“They copied the Firebird code,” I finish. “All of it. And once they translate it, they’ll find and destroy the Prismata.”
“Because it’s … alive,” Pol says, looking as if he still doesn’t quite believe it. “And because its life energy fuels our entire civilization.”
I glance away. “Right. And if Volkov destroys the Prismata, the entire galaxy will go dark. Ships will crash, cities will collapse, billions of people will die.”
“Why would he want that?” asks Mara.
“Because he knows the Prismata’s alive, and he’s afraid of it. It’s why he revolted against the Leonovs in the first place—he thought they were being controlled by this alien mind, that the Prismata could wipe us all out if it decided to. He doesn’t trust it.”
“So his plan is to wipe most of us out?”
“To save the rest, yeah. At least that’s how he justifies it.”
“This is bad,” says Riyan.
“I know it’s bad! You think I wanted them to tie me to a table and steal my DNA?”
“Easy!” The tensor puts his hands behind his back. “I’m agreeing with you here.”
“Sorry. It’s been a long day.” I sigh and rub my eyes. “So Volkov’s going for the Prismata, but we could get there first. Now that the Firebird is activated, I know the coordinates.”
Come and find me. Clio’s voice echoes in my thoughts. She’s out there in the darkness, waiting for me. Needing me.
“You’re forgetting we have only one Prism,” says Pol, “while Volkov probably has thousands he could burn through. He could leave a week after us and still beat us there.”
“Not if we give the Valentina everything we’ve got,” I counter. “We could be there in less than a day, probably, if we drained the Prism dry.”
They fall quiet, staring at me.
Then Mara nods. “We don’t have a choice.”
“Of course we have a choice,” Pol interjects. “If we burn through our one Prism, we’ll be stranded.”
“At the source of all Prisms,” I point out.
“Even if we could scavenge a new crystal, we’d have no way to evade the vityaze ships if they arrived on our tail. We’d be floating like a dead rock, the perfect target.”
“Like Mara said, we don’t have a choice.” I look at Riyan. “It’s your ship, your Prism. What do you think?”
He glances at Natalya. “Whatever it takes to stop that man, we have to do it.”
“I’m in too,” Mara adds. “If the Prismata falls, we all go down, anyway. It must be defended.”
Not just for that reason, I think. To some extent, the Prismata is Clio. My life’s instinct to protect her may have been a warped manifestation of the Firebird code, but it’s still at the center of who I am. Her form has changed, but she’s still mine to protect.
“How would we do it?” Riyan asks.
I shrug. “When we get there, I can … I don’t know, talk to it. Try to get it to move or something. Or to fight back and defend itself. I’m not exactly an expert on it, okay? I only just got dumped into all this.”
“If it doesn’t work,” Pol growls, “we’ll be target practice for the Union ships that are probably already prepping for flight. I can’t let you walk into the middle of a firefight, Stace.”
“Or maybe you’re just a coward,” snaps Mara.
“He’s not!” I say. “Stop it. Both of you.”
“I’m not going to let you die.” With that, Pol stands and storms into the back cabins.
Sighing, I turn to the others. “Let me talk to him.”
“I can chart the course,” Mara says. “Just tell me where to go.”
I nod and touch my fingertip to the control board, letting the coordinates flow into the ship’s navigational system.
As I climb down from the control deck, I watch the triangles of light glow and fade on my hands. The lights must be like the dark mask the tensors get when they use their abilities. They seem harmless enough, even pretty, but they make me feel like an alien in my own skin.
I find Pol bent over a tabletka in his bunk, looking at planet schematics. He sees me walk in and flings a holo my way—a small ringed planet springs up between us.
“Obsidiath,” he says. “It’s not on the fringe, not in the center, but tucked nicely in between. It’s riddled with caves and tunnels, and I’ve heard entire colonies live under its surface, completely off the grid.”
“Pol.”
“Don’t like it? How about this one?” He throws up another planet. “Rubyat, my father’s homeworld. You like sand, don’t you? We could become desert smugglers. Change our names and our faces.”
“Right. Because we really nailed the whole disguise thing back on Sapphine. We lasted, what, three hours before we were spotted?”
His mouth quirks into a dry smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
I sit beside him, running my palm over my face. He finally lowers the tabletka, letting the holos dissipate.
“When I woke up on Diamin and realized I’d lost you,” he whispers, “it was like something woke in me. Something terrible and savage. I could have ripped the sky in two to get you back. I can’t lose you again, Stace.”
“I know what you mean.” I felt it too, at the Loyalist base, when I attacked Zhar after I thought she’d killed him.
“Would you really have hit that button?” he asks. “Blown the palace and all of us to pieces?”
“No. I don’t think so, anyway.”
“I wasn’t sure. I thought, Stacia would never do it. But you’re not just Stacia anymore, are you?” His gaze probes mine, the worry line between his eyes deepening. “I don’t know Anya. I don’t know what she’s capable of.”
“Oh, Pol.” I shake my head. “Anya’s just … a little stronger, I think. I’m not entirely sure what she’s capable of, either. She scares me too.”
