“Quickly, Kael,” Oona said. “We only have a minute before it recovers.”
Nexus’s visage flickered, overcome by static, like a bad radio signal. The hum, ever-present, was momentarily silenced, replaced by the distant moan of wind through the tower’s open slats.
Kael shoved against the heavy wooden door, heart pounding. It groaned open with protest, revealing a stone staircase that spiraled both up and down. The damp, mineral scent of centuries-old rock filled his nostrils. The stones here were worn by countless footsteps, some from watchers long dead, others more recent. Small, narrow windows—mere slits—lined the tower, offering glimpses of the clear night outside.
The electric net behind them crackled, then retreated, dissolving back into the metal veins of the chamber. Nexus’s voice had gone silent, but it wouldn’t last. Kael could feel the weight of its presence pressing against his skull.
Oona was already moving. Two paths branched before them—one ascending, the other leading down, and out. Kael exhaled, tasting his blood. His ribs ached from where Nexus had slammed him down, every breath dragging against bruised muscle.
His instinct screamed for him to go down and to get out. But another, quieter pull pointed up, toward the brazier. The signal. The only way to get help.
He turned to Oona, studying her. She had changed, no longer just the healer. He couldn’t help seeing a mechanical precision in her stillness now.
“Wait,” Kael said calmly despite the chaos in his chest. He planted a boot on the first step leading up. “The signal room. That’s where the brazier is. That’s where we can get a message out.”
Oona’s amber eyes gleamed in the dim light. “You still think the Crown can save us?” she asked, her meaning unreadable. “Besides, you need medicine, Kael.”
But Kael was already on the way up.
“It’s beautiful,” Oona murmured, barely audible above the wind.
She moved toward the arched windows, arms wrapped around herself, a shield against the cold draft that slipped through the cracks. Tall, fractured panes lined the walls, their surfaces fogged from centuries of exposure. Beyond the thin glass, the world stretched before them: a snow-covered valley shimmering under the silver glow of the moon, Threadneedle’s lights shining faintly like distant stars. The forest rippled like a dark ocean, and the mountain peaks—seeming close enough to touch—stood like silent sentinels beneath the starry sky.
“It seems so close and so far away at the same time,” she said, turning toward Kael.
The torch wavered in his hands, sending irregular shadows across the room.
Oona knew in an instant what he was about to do: light the brazier.
Some of the magic was gone.
She felt the chill now, seeping through the mortar, carried by the relentless wind that whistled through the tower’s heights.
The air smelled of damp stone and cold ash—ghosts of long-extinguished fires.
“No, Kael,” she said, pressing in. “Can’t we stay here?”
Kael shook his head. They couldn’t stop Nexus by themselves. And besides, he had found what the Crown had sent him to Threadneedle for. His mission was almost over.
For a fleeting moment, the scene pulled him backward. He could almost see the rolling fields of the South, the opulence beneath garden canopies, the promise of more. If he delivered the Covenant, the Crown would reward him handsomely: a villa, maybe a city; a coveted title in some fertile province, far away from the cold, all this receding into a hazy memory. And Sorian, reporting to him…
He made his way to the center of the room, to the brazier. The ancient iron bowl sat on a tripod of blackened steel, waiting. It loomed in the chamber like a monument to forgotten cries for aid.
Oona moved faster. She reached him before he could lower the torch.
“Wait.”
Her touch on his tunic was featherlight, more plea than hold. But it was enough. Enough to stop him.
Kael turned.
“The Crown,” he said, his words biting. “If I light the brazier, they’ll come. Soldiers. Power. Order. You’ll live, Oona. They’ll destroy Nexus.”
She didn’t move. “That’s what they’ll promise, Kael. But they’ll take everything. This valley. Threadneedle. The tower. Us. And what do you think will happen to me when they find out?”
“That won’t happen.” He said it without thinking.
Oona edged in, breaking the distance. The space between them disappeared. The torchlight painted their faces in gold and shadow, casting their reflections against the cracked stone walls.
