Havenfall (Havenfall #1)(54)

“The Solarian beasts are intelligent,” I tell her, mostly to give myself something to focus on besides the blood. “I know that much. Brekken said they have all sorts of wild technology in their world. Maybe they see us as so far beneath them that there’s no difference between us and deer.”

Taya speaks slowly, like even in the haze of blood loss, she’s choosing her words carefully. “What was it like when you saw it today?”

I shake my head as I dampen the cloth with antiseptic and screw the cap back on. “Terrifying.”

I hope my bullet did its job, hope the Solarian is in pain right now. Payback for doing this to Taya. My hands shake.

Calm down, focus on something positive, I hear Dad say in my head. I close my eyes briefly and call up memories of Nate—not the kitchen, not the end, but other times. Playing together on the little hill behind our house, racing down with flattened cardboard boxes for summertime sleds so often that the grass started growing sideways. Nate helping Mom bake brownies, his head barely clearing the top of the counter as he stirred a bowl of rich brown batter. When we played hide-and-seek and I would hide in the same place every time—curled in the nook behind the old tweed couch—but he’d always look everywhere else first and still pretend to be surprised when he found me.

Carefully, I peel the ragged edges of her T-shirt away from the wound. Taya’s breath hisses out through her teeth. Then I lift the damp cloth, its harsh chemical smell stinging my nose.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and my words have a weird sort of echo in my own ears. Like it’s someone else talking, telling me: “This is going to hurt.”





13

Anxiety coats the air of Havenfall for the rest of the day.

Sal still has people out patrolling the grounds, has for almost sixteen hours straight now, but nobody’s seen the monster since it bit Taya and I shot at it. I think we’ve managed to keep the hunting party a secret, but the delegates know something is wrong. I saw it in their frowns and darting eyes at breakfast, after I left Taya in the infirmary and dragged myself to the dining hall to stammer through announcements. All through the day as I sat in on meetings and negotiations, I heard it in the whispers that trailed after me, even if I couldn’t make out the words.

The beast is still out there, and the door is still open. I couldn’t find the Heiress anywhere today, so no answers on that front, and Marcus is still asleep. Nothing is fixed.

Now the Elemental Orchestra is playing in the ballroom like every evening, but even from my bedroom I can hear that the strains of music are more subdued, less joyful than usual. I’ve skipped out on tonight’s celebration to sit up with the Heiress’s papers, to try to make sense of the hundreds of lines of cramped writing. It reads like nonsense. Oblique references and dates and times with seemingly no connecting thread.

But now, after catching her meeting with Whit, it seems increasingly important to figure out what the hell she’s up to. And one thing in the documents is clear enough. A list of dates and times next to a Haven address. The antique store. A meeting, happening tomorrow morning.

I text Willow and Graylin, telling them that I’m feeling sick and probably won’t be able to make it to breakfast tomorrow. Guilt stabs through me as I do. I know the delegates will have more and more questions the longer we keep them cooped up inside, and by ditching the inn, I’m leaving it to Graylin and Willow to field them. But I don’t want them to worry about me while I get to the bottom of whatever the Heiress is doing—and maybe get some clue as to how to close the doorway to Solaria. If the delegates find out it’s open, we’ll have a riot on our hands.

It’s hard to get to sleep, with threats both below in the tunnels—the door—and outside—the beast. I can’t decide what would be worse: if it’s still on the grounds somewhere, or if it’s slipped past the guards and escaped into the mountains. If it’s here, everyone at Havenfall is endangered. If it’s elsewhere, the whole world is.

And weighing even heavier on my heart is the fact that Marcus is still unconscious. Last time I checked in on him he looked better, his breathing even, and the color in his cheeks made it seem like he was simply asleep. But he still wouldn’t wake up. I sat with him, talked to him, and even shook his shoulder. Nothing. Graylin’s been alternating between helping me with meetings and healing Marcus, but he seems wrecked, his eyes drooping through our meetings even as his posture stays always perfect. I don’t know how long he can go on like this, I don’t know what kind of magic he’s using on my uncle, and I don’t really want to ask about it either. Because that would mean … I don’t want to think about what we’ll do, either of us, if he doesn’t wake up soon.



I dream that Brekken and I are walking along one of the high mountain paths above the inn, not holding hands, but close enough that our fingers graze together with each step. The sky is blue above us, the valley green, Mirror Lake like a disk of silver far below. Brekken turns to me, and I dimly remember that something is wrong, I’m supposed to be angry, but I can’t remember why. He’s so lovely, his eyes so bright blue they might be holes to the sky, his hair and smile dazzling. He leans in for a kiss, and my heart starts to gallop, my breath whipping away in the mountain breeze.

But when I lift my hands, I don’t feel his sharp jaw dusted with stubble, his cool skin and short hair. Instead, my fingertips meet a warm throat and fine, soft hair that falls freely around my hands. The breath brushing my face smells like flowers and spearmint, and when I open my eyes, the ones looking back are brown, not blue. Taya blinks and cocks one eyebrow, and I realize my fingers are still knotted in her hair when the ground beneath us vanishes.