Zenith

by Sasha Alsberg

  The click of another silver bullet sliding into a rifle’s chamber.

  Dex reached the stage. The system leaders were huddled together in their chairs, bodies of Patrolmen littering the ground around them. But Andi was the only person he had eyes for.

  “Hang on,” Dex said to Andi. His fingers found her throat. A tiny heartbeat fluttered beneath her skin. “You just hang on.”

  He saw his hands moving, instinctively ripping off his jacket and pressing it to her chest. He’d kill Valen for this. He’d kill him slowly, bring him back and kill him again.

  Her breaths were ragged. She was losing too much blood.

  In the crowd, he saw Lira, Gilly and Breck among the fallen. Dex’s body shook.

  This was a nightmare. One he couldn’t wake up from. It had to be.

  A few partygoers still stood around silently, frozen in shock. One man huddled in the far corner of the room, arms wrapped around his chest, eyes wide.

  “I’m getting you out of here,” Dex whispered to Andi as he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up. “Now.”

  He could hear the faraway rumble of a ship tearing through the skies, coming ever closer. But what was the point?

  These people were beyond saving now.

  Bodies were spread across the floor like a carpet, eyes open to stare into the darkness above. Blood staining...

  Dex paused.

  With a strange sense of clarity, he took in the scene a second time. It was then that he noticed there was no blood.

  Well, there were a few splashes of red or green or blue, from the soldiers the Patrolmen had managed to stop before the Xen Pterrans gained the upper hand.

  But other than that, the room should have been flowing in rivers of steaming colors with the deaths of these men and women from all across Mirabel.

  And yet the ground, the gowns, the suits, the ties...they were all completely dry.

  Valen had crossed the room, walking over bodies with his head held high like a king of criminals, a lord that delivered loss. The soldiers, now grouped together near the ballroom doors, stood at the ready before him. As if...as if he was their leader.

  A shiver ran through him.

  Run now, Dextro. Run, before it’s too late.

  The sound of the ship was growing closer. He could see its lights in the sky, and instinct told him it wasn’t help. There would be no help tonight, not after this.

  He knew there had to be another way out of here. Dex had heard of secret passageways built on the leaders’ estates, to help them escape in the event of an attack. He simply had to find one.

  Dex cautiously carried Andi off the far side of the stage. As he tucked himself and Andi into the shadows behind a nearby bar, all around the room, the dead began to rise.

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  * * *

  VALEN

  A TWITCH. A curl of the fingers, the clenching of a fist. The blink of freshly opened eyes.

  Valen watched it all happen before him, as promised.

  He closed his eyes, imagined the little glowing blue thread in the back of his mind. It had always been there, something he’d seen and felt since he was a child.

  Only after his time in Lunamere had he fully understood the meaning of it. The raw, pure power he had.

  He focused on the thread and pulled.

  The warmth of her mental presence arrived at once, just as it had when they’d landed on Adhira, and he’d called upon her. Valen sighed, relief flooding into him as their minds wove together, no longer two separate threads, but a shared tapestry. Here, in this intimate space between them, was where he belonged.

  It was his birthright. His past and his present and his future all coming together. Everything finally made sense.

  She’d given him the keys to understanding, and now he was whole.

  The change is happening, Sister, Valen thought.

  He could almost feel her smile, something so rare for her. As the feeling passed through him, his own mouth quirked at the corners. They’d had so little to smile about until recently. But all the months he’d spent in Lunamere had been worth it.

  For this.

  Have them ready for me when I arrive, she replied.

  For a moment, there was silence between them, the space in his mind empty of her warmth.

  Then her voice came again. You did well, Brother. My faith in you was never misplaced.

  She was glorious. But it was more than that. She was victorious, a soldier standing on a blood-soaked battleground, watching the last of her enemies fall.

  Valen closed the link, the tapestry gone, the single thread all that remained.

  For a moment, he felt cold. Lifeless.

  Then he saw the first body stand back up. A Patrolman, unmarred on the outside from the engineered bullets. Like beacons in the crowd, others stood around him. Women, children.

  The ones who’d turned, surely ready to join the cause, looked fresh and alert, as if waking from a restful sleep.

  The others, the unaffected anomalies who were immune to the substance the bullets carried... Valen knew he’d have to take care of them soon enough.

  Like Androma, he thought with a twinge of sadness. He’d seen that bullet hit her, but she did not fall. She was unaffected by Zenith. So many times, he’d tried to compel her, only to feel a wall come up in her mind.

  One of the soldiers approached Valen. “She’s landing, sir.”

  “Good,” he said. “Take care of the remaining unaffected. I don’t want her to have to lay eyes on them.”

  The soldier saluted, slapping a fist to his heart, then rushed off into the crowd as more people began to stand and wake from their stupor. The unaffected were easy to spot. There weren’t many, perhaps ten. They walked in circles, blinking, calling for their loved ones.

  “A shame,” Valen said to no one.

  They would all die.

  He heard the ship landing, felt the vibration of the ground beneath his feet. His heart raced, and his mind whispered, family, blood, truth.

