not because you’re weak. No matter how determined you are, you still need ties to reality.”

I took a deep breath. “I can’t afford to spend years cleaning landing gear, Peg.”

“Girl, you’re wasted on ground crew,” Peg said. “You return, and I’ll give you our best ship.”

“No offense, Peg,” I said. “But I just beat you with a wrench and stole from you. I didn’t want to do it, but you backed me into a corner and forced my hand. I can’t believe that you’d simply let me go after that.”

“Oh, I won’t simply let you go,” Peg said. “I’ll give you that ship in exchange for something.”

“What?”

“How would you feel about defeating the pirate champion for me?”

I frowned. I mean, I wasn’t opposed to the idea at all—but the way she asked about it worried me. Made me think she had some game she was playing, beyond that of the other pirates.

But scud, I didn’t know how long the ashes would last. And Chet…something bad was happening to him. I decreased power to the acclivity ring, lowering us slowly through the sky.

This could all be a trap. But…Peg was correct; we couldn’t fly up that high. Pushing aside my worry for Chet, I tried to focus on the conversation.

“Why do you care about something like a pirate champion?” I asked Peg.

“I don’t, really,” she said. “But I need to take back Surehold—the Superiority mining outpost. My home.”

Take back the Superiority base? Curious. If Chet was right, and the Path of Elders was going to continue on inward toward the lightburst, I’d need to find a way to sneak through Superiority territory. If they were busy fighting off pirates, that would certainly provide some useful cover.



“I’m listening,” I said, leaning forward. “Tell me more.”

“There are enough pirates in the factions to challenge the Superiority presence in here,” Peg said. “If we attacked together, we could overwhelm them and seize control of the mining base.”

“That sounds great,” I said, “but how exactly are you going to get the other pirate factions to follow you? Last I heard, even your sons don’t listen to you anymore.”

Peg laughed. “There’s more to this than you know, Spin. I can make it work. I merely need an excellent pilot to start the tree growing by defeating the champion.”

I lowered us farther, and heard Chet stir. I glanced at him and saw him blinking. The ashes had stopped disintegrating, and I had the feeling I’d dodged something very dangerous by coming back down as quickly as I had.

“Very well, Peg,” I said. “I’ll consider this, but before we agree I have one more condition. There are some ruins I need to visit here in your territory. Give me a ship, let me visit those ruins, and I’ll take down that champion for you.”

“Ruins? Words, girl. I can take you to some ruins. We’ll do it tomorrow. Look, this is a good deal. You help me—maybe give my fighters a few pointers to help them improve—and we’ll deal a serious blow to the Superiority. Isn’t that alone worth it? If we stop their acclivity stone mining operations, your war gets way easier. Plus, when you leave us next time, you’ll have earned that ship you’re taking from us. What do you say?”