“You’ll be safer with the Ardak until the ship is under control.” As soon as the words left his lips, Valdjan couldn’t believe he’d said it.
“I was sent with you this time for a reason, Valdjan. What if that reason is on that ship, and if I stay behind, you’ll fail?”
He hated that she was right and that he couldn’t argue his way out of it. She was here, which meant that she was supposed to go with him.
“Both ways are dangerous, and we’re probably all going to die,” Elberos stated. “Let her do what she wants.”
Valdjan gritted his teeth. “Fine.” He watched as the elf docked at an unused port on the underside of the giant ship.
Valdjan nodded, sliding over to take the controls. “Good luck.”
“See you on the bridge.” Elberos nodded and jumped, the Ardak on his heels and Valdjan and Ithyll pulling away to make their way to the far side of the ship.
Seconds later, escape pods began begin to jettison from the ship. “I guess they were successful.”
“Yes,” Ithyll agreed.
Once he’d docked, he turned to her. “I need you to follow me closely. The first thing I’m going to do is find a schematic of the ship so we know where we are going, and then we will need to move fast.”
She nodded, and he held out a hand, helping her out of the shuttle.
He had the access port open in seconds and stuck his head inside to make sure the area was clear. “Follow me.”
He closed the port behind them and ran down the corridor, looking for a computer port. The ship was similar to the one he’d flown on with Roihan, and after opening a few doors, he found one. He worked rapidly to pull up the information he needed, which told him the controls he was looking for were located inside the storage compartment.
We can look at the crystals and see what we’re dealing with.
He ran in the direction of the storage compartments, using mostly hidden access tunnels. Ithyll followed him swiftly and silently.
He opened the door to the compartment with the shutoff and paused.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Well, I’m not sure how many elves are gone.” He thought for a moment. “But maybe I can use a port to communicate with the bridge.”
He pivoted and pushed open a door to his left, revealing a computer port. Once he was sure the area was secure, he tugged Ithyll inside and shut the door behind them. It took a second to figure out how to activate and connect the com, but he managed to connect to the control room. “Hello? Is this the control room?”
“Yes,” an elf answered, his voice filled with fear. “We’re being taken over!”
Valdjan could hear the roar of an Ardak behind him and more shouts of elves. Seconds later, all went quiet.
“Valdjan?” a voice crackled through.
“Elberos?”
“The same. Bridge is clear, most were gone when we got here, and the rest ran when they saw the Ardak. You going to shut off that button before we all explode?”
“Just a second. Please stay on the line.” Valdjan ran to the next door, shutting off the self-destruct. When he came back, he connected again.
“Have you found the crystals?”
“I think so.” He turned to Ithyll.
But she wasn’t there.
“Ithyll? Where did you go?”
Frantic, he looked into the darkness behind him and gasped in awe.
The crystals were larger than anything he’d ever seen. Just one was larger than the turrets at the palace at Renwyn, and there were at least fifty of them.
Ithyll had gone to the closest one, holding her hands out to it. “I’m not going to be able to move these, Valdjan,” she said clearly. “Even with my magic, their weight alone is too much.”
“Uh, we found the crystals,” he told them through the communicator. “But we aren’t going to be able to move them. They’re enormous.”
“How enormous?”
“About twenty times bigger than that shuttle we came on.”
“What about dropping them down the hole?” The question came from Roufeles and sounded more like a growl.
“We’d have to have perfect aim and hope that none got stuck halfway down.” Elberos sounded skeptical.
“Even if we wanted to, I don’t know how we’ll get them out of the ship,” Ithyll said, her face pale. “They must have used incredible magic for this.”
“What about flying the ship in and dropping them off?” Valdjan asked.
“The hole to get the crystals is too small,” Elberos responded. “We’ve been using smaller ships with teams of elves to bring the crystals to the surface, then loading them into the larger ship.”
“How small? Could I crash the ship into it and reach the core?”
The communicator was silent for several minutes.
“Hello?”
“I’m thinking. Perhaps, but it would be tight. There’s no way the autopilot could do it, since it’s straight into a planet. You can’t program an autopilot to go into a solid object. And it definitely wouldn’t be coming back out.”
The planet shook again.
“How long do we have?”
“At this rate? Not long.”
Valdjan heard Roufeles growl. “Whatever we’re going to do, let’s get on with it.”
“Fuck!” Valdjan swallowed.
We’re going to have to fly the ship into the planet.
At that moment, everything became clear to him. Why he’d had to take the tests, why Ithyll was here.
Millions of Ardaks had been killed by the elves’ carelessness, and someone had to make the ultimate sacrifice to put things right. The person who flew the ship into the core wasn’t coming back out.
Someone else had to witness it, to speak for what had been done to them. To live through it, to cry the tears that should have been cried so long ago.
His eyes found Ithyll, his witness.
The one who would go on to tell the tale of how the universe had been unbalanced and how they discovered the way to make it right again.
