Текст книги "The Sun Dwellers"

Автор книги: David Estes

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THE SUN DWELLERS

Book Three of

The Dwellers Saga

David Estes

Copyright 2012

David Estes

Kindle Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Discover other exciting titles by David Estes available through the author’s official website:

http://davidestesbooks.blogspot.com

or through select online retailers.

Young-Adult Books by David Estes

The Dwellers Saga:

Book One—The Moon Dwellers

Book Two—The Star Dwellers

Book Three—The Sun Dwellers

The Country Saga by David Estes (A sister series to The Dwellers Saga):

Book One—Fire Country (coming March 1, 2013!)

The Evolution Trilogy:

Book One—Angel Evolution

Book Two—Demon Evolution

Book Three—Archangel Evolution

Children’s Books by David Estes

The Nikki Powergloves Adventures:

Nikki Powergloves– A Hero is Born

Nikki Powergloves and the Power Council

Nikki Powergloves and the Power Trappers

Nikki Powergloves and the Great Adventure

Nikki Powergloves vs. the Power Outlaws (Coming in 2013!)

This book is dedicated to my parents,

David and Nancy Estes,

for being my biggest fans.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Acknowledgments

Connect with David Estes Online

About the Author

ANNA’S STORY: A DWELLERS SHORT STORY

A SNEAK PEEK: FIRE COUNTRY

Prologue

Subchapter 14 of the Moon Realm

Two years ago

Despite her nondescript gray tunic, the woman sticks out like a sparkling diamond in a coal mine, her shiny blond hair peeking out from beneath her dark hood. But it’s not her hair, or her face—which is remarkably beautiful beneath the dark shadows—that identifies her as a foreigner in the Moon Realm. Instead, it’s her gait, the way she carries herself: straight-backed and graceful and regal. Next to her the passing moon dwellers look hunched, their backs question marks and their faces turned to the dust.

She knows it’s the middle of the day—thus ensuring the girl will be at school—but the amount of light afforded by the overhead cavern lights is appallingly minimal, the near-equivalent of a Sun Realm dawn, or perhaps twilight.

Although she clearly doesn’t belong amongst the rundown and crumbling gray stone shacks, she doesn’t hesitate as she strides down the street, ignoring the stares she attracts. Unable to hold back her nerves any longer, she pauses—just a barely noticeable stutter step—as she nears her target: a tiny stone box, no larger than a medium-sized shed. She wonders how the two most powerful Resistance leaders could possibly be tucked in such an unremarkable corner of the Moon Realm. The front yard is barren rock, full of crisscrossing cracks and stone chips that roll and slide underfoot as she approaches the thin doorframe.

Before she knocks, her eyes are drawn to her feet, where she stands on the only unmarred stone square. Within the block is a single word—friend—elegantly cut with the skill of a professional stone worker. A hint of a smile crosses the woman’s face before she looks up. Despite all her doubts and fears and indecisiveness while making the decision that’s led her to this place, that one word chiseled at the entrance gives her hope that there’s a better life out there for her eldest son—that maybe things can improve for him and for the Tri-Realms as a whole.

Her life is forfeit—stomped out by a loveless sham of a marriage, to the President no less—but her son’s…well, her son’s life could change everything.

After a single deep breath, she gathers her courage in a raised fist. When her knuckles collide with the door, the sound is final and hollow in her ears, but in reality is only a thud. Tilting an ear, she listens for footsteps, but is rewarded with only cluttered silence. The clutter: her mind, which trips and stumbles over a thousand questions. Is anyone home? Will the door be slammed in my face? Have I made a grievous mistake? Have I failed him? Have I failed my son? Have I failed myself?

Unexpectedly and without fanfare, the door swings open; a dark-haired woman wearing a plain brown, knee-length tunic fills the gap, her eyebrows raised in surprise. If not for the foreigner’s information, which she received from a very reliable source, she wouldn’t believe this woman to be a revolutionary. Except for her eyes, that is. There’s a fire in her pupils that she’s only seen once or twice in her life. It’s the same fire she sees in her eldest son.

When the woman with the jet-black hair doesn’t speak, the intruder realizes her eyebrows are an unspoken question: Yes? Why have you wandered onto my doorstep?

Before answering the silent question, she pulls back her hood, releasing her golden locks and forcing away the identity-protecting shadows on her face. A spark of recognition flashes on the woman’s face, but fades just as quickly. Finally she speaks. “First Lady Nailin—why are you here?”

