Princess by Surtain Rory

Author:Surtain, Rory
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bad Flannel Divergent
Published: 2023-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

More Clues: Calinda Cluster

[Kjoru]

I was hunting for clues.

Several evacuation exits connected the Septimus underhive to sector 81B. The Arbiters had tagged each. At the third, an etching obvious to all—the number VI—had been melted into the plascrete nearby. A two-hundred-foot tall ladder—its lowest rungs melted and misshapen—rose toward the underhive’s ceiling.

Jumping and snagging one of the sturdier looking holds, I climbed to the top. Another melting event had resealed the service hatch. Same tool, different result.

Diamond’s molecular disruptor cut through the hatch’s lock and hinges, allowing me to continue my hunt. As the breached service portal clunked back into place, I noticed the dead silence—no whispers, no echoes, no screams beyond the ones in my head. Only a mundane, unused alleyway led back into the domain of the living.

If the witch had come this way and had melted the hatch shut using their dark energy, there ought to have been something, a signature of the Warp or a hiss as reality tried to repair itself.

How did I know? I heard it every time he walked into the room.

A missing clue is still a clue, less obvious than the first. My newfound lack of pain meant the little goddess had been right in sending me back, but her hidden manipulation of reality had me wondering at just how far I’d need to be from Paric Kilhaven to be considered safe.

A click in my helmet told me it was time to move on. I had a schedule to keep, paralleling the psyker lord’s route through each hive city in the cluster. When they moved, I moved, searching for a reaction to their spell. That was the plan. Miles above me, a beacon had been planted, and I didn’t dare go near it.

Completing my pass through Calinda Septimus, I realized someone was tracking me. A stalker had latched on as I reached Ground Zero—the busy transport sector that connected the upper and lower halves of the city. Ground Zero offered incredible views of the towers above, some more than a mile high. Hordes of PDF troopers and Adeptus Arbites agents worked security, controlling the flow of material and the uneven waves of humanity throughout the broad avenues, ramps, and lifts.

Using my biometrics to access the service lift upward might not have been the best idea, but it got results, and in my mind, those were the best sort of clues. This one was clear: Lord Danze hadn’t given up on erasing my existence.

My hive security status displayed as ‘Silver Restricted.’ It was the vaguest of labels for any noble class scion. There were different levels of standing and access allowed within that designation, but the PDF squads manning the transport checkpoints didn’t need to know that. They waved me through the central tramway station without a second look.

I slowed for a moment among a knot of determined travelers and glanced back, giving me a good look at the tail. The woman could have been an undercover Arbiter, a sub-zero watcher, or an agent of Bronn.

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