Page 111 of Only Cold Depths
“The watch lets the wearer set the ambient air to their preferred temperature,” I said. “But if you set it to theactualair temperature, then a scanner would just read you as a blank space—not a person with body heat that would ping thermal imaging.”
Zane shot his thumb and forefinger at me. “Exactly.”
Grudging admiration filled me. “You really are quite clever.”
“I have my moments.” Zane repeated his father’s words, then pointed at another table. “And I also spy another one of Lord Jorge’s devices right over there. Your handiwork, I presume, my lady?”
“Actually, it was a team effort,” Asterin replied. “I made the watch, but Vesper modified and improved it. Here, let me show you.”
She strapped the watch around her wrist, then turned the knob on the side, making sparks of electricity zing out of the device. Zane jerked back to keep his eyebrows from getting singed off. He scowled at Asterin, who gave him an innocent smile in return.
Beep-beep.
An alarm blared out of my tablet, startling us all.
I shut it off, although my stomach quickly tied itself into worried knots. “We have an hour to get to the museum.”
Asterin nodded. “Then we need to gear up.”
She started grabbing blasters and other weapons from the racks on the walls. Zane and Wendell helped her, but I stayed where I was. My gaze dropped to Kyrion’s stormsword, and I traced my fingers over the large sapphsidian arrow embedded in the silver hilt.
“I’m going to save you,” I whispered.
Maybe it was my imagination, but the arrow glittered brightly for a moment, almost as if Kyrion could hear me through our bond. I added his sword to my weapons belt, then headed over to help the others get ready.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
KYRION
Theminutestickedbyand turned into an hour, then two, then three.
Esmina and Pollux moved through the cavern, along with their mercenaries. In the back of the chamber, the mercs had set up a mobile command center, complete with open crates full of blasters, cannons, and other weapons and portable holoscreens that showed security feeds of the outside of Stardrop Falls, the abandoned mining museum. This wasn’t a secret base so much as it was a staging area. Despite their heavy losses at the estate, Esmina and Pollux still had more than enough men to capture Vesper, and they were obviously preparing to attack the Colliers again.
My gut clenched with dread. I reached out through the bond as I’d done countless times over the past few hours, but once again, I couldn’t sense Vesper. Whatever chemicals Esmina had given me were still disrupting our connection, which meant I couldn’t warn Vesper about just how many mercenaries were in the cavern. Of course, Vesper would know she was walking into a trap, but she would come here anyway, just as I would have come for her even if she’d been on the other side of the galaxy.
But the most curious thing was that the mercs weren’t alone in their underground base. Every few minutes, Esmina would round a corner, disappear into another section of the cavern, and speak to someone in a low voice. Even more curious, the other voice sounded familiar, as though I had heard it somewhere before. I was tilting my head to the side, trying to listen to their latest conversation, when Pollux strutted over to me.
“Not so tough bricked up in a wall, huh, Arrow?”
I surged forward, but the stones shellacked over my chest held me fast. “Let me out of this rock, and I’ll show youexactlyhow tough I am.”
Pollux smirked. “As fun as it would be to beat you to death with my hammers, Esmina has other plans.”
“What did she do to me? Why can’t I feel my truebond with Vesper?”
Pollux tapped his finger on the plasticuff around my neck. “This cuff delivers a low dose of chemicals to your body through your skin. That’s why you can’t use your precious bond. The Serpens Corp scientists have been working on how to block psionic powers for a long time, and they finally concocted just the right formula.”
A frustrated growl rose in my throat. The cuff scraped against my neck, and an oily sensation oozed against my skin. Pollux was telling the truth. The cuff really was dosing me with chemicals, and I had no way to remove it.
Pollux shook his head. “It’s a shame. A warrior like you shackled to someone so weak.”
“Vesper is notweak. She’s the smartest, strongest person I know, and she’s going to help me kill you and Esmina and all your men.”
Pollux laughed and poked his finger into the cuff, zapping me with another dose of chemicals. “Keep telling yourself that, pal. Esmina’s seen it all play out with her precognition, and you and Vesper are both going to die screaming in this cavern.”
Esmina stepped back into view and went over to speak to one of the mercs, who showed her something on his tablet. Esmina studied the device, and psion power surged off her like a tidal wave—so muchpower. Even with the chemicals dampening my own abilities, I could still feel exactly how strong she was.
I’d always thought Callus Holloway was the strongest psion I’d ever encountered. Well, Esmina was just as powerful—perhaps even more so, since her power was her own to command and not constantly stolen from other people like Holloway’s was.