“Mrs. Rose—I have a proposition for you. May I come in?”

Chapter

One

Adele

Present day

The light gleams off the barrel of the gun with a brightness that blinds me if I look directly at it. My hands are sweaty as I clutch the weapon that once upon a time was so foreign, but now seems so familiar. The gun’s every detail is burned into my memory, from the temperature of the cold steel against my palm, to its weight tugging on my wrist, to the strong yet delicate scent of burning gunpowder.

When I turn the corner and enter the room, it’s all happening again. My dad is bound and lying prostrate on the rough stone floor, the executioner’s gun to his head. A half dozen other sun dwellers bar my way forward. There’s more than the last time, but it doesn’t matter. A million of them couldn’t stop me. Not this time.

I raise the gun and start shooting. Six booms later my foes are all dead, red and warm and blank-eyed. In the heat of the moment, I continue shooting, this time at the executioner, but the click click click announces that I’m out of bullets.

I toss the gun aside and charge forward, kicking his bland face with my heel. He slumps to the side, his own weapon discarded by his weakened fingers. I’ve done it this time. Saved him—saved my father. But I know something’s not right as I realize my sister isn’t by his side like she should be. The glitter of light reflecting off something hanging from my neck distracts me. I reach up, close my hands around an emerald necklace, the one my mother gave me after my father died. The necklace my father gave my mother. This isn’t right—none of this is right.

As I lean over the face of the man who I immediately know is not my father, the Devil’s eyes flash open, the gateway to a black and soulless human shell.

“Didn’t you know?” the President says. “Your father’s already dead. And you’re next.”

My heart is in my throat as the demon lifts his hand, which is now holding a long glinting sword with a diamond-encrusted hilt, which I either didn’t notice before or which has magically appeared.

As his white-knuckled hand darts forward, I scream. Although I don’t close my eyes, blackness surrounds.

* * *

I’m still screaming and seeing darkness when a pair of strong arms cradles my head. “Shh,” a voice says.

I quiet but I’m still breathing hard, panting like I’ve just run a long way, my chest heaving. An instant later there’s a soft glow as a lantern is lit, casting dancing shadows on the rough, brown tunnel walls. Tristan’s arm is still behind my head, and when he sees me looking at him, he retracts it quickly, his face flush with embarrassment. “You were dreaming,” he says. “I heard you cry out.”

I close my eyes, try to will the frantic pace of my heart to slow, as I remember where I am. In a tunnel on the way to the Sun Realm. On a mission for my mother, General Rose. As Tristan’s father pointed out in my nightmare, my father’s still dead—nothing can change that. No amount of fresh killing or revenge or trigger pulls will make one bit of difference. And yet the furnace of revenge burns hotly in the pit of my stomach. Kill his father. Kill the President. That is our mission.

I open my eyes and, despite my vengeful thoughts, say, “I’m tired of all the death.” I realize my hand is clutching my necklace, just like in my dream. Slowly, I release the emerald, watch it swing gently back and forth, wishing I’d never had to leave my mother.

Tristan’s face worries its way to a tight smile. “Only one more person has to die, right?” The ever-present buzz whenever Tristan is near me hums along my scalp and down my spine. The urge to get as close to him as possible tugs at my arms, but I hide it well, not even flinching.

Even after the disturbing nightmare, I can’t help but grin when I’m talking to him. “Yeah, just your dad—hope you don’t mind.”

He laughs. “He’s no one’s father.”

“Not even Killen’s?”

“Especially not Killen’s,” he says. “We were only ever puppets to him, used to do his dirty work, nothing more.”

It saddens me to hear Tristan talk like that, but I know it’s true. I’d rather have a dead father than a living one like his. I sigh, wishing I had the same boldness now as when I kissed him back in the Moon Realm.

“What was your dream about?” he asks.

I tell him, watching as his hands tighten into fists, curling and uncurling with each sentence. When I finish, I say, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it when the time comes.”

“You’re strong, Adele. I’ve seen it time and time again,” he says, his dark blue eyes never leaving mine.

“Does it take strength to kill?” I ask, almost to myself. “Is that what makes your father strong?”

His hands relax and he folds them in his lap. “It takes strength to defeat evil,” he says wisely. “In any case, I won’t mind being the one to do it when the time comes.”

Despite his more relaxed posture, there’s a thirst for blood in his eyes that I’ve never seen before, which both scares and comforts me. Changing the subject, I say, “So what’s with you and Ram?” I’ve been itching to ask Tristan about his strange relationship with the dark-skinned gargantuan who’s part of our merry little death squad.

