“I think you’ve already made me crazy,” she admitted, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him back.
But she could almost feel the timer ticking, and she knew that he could, too. She could see it in his eyes. “I’ll make breakfast,” she said softly.
He swallowed and nodded. Brushing his lips across her forehead, he let her go, and she could feel his eyes on her as she left the pool and took a bathing towel from the stack by the door, wrapping it around her.
They didn’t speak as they ate breakfast, but he held her hand in his the entire time.
Finally, Valdjan rose and so did she, and he embraced her one last time.
“Be careful,” she warned him. Her throat closed when he nodded.
Come back to me.
“All right. I’m ready.”
She gathered her magic, ready to watch him disappear.
But this time, the glowing gold-and-purple crystal engulfed them both.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Valdjan
Elves rushed past him in full battle gear, but no one paid much attention. Valdjan instinctively reached for his sword, only to realize he didn’t have it. He patted his chest and sides.
Who am I this time, and why don’t I have any weapons if I’m in a war zone?
And then he saw Ithyll, and his heart stopped.
“What are you fucking doing here?” He tried to keep the panic from his voice, but she wasn’t supposed to be part of the test!
“Valdjan?” She looked down at herself. “I have no idea.” She turned this way and that, her expression frightened. “The last thing I remember was starting the test. Maybe I got sucked in, too.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to leave the cave!”
She cocked her head. “Technically, I’m still in the cave. The crystal with the test is sitting on the table, we’re just inside it.”
“Can you get out?”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “I don’t think so.”
An elf ran past them, and Valdjan spun to watch him.
“Elberos!”
The elf looked him up and down and addressed him by name. “Valdjan. Jukkete! Things must be bad if you’re here again. Come with me. Quickly.”
“How did you know?” Valdjan grabbed Ithyll’s hand and followed him without hesitation.
“Because I don’t know many other non-elves, and none of them have your bearing.” Elberos gave him a sideways glance. “So this is what you really look like.”
Valdjan glanced down. “Yes. I’m not sure why I didn’t take someone else’s body this time. Why are we going this way when everyone is rushing the other way?”
“The king has given the order to abandon this planet, but I wanted to see them one last time.”
“What? Why did he give the order? Did we keep the portals open?”
“We did, but this planet is falling apart.” Elberos replied. “No one knows why; although, I have my suspicion—”
The floor seemed to drop from beneath them as the planet bucked and shifted.
“What the fuck is happening here? What was that?” Valdjan pulled Ithyll close, holding her tightly. Her face was pale and frightened.
“I told you the planet is falling apart.”
“I didn’t know you meant literally!”
“Who is she?” Elberos asked.
“Another from my time, but she shouldn’t be here. She got pulled through with me.” Valdjan’s stomach sank. “Do you think this is from the crystals? Could it be the magic?”
The elf stopped. “I don’t know. Hell, I don’t know anything anymore. But if it is our fault, we’ll be gone soon, and we’re taking all the crystals with us.”
“All the crystals? What are you talking about?”
The elf lowered his voice. “Remember that cache of crystals we found?” He cursed. “No, of course you don’t. Well, it turns out they are the largest cache of crystals on any planet in the empire. They’re right near the core, so our excavating teams have been digging for a week to get them out. They’re being loaded onto a cruiser as we speak.”
“But what if that’s what’s damaging the planet?” Valdjan ran a hand through his hair.
“The timing is suspicious,” the elf admitted. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now. The king gave us orders.”
“So, even though we’ve tried to turn things around—twice—they’re still making the same mistakes?”
“Stop it!” Elberos looked around, but no one was paying attention. “Elves don’t criticize the rulers’ edicts.”
“Well, cyborgs do,” Valdjan shot back. “Especially when we want to avoid punching people in the face.”
“What the hell is a cyborg?”
“I am a cyborg. And we haven’t killed any other races or exploded any other planets,” Valdjan shot back.
“You don’t look like a cyborg—whatever that is.” Elberos covered his face with his one hand. “You’re going to be the death of me. I can feel it.”
Valdjan sincerely hoped that wasn’t true.
“How large are the crystals?” Ithyll asked urgently.
“Enormous, my lady. We brought the biggest interplanetary cruiser we had to haul them.”
“But . . . but . . .”
“But what?” Valdjan asked impatiently. “Don’t hold back—what do you think?”
“I think they could do something to the magnetic field of the planet.”
The bad feeling in Valdjan’s gut began to get worse. “What planet did you say this is?”
Just then they entered a viewing room with hundreds of monitors.
And on the monitors, he saw . . . orange-and-black jungle cats.
“Fuck!” Baihu. He wanted to punch something again, but restrained himself. For Elberos.
He tried to remember everything he could about Ardak history. As he searched his memory, he focused on the monitors. The one directly in front of him was video from a cave, the camera obviously hidden.
One of the Ardaks was walking upright while the others remained on all fours.