He was going to have to let her go so she could live. At that moment, his heart broke in two. He literally felt it ripping apart. Pain seared his chest, and his knees buckled.
She grabbed him, steadying him so he didn’t fall. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” He forced himself to suck air into his lungs. “And I know what I have to do.”
Ithyll looked at him. “If you’re flying the ship into the planet’s core, I’m coming with you.”
He shook his head. “No, you aren’t!”
She crossed her arms. “Yes I am!”
He stared hard into her liquid golden eyes and remembered their first argument. It had gone something like this, only in reverse.
“I’m coming, too.” The words over the communicator were quiet, but the elf’s voice was steady.
“Well, don’t look at me,” a voice growled. “I couldn’t get off now and still face my people. What kind of example would that be for my son?”
Valdjan glanced back at Ithyll, knowing he wasn’t going to win this fight cleanly. He nodded once. “Let’s go. Follow me.”
He ran down the hall and heard Ithyll’s footsteps behind him. The Ardaks must have taken the tech the elves left behind when they abandoned the planet.
As they ran, he searched for escape pods that hadn’t been used. Most of the docks were empty, but there were probably still a few left. He hoped one was on the way to the bridge.
“This way,” he said quickly, turning the last corner and grabbing Ithyll’s hand.
He held it tightly as they ran, knowing it was the last time he would do it. He wished he had the time to hold her, to kiss her one last time, but he was afraid he wouldn’t have the strength to let her go.
She was the most important thing that had ever happened to him.
As they ran by the shuttle, he stopped and grabbed her. He kissed her forehead, opened the door, and then pushed her back into the pilot
seat. Before she gathered her bearings, he had the door shut securely behind her and was pressing the button to eject the pod.
The timer came on inside, counting backward from ten seconds.
“No!” Ithyll shouted, seeing the timer begin counting down. She jumped up and pounded on the window, tears filling her eyes as she screamed, “Valdjan! What did you do? I’m coming with you.”
“Not this time, angel, you’re going to live,” he shouted through the door between them.
She began to sob loudly, her golden eyes accusing, begging him not to eject the pod.
“You have to be strong!” he told her loudly. “Someone has to speak for them! Tell everyone in our time what happened to the Ardaks! Help us stop this war!”
The timer clicked down its final second and then she was gone.
He watched the pod spinning out into the atmosphere and felt a staggering sense of loss.
“I love you,” he whispered.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ithyll
Ithyll cried and kicked the escape pod as she exited the atmosphere alone. She couldn’t believe her cyborg had left her behind.
Fucking!
Why did he do this to her? They were supposed to be together. The thought of him flying into that open hole by himself made her cry even harder.
No, angel, you’re going to live.
The words swirled through her head, enraging her. After a thousand years of being alone, the only one she had was him. He was the one who had saved her. Had brought her back to life.
Doesn’t he know I don’t want to live without him?
In front of her, the other escape pods were slowly being picked up by three larger ships.
“Cowards!” she shrieked at the elves, beating at the glass of the craft. “You stole their crystals and left them to die!”
That meant she had to lose the man she loved to fix it.
The futility of it all was disorienting.
These things had happened fifteen hundred years ago. Nothing they could say or do would change the fact that they had inadvertently created the Ardaks or devastated their planet.
The past wouldn’t change, but she would still lose Valdjan to it.
Why did he do it?
He’d told her to speak for them. To help stop the war.
He’d figured out what the test was about. It was about love. Love was the energy of the universe, and the wrongs they had done to the Ardaks had thrown that out of balance.
For them to put it back into balance, he was going to die for a race that wasn’t even his own, because of the wrongs done to them by a race that wasn’t even his own either. He was going to do it because it was the right thing to do. For all of them. For their past. And for their futures.
Although Valdjan had claimed he wasn’t a hero, he’d been wrong. He was a hero, and she knew that as sure as the universe would continue expanding, Valdjan was going to get those crystals back to the center of the planet and save the Ardaks in the test.
His sacrifice might just balance the energy enough for them to make peace with the Ardaks, and she was here to witness it.
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.
A great rumble began. The craft around her began to shake as she herself began to fade.
No!
She stared at the controls of the escape pod helplessly.
I have to watch! Don’t take me yet!
But then she faded and came back into the cave, but the rumbling didn’t stop. It got louder. Closer. As if it had been in this reality all along.
The mermen! They’re going to bring the cave down around me!
She reached for the crystal on the table, staring at Valdjan inside the bubble. He was still in the ship, turning it toward the hole in the planet.
Should I pull him out? Should I flee?
Somehow, she knew that this time was different, that if she pulled him, he wouldn’t get to go back. He would never finish the test or prove himself as the champion and would likely die here with her when the cave collapsed.
She wouldn’t take that away from him.
The entire cave was shaking, and she had no idea which way the attack would come from. So she did the only thing she could.
