Page 135 of Lana Pecherczyk
She ignored him, moving deeper into the chamber.
Shit. He quickly finished dressing, shoving on his boots but leaving his bandolier behind and his jacket open. He clippedPeacemakerto his hip.
“There’s another tunnel ahead. I see more light.” Her voice echoed back to him. “And something else—papers? I think there are papers on the walls.”
“Blake!” He surged forward, ignoring fresh pain. “Don’t?—”
“I’m fine.” Her voice drifted from around the corner. “There’s a whole other room here. It’s bigger, and?—”
Silence dropped like a stone.
River stumbled forward, one hand pressed against his ribs, the other trailing the wall for support. As he approached the tunnel mouth, the markings grew more elaborate, nolonger simple lines but complex diagrams and formulas. Dread mounted with each step.
He found Blake standing frozen in the center of a vast, circular chamber, surrounded by thousands of glowing marks that covered every surface. Papers had been pinned to the walls in obsessive patterns, diagrams, and equations spanning centuries of work. Tables around the perimeter held artifacts and trinkets—old-world technology, Guardian weapons, and things he couldn’t immediately identify.
“River,” she whispered, not turning. “What is this place?”
Words and patterns marked in UV ink glowed softly, adding to the bioluminescence. The meticulous organization, the precise calculations: he’d seen it all before, in a childhood hideout they’d discovered once together.
“This isn’t a maintenance tunnel,” Blake continued, voice wavering. Her attention was caught by something across the chamber.
River followed her gaze to a massive diagram dominating the far wall, a detailed rendering of a woman. Red lines traced her nervous system, blue lines her veins, and green lines her lymphatic pathways. Beside it hung a gallery of sketches—the same woman in different poses, captured with obsessive precision.
Not River’s style of art. Something more than skin deep.
Blake approached the central image slowly. “She’s beautiful.”
“She was,” River agreed.
“Was?” Blake turned, confusion furrowing her brow. “You know her?”
“Her name was Aurora. Also known as Rory, Cloud’s…”
He couldn’t find the right word to explain her, so he didn’t.
Blake faced him, her expression shifting from confusion to dawning horror as she absorbed the obsessive detail of thechamber around them, the years of collected research, the shrine-like quality of the space.
“Cloud fell in love with her, didn’t he? A human?”
“He didn’t just fall for her,” River said, the truth settling around them like stone. “She consumed him.”
They hadn’t stumbled across an old maintenance tunnel. They’d fallen into Cloud’s secret trove—his obsession lay bare.
Chapter
Forty-Two
CIRCA 200 YEARS AGO
Manfri kicked aside a discarded bottle. He flinched at the clatter that struck a dozen more pieces on his bedroom floor.
Three days of hard drinking had left him numb, which was the point. No dreams meant no guilt. And if the dreams came anyway, another bottle waited.
His mother had stopped knocking, stopped asking if he’d join what they pretended wasn’t a party outside—just another observation of lunar phases or some shit. From his window, he watched his family gather beneath strung lanterns in the roost’s central clearing. Moonshine flowed. Laughter rose. Life continued despite the gaping absence beside him.
Two empty spaces where friends should be.
Cielo gone.
