by Keary Taylor
Valen is not here.
“No,” I say. The word cracks out of me, fracturing almost instantly. “No, no. Not again. No!”
Tears instantly well in my eyes and I roll to my side, curling into the fetal position, trying to keep myself from falling apart as reality hits me that I did not just marry Valen, that we are not on the precipice of our life together.
A sob breaks out of me and I cover my face with my hands, curling smaller and smaller.
“Nova?” a voice asks, hesitant now, instead of demanding. “What…what is going on?”
I know that voice, and it’s not one that should be here. It should be somewhere else, millions of leagues away.
Not here, on Salypso, with Zara leaping down my throat.
“Nova,” she says, and I feel her touch my arm.
“Get off of me!” I scream, whipping my arm away from her. I sit up, scrambling back from her. My back smacks against a wall, startling me, rocking me back into the present. I breathe hard and fast, and finally, the dream-vision crumbles, and I begin to see the reality that surrounds me.
Zara stands in front of me, looking at me with furrowed brows, and concerned but angry eyes. Kyril is on the other side of the room looking extremely confused and concerned.
“No,” I say once more, small and quiet. Two tears slip down my face. I squeeze my eyes closed, shaking my head as I tuck my knees into my chest and rest my forehead on them.
This is going to kill me. Seeing these possible futures, feeling, living them. Only to wake, over and over again to find none of it was real.
None of it is possible.
It’s going to break me. It’s going to shatter me.
It’s going to kill me.
“What did you dream of, Nova?” a kind voice asks. Kyril.
I shake my head. I can’t tell them. I can never tell anyone. Except maybe Evander.
If I tell them, they will know. They will know how tempted I am to do whatever it takes to make our future a reality. They will know I’m not the good person I wish I were.
They would never look at me the same.
“You have to slow down, Nova,” Zara’s voice reaches my ears, her tone firm and slightly angry, and a little questioning. “If you don’t, you’re going to kill yourself. You might hurt others. What you just did-”
“What I just did was nothing.” My head snaps up as anger floods through me. I jump to my feet, snapping back into the moment. “What I did was something I should have been able to do a long time ago. The clock is ticking, every single second, and things are coming and I have to be prepared.” I take a step forward, getting into Zara’s personal space.
“The galaxy is falling apart out there,” I say, taking another step forward, forcing her to take one backward. “People are dying by the millions. We, the Nero, can do something about it. There might only be a few of us, but we could change things. We could change the future of the galaxy. And you are hiding here like a coward.”
I see a gauntlet of emotions flash through her eyes at my accusations, but she doesn’t get a chance to speak.
“I will not sit by and do nothing,” I say, my voice dropping in volume. “What we can do… How can you just hide here and let Dominion ruin the only place we have to live?”
But I don’t give her a chance to answer.
I step back, aiming toward the door.
“I have to catch up,” I say. I hesitate there, but don’t turn back to either of them. “If I burn myself out, so be it. But I will do what I have to. Learn what I have to. And then I’m going to stop Cyrillius. No matter what it takes.”
I step out of the room, and leave them without another word.
“We’ve been on Salypso for two lunars,” I say at dinner. We’re eating much later than normal, but considering I spent most of the evening unconscious, and then getting up in Zara’s face, it’s late. “I still need some time to learn, but I’m not staying here.”
“And where are we going to go after this?” Torin asks after he swallows his vegetables.
I shake my head. “I don’t know exactly, but I know we’re needed elsewhere.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Zayne asks, a furrow forming between his brows.
“It means that I think we need to do something more with our lives than look for a nice, safe place to live,” I snap. I slap a hand down on the tabletop, rattling all the dishes. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but I do know I can’t just ignore everything and try to live happily ever after.”
They all look at me in stunned silence. I’m a ticking bomb right now, and they all know not to set me off.
“Plan on being here for another lunar,” I say, moving on. “I could stay here for solars learning everything I can, but I need experience out there, in the field. So don’t get too comfortable.”
I finish my last two bites, and get up from the table. Without another word, I step back outside.
It’s still warm outside, and I wonder if there are any different seasons here on Salypso. It’s always a comfortable temperature. It rains occasionally, and it gets windy every now and then. But for the most part, it’s always calm and comfortable.
I should take advantage of the safety and ease of living here. I could live the rest of my life here in quiet learning.
But I feel this itch under my skin. Ever since my last vision.
Life on Salypso is small.
I know I’m supposed to do something bigger.
It could be ruling in darkness next to Valen.
Or it could be using it to take down Dominion.
Long.
Short.
My life could be either.
But I have to use my time for something more.
I round my way back to the house and go to the window at the back, against the hillside. Peeking inside, I see that he’s just walked in and closed the door. I rap on the window and he jumps slightly, his eyes whipping to meet mine.
I make a motion for him to come outside, and I love that he doesn’t hesitate to come to the window and climb out of it.
I press my finger to my lips for him to be quiet and motion for him to follow me. Together, we walk toward the cliffs, to where we listened to The Black Hole of Truth just a few weeks ago.
