Ever since the ship had lifted off the ground, every horrific moment of the past few hours had begun to melt together until it formed one massive monster full of memories.
Now the monster whispered her name, begging Lira to lose herself in its siren song.
She wouldn’t give in.
Instead, Lira scooped up the bottle of Griss and tipped it onto her tongue, quickly swallowing every last blessed drop.
With each sip she took, she remembered a little less. But still, despite the pile of four empty bottles to which she added the newly emptied one, it didn’t drown out the sounds.
The feelings.
The pain.
She would never forget the screams that followed the first bullet, the first death. The squelch of hot blood hitting the sand as the Xen Pterrans came out of nowhere and attacked.
She would never be able to erase the image of her brother’s body dropping beside her. How it felt to flee for their lives through the smoke, chests heaving, hearts racing. Lon’s blood on her hands, wet tears on her face, scales blazing like purple torches in the midst of the firefight as they ran through the desert, desperate for escape.
Lira groaned, her head spinning and throbbing as she grabbed another bottle of Griss and tried to uncork it with her bare hands.
But looking at her hands brought back the memory of Lon lying in the sand and Lira pressing her palms against his chest, trying in vain to stop the bleeding.
She gasped and threw the bottle.
It exploded against the far side of the room, glass raining down like little shards of broken stars.
“Now, that was a waste.”
Lira turned, feeling like her head might wobble off her neck.
Andi stood in the doorway of the small storage room, her arms crossed over her chest, her lips pulled back in a small smirk.
“I asked to be alone,” Lira said.
The words came out jumbled, as if her tongue, too, were drunk on Griss.
“That’s the problem with your being my Second,” Andi answered with a sigh as she entered the storage room and joined Lira on the floor, legs crisscrossed beneath her. “I’m the captain, and I’ve denied your request.”
Lira glared at her.
“Lira, you’ve been sitting in here for hours,” Andi said. She reached out to place a hand on Lira’s arm, but Lira shoved her away. “Lon is stable, thanks to Alfie, but if you don’t go and check on him soon, he might wake up and find Gilly at his side. Or worse, Havoc.”
Her voice sounded completely matter-of-fact, as if they were just carrying out a normal mission.
“What the hell is your problem?” Lira asked suddenly.
Andi looked like she’d been slapped.
“My problem?”
Lira reached behind her and grabbed another bottle of Griss. This time, she ripped the cork out with her teeth. A satisfying pop sounded as the liquid inside bubbled up and spilled onto Lira’s lap. She downed half the bottle in one sip.
When she looked up, Andi was still staring at her.
“You’re just waltzing around,” Lira said accusingly, waving a hand. “As if nothing happened.” She took another sip, glaring at Andi over the bottle. “But it happened, Captain.”
“It was an act of terror,” Andi said, spreading her arms out to either side. “Xen Ptera couldn’t have been stopped, not when we weren’t prepared. What happened was—”
“Your fault!” Lira barked out. The Xen Pterran armor she wore grew hot against her skin as her scales flared to life. “You got us into this mess, accepting that stars-forsaken mission from General Cortas! And now the Marauder is gone, my brother’s chest is blasted open, Alara is gods know where and my planet is bathed in blood.”
“Lira...” Andi tried again, but Lira was done listening.
“Enough!” she shouted. Lira could feel her anger writhing now, like a living, breathing thing ready to burn. To hurt. To destroy. “This entire mission has been a fool’s journey. I should have taken Alara’s offer when she gave me the chance.”
The words fell from her lips like a welcome poison.
When she glanced up, Andi’s face was stone.
“What offer?” she whispered.
Lira lifted the Griss bottle, disappointed to find it empty. She let it tumble from her grip and it rolled away across the metal floor. She was just reaching for another when suddenly Andi’s fingers were around her wrist, gripping it tight.
“Lira,” Andi rasped. Her eyes were like the surface of a smoldering moon. “What offer?”
