by Keary Taylor
“No one ever got anything important done by sitting back and being overly polite,” I say as I pull the other chair across from the two of them, though I don’t sit in it. My hands restlessly dance across the back of it.
“What is it you asked us to come here for?” she asks, moving on, even though she’s annoyed that I made her come up here and didn’t really give her a choice in doing so.
“Cyrillius is back on Isroth,” I say immediately. I’m antsy. I want to get through all the thoughts in my head before they become even more mixed up and complicated. “I need to know if I stand a chance at getting to him on his own planet or if I’m going to be vaporized before I get within half a league.”
“You will most likely be vaporized,” Zara says without hesitating.
I glare at her darkly, annoyed that she’s being so unhelpful.
“Evander, I know that you were there and led the attack on Isroth,” I say. “I know there were a lot of Nero who were killed.”
“Twenty-three of them,” he says. His voice is dream-like, far away sounding even. But there’s a chill in it that lets me know he has not forgotten the exact number, or any of their faces.
I nod in acknowledgement, even though he isn’t looking at me. “And what about you, Zara? Were you there, as well?”
Her eyes slide over to meet mine. The galaxy only talks about Evander Nero anymore, because they believed he was the last known one, beside Valen. As I look at Evander, who looks like he’s in his mid-thirties, but in reality is over eighty, and I look at Zara, who looks a little over forty, I know there has to be a possibility.
She could easily be over a hundred solars old.
“I was there,” she says. There’s weight in her voice. War. Blood. “I only made it out of there because of Evander. The galaxy thinks he was the sole survivor, but he protected me. That was my last war. I decided no more. And then I came here, to Salypso.”
I had never considered it, not once, that there was a reason Zara was here and not out there fighting. But I hear it, in every syllable she speaks. She has fought wars. She’s won and lost them.
A person can only take so much war. I haven’t learned that myself yet. But I’m witnessing it right now, in Zara’s eyes.
“You need to let this go, Nova,” she says. The darkness in her eyes is gathering. “You must think awfully highly of yourself, to think that you stand a chance of marching into Isroth and taking out Cyrillius when so many of us failed before.” She sits forward, fixing me with cold, deadly eyes. “You are talented,” she continues. “You have far exceeded my expectations. You may be more gifted than all the other students combined, but you are certainly not a one-woman army.”
Her words are harsh and blunt. She thinks I’m going to die.
But I don’t back down. I’m not afraid.
I stand, leaning in toward her. “I’ve never been one who cared about what others think of me. I’ve always been one to prove others wrong. So you can say whatever you want. I realize you aren’t going to go with me, that I’m going to walk onto Isroth by myself. But you can either tell me what to expect when I arrive, or you can keep it to yourself, and know that I’m never going to stand a chance.”
She blinks at me. I’ve surprised her. She thought she could scare me into backing down.
“Do you want my death on your hands?” I say with ice and venom in my voice.
I take her silence as an answer.
“I need you to tell me everything you know about Isroth,” I say. “I need to know how to get to Cyrillius so I can kill him.”
“Harder!” I yell, thrusting my staff toward Edan, forcing him to parry and block my shot.
With a guttural cry, he twists, spinning his club and jabbing the end of it toward me. The tip of the spike grazes my vest, but doesn’t break through to skin.
“Good,” I say with a wicked smile. “Now try to do it again.”
Sparring with Edan is completely different than sparring with Zayne. Zayne is finesse and speed and control. Edan is about movement and brute swings.
It’s more difficult sparring with the club. While Zayne’s rapier could slice me through if he got too close, Edan’s club will obliterate me if he actually hits me with it. I designed it to cause explosions when it makes contact, and that Neron spike on the end will go through anything, even steel.
The sun set half an hour ago, but with the glowing illumination of the Neron, we spend another hour out here in the grass, trying to kill each other but never quite giving it a hundred percent.
“Okay, okay,” Edan finally says, bracing himself by putting his hands on his knees and looking up at me. He’s winded. “How the void do you have this much stamina?”
“I cheat,” I say as I deactivate my staff, which cuts our light by half. “Nero, remember?”
“Cack-she,” he curses me, but with a smile on his face and a wicked look in his eyes.
I laugh and extend a hand out to him, pulling him along the path back to the house. He carefully carries his club to one side.
Edan stashes it in his hiding place. He knows Zayne still doesn’t trust him. We make our way back toward the house, but movement toward the Tabernacle catches my eye.
Just barely through the dim light, I see Reena. And Kyril.
They’re leaning back against the building. And they’re kissing.
“Did you know about that?” I ask, utterly floored.
“I had my suspicions,” Edan says, watching them without shame. “She’s been leaving every evening for over a lunar now. No shock she was sneaking out to find a lover.”
I actually smile a little.
Reena’s always so stoic. So serious and annoyed. It’s about slam time she found something to be happy about.
“I’m guessing you haven’t seen Zayne following Nymiah around, either?” he asks as we start back down the path toward the house.
“What?” I say, my brows furrowing as I whip over to glare at him.