We stand at the edge when we reach the cliff, looking out over the ocean.
“I’ve seen the future, Edan,” I say. I’m sure he can barely hear my voice over the sound of the wind rushing from the ocean, up the face of the cliff, before blasting in our faces. “I know where my destiny lies.”
“And where’s that?” he asks. There’s no judgment in his voice. He just asks for facts.
“With Valen Nero,” I say, looking over to meet his eyes. “As his wife. Ruling by his side.”
He doesn’t say anything right away. He looks at me, digesting the words I just said. He turns them over, examining their weight. “Do you know him yet?”
I hesitate for just a moment, but I nod. “We’ve only been in each other’s presence twice, but I can talk to him, whenever I want.”
“A Nero connection,” Edan says. And once more, I have to wonder how he knows as much as he does, when I plucked him off the streets of Laziria, about to die for stealing food.
I nod again. “I could be a powerful person,” I say. And it’s such a relief, telling all this to someone. Saying the truth. Confessing all my sins. “I could be a queen, crowned by Cyrillius himself. I could be happy. I could be in love, deeper than the galaxy has ever seen before.”
A tear pushes its way out onto my cheek. I don’t make a move to wipe it away. I see Edan’s eyes watching it as it slowly slips down my face.
“But you’re not like him,” Edan says, finding the words I cannot. “You would never mindlessly follow Cyrillius. You’re not a dictator.”
I swallow once. I’m in so much pain right now. More pain than I’ve ever been in my whole life.
“I have to learn as much as I can over the next lunar,” I sa
y. I stand taller. I roll my shoulders back. “Because in one lunar, I’m leaving this planet, and I’m going to find a way to kill Cyrillius.”
Edan meets my eyes, and for the first time in a long time, I feel accepted. Edan takes me at face value. He doesn’t judge me. He doesn’t try to tell me what to do.
“I know the others won’t let me do it,” I say, my eyes flicking back in the direction of the house momentarily. “They’ll do anything they can to try and stop me. But if they do…”
“You might change your mind,” Edan says, looking at me with his tired eyes. “Because even though you’ve only been with him twice, you’ve seen your future with him, and you’re in love with Valen Nero.”
It’s like he shoots me in the heart. Pierces it all the way through, letting it bleed out into my chest cavity.
I can’t confirm it out loud. And I can’t deny it, because I know it’s true.
“I have to change the future, Edan,” I say. I duck behind the rocks behind me and remove the weapon I hid there yesterday. It’s a club on one end and it narrows down to a point on the other, making it nearly five feet long. The tip of it is made of solid Neron. There are lines tracing up the sides of the club, and the center of it holds a Neron core. He could crack this entire island if he took a swing at it. I extend it out to him.
“I know we’re only becoming friends,” I say as he takes it, a look of awe on his face. “I know you don’t have anything to do with all of this. But I’m asking because even though everyone else back at the house is my family, has known me for solars, you’re the only one I think can envision the galaxy actually changing. And you’re the only one crazy enough to help me do it. If I go to try and kill Cyrillius, will you come with me, Edan?”
With manic wonder in his eyes, Edan eyes his weapon up and down like it’s a naked lover. And with a wild gleam, he meets my gaze again.
“I’ll tear every Dominion soldier limb from limb with you, Nova Nero,” he swears. He tips his head slightly, a bow I’m not sure I deserve. “I’m with you until my last, ragged breath.”
I’ve had some exhausting days, but this is possibly the most tired I’ve ever been. I lie down on my uncomfortable bed, alone in this small room with stone walls. I don’t even look up at the ceiling, don’t stare at it for nearly an hour like I normally do every night.
I’m physically exhausted from training all day. Harnessing the lightning took everything I had, and apparently everything I didn’t, since I fell unconscious.
But more than anything, I’m mentally exhausted. I’ve run the gauntlet of emotions today. I’ve been scolded, scrutinized, questioned. I’ve been loved, worshiped, married, and then left alone.
I’m almost too tired to sleep.
But I adjust my position in the bed, lying on my back, and let one arm flop over my eyes, telling myself not to think about anything.
I focus on the black of the inside of my eyelids. I focus on how heavy I feel. I focus on the warmth of the thin blanket pulled over my body.
I swear.
My eyes fly open, staring at the dark ceiling.
But I know I won’t find anyone in the room. I’m still alone in it.
Nova, I promise I’m doing everything I can.
My heart races in my chest and my whole body breaks out into a cold sweat.
Valen.
I hear him. He’s there again, after so long, in my head.
His voice sends an aching wave through me, and I feel so empty, so alone.
I’ve felt his hands on me. I’ve had his lips on me. Both in real life and in my recent dreams.
But I cling to what I have. I cling to the sound of his voice.
Valen, I think back. I don’t say anything more, because I don’t know what to say.
My eyes slide closed, and I let myself sink toward that door between our minds, the one that has been shut for nearly three lunars now. And it’s so easy. I find it open, cracked, just waiting for me.
