A few monts after I tore my eyes away from the Dinsional Market to inspect the stretch of trees we were rolling through, Ysoriel stirred. Her eyes opened slowly, and she leaned away from my shoulder, blinking at the shadows around us.
"Where are we?"
"I’m not sure myself, but this place looks too ominous for my liking. I hope we fly out of it as quickly as possible."
Ysoriel studied the canopy above, craning her neck for a mont. The branches were so thick they swallowed most of the light, leaving the air beneath them heavy and still.
"I hope so too... for so reason, I don’t feel myself."
As she said this, sothing in my chest twisted. It was as though the worry nerves in my body had been tampered with.
"What? Are you okay? Maybe you need to rest more?"
We had been moving about for a while after all, and barely even had enough sleep.
Ysor held her head and shook it. "No, I don’t think this is sothing sleep can fix."
She dropped her hands and exhaled. I studied her for a bit, watching the way her brow creased and uncreased like she was trying to place sothing she couldn’t na. Then I decided to ask.
"What happened at ho?"
Ysoriel’s gaze fell. For a mont, she just sat there, fingers curling absently around the edge of her seat. Then she wore a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, trying to hide the pity she felt for herself.
"I just happened to discover... that no one loves enough to challenge the status quo. It just feels so unfair, so I decided to take my chances with you."
I stared at her for a long mont, my gaze completely still, rid of any emotion.
There it was. Laid bare, just like that. The kind of truth most people spent years dancing around, and Ysor had just handed it to in a single breath. I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
"I don’t know if I do too... I fear I may be like them. The only difference is, this particular status quo is sothing I hate. But I can’t help questioning myself, wondering if I would be willing to do the sa for you if I grew up sheltered and with able parents like your brothers did."
She smiled beautifully. "Well then it’s a good thing you didn’t."
I gave her a dark stare.
"That’s unfair to ..."
"What? No..."
She froze. Thought back to what she just said. The mont she realized, she frantically shook her head.
"No, no, no, I... that was not what I intended, I swear. I’m so sorry..."
I burst into laughter the mont she began apologizing with regret and pain written all over her face. The laughing made her pause.
Then she frowned.
"Are you teasing ?"
I managed to stop and grinned. "I an, my cries sotis sound like I’m laughing, you know."
I moved my hands to wipe the tears at the edge of my brows, and Ysor just stared with a small but angelic frown.
"I think I cried too much this ti around. Whew, look at all these tears."
She rolled her eyes. "You’ve never cried since that night, and I’m sure you won’t now. And even if you do, go ahead and console yourself." She turned away from .
As strong and dependable as Ysor was, it was almost always unbelievable how she never failed to fall for my teasing. She was a fool for my displeasure in certain things, and too often was far too cautious of offending .
And with other people, she was an absolute bully. Sotis it was satisfying to my ego to watch. Other tis, it made question what exactly she saw in .
She dropped her head dejectedly and pouted. "I’m sorry anyways. I shouldn’t have said that, I just..."
The transport lurched.
Not the subtle vibrations we had grown used to, the kind that ca from the wheels crushing mountain earth beneath them. There was nothing those wheels t that they did not destroy.
Until now.
The gallop was violent enough to nearly throw the vehicle off its legs. The transport handler reacted fast. The vehicle drifted, twisted direction, counterbalancing the shift in montum before it could tip. It stopped abruptly, blown out of its lane.
The vehicle behind us saw this and swerved to evade whatever had caused it. But sothing worse happened.
A projectile tore across my vision, too fast to identify. All I caught was a blur before it smashed into the second transport and threw it from the road entirely. The transport cartwheeled.
Mundane Defineds poured out of it like shaken grain and were crushed beneath the weight of the vehicle as it rolled over them.
It hit a tree and twisted around the trunk. The rigid tal used to build the vehicle bent in ways I didn’t think possible, squeezed and crushed like sothing soft. Looking at how these transports were fortified, I never thought a fall could do this to them.
’Are they softer than they look?’
The armored tank in front drifted to a stop and made a sharp U-turn, curving around a tree and weaving through another to fall back in line towards us.
Then my eyes caught sothing. Grooves in the ground. And from those grooves, a cluster of fists extended just as the tank approached. They slamd into the first wheel with a blow that threw the tank off course.
The handler corrected with a sharp turn, preventing it from veering too far out.
’These handlers are good.’
But it didn’t matter.
Several more projectiles flew from the trees and slamd into both the tank and our transport.
The vehicle trembled for a single mont, and then my entire world was rolling. Nothing registered except Ysor, the person I had instinctively pulled tight against my chest, and the horrible sensation of everything turning around . My legs were caught sowhere in the wreckage and the sharp pain bit through every rotation as our transport tumbled.
Then, finally, it stopped.
We were lucky in one way. The transport had co to rest on its feet. But that was where the luck ended. People dangled from their seats with blood pouring down their faces. Others were already clawing at the wreckage, trying to tear themselves free.
For , the world was a cold, piercing screech. And I could still feel Ysor in my arms.
Relief washed over the mont I was sure of that.
But it was taken away just as quickly by what I saw when I raised my head.
[A/N]: If you’re enjoying this book, it’d be unfair not to add this book to your library and support it with your power stones and golden tickets.
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