by Keary Taylor
I manage to hold in my huff of scoff. I have no idea who the void I am. I’m a lost little child, overwhelmed by the galaxy.
But I appreciate her compliments.
She crosses the garden room and opens a door in the glass wall. Outside it, I find a bridge, crossing the gap between the Tabernacle and the hillside of the island. We cross it and find a short path to the crest.
I stop when we reach it.
It’s a spectacular view.
There’s a ridge that runs from one end of the island to the other, and we’re standing on it, providing a panoramic view. I can see for endless kilometers. There are a dozen small islands off the shore of this one; small, too small to do much with. The other side is endless ocean, stretching as far as my eyes can see.
Endless Neron blue.
“I want you to summon Neron,” Zara says, looking over at me but not turning her body. “I want you to use it to move the ocean.”
My brows furrow and I’m not sure I heard her right. “Move the ocean.”
“Yes,” she says with a nod.
Holy slag.
I am not up to par. If this is her first test, I don’t stand a chance at catching up. What must those other Nero children be capable of if they’ve had solars of training?
I take a deep breath. I said I wasn’t afraid to do the work. I’ve decided—I have to learn how to do this.
So I take a stance, I fix my eyes on one point in the ocean. I draw in a breath. One. Two. Three. Four.
Goosebumps flash along my skin.
I feel my blood awakening.
And then there’s that feeling, like my spirit, my soul slipping out from my body. I feel it searching, looking for life, energy.
Neron.
My eyes slide closed as the feeling rushes through me.
I feel the Neron. A little sigh escapes my lungs. Because it’s everywhere here. I feel it throughout this entire island. I feel it in the Tabernacle. I feel it in the water. In the air.
I feel tons and tons of Neron beneath my feet.
Salypso is rich in Neron deposits.
I feel light. I feel like air. I feel like any moment I could lift off the ground and float through the sky.
My eyes slide open and I shouldn’t be surprised by it, but I am. Blue particles are swirling through the air around me. It circles me, racing around my hands, whipping through the air around me like my own personal hurricane.
A tiny smile pulls on my face, and I tell myself not to be afraid, even though this is the first time I’ve known someone was witnessing me wield Neron—on purpose—and I bring my hands up, directing the Neron in front of me.
It obeys. It raises, focuses, moves. I mentally direct it down the side of the island, and I feel it stretching beyond my grasp, so I follow it, walking down the grassy slope toward it.
Zara follows, watching silently.
My breath comes in and out of my chest harder. My arms feel tired. My hands begin to burn.
But I don’t lose my focus.
I walk with the swirling Neron down the hill.
And when I reach the ocean’s edge, I focus harder. I push my Neron into the water. I reach out to the Neron in the ocean. I press.
It’s a splash at first. And then a wave.
And I step forward.
I use the Neron as a shield.
I tell it not to let a drop of it through.
I step onto wet sand. But not into water.
My Neron pushes the water in front of me.
I want to create a tidal wave away from me. I want to give a big shove and watch it ripple away.
But sweat is breaking out onto my forehead. My hands are shaking. I feel like my hands are on fire.
I push, rippling the water away from me. I’m trembling from my hands down to my feet.
But I don’t release the Neron.
Go, I think. Move. Move.
And just before I think my arms are going to give out, all the water within ten feet of me explodes, rocketing up and out, away from me, spraying twenty feet into the air.
And I lose my grip.
I stand there in shock as I’m misted by the water blown back at me by the wind and the ocean rushes back at me, submerging me up to my knees.
I stand there, frozen.
I did it.
I moved the ocean.
Not like I wanted to. But more than I felt capable of.
I can do this. I did it.
I can wield Neron to my will.
Slowly, I turn in the water, finding Zara watching me from the dry safety of the island.
“I do not think you are going to have any difficulty catching up,” she says with a delighted gleam in her eyes and that small, controlled smile on her face.
“Yours is bigger than mine now.”
Kily looks up at the Neron bubbles we’re making with a disappointed look on her face.
We’ve each formed five different bubbles, made of the Neron we’ve pulled from the ocean. Gently, they drift up into the sky, pulled by the breeze, but only because we allow them to.
My bubbles are indeed bigger than Kily’s.
“That’s okay,” I say, releasing my Neron and letting the bubbles disappear. I crouch on the ground next to her, looking up at her bubbles, which she holds onto for a while longer. “Just imagine how embarrassing it’s been for me in the last lunar. Look how old I am! It’s about time I started acting my age.”
“You’re not old, Nova,” Kily says with a laugh. She shakes her head and her bubbles pop, the brilliant blue particles disappearing back into the air. “Tomas is old. You don’t have gray hairs like he does yet.”
I laugh, standing, and wrapping an arm around her appreciatively. “You’re an excellent Nero, Kily. Don’t ever feel bad for being on pace for your age.”
She gives a sigh, and I can tell she’s fighting to keep the disappointment off her face.
She’s lived here for three solars, has been training since she was five solars old, and I’ve certainly surpassed her abilities in the four weeks I’ve been here. I’ve surpassed Ronan as well, but he doesn’t handle it as well as Kily.
