Nexus

by Sasha Alsberg

“My sister wouldn’t stand for you speaking to me in such a way,” Valen said.

  He wanted so badly to rise from his bed and leave the room. But he was too weak. His limbs, despite having rested, still felt like they were full of lead. And each breath still came with effort, as if a weight was sitting upon his lungs.

  Darai shook his head. “Your sister is doing the one thing I warned her never to do. She put her love for Zahn in front of her focus on the mission. She’s lost track of it now.”

  “She’s mourning,” Valen said defensively. “Zahn was half of her heart.”

  Darai nodded, worrying his hands together, the strange scars on his skin catching Valen’s eye. Whatever he’d been through in his earlier years in Exonia...the man must have survived a unique version of hell to have gotten those. And the ones on his face were far deeper.

  “What are you even here for?” Valen asked. “Did you just come to advise me about my own failures? If so, I’m not interested.”

  Darai shook his head, leaning forward in his chair. “Quite the opposite. I came here to tell you the truth. To open your eyes to the reality of what’s to come, Valen.” His eyes took on a strange gleam. “I’ve waited in this galaxy for far too many years. Your mother failed to free Exonia, and your sister has nearly failed me, too, falling prey to love. She loved Xen Ptera too much. She loved Zahn too much. And now she loves you too much. I warned her not to form a bond with you, that you would be, in many ways, greater than she ever could be, and such greatness cannot be contained. That’s why, thanks to your part bringing about Zahn’s death, the love Nor once had for you is gone. Fractured beyond repair.”

  Valen felt like he was spinning, listening to the old man’s words.

  “Nor is going to forgive me,” he stammered. “She just told me so.”

  “She came here to ease her own conscience,” Darai scoffed. “Because she has been given a choice to make, in order to save the mission.”

  Valen remembered Nor’s words from earlier, about difficult choices. “What choice?”

  Darai smiled smugly at him. “Your sister is going to betray you, Valen.”

  “What?” Valen blurted out. The very idea of it was utterly ridiculous, and something Nor would never do.

  But Darai continued, his expression eager as he leaned forward, reaching out to grip Valen’s arm. “Yes, princeling. Your body is dying, an unfortunate side effect of such a display of power, such a stretching of your compulsion across the galaxy. Of course, I knew that would happen all along,” he said dismissively, while Valen stared at him in horror. “No one can live forever, stretched in such a way. So, thanks to my plan, Nor is going to take your mind and wire it into Nexus before you die. Your body will falter, held in endless limbo by the satellite’s life-support system. But your mind, and your power...that will remain forever. Cast out across the galaxy, so that we can rule until the end of the end.”

  Terrifying words.

  And ones that Valen refused to believe, as shock raced through him, holding him in place.

  “Guards,” he called out. “Guards!”

  But his voice was too weak. And before Valen could reach for the panel beside his bed, to request a nurse, something seized him. His body froze, as if it was no longer beneath his control.

  He cried out as a jolt of pain shot through him. A pain that Valen vaguely remembered feeling once before, the very first time Nor had entered his mind.

  “What...what are you doing?” Valen asked frantically.

  Because it was Darai touching his mind now. Darai, a man who had no power, a man who had simply hovered in the shadows all along.

  “It has been far too long,” Darai whispered. Then he closed his eyes, and suddenly Valen’s eyes closed, too.

  He tried to open them, but he felt like a hand was clasped over them. A mental hand was in his mind, too, squeezing, gripping tight, pulling all control from Valen. He groaned as the pain worked its way through his skull, like a parasite digging deep, inch by inch.

  “Powerful, yes,” Darai said, his voice speaking into Valen’s mind. “But you are no match for a true Yielded of Exonia.”

  Valen screamed as he felt himself ripped away from his own body. As he entered the familiar domain of his own mind, his fortress in the distance. Something carried him across the sky, over the valley of the dead, the cold wind slapping him across the face as he soared toward the castle.

  He was thrown inside, into one of the turrets, where his head cracked against the black obsidinite stones.

  Pain lanced through his skull, and the last thing Valen saw, before the darkness swallowed him whole, was Darai.

  Standing over him, watching with those otherworldly Exonian eyes.

  CHAPTER 30

  ANDI

  Andi wasn’t sure where she was going.

  She simply needed to move, to get away from that room, that crackling fire where she’d watched Lira die.

  Not dead, Andi told herself. She refused to believe it.

  And yet with each step she took, winding her way through the undercity, the truth began to sink in more and more.

  Lon was gone, having sacrificed himself so Andi could get to Lira and set her free. So that she could rescue the girls, and together, they could all live.

  But if Lira was gone, too, then Andi had failed him. Lon had died in vain, and Lira, her beautiful Adhiran pilot, so full of talent and passion and loyalty and dreams...

  Lira was gone.

  Tears filled Andi’s vision as she walked, blurring her path. She let them fall, lifting her hand to her ear to touch the place where her com still remained.

  If only she could reach the girls, she might be able to discover if Lira was truly gone. She might find them all together, alive and well and free.

  But she knew that was another lie, another impossible dream. She’d seen them bowing to Nor, looking as if they praised her with every breath. It wasn’t really them on that holo, Andi knew.