  The shattered glass from the doors crunched underfoot as another set of guards arrived.

  He turned and made his way to the stage.

  There was a wet, red smear where his father’s body had been. Valen clenched his jaw.

  Andi, he thought.

  Her body was gone, too.

  Dex, he thought right after. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they hadn’t escaped. Not in Andi’s condition. And not with his guards blocking every exit.

  There were other, far more important things to attend to at the moment, however.

  The crowd was just beginning to brew with the sound of voices. Questions. People staring at others around them, wondering what had happened, why there were soldiers guarding the doors. And yet, thanks to the bullets, they stayed mercifully calm.

  Valen scanned the faces again, his eyes falling on Lira, the pilot. She stood beside Gilly, both of them staring silently.

  Again, the tug at Valen’s mind came, and he knew his sister was close.

  He faced the crowd, spreading his arms wide. “Look at me.”

  His voice rang out steady and true, and when they looked at him, it was everything he’d ever dreamed of. Not quite adoration...but acceptance.

  Valen without a shadow. Valen without the stain of his father beside him.

  All eyes were on him, rapt with attention as if his voice was a magnet, and they were helpless to resist its pull. Behind him, the guards brought forward the leaders from the Tavina, Prime and Stuna systems. They stood to Valen’s right, silent as night.

  “The time to choose has arrived,” Valen addressed the crowd. “Today, in this room, we will change the course of the future. We will turn our eyes to the one true ruler, instead of these feeble impostors.”

  He lifted a ha
nd toward the system leaders of Mirabel.

  The room was silent, like the moment before a blade was drawn, before a bullet was loosed. Before a life was taken hold of and remade.

  Before Valen asked the question, he already knew, with confidence, what their answer would be. He pulled his shoulders back. He took a deep, steadying breath and looked down at the people.

  “Who is the rightful ruler of Mirabel?”

  The answer came from a young child, standing closest to the stage.

  “Nor Solis,” the child said.

  Her mother patted her on the head. Her father smiled.

  Other voices rang out, one at a time at first, then stronger, filling the room with the sound of the one true name. Valen saw Andi’s pilot and the young gunner, Nor’s name on their lips, as if it had been there all their lives.

  The doors behind them opened. Valen heard the crunch of boots on broken glass. Soldiers jerked to stand upright as a hooded figure appeared, hands reaching up to pull the hood back and reveal red lips, dark hair and eyes as glorious as the setting sun.

  “Bow to your queen,” Valen said.

  The crowd bowed, reverent and ready, as Nor Solis, the Queen of Xen Ptera, the Savior of Olen, the new ruler of Mirabel, arrived.

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  * * *

  NOR

  HER BROTHER HAD done his job perfectly.

  A fine test for his first mission out in the field. She’d been wise to keep him in Lunamere for so long, tortured to near death. It had unlocked his compulsion ability, his true self. His birthright. That was when she had begun to visit him daily in his cell. Training him, guiding him, gaining his trust.

  As Nor entered the building now, her two armies were already waiting. One dressed in the colors of Xen Ptera, red to match the horrors they would spread across Mirabel to those who rebelled. The other, her new army, adorned in gowns and suits and all manner of fineries that Nor would do away with.

  Such fine things would be for her people, and hers alone.

  They all bowed before her, heads tucked close to their chests, breath held as if she were a holy relic. She glided past them without fear, knowing that none would lift a finger to harm her.

  Valen waited for her on the stage.

  “Sister,” he said.

  Nor stopped herself from curling her lip at the sight of his figure. Too thin, too angular, too pained. No member of the Solis family deserved such treatment. But it had to be done, to ensure that his survival instincts would kick in, to force his powers to unlock.

  She would reward him later for his loyalty, perhaps with a crown of his own.

  He was a prince of darkness. Her long-lost brother, finally come home to her side where he belonged.

  But never her equal. She would rule alone.

  “You have done well, Valen,” Nor said.

  “The final step remains,” Valen said, inclining his head in thanks. “Should I leave the honor to you?”

  Nor raised a sculpted brow. “I enjoy watching you work, Brother. I can’t have all the fun.”

  He smiled at her, a new thing that had begun to pass between them only recently. She enjoyed seeing that smile.

  He turned back to their new army. By now, all across Arcardius, a wave would be spreading as time-released explosives full of the silver liquid went off, bringing more to her cause.

  “Followers of Queen Nor,” Valen said, his voice ripe with the new power she had unlocked in him. “We must eliminate the traitors to the crown.” He looked specifically to the old leaders of Mirabel. “Kneel before your queen.”

  Their faces were calm as the three leaders knelt before Nor. She reached into her cloak and removed a freshly sharpened knife. Nor had used the whetstone on it herself, then polished the blade to a gleaming perfection.

  “Your sacrifices, my queen,” Valen said as he stepped aside to give Nor space.

  The words made her warm, light as air. She felt her lips pulling into a beautiful grin as she approached the leaders of the Unified Systems.

  One by one, she ran her blade across their throats. Each leader that fell was a gift to her people.