“I guess it’s okay,” she says as we turn and head back toward the rest of the class. “I wouldn’t want you to be embarrassed.” She says it in a mischievous way and she gives me a little side look with a smile growing on her face.
“Thanks, kid,” I say with a laugh, trying not to roll my eyes at her.
She’s hilarious. Such a goof. Totally her own person already, and she’s only eight solars old.
I stop and watch for a minute, Kily stopping at my side, Ronan off just a little ways.
Kyril stands at the end of the island, a different one from where we live, and he and Nymiah and Quinton are literally rearranging the earth.
They’re pulling stones from inside the island, shaping and rearranging them. They’re making a lighthouse, formed from the island’s resources. It towers twenty feet tall. They’ve formed windows around the top, forging glass from the sand on the beaches down below. It’s hollow inside, with a spiraling staircase.
Nymiah is etching little scenes into the side of it, pictures of sirens and foolish sailors and crashing waves and sinking ships.
It’s beautiful. But dark and depressive.
I’m envious as I stand to the side, watching. I raise my right hand, focusing my energy on the ground. I search for solid stones beneath me, try to pull them up through the grass.
I can feel it. All of the ground beneath my feet.
But I can’t form the cracks the others can. I can’t carve the stones from the ground and make them rise up and up.
Quinton is fifteen. Nymiah is nineteen.
I’m twenty-two. But I’m only as talented as a nine-solar-old right now.
Be patient, I hear Kyril’s voice in my head. It’s only been a lunar.
I close my eyes and let his words from yesterday roll through me, again and again.
The sun is beginning to set when
the older ones finish. The lighthouse is beautiful. Forged from solid stone. It will probably be standing hundreds of solars from now.
As a group, we walk to the far side of this small island. Without hesitation, Nymiah holds her hands down and flat, toward the water, and the water glows brilliant as she steps out onto it, walking across the water on Neron, back toward the main island.
Right behind her, Quinton does the same thing, just a little less confidently.
And in the back, I trail with Ronan and Kily and stay close to Kyril as he pulls together enough Neron for all of us to talk across.
It’s incredible. We’re walking across water. Kyril is making the water solid with Neron, but it doesn’t look solid, just bluer.
Neron is incredible.
I mirror Kyril’s hands. I focus. I let my soul reach out, searching for the Neron in the water. I pull together what I can. It isn’t identifiable; it mixes with Kyril’s. But still I practice. I practice every moment I can when I’m awake.
We step onto dry ground of the main land. Ronan and Kily take off, heading for dinner at the Tabernacle.
“We’re really proud of how quickly you’re learning,” Kyril says as we walk together back toward the Tabernacle. “Both me and Zara.”
I offer him a little smile, telling myself not to be frustrated.
“I know it might not feel like it because you’re anxious to catch up, but you really are learning incredibly quickly,” he says. He pierces me with his pale blue eyes. “You’ve learned solars’ worth of work in only a lunar. Give yourself credit for that, Nova.”
“Thanks,” I say, and I let his words reach in and touch my heart. I have to celebrate the small things.
“Are you coming in for dinner?” he asks as we hit the break in the path back to the village and Tabernacle.
I shake my head. “I need to be with my crew tonight.”
He nods and we say our goodbyes.
I make my way down the path that leads through the village. All the other Nero live in the Tabernacle, as well as about half the Bahiri. The other half live here in these stone houses scattered down the hillside.
In the lunar I’ve been on Salypso, I’ve slept every night in the house Zara assigned our crew. I eat about half of my meals here as well, the other half in the Tabernacle with the other Nero.
But it’s awkward being out here in the village. The Bahiri stare and whisper to one another as I walk by. I think I make them uncomfortable, living down here with them instead of up in the Tabernacle where they think I belong.
And down here, my crew is full witness to their uncomfortable behavior. They see some of them bow to me. They see the reverent way they speak to me.
But I’m not leaving my family.
They’re here in support of me. I know them. I need them. So I’m staying with them.
I swing the door open and step inside.
Oona is busy making food in the kitchen. She, at least, isn’t as awkward as the other Bahiri. She’s more like a nurturing grandmother. She offers smiles and kind words. And she’s always feeding us.
“How was training today?” my father asks, the same as he always does when we sit down together to eat dinner. There are mounds of vegetables and fish, pretty much the same as we eat most nights.
“Fine,” I answer, the same as I always answer every night. “I’ve finally surpassed Kily and Ronan.”
“Congratulations,” Zayne gives a laugh and a smile and I throw a fake punch at him, but I can finally smile about it, too.
“Where is Reena?” I ask, a full five minutes into our meal before I realize she’s gone.
“She went for a walk just before you got back,” Zayne says around a mouthful of food. “Said she needed to clear her head.”
“She’s needed to clear her head for the last week straight,” Edan points out.
He’s right. She’s slipped out at some point or another every night for the past week. I don’t know where she’s going, but considering how much she doesn’t like me the majority of the time, I’m not going to ask for an explanation.
So I change the subject and ask what everyone else has been up to.