He shrugs. “Not that I’ve seen anything like what we just witnessed. But he’s been very aware of her schedule. Eating picnics with her in Zara’s garden and slag.”
I mull that over. I’m over Zayne, I know there’s no going back, and I don’t want to. But I’m still protective of him.
I’ve been so stressed about my crew being here and getting bored and thinking they hated it. But in the end, maybe this was good for them, too.
“Close that shocked mouth, little Nero,” Edan says as we descend the stairs toward the house. “You can’t be the only one who gets to have a romantic interest.”
“Shut your mouth,” I say, shaking my head in annoyance. “If everyone wants to get laid on this planet, I’m not going to stop them. What about you? Have you had an eye on Zara and haven’t told me about it yet?”
He chuckles but doesn’t rise to my taunts.
We step into the house, and Edan grabs some fruit Oona has on the counter, but heads right to his room.
I don’t see Zayne around. I assume he’s in his room. Or maybe with Nymiah. Apparently, I know nothing.
But Dad sits on the purple couch, looking at me with worried eyes.
“What?” I ask, taking the plate the kind Bahiri woman pushes toward me. I sit on the couch beside him, looking at him like I’m about to be scolded.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Edan lately,” my father says evenly.
I make an affirmative noise before stuffing food into my mouth. I chew for a moment, stalling and buying time before I have to say anything. “Turns out we have a lot in common.”
“Are you getting romantically involved with him?”
I inhale my food down the wrong tube, sending me into a coughing fit. Dad takes my plate so I don’t spill, setting it aside, and smacks me on the back while I nearly choke on some fish.
“Why…” I wheeze, trying to clear my windpipe. “Why the void would you say that?”
I look up at my father with watering eyes, mortified and a little gr
ossed out.
“What else am I supposed to think when you’re coming in hours after dark and you’re finally smiling again when I haven’t seen you smile in lunars?” he says in a rush. His eyes are concerned, and not entirely approving.
“Dad,” I cough out, finally starting to feel like I’m not going to die. “I’m not interested in Edan that way. He’s just my friend. He . . . we understand each other in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.”
Torin looks at me for a long moment, evaluating if he believes me or not.
I’m not good at making friends. Except Zayne.
I don’t get romantically involved, except for with Zayne.
I’ve never had anyone besides Dad and Zayne.
“Just a friend,” he says, almost as a question.
With a smile, I nod. I shake my head at his protectiveness, even though I appreciate it.
“Good,” he says with a nod. “Because he looks at you like he’d protect you against Valen Nero himself, but that boy is batslag crazy.”
I laugh and shake my head, because it’s true. And I wouldn’t want him to be any other way.
Not again, not again, my brain is screaming at me.
Give me more, please let it last forever, my heart sings far louder.
In the end, my heart always wins.
“Hurry up!” the sweet young voice calls out. She’s growing up so fast. Her blonde hair falls into her face, but she pushes it up with a dirty hand. She’s always a mess, because I can’t ever keep her in the house for longer than five minutes if she’s awake.
“I’m coming,” Valen says with a laugh as he steps out of the house, smiling as he looks at all three of us waiting for him.
“What took you so long?” the stoic young boy asks with a concerned look. He looks just like his father when he wears that expression. The same exact black eyebrows. The same lines appear between them. Even the set of his lips is just the same.
The only features he got from me are his lips, fuller and rounder than his father’s.
“I promised your mother I’d make dinner tonight,” Valen says as he steps into the long grass and walks toward us. “I was just finishing it up.” The girl bounds through the grass she is barely taller than. She takes a leap and Valen catches her just in time. She opens her hands to reveal the latest insect she’s trapped to be her friend.
“His name is Pico,” she says with reverence in her voice.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Pico,” Valen says, as serious as if he were speaking to any human being.
“Can we get this over with?” the boy asks with impatience. His pre-teen moods seem to be kicking in these days and we’re all paying for his misery. He’s always been a serious child, since the day he was born, but it’s far more exaggerated these days.
“What’s your hurry, son?” Valen asks, and I can hear him trying to use patience. “Do you have somewhere else to be?”
He’s teasing the boy. Because there is nowhere else to be, not on this planet. Here, it is just us, just our little family.
The boy glares at Valen, and actually rolls his eyes before he turns away.
I look over at my husband and smile, even though I shake my head.
He’s always trying to lighten our son’s mood.
My heart still flutters when Valen meets my eyes and smiles. It’s still the most brilliant, beautiful smile I’ve ever come across. It still makes my blood race.
“Mama, look!” the girl squeals. I look. And I find a hundred butterflies flocking to her. She thinks they’re her friends, too. She doesn’t yet understand that she’s controlling the Neron in their blood, calling them to her. She doesn’t understand they don’t have a choice.
“They’re beautiful, baby,” I say sweetly, because she’s just a child, and I can’t bear to crush her wonder.
“Come on,” the boy says impatiently.
I shake my head. We’re in for a couple of rough solars with that one.
“Alright,” Valen says, coming to stand by my side. The boy and the girl come to join us. “Everyone ready?”
Our children both nod, and together, we each raise our hands, extending them out.
