I don’t look at him. I don’t want to see him. Titus, my false hope.

Before he can get another word in, I hear the stomping of metal against stone across the courtyard, and I see Titus spin around immediately.

I look up and see the two armored guards from the throne room stepping into the courtyard. Their metal boots rumble as they walk, and behind them stands the Magistros.

“I’ve changed my mind,” the Magistros shouts, as if making a great announcement.

I see Titus’ body tighten, his muscles flexing. He looks around at the eunuch and the women, and then he spares a glance toward me before turning back toward the Magistros.

The Magistros is wearing armored legs, but he’s naked above the waist save for a purple cloak wrapped around his shoulders and joined by a golden chain across his chest. He’s holding a large spear in his hand, and when he sees me looking at him, he smiles.

I look away at once, and I hear him laughing.

“She’s shy!” he says, cackling.

The metal boots of the Magistros and his guards stomp toward us, stopping only a few footsteps from us. Even though I don’t trust Titus anymore, I still feel relief when I realize he’s standing between the Magistros and me.

“What are his Excellency’s new plans?” the eunuch asks.

“Ah, yes!” the Magistros says. “We’re going hunting. I want to show my new prize that I can do more than sit on a throne. Besides, nothing hardens my spear like killing a myrmilidon.”

“Hunting?” Titus asks. “In the capital?”

“Of course not,” the Magistros says. “In the imperial forest.”

* * *

The “flying machine” we are loaded into has no wings, though it does have a curved nose and a sleek shape that implies it can somehow fly. Titus and I are shoved in first, along with three other horned men in loincloths wearing masks like Titus. The armored guards order us all the way through, and we pass luxurious seats and couches covered in what looks like silk and soft furs. There are no windows that I can see, and as we near the back of the craft, we reach a row of individual seats–sized to sit big teal aliens rather than humans.

“Sit,” a guard grunts.

When I go to sit, he grabs my arm. “Not you.”

He shoves Titus and the other men in loincloths forward, and they seat themselves.

Titus tries to get my attention, and I do meet his eyes this time. He widens his strange violet eyes at me, and his expression seems to be full of meaning, but I can’t read it.

I shake my head at him to tell him I don’t understand, and just as he starts to mouth words silently, the guard pulls me away.

“The Magistros wants to show you something,” he grunts as he pulls me back toward the fur-covered seats.

The Magistros has sat down on a large couch covered in plush furs. The guard pulls me toward it, implying heavily that I should sit down.

I do not.

“Sit,” the Magistros says, his voice and smile friendly as can be.

“I’m fine,” I say.

“Indeed you are,” the Magistros says, “Now sit.”

He grabs me and pulls me down beside him. I’m still several inches from him, but I fear he’s going to just grab me and pull me into him. My heart pounds as I wait for him to grab or grope me, and even when he doesn’t, my fear doesn’t die down.

“Look,” he says, and he waves a hand.

The entire wall in front of us, and floor below us, disappears. At first I think we’re going to fall and die, because I can see a huge city thousands of feet below us. Then I realize it’s some kind of window, just perfectly clear. We’re not moving, just floating in air.

“I didn’t feel us take off,” I say, panting and terrified.

“You can’t feel it with this ship,” he says. “It’s one of the best.”

I glance toward the back of the cabin, toward Titus.

“Eyes on me,” the Magistros hisses.

I look toward him again, not that I want to, but because I fear what he might do to me if I don’t look at him.

“Now look at the capital,” he says, holding out his hand.

I do look, mostly just glad to have permission to look away from him.

The city below us is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Some of the buildings are so tall that they reach halfway up toward us. There are no clouds, but if there were, the buildings would pierce through them.

There are almost no other flying machines anywhere–no flying cars or anything like that. We’re high in the air, but still low enough that I can make out the details of many of the buildings. Some of them look like ancient buildings from Earth: Babylonian ziggurats, Egyptian pyramids, or Byzantine cathedrals. Others look like buildings that could never have been built on Earth...at least not for a few hundred years.

