Zenith

by Sasha Alsberg

  Pain.

  A scream tore itself from her throat.

  Now her ears rang. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and fear ripped through her. She had to get out. She couldn’t breathe.

  “Help...me.”

  Andi turned in her seat. Through the haze, she saw Kalee’s outstretched hand. Her body, turned at an awkward angle in the flickering firelight. Her friend was covered in blood. A piece of metal protruded from her stomach like a sword. With each breath Kalee took, it wobbled.

  “Oh, Godstars,” Andi gasped. She reached out, tried to pull the metal from Kalee’s stomach. But the girl screamed, and Andi shrank away, hands trembling, her own vision growing dim. “Hang on, Kalee. Just hang on.”

  Panic seized Andi as she tried to kick open the transport door. But it was stuck, dented in so far that it trapped her leg against the seat.

  She couldn’t move.

  “Help,” Kalee murmured again.

  There were tears in her eyes, and a trickle of crimson slipped from her pale lips.

  “I’ll get help,” Andi said. “Just hang on.” Shards of glass were embedded into her arms. Her skin was blistering in the heat before her eyes. She began to sob as she slammed the emergency button on the dash, but no light flickered on.

  “Come on!” Andi screamed.

  She slammed the button again, and again, but the ship was lifeless around them.

  And no one was coming to save them.

  Beside her, Kalee had fallen silent.

  She wasn’t breathing. Her eyes closed. Her head lolled to the side.

  “No,” Andi said. “Kalee, wake up!” Pain tore her chest open. She coughed again, the smoke and the heat unbearable. “You have to wake up!”

  She tried to wriggle herself away, but pain exploded from her leg, from her wrists. She was trapped.

  She knew, suddenly, that she was going to die.

  The front of the crumpled ship was nearly an inferno now. In seconds, the flames would reach them.

  “Kalee!” Andi said. “Please don’t do this. Please don’t leave me.”

  The girl had stopped moving. Blood trickled from her stomach like a crimson river, slowing now. As if she’d run out.

  “No! You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay,” Andi sobbed, trying again to pull herself from the seat. Her leg wouldn’t move; the door wouldn’t free her.

  Please, she begged. Please, no.

  Andi had done this to her. Oh, Godstars, she’d done this. The crash was her fault.

  She was Kalee’s Spectre, sworn to protect her with her life.

  And now Kalee was...

  Andi’s head swam as she looked at her charge, the friend who was as close as a sister.

  Kalee was dead.

  Andi sobbed, her entire body trembling as her mind screamed, You killed her, you killed her, you killed her.

  The fires raged, and Andi felt torn from her body as the transport door suddenly groaned and fell away.

  Cool night air washed in.

  “I’m so sorry,” Andi sobbed as she looked at her friend. Kalee almost looked peaceful, as if she were only sleeping.

  Andi couldn’t leave her. How could she leave her?

  She had never felt as alone as she did in this very moment.

  The fire swept into the small space, so close now. The metal shard in Kalee’s stomach had gone straight through her, pinned her body to the seat. Andi couldn’t free her, couldn’t drag her from her grave.

  Fear swept over Andi like a poison, caused her to tear herself away from the transport as the flames raged.

  She crawled away from the inferno, coughing smoke from her lungs, her eyes burning so badly she could scarcely see.

  She blinked through her tears, fighting the darkness as it threatened to overcome her. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t real.

  Kalee couldn’t be dead.

  Andi looked back for a final glimpse of her friend.

  The last thing she saw was Kalee’s eyes, bright blue as the moon, opening wide to stare at her.

  Alive, Andi’s mind screamed. She’s alive.

  Andi reached for the girl, desperate to save her.

  The transport exploded in a final blast of raging, furious light, catapulting Andi backward.

  As Kalee burned, tendrils of black slipped into Andi’s mind and stole her away.

  Chapter Ninety-Three

  * * *

  DEX

  DEX PACED IN the med bay of the Marauder, watching the life force drain from the general’s eyes.

  “Tell me what you know!” Dex yelled.

  The general was a lost cause. Without doctors or med droids, Dex was helpless to save him. The damage Valen had done was too severe. It was a wonder the man had survived this long already.

  On the table beside General Cortas, Andi was still holding on to life. She was pale, cold, her chest wrapped in bandages that Dex had wound around her himself.

  He hadn’t been trained in medicine or healing. The bartending droid who’d helped him haul the general here wasn’t programmed to heal, either.

  But Lon Mette could.

  Dex hadn’t been aware of Lira’s plans to move Lon onto the Marauder before the Ucatoria Ball, but he was thanking the Godstars now that the Sentinel was on board.

  When Dex had shown up with only Andi and the general, both of them dying from their injuries and blood loss, Lon had asked him to choose. Along with his scales, Lon had inherited something else from his radiation-affected ancestors: he was a universal donor.

  “I can’t save them both,” he’d said. “I only have so much blood to give.”

