Praetorian Rising, стр. 74
Theo sighed and shrugged as though resigned to the realization that keeping her in the dark of what was to come was utterly ludicrous. "Sure, what do you want to know?" Neeko meowed somewhere around their feet, his tone one of warning, but Theo ignored it and continued to move.
"What's the Royal Air Fleet?" Camille asked. It would be easier to get answers out of him if she kept it to their present situation and surroundings.
"The High King built a fleet of ships to fly from one village to the next. They're exactly what you'd imagine: huge ships with billowing white sails and wooden decks, but instead of floating on water—they fly."
"I'm sorry—they fly? Like a bird?" Camille said, her jaw dropping wide open. It wasn't what she had been expecting, having never seen anyone from the High Court outside of Grenswald and his decrepit wagon of appropriated goods.
Theo glanced back at her, his brows raised. "You've been in one before, an Asperian Transport Ship. Yes, they fly, but less like a bird and more like a swiftly moving cloud."
"I've been in one before?" She scrunched her nose in thought but couldn't bring a single memory to the surface.
"Yeah," Theo said, his voice tight with a hint of exasperation. "An A.T.S. They are cargo ships that move from one village to the next. They aren't for everyday Asperians though. At one point before the exile, only Praetorians and those of the High Court could use them."
Neeko kept pace behind them, a silent lookout for any danger they might walk into. The cat seemed complacent with her questions, making her want to push for more information. Despite the air of undisturbed surroundings, Camille kept her voice intentionally low, only loud enough for Theo to hear. "How many soldiers can they hold?"
"No idea, I've never seen his Royal Air Fleet, only a few passenger ships the high court sent out to collect goods or make a trade. These ships are built for war and complete destruction from what Vesyon told me—it'll be a feat if the compound survives long enough to allow us the honor of blowing it up. They may just get to it first."
Theo descended a narrow staircase straight down into a dark stone tunnel where they stood almost shoulder-to-shoulder in the pitch black. It was eerily quiet as they crept through the narrow passage, their feet a whisper of sound against the stone walkway. Camille gripped her dagger loosely in one hand, resting her other on the hilt of her sword. Theo seemed to be in the same frame of mind, as he was wielding a menacing curved dagger. They would smell Acher, possibly even hear him before they saw him, but they could never be too careful in the heavy press of darkness surrounding them.
Pushing their way through a sagging wooden door, they were entrenched in the past. "You think Acher's down here?" Camille asked incredulously, closing in behind Theo as they stood at the neck of a high-ceilinged hall.
"Not here, no. This back entrance to the vault moves through the old sanctuary quarters. I think Acher is in the greenhouse. He would've come through the front entrance."
Silent as a shadow, Theo grabbed an unlit wooden torch from the wall, his steps a visual path through the layers of dust and debris spread across the cobbled ground. Sparking his dagger against the flint stone in his hand, he caught flame to the torch end and moved into the looming darkness of the hall. "You coming?"
Her insides suddenly squirmed with discomfort as she became aware of a stark apprehension of the unknown extending down the long, open hallway. It was ludicrous, of course, to feel a lurking sense of fear in the narrow space, but, nonetheless, she felt it snake around the cavity of her organs and squeeze with unrelenting pressure.
"Um, I...I don't..." she mumbled unintelligibly uncertain of her reaction. Once again, her Praetorian response paralyzed her, evading her desperate plea for power as it had in the forest when the Equestrians attacked her.
Theo's lips turned downward in worry, his eyes squinting as though trying to read her thoughts. "You alright, Cam?"
Stark images flashed in front of Camille's eyes; she could see the ghost-like image of a man dressed in grey slacks and a billowing grey cloak. He seemed not just calm but eager as he stared down at her, his face alight with anticipation. The sharp kiss of cold steel against her shackled wrists and neck jolted her into a startling vision, while the voices ricocheted around her head in a wave of memories.
"She should be manageable now. The dosage coursing through her body is more than I've ever seen a Praetorian have," a familiar, oaky voice spoke out. The words drifted to Camille's ears slowly, jumbling and getting stuck in the hazy blur of her mind.
"Why isn't it working then? What makes her different? You said this would be routine," another voice barked.
"It should've been, but her biological structure is extremely different than any other I've come across."
Camille felt a sharp pinch on the inside of her left wrist, followed by an intense warming sensation that traveled up her arm and into her chest. The voices continued to talk over her immobile body, but they faded into nothingness as the moderate heat turned into a roaring fire, one that consumed everything.
"Camille?"
Camille jerked, her body convulsing once as it sprang back into the present. The bitter chill of the stone floor seeped into her clothing as she lay flat against the ground, her head pillowed in Theo's arms. "Cam, come back." His voice slipped through the haze of her memory as she struggled to regain composure.
She blinked rapidly, trudging her way out as though pulling her feet through knee deep mud. "What happened?" she murmured when she could talk again, her tongue feeling strangely heavy in her mouth. Lifting herself into