“As you can see, the last of them are still in various stages of transformation, although most have already transformed,” Elberos said quietly. “And the process seems incredibly painful.”
A cub rolled on the ground between them, yowling in horrible pain. It contorted several times, then seemed to fall unconscious.
“What can we do about the children?” The voice was female, the mother still on all fours, licking the child gently. “They’re in so much pain.”
“I don’t know!” The father paced back and forth, baring his claws. “These fucking elves! I want to kill them all!”
“But you know it isn’t their fault. We’ve spoken with them and we can sense lies. They honestly don’t seem to know why these changes are happening to us, other than as a side effect of their magic. It’s not deliberate.”
“That doesn’t matter!” He roared back. “They brought the magic here! They made us go through all this pain! Look at my children! And you’re going to go through it soon.”
“Please, Roufeles! The children. Calm down.” The cub cried even more, and another cub, which had been quietly sitting in the corner, began to yowl.
Roufeles stood to his full height and took a deep breath, his entire body shaking with rage. “How can I be calm? Now that they’re leaving, the whole damn planet is falling apart!”
“Maybe we should take them to the mountains where there’s snow.” She lowered her head and licked the face of the child on the floor. “They are burning up with fever.”
He looked at his mate, breathing heavily as frustration and helplessness warred in his eyes. “You take the children. I want to go, but I’m going to get to those elves first.”
“Please be careful!” his mate cried. “You’re the leader, our people trust you. Try not to start a war if you don’t have to.”
“I think it’s past that point, don’t you?” He stormed out of the cave,
and his mate shrieked in anger, watching after him.
“Fucking!” Ithyll’s curse almost had him turning away from the monitor, but as he continued to watch the mother and her cubs, pieces of information he’d learned on that Ardak ship started to click together.
“Son of a bitch! What if Ithyll is right? If we let those crystals go and it destroys the magnetic field of the planet, this whole damn place could split apart. Millions of Ardaks and other species that live here will die. Those that don’t will die of starvation. It will take them centuries to recover.”
It all made sense to him.
Why the Ardaks were so angry. Why they blamed the elves for everything.
The elves changed them with their magic, causing them to evolve.
Then took their planet’s crystals and left them to die.
“We have to stop this,” Ithyll said. “We can’t let them take those crystals.”
“I don’t have the power to stop it, my lady,” Elberos replied. “The only person who does is the high king, and I know we can’t convince the general to ask him.”
“Right. He must be a real son of a bitch if he created these Ardaks with his energy,” Valdjan said. “No. We’re going to have to stop that ship ourselves. Where is it?”
Elberos wore a pained expression, as if unsure whether to help them or flee. “How do you know it will destroy the planet?”
Valdjan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look around. You already know the answer to that.”
“Because you’re from the future.” Elberos pivoted and then kicked the wall hard enough to leave a dent. “This is the third time I’ve seen you, and every time, it gets worse!” He tugged at his long blond hair. “Yet, somehow, I know you’re trying to help us.”
Valdjan nodded. “So is Ithyll. She’s the one whose magic has been sending me back. Our planet has been invaded by the Ardaks, and my job is to find out why and how to fix your mistakes. The elves taking those crystals from this planet set off a chain of events that extends for over a thousand years and each year that passes only makes the Ardaks stronger—and more angry.”
Elberos’s eyes grew wide, and then he pursed his lips. “All right. Even if I believe you, shouldn’t we just hope the planet shakes apart? Why would we want to save them?”
“Have you not been listening? I’m telling you that they don’t die and the ones that live will become a horror to us all, killing their way across the galaxies just to find those crystals.”
Valdjan could see the elf was wavering. “Look. I used to be just like you. I didn’t really give a shit about other races or anyone beyond my family. But I’ve seen the power that indifference has to hurt people. If we stand by and let them slaughter millions of Ardaks, then we deserve what’s coming to us.”
And for the first time, Valdjan believed it. His whole being vibrated with the conviction that what they were doing was wrong.
And that he had to be the one to do something about it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ithyll
Ithyll was shocked by Valdjan’s speech. He might have started this quest without a cause, but that had changed. He had something to believe in, and it made him a force to be reckoned with.
“Well, if you want to do something about it, we’d better get to the ship that’s taking the crystals,” Elberos said, finally spurring into action. He turned and sprinted down the corridor.
Valdjan grabbed her hand, and they sprinted after him.
She was still trying to process that she was actually inside the tests. It was one thing to watch them, but entirely different to be inside one. She just had to trust that Valdjan knew what he was doing.
“I don’t know exactly what we’re going to do,” Elberos huffed over his shoulder. “I’m just getting us to the spaceport.”
“Can we just take a ship there?”
“We could, but it isn’t that easy,” Elberos said. “The ship is a hundred miles from the station. We’re going to have to take a smaller ship to get there, and I don’t know if they’ll let us board.”
“Is the ship outside the atmosphere?” Valdjan asked.
