Zenith

by Sasha Alsberg

  She dealt out death like a deck of cards. How many more would die before they got Valen Cortas out of here alive?

  “Two,” Andi said quietly, as she turned off the electric whip and doused them in shadow once more.

  “Two?” Dex echoed.

  “Two deaths. Two tallies on my swords.” She looked down at the dead guards, then back up at him. A flicker of pain flashed through her eyes. “I have a code, you know. Lines that I don’t cross.”

  “And today?” Dex asked, as he looked down at the bodies. “Have you crossed a line?”

  “I remember them, Dex,” she said. “Every last one.”

  For a moment, he did see the Andi he’d once known. He saw the same haunted look in her eyes that she’d had as she stood above him, her knife in his chest. Her trust shattered because of him.

  Maybe his original instincts had been correct. Maybe somewhere, hidden deep within...a fragment of her compassion remained.

  “Cell 306,” Andi said, reminding Dex of their mission. “We still have twelve levels to climb down, and the clock is ticking.”

  Dex nodded, then followed her into the darkness.

  It wasn’t until they reached the next set of guards, when they slipped into soundless action side by side, that Dex realized something frightening.

  He loved this. Fighting beside her in perfect sync, as a fluid team.

  For the first time in a long time, he felt fully alive.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  * * *

  KLAREN

  Year Nineteen

  THE GIRL, NOW a queen, sat in her palace, gazing down at her greatest mistake.

  It was beautiful, this tiny mistake. A creature born from the queen’s very body, woven together in her womb. Protected from the bitter, dying world outside the palace walls.

  It wasn’t part of her plan.

  And the queen knew, from the moment she’d first birthed the babe, that she would be forever changed.

  The infant was wrapped in her arms now, warm and soft and full of the power to change the fate of entire worlds.

  “Nor,” the queen said, stroking the child’s tiny cheek with her fingertip. “A strong name, fit for a child of the light.”

  Footsteps sounded outside the room.

  The queen looked up as the king swept inside, followed by a trail of guards.

  “You look lovely, my heart,” he said, placing a kiss on her lips. A second later, he pressed one to Nor’s tiny forehead.

  Years the king and queen had shared together, and still his eyes held the glassy look of a man helplessly bewitched by love.

  The queen smiled at him. “You love me,” she whispered. “As much as the day you first laid eyes on me.”

  “I will always love you, Klaren.” He said it as if it weren’t even a question.

  She’d hardly had to try to entice him. Perhaps, in some way, that meant he was her gift. A man who loved her despite what she was. Despite the past she’d kept hidden from him all these years.

  “Rest, my girls,” the king said, and then he was swept away by his entourage, worried looks on their faces as they bowed their heads respectfully, their voices full of strain, a single word ghosting onto their lips.

  War.

  Outside, the acid rain bit at the palace walls, stripping them away little by little, eating at the crumbling spires. Below, the ground rumbled with the warning of another quake soon to come.

  Far beyond, on the city streets, a hundred thousand lives hungered for salvation.

  The baby wailed, drawing the queen’s attention. “Sleep now, my perfect little mistake,” she whispered. “Sleep, and remember to dream of the light.”

  The baby calmed at the sound of her mother’s voice.

  In moments, her eyes closed.

  Alone in her palace quarters, the queen of Xen Ptera rocked her daughter gently, a tear slipping down her cheek as she remembered her mission and thought of how little time they had left.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  * * *

  VALEN

  THE DARKNESS WAS often silent, the slow, steady beating of Valen’s heart serving as the only reminder that he was still alive. Still suffering the pains of Lunamere.

  Sometimes he imagined he was back in his former bedroom, listening not to his heart, but to Kalee.

  You’re strange, Valen, she’d always told him. But you’re my favorite kind of strange.

  Tonight, he tried again to remember her.

  She’d always had kind, curious eyes, and the sound of her laugh was like birds chirping on a spring morning as the sun rose up from beneath the floating gravarocks of Arcardius.

  And yet, when he tried to bring forth an image of her face, it slipped away.

  Instead, a sleek, cruel smile took its place. A queen of darkness and shadow. A mistress of misery and salvation.

  The image of her was swept from his mind, leaving him to rock back and forth in the darkness, trying to remind himself of his mantra. His hold on sanity, his reason to stay alive.

  Vengeance will be mine.

  Revenge. It would taste so, so sweet.

  As he rocked, he imagined that he heard footsteps in the darkness.

  But along with the footsteps, he saw a glimpse of softly glowing light. Not the cold, bitter kind that came from his torturers’ electric whips or gauntlets, but instead, a light that danced and flickered as it moved and bounced off the walls outside of his cell.

  Like the stars.

  Valen gasped and held back a groan as he pulled himself forward on hands and knees. The fresh gashes in his back were still bleeding, his ragged shirt soaked through, parts of the fabric sticking to his shredded skin. He’d nearly died again tonight, beaten down until he’d slipped into that place of calm, warm light. He’d wanted to stay there, to feel the light on his skin.