“Ah,” the Magistros says. “I see you are impressed.”

He waves his hand again, and my view is taken away as the floor and wall becomes opaque again. I’m forced to look back up at him, because I know if I don’t, he might get angry.

“You might be wondering why I haven’t taken you yet,” he says.

He smiles, but I tremble inside.

“I’m wearing this armor so I won’t be tempted,” he says, tapping the hard crotch-plate of his armor. “Only my honor guard can remove the armor, and I’ve ordered them to swear on their honor to only remove it after I’ve killed a myrmilidon.”

I don’t want to hear him. I don’t want to be here. I wish the wall would disappear again, and that I could simply jump out to get away from him. I feel my skin crawling. I no longer feel comforted that Titus is here. I’m alone, and this horrible man is going to “take me” after he kills whatever the hell a myrmilidon is.

He leans in toward me and sniffs. I lean back away from him as much as I dare.

“Your smell is truly intoxicating. I assure you that my spear is harder than the armor which covers it. My seed will explode like it never has before, all over you.

I start shaking uncontrollably.

“Or perhaps inside you,” he whispers. “I’ve heard you have a hole which self-lubricates–”

I jump off the couch and scream.

One of the armored guards grabs me and slams me so hard against the wall that my ears ring.

I see, from the corner of my vision, Titus jumping up from his seat, but my vision goes black when the guard slams me into the wall even harder.

* * *

A horrible roar vibrates through my bones, piercing my ears and jolting me awake.

I’m lying on some furs, and I see the Magistros standing just above me, his armored legs gleaming in the red sun.

I look around and see three men in loincloths holding their spears up. Titus is behind them, also holding a spear.

I see that we are all on some type of platform. I sit up and look over the edge. We’re floating a few feet above the forest floor.

“You’re up,” the Magistros says. “Just in time to see me kill the myrmilidon.”

My head is throbbing with pain, as if I drank a whole bottle of really bad tequila the night before.

“First,” he says. “Let’s see how these three do. Do you think they stand a chance?”

“Fight it!” the Magistros shouts at them. “Titus, if any of them try to run, kill them!”

One of the men looks back at the Magistros and raises an eyebrow. His horns are nearly as long as Titus’, and his body is no less strong. Still, he looks scared.

“Your excellency,” he says. “We have only skullspears.”

“The myrmillidon has a skull,” the Magistros says. “So spear it.”

It roars again, louder this time. I can’t see anything through the trees in front of me. The leaves are a lush green, and the trunks are a pale silver.

I see the leaves start to move.

“There’s no wind,” I whisper.

“The myrmilidon,” Titus says, and he steps forward, in front of the other men with spears.

“Stay back, Titus!” the Magistros says. “I’m not paying you to die! Not yet!”

The man who objected to the Magistros points his spear forward, the tip two or three feet from the Magistros’ throat. “So you know we will die!”

The Magistros snaps a finger, and one of the armored guards swings a gauntleted fist, knocking the man down onto the forest floor. He pulls a gun, and a burst a bright purple explodes from it.

I close my eyes, but the purple light still goes through my eyelids. Moments later, I smell burning flesh.

I open my eyes to see the other two men look at each other, then jump off the floating vehicle and rush shoulder to shoulder into the trees.

“They have no chance,” Titus hisses through his mask. “Now it’s just two of them!”

The Magistros shrugs. “I’ve heard of ice tribes bringing down myrmilidons before.”

“Tribes,” Titus says. “Not two men.”

There’s a loud roar, and the leaves shake violently. I see an entire patch of trees bend as if made of rubber rather than wood. The trees buckle and snap, and wood splinters explode across the forest. I see one of the men burst out through the flurry of wood, his spear covered in blood. Moments later the other leaps out, but he’s now completely unarmed. Chips of wood are covering his body, and blood is dripping all across his face and chest.

The trees that shattered have fallen, and the others become perfectly still. I get the feeling of a calm before a storm, or of being in the eye of a hurricane. Just as I’m about to speak, the trees begin to pop up out of the ground, roots and all, as if some invisible demon were plucking them from the ground like matchsticks.