  But would they ever be themselves again?

  Andi walked faster, desperate to find someplace to be alone in her misery.

  She had no ship. No crew.

  And Dex had chosen Klaren’s side, stopping Andi from accepting Nor’s offer. She’d give herself over in a heartbeat if it meant that Breck and Gilly, who still lived, could walk free.

  As she walked, Andi passed by a set of siblings, a brother and a sister, forging armor by a crackling fire, their dark ringlet curls glimmering in the firelight as they hammered the bulletproof armor to their own cadence.

  “I dare the queen’s silver bullets to get through this,” the girl said, using heavily gloved hands to dip the armor into a bucket of fresh Soleran water.

  “I’d like to see her try,” the boy challenged, pounding his own set of armor with a wicked grin.

  Looking at them reminded Andi of Lon and Lira, and it shattered her heart.

  Lira would have loved the sounds, the smells, the feel of this entire place.

  Here, beneath the surface of the world, every man, woman and child, no matter their age, no matter where they hailed from, had come together as one. They’d created an army of the galaxy’s outcasts, of those who had nowhere else to turn.

  Unity wasn’t easy to come by in Mirabel. People were always fighting on different sides. They had their own beliefs, often warring against each other’s. Even Nor, who had united the galaxy, had only done so by force. By using a wicked sort of magic to compel people to get along, to be united in the cause of worshipping her.

  But here?

  Here, the ways of the old world had been stripped away. Gone were the differences in class and race and religion. Everyone had joined together because they believed in a world where they would have a choice in how to live their lives.

  Free will was a cause far more powerful than any other.

  “Last call fo
r the Lights!” someone shouted.

  Andi walked on autopilot, following in the direction of where everyone else seemed to be heading. A small group had formed at the edge of the main cavern, passing a few at a time into a small tunnel she’d never noticed before.

  Andi was about to enter herself when a hand caught hers. She spun, a flash of heat driving through her, but it was only Dex.

  “What do you want, Dextro?” Andi asked.

  His lips parted as he looked into her teary eyes. “You shouldn’t be alone. No one should, after...after that.”

  “Just say it, Dex,” Andi said. “Lira is dead.”

  He blinked back at her, unable to find the right words.

  Andi turned, and Dex followed.

  The tunnel eventually spit them out into a space large enough for a decent crowd. Others had gathered with blankets and mugs, nestled in quiet corners around the dark space. They all faced a massive wall of thick ice that stood like a barrier to another world, aglow with a cool, oceanic blue light.

  Andi chose an empty spot by the back of the cavern. Dex sat down first, leaning in his casual way against the rock wall, and Andi settled beside him, close enough that she could feel the heat of his body.

  She hated him for not choosing her side.

  Hated him more for being right.

  But his presence was an unexpected comfort nonetheless.

  “I never thought it would come to this,” Andi whispered.

  “I know,” Dex said, squeezing her hand. “I’m so sorry, Andi.”

  For a time, they simply sat, watching the others enter the space and choose their respective seats on the ground. Conversations were muted, soft enough that Andi began to wonder if this was a sacred place.

  “Why are you so willing to walk into danger?” Dex asked suddenly.

  Andi leaned her head back against the rocky wall. Dex offered her his shoulder instead. She hated the thought of leaning against him, of being like any other couple, when they were so clearly not. But as she shifted closer to him, accepting his comfort, she knew that Dex was simply another part of her story. He’d stuck with her through battles and blades, and they both had the scars to show for it.

  So why wouldn’t he choose her side now?

  “You know, I never wanted to be a space pirate,” Andi said. She could feel Dex’s soft breathing as his shoulder rose and fell beneath her. “I just never wanted to be someone else’s lackey. Running around the galaxy, doing their bidding. So I did it, originally, to survive. But it wasn’t until I met the girls that I fell in love with taking care of them. Being their captain. And it didn’t matter what I had to do to see them sleep soundly at night, to give them a home with me on the Marauder.”

  She glanced sideways at him, so close she could see the deep scar on his neck that she’d once given him.

  “That hasn’t changed, Dex. No matter where it leads me, no matter what I have to do... I’ll protect my girls, at all costs. Even if it means losing my life in the process.”

  Dex closed his eyes suddenly, pinching them tight as if she’d just stabbed him in the chest all over again, as she’d done all those years ago. “Do you not care about your freedom, Androma? Do you not care about your own life?”

  “Not without my crew,” Andi answered at once.

  “Don’t you want to know what I think about all of this?” Dex asked, eyes flicking open to fall on hers.

  No, she wanted to say. But the word failed her.

  “I think,” Dex said, not pulling away from her gaze, “that you love your crew so fiercely, and with such loyalty, that sometimes you forget about yourself.”

  “I...” Andi’s words trailed away.

  Because he was right again.