“No, it’s actually low enough for them to load the crystals but high enough that nothing would be able to jump onto it.”
“Why don’t we take one of smaller shuttles to get there? We could board through one of the access corridors rather than trying to dock.”
The elf stopped running and gave them an astonished look. “You know what? That’s actually crazy enough to work.”
All she could think of was the angry Ardak father. “Those Ardaks looked pretty angry. Would they be able to stop a low-flying shuttle?”
“Probably,” Elberos admitted. “Not by themselves, but they can jump pretty high. If they helped each other, they could do it.”
She followed as they jumped into a shuttle, breathing a bit easier once they were leaving the base. They flew low over the ground, and she could see a ship in the distance.
But then the ground fell away, and she realized they had just passed a low cliff.
The shuttle fell, and as it pointed downward, she saw the ground seemed to ebb and flow with the movement of the Ardaks below.
When they saw the shuttle, the entire plain erupted in roars.
“Has anyone tried to talk to them?” she screamed over the noise.
“Yes,” the elf yelled back. “I read in the files that one of the female officers went to King Roufeles. She explained that we were innocent, and that we didn’t know what was wrong.”
“What happened to her?”
“She’s dead.”
“Fucking!” She knew they couldn’t win over this many Ardaks. They would pull the shuttle down with their weight. “We have to try again!”
“Every time we’ve tried, they just get more violent!” Elberos shouted back as he pointed ahead. “The one in the center is the leader we saw on video.”
Valdjan stood and pressed against the glass. “Slow down!”
“Are you crazy? They’ll kill us all!”
“They’re going to kill us anyway. I see Roufeles. Let me talk to him.”
Ithyll’s heart raced as the shuttle slowed.
“Ardaks!” Valdjan yelled over the side. His voice was drowned with roars. “Please! Listen! I know what’s breaking your planet apart. It’s the crystals that they’re taking from the core.”
“We already know—we can feel it!” Roufeles shouted. “And we know it’s your fault!”
“Well, we didn’t know the cause until now! But you know that we have to stop it!” Valdjan gestured to Elberos, and then to Ithyll. “The three of us are going to stop it.”
“Three of you? Are you joking? And why would we trust you?” Roufeles roared over the cacophony of noise. “You elves have been ruining our planet since you came here!”
“Because we didn’t know what we were doing. And not all of us agree with what’s happening. There is a revolt among elves who want to help you.” Valdjan looked straight into Roufeles’s eyes. “Please. Let us help you.”
The Ardak looked at several of those around him before turning back to Valdjan. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to put the crystals back where they belong—in the center of the planet.”
Ithyll held her breath as the Ardak tilted his head, thinking. Then, without warning, he jumped at them. They had lowered enough that he landed on the back of the shuttle, and it sank briefly under his weight. She cringed, thinking they were all dead.
He just turned back to his people and raised his right paw, and the Ardaks all roared as one. Roufeles turned and faced them, baring his fangs. “If we’re doing this, I’m coming with you.”
She sank back into her seat with shock.
The Ardaks weren’t malevolent.
They were just afraid, and the elves had left them to die.
The horror of it sank into her heart, tore at the center of her soul.
She hadn’t seen an Ardak before, and th
e one before her was fierce and easily twice her size, but she wasn’t afraid of him.
She believed he would do whatever it took to help his people.
Her eyes went back to Valdjan, and she could see the same determination on his face.
He’s found something to believe in.
Let’s just hope we don’t die trying to actualize it.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Valdjan
Valdjan turned back to the front, trying to hide his shock. He stared at the ship, which they were drawing closer to by the second.
“So, what’s the plan?” Roufeles growled.
“We’re still thinking of that,” Valdjan admitted. He thought of all the elves they would encounter on the ship. Maybe it didn’t have to be a fight. “Is there a way we could get the elves to abandon the ship?”
Elberos shook his head. “No.” He paused. “Well, maybe, but it would be crazy.”
“I like it already,” Valdjan responded.
“They would leave if we started the self-destruct sequence.”
“Right. But we couldn’t actually have it self-destruct without destroying the crystals as well.”
“We’ll just have to stop it before that happens, then.”
“Right. But it’s only three minutes,” Elberos mused. “And the shutdown is on the opposite side of the ship.”
“It isn’t in the control room?”
“No. Why would it be there?”
“So the captain can push it . . . never mind,” Valdjan replied. “All right. We have to split up. I’ll drop you at the front of the ship, and you can sneak in and start the sequence. Then I’ll go to the other side and shut it off. Once it’s off, meet me on the bridge. By that time, hopefully everyone will be so panicked they won’t realize what’s going on.”
“I’m coming with you,” Ithyll said.
“No way,” he countered. “I’m going to have to stop the sequence and then run through the ship to get up to the bridge. I have no idea who I’ll have to fight.”
“Right. But I’m the only one who can work with the crystals—with my magic I have the best chance of getting them back into the center of the planet quickly.”
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