  When Dex chose Andi, Lon had accepted his decision without question. He helped to stabilize the general as best he could. Then he’d gotten to work on Andi. He sat beside her now, a tube connecting his arm to hers, as his blood flowed through to her. Giving her a chance at life. The silent droid held a cloth to Andi’s forehead with humanoid hands, doing its best to help.

  The ship was on autopilot, soaring through hyperspace as it carried them toward the only place Dex knew to go. Back to the place he’d learned his skills, back to Raiseth’s headquarters outside Tenebris. The one place where they might be safe, where someone would be able to help Andi.

  The knife had gone so close to her heart.

  Dex tried to calm himself, but anger raged through him.

  He needed information. Needed to know why, of all people, Valen Cortas had sided with the queen of Xen Ptera.

  They had all been so wrong about him. How had they not seen the signs? How had they not known?

  “Tell me!” Dex yelled at the general.

  At first the dying man didn’t answer. Dex knelt down next to him, gently lifting the general’s head so he could speak without blood pooling in his mouth.

  It took him a moment to find his voice.

  “I didn’t know this was—” he cleared his throat, a line of blood dripping from his lips “—going to happen.”

  He paused, once again taking a shaky breath.

  “Tell me what you do know,” Dex growled.

  “He is dying,” Lon said. “He deserves peace.”

  “He may be the only man in the galaxy who knows what the hell just happened back there,” Dex said, voice rising. He looked back to the general. “Tell us.”

  General Cortas’s face was already paling, white as the stars that streaked by. He looked down at his bleeding chest, as if he could still see Valen’s hand digging in the blade.

  “I knew he had evil in him.” He coughed again. “Because of that demon who was his mother.”

  “Merella?” Dex asked.

  “Not her.” His teeth were red from blood. He grimaced. “Oh, Godstars, what have I done?”

  “Tell me,” Dex pressed, because he knew that
when the general died, the truth would die with him. “You don’t have much time.”

  General Cortas closed his eyes, and Dex was afraid he was already gone.

  But then they opened again, blue as a summer sky. The light in them was slowly fading. “I’ve held on to this secret for years.” He swallowed, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes. “So listen closely—not for my sake, but for Mirabel’s. I don’t think I have enough strength left to say it twice.”

  Chapter Ninety-Four

  * * *

  KLAREN

  Year Twenty-Six

  SHE WAS A MOTHER AGAIN.

  Not a mistake this time. Rather, a plan that fell perfectly into place.

  Her second child sat in her arms, staring up at her. A boy this time, with dark hair and hazel eyes.

  He was gentle, this one, but he was strong.

  Stronger even than her daughter, Nor, had been.

  The queen could feel it when she held the boy, like a spark that jolted from him to her. Sometimes, when she asked him not to cry, he carried on. Sometimes, when she asked him to sleep, he stayed awake for hours, glaring up at her. Screaming until his face was sunset red.

  When his father held him, he squirmed as if he, too, hated the man as much as she did.

  “Someday,” the queen said, as she looked down at her young son, “you will learn who you truly are. And you will understand why I did everything.”

  The baby cried.

  She did not love him.

  Not in the way she had loved Nor.

  “Take him,” she said to the servant beside her. The many-armed woman took the baby into one set of her arms, rocking him gently. “I am going to see Cyprian.”

  She swept out into the halls, passing by servants who cast their eyes down.

  They had begun to fear her since Cyprian had given her free rein of the estate. Since the place on his arm was no longer taken up by his wife, but instead by the woman he’d ripped away from the battleground on Xen Ptera two years ago.

  She found him in his office, seated behind his desk as he pored over the maps of the galaxy. Deciding how best to attack Xen Ptera and the other small planets in the Olen System in the coming days.

  “Cyprian,” she said as she entered the cavernous room.

  He stiffened. Something he had been doing all too often at the sound of her voice.

  She gritted her teeth, forced herself to speak with more strength. “Come to me, my love.”

  He stood, his chair scraping back. When he crossed the room, his body was stiff, as if he didn’t want to be near her. He kept his eyes downcast until she placed a gentle finger below his chin and angled his gaze to hers.

  “Kiss me, Cyprian,” she whispered.

  He pressed his lips to hers in a deep kiss that had him groaning, wanting more. Always more.

  She steeled herself as she pulled away and spoke again.

  If he obeyed...it would change everything.

  “You will take me home tonight,” she said.

  Cyprian’s head jerked upward. “What?”

  She nodded. Nerves pricked at her senses.

  If she could do this, if she could get him to take her back, with their new son in tow...

  “I wish to return to Xen Ptera,” the queen pressed. “My husband...he will surrender.”

  “Your husband,” Cyprian hissed. “He does not care for you, fool queen.” He shook his head and ripped himself away from her. “I cannot allow this. You have seen too much. Heard too much.” His shoulders rose and fell as he inhaled and released a breath. “You are bound to me now, Klaren. Through our child.”

  “Which is why I wish to take him, too,” she said. She swept closer to him. “Cyprian...look at me, my love.”

  He spun around, eyes flashing. “I will not allow you to bewitch me again.”

  “Bewitch you?” She put the power into her words, where her compulsion was strongest. Put the power into her gaze, too.

  She could feel it working on him, but only for a moment.

