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Leon looked up at the ship as a fresh volley hit it. The fires blurred in his vision, and he dashed the liquid from his eyes. “Sebastian, please.”
“I’m going. I’m going. I’m almost to the escape pods.” Sebastian’s frantic voice in his ear was still strong. “I’m going to make it. I’m going to be fine, Leon. I’m—”
An inferno burst out of the ship when a rocket hit something that combusted spectacularly. Leon had to shield his eyes from the blinding light and the fierce interference that followed through all his communications and sent his ears ringing.
“Sebastian!”
Leon screamed, but nothing came from his earpiece except for crackles and fizzes and screeches as the great ship fell out of the sky.
Chapter Fifteen
Sebastian wrinkled his nose.
He rolled his head to the side and batted at it, but his pillow had a strange smell too.
The scent was oddly organic. And salty. Weird, considering Ralscoln was a landlocked city. They didn’t have any fields or forests within smelling distance and certainly no oceans.
He rubbed his face and found a crustiness on his eyelashes and eyebrows. With another wrinkly frown, he opened his eyes.
He was not in Ralscoln.
Or at least, not in any part of Ralscoln he’d ever been in before. He sat up from the tangle of light blankets he’d been wrapped in and looked around the little…room? Dwelling? Tent?
The walls looked like cloth—once riotously colored and now faded and smudged—held up by mismatched wooden and metal poles and beams. It had barely enough room on its old, rusted metal floor for the mattress that Sebastian sat on. He couldn’t see any lights, but plenty of sunlight filtered through holes and gaps in the fabric.
Despite the flimsiness of the shelter, Sebastian didn’t feel even the hint of a chill. On the contrary, the muggy air made his clothes stick to his body—
He snapped his eyes down to himself. He didn’t recognize this body. The last body he’d inhabited had been…
A guard of the Barzen.
The last thing he remembered was slamming the eject button on a Barzen escape pod. Then a huge explosion and then….nothing.
He threw the blankets off, tripped over them in his dash to the cloth door, slammed hard into the metal ground, and finally clawed to his feet and out of the tent.
His bare feet hit mud, squelching between his toes as he stopped and stared.
In front of him, stretching off to either side, ran a canal.
Mud eddied through the water along its edges, but its center shimmered a bright, beautiful blue. More tents and semi-permanent structures lined the banks, and ramshackle bridges leaped over the water here and there to connect them. People of every species—but overwhelmingly human—pushed barges along the canal, crossed the bridges, and toiled through the muddy roads on either bank. Screeching sea birds flew overhead in the deep blue sky.
Sebastian knew this place, and it was definitely not Ralscoln.
“Sebastian! What are you doing out here?”
Sebastian spun around to see Maxwell coming toward him with a basket of medical supplies, mud splattered all over the bottom of his pants, and a chastising frown on his face. Sebastian just shook his head and put his hands on his hips. “Better question: What the hell am I doing in Carta? What are you doing in Carta? And where’s—”
“Let’s get your shoes on first, at least.” Maxwell grabbed his shoulder and steered him back into the tent.
“Maxwell.” Sebastian turned as soon as they were in the tent. “Where’s—”
“Hess, I know.” Maxwell pushed him down onto a stool Sebastian hadn’t even seen and knelt at his feet. “He’s fine.”
Relief hit Sebastian so hard he nearly fell off, but Maxwell grabbed his shoulder again to steady him. Once he was stable, Maxwell pulled out a dirty rag and started wiping the mud off his feet.
Leon was fine. Leon was fine, and Sebastian was in Carta and not burning in the rubble of the Barzen.
“How did I get here?” Sebastian asked as Maxwell pulled some shoes out from somewhere. “How did you get here? How long was I out?”
