by Maura Milan
Brinn bit her tongue at the pain but kept her eyes open so she could see. She wasn’t going to run away like she did in the past. She had to face this.
The tip of Ia’s knife pricked Brinn’s neck, and the slick warmth of new blood trickled down her skin. She swallowed down her fear, trying to stay strong.
“And now?” Ia asked. “Tell me you’re afraid.”
Brinn looked up into Ia’s eyes, and all she saw was pain. It reminded Brinn of her own sadness, of that familiar, unshakable weight, and she instantly remembered the first time she saw Ia’s face broadcast across Olympus. Brinn thought she would see someone hideous, marked with scars and deformities, a face that would repulse her. But instead she saw a girl.
A girl, just like me.
Brinn’s fingers fell lightly on Ia’s wrist. Ia glanced down at her touch while Brinn eased the blade away from her throat.
“You can keep at this all you like, but you can’t fool me. You’re not a monster,” Brinn whispered. “You’re my friend, Ia.”
Brinn wrapped her arms around the girl before her and hugged her close to her heart.
CHAPTER 59
IA
IA PUSHED AWAY from the warmth circling her, but the girl wouldn’t let go.
“Don’t,” Ia screamed, digging her fingers into the girl’s shoulder, trying to hurt her, scare her, anything to get away.
The girl didn’t flinch. She endured the pain, and Ia hated her for it.
“Stay away!” Ia screamed. The girl just hugged her closer, all the while humming softly. It was a light melody, trilling up and down with freedom.
“No,” Ia whispered. “I don’t want to hear it.”
The song continued, and her mind reeled backward. Back to a time before the war. Before she was a killer. Before she was called the Blood Wolf, the Rogue, and the Sovereign.
Before he went away…
A lost memory blossomed inside her. It was dark, and she was locked up in a small bedroom while a storm raged outside. Einn sat with his eyes on the door, quietly waiting for the thunderheads to pass. But Ia was never as strong-willed as her brother. She was the one who always cried.
Arms scooped her up, cradling her tiny shoulders and legs, not yet marred with the scars of living. Long, dark hair tickled at Ia’s cheeks, wispy strands that had come loose from a rough braid. Ia peered through the locks of hair and watched her father’s face.
“Tell the dark to go away, Papa.”
Her father hummed, so softly that Ia had to place her head on his chest to hear. And soon she was lost in it, her fears quieted by the melody.
“There are times when the world will grow black. And you will feel there is nothing else,” he whispered as his fingers lightly combed through Ia’s soft black hair. “That’s when you have a choice. You can stay put, so it can do what it will to you.” He opened Ia’s hand and placed a crimson feather upon her palm. The feather was light and tickled her skin, but there was a warmth to it that reached deep. “Or you can rise above the clouds. And fly.”
Ever since that day, that feather had meant freedom. She heard its wings beating in her ears, pushing against the ties of gravity like a fight against nature. Without the struggle, you could not rise.
It was years later, when she saw the creatures ruffling their wings in the fighting pits, that she found out her feather was one from a Blood Wolf.
“I’m right here, Ia.” It was no longer her father’s voice. She felt Brinn’s fingers lace between her own. “I’m right here.”
With those three words, Ia felt the anger inside ebb away until she could see herself again. If Einn had been her anchor, then Brinn was now her sails. There was no point staying in one place her whole life. Things had to change.
She leaned her chin on Brinn Tarver’s shoulder. She had never felt so vulnerable in all of her seventeen years in this universe.
“I’m sorry,” Ia said.
That was the first time she said those words. All this time, she thought it a sign of weakness to utter that phrase. But saying it right now, she knew she had been completely wrong. Instead of feeling weak, she felt strong.
She felt new.
Brinn leaned her head against hers. “I’m sorry too.”
So this was what it was like to have a friend.
This is what it was like to fly.
“How did you know that song?” Ia asked.