  Then she hit the wall.

  Little by little, Cyprian had begun fighting back, building a wall within his mind. As if there was something inside of him, some hidden power that he, too, bore.

  “You will send me and Valen to Xen Ptera,” the queen said. Her body shook with the power she urged into her words. “Tonight.”

  Cyprian was motionless as he watched her.

  “You will send me and Valen to Xen Ptera,” she tried again, sweat beading on her brow. “Tonight.”

  “Tonight,” Cyprian said, and she felt the wall in his mind begin to crumble.

  Exhaustion had made him weaker.

  It was why, each night, she kept him awake with her kisses, her touch, her false love.

  “My husband will allow us entry,” she said, still using her power on him, compelling him to obey, “as long as you propose a cease-fire. From both sides. For one day. You will release Valen and me to Xen Ptera, and you will forget that we existed. You will remove us from your memories and from your heart.”

  Cyprian looked up.

  This time, when he locked eyes with her, she saw that she had finally won.

  “Pack your bags, my dear,” he said. “Tonight, you will board a ship. It is time for you to return home.”

  “And then?” she pressed.

  “And then,” Cyprian said, his jaw tight as her power flowed into him, “I will remove you both from my memories and my heart.”

  “Good,” she said. “We leave at nightfall.”

  As the prisoner queen left Cyprian’s office, her steps light and bouncing, she could not help but smile at everyone who passed.

  Every fool, unaware of her plans. Her time on Arcardius had been hell. A necessary one, but a hell all the same. It had taken years for her to truly understand the magnitude of what was at play.

  Tonight she would return to her Xen Pterran throne. Back to her husband, back to her daughter, to introduce them to her newborn son.

  He was asleep when she went to him, the many-armed servant standing guard as promised.

  “You look pleased, mistress,” the servant said, anxiously twisting her many hands together, like a tangle of knots.

  “I am pleased.” The prisoner queen smiled, because she knew the truth. “Perhaps for the first time in a very long while.”

  Freedom was within her grasp. And when her children met, when they combined the strength of the abilities that she’d felt in both of them...she could almost feel the distant Conduit tremble, even from here.

  The galaxy did not stand a chance.

  Chapter Ninety-Five

  * * *

  KLAREN

  Year Thirty

  FOUR YEARS HAD passed since the queen had commanded her captor to take her home.

  Cyprian had managed to outwit her that night. Flying high with her triumph, she’d never expected him to turn on her.

  Somewhere along the way, he had discovered her compulsion ability. Somehow, he’d been the only man to ever discover the difference she held in her blood. And so he’d kept her locked up for four years, refusing to see her when she called upon him, ignoring her pleas to return home to Xen Ptera. Denying her the right to see her son.

  And yet he always came crawling back, unable to pull her from his mind. She’d embedded a deep obsession within him, and it was her only hope.

  Just days ago, he’d entered her quarters, saying that her husband had agreed to a truce. That she’d finally be able to go home to the family she hadn’t seen in six years.

  Now, finally, she was nearly back where it all began.

  She sat aboard a starship, staring out at the darkness of space. Far in the distance, the glowing orb that was Xen Ptera hung like a tiny, waiting gift.

  On its surface, her daughter, Nor, waited.<
br />
  Around her, the ship buzzed with soldiers rushing about. Polished boots thudded on shining Arcardian-mined metal. The captain, with his clawed hands, was busy speaking in hushed tones over the com system. Each time he spoke, Klaren could hear the clacking of his massive teeth. The low, deep-chested rumble of a growl as he communicated with Xen Ptera, where she knew she would soon walk.

  So many years she’d been away.

  Now, it was nothing like the planet she had left behind.

  On that fateful day she’d last seen it, Xen Ptera was already dying, but the surface was still a livable place, its citizens able to grow food and harvest water from great wells. Now it was a dead, barren wasteland that hung limp in the cradle of space.

  “Home,” the queen whispered to herself.

  Heavy footsteps approached behind her now. A hand caressed her bare shoulder. Lips touched the nape of her neck beneath her piled curls.

  “You lied to me all these years,” she whispered. “You said they were holding their ground, still fighting. But that was never true, was it?”

  “They weren’t lies, my dear Klaren,” Cyprian hissed in her ear, his warm breath sticking to her skin. “I just didn’t tell you the full truth. You are still my enemy, no matter the things we’ve been through together these past years.” His fingertips trailed farther down her neck and onto her arms, where they squeezed tightly enough to make her gasp in pain.

  “When?” she asked. “When will I be on the ground?”

  “As soon as you sign the treaty,” Cyprian said, lowering a holoscreen to her lap, the contract she’d requested ready for her signature.

  “You’ll stay true to your promise?” Klaren asked as he knelt beside her, steadily avoiding her gaze. “You’ll leave Xen Ptera alone?”

  “Sign the treaty, and you and your planet will be free.” Cyprian ran his fingertips down her arm, then took her hand in his.

  Slowly, he lifted it to his lips.

  “Swear it,” the queen said.

  Without a moment of hesitation, Cyprian agreed.