“Is it invisible?” I ask.

The man with the bloody spear climbs onto the trunk of a fallen tree, and he climbs one of the thickest branches, which is now completely vertical. He holds his spear up, his face concentrated fully on the ground beneath him.

“It’s underground,” the Magistros says. “But don’t worry, our floating vehicle will keep us safe from detection.”

He smiles at me, and I look away.

I hear the horrible rumble begin to grow. It’s so loud and deafening that it feels wrong to not feel those vibrations, but I understand now why we are on a floating platform rather than something like a regular car or wagon–or even on foot.

The ground begins to bulge upward, and our vehicle glides silently and calmly backward. The man without a spear begins to run along the edge of the trees as the great bulging grows like a mountain beneath his feet. The other warrior, high up in the branches of the fallen tree, holds his spear at the ready above the growing dome of grass.

Two black things erupt from the ground, blasting dirt and shredded grass into the air. The dome of raised Earth deflates and collapses as the myrmilidon slides out. The two things that first came out look like its arms or legs. They are long and black and spindly, and each arm is the size and thickness of a large marble pillar from the Magistros’ palace.

The arms hook and tear the earth apart, until its head bursts out, as if the alien world were giving violent birth to the creature.

It leaps up through the hole, shuddering and shaking its wet black fur. It lands in a heap and roars, and the wet mud and rocks that coated its fur as it slithered beneath the ground shed and fall of its huge body like dust from a crumbling statue. It’s twice the size of a tank. Its limbs bend backward at the knee joints, and though the limbs bursting through the ground looked almost like hands at first, I see now that it moves on all fours. Its head looks almost like a jackal, or some other kind of twisted dog-thing, but the nose is much longer, the teeth sharper, and its red eyes are full of fury.

The unarmed man waves his hands at it, and it turns its horrible rat-eyes toward him. I notice then that there is a spear jutting out of its back. The myrmilidon is so large that the spear looks like a toothpick stuck to its skin. A minor inconvenience rather than a significant wound.

The warrior with the spear leaps from the branches of the fallen tree, and he lands on the myrmilidon’s back.

I expect it to thrash its body and throw him off, but it’s focused on the unarmed man, and as it moves toward him, I get the feeling of a spider or insect more than any kind of mammal from Earth.

The warrior climbs along its fur up its back, and I see the Magistros lean forward from the corner of my eye. “You see, Titus, they may have a chance.”

“Let me help them, master,” Titus says. “With three, we might just–”

“Quiet,” the Magistros hisses. “And watch.”

We watch. The myrmilidon leaps forward without warning. The unarmed warrior tries to dodge and roll, but the monster’s front limb forms a knife-like point and impales him through his chest and into the ground.

The man on top of the myrmilidon drives his spear into its back, and clutches it to stop himself from falling off. The beast roars, and now that it knows someone is climbing its back, it thrashes and spins violently. It flings the now dead warrior off its front leg, tossing his corpse into the forest.

The warrior clutches his spear and holds on for his life. I’m surprised he can hold on at all, but then the myrmilidon simply rolls onto its back in one smooth motion. I don’t even see the warrior die, just disappears from my sight, though I know he was crushed instantly under the weight of the giant thing.

I hear Titus growl, but the Magistros stands up and pushes him aside. “Now it’s my turn.”

One of the armored guards holds out a large rifle, and the Magistros snatches it from his hands.

The myrmilidon rolls back onto its legs and stands up. It runs its nose along the ground as if searching for something. It scans the ground systematically, as if it were blind and could only smell, and it finally pulls up the body of the crushed warrior, then chomps it between its massive jaws.

I cover my ears when the horrendous sound of bones crunching fills the air.

The Magistros jump off the platform, and the moment his feet touch the ground, the myrmilidon’s head jerks toward us. Its eyes seem to stare right at us, but I doubt now that it can actually see. It just heard the Magistros’ feet touch the ground.

