Zenith

by Sasha Alsberg

Her words were.

  She wanted him to hurt. To feel the soul-deep pain, just as she did.

  Physical wounds would heal, but the internal scars never would.

  “Do you not understand?” Andi cried out. He looked broken, his constellation tattoos like cracks across his skin. She wanted to shatter him from the inside out. “You were my whole world. You showed me that I could still be loved. When everyone else—an entire planet full of people—hated me so much they wished me dead, even my own parents...I found you. I started to live again. I started to trust. Then I lost you, too, just like all the others. You turned away, just like they did.”

  She didn’t care that the tears were now flowing freely, spilling across her metal cheekbones to splatter at her feet. They had been pent up for too long. They needed to be released. “You were a coward. A pathetic, Krev-hungry coward. You failed me when you were the only person I thought never would.”

  Her words echoed in the space.

  For a second she thought he would turn and leave, too cowardly to listen.

  Then Dex crossed the room in three strides, so close to her that she could feel his breath on her face. “I turned you in because you were running from the law! You lied to me about your past, Andi. I did nothing that wasn’t expected of me! My duty as a Guardian was to the welfare of the galaxy, not to some runaway Spectre who’d failed her entire planet! You made the choice to fly that transport ship. It was your hands that crashed it. Your failure that killed Kalee! You ran, Androma.” He laughed, then, a short bark that exploded from his chest. “And now look what you’ve become! The Bloody Baroness!”

  “You made me this way,” Andi snarled. “I became a monster of your creation. I killed, and I liked it. And you liked it, too. All those deaths across the galaxy have your name on them, just as much as mine.”

  “You’re blaming me for the murders you’ve committed?” He laughed in her face.

  “‘You’re amazing when you fight, Androma,’” she said, throwing his past words back at him. “‘You’re unstoppable.’ Every time you saw me take someone down, every job I helped you with, you looked at me with pride. With love.”

  They circled each other like predators, blood boiling, bodies shaking with rage as the stars looked on.

  “Did you ever think about my side in all of this, Androma?” Dex’s voice cracked suddenly as he ran his fingers through his dark hair. “You may think you know the whole story, but you are so consumed by hate that you only see yourself.”

  She ran her palm over her face, feeling the chill of her metal cheekbones as she wiped away the tears. “You are such a hypocrite! Did you ever ask for my side of the story?”

  He paused, then said, “Your side of the story doesn’t matter. You sunk a knife into my chest. You stole my ship and left me to die.”

  “And I’d do it again, a thousand times,” Andi growled, stepping closer until they were practically touching, until their furious hearts beat as one.

  She saw tears in his eyes now, as well. Felt his chest rise and fall as sobs overcame him.

  “You are the only woman I have ever loved,” he whispered.

  He stepped away, and the space between them felt as distant as the black sky outside.

  “If you loved me, why did you betray me?” Andi asked in a whisper.

  Dex released a breath. His voice was softer now when he spoke. “There is more to the story than what you think, if you would just listen to me.”

  She shook her head. “Not tonight, Dex.”

  “If not tonight, then when?”

  He was so stubborn it made Andi want to scream.

  “I’ve heard enough.”

  He rushed toward her again, grabbed her hands in his and squeezed them tight. Forced her to look up at him.

  “I didn’t have a choice. When I found out you were a wanted fugitive, I felt like a fool for not realizing it earlier. The way you could fight, the burns on your wrists. How could I not have seen it after the general had blasted your name across the feeds? Godstars, Andi, only a few days had passed when I discovered who you really were, and you’d already wiggled your way into my heart. I was in shock. I knew I had to turn you in, but...I let time go by. I let myself love you, protect you, help you rediscover the strength I always knew you had.”

  “And yet you still turned me in,” she said.

  “They had my father!”

  He barked out the words in one breath. His eyes were wide, like he couldn’t believe he’d actually said them.

  Dex had never spoken about his family before, and she’d never pushed the subject. Just as he’d never pushed her for details about her own past.

  “The Arcardian Patrolmen took him hostage. The general...all who were loyal to him...they were so furious when you escaped Arcardius before your death sentence could be carried out. I was approached by some of his men. They said that if I didn’t lead them to you, my father would be killed. He was just a mechanic. An innocent man! He hadn’t killed like you had, he hadn’t...” Dex took a deep breath. “They gave me a choice, Andi. I could turn in the woman I loved, whom I’d only spent a year of my life with...or I could watch the man who raised me die at their hands.”

  Andi didn’t know what to think, what to believe.

  Dex wiped tears from his cheeks as he sunk to his knees before her.

  Broken.

  Dextro Arez was finally, finally broken. She saw it as plain as day before her, a victory she’d imagined in her heart for years.

  So why didn’t it feel good?

  “When they told me exactly what you had done to Kalee—not only allowing your charge to die on your watch, but the fact that you’d caused it? A part of me—the Guardian part—wanted to turn you in so you could face the traitor’s punishment you deserved.” He looked down at his hands. “But the other part...my heart, Androma, told me that you were only a girl when it happened. A soldier, yes. But so young, with so much responsibility. It was a mistake. No matter how strong the person, everyone makes mistakes.

