Through the Ever Night (Under the Never Sky #2)(79)

They reached the transport hangar and darted inside. It looked abandoned, nothing like the teeming hub Perry had seen earlier. He didn’t see any soldiers, and only a handful of Hovers remained.

“Can you pilot any of these?” Aria asked Soren. The color had drained from her face.

“I can in the Realms,” Soren said. “These are real.”

People streamed in around them. Through the vast opening at the other end, the desert still flashed with the full power of the storm.

“Do it,” Perry said. He and Aria had barely survived the journey there. He saw no way of leading dozens of scared people—Dwellers who’d never set foot outside—into the wrath of an Aether storm.

Soren wheeled on him. “I don’t take orders from you!”

“Then take them from me!” Aria yelled. “Move, Soren! There’s no time!”

“There’s no way this works,” Soren said, but he ran to one of the Hovers.

The ship was immense up close, the material of the body seamless and pale blue, with the shimmer of a pearl. Perry grabbed Talon’s and Clara’s hands, pulling them up the ramp.

The cabin inside was a wide, windowless tube. To one side, through a small doorway, he saw the cockpit. The other end was packed with metal crates. A supply craft, he realized, though one that had only been partially loaded. The middle of the hold where he stood was empty, but quickly filling with people.

“Move all the way back and sit down,” Aria instructed them. “Hold on to something, if you can.”

He noticed the Dwellers wore the same gray clothes Aria had when he’d first seen her that night in Ag 6. They were fair-skinned and wide-eyed, and though he couldn’t scent their tempers through the smoke, their reactions to him were blatant, plain on their stunned faces.

He looked down at himself. He had blood and soot covering his battered clothes, and a gun in his hand. Besides that, he knew he’d look hard and feral in their eyes, just as they looked soft and terrified to him.

He wasn’t helping anything by being there.

“In here,” he told Talon and Clara, ushering them into the cockpit.

He bumped his head on the door as he entered and flashed on Roar, who would’ve made a wisecrack. Who should be there. Who Perry had treated awfully earlier. He couldn’t believe he’d questioned Roar’s loyalty. Suddenly, he remembered Liv. The air rushed from his lungs and his stomach twisted. At some point he’d think about his sister and end up on his knees, but not now. He couldn’t now.

The cockpit was small and dim, no bigger than Vale’s room, with a rounded window that curved along the front. Perry saw the exit at the far end of the hangar. Outside, thick black smoke flashed with Aether, concealing the desert.

Soren sat in one of the two pilot seats, cursing as he swiped at a smooth bank of controls. He must have sensed Perry’s attention, because he glanced back, hatred in his eyes. “I haven’t forgotten, Savage.”

Perry’s gaze went to the scar on Soren’s chin. “Then you remember the outcome.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

A small voice spoke up beside Perry. “Soren, he’s my uncle.”

Soren looked at Talon, his expression softening. Then he turned back to the controls.

Perry glanced at his nephew, surprised at the influence he had over Soren. How had that happened? He stashed the gun on a shelf beside a handful of other weapons, and had Talon and Clara sit against the back wall. Then he crouched, studying his nephew’s face. “You all right?”

Talon nodded, smiling tiredly. Perry saw traces of Vale in his deep green eyes, and noticed his front teeth had grown in. Suddenly he felt all the months they’d lost, and the full weight of his responsibility. Talon was his now.

He straightened as the engines buzzed to life. The panel in front of Soren lit up, the rest of the cabin falling into darkness.

“Hold on!” Soren yelled.

A murmur of alarm came from the people in the main cabin. Aria slipped through the door beside Perry, stepping into the cockpit just as the Hover rose with a lurch. He grabbed her by the waist, catching her as she stumbled. The craft surged forward, pushing Aria’s back against his chest. He locked his arms around her, holding tight as the walls of the hangar blurred past, the Hover gaining speed by the second. They shot outside and plunged into the smoke. Perry couldn’t see anything through the window but noticed that Soren navigated by the screen on the console in front of him.

In seconds they broke into clear air, and he stared in awe at the earth streaking past. He’d taken his name from a falcon, but never in his life had he thought he’d fly. Funnels lashed down across the desert, but they were fewer now. The pale light of dawn spread across the sky, softening the glare of the Aether. He felt Aria’s weight relax against him. Because he could, he rested his chin on top of her head.

As the Hover banked west, adjusting its course, Perry spotted Hess’s fleet, a trail of lights moving across the valley in the distance. He recognized the shape of the immense craft he’d seen earlier. Reverie came into view next, crumbling, consumed by smoke.

Aria watched, silent in his arms. His gaze trailed over the curve of her shoulder, the slope of her cheek. The dark flick of her eyelashes as she blinked. His heart filled with hurt. Hers. His. He understood exactly what she felt. He’d lost his home as well.