The Magistros pulls a small sphere from his armored legs and throws it. When it hits the ground thirty or so feet away from him, the myrmilidon’s head turns toward it. I couldn’t hear the thing hitting the soft grass, but the monster must be able to sense even the slightest vibration.

There’s a loud bang and a puff of smoke, and the myrmilidon leaps toward the explosion, its front legs forming vicious points. It impales the ground, and that’s when the Magistros fires his weapon.

The purple blast of energy blows a hole into the myrmilidon’s side. I can see its rib cage, each rib the size of one of Titus’ arms, but then the bones flash purple and evaporate into dust.

The myrmilidon roars in agony, and another purple blast hits it. This time in the head. The head all but disappears from the body, disintegrated entirely. The beast falls to the ground with a thunderous crash, just like the trees it felled moments before.

The Magistros looks back up at us, a wicked grin covering his face.

“He’s really proud of that?” I ask. “With that gun...even I could do what he did.”

Titus shoots me a look, one that tells me to keep my mouth shut, but I’m not in the mood.

“Seriously,” I hiss. “I’m not impressed. He just killed two men for nothing.”

“The Magistros does with his subjects as he will,” one of the armored guards says.

I look him right in the eyes, even though he’s three feet taller than me. “Oh, I didn’t know you guys were allowed to speak.”

“We speak for the Magistros,” the other says.

The Magistros holsters his gun on his leg–it seems to magnetically attach to his armor–and he makes his way back toward the platform.

The guard who gave him his gun extends his hand out to help the Magistros back up.

I find myself wishing the gun would accidentally go off somehow as he climbs back onto the platform, just disintegrating the Magistros’ “spear” the way it did the myrmilidon’s head.

I don’t get my wish, but something even better happens.

Without warning, Titus grabs hold of the armed guard’s weapon, and rather than ripping it from his hands, he kicks him hard in the gut.

The kick doesn’t hurt him–not through all that armor–but he sends him flying off the platform, and Titus now holds the gun in his hands.

The Magistros squeals something, but the guard helping him up doesn’t dare let go of the Magistros’ hand even to attack Titus.

I feel Titus’ protective grip on my waist, and he pulls me back behind him. The brilliant purple glow erupts, and when my eyes re-adjust to the relative darkness, there’s no trace of the Magistros or the armored guard helping him up. They are much smaller than the Myrmillidon, and they simply evaporated entirely in a mere moment.

I’m just alone on the platform with Titus, who is now holding the gun out and pointing it at the guard he kicked off, who is lying on his back, holding his hands up, as if they could possibly protect him from a blast that evaporated two men.

“Will you flee?” Titus shouts to him. “Disappear into one of the outer cities. Or far into the Dark Night?”

“I am forever loyal to the emperor,” the guard shouts up at him.

“Wrong answer,” Titus says, and the gun goes off again.

The armor does absolutely nothing, and unlike when the myrmilidon died, there’s no violent death or holes taken out of him, the much smaller guard simply disappears under the energy blast. When the light fades, there’s no trace of him remaining.

Titus drops the gun and turns toward me. His violet eyes are wide and wild, and his breath is heavy through the mask. My eyes must look even more shaken, and I can feel just how heavy I’m breathing. I can barely process all that just happened.

“Elsie,” he says, taking a step toward me.

“You changed your mind,” I whisper.

He shakes his head. “No, I decided to free you the moment the Magistros laid hands on you, and my decision never wavered.”

Standing just inches from me, though several feet above me, his bare teal torso is just in front of me. He’s glistening with sweat, and his muscles are bulging and heaving as he breathes.

My first instinct is just to fall into him, to wrap my arms around him, and maybe to cry into him. To cry for happiness that the Magistros is dead, and that he’ll never lay a hand on me again. That he’ll never take me.

“Why didn’t you tell me,” I whisper, not meeting his eyes. “I thought you’d decided to just serve him. To do all he asked of you.”

Titus touches me now, his hand on my neck and jaw. He tilts my head up and forces me to meet his eyes.