Lira tried to shove her away, but Andi’s grip held.
She met her captain’s eyes, blurry as her vision was.
“My aunt asked me to leave the crew,” Lira said, letting each word wound like a knife. “She said she’d give me my own ship. A state-of-the-art one that could never be disabled.”
Lira loved the Marauder, knew she was wounding herself, too, by speaking ill of it, but she didn’t care.
“I should have stayed on Adhira,” she said. All menace had left her voice. Now the hot, choking feeling of tears replaced it. She could feel them spilling across her cheeks. “Oh, Godstars, Andi,” Lira moaned. “I did this. All those people, dead, because I piloted a Xen Pterran prisoner onto their peaceful planet. If I hadn’t flown Valen there, they wouldn’t have come.”
Andi was silent, her face pained as she let go of Lira’s wrist.
A burn mark, red and angry, marred her palm.
“Lira,” she whispered.
But Lira shook her head, then dropped it to lean against her knees.
“I have never wanted to kill,” she said, tears still falling. She didn’t try to stop them as a realization swam through her. “But I’m afraid I’ve just brought about the murder of thousands of innocent people on Adhira.”
“No,” Andi said. “Lira, you can’t think that.”
Lira kept her eyes closed, blocking out the room as it spun in time with her head.
She wanted her brother to wake up, to be safe and sound and back on Adhira where he belonged. She wanted to scream and race up the stairs of Rhymore and hide herself in the mountain temple, away from prying eyes, where she could cast her feelings out to the sky and forget about pain and fear and unanswered questions.
Most of all, she wanted to drink another damned bottle of Griss.
“We did this job together,” Andi said. “All of us.”
Lira looked up, surprised to hear Andi’s voice crack.
That didn’t fit with the Andi she knew, the hardened captain who pretended she didn’t give a damn about the world, who acted as if she would gladly burn it all to ashes in an instant if she could.
But here, in this storage room, with empty bottles of Griss scattered between them, Lira saw the true Androma Racella.
It cleared her mind for a moment, allowed her to watch and listen and understand. A distraction from the monster still lurking in her mind.
“We brought Valen to Adhira,” Andi said. “We made the choice to go to Revalia, and have him out there in the open, without even considering the consequences.” She took a deep breath. “Those are choices we made as a crew, and I, as the captain, oversaw them. They are my mistakes. Not yours.”
“But the attack—” Lira began.
“The attack was horrific, and I will never forgive myself for leaving that planet and all those people behind,” Andi said. “And for what? The freedom that the general promised, if we deliver Valen back to him?” She barked out a single laugh. “I just chose to save my own skin and my own future by running away. Running, Lir. It’s what I always do.”
“It’s what I do, too,” Lira said.
Silence hung between them.
Lira lifted an arm, making sure her scales had cooled before she gently reached out and draped it across Andi’s shoulders,
pulling her close.
Their heads touched as Lira leaned against Andi.
“Maybe we could stop,” Lira whispered.
Andi sighed. “It isn’t possible, Lir.”
“But what if it could be? What if...after all of this, after Valen is home...we go back to Adhira? We help them recover. We fly my aunt’s starship. We find the bastards who came from Xen Ptera, and we escort them to the doors of hell.”
She could feel Andi’s deep sigh against her as she considered this.
“You’re talking about war, Lira,” Andi said.
“No.” Lira closed her eyes and saw all the smoke, the pain and the destruction. In one day, it had changed her, twisted her insides until she no longer sought peace. Rather, she desired something far different. “I’m talking about revenge.”
“Revenge,” Andi said. “Not something I thought I’d ever hear Lirana Mette speak of.”
“They killed innocent people. They burned my planet. They shot my brother. I have no idea where my aunt is, or if she’s even still alive.” Lira sniffed back a remaining tear, thinking of Lon down below in the cargo bay, still unconscious as Dex piloted the ship toward Arcardius. They would arrive tomorrow. Lira didn’t know if they even had enough time left to save him. “Alfie says that Lon may not wake up. And if he does, we don’t know what the extent of the damage may be.”