Brinn smiled. “You hum in your sleep.”
CHAPTER 60
KNIVES
WHERE THE MIF WERE THEY?
The ship was going down, and Knives was the only one left on the flight deck. Behind him, the jet was prepped, the engines and MOS active and ready to go, but he couldn’t leave. Not yet.
He stood on the entry platform, watching, waiting.
They sure were taking their Deus-damned time.
He stepped down onto the flight deck one more time, pretending to inspect the wings and test the pressure of the wheels. Even though it was all ready and done. Even though he could fly out and escape whenever he chose to.
Ten seconds. That was all he was going to give them. No more, no less.
He peered out into the smoke. The red lights flashed from above with each second that passed.
No sign of them. His count was at five seconds. Then four.
He wished time would stop.
He kicked his foot against the hull, stained with muck and burnout. His eyes dropped to the emblem painted on the side.
The red paint had dripped down sloppily along the curve of the ship like a bloody gash. It was an awful paint job, but it was easy to see what it was. A feather. For the past six years, he had seen this feather flash upon his holowatch at the top of every hour. A warning sign to all; if anyone saw that feather, they should run.
But he was drawn to her. Like she was a natural disaster, and he couldn’t help but stop and look. And now he was stuck in the thick of it, waiting because he didn’t know how to pull himself to safety. What was scarier was that he didn’t want to.
Two seconds.
One.
Time was up. That was all you were going to give them, he reminded himself.
“Warning,” the speakers screamed. “All systems shutdown activated.”
At the end of the sentence, the red lights above stilled to darkness. He backpedaled onto the training jet’s platform as he fixed his helmet over his head. The siren of the alarm stopped, giving way to a horrible silence.
The pressurization systems were off.
His body flew backward into the cockpit of the training jet. He grabbed on to an overhead handle, trying to keep his body from cracking into the front windows, his arms aching as he held on. The leftover scouting jets, wrenches, screws—everything came crashing toward him.
He needed to get away from it all if he wanted to live, so he twisted his body and jumped into the pilot’s seat. With one hand strapping himself in, the other yanked hard on the throttle. His head flew backward hitting the foam of the headrest. He couldn’t even look back if he wanted to.
CHAPTER 61
IA
THEY WERE ALMOST THERE. Almost. Ia could see Knives waiting. She was about to yell out for him when the shutdown happened.
The air ripped out of her lungs, and her body rocketed forward, flipping midair in time to see the look of fear on Brinn’s face before being thrown in the opposite direction. With quick reflexes, Ia slammed her fist onto a button at her collarbone and immediately her helmet slid on, quickly calibrating so she could once again breathe. She bit down a scream as her body twisted and turned, over and over until she was sure her bones would break. Her body crashed into one of the walls, coming to a stop between two columns inside the docking bay. She groaned as pain seared through her shoulder blades, but at least she was now wedged into place. Her eyes zipped everywhere, trying to find Brinn.
“Come on, Tarver,” she murmured. “Where are you?”
But Brinn was nowhere inside the ship. It meant only one thing.
Ia’s eyes snapped out into the All Black, where the rest of the debris had been rocketed. Her gaze landed on an Armada scouting ship. It was cracked in half and spinning out in the void. She caught a shape pressed close against a broken wing, and as she stared at the outline longer, the blood drained from her face.
Ia squinted her left eye and clicked onto magnification mode. Her image zoomed in, and her fears were confirmed. Brinn clung on to the edge of the jet’s wing like it was a lifeline. Brinn’s grav suit and helmet would help her stay alive, but not for long. Ia’s breathing quickened as she watched Brinn’s body grow smaller as she soared farther and farther away. People who were jettisoned into the All Black rarely returned. This would be the last time Ia would see her friend.
She wasn’t going to let that happen.
Ia clicked through the modes of her artificial eye until a target arrow popped up in her vision. She had to be as precise as possible. The calculations weren’t a sure bet. Anything could go wrong, anything. But it was better than nothing.