I feel my senses reach out. I let my soul breathe in and out, expanding and searching.
I feel it. It’s all over, everywhere on this lush planet.
But it must be gathered.
I begin to close my fists, and raise my hands up slightly higher.
We do the movements together.
Water, pure and clean rises up into the air, controlled by the Neron that is in everything.
Together, as a family, we control it. We gather it from everything around us. And then we guide and direct it. Through the air, around our home. And there, into the barrels, to where we will use it later.
Just as Valen closes the lids on the four barrels, movement through the grass pulls my ears and I turn to look.
“Cyrillius!” the boy calls excitedly. I see him bound across the grass to where the man is walking up the hill toward us. Cyrillius greets my son with a wide, happy smile and the boy talks excitedly to the man.
My daughter comes to my side, grabbing my hand. She looks toward Cyrillius with suspicion, a furrow forming between her little brows.
Valen comes to stand by my side. He wraps an arm around my waist and I lean into him slightly.
Cyrillius laughs at something the boy says and the two of them cross the field to stand before us.
“It is so good to see you all again,” he says, smiling at each of us. But the boy is the only one who really smiles back at him. “I have missed this beautiful, little family.”
“We thought we’d be seeing you next week,” Valen says. “When we came back to Isroth.”
Cyrillius shrugs and smiles as he looks down at my daughter. “I was passing close by. I thought I would stop and say hello to my favorite young Neros.”
He squats down in front of my daughter. She backs away from him just a little, holding onto my leg tightly.
“You are turning into such a beautiful little person,” Cyrillius says as he takes her little, dirty hand in his. “You look so much like your mother, but with your father’s eyes.”
A butterfly lands on Cyrillius’ shoulder and he looks over at it.
“That’s Beeza,” she says sweetly. She names every creature she meets.
“Look at that,” Cyrillius says as he extends a finger to it, encouraging it to climb on, which it does. “Did you bring her here to say hello to me?”
The girl hesitates, because I know she would never. But she nods, telling him what he wants to hear.
“Look at how you’re growing,” he says, but as he stands, it’s Valen that he looks at with pride. “What a wonderful job you are doing with your children.” Cyrillius looks over at our son, who looks back in return with admiration. “It won’t be long until we can begin working together. Just think of everything we can accomplish together.”
I sit up in bed and immediately curl over the edge of it, vomiting all over the floor.
“No,” I say as I tremble from head to toe. A dim bedroom surrounds me, but I still see my son’s face. My daughter’s. Valen’s.
And Cyrillius’. “Over my dead body.”
The house is deathly quiet, but as the sky outside begins to lighten, I know the others will be waking any time. So, silently, I slip out of my bed, and I climb out the window.
With venom in my veins, I stalk through the village, ignoring the bustling, awake Bahiri, ignoring their calls to me, asking if I need anything.
I walk straight down the stairs, toward the island’s edge. I take the stairs down, zigzagging down the face of it, until I reach the sandy beach far below. Determined not to be bothered, I head toward the remote tip of the island, where I know no one will hear or see me.
I find a rocky outcrop and climb onto it, staring out at the ocean. I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself, and utterly fail.
I let my eyes slide closed, and I
sink down into myself, straight for that door.
“Have you seen them?” I demand the second I walk through it.
I get an impression, of complete and utter shock. I sense Valen faltering in his step and then coming to a complete stop.
“Nova?” he asks, utterly surprised to have me there, in his mind, after such a long absence.
“Have you seen them?” I demand. I don’t have time. I don’t have the patience.
“Seen who?” he says. His voice is full of wonder. Of awe.
He never expected me to come into his mind again.
“Our children,” I say. I try to say it with venom. But my voice catches. It cracks. “Have you seen our children and what’s going to happen to them?”
There’s a long pause. Valen’s mind is very still and cold. And I know it before he says the words. “Yes.”
“How many of them?” I ask. It’s a test. A test to see just how much our visions of the future align. I need to know how much weight I need to place on these dreams.
“A boy,” Valen says with reverence. “Who looks like me. And a girl, who looks just like you.”
Emotions pull into my eyes and I shake my head. I sink to the rocks beneath me, tucking my knees up into my chest. I wrap my arms around them, trying to hold myself together.
“The future you’ve seen,” I say, desperately needing to know. “Will Cyrillius use them? Will he try to use our family?”
Valen hesitates in answering, which tells me the truth. “Yes,” he finally says.
I swear, shaking my head deeply back and forth. I swear again, smacking my fist against the stones beneath me. I hear a crack, but I don’t open my eyes.
“I need to know where you are,” I say, anger and rage rolling through my brain in waves. “Because I am freaking out, thinking about the possibilities, and I’m so slam scared of what you could be doing. And I-”
“I’m on Kaelea,” Valen cuts me off. “My planet. For the last lunar and a half, I’ve been drowning in these visions of the future. I knew I couldn’t hide it from anyone, what was happening, and I was afraid if I stayed, that everything I am feeling would show on my very skin, and the whole galaxy would know every second I’m away from you is absolute and utter agony, Nova!”