  “I tried to warn you, so you would at least have a head start. When I left that morning, Andi... Don’t you remember my words?”

  She racked her brain, searching.

  And there it was.

  Dex, leaning against the door frame. He’d been ill all morning, puking up his guts in the sick bay.

  He got dressed slowly and came to sit beside her on the cot, watching her with sadness in his eyes.

  “You know you always have to be on the lookout when I’m gone,” he said. “You know you’re never truly safe in this galaxy.”

  “The Marauder is my home, Dex,” Andi said. “I’m perfectly safe when I’m here.”

  He sighed. “I’d feel better if you kept a weapon on you at all times.” He glanced beneath the cot. “Your stash of knives is freshly sharpened.”

  She’d laughed then and told him he was worrying for no reason. Told him she’d be fine until he came back. That she knew how to take care of herself.

  She’d thought he was just talking nonsense. That he was exhausted and worried for her, because the job he was embarking on would be a longer one than usual.

  “I pleaded with them,” Dex said now. “I begged them to understand that you had made a mistake. You could never return to your home and wasn’t that enough of a punishment? But they wouldn’t listen. They just wanted you, Androma. They wanted General Cortas to have justice. They offered me money and a position as a leading Guardian for Arcardius. They also said they would let my father go. If you had been there, Andi...” He looked down at his boots. “If you had seen the fear on my father’s face in the video they showed me of him, captive and bound in chains...if it were one of your Marauders, and if it were my life or theirs on the line...you would know why I did it.”

  He looked up at her now, his eyes pleading, the emotion so raw on his handsome face.
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  “I’m so sorry, Androma,” Dex whispered. “I will never forgive myself for what I did to you.”

  His shoulders slumped.

  In her mind, she saw that final, fleeting moment on the fire moon. The knife in his chest, his shirt blossoming green with his blood.

  She felt the pain of her heart breaking in her chest. The feeling that she could hardly breathe.

  “Andi,” Dex whispered. “Please. Look at me. Tell me we can move past this. We both made mistakes. We both made our choices, and we’ve had to live with them.”

  She turned away from him, unable to look at his face.

  “We can’t ever go back to how it was before,” Dex said. “But...if you’re willing...we could make something new.”

  She didn’t look at him as she said, “Just go, Dex.” Her voice cracked on his name.

  He slipped past her silently and left her room without another word.

  She settled down on the floor again.

  There, alone in her quarters, she picked up her swords and added more tallies, the blades turning slick with the flow of her tears.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  * * *

  KLAREN

  Year Twenty-Five

  “LET ME GO,” the queen whispered. “Cyprian...please.”

  In the darkness of her private chambers, lit only by the moonlight, all she could see was the general’s ghostly outline as he stood before her, pressing her up against the wall. His ruffled shirt was half undone. His blue eyes looked like flames trying desperately not to flicker out.

  His hands, curled into fists, were tangled in her hair.

  Wrapped around her throat, as he pressed her harder against the wall.

  “I will kill you,” he growled. “You have...done something...to me...”

  His grip grew tighter. She could hardly breathe. Her vision grew dim. For a moment, panic called her name.

  “Let me go.” She choked out the words, fighting for air.

  Even in her hatred, she made herself reach out and touch him. With trembling hands, she ran her fingers down his back. Felt the shudder race up and down his spine. She dug her fingertips in, pressing so hard she drew blood.

  “Let me go.”

  “Damn it, Klaren!” His entire body shook as he finally released her. “Damn you!”

  He stumbled backward.

  She slipped down the wall, gasping for air. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Cyprian was strong. Stronger than she’d ever anticipated. She hated this fight. Hated the lack of control. The queen looked up, meeting his gaze as he stood across from her, hunched over.

  “What are you doing to me?” he asked, his hands outspread before him, as if he were afraid of them. Afraid of himself. “Every night, I find myself here. You plague my dreams. You come to me in visions. Your name forces itself to my lips when I wake.” He ran a hand across his creased face. “When I am with my wife...I think of you.”

  Two years she’d waited for this. A queen away from her planet, a prisoner deep in the belly of the Cortas lair.

  Two years she’d endured questions from his men, allowed herself to be removed from her quarters and forced to sit in front of a camera. To record videos that were sent across the galaxy to her husband.

  “Tell him to surrender, Klaren,” Cyprian had said. “Tell him to surrender, and you can go free.”

  “Do not surrender,” she’d responded into the camera, using her eyes and her voice as she’d been taught. Knowing her husband would obey her demands. “Do not give in. You can still win this war, my love.”

  The Unified Systems continued to blast Xen Ptera with bombs, spreading more death.

  And so the war had carried on.

  “Tell me!” Cyprian screamed now, in her room. He ran his hands through his thinning hair. The war had changed him, turned him into something fractured. “Tell me what you’ve done to me!”

  The obsession had spread. She could sense it in him, like a disease that festered.

  Even now, as he sank to his knees before her, tears welling in his eyes...