For a moment we sit in silence, listening to the air recycler churn. Pol’s pinned a photo—an actual paper print—above the vent, and it flutters softly in the draft flowing out. It shows my family and his, before his mom died of violet fever when he was six. We’re all standing in the vineyard, surrounded by barrels of grapes. I remember that year; it was our best harvest, and that vintage would win my dad the most coveted award on Afka.
In my memory, Clio was there too, standing beside me. I know I’ve seen that photo a hundred times, because Pol used to keep it in his room above the stables, and I know Clio was in it then.
But now when I look for her, there’s only empty space.
I feel a clutch of grief, but it’s not as strong as it was. I know she’s still out there, waiting for me, calling to me. And I may be the only one who can save her. How can I make him understand that?
Pol’s hunched over, rigid with tension. I can sense the weariness in him; it’s the same weariness that drags at me. We’ve been running and fighting at every turn for the last three months. He’s ready for it to be over, and so am I.
“Are we going to talk about her?” he asks softly.
I suck in a breath. He must have noticed how intently I was staring at the picture, searching for someone who isn’t there.
He waits a moment, and when I say nothing, he begins gently, “Your mother said it was the psychosis that infected all the Leonovs. She was one of their physicians, so she saw it regularly with the imperials. When you were little, she tried to treat you, to make you understand Clio wasn’t real. But it pushed you over the edge, and you went into shock. She was worried you would sustain some worse form of mental trauma.”
“So she went along with it,” I whisper.
He nods. “She said the problem would take care of itself eventually, and that Clio wasn’t doing any harm. So we fell in line. We saw Clio too. We talked to her, included her, made her a part of our lives. All of us in Afka, even the people who weren’t part of the Loyalist cell. But it was all fake. It was for the princess, to keep her sane, because we needed Anya, and Anya needed Clio. So Clio staye
d.”
I think of everyone I know back home, and how they must have seen me as the town crackpot. But instead of shaming me, they made me feel safe.
And what did I give them in return? The Union’s missiles and soldiers, razing their homes to the ground.
“How could I not have seen it?” I ask. “She was there my whole life. She was … real, Pol. There had to have been hundreds of times where Clio wouldn’t have made sense. What if she asked you a question and you didn’t answer it? What if I asked you to give something to her, pass her a pencil?”
“We were never really sure,” he says. “But your mom suspected that a part of you always knew Clio wasn’t real. For example, Clio never asked me questions. You never had me hand her an item, because maybe a subconscious part of your mind knew Clio wasn’t there. It seemed that when anything happened that contradicted the reality of Clio, your mind rejected it. Erased it, even. I remember once, an aeyla moved into town and got a job at the diner. He didn’t know about Clio. You ordered lunch for you, me, and her. He brought two drinks instead of three, and you told him to bring one for Clio. The guy insisted there were only two of us sitting there, and you got angry, and we left. The next day we went back to the diner and it was like you’d forgotten all about it.”
I look down at my hands. “I don’t remember that.”
“It was a week before the astronika appeared, Stace. A little more than three months ago. That’s what I’m talking about—you just ignored events that didn’t fit with your reality. Your mom said it was normal for your family, the Leonovs, to do that, especially when they were young.”
“Why were our parents loyal to them, then? Why would anyone have followed them if they thought they were insane?”
He shrugs. “The way my dad always talked about them—and it was rare he did, they were all so secretive—it was like they were gods. He said they knew things, did things that were beyond normal human capacity. That their madness was nothing compared to what they could do. They understood the universe on a different level. I guess that was the Firebird, only nobody knew it.”
“And you put up with me all these years?”
“Stacia.” He hesitates, then turns and takes my hands, his eyes staring intently into mine. “Clio was a part of you, and so she was important to me. Acknowledging her, including her, it became second nature. There were even times when I could almost see her, when I could have sworn there were three of us climbing the trees above the house, or sitting in your room watching geeball matches.”
I watch him with a feeling of desperation, trying to see my past through his eyes.
“Still,” he adds softly, “there were times I wished she were real, times when you’d burst out laughing at something she’d said. Because I knew she was a part of you, a part of you I couldn’t see or hear or touch. It was like I only ever knew half of you.”
I lower my face. “I feel like half of me has been ripped away.”
He pauses, then asks cautiously, “Is she … gone?”
“Not exactly. Pol, the Prismata …” I draw a deep breath, meeting his gaze again. “It’s her.”
He frowns, clearly confused. “What?”
I rise and pace, raking my fingers through my hair. “Danica explained it. Remember how I told you that Prismata is alive, and that I can sense its energy stretching all around us? Well, the infamous madness of the Leonovs wasn’t really madness at all, just the effect of being mentally tethered to this enormous consciousness. My family could see and feel this creature no one else saw, so everyone thought they were crazy. Meanwhile, their brains interpreted the Prismata as people—sort of like imaginary friends—because otherwise, their minds would break. They, we, had no other way to comprehend it. It’s so huge, so strange … it’s alien, and it’s always there, whispering and hovering just out of sight.” I stop and face him, spreading my hands. “Clio’s real, Pol, not a figment of my imagination. She was the Prismata all along. This living, ancient being out there in the stars, linked to my mind.”