She gathered Valdjan’s golden sword and shield and went to stand by her box of crystals and the keyhole that marked the entrance to the Crystal Cave. There, at least, she would be able to amass more energy should she need it.
She threw up her hands and created a bubble of energy around her, allowing layer upon layer to build. The cave rumbled, bits of rock crumbling around her, dust and debris clinking against the outside of the bubble.
Whatever was coming was coming fast.
She gritted her teeth, making the bubble thicker and stronger.
Whatever happened, she was not going to fail him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Valdjan
When he arrived at the control room, the others said nothing about Ithyll, simply watched as he went straight to the captain’s chair.
He pulled up his knowledge of flying he’d downloaded weeks ago and glanced at the other two. “Last chance to get out.”
“And let you have all the fun?” Elberos’s golden eyes stared straight into his. “No way. Besides, I didn’t know if you could fly this thing alone.”
“I probably can. There’s no need for all of us to die.”
“We’re all going to die anyway.” The elf shook his head. “My people made this mess, and I’ll be damned if I let a cyborg and an Ardak clean it up for me.”
Valdjan met his eyes and nodded once in understanding, and the two were silent for a moment. Then he turned to Roufeles, who had a strange expression on his face.
“What’s a cyborg?” he asked tentatively.
“It’s someone with a chip implanted in the back of his neck,” Valdjan replied, turning to show him the blinking light.
“I wondered what that was. Who did that to you?”
Valdjan paused. “It isn’t important now.”
“You’re really going to do this?” the Ardak asked. “You’re going to sacrifice yourselves for us?” His eyes were wide with disbelief, and his expression almost that of a child.
“We really are,” Valdjan said simply.
“And I apologize, on behalf of my people, for our mistake. For causing your people pain,” the elf said, bowing his head.
Roufeles’s breath caught, and for a moment, everything stood still. Then another quake rocked the planet, this one so loud that they heard it, and a sonic boom rocked the ship. “Well, if we’re going to do this thing, let’s get it done.”
“Yep. Let’s get these crystals back where they belong,” Valdjan ordered.
“Agreed,” Elberos said, firing up the engines. “I’ll take care of the engines, you guide this thing home.”
“What shall I do?” Roufeles asked.
“Pray,” Valdjan answered. “Pray that we get these crystals as close as we can to where they were.”
The Ardak nodded once. “I will. And you have my . . . thanks.”
Valdjan’s throat grew tight. His people had suffered so much at the hands of the Ardaks that he never thought he would respect one. But, at the end, all three of them—a cyborg, an elf, and an Ardak—were exactly the same.
They loved, they fought, and they died. There was a simple beauty in that as each of their tiny, insignificant lives contributed to the fabric of the universe.
He turned back to the computer, determined to make their sacrifices worth something. “I’m going to go high first so we have a running start to get these crystals as deep as we can.”
“Yes. I think a hundred thousand feet might do it. But it’s mostly about your aim. If you’re dead center, this ship is going to go almost to the core. The outside edges of the ship will just break off and the body will keep going.”
“That sounds like a lot of fun,” Valdjan said in a clearly sarcastic voice, and Elberos barked a surprised lau
gh.
“I like you, Valdjan. I wish I’d known you sooner.”
Valdjan glanced at the Ardak and found that even he was wearing a smirk.
The elf put the ship into gear, and Valdjan guided it forward and up, higher into the atmosphere before turning it in a wide circle and aiming back for the enormous hole the elves had dug.
“Thank you for doing this for my people,” the elf said to Valdjan as they watched the ground come up to meet them faster and faster.
“And mine,” the Ardak seconded.
“I’m doing it for all of us.” Valdjan replied. He gave one last look toward the sky behind them. “And her.”
There was a huge crash and a million grinding noises that deafened them as the ship slid deeper and deeper down the hole.
It didn’t seem to be slowing, and his hopes of them actually making it rose.
Then the ship halted, throwing him forward into the viewscreen.
The blinding pain that went through his entire body lasted for barely a breath before everything faded to black.
Chapter Thirty
Valdjan
Valdjan was standing in an elven hall, golden light filling the room. He knew it was elven because there was an intricately detailed golden throne sitting on a dais in front of him, leaves entwining it in a way that made it seem almost alive.
On that throne sat the queen. A golden circlet sat on her head, and the gown she wore appeared as though it were spun from gold itself and trimmed with diamonds. Its patterns echoed the entwining patterns of the room.
If there is a queen of all the elves, she is the one.
“Valdjan.” Her voice boomed through the hall, at once soft and beautiful and loud and frightening.
He tried not to cringe and fell to his knees before her, bowing his head. “Your Highness.”
When she didn’t speak, he dared to glance up at her and found her wearing an amused smile. His eyes dropped to his hands . . . his not an elf’s.
He was back in his own body, only it was . . . different. Lighter somehow. As if he had been before he’d been turned into a cyborg.
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