“What do you mean?” Tristan says, his eyes giving away his hidden laugh.

“Umm, I don’t know…maybe the fact that he threatened to kill you at the council meeting, and you seemed to find it funny. Does that ring a bell?”

Tristan’s laugh finally presents itself, lighting up his face. I bask in it for a moment as I wait for him to respond. “Let’s just say our friendship has had its ups and downs. Right now we’re on an up.”

“C’mon, tell me,” I push. “What were the downs?”

“He hated me,” Tristan says bluntly. “He didn’t trust me, tried to beat me up a few times, tried to block me from trying to help.”

I guess it makes sense that he’d have opposition—even within the Resistance. Still, a smile plays on my lips. “He tried to beat you up? The guy’s a behemoth.”

Tristan looks away, cringing slightly, but then turns back, his lips turned up once more. “Okay, okay, he did beat me up, but it’s not like I tried to fight back—I didn’t want to upset anyone by getting into fights while trying to convince people to trust me.”

“Sure, tough guy,” I say.

We’re both quiet for a few minutes, but it’s not awkward, which is one of the things I like about Tristan. Just being near him feels right. It’s been that way since I met him. It’s like all the nerves and nodes and synapses in our bodies thrive on our nearness. At least that’s how it is for me, and how I hope it is for Tristan.

He must be thinking the same thing because he says, “Isn’t it weird that we’re here together?” He laughs and I’m silent, but I know exactly what he means. We saw each other across barren rock, through a barbed-wire, electrified fence, past hordes of his screaming, undergarment-throwing, adoring fans—me in freaking prison and him the prized attraction in a parade—and yet here we are, together; like together together. Weird is the perfect word for it.

“Have you ever thought that maybe it’s more than just coincidence?” he says, his eyebrows question marks.

“Like fate?” I say, trying to hide my surprise at his question. I haven’t told him what my mom said to me before we left the Moon Realm:

It’s no accident that you and Tristan met.

“Maybe. I dunno. Something like that.”

My thoughts come fast, careening around in my head like fish in a cave pond. In my world, the only fate is illness or death. We don’t have much else. However, from the time I laid eyes on Tristan in the flesh, I have felt an indescribable pull toward him, like someone wants us to be together. But despite my mom’s declaration that it wasn’t an accident that we met, there’s no logical explanation for any of it, which doesn’t work for my pragmatic mind. I shake my head. “I don’t think so. It’s just plain random chance.”

It’s no accident that you and Tristan met.

Tristan frowns. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

I stop breathing. Here it comes. For a while now I’ve felt there was something he was holding back, something big—maybe life-changing.

“Did I ever tell you that I fainted once thinking about you?”

Huh? I’m guessing that’s not what he’s been keeping from me. What does that even mean? I sigh. “Umm…” Well. Hmm. No?

“I did. Roc and I were training, fighting with wooden swords. This was shortly after I saw you for the first time, mind you. The fight was over and your face popped into my head…” He ducks his head sheepishly and sort of cringes, like he’s wondering why he decided to tell me this, but knows he can’t go back now. “And, well, I passed out right then. In the time between fainting and Roc waking me up, I dreamt that my father murdered you right in front of me. It was creepy.”

My head spins. Why is he telling me this? So I made him faint? I don’t know what to say, but he’s not done yet.

“Then I nearly passed out again when I saw you the second time, when you were trying to break out of the Pen.”

I can’t help but laugh now. “Are you sure it wasn’t the fumes from the bombs blowing up all over the place?”

His face is dead serious. “No, it was you. I had a physical reaction to seeing you, almost like my body couldn’t handle it.”

This is definitely not the direction I thought the conversation was going. “I didn’t take many baths while in the Pen so normally I would guess it was my body odor that caused it, but I had just showered that day, so that can’t be it,” I joke.

“Perhaps it was your remarkable beauty,” Tristan says, sending warmth into my cheeks.

“Knock it off, charmer, I thought you were being serious.”

“I was being serious,” he says, which doesn’t help stem my flush.

“Look, you probably just hadn’t eaten in a while, or were dehydrated,” I say, trying to steer the conversation away from what he thinks of my looks.

He tilts his head to the side, his eyes wandering to the tunnel ceiling. “That’s possible…” he says, but I know he doesn’t really think so.

