Ashfall: City of Shade (UNDER EDITING)

Chapter 42 | The Price of Freedom

BROMMY

"Why are you lying to her?"

"Because it is the only way. I do not want her to be upset with me-"

"She is already in shock...her body cannot take much more, Adler. Let me take her to the surface while your eyes heal down here. There is no sense in keeping her in the dark. Enoch is asking where she is. You should both return now. She is still Empress."

"I want to earn her trust-"

The natural salts of the sea have healed most scars on her skin. She has regained her height as well as her hair.

Only a thin layer of seaweed covers her waist down to her knees leaving her breasts on display. What marvelous silver skin.

"She has changed," I say in wonder.

"Physically, yes." His eyes harden. "And so...I found something interesting." His crescent antenna lowers as he kneels beside Greta's sleeping form. Small but significant, a shadow lays resting beneath the veil of her transulscent skin. Where in her lower abdomen, a new lifeform lays cradled. "I advised you to not ink in her. Please explain to me why you have done this. I promised I would not place this burden on her," he says in an eerily still voice.

"P-perhaps...perhaps we can remove it."

"Remove it?" my brother sneers. He straightens, facing me head on. "There would be nothing to remove if you didn't ink in her!"

"Silence!" I huff.

Greta stirs in her sleep. I scoff watching Adler return to her side.

"We will resolve the issue when we return to Eyu, tonight."

"Adler, I was sent here to-"

I become silent seeing his quills thicken and unroll from the hem of his makeshift tunic. Black, oozing with toxic chemicals as they rapidly stretch in my direction.

His voice claps across the void of the cavern, "My sweet will not be giving birth in this hell-hole!"

"Silence! Yes, we will depart. I am not taking you to the city though. You know that is too dangerous. Now, can you be quiet? Or is your intention to wake her up and make this trip back to the surface more miserable than it needs to be?"

He finally speaks quietly, "Right, where then shall we go?"

***

GRETA

I can hear water running. I sit up quickly no longer hearing the roar of sea waves but a much quieter trickling. The shade is not so dark here.

A large figure stands under a strange contraption in this chamber. Who brought me here?

A man steps out from beneath the contraption where water falls from. It is Brommy I know from his short curly hair and mismatched eyes, one black and one grey.

Water runs down his broad sculpted chest. Serious as always he ignores my stare as he puts on his tunic. He looks so much like Adler.

"Good morning. Yester-evening, I was sent by Enoch's will to bring you here. We are outside the city of Eyu. Adler has agreed to help return the light. Soon, you will be able to see in color. He needs a new observatory built. Enoch and him are working together."