“The capital and the Magistros’ palace is full of ancient machines you and I can barely imagine. I found they could hear everything I said, even if no one was there to hear it.”

Shit. I can understand that. Earth has had that technology for almost 100 years now.

“So you couldn't tell me,” I whisper. “Because then they wouldn’t have trusted you…”

He strokes my chin, and his finger finds the soft flesh of my neck. “I had to wait for a moment of opportunity. It came only now.”

I reach up and put a hand on Titus’ wrist, not to pull his hand from my skin, but just to feel him. I look around us. The smell of burning flesh is heavy in the air–even though everyone who was shot disintegrated, the smell of them lingers. We are floating just outside the thick trees, and when I turn around, I can still see the skyline of the capital’s tallest buildings in the distance.

The faint red sun is still high in the sky. It feels like it’s been there since I landed, an eternal Noon.

“We could…” I whisper, squeezing his wrist as tight as I can for comfort. “We could wait until night, then find a road?”

He looks at me with confusion. “There is no night here. We are just outside the capital. The Dark Night is impossibly far from here.”

I cock my head. “So it’s always day here, but further away, it’s always night?”

Titus nods.

I imagine the planet turning so that the same side is always facing the sun. Just like our moon always faces Earth. It will only become night if we travel halfway around the planet.

He lets go of me and picks up the gun again. “It was set on maximum energy. I should have turned it down before I killed the last guard.”

He fiddles with some dials on the side of the gun and frowns.

“What is it?” I ask.

“At a low setting,” he says. “There are only one or two shots left. If another myrmilidon finds us, the gun will not be able to kill it.”

I look back toward the capital.

“No,” he says. “The capital is more dangerous for us than the beasts of the forest. We have to move as far away as we can, toward the Dark Night.”

“You saw what happened to the other two,” I say, shaking with fear. “Another myrmillidon will kill us.”

“It likely ate all the smaller predators,” he says. “There won’t be another one near here. Beasts that large have large hunting grounds, and they do not get along with each other.”

“Great,” I say.

“We must go,” he says. “Quickly.”

He pulls on my arm, urging me off the platform.

He sees me look down longingly at the floating platform, and he shakes his head. “It cannot get through the trees.”

“We could go around,” I say.

He grabs hold of me and slings me over his shoulder. I almost scream, but when I feel his big hand grip the small of my back, and the warmth of his body press against my stomach and breasts, a feeling of comfort washes over me.

Still, I punch his back and show at least some signs of protest. Titus can’t expect to be allowed to just throw me around like some kind of caveman whenever he feels like it.

“We don’t have time to discuss this,” he hisses, and he plops me down onto the grass.

The moment my feet touch the grass, I feel like a little kid playing “don’t touch the lava.” I can just imagine a second myrmilidon rushing beneath the ground, honing in on my footsteps.

Titus takes his spear, and it shrinks down into something the size of my forearm. I watch him strap it on a piece of leather wrapped around his upper thigh. He grabs a big bag from the platform and hoists it over his shoulder. He holds the gun in his free hand, and he gestures with it for me to follow him.

I look around us, seeing the steaming, headless carcass of the myrmilidon, a spear still jutting from its body. I spot the crushed body of one of the warriors who died, and I turn away as soon as I realize what I’m looking at. I can still feel the presence of the others who died around us, even though their bodies have been turned to vapor. It’s as if they evaporated into ghosts, and they are still following me around. I convince myself that the ghost of the Magistros would be too cowardly to enter the forest, and I follow Titus into the thick trees, imagining the Magistros’ ghost stopping and letting us leave him behind as soon as we enter the forest.

It soon feels almost like night time. The trees block out most of the sun’s rays, and only a few weak red shafts of light penetrate through. I yawn, feeling immediately sleepy.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “I’m just tired.”

Without a word, he scoops me up and throws me over his shoulder, on the side opposite the bag of supplies.

“Titus,” I say, “Come on, I can–”

“You are tired,” he says. “Rest.”

