Page 75 of Silent Lucidity

Tenthil hooked his left arm around Abella’s waist and stood up, sidestepping with the moving curtain. The folds of thick fabric bunched around them like a flimsy cloth cocoon. Within a few seconds, Abella was pressed against the wall with Tenthil against her, chest to chest, his arms to either side of her body.

He forced his breathing to remain slow and silent as the sliver of space between the wall and the swaying edge of the curtain lit up with the guard’s light. For an instant, the darkness surrounding them receded, and half of Abella’s face was illuminated by reflected light, revealing one rounded green eye.

The light abruptly moved away.

“Third floor disturbance all clear,” said the nearest guard. His quiet footsteps moved toward the door. “Now we can head back down and let Jharon and Krag take over second patrol. Bout time we had a chance to sit on our asses in the transport for a while.”

“These patrols are pointless. We have the perimeter under constant surveillance. Nobody’s getting in here without us knowing,” the other guard said. “Anyway, let’s get out of here. I’m starving.”

The door opened and closed. Abella released a softwhooshof air, and her head fell forward to rest against his chest.

“That was close,” she whispered.

Tenthil slipped his knife into its sheath and cupped the back of her head with his other hand, absently smoothing the pads of his fingers over her hair. “Almost done.”

When he could no longer hear the movement and voices of the guards through the door, Tenthil counted to thirty; only afterward did he brush aside the curtain and push away from the wall. He lingered at the edge of the steps leading back down into the main area of the room.

“We should have a few minutes while they change shifts. Let’s move quickly,” he said.

Abella walked past him and descended the steps. She put her arms out around waist height as she moved toward the bed—her vision in poor light apparently wasn’t as keen as Tenthil’s—but seemed familiar enough with the room to avoid all the obstacles in her way. Her footfalls were silent as she navigated the shadows between the furniture. Tenthil followed close behind her.

When they reached the bed, she placed one hand atop it and walked to its headboard, which was made of the same slate gray material as the moving posts—Tenthil wasn’t sure if it was metal, stone, or some strange combination of the two. Carved borders separated the panels that comprised the headboard. Each panel seemed to depict the scenes of some ancient story, the stylized figures lacking any semblance of realism.

“I need some light,” she whispered.

Tenthil dipped a hand to his belt and removed a hardlight projector from one of the pouches. He placed the small, disc-shaped device on the back of his left hand. It sealed itself in place on his glove. With his right hand, he pressed the activation button on the edge of the disc.

An orb of light coalesced in the air about ten centimeters over the projector. He moved the fingers of his left hand to manipulate the orb, shaping it into a cone and directing its beam toward the bed.

“Over here,” Abella said.

Tenthil shifted the light to the place she’d indicated as she leaned forward and pushed aside the long, concave pillows gathered around the headboard, revealing the sculpted paneling beneath.

She placed both hands on the borders between the panels and trailed her fingers over the decorative carvings. “Somewhere along here…”

Keeping his arm steady, Tenthil twisted to look toward the door. The room was quiet enough for him to hear the gentle scrape of her fingers over the wood; there were still no sounds from beyond the door. He’d been aware of the risks well before he and Abella had come here, but their close call a few moments earlier had reminded him what was at stake—her life was in immediate danger every second they spent in this house.

A blazing need to whisk her away from this danger raged within him, existing on a primal, instinctual level, but he held it back. Despite the risks, this was a necessary step on their journey to true freedom.

There was a soft click from the headboard.

“Got you,” Abella said.

Tenthil turned back toward her to see one of the panels sticking a few centimeters out from the headboard. At her gentle touch, the panel slid straight up, its smooth movement suggesting hydraulic arms of some sort.

His pride and admiration for her swelled to new heights. She’d lived in this house as a prisoner, as a piece of property, for years. She’d been beaten and spoken down to; she’d been forced to perform at the whim of a cruel and arrogant spawn of a skeks. Yet throughout her time here—and despite her suffering—she’d held on to hope. Abella had not allowed Cullion to break her spirit. She’d remained observant. She’d discovered and retained her former master’s secrets, and Tenthil had no doubt she would have harnessed her attentiveness and tenacity for future escape attempts had he not rescued her.

She had held on to herself after she was taken from her home. What had Tenthil held on to apart from a defiant streak? He’d become what the Master had wanted him to be, had been shaped into an instrument of death.

Abella would forever be more than he deserved; he was fortunate beyond words to have a mate so beautiful, talented, and strong.

He angled the light into the compartment exposed by the shifted panel.

Abella reached into the opening and plucked up one of the many credit chips piled inside. “These are what we need, right?”

Though Tenthil understood the importance of money, the function of it, he had never been motivated by it; the Master and Corelthi had always handled the earnings and expenditures of the Order of the Void, granting acolytes allowances only to purchase goods and materials necessary to complete contracts, and his people—as far as he could recall from his younger years—hadn’t used currency of any sort. But seeing so many credit chips, knowing some of the business Cullion had been involved in, moved something within Tenthil.

There was likely enough here for him to provide a life of luxury and comfort to Abella for the remainder of their years. A life of wealth and leisure. A life in which she’d never want for anything. Something about that notion was appealing

---