And thankfully, she had something else in her arsenal that would come in handy at a time like this. The suit she’d insisted on wearing came from a big black box with two words painted on its side. Project Icarus. Professor Patel had warned her against it, claiming the ignite system was unpredictable and the suit was too dangerous to wear. But Ia paid her no mind, because there were times when you had to put all your bets on danger.
Her fingers clicked a button at the nape of her neck, and she felt her suit vibrate as two small ionic thrusts popped up near her shoulder blades. At the same time, two thrusters assembled at her ankles, angled for flight.
She had no idea how to operate this thing, but now wasn’t the time to worry. With a huge kick, she activated the thrusters.
CHAPTER 62
BRINN
BRINN’S HEAD BANGED against the visor of her helmet. She had managed to slide it on in time before the pressure completely collapsed around her, rocketing her out into the All Black. She was lucky, but her brain felt like it was being squeezed inside her skull. And because of that, she couldn’t think. Deus, she couldn’t think. All she could do was hold on.
She spun through the air, hanging onto the wing of a slaver jet. With each rotation, she was traveling farther and farther away from the Armada battleship, and even farther away from the chance of rescue.
The realization paralyzed her. She was going to die.
A notification chimed inside her helmet, and then Ia’s voice. “Tarver, you hear me?”
Her throat was almost too tight to speak. “Help me.”
“I’m coming for you. But you have to stay calm.” Brinn grabbed on to the sound of Ia’s voice. “Listen to your heartbeat. Do you hear it?”
Brinn closed her eyes, blocking out everything around her, until all she could hear was that drumbeat inside.
Ia’s voice drifted in, guiding her. “Find that picture in your head, of something beautiful, something peaceful. What do you see?”
The rhythm inside her ebbed up and down, and soon she was flooded with a wondrous blue. Blue like her mother’s hair, blue like her own. She saw ripples of water, the up and down of waves. Brinn had never been here before, but it was unmistakable where she was.
“It’s Tawnus,” she breathed.
The oceans of Tawnus stretched as far as her mind could see. It was beautiful.
Brinn’s fingers fluttered through the water around her, warm as it lapped against her skin.
“Do you trust me?” Ia asked, her voice drifting into Brinn’s thoughts.
“I do.”
“Good. Open your eyes, and jump,” she ordered. “Now.”
Brinn ripped her eyes open as the world came flooding in. She loosened her grip from the broken wing and pushed away from the metal frame of the ship. The momentum of the spin rocketed her body backward. She backflipped, over and over, until she couldn’t tell where she was. Faraway stars blurred into stripes. She broke out into a cold sweat as her body grew numb.
Then suddenly arms circled around her waist, and she was stopped, staring into Ia’s visor. She glanced down at the thrusters on Ia’s ankles.
“You’re flying.”
Ia flashed her trademark smirk. And for once, Brinn was happy to see that smile on Ia’s face. She even caught herself doing something she seldom genuinely did: she smiled back.
“Now what?” Brinn asked.
Ia nodded over to a ship in the distance.
“We hitch a ride.”
CHAPTER 63
KNIVES
BEEP. BEEP.
Knives glanced down as a tiny blip appeared on the radar. Probably some debris that broke past. Yet, there was something strange about the way it moved. Its trajectory was different, not a straight line like most of the wreckage out there. Instead, it swooped and arched, like it was following him.
Knives tapped on the blip, trying to read the ship’s signature. It wasn’t the Armada. And it wasn’t a Commonwealth ship.
He activated the rear cameras. Debris from the wrecked slaver ships hurtled into the nearby sun, creating ripples of solar flares that blew out the camera lens. He unstrapped and ran to the back of the ship, but there were no windows. There was only one other way to see what was coming. He buckled a cord from his suit to a nearby clasp.
