per hour. They will be at your location in less than a minute.”
“We have incoming,” I say to the group quickly as I inventory my options. If I open a Rift, we won’t have any answers. If this is not Arif’s faction but is instead a faction loyal to the altered Roones, we’re screwed. Obviously, they have some sort of device that trumps SenMach Rift cloaking.
I reach down into my pack and grab an extra sensuit, which I throw to Ezra. “Put this on,” I tell him. “Doe, have the sensuits go into stealth mode.”
“What is happening,” Arif says looking around wildly. “Where did you go?”
“I hope for your sake and ours that your side won, Arif. But if they didn’t, don’t let them take you alive.” I don’t feel great about throwing our newest potential allies to the wolves, but they did say they wanted to go home. If Arif and the rest lost, we are losing a squadron of Faida, which would be helpful for the sake of intel but wouldn’t make much of a dent in the numbers, not really. But that’s not why this is a massive risk, because if even one of them is captured and gives us up, we’ve lost before we’ve even begun. We might have forty-eight hours, tops, to warn our own people. But there is no “safe” when it comes to war. There is only risk and retreat. There is no point in retreat now. They already know we’re here.
Now, there is only hope.
I listen for Ezra’s heartbeat and find him. I touch him lightly on the hand and whisper, “Hush.”
The incoming Faida dive and land with such intensity that the ground quivers beneath our feet. I watch Arif and his troops. They have no ammo thanks to the pigs, so they have made themselves ready by taking a stance that is mostly crouched, presumably to take off in the air with considerable force. Everything is resting on a knife’s edge.
And then a Faida woman comes forward, and I watch Arif’s entire body relax. His arms lower, his legs straighten, and the look on his face goes beyond relief. It is almost ecstatic.
The woman he is looking at is all cheekbones and red curls. She does not smile. Her lips tremble, though, and she stops herself by covering her mouth with a single hand. Her other hand is outstretched, as if it has just received an impossible prayer in her palm. Or maybe she waiting for Arif to take it?
Arif says something in Faida and then—as with a jolt, as if he’s just now accepting what he’s seeing with his eyes—he races to her and they embrace tightly. I let go of the breath I was holding and lift my head to the sky. This all could have gone very badly. It still could. Whatever is transpiring between these two is fiercely intense. I almost feel like looking away, but there is too much at stake to allow them a private moment. Despite their intimacy, this woman could be compromised. Even worse, this could have been Arif’s plan all along—to get us right here, lulling us with stories of rebellion and spycraft. I put my hands on my holster, my fingers a breath away from the trigger of my sidearm.
The two of them begin speaking in Faida. It is a language as light and airy as their wings. Words fall into and over one another. It’s almost like Mandarin, but less nasal. I try to follow what they are saying, or at least the tone. For all my linguistic prowess, though, I have no idea. Finally, after a few minutes, Arif points over to where we’re standing, still in stealth mode. Our cover blown, I deactivate my suit, and Levi does the same. The woman walks over to me.
“My name is Navaa,” she tells me in Roonish without even the tiniest speck of emotion.
“Hello,” I say matching her deadpan tone.
“Arif tells me that you rescued our squadron from the Spiradael Earth. And while I am pleased at his return, I also find the circumstances unusually convenient.”
“Interesting,” I tell her as I plant my feet firmly in the ground, legs locked, shoulders back. I may not look like an angel, with the hair and the perfect skin and all, but I won’t be intimidated. “Because I felt exactly the same when I discovered your people were trapped on an Earth that wasn’t theirs.”
Navaa tilts her head to one side, eyeing me warily, as I do her. “I see,” she says slowly. She doesn’t trust me and I don’t trust her. I’m surprised that Arif himself isn’t being more cautious. How does he know that these Citadels haven’t been drugged by the altered Roones, forced to forget their rebellion and made to recommit to the other side by torture, psychological simulations, or both?
“You will come with us to our base. There are many questions, on both sides. But there are no answers here, not in this wasteland. It is a place so full of death and regrets I can’t concentrate.”
“No, wait.” Levi jumps forward. I look to him and then to Ezra, who speaks only English and Arabic. As annoyed as I am at him, I can’t help but feel badly at how lost he must feel. “How did you even know that we were here?” Levi continues. “There isn’t an active Rift on this Earth.”
Navaa locks her eyes onto my own. “I am a Kir-Abisat. I felt the Rift open the moment you arrived.” She continues to stare at me. There’s no misinterpreting that look. She knows. She knows that I am Kir-Abisat, too.
Arif carries me in his arms. I expect it to feel dangerous. I expect my own control freak issues to take over and hate that I’m at Arif’s mercy, but I’m wrong. In the drag and drift of his movements, I find a sort of peace on the airy current. It’s so quiet up here. There’s just Arif’s heartbeat and the wind, which blows like a tiny whistle.
The base is indeed set inside a mountain. It is majestic and imposing, but it is not weathered or aged. This place looks new and gleaming. From what I can see there are six stories, separated by huge panels of tinted glass and metal beams. The metal isn’t silver or steel, but a sort of copper color, almost the same color as the mountain itself.
Every other floor has a massive length of decking, which must almost certainly be used as launching pads. What a sight it would be, to watch thousands of Citadels take off from this vantage. Terrifying sure, but beautiful nonetheless.
Arif angles us vertically. He hovers for a second or two, I suppose to lose his momentum, and then he softly touches down and deposits me on the concrete landing. “Navaa will want to debrief me. And then she will debrief you. I hope you will not be insulted by this security measure. I’m sure you can understand her reluctance, just as we understood yours,” Arif says quietly in my ear.
“I can absolutely understand it, as long as you understand just because your girlfriend seems like she’s in charge doesn’t necessarily mean that she is,” I warn as I watch the rest of our party land. Levi’s jaw is set determinedly and Ezra … well, actually he looks a little joyous. And as annoyed as I am that he doesn’t seem to understand the seriousness of the situation, I’m also a bit jealous that he can be like that, that he has the ability to live inside a moment without thinking of a thousand things that might be coming next.
I turn back to Arif in time for him to say, “Navaa is not my girlfriend. She is my wife. No one is controlling her. The drugs don’t even work on her.”
“Oh. Well, you must be very happy that she is safe, then,” I tell him honestly. Arif just nods briefly. It seems more and more that the Faida are a reserved people, logical, tightly wound.
“I am feeling many things at once. Of course I am happy, but I am also concerned. I have no idea what happened in our absence and no clue