“He’s strong,” Andi said. “Just like you.”
“I’m not strong,” Lira said. “If I was, I wouldn’t have fallen apart when they attacked. I would have picked up a weapon and fought back.”
“You would have died. We all would have.”
“And now?” Lira asked. “How do we live with the guilt?”
The pain, she wanted to say, that is clawing at my insides, refusing to go away.
“I know a thing or two about guilt,” Andi said, reaching past Lira to where a single bottle of Griss remained. She uncorked it with ease and took a sip, then angled it toward Lira. “You’re not going to make me drink alone, are you?”
Lira sighed and took the bottle.
They shared it, the captain and the pilot, in the darkness of the stolen Xen Pterran warship.
All the while, Lira hoped and prayed and begged the Godstars that her aunt was safe back on Adhira. And that her twin brother, asleep on the deck below, would somehow survive.
Chapter Sixty-Five
* * *
ANDROMA
IN THE YEARS since she’d escaped Arcardius, Andi had never returned to the Phelexos System. Not once. She’d feared that if she did, she would finally get caught and face the sentence she’d been running from all this time.
The bottle of Griss she’d shared with Lira last night had helped her forget about that fear—for a short while at least. But then sleep had stolen her away, and with it, the nightmares came lurking.
This time, they had been of Valen.
You killed her, he’d whispered into her ear as he hovered over her with a blade poised above her heart. Now you will suffer her fate.
His eyes bored down into hers, and as she screamed and begged him to release her, blood poured from his lips.
Even now, as Andi sat on the bridge beside Dex, she couldn’t shake the feeling of cold dread that swept over her at the thought of the dream.
That, and the pressing nausea that came along with a wicked hangover—not only from the Griss, but from the Jurum she’d so foolishly guzzled at Revalia.
After everything that had happened on Adhira, she was grateful they’d found a way out. As soon as Alfie had dispatched the New Vedan guard, they’d fired up the engines and gotten the hell out of the desert, blasting through the atmosphere, then immediately soaring into hyperspace. The escape had been a quick one, the other Xen Pterran ships unable to track them, thanks to Alfie’s scrambling the tracking systems on board.
After Andi’s initial shock over his unexpected role as rescuer had passed, she’d questioned the AI until she’d nearly run out of breath.
“My mission is to ensure Mr. Valen Cortas returns home,” Alfie had said as Dex piloted them out of Adhira, wide awake from an adrenaline pill they’d been fortunate to find in a med kit on board. “When the Rhymore guards heard of the attack in the desert, I had no choice but to embark on a journey to find you.”
“But how did you find us?” Gilly had asked.
Alfie’s shrug had been almost sentient. “Fellibrags have a heightened sense of smell. So I used Havoc to determine your precise location. I also determined that Gilly would be most displeased if I forgot him.”
Gilly had squeaked happily and snuggled the orange creature. “What a good little fellibrag you are!”
“And Alara?” Andi had asked. “Do you know what happened to her?”
The AI’s white face had tilted sideways. “Alara is not my mission, Androma Racella. Therefore, I am unaware of her current whereabouts.”
Alfie had then gotten straight to work on Lon’s injury, stabilizing him with the med kit. The wound from the rifle shot was deep, the bullet thick and ugly, as if it were made from salvaged scrap steel. If infection hadn’t set in yet, it likely would soon.
“He will need immediate care upon our arrival on Arcardius,” Alfie had said, his gears whirring as he stood and pressed the med kit into Andi’s hands.
Dex had been right about the stolen ship. It shot through the galaxy, rocketing toward Arcardius. Despite that, time had seemed to slow, as if every second was counting against them. Knowing the journey would be a long one, Andi had joined Lira in the storage room.
Now, finally, as flashes of starlight streaked past the viewport, Dex pulled back on the hyperdrive and the ship was flung out of hyperspace just at the edge of the Phelexos System.