Knives pulled down a metal lever near the enviro tanks, and the cabin slowly depressurized. His toes lifted off the floor, and his body stretched toward a glowing blue button. His palm pushed down on it, and he watched as the platform angled open.
At first, all he saw was a small shadow in the distance. Dark like a phantom.
Eyes squinted, he realized there were two of them soaring toward him. And as they neared, his heart leaped into his throat.
As she flew closer, he saw Ia’s face. It reminded him of the first day they met, when she ran down the flight deck and jumped right off a cliff. She was reckless, he had thought.
And brave.
And brilliant.
And since then, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
He reached his hand out for her, waiting for her to take it.
CHAPTER 64
IA
IA SAT BY THE WINDOW of the RSF training jet and stared out into the All Black. Beside her, Brinn was asleep, her head resting on a cushioned wall panel. Ia looked down at her lap, at their fingers laced together.
It felt nice.
She never had a female friend before. In fact, she never had any friends. As the Blood Wolf, she had to keep people at a distance to hold that power, even her crew. But after everything that had happened, she could no longer claim that title. Her followers would shun her once they found out she had helped the Bugs. Even if Ia knew what she had done was right, others out there were not going to see it that way.
It didn’t matter. Because now she had another mission. Brinn was the only person who understood and could finish Headmaster Weathers’s work, and Einn wasn’t going to stop until he had her. Ia had to protect her.
She gave Brinn’s hand a squeeze, then looked toward the pilot seat, her eyes landing on Knives’s head tilted back onto the headrest.
Gently, she unlaced her fingers from Brinn’s. With one last look to make sure Brinn was resting peacefully, she stood up and made her way to the copilot’s chair.
She wasn’t sure how to start a conversation with him, after everything that had happened. And she didn’t mean what had happened with the Armada.
That kiss.
She wished a thousand times over that she could do away with the memory of it, but it lingered, tickling deep inside her brain. Flashes of his touch, his scent rushed at her like oxygen to a fire.
These were dangerous thoughts. Completely dangerous.
Knives broke the silence. “It’s never a dull moment with you.”
“That was nothing,” she said, trying to settle into their natural back-and-forth. “You should see what it’s like when I have more time to plan.”
“You saved
us,” he said, his gaze resting on her.
His long, slender fingers darted toward the autopilot button and then came back to his chest, his fingers tugging at his zipper. His hand disappeared inside his suit, and he pulled out a silver object the shape of a small egg, a sensor diode flashing at one of the ends. Knives swiped his finger on the other end, and a small image projected between them, fading up from black. Her heart. It pounded and pulsed in steady rhythm. Upon its surface shimmered a net of wires, sparking slightly with each heartbeat.
“I don’t know if the general told you everything this little thing can do,” Knives said. “This sensor monitors the Commonwealth tech implanted inside you. It can pinpoint exactly where you are in all the known galaxies, and with one button, it can stop your heart cold.”
Ia understood. She had led Einn to Aphelion, gave him the layouts to tear the place down. Cadets had died. These were her crimes, and they couldn’t go unpunished.
“There’s one more thing it can do,” Knives continued. He flipped the sensor over and slid open a hidden section. Underneath was a switch. “It can deactivate it.”
With his thumb, he briskly flipped the switch. She felt a murmur in her chest, and her gaze lifted to the holo-image hovering before them. The webbed lights faded away until all that was left was the beat of her own heart.
“You’re free.”
“That’s it,” she whispered. “That’s all it took.”
A rush of immeasurable joy flooded into her, and everything looked crystal clear and absolutely perfect. But then she glanced over at him cautiously, on the probable chance this was some awful joke. “You’re really letting me go?”
She waited for him to laugh in her face, but there was none of that. He looked her straight in the eyes. “I’m giving you the freedom to choose. After everything, you deserve at least that.”
Ia gazed off into the All Black, feeling the infinite wonder of the void before her. She was free. Free. And she could do whatever she Deus-damned wanted.