  “You’ve been running from death for so long, but now you want to turn around and sprint right back toward it,” he said angrily. “You have no idea what Nor is going to do to you when you land on Arcardius. She could kill you, Andi, or hell, with what she and Valen are capable of, I don’t know what horrors she might unleash on you. After all that you’ve been through, and all that’s been done to you in return, you finally have a chance to fade away from it all. To stay here. To be safe beneath Klaren’s protection, until the time is right, and then she’ll have an army of soldiers to keep you safe as she tries to pull the galaxy out from under Nor. Let her fight this battle. Not you. We could wait this all out, allow things to settle, live our lives the way we always hoped we could. You deserve to be free. You deserve to be at peace.”

  “What you’re speaking of is a coward’s plan,” Andi growled. “I will never be at peace, Dextro. Not without them.”

  “Just imagine that future, for even a moment,” Dex pleaded with her. “Walk away from this. Give yourself a chance at freedom.”

  “There is no freedom, for any of us. Not if what Klaren says is true, if the Solis siblings open that Void. If I can help...if I can be a part of stopping that—”

  “Do you even care about the galaxy, or is this still all about the girls?” Dex demanded.

  He glanced away, his jaw tight. She couldn’t give him the answer he wanted, and she knew she was hurting him, but in this moment, she couldn’t help it. She was tired of keeping secrets, tired of holding back words that desperately needed to be said.

  When Dex looked back at her, his face was full of such sadness that Andi wanted to look away, but he reached up and cupped her face softly in his hands. “I always believed we had a future together, you and me. I always believed it would be us against the world.”

  For years, she’d longed to hear words like that from a man. And Dex had given them to her, time and again, since they had repaired their broken hearts back on Arcardius. Since they had forgiven each other’s sins. But tonight, his words filled her with a sadness so deep she could scarcely breathe.

  “You’re asking me to choose,” Andi said. There came that familiar burn in the back of her throat, that hideous wetness threatening to slip from the corners of her eyes. “Please don’t make me choose. We could escape. We could go to Arcardius, together. You could help me, Dex. We could free the girls and get out of there as a crew.”

  “But their minds, Andi. They won’t be them, even if we could get them out of there!”

  “At least they’ll be alive,” she said.

  “But is that truly living?”

  He swallowed, looking like he, too, was going to cry. Dex did not cry. He shook his head slightly, hair falling into his eyes. “The galaxy’s being threatened, and you’re one of the only people who can help stop it. And I just know there’s a way, Andi—there has to be a way to get around this. To free the girls and save Mirabel, without putting you in unnecessary danger.”

  “There’s no time to find that way,” Andi insisted. “You know it’s true. They’re going to die, Dex, just like Lira. She won’t hesitate to kill them to get to me. And it will be my fault.”

  Dex shook his head. “How could any of this be your fault?”

  “Nor killed her because of me,” Andi sobbed. “I have to go. For Breck and Gilly. I have to, Dex. I can’t lose them all.”

  “I know,” he said. “But, Andi, I’m afraid you’re going to die no matter which path you choose. And I’m afraid you’re completely okay with that.”

  She didn’t know what to say. So she backed away from him, settling against the cold cavern wall.

  As she stared forward, a new silence seemed to fall over the crowd. And the wall of ice, still barely aglow, began to transform.

  It was a slight change at first, like the time before the rising of the sun. The blue, once a gentle glow that spanned the entire surface of the wall, took on a deeper hue. As if something was coming closer.

  Then a tendril of thick, fiery red light appeared on the other side of the ice, soaring from one side of the wall to the other, then darting away, fading as it went.
Andi’s breath caught in her throat as she watched, utterly transfixed by the sight. Another appeared, this time as yellow as the fields on Uulveca, bright as a burning sun.

  “They’re not lights,” Dex marveled, pointing at the wall of ice as Andi watched, wide-eyed, the moving display. “They’re massive needlefish. That ice wall is holding back an underground lake that’s been here for centuries.”

  The fish danced, appearing like ribbons of light, flashing in colors so brilliant that it reminded Andi of the fish inside the Adhiran mountain of Rhymore, where she’d once fought and trained with her girls. It was in Rhymore where Andi had discovered how great a source of strength the girls were for her. But she was a source of strength for them, too. Each one of them, including her, creating a sort of glue that held everything together.

  A family.

  And somewhere along the way, Dex had come back into her life, into her heart. He’d carved out a space just big enough for him.

  Could she love them all—her crew and Dex? Could she open herself up to the threat of pain that would come when she inevitably lost him, too?

  People didn’t stick around in Andi’s life. So she’d gotten used to running.

  The problem with Dex was that he was too damned stubborn to stop chasing after her. Even when she’d driven a knife into his chest and begged him to quit.

  Andi looked up as a school of smaller, more brilliant needlefish arrived, their outlines like bursts of fireworks on display. The entire cavern flashed and lit up with their colors, and the crowd watched in reverence as they spun and danced in the water beyond.

  “If you go to Arcardius, I’m going with you,” Dex said suddenly, taking Andi’s hand.

  She turned to him, a question in her gray eyes. “I have no plan. I have no guarantee that I’ll survive this. That we’ll survive this.”

  His grip was warm and so familiar. “I know that. But I learned, ages ago, that when you put your mind to something, no one can tear you away from it. So if you’re going...then I’m going, too. We’ll free the girls, and then we’ll find a way to shut down that weapons network from the inside. Just like Klaren said.”