Everything grows lighter, brighter. I see two figures, but the one is out of focus. So is everything else. I can barely make out a structure, a home maybe. We’re surrounded by gardens and mountains, but I can’t make out any details.
Just light.
And there, standing just outside the door of the structure, is Valen.
Only he looks so different.
I’ve only ever seen him wear black, the uniform of Dominion. Or red, from the dream vision of our wedding. But now he’s wearing pale gray and blue. He looks so casual. So normal. Like any other citizen of the Eon galaxy.
He’s facing that other blurry figure.
I hear noise, maybe a voice, but it, too, seems blurry, distorted and incomprehensible. It speaks to Valen, and he looks at it intently, listening with absolute intent.
“I’ve told the troops that we’re taking Baladar next,” Valen says. The figure standing beside Valen sits on the steps, and Valen goes to sit beside it. “They’re still suspicious of me, though. They always listen to you.”
This is a dream, I realize as I take a step forward. I circle Valen and that figure so I’m standing right in front of them. But they don’t seem to notice my presence.
This is Valen’s dream.
He spoke to me through the Nero connection, but I don’t think he realized he was doing it.
I come to sit on the last step, four down from Valen, and I watch him and marvel.
I’m here, present, in his dream. I can’t see it, not really, not how he’s seeing it. But I’m here, in his mind.
“Have you been in any of my dreams?” I ask the question without thinking. But he doesn’t look in my direction, he continues his conversation with the unidentifiable figure. “Have…” I hesitate, feeling my stomach tighten into a knot and fear washing through me. “Have you heard me talking to you in my dreams?”
The pit in my stomach deepens.
I’ve said so many things in my dream visions. Confessed everything I’ve felt, or will someday feel.
What if… “Did you hear what I said?”
I had told him I love him. I had asked him to never let me go.
Valen doesn’t look at me, but continues speaking to the figure next to him.
And as his words come back to me, I look at the blurry, white figure sitting beside him.
Nova, I promise I’m doing everything I can.
It’s me.
That’s me he’s talking to.
I look around, trying to find the details, to hear what he’s saying. But now it’s all muffled, like I’ve suddenly been shut out, now that I’m aware of what’s going on.
What if this is Valen’s dream vision of the future?
It looks so different from mine. It feels different from mine.
There are endless possible futures. Evander told me that. I know that, logically.
Of course our visions of the future would be entirely different.
“Can you hear me?” I ask with a breathy, emotional voice.
Valen pauses, and for a moment, I think that maybe he has heard me. But he continues speaking, and I’m both relieved and devastated.
“I’m a mess,” I say, because I can’t hold in the words and I’ve missed talking to him, so much. “I don’t know how to feel, because I keep getting these too, and when I wake up, it destroys me that none of it was real.”
That blurry figure shifts, and moves to Valen, and his eyes fill with hunger and desire. And then the figure—me—slides into his lap, straddling him.
Tears fall from my eyes as I squeeze them shut.
I don’t want to witness it.
It’s too hard. Knowing he wants this—me—as bad as I do. It kills me. It fractures me. It twists me up.
“Why, Valen?” I sob. I don’t try to stop myself from falling apart, because he can’t hear me. He’s too busy wrapping his arms around dream-me. He’s too busy kissing the soul out of dream-me. “Why couldn’t you have just stayed with me on that ship? Why did you have to go back to Cyrillius?”
/> His hands rise up the ghostly back of the figure and then he rolls, pinning me against the porch of that little home I know they’re sharing. He grinds his hips into mine and his lips go to my neck.
“I do want this, Valen,” I say, and my tone is getting frantic, angry even. “Obviously you want it, too. But I don’t know how we can ever get there. I don’t know what this place is or how you came up with it. But I know I can never become the person I’ve seen in my visions. No matter how bad I want to give in.”
The tears are now free-falling down my face. I get to my feet, walking away from the two figures being very happy on the porch. I stop, facing away from them, covering my face with my hands as sobs rip from me.
I can’t do this. I’m going to go insane with these visions, these dreams. They’re going to rip my heart out and one of these days I’m just going to be dead, and Zayne or my father is going to find my body in my room, with my pillow covered in tears and my chest a hollowed out cavern.
“I can’t do this,” I sob into my hands. “It’s too hard. I want…everything. I want things to be different. I want to not be me. I want you to be someone different. I want to love someone who had a different start to life so we could be together.”
With a big, sobbing breath, I drop my hands from my eyes, and startle back just one step.
Valen now stands directly in front of me.
Once more, he’s wearing his familiar black.
He looks right into my eyes with his blue ones.
“I don’t know what to do, Nova,” he confesses. I feel his words, every one of them, all the way down into my bones. In my stomach. In my heart. “I can’t be a different man. But being who I am is void because it keeps you away from me, and I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”
The tears haven’t stopped flowing down my face.
“I can’t…” I breathe. And it means a dozen different things.
But I finally break.
I rush forward at the same time Valen takes one step forward.
I swear his hands are really wrapping around my waist. I’m sure my hand really slides into his black hair.
And I swear my lips really crush to his and my soul slips into his body and his invades mine through our kiss.