Page 471 of Kingdoms of Night

The higher we hovered, the tighter my insides retreated against my melting spine. A sudden heave had the ship shooting further up, erasing the water from the peripheries of my disbelieving eyes.

Structures passed and shrunk as we ascended, and I began to see more of them, along with many things my previously-earthbound vision couldn’t have perceived. Ravines split by emerald rivers, settlements spreading in circular formations, craters inhabited or restructured into coliseums.

These were the shapes we glimpsed on the face of the Moon, the variations in shade and patterns we spun into tales to explain. All this time, they had been reflections of our own world, packed with people.

I peered at the sailors, taking in their large eyes, long ears and the backless folds of their stretchy clothing, baring their wings and ending in tight ankle-cuffs above taloned, lizard-like feet. One looked right at me and bared his fangs in a gruesome grin. I was thankful the veil continued to hide my face even as its ends flew over my shoulders and made it difficult to breathe.

A gust stronger than any other slammed into the ship, making it leap even higher and sail across the city skyline, almost scraping the spiraling tower and the spire of a twisted building.

According to my tutors, our ancestors had attempted to build such structures big enough to reach the gods in heaven—and they had been struck down to humble humanity. I’d long thought that concept false, ridiculous even. Just a fable meant to warn us of our limits, or remind us of our place, because such a feat was impossible.

Yet here they stood, higher than the ziggurat back in Bab-Elani and further than raptors could fly.

It was a wonder how I had remained upright this long.

“You can let go, you won’t fall,” Tamuz said to me. “It wouldn’t matter even if the ship did drop from the air.”

I turned my head just enough to glimpse him, a dark pillar stark against the platinum deck and the lightening sky. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Is there anything that can?”

Taken aback, I unpeeled my chest from the curved surface and properly faced him.

Daylight was upon us, and it wasn’t in layers of warm colors. The green sunrise held the top curve of the earth, its details softly blending into the lunar morning.

No other part of his home resembled him in strangeness. Nor did any other being repel light as he did. Unless he absorbed it? That may have been the case, considering he had no shadow of his own.

“No,” I admitted. “Nothing short of a miracle could make me feel better.”

“I have grown to find myself in that very situation.” He sighed, looking over his shoulder at the fading night. “Perhaps we can help each other.”

Having an ally in this uncharted space could be vital to my survival. But I needed to know he could be trusted. “Unless you have plans to usurp your master, I sincerely doubt that is possible.”

His smokey tendrils retreated into his silhouette, simplifying his form and leaving his outline tense. “What good would that do?”

“It would give us back the bright nights we once had.”

“That is the idea, yes.”

I retreaded what he’d said to me on the altar, that it wasn’t just us on the world below that suffered from darkened heavens. “Just…what happened? We thought the Moon had been swallowed into the void, yet we sail through its air.”

Tamuz drew closer, head bent, tilting the mask to mime meeting my eyes. “What I tell you will depend on how well-suited and receptive you are.”

“To what?”

“Your new role as consort.”

I worked my jaw to keep my lips from trembling. “Well, I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Because being a reluctant presence worked so well for the previous brides,” he said sarcastically.

Was that a threat? Regardless of intention, I was intimidated.

The soaring ship slowed its speed, refocusing my attention to what laid ahead, stealing my breath.

Cylindrical stalks of a crystalline metal were assembled in a symmetrical yet rising order, shorter at the sides, but growing longer the closer they got to the sky-scraping center. Their edges blended together, comprising one large, complex mass of inhuman architecture whose centerpiece rose in a seamless twist, ending in a glinting spire that made all the rest appear no better than needles.

The ship docked on an extended balcony, and I couldn’t have disembarked fast enough, wobbling on unsteady legs.

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