When he looks back at me, there’s resolution in his eyes. Although we’re already sitting close to each other, he slides closer, right next to me. The normal strength of my pull toward him is super-charged, and the only desire I have is to hold him, to be held by him. He must feel the same way, because his arm curls around the back of my neck, drags my head to his chest. His warm breath caresses the back of my neck, electricity shooting off his skin as he gently presses his arm against mine.

“This is the good part of life,” he says, and I sigh, although I shouldn’t. Not when my dad is dead, my sister maimed. Cole. No, I don’t deserve this, I think. Not now. Not until the President is dead. Maybe never.

Going against every instinct, I unwind my body from Tristan’s grasp, stand up, and walk away with the lantern in tow, wishing I didn’t have to.

“I’ve got to get rid of this gun,” I say over my shoulder, plucking the gun my mom gave me—the gun I failed to save my father with—out from beneath my tunic.

Chapter Two

Tristan

“Wait!” I say, wishing I hadn’t been so bold. I seem to have scared her away.

Jumping to my feet, I jog after the bouncing glow of the light. By the time I catch up to her, she’s marched past the sleeping lumps that are Trevor and Ram, and is approaching Roc and Tawni, who agreed to share tonight’s first watch. Backlit by another lantern, their silhouettes are sitting cross-legged, facing each other, their knees nearly touching. The slap of cards on rock gives away their method of passing the time.

I grab Adele’s arm, feeling a zing of energy. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

She stops, glances down at my hand on her elbow, her lips curled into a tenuous smile that evaporates immediately. “No, Tristan, it’s not you,” she says, gently prying herself loose. “This is just something I have to do. It can’t wait any longer.”

“What’s going on?” Roc says beyond us. “Are you guys lost? Because if you’re looking for the nearest hotel, it’s back the way you came. Not that I’d recommend it.”

We both turn to find the shadows turned toward us, watching. Adele lifts the lantern, illuminating our friends’ faces. Roc’s wearing a black tunic that makes his brown skin look ghostly pale in comparison. He’s also wearing a smirk. Tawni’s delicate features are framed by her milk-white hair, above her silver tunic. Together they’re the yin and the yang; I can’t decide who is which.

“Tawni, I have a favor to ask,” Adele says.

Cocking her head to the side, Tawni purses her lips. “Yes?”

“Hang onto this for me,” Adele says, holding the gun out handle-first.

Tawni freezes, her pale face managing to whiten even further. “But why? I mean, I can’t…I don’t even know how—”

“I’m not asking you to use it—just to keep it safe for me.”

Wrinkling her nose, Tawni reaches out a bony hand and slips a single finger into the metal trigger loop, allowing the gun to dangle like a dirty sock. “Where should I put it?”

Adele reaches under her tunic and works her fingers for a few seconds before pulling out a waist holster. “This fits in the small of your back,” she says, handing the gun carrier to her friend. “You won’t even know it’s there.” If the gun is a dirty sock then the holster’s its matched pair, and although she takes it with her other hand, Tawni clearly doesn’t want it. “Please,” Adele adds, her previously firm voice pleading now.

“Sure,” Tawni says with a sigh, placing the items in a pile on the tunnel floor.

Roc stares at me curiously, his lips opening slightly, a question on his tongue. “What are you guys doing up anyway? Your shift isn’t for two hours.”

Adele’s green eyes flick to mine. Don’t tell them I had a nightmare, they plead. “My stomach was growling so loud it woke us both up,” I say, my eyes lingering on Adele’s for a moment before facing Roc.

“I’d give you some of my ration,” Roc says, “but I already ate it.” He rubs his stomach, grinning. Tawni laughs.

I lunge at him, tackle my friend, pin him down. “Tomorrow I get both our rations,” I say. “Don’t I?”

“Not unless hell freez—” But Roc doesn’t have a chance to finish his thought, as a huge, black shape enters our field of vision from the side, a blur of speed and muscle. I fling myself to the side, trying to avoid the impact, but I’m too late. The beast rams its shoulder into my chest and I’m thrown backward, my spine shuddering as it glances off the rock wall.

Ignoring the pain, I’m on my feet, ready to fight, ready to defend myself and Adele and my friends. The black shadow looms over me, a head taller and…and laughing. Deep, throaty, Ram. The same Ram that Adele was just asking me about. What she doesn’t know is that before being added to our team, he was my biggest enemy within the Resistance. He was always watching me, calling me a liar, convinced I was a spy for my father. And now he’s my friend, I think? Maybe? Sort of?

