PROMISE

CHAPTER 34

Hain rested his aching back against the ventilation shaft's wall and shut his eyes. He was soaked, his underclothes ripe with sweat, and what was left of his hair framed half his face in a drooping, wet clump. His cheeks still felt tender despite having peeled the healing packs away hours ago, and the vent's current of air felt cold against his recently pummeled face.

Black muck stained his palms where he'd followed Lilith, crawling through untold decades of filth that had settled within the vent–rodent corpses in various states of decay, the crunchy carapaces of dead insects, and simple, everyday dirt. Grime streaked the knees and elbows of his armor.

"Has anyone ever suggested in one of your big important Foew meetings that somebody clean these vents once every thousand years?" he asked, looking at the film coating him. "Because if not, I think you ought to broach the subject."

"We've been a little preoccupied with avoiding extinction." Lilith said without turning from her view into the hangar at the vent's grate. "And can you not distract me? I'm trying to look for any signs of movement."

Hain let out a low moan that was equal parts bellyache and annoyance. He threw Lilith a look that paired well with the sound.

"How are you not even a tiny bit worn out?"

Lilith turned to him now, frowning. "Why would I be?"

"Why would you be tired?" Hain felt exhausted enough that he thought he might either cry or scream, but he managed to keep his emotions under control. "Maybe the hours of walking? Or moving a haven's worth of collapsed tunnel with our bare hands? Or crawling through this damned air shaft for an eternity?" Hain let out a small, defeated chuckle. "That might be a place to start."

"You can sleep, and wash, when you're dead." Lilith kept her voice low, but it didn't dull the edge. "Which, if we don't get into one of those ships before Smith finds us, you may end up being sooner rather than later."

Hain stiffened at the reminder, and felt some of the fatigue shrug from his shoulders. Lilith was right. There wasn't time to be tired. Not when Smith had the haven hunting them.

Hain slapped himself on either cheek, blinking hard as he moved to crouch beside Lilith. He peered into the cavernous room on the other side of the grated opening. The vent was no more than ten feet up the wall, and from their height he could see most of the fat black blobs crowding the flat ground, their undersides perched over sets of spindly legs. The ships, Lilith had called them, insisting they could sail over land even faster than birds. Hain wanted to believe her, but all he saw when he looked at the place was a nest of gigantic sleeping beetles.

"Looks empty to me," Hain said. "It can't be more than twenty paces to the nearest one of those things."

"The looking empty is what makes me nervous," Lilith said. She squinted, leaning closer to the grating. "Those ships are big enough to hide an entire squad. If they kept quiet and didn't move, we'd never know they were there."

Hain thought through her words before answering. "Then what's the plan? Aside from being filthy and tired, I mean."

"We go in," she said, a tenuous steadiness to her voice. "Sanger will have done her job distracting the guards."

"You didn't sound so sure of that a second ago."

"Well I am now," she paused long enough to heave a nervous sigh. "Even if there are guards, I'm almost certain Smith won't have had time to arm them with all the damage to the haven."

"Almost certain?"

Lilith gnawed her lip for a beat before answering.

"There's always a very small chance they'll have guns," she said, then shook her head. "But honestly, it's practically no chance at all."