Page 132 of Command

“Threxin.”

Hard fingertips brushed hair from her forehead.

“Are we dead?”

“You must open your eyes to find out.”

But what if I open them and we’re dead?

And he chuckled. Which meant they couldn’t be dead, right?

Alina tried to take a deep breath, but the pang in her chest prevented her from taking more than atiny gasp.

Shit.

Steeling herself, Alina looked.

“Shit!” She gasped, jerking upright, then dropped back as her ribs protested.

The expanse around her kicked her pulse into a frenzy. Theyweredead.

“I’m unconscious,” she said, staring up at the expanse of blue above. Blue as big as space, only all wrong.

Calm down. You’re either dead or you’ll wake up soon.

It was falling right on top of her. She brought her arm up to protect her face, as though she could keep the blue from crushing her.

She twisted her head to the side, squeezing her eyes shut. When it fell on her she didn’t want to look.

“Alina,” the voice coaxed again. “It is a sky.”

What the fuck?

“The sky. We are on a planet.”

When she managed to open her eyes again, Alina refused to look up. Even the glimpse of blue in her peripheral vision threatened to make her heart jump out of her throat when she let herself focus on it. So instead she twisted her face into the brown and green stuff below. At least it was close. At least it wasbeneathher and wouldn’t fall on her.

It smelled weird.

It got on her lip and she licked it away instinctively, and God, it was gross. Pungent, gritty, and a little salty.

The chuckle at her side made her turn her face a little.

There he was. “You look…”

He looked horrible. His apertures were dull and limp, his spikes flaccid at his scalp. There was so much blood, all over him. She looked down. All over her.

Alina forced herself to get up, propping herself with one arm—the one not attached to a shoulder that now throbbed as if shattered. She ignored the pain in her ribs and the dagger being driven through her skull as she took him in.

It wasn’t enough. Wincing, she sat herself upright and put both palms on the sides of his face. He felt solid. Not like a dream or a nightmare. She traced the line of the aperture beneath his cheekbone and watched it flare to subtle life beneath her. He closed his eyes, leaning into her touch.

“You’re alive,” she concluded.

Threxin’s mouth quirked into a tired smile. “Very alive.”

She finally registered something other than the sound of his voice, and that was thousands of voices whispering all around them. She frowned, refusing to look up at the terror overhead but casting her eyes around the solid surface beneath them.

“What is that?” She could not find the source of the noise.

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