“Home sweet home,” Dex said, glancing sideways at Andi.
Green blood had dried on his forehead, and a nasty bruise had spread across the entirety of his left cheek. His usual grin was missing.
“What’s the matter, Baroness?” he asked.
Andi was too tired—and too ill—to deal with him right now. They hadn’t talked about the almost-kiss they’d shared during Revalia. Andi wanted to pass it off as a side effect of Jurum, and yet...as she looked at him, heat flooded to her cheeks.
She turned away, pressing her fingertips to her temples.
The murmur of a faraway voice on the com sounded behind her, where Alfie was busy communicating with the transportation command center on Arcardius, warning them they were in a stolen Xen Pterran ship.
“Sir, I am on direct orders from General Cortas,” Alfie’s calm voice said. “I am detecting tonal suggestions of annoyance. Shall I inform the general that my mission cannot be completed because of your interference?”
More murmurs, then Alfie glanced at Dex and said, “I have secured clearance to approach Arcardius. He also offered to polish my metal platings free of charge, should I ever need it.”
“You know something, AI?” Dex asked, smiling through his split lip. “You’re beginning to grow on me.”
“I cannot grow,” Alfie said. “It is not within my capability to do so.”
Andi let the sound of their voices fade as she stared out the viewport.
They passed the swirling colors of the gas giant, Pegasi, and weaved around New Veda before flying between the two moons of Arcardius.
On the other side of the moons, Andi could just make out the lush blue and green hues of her home world. A line of sleek Explorer ships waited for them—their escort down to the planet’s surface. She tapped her foot anxiously as they approached their destination. Coming from a mission in a system that was supposed to be her enemy, she couldn’t help but question if she was about to enter another territory more dangerous than Olen. They had escaped from the atrocities on Adhira, but who knew what horrors might still lie ahead?
Andi felt selfish t
hinking these thoughts when she’d just come from a peaceful planet that was now immersed in a bloody battle. She felt even more selfish for wishing the news would distract General Cortas from any attempt to alter the deal he’d made with them. She just wanted to drop Valen off and be on her way back to Adhira to get her ship.
If there was still a ship to retrieve.
Dex angled them toward Arcardius, and Andi allowed herself a moment to stare out at the inky black beyond. Before this hellish journey began, she’d thought the stars were mocking her. But now, for the first time in a long while, she felt as if she’d surprised the stars.
As if, despite what had happened worlds away, they shone a little brighter, encouraging her to be strong in the face of the unknown.
It was that thought that slightly eased the tension in her shoulders and loosened the tightness in her chest.
“Well, this is an inviting welcome,” Dex said sarcastically as the Explorers surrounded them, two on each side and one in the back. They then proceeded to herd them down to the planet.
Andi never thought this day would come, had fully believed that the last time she would see Arcardius was through the rear-cam of the ship she’d escaped on. But there it was before her now, a ball of swirling blues, purples, pinks and greens, not a single scar of white clouds obscuring the colors. The purple salt lakes glimmered like gemstones from afar, dwarfed by bright blue oceans that surrounded the lush green land.
There was the massive, half-moon-shaped island on the southern tip of the main continent, where she’d vacationed with her mother and father as a child. The sea from afar looked just as blue as it had when she’d splashed her feet in the cool water, running up and down the diamond-littered shores in search of the largest, shiniest one.
Above it, the main continent of Ae’ri showed itself off in shades of deepest emerald, scattered with shadows from the mountains and the floating gravarocks hanging in the air as if held by strings.
The largest of them, a rugged snow-capped mountain, held countless memories for Andi.
She had flown below it with her father on a day trip years ago. Andi could remember how she’d pressed her face to the glass of the tour ship, her breath fogging up the view, and dreamed of one day soaring her own ship to that very mountain. A soldier on leave, exploring the most hard-to-reach places of Arcardius and the worlds beyond.
Zenith Page 33