  He couldn’t look away.

  She may have been his prisoner, but he was her toy. A wad of putty to mold and shape to her own liking.

  It was time.

  Time to make her next move.

  All her life, she’d waited for this moment. And so it was with a smile that Klaren looked up, stared into his eyes, and whispered, “It is because you love me.”

  He froze.

  He glared at her, still three steps away, as he got to his feet. “What did you just say to me?”

  The queen swallowed and gathered strength from deep within. She was born to do this. Born to sacrifice herself. Her heart, to the king of Xen Ptera. Her daughter, unplanned, had been sacrificed, too.

  Now, she would willingly give up her body to the cause.

  “You love me, Cyprian,” the queen said, stronger now, as something powerful surged through her. She rose to her feet, using the wall for support, and stepped closer to him. “All these years, you have watched me. You have longed to touch me. To taste me. To make me yours.”

  Her words were poison.

  She, the tipped arrow, aimed for the kill.

  “You will take me as your lover,” the queen whispered. “And you will come to me, night after night. Until you can no longer look upon your wife without wishing to replace her.”

  Her captor glared at her, trembling with a rage that he had been so desperately trying to hide these past two years.

  Tonight, she would win.

  “I...love...you?” he said, through gritted teeth.

  A question, still.

  She must try harder.

  “You love me, Cyprian Cortas,” she whispered, putting everything she had into her words. Stepping forward until her breath was on his lips. Until her chest pressed against his, and she grasped his hands, guiding them around to the lowest part of her back. “You love me, and you will make me yours tonight.”

  “I...love you,” he whispered.

  “Again,” she said. “Say it again.”

  His eyes met hers. “I love you, Klaren.”

  She took his hands, lifted them to the front ties of her thin gown.

  “Then show me.”

  A growl rumbled from his lips as pressed himself against her.

  “I love you,” he said again.

  This time, she knew it had worked.

  He meant it.

  They spent the rest of the night together, tangled in the sheets.

  Tangled in her lies.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  * * *

  ANDROMA

  “IT’S A MASTERPIECE, really,” Gilly said as she sat with her chin resting on her folded hands, examining Valen’s lacerated back.

  “A masterpiece if you’re someone like Soyina,” Lira said. “We’ll likely never see her again, especially if Nor catches wind of her helping us.”

  “Soyina enjoys delivering pain,” Gilly commented from across the med table. “Right, Andi?”

  “What?” Andi looked up to see the two girls watching her.

  “Still considering whether or not to kill Dextro?” Lira asked.

  The girls, apparently, had heard the entire explosive fight go down. Andi’s and Dex’s screams could be heard echoing through the halls of the ship. They had found Andi afterward, when she’d emerged from her quarters. The tears had dried, and the girls spent time sitting with her in silence.

  No music, no laughter. Just a few moments of quiet that allowed her mind to reset.

  Now, a few hours later, her mood had improved. Her thoughts were still muddled, her emotions were still raw, but her body felt strangely lighter. As if hearing the truth from Dex, whether she had wanted to or not, had lifted a weight from her shoulders that
she’d carried for years.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Andi said with a heavy sigh.

  Lira watched her closely. “Later,” she said. “Otherwise, it will consume you.”

  Andi nodded, knowing Lira—as always—was right. She leaned back in her chair, wincing as the pain in her chest flared up. “That damned stunner.”

  Lira practically growled beside her. “The next job you go on will be with us watching your back.” She sighed and ran a hand across her hairless head. “If I ever see that Revivalist again, I will personally deliver my own special dose of pain, and we’ll see how she enjoys it.”

  Andi smiled, despite the ache still pulsing in her chest. “I don’t doubt that you will.”

  “Did she really shoot you?” Gilly asked. “Dex, too?” Andi nodded, and the gunner’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe I didn’t get to meet her. Can she really bring people back to life?”

  Andi shrugged. “She claims she’s capable of that.”

  The med bay door slid open with a cool hiss, and Breck stomped in. “Ladies,” she said impatiently, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I’m not interested in dining alone with Dextro tonight. We have a ship stocked with actual edible food since taking on this job. Come enjoy it with us.”

  Gilly and Lira stood from their places on either side of Valen, but Andi stayed put, unwilling to move.

  She’d helped Alfie clean his wounds, the blood-soaked rags now piled high in the corner of the small white room. Vials of his blood, freshly drawn by Alfie, were sitting in a testing box beside the rags. The AI wanted to ensure Valen hadn’t picked up any diseases or been injected with any strange pathogens during his time in Lunamere.

  Valen’s back looked cleaner, but by no means was it in better shape. It made her ache just to look at it, imagining the lash of the electric whips that caused it, ripping and shredding and burning.

  “Andi?” Lira’s voice drew Andi’s attention back to her crew.

  She looked away from Valen to smile softly at the three of them. Gilly was standing on tiptoe, still trying her best to get a good look at Valen’s wounds. Andi waved a hand, which, she noted, was still covered in remnants of the battle waged in Lunamere. “Go on without me. I’m going to stay. Someone should be here with him when he wakes.”