Breath ragged, I peek around the door. The corridor beyond looks exactly the same as the first one I ran down, but it feels…
…Different.
No sign of any guards. Maybe they’re making their way through the Spire floor by floor.
I push through the door and close it behind me. I don’t know if it’s something in the air, or just my brain zapping off random signals under the constant barrage of the alarm, but Ygdris isn’t talking to me and I lost count of the stairs and I don’t have anything else to go on except the strange certainty thrumming against my skin.
Something’s here. I’m close.
I test the nearest door, feeling breathless. The room beyond is empty, except for a strange apparatus hanging from the ceiling. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Next door. Same. And the next. Just room after room with these unnerving, complex tangles of metal and rope and plastic.
The sixth door I try is locked.
My skin prickles. I lay my hand against the door, and feel a strange warmth, like I’ve stepped from the shadows into a beam of sunlight.
“Sun and stars.” Ygdris’ voice bursts into my ears, somehow cutting through the alarm. “There. Go. Now. I’ll buy you time.”
“But I still don’t have a way out! I—”
Adrenaline sears through my veins. They’ve seen me!
I jam my knife into the knock and shove through the door. It takes all my self-control to close the door gently behind me and not just slam it and run, but I manage it. Even the soft click as the door shuts sounds like a gunshot.
If they hear me, I’m dead. I can’t – hang on.
I lean against the door, panting. What just happened? I felt the surge of adrenaline as they spotted me, but… who were they? I hadn’t seen anyone else in the Spire. No one was chasing me, not yet at least. My heart’s racing and I’m panting so hard I’m almost sobbing, but… there was no one there to see me.
So what just happened? Am I going crazy?
“Who the hell are you?”
The voice is male: low and so weary that the question had next to no energy behind it. Even so I almost collapse with shock.
I turn around slowly, bracing myself against the door.
The room looks no different to the others I’ve poked my head into. It’s a few metres long, dimly lit by the Spire’s remnant energy, and has the same atmosphere of formal sterility left to rot. And the same strange contraption hanging from the centre of the ceiling.
Only this one’s occupied, and now I know what the contraptions are. This is a prison cell, and the cruel tangle of metal and plastic I’ve seen in all the rooms… oh, God. They’re restraints.
The man who spoke to me is strung up in mid-air, completely naked, with drac-tech manacles around his wrists and ankles. His skin is a mid-brown, criss-crossed with old scars and new bruises. And burn marks. Hell. Curly dark hair is plastered against his forehead with sweat, and his eyes—
I jerk my gaze away. The chained man is awake, glaring at me, and I can’t risk falling under a dragon’s spell.
“Who are you?” he repeats. “Answer me, human.”
His muscles tremor and jerk with exhaustion. I feel sick. I’ve seen worse than this, but not for a long time. And not without the heady fog of dragon glamour blinding me to the true horror of what the Protectorate does to its enemies.
I take a deep breath, steadying myself. I can’t let myself get distracted by the prisoner; the last thing I need is to free him and have him compel me to abandon Ygdris’ quest.
I’m close. I know it. The strange warmth I felt outside is stronger, here. Like sunlight. So close.
Ygdris’ treasure must be in this room.
I search quickly. There are only a few pieces of furniture in the room: a viewscreen, and a low cabinet that contains – oh, God, the strange instruments I’m seeing must be used for torture. I back up, covering my mouth. Those burn-marks on the prisoner’s chest…
You can’t save him. It’s too dangerous. Remember the orb. Remember Sia.