  Revenge, her heart sang.

  And in that moment, Nor knew that her rule had begun.

  Chapter Ninety

  * * *

  LIRA

  LIRANA METTE FELT REBORN.

  For so long, she had been blinded by darkness, by the lies of the Unified Systems. For so long, she had been unable to see the light.

  The moment she rose to her feet, she heard a lingering whisper in her mind.

  The True Queen, it said.

  It sounded like Valen. The boy they had not rescued, as she’d previously believed, but stolen away from his queen. She knew Valen belonged at Nor’s side, just as much as she knew that the Unified Systems were her enemy. That her aunt would be a worthy sacrifice to the cause. She looked to Gilly and Breck beside her, knowing they also heard the voice in their own minds.

  The True Queen, it said again. Protect her, honor her, worship her cause.

  Lira’s eyes had been opened, after all this time.

  She turned to look at Nor Solis, the True Queen of Mirabel.

  The light had finally begun to shine.

  Chapter Ninety-One

  * * *

  DEX

  THE NIGHTMARE HAD NOT CEASED.

  The system leaders of Mirabel were dead. The queen of a system once thought defeated stood above their bodies, smiling as if she’d conquered the galaxy. Dex had watched her arrive, watched her speak to Valen as if they were kin. He’d seen, with perfect clarity, the way she’d slid her knife across the leaders’ throats. Lira and Gilly and Breck, the crew who had accepted him as one of their own, turned to face the queen as if they belonged to her now.

  And all Dex could do was hide like a coward behind the bar.

  He’d managed to sneak back onto the stage and retrieve the general while Valen was distracted. Now he and Andi were on the ground beside him, both bleeding, both dying. A bartending droid, its humanoid torso sprouting from a single wheel, sat silently to Dex’s left, awaiting his command.

  But what command could he give? The droid couldn’t save them from their fate, and Dex surely couldn’t, either.

  The blood trail outside the bar led straight to them. They’d be discovered soon.

  Gone was the bravery Dex had always felt as a Guardian. Gone was the confidence he’d found as a bounty hunter.

  Fear had seized Dex in its icy grip, and no matter how hard he tried to break away, the terror surrounding him would not release him.

  There was nowhere to go. No escape. The madness continued as Nor addressed the crowd, and her soldiers shot the few who still seemed to have control of their minds.

  Then they began to fan out across the ballroom.

  The terror intensified with every footstep the soldiers took, every second drawing them closer to discovering Dex’s hiding place.

  Run, his mind whispered. He could scarcely hear the word over the terror that had dulled his senses and kept him rooted to the spot.

  Andi lay motionless on the floor beside him, her hand growing colder as Dex gripped it like an anchor. She would not die. She could not die, because if she did, Dex would lose his heart with her.

  Beside her, the general’s eyes were open as he lay on his side, slowly bleeding out. He stared at the wall, lips fluttering with words that Dex couldn’t hear.

  The soldiers were getting closer. Soon they would discover him. Dex gripped Andi’s hand tighter, and through his fear, through his hopelessness, a sudden realization emerged.

  He would stay with her until the end.

  If it was the last thing he ever did in his life, Dex would die defending Androma Racella. He wouldn’t go down until he knew he’d done everything in his
power to save her.

  The general’s mutterings became more insistent.

  Dex crawled forward, had nearly placed a hand over the general’s mouth to silence him, when the words drifted into his ears.

  “The tunnel.”

  Dex shook his head. He wanted to scream. He wanted to claw his way out of here, get them to safety...but there was no good ending to this nightmare.

  “The tunnel,” General Cortas rasped again. Blood dribbled from his lips, shockingly dark. He lifted a trembling hand and pointed past Dex to the dark shadows beneath the bar top.

  Dex squinted into the darkness. At first he saw nothing, but as his eyes locked onto a small seam in the wall, something Andi had said drifted into his mind.

  I remember every little bit. Even the hidden escape tunnels that the general installed. He loved to put them in closets, bathrooms, under the bars...

  Hope blossomed in his chest as he reached forward and ran his fingers along the seam. It was a small door, just large enough for someone to crawl through. Dex leaned his shoulder up against it. Pushed with all of his might.

  When the door popped open to reveal a dark tunnel beyond, Dex almost wept.

  Run, his mind said again.

  He set to work at once, feeling coming back to his limbs, clarity warming his mind.

  “Help me,” he whispered to the droid. The blessed thing grabbed the general by the collar and hauled him away like a tray of heavy drinks.

  By the time the Xen Pterran soldiers discovered the blood trail behind the bar, Dex, Andi and the general were already gone.

  In the docking bay of Averia, inside the Marauder, Dex ignited the engines and angled the ship toward freedom.

  He’d never been more grateful for the darkness of the night as he left Arcardius behind.

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  * * *

  ANDROMA

  SMOKE EVERYWHERE.

  It was in her eyes, curling into her lungs.

  The transport ship was in flames. The crash had happened so fast. One moment, they were soaring through the skies. The next, fire.