Outside, the wind circled the tower. But within, there was a fragile but certain stillness. She reached up. Her lips met his. Tentative at first. Testing.
Kael exhaled sharply through his nose, almost surprised, before he answered, moving through his pain, tasting iron in his mouth. His hands lifted, pressing against her waist, drawing her in. Oona responded, her fingers sliding up his chest, gripping the fabric of his tunic as the kiss deepened.
Kael let the torch slip from his hand onto the stone as a fire ignited between them, a heat neither was ready to deny.
His arms wrapped around her, pulling her closer, her body fitting against his as if it had always been meant for it. His hand found the fabric of her dress, pressing against the curve of her hip, then lower, easing it upward.
Softly, the fabric slipped between his fingers, revealing the smooth expanse of her thighs. Oona didn’t resist. Instead, she lifted her arms, allowing him to free her from the garment entirely.
She was undeniably flesh. Her skin glowing faintly in the ambient light, her curves smooth and inviting. Her breath came quick, her body arching into his touch. Kael’s fingers brushed across her shoulder, down to the swell of her breast, then lower—
And then, he saw it.
Kael lightly touched the faint scar on her arm. The one Nexus had left. The one that shouldn’t be healing this fast.
The blood. The metal beneath. A cold certainty gripped him, and his hands froze on her skin. Oona sensed the shift immediately as his warmth pulled away.
“No.” Kael’s voice was hoarse, tight. He gently turned her arm, exposing the mark. “This isn’t right.”
Oona’s face fell. She pulled away quickly, fumbling for her fallen dress, pressing it against her chest. “I’m still me, Kael. I haven’t changed.”
But her expression held a doubt now. A doubt she hadn’t let herself feel until this moment.
Kael bent down. Picked up the torch from the floor. Its flame spat and fluttered as if sensing the storm in his chest.
“No.” He spoke more quietly, with greater certainty.
He strode past her toward the brazier.
“Kael, look,” Oona pleaded gently.
He tightened his grip around the torch. He didn’t turn.
“The locket,” she whispered.
That made him pause. Kael’s hand instinctively went to the leather cord around his neck, grasping the familiar pressure beneath his collar.
Oona’s voice wavered, but her conviction did not. “I know who gave that to you. And I know whose picture is inside.”
Kael turned to her now, stare tightening. The storm in his chest split open.
“Your sister.” The words barely carried over the wind.
“The woman who was leading you to the fort, the one saving you from the androids… That was me, Kael.”
The tower disappeared. The cold. The brazier. Everything. He was again that boy hiding in the trees, clutching the pendant and watching a woman with amber eyes—someone strong, someone who had led him safely through the war-torn wilderness.
Oona inched forward, her dress still clutched to her chest. “I was the one who found you.”
Kael’s breath left him.
His hand flexed, then fell still. He shook his head. “No. That’s not possible.”
Oona drew a quick breath. “It is.” She spoke quietly, gently. “You were a boy, lost with her in the forest. I carried you. I held you. I left to scout the path, and when I came back…”
Her voice broke. “Only you remained.”
The immensity of it crashed into him. Kael staggered back, his chest heaving. He could still see her eyes. The same amber-flecked eyes.
And suddenly, he felt like that same boy in the wilderness. He lost his grip and the torch slipped from his grasp. It hit the floor, rolling, sending shadows spiraling across the walls.
Kael turned, blind, stumbling. He needed to go. He needed to get out.
Oona’s words cut through the wind. “Kael—”
He shoved against the heavy door. It groaned open, the wind piercing through the gap. Cold rushed in, cutting through the warmth of her touch, the heat of her breath lingering on his skin.
He advanced, but his hand waited on the doorframe for a second. The pendant pressed against his chest.
It was impossible. It couldn’t be. But Oona’s eyes—her eyes—watched him now the same way they had all those years ago.
He turned to face her. But the strain became too much. He pushed ahead, stepping onto the outer stairwell, into the night.
“Kael, wait!” Oona called.
But he was already gone.