  But then he’d heard his sister’s voice.

  Be strong, Valen, she’d whispered. Remember, we are stronger together. He held on until the beatings ceased, refusing to give up. Refusing to break.

  He crawled forward now in his cell, desperate to get a glimpse of the strange new light. Even if it was a part of his imagination, it had color. It had a softness he hadn’t seen since being thrown into this hard place.

  With effort, he made it to the door, where he knew a guard was always waiting, keys attached to his belt loop, fresh taunts on his lips when he knew Valen was awake and listening.

  The sound of footsteps slowed.

  The light in the hall winked out, and Valen was thrust back into darkness again.

  “Who’s out there? Joneska?” Valen’s guard called out into the black. “We aren’t supposed to switch out for another half hour.”

  With trembling limbs, Valen reached up and gripped the bars on his cell door, then pulled himself up so he could peer out through them.

  There was a flash of light, a familiar crackle that made Valen’s guts roil as another guard, standing just down the hall, turned their short-whip on. The man holding it wasn’t one Valen had seen before.

  Though he couldn’t remember the faces from his past, he knew the ones of his tormentors well—every cold gaze, every wrinkle in their haunting faces.

  In the crackling light, this new man looked like he had stars trailing down his tan arms. Constellations that almost flickered with light, as if he were a painting, a work of art.

  “Your shift is over,” the star-covered man said, smirking.

  “Who the hell are you?” Valen’s guard barked out.

  Another crackle of light as a second short-whip crackled on. Valen gasped, and pain raced through him as his broken ribs screamed in response to the movement.

  But he couldn’t hold back the cry that escaped from his lips.

  Couldn’t believe the sight of the pale-haired woman standi
ng in the darkness, two glowing cuffs on her wrists, illuminating the dark scars on her arms and the blood splatters on her face that looked like paint.

  She took a step forward, graceful and lithe as a predator—and so real, despite the fact that she couldn’t be. “What you should be asking instead,” she said with a menacing grin, “is why you’re still alive.”

  The guard lifted his wrist, where Valen knew a com was attached.

  But before he could speak, the woman reacted. She was a blur of color—pale starlight hair, red splatters on her face, soft glowing light around her wrists and the sharp, electric blue whip sparking as she brought it down in a sharp, solid arc.

  There was a hiss.

  A small puff of smoke.

  And the man’s hand fell to the stone floor with a thump.

  The guard was too shocked to even scream. He simply opened his mouth, staring down at his dismembered hand, his smoking stump of a wrist, then back up to look at the woman in the darkness.

  “You’re going to do exactly as I say,” she said, but it came out like the purr of a demon, the croon of a devil’s pet. “You’re going to release the prisoner in Cell 306, and if you object, I will cut you into pieces, little by little, until you do.”

  The tattooed man beside her smirked. “What piece will you start with?”

  “I’m not entirely sure.” She smiled, but it was all wrong, as if she should have had fangs instead of teeth. Her pale eyes flicked back to the guard, who still stood frozen in front of Valen’s cell. “You have ten seconds to unlock the door. Do it now, before I change my mind.”

  The guard turned, fumbling with his remaining hand. He dropped the keys, then cried out as he sank to his knees and tried to grab them. His fingers scraped his dismembered hand, and with a gasp of pain, he slumped to one side, unconscious.

  “Disturbing,” the tattooed man said with a chuckle. “Did you really have to cut off his hand?”

  The young woman didn’t answer. She stepped forward, silent and light as a ghost, and scooped the keys up off the stones.

  Valen stumbled backward, suddenly unwilling to leave this place.

  Unwilling to believe this was reality. That she was really, truly here, bringing light to him in the darkness of Lunamere.

  The lock clicked open.

  The door swung forward silently, its hinges well-used from his frequent visits to the torture chambers.

  The tattooed man stayed in the hallway, holding the door. But the young woman stepped into the cell, those strange, glowing blue cuffs illuminating her face. Valen had painted that face many times in years past. He’d thought her beautiful once; an angel with fair hair and even fairer features who’d given his sister joy. A girl he’d been desperate to understand.

  But when the accident happened, he knew he’d been wrong.

  Androma Racella wasn’t an angel.

  She was death incarnate.

  “Hello, Valen,” she said now. She held a steady hand out to him, but he scuttled backward like a bug. “We’re here to rescue you.”

  He hadn’t used his voice for weeks, and not for anything more than to scream through the pain. He opened his cracked, bleeding lips, was ready to tell her the words he’d imagined saying, after all these years.

  Then a blaring screech exploded from the walls.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  * * *

  ANDROMA

  THE ALARM SPLIT the silence like a knife.

  “Damn it all!” Dex shouted, though Andi could barely hear his voice above the alarm. “We’re too late!”

  She turned back to face Valen, her mind racing.

  One more floor down, and they’d find Soyina waiting for them, along with the promise of escape. They had to go. Now.

  “Valen,” Andi said, rushing to his side. “Come on. We’re getting you out of here.”