Zayne has been working with Tomas on updating their cloaking system that keeps this planet hidden. They’re working on bringing it up to speed. Dad has been busy doing maintenance on our perfect ship.
He’s just trying to stay busy, but really, there’s nothing for him to do. There isn’t a real place for him here on Salypso. But I know he’s never going to leave me.
When we’re finished eating, Dad announces he’s heading to bed. Zayne goes for the shower, so I grab my audobuds and Edan follows me outside.
The sunsets here last forever. The world is so flat, with only a few islands to break up the ocean, so the sky stays awash with color for over an hour every evening. We make our way down the cliffs to the side that points toward the setting sun.
“Do you like it here on Salypso?” I ask him as we both sit on the grass, our toes poking over the edge of the cliff.
Edan shrugs, looking out at the ocean like it annoys him. “It’s kind of boring,” he says. “I guess I just got used to a life of surviving on the streets and never knowing what was going to happen the next day when I woke up. Here, I know exactly what’s going to happen tomorrow, and the next day, and the one after that.”
“I hate that feeling,” I say before I think about the words. “It’s exactly how I felt living back on Korpillion. I couldn’t stand the routine of it.”
Edan nods. “And there’s just…nothing here. There’s this one island with anything on it, and a grand population of thirty-nine people. I need something to do or I’m going to go stark raving mad.”
“What kind of Neron weapon would you want?” I ask. Because that’s what I’m good at, and it’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think of boredom. “Me and you can start sparring every night. Something tells me you’ll be good at it.”
A lopsided smile cracks his ugly face. “Don’t tell Zayne you’re putting a weapon in my hands. Pretty sure he’ll learn how to sleep with his eyes open.”
I shake my head. “He has his reasons for being such a worry-barnacle, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying.”
“How about a bat?” Edan says as he looks out over the ocean. “With some kind of spike on the one end.”
“A bat?” I ask, disbelief in my voice. “Like…as in a club you could bash someone to death with?”
That manic smile crosses Edan’s face again and he nods. “And a spike on the end to run someone through with.”
I let a huff woosh out my lips with a laugh and I shake my head. “Someday you’re going to tell me what happened on Laziria that messed you up.”
I’m not looking at him, but somehow I can feel his smile. “Yeah, someday.”
My mind is already spinning, thinking of plans for Edan’s weird requested weapon. I’m thinking how I can make it a Neron specific weapon and not just an archaic piece of wood and metal.
But I came out here for a reason, so I push the blueprints in my head aside, and I pull out my audobuds. I hand one to Edan, and we both stick one in our ears. I bring my arm up and wake the screen of my connect-link.
I tap the icon for The Black Hole of Truth.
“It feels like forever since I gave any good news on this spacecast,” Arden’s voice comes through clear and strong. I smile at hearing her voice. I’ve never met the woman, and likely never will, but she feels like a good friend. “And I think it’s about slam time we had something to celebrate over.”
I tuck my knees into my chest and wrap my arms around them.
“A new planet was discovered two days ago,” she says, and I swear I can hear her smiling. “Out in the D sector. Fresh and clean as a newborn baby after its first bath. A new planet with an atmosphere. Water. Vegetation. Wildlife. And the best news of all—not a speck of Neron was found on it.”
My eyebrows rise. I hit pause on the spacecast.
; “I thought we’d scanned everywhere in the galaxy,” I say in part to Edan, part to myself. “That seems near impossible that we’ve just discovered a new planet.”
“It’s a big galaxy,” he says, looking out over the ocean. “Who knows what’s hidden in the folds and pockets of space that we haven’t found yet.”
I nod. It’s true. Logically I understand this, that the galaxy is so vast I can’t comprehend it. But it just seems impossible, that with the space exploration programs in place and the scanner crafts that have been searching every part of the galaxy for hundreds of solars, that somehow we are still discovering new things about the Eon Galaxy.
“Of course it’s now a race to see who can claim the planet first,” Arden continues when I start up the cast again. “Of course it won’t be long until some development corporation takes it and starts using it to make billions. But in a galaxy where we are only losing planets to live on because of Neron and Dominion, this is huge.”
I nod. It sounds like a perfect place to start over. A clean slate in every way.
Maybe I should send my crew away to it. It isn’t even that far away. It would only take them a lunar and a half to get there.
“But all the news can’t be great, right?” Arden Black says, whipping me out of my own thoughts. “Things continue to worsen on Korpillion. The economy has officially collapsed, as of last week. Only fifty percent of the population has managed to evacuate the planet. And that’s fifty percent of those who survived the blast.”
Not long ago something bad happened on Korpillion. There are two power companies who run the whole planet. I once worked for Horne Energy on the northern hemisphere. Klal Energy, on the southern, imploded, killing more than ten million people.
I know it wasn’t an accident. There are just too many safety measures in place. I designed ten percent of them myself. I know they couldn’t have failed.
“So the remainder of the population has been sucked into Dominion’s service. Their mines are already running ten kilometers deep. People, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen images of that planet, but I can tell you, it was coast-to-coast skyscrapers. And now everything within ten kilometers of where Dominion found that illegal mine is leveled. Gutted.”