My body relaxes and instantly a bolt of pain shoots down my spine. I cringe. Roc moves between us with a flashlight and Ram’s massive grinning face looms over him. “Everyone all right?” Roc asks. “And by everyone I mean Tristan.” He laughs, claps a hand on my shoulder. “Serves you right, buddy. Me and Ram, well, let’s just say we’ve come to an agreement. Isn’t that right, bud—I mean, Ram?”

Ram’s dark eyes are violent and yet full of humor. “That’s right. No more picking on your weakling friend,” he growls.

“Right,” Roc says. “Except for the weakling part.”

Great, I think. Even Roc’s tighter with Ram than I am. This might be a long trip.

“I think I’ll join Team Ram, too,” another voice says, approaching from the tunnel behind us. Trevor. Trevor with the curly chestnut hair. Trevor who was Adele’s mom’s right-hand man. Trevor who saved Adele from Brody in the Star Realm. Although his tousled hair and blinking eyes are still full of sleep, he wears an easy smile, one that looks like it could stay on his lips all day.

It’s only the first night of our mission and already none of us can manage a proper night’s sleep. Yeah, it really is going to be a long trip.

* * *

Since we’re all awake, we decide to just keep moving, to save sleep for another time, maybe once the war is over.

At first Adele walks with Tawni, speaking in hushed tones. I wonder if she’s telling her about her nightmare, about my arm around her, about my questions. I can just make out the bump on Tawni’s lower back where Adele’s gun is.

Ram’s bulky arm is around my shoulder, as if he’s my best mate, when really he’s just trying to intimidate me. I shrug it off.

“Ooh, the tough prince exerting his strength,” Ram taunts.

I laugh. “If you weren’t three hundred pounds I’d do more than that,” I say.

“Pity. I’d like to see that,” Roc says from my other side.

“I reckon I could take all three of you,” Trevor says from behind us.

I glance back at my newest acquaintance. He’s got a big mouth, but for all I know he might be able to back it up. His forearms are cut like stone and I can just make out the start of a toned bicep before it hides beneath the sleeve of his green tunic. I doubt Adele’s mom would have included him on the mission if he couldn’t fight.

Ram grunts.

Roc chuckles. “I’m out. You three can settle this on your own.”

“We might just do that,” I murmur, always one for a challenge.

Ahead, Tawni drifts back from Adele’s side, zeroing in on Roc. I take advantage of the opportunity to stride ahead, nonchalantly pulling up next to Adele. “Hey,” I say.

“Hey yourself,” she replies, glancing at me.

“You okay?” I ask.

Staring straight ahead, she says, “What did my mom whisper to you before we left?”

She answers my question with a question of her own, but I don’t mind. I’m just happy to be talking to her after the abrupt end to our previous conversation. “She said that it probably made sense for her to ask me to take care of her daughter, but in your case she knew it wasn’t necessary.”

Adele glances at me again, and this time holds my gaze for a moment. Pride covers her face like a mask. The urge to intertwine my fingers with hers strikes me, but I ignore it, afraid I’ll scare her away again. She’s so unlike the girls in the Sun Realm. The girls up there are weak and wouldn’t last ten minutes in the Moon Realm, and yet they approach guys with a confidence bordering on arrogance. You know you want me, but the question is: Do I want you? Whereas, Adele’s as hard as diamond, and yet, other than when she kissed me, she’s timid when it comes to being close to me.

As if she can read my thoughts, Adele’s face falls. “I can take care of myself, but not my friends and family,” she says.

I try to swallow but a lump congeals in my throat. I have to tell her what I think. “I think my father targeted Ben to get to me.”

“That makes no sense,” Adele says right away. She’s determined to take the blame.

“He’s trying to get to me, to do anything he can to take the fight out of me, so I’ll either turn myself in, kill myself, or do something stupid.”

“Turning yourself in or killing yourself would be something stupid,” Adele replies, not missing a step. “But regardless, attacking my dad and sister has nothing to do with you.”

“It does if he thought…I cared…about your father,” I say, my words sticking to my tongue like underground river leeches on a swimmer’s legs.

“Did you? Care about my father?” There’s an edge to Adele’s voice, which is full of steel and glass.

“You know I did.” My brain struggles to formulate the right words. To make her understand the depth of my admiration for Ben Rose. “I didn’t know him for long, but he treated me like a son—”

“Which would make me your sister,” Adele says, her gritty words replaced with her usual sarcasm once more.