He studies me, his brow creasing. I half worry that I’ve completely spooked him, and he’ll think I really have lost it. But he just waits, patient as the stars, trying to understand.
“All my life,” I add softly, “I’ve felt this instinct to protect her, and this is why. I was born to protect her, or it, whatever it is. So you see, this isn’t just about stopping Volkov or saving the galaxy. I have to do this for her.”
He draws a deep breath. “I only have one question, and I want your most honest answer.”
I nod.
“Is this what you want, Stace? This isn’t the code talking through you or influencing you? Because if it is, then we’ll find a way to cut it out of you, set you free. I have to know this is your choice.”
I wonder if he realizes he’s touched on the exact question that’s been burning in my mind ever since the Firebird awoke in me. The truth is, I don’t know. I don’t know how long my life has been controlled by the code in my DNA, or what choices were ever truly mine. I’m not even sure who Stacia would be without Clio or the Firebird. Maybe she never truly existed at all, like Clio herself, and was just a mask created to hide the dangerous truth.
“It’s what I have to do, before I can have what I want.”
“And what do you want?”
I sit by him and stare into his eyes.
“You idiot,” I whisper. “Don’t you know?”
Every part of my life till now was a lie—every part but him.
My parents were not my parents. My name was not my name. Nothing I thought was real has lasted. My family and my home and my identity: I’ve lost it all.
All except for Pol.
He has been my constant. In a galaxy where even the stars rearrange themselves and the laws of gravity can be broken, he does not change.
I lean into him, breathing him in. Pol, familiar, steady Pol, who I think will always smell faintly of the vineyard: fresh soil, ripe grapes, leaves damp with rain. He smells of home, and I can’t get enough of it. I raise my hand to his face, my fingers slowly trailing down his cheek. He stares at me with wide and startled eyes.
It stuns me that I can touch him in this way, that doing so is like opening a side of myself that I never knew existed.
I love him.
The thought bursts in me like a supernova, sending scorching particles racing through my body.
For years, I thought he was Clio’s, that she was the one who loved him. But it was me all along. Her thoughts were my thoughts. Her dreams were my dreams. I was afraid of my feelings for him, so I projected them into her.
But her Pol was my Pol all along.
Something releases in my chest, and a flood of need surges through me. Years of suppressed desire flood me with heat, a rushing fire that ignites my every atom.
I turn and press my lips into his, hot and fierce and hungry. He seems surprised by my tenacity but leans into it, returning every touch. My fingers drag at his hair and his shirt, my mind filled with sparks.
My fingers explore him inch by inch, following the veins up his wrist, his forearm. They slide over his bicep, jump to the hollow of his throat. While my fingers are busy, so are his, injecting bolts of lighting into my skin wherever they touch: my neck, my jaw, my temple. His fingers weave into my hair. He pushes it over my shoulder, leans to press his lips to the side of my neck, near where the skin patch still covers the incision Volkov’s scientists made.
My stomach caves with longing, and before I know it, I’m on my knees on the bunk, tilting his face to mine, pushing his hair back. His dark curls tumble, and he shifts, moving closer, his hands gripping my waist as I lean over him. One of my hands finds a ridged horn and grips it, tilting his face to mine. Stars, he’s hard and soft in all the right places, his body yielding to mine, offering himself for my taking.
I’m awakening to a part of myself I never knew I had, and I have years of catching up to do.
His hands squeeze my hips, urgent, hungry, and my b
ody responds with a shudder. He is not the Pol I once knew, once picked on and teased and fought with. It feels as if I’m rediscovering him, finding someone else behind that familiar, handsome face. The fierceness with which I want him terrifies me. I give in to it utterly.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard. His lips are still slightly parted, full and flushed, his pupils dilated. His gaze is steady, certain, hungry for more of me. In his hands I can feel his reluctance to let go.
“You have no idea,” he murmurs, “how long I’ve wanted to do that.”
I trace the ridges in his horns. I think of all the time we’ve lost, and all the time we may never have if we take up this fight. Because he’s right. Standing between Volkov and the Prismata is a suicide mission. Even with the Firebird, even with two tensors on our side, we’re facing the greatest power in the galaxy. Volkov won’t hold anything back, and he’ll gladly wipe us out alongside the Prismata.
But I made my choice even before I knew what Volkov intended to do, even before I knew that the Prismata holds Clio’s soul inside it.
I knew the moment Volkov put a gun to Pol that I wasn’t going to back down from this fight. Because that was the moment I realized that when I have this much to live for, I have something worth dying for.
“Pol,” I whisper, letting my forehead rest against his, “I have to do this. You understand that, don’t you?”
He says nothing, only lets me sit back. We knit our fingers together, palms down, his fingertips playing over my knuckles.
After a long silence, he murmurs, “I’m not sure I understand anything anymore. But I trust you.”
“I trust you too.” My fingers tighten in his. “You’ll come with me, then?”
His smile is slow and crooked and a little shy, but this time, it shines in his eyes as they rise to meet my gaze. “If it means another kiss like that, Stacia Androva, I’d follow you over the edge of the universe.”
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