  Valen’s eyes slammed shut. He fell to his knees, shaking his head, murmuring, “No, no, no,” as he scrambled away, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.

  How in the hell were they supposed to get him out of here like this? He was a bleeding, shattered mess, hardly able to stand, let alone run down a flight of stairs while being chased by guards.

  “Help me get him up!” Andi shouted to Dex.

  Valen howled and skittered back even farther, leaving another fresh smear of blood on the stones. He tried to stand, but his legs shook with the effort. His arms were covered in bruises and lashes, and they were far too thin.

  It was a wonder he was still alive. Andi tried to tamp down the wave of horror she felt at seeing him in this state. They didn’t have time for this. Somewhere in the distance, shouts rang out, and blue lights danced on the walls outside Valen’s open cell door as guards came closer.

  She peered out the cell door. In the mouth of the stairwell, a guard appeared. Then another behind him, followed by two more.

  She hadn’t expected things to go this way. But she knew this was the only part of the mission that counted, the part that would earn her and Dex and her crew their pardoned names and a shipload of Krevs.

  Andi looked down at Valen and frowned.

  He was a shadow of the person she’d once known, but he was still a Cortas—a living fragment of Kalee. Andi hadn’t been able to keep her friend alive, but she’d be damned if anything happened to Valen under her watch.

  “I’m sorry about this,” she said.

  Then she brought the solid base of a short-whip down over Valen’s head.

  He crumpled in a heap.

  Dex stared, openmouthed, from behind him. “That’s your plan?”

  “Take an arm,” Andi commanded.

  Soon the two of them stood in the mouth of the cell, Valen’s unconscious body hanging between them.

  “You remember all those sword-fighting lessons you gave me on Tenebris?” Andi asked. “The ones where we fought single-handed?”

  “Oh, love.” Dex lifted a dark brow. “How could I ever forget?”

  Valen’s head lolled against her cheek, and she nearly gagged at his rotten scent.

  “One more thing, Dex?” Andi asked, shoving Valen’s head the other way. Dex met her eyes as she doused the light on her cuffs. “Don’t call me ‘love.’”

  She gripped her short-whip tight, imagining it was one of her swords, already seeing the way she’d slice it through tendons like a blade carving through raw meat. In her mind, she was a Spectre again. She imagined Kalee in Valen’s place.

  No one would harm her charge.

  “Steady,” Dex whispered. “Silent.”

  They waited for a breath of a second, allowing the guards to get closer, the light from their weapons brightening with each stomp of their boots.

  “Now,” Andi said.

  Together, she and Dex stepped out of the cell, carrying Valen Cortas between them.

  Six guards stood just around the corner, weapons raised, looking ready for a fight.

  * * *

  They sprang, their two bodies moving in one single motion, Valen still between them.

  Dex on the left, Andi on the right. They moved so fast the world around them seemed to pause.

  Andi’s whip flashed in a glorious arc, striking the guard closest to her just as he moved to action. The end of her whip curled around his, snaking like electric fingertips intertwining, and Andi yanked backward. The guard’s whip soared past them, then exploded with a shower of sparks against the cell door beyond.

  “Cover me,” Andi growled.

  Dex attacked as Andi rose, using the counterweight of both boys, and swung her foot into the weaponless guard’s jaw. A crack sounded as bones shattered beneath her boot.

  “Down!” Dex shouted.

  A short-whip soared past the space where Valen’s head had just been. It severed the end of Andi’s braid, the scent of burned hair w
afting into her nostrils.

  She rose, snarling, as a lock of her hair tumbled to the floor.

  These Lunamere bastards were going to die.

  * * *

  The world moved in flashes as darkness and light fought and intertwined. The guards before them were like ghosts that appeared and then flickered out as the whips and gauntlets cracked from blue to black and back again.

  With each patch of darkness, Dex and Andi moved forward. Valen’s body was like dead weight against their shoulders.

  “Take them out!” a guard screamed.

  Passing Valen to Andi, Dex dropped to the floor, leg extended as it rammed into the guard’s legs and sent him sprawling.

  “Come on!” Andi yelled from behind him, moving toward the stairs.

  Dex looped an arm around Valen, pulling the three of them into the stairwell. He slammed the door behind them, quickly fusing the lock with the electric heat from his short-whip.

  Fists pounded the metal behind them.

  “One more level, and we’ll be out. Soyina will be waiting at the door, if we’re lucky,” Andi said, already pulling the three of them down the eerie staircase.

  Something whizzed past his face.

  Andi yelped as a knife sank into her shoulder.

  In a blink, she yanked it out and held it before her.

  “Hold Valen,” she growled.

  Before Dex could stop her, she rushed down the stairs, swinging the knife.

  There were too many guards. Even as Andi fought her way down, more poured up the steps toward him and Valen.

  He was out of weapons. Out of options.

  * * *

  “Sorry about this, friend,” Dex said.

  With one grand shove, he pushed Valen down the remaining stairs.

  The guards toppled in Valen’s path.

  The guy was unconscious. No harm done unless he died on the descent—it was only one flight of stairs, not twenty.