Fingers growled and seized her. She gasped as the larger man lifted her with ease, thrusting her out the window. No, he didn’t thrust her. He threw her. She screamed as she soared across the gap between the two buildings. She dropped her lantern. It tumbled low and broke against the wall, snuffing out.
She slammed into the lip of the other building’s window. The air burst from her lungs. She groaned, her arms thrust through the opening. Her booted feet skittered on the building’s face as they searched for purchase. Almost immediately, she started falling. She screamed, the frame scraping at her skin through her shirt, at her breasts.
She caught it, throbbing scratches beating pain with her heartbeat. The soles of her boots gripped crumbling brick and rotten mortar. She climbed up and spilled over into a room. She landed with a dusty thud, millennia of destructs bursting around her in a writhing cloud.
A skeleton lay beside her. She hardly noticed as she rolled to her feet and whirled to the window. “Fingers!”
He had his back to the far window. Concrete cracked. The crystalman was about to batter through the floor. She could see its amethyst body through the lower window. Fingers turned around and threw his lantern across the gap. The light soared at her. She caught it.
“Go!” he shouted. “It’s fixated on me. You have a chance.”
His emotions were writ across his face, that desperate love a parent had for a child. He would make sure she lived. Emotion stung her eyes more than the dust billowing around her. She shook her head. It wasn’t fair. She had just found him. Realized who he was. She couldn’t lose him again. Not so soon.
The whispers echoed through her mind. Numb fingers clutched the lantern. She held it high, desperate to find something to bridge the space.
*
“This is a problem,” whispered Ōbhin.
They had snuffed out their lanterns. In the dark, the crystalmen appeared as faint glows of purple moving through the vast space. As his eyes adjusted to the heavy darkness, he spotted another glow even farther away. The automatons patrolled before the very building they needed to enter to shut them down.
Ōbhin’s mind worked as he watched them. The open plaza appeared to be twice the size of the grounds upon which Dualayn’s manor rested. He judged it to be as big as St. Jettay’s Square before the Temple of the Seven Colours. At least two crystalmen circled it. While there seemed to be some obstructions that occasionally blocked the sight of the automatons, there wasn’t much cover to hide them for more than a few heartbeats.
“There’s no way we can cross that unseen,” said Ōbhin.
“We must,” said Dualayn. “Look. You can see our destination in the glow of the far one. Those steps.”
“Can we work our away around through the buildings?” asked Miguil.
“There are more around than those two,” said Ōbhin. Their presence seemed to confirm Dualayn’s theory. The crystalmen were patrolling close to where they were controlled. They would stay by their headquarters. Their creators would have ordered them to guard it. Without anyone alive to give them commands, they now followed their previous instructions.
Ōbhin glanced at Dualayn. “You are certain you can shut them down?”
“Absolutely.”
Just like you were certain Chames wouldn’t die, or Avena wouldn’t lose control of her body. Ōbhin’s shoulders itched. Avena was out there. He wanted to rush out there and shut them down. To end the most dangerous threat to her life.
Being brash wasn’t the solution. Slowly. Stealthily. Taking their time to reach it. Miguil was right. He couldn’t let his fear of ‘what ifs’ drive him to do something reckless. He drew in slow, measured breaths.
“Okay, we’ll work our way—”
The distant alarm echoed through the ruins. The screeching sound dumped frozen snow down his back. Dajouth groaned and Dualayn muttered beneath his breath. Ōbhin gripped the debris they hid behind.
The crystalmen had found Fingers and Avena. The luxury of time evaporated.
“I’ll distract them,” Ōbhin said and rose. He drew his resonance sword and picked up a lantern. His eyes had adjusted to the near night, the light glowing from the nearest crystalman surprisingly enough for him to see shadowy shapes of obstacles before him. “You rush for the building as they chase me.”
“That’s insane,” Miguil hissed. “They’ll kill you.”
“He’s in love,” Dajouth said. “That makes every man crazy. Ōbhin, we’ll do it. I’ll drag Dualayn in there myself if he objects.”
Ōbhin nodded and burst from his cover. He raced across the craggy surface of the plaza. He had made it twenty cubits away when he activated his sword and lantern. Light flared around him. The nearest crystalman stopped and began to turn. Ōbhin slashed his blade at it, striking its arm as he rushed past.
The ear-splitting screech, like the rising cry of a hawk that never stopped for breath, burst from the automaton. Ōbhin kept running. He leaped over a pile of rubble. Ahead, he made out a street leading into more buildings, their top levels crushed by the falling earth.
To his left, a third crystalman lurched to life and trudged out. The far one marched at him. He had three of them following him. It had to be enough. He was placing his trust into the hands of a man who had proven himself unworthy of guarding the midden heap.
*
It wasn’t more than ten cubits separating the two buildings. That wasn’t that far. Just two of Avena stacked together. She had to find some way to save her father. She ignored the whispers echoing through her head. She rubbed her tongue across the roof of her mouth.
It felt fuzzy, like it was covered in prickling caterpillar down.
She couldn’t collapse. She had to keep her mind here. She fought against the signal