I laugh. “It doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t bother you,” I say.

I’m happy when she smiles. “Sooo, my dad was like a second father to you?”

I shake my head. “No, more than that. For me, a father is just the one whose genes you share. Ben—your dad—was like a mentor to me. He believed in me. Counseled me. Gave me confidence in myself.” Suddenly I remember something important. Something that will matter to Adele. “Can I show you something?”

Adele shrugs. “Sure.”

Without breaking stride, I swing my pack around to access it. Tucked beneath two tunics and a canteen is a book, leather-worn and brittle, its pages yellowed and thinned by time and history. Not a book—a diary.

“Your father gave this to me,” I say, handing it to Adele. “Well, lent it to me, really, but then…” I start to say the wrong thing, but manage to stop myself just in time. Adele doesn’t seem to notice.

“What is it?” she says, holding a flashlight to the cover.

“The diary of a young girl named Anna, from Year Zero. She got picked in the Lottery, was taken below, given a new family, the whole deal. I think your father gave me her diary to help give me some perspective, you know, remember what it is we’re fighting for. You can have it.”

Her eyes are wide open now, as she flips to the first page. For the next hour she walks and reads in silence, holding her flashlight over the pages, not even noticing when I put a nervous arm behind her so she doesn’t walk into the wall.

* * *

It’s a well-constructed tunnel, plenty high and wide enough for us to walk at a brisk pace. According to Adele’s mom (another Anna), the Resistance constructed it during the first Uprising, in case they ever had the need to sneak a small group into the Sun Realm. We walk for what feels like hours, when we should be sleeping. Sleep walking.

Adele reads the diary for a while, and then tries to hand it back to me. “You keep it,” I say. She tucks it in her pack without saying anything, and then takes my hand, sending shivers up my forearm. My hand’s sweaty and I desperately try to think cooling thoughts, but it doesn’t help. Adele, seemingly lost in her own thoughts, doesn’t recoil, so I guess she doesn’t notice. She’s remembering her father, I think.

Although I remained silent while Adele was reading, there were muffled conversations and occasional laughs from the rest of the group behind us. Roc seemed to be doing most of the talking, telling stories and jokes and otherwise making friends with everyone, which is just the kind of thing that he does. It’s fine with me because I’m with Adele.

But eventually everyone goes silent, from exhaustion and fatigue and because the damn tunnel keeps going up and up, getting steeper each time we round a bend. The tunnel gods try to make up for it by cooling the tunnel air as we get closer to the Sun Realm, but it’s not enough to combat the rise in our body temperatures from the heavy exercise. We are made of sweat and blood and bone and muscle. But mostly sweat.

The light long-haul tunic I was outfitted with before we left is sticking to my skin, held tight against me by the multiple weapons I’m toting. Against my left calf is a short dagger, sharp and deadly but the least of my weapons. Against the other calf is a shiny new handgun, afforded to me by the star dwellers, who were in turn supplied by my father as part of his ridiculous plan to pit the Lower Realms against each other. My sword is in its scabbard and hangs loosely at my side, occasionally bumping my knee. Tight on my back is a tightly strung bow and a satchel of arrows, hand carved and feathered. The moon dweller weapons maker named Hans who constructed them promised me they’d fly straight and true.

The rest of our group is outfitted similarly, and although I’ve seen the tough side of Adele many times before, there’s something about her getup that I find quite sexy. Her black tunic is a shadow, tight against her curves, serving to enhance her beauty rather than emasculate her. She wears a thick, tight belt, ornamented with various short daggers, as well as a thin, long blade. Like me, she has a bow, but hers hangs from a strap over her shoulder. The hilt of a partly hidden knife protrudes from the bottom of her long tunic, lashed to her calf.

Finally we stop. Someone suggests it, but I’m not sure who, because I’m so tired and my mind is squishier than a bowl of mushy, oversaturated rice. Heck, it might have been me, I’ll never know.

We should have a lookout schedule, but this time there are no volunteers and I don’t think anyone could keep their eyes open anyway, so we take the risk. This is a secret tunnel after all.

There’s no rhyme or reason to the sleeping arrangements—we just lie where we fall. Which happens to put me next to Adele. It reminds me of back in the Moon Realm, shortly after I first met her, when I was bruised and cut and bleeding from my brother and his thugs. I took a risk then and it was wonderful. We held hands all night, our first physical experience together, innocent and beautiful.