I don’t usually like being bossed around like this, but being told to do exactly what I want to do has a certain appeal to it. Titus doesn’t even seem to notice my weight on his shoulder, and he moves just as fast as he did–maybe even faster now that I’m now slowing him down. I start to think of the next thing I could say to him–or the next question I want to ask him about this world and what the hell we are going to do now–but my eyelids get heavy, and I drift off to sleep while still slung over his shoulder, the movements of his stride lulling me asleep.

* * *

Hunger wakes me.

My first instinct is to look up at the sky to get a sense of how much time has passed, but then I remember that no matter how much time passes, the sun will not move.

“Titus,” I say, my voice strained and cracking.

“You’re awake,” he says. “You slept a long time.”

He puts me down, not letting go of my waist until I’m stable on my feet.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” I ask.

“I can sleep for many of your days, then stay awake just as long. I’ll soon need to take a long sleep, but not yet.”

I look around us. The trees extend in all directions, with no hints of streams or mountains, or anything to suggest the forest doesn’t just go on forever.

“How much food do we have?” I ask.

He pulls the bag out, drops it to the ground, and opens it up. “We have dried meats, nuts, and bones.”

“Bones?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, “Do you not eat bones?”

I shake my head.

He hands me something that looks like an oversized strip of jerky. I sniff it, and it smells much more pungent than I’d expect of cured meat. It’s not entirely a bad smell, but it’s off-putting, like a strong cheese.

“You won’t eat this either?” he asks.

“I...I will,” I say, and I take a big bite out of it.

Once I get over the smell, the flavor is actually complex, and quite good. I find myself taking another bite, desperate to swallow it down and fill the hunger in my stomach.

Then I remember my manners, and I tear the strip in half and hold the other piece out toward Titus.

He looks at me as if I’m handing him a rattlesnake.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

He raises one finger and taps his mask.

“Oh,” I say.

The Magistros is dead now. He can remove the mask. Then again...what happens if he does? I remember what happened when the Magistros smelled me, and my skin crawls. I don’t think Titus would act like that, but then again, he’s always had the mask on. I also wouldn’t entirely be against Titus touching me, given the right circumstances.

“I see what you are thinking,” he says.

“You can read my mind?” I ask.

“I want to smell you, Elsie,” he says.

I bite my lip, feeling an intense burn in my cheeks. “So,” I whisper. “Take it off.”

He stares at me for a long time, his finger still touching his mask.

“You probably have a nice smile,” I say, trying to gently urge him to remove the mask.

“I never smile,” he says. “My father always boasted that I never smiled, even as a baby.”

“I don’t believe you. Prove it.”

“If I remove this, Elsie,” he says. “I cannot promise you will be safe. Do you understand me?”

“You have to eat at some point,” I say. “And without you, I can promise that I am not safe. We have no choice, Titus. You have to remove it.”

He reaches up to the straps and tears at the mask, as if he’s been looking for any argument strong enough to do what he’s wanted to do anyway.

I see his pupils dilate and nostrils flare, and he leans toward me, reaching out for my body.

I step back. “Titus.”

His mouth opens, and I see his gleaming white teeth for this first time. He doesn’t smile, not exactly. It’s more of an evil smirk.

“Can you control yourself?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “I cannot.”

“So I’m just an object to you then?”

“You are not,” he says. “You are so much more.”

His eyes seem to be dancing back and forth, but maybe it’s just a trick of the light. I feel tension and pressure building between us, and an intense compulsion builds up within me. I want him to take me, to treat me like an object. At least right now, he can treat me as so much more later, but first I want him to do with me what his body craves.

He steps toward me again, and this time I don’t back away. He reaches out toward me, and I feel the hairs on my arm stand up. Adrenaline surges through me, making me intensely aware of every square inch of my body, each part of it longing for his touch.

His hand stops just short of me, his eyes roll back into his head, and then close. He reaches up and pull the mask back on, then he adjusts until I hear his hissing breath filtering through, telling me it’s sealed.

“Titus,” I say, my voice heavy and desperate.

“I’ve smelled you now,” he says. “Let’s go.”