by White, Gwynn
“You’re upset,” Stefan said. “Let me walk you to your quarters, if that’s where you’re going.”
Ember nodded, not daring to speak right now. They started slowly down the corridor, side by side.
“You know,” he said thoughtfully. “I’m still not sure what to think, Ember. I’ve seen so many sides of you. That first day at the market when you were in your element, you chewing me out when you woke up on the shuttle, watching you see the station with fresh eyes—it reminded me of when I first arrived as a kid, when everything was new and exciting.”
She remembered too. It hadn’t been that long ago, yet everything was different now.
“Then you progressed so quickly, and the big bombshell with you being a flare. I didn’t know who you were anymore. I told myself you’d changed. But it wasn’t you who changed, was it?”
He cut off as someone walked by. When he finally continued, his voice was barely audible.
“I always dreamed of becoming a special assistant to High Commander Kane. Pretty much all his assistants become somebody eventually. I longed for the realm to know my name. And then you came along and accidentally became everything I wanted to be.” He chuckled bitterly.
“Stefan—”
“No, let me finish, because I know what you’re going to say. According to the Empire, my grandmother was a terrible person for hiding her gift when she could have used it to serve them. That one thing alone turned her own daughter against her. Everything else, the other 99.9% of her personality, didn’t matter because my mom chose to see her through the Empire’s lens. Because of that, my parents didn’t even question the fact that Grandma was perfectly healthy and should have lived another decade.”
“You think they killed her in prison.”
He nodded. “I knew it immediately. So when I ended Mom’s call, I took a step back from the Empire’s lens and took a good look at my life.”
“And what did you see?”
“You, mostly.” Stefan shot her a teasing smile, which faded quickly. “No, really. My grandmother should have had the right to choose how she wanted to use her gift. I think if they’d forced her into training, she would have acted much like you.”
Ember felt her cheeks warm. “Stefan, I know you mean well. But I’m not the girl your grandmother saw.”
Stefan stopped and turned to face her. “Forget about the vision. Forget about what Commander Kane and the other flickers and the emperor and everyone else wants. When I step away from the Empire’s lens, I see a strong, independent woman who feels deeply for people and will fight to the last breath for those she loves. I see a woman who is fierce and mysterious and holds powers I can’t even begin to understand.” He took her hands in his, warm and strong. “I see a woman who will raise hellfire when she finally decides what she’s doing next. And all I know is I want to be a part of it.”
The very closeness of Stefan made her breathless. Was he really saying these words? She didn’t dare hope.
Three more corners and she’d reach her quarters. Part of her wanted to slow down so she could maximize her time with Stefan. Another part was screaming to get away, to escape before she became even more entangled than she already was. “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“My point is this, Ember. I don’t know what your future is. I haven’t read it, and I don’t know if my grandmother did either. But it doesn’t matter what the stars say. I read this quote from an Earthen writer once that said, ‘The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.’”
The person you decide to be. Not the person she was told to be or saw herself being in a vision. His words reminded Ember of something her mother had said the night after Ember refused Babik’s proposal, just hours before her mother’s death.
Mother sat at the table across from Ember, frowning. She held a cup of green coffee in one hand. She always drank it when her illness got really bad, whether in the morning or at bedtime. Tonight was particularly bad—redness tinged her eyes, and she coughed every other sentence. She gripped the hot drink like a tether holding her to the ground.
“I don’t care for Babik,” Ember had insisted. “He watches me like a bear eyeing a fish. He thinks I’m privileged just to catch his attention. When I speak, he interrupts and argues and insists he knows better.”
“He is trying to impress you.” She coughed again and took a long sip. “You could do worse than the chief’s son. At least you would have plenty of food. And Arama is a kind soul, a good mother-in-law. She would treat you well.”
“I don’t love him.”
Her mother took another thoughtful sip. “Love is a gadje notion, Ember, an excuse and an impossible dream. Here, it is duty and responsibility above all else. It will always remain so.” She shrugged. “You just need to decide who you will be.”
The memory was so sharp, so real it gripped Ember’s throat like a hand. She realized she’d stopped walking. A small, empty corridor jutted off to their right. She stepped into it and fell against a wall, breathing hard.
Forget about what Commander Kane and the other flickers and the emperor and everyone else wants.
Decide who you will be.
She was tired of being the nail driven by another force. Her father had already lived that life, and it had broken him. She would never serve the Empire that way again.
It was time to become the hammer.
“The Union is supposed to be sending a shuttle for me when the battle starts,” she said. “At least that was the plan a few days ago. But I can’t get on it until the ship is disabled. Better yet, the fleet. I just need to have the battle contained first.”
“The entire fleet? But how are you going to do that?”
“Let me worry about it. I’ll send a message when I have it all worked out.”
He laughed, his grip on her hands tightening. “Nice try, but I’m helping you.”
She hesitated. “This isn’t something you just decide, Stefan. This means leaving your family, your friends. This is forever. And if the Empire catches you, they won’t be kind.”
“Probably not, but I’m willing to risk it.”
She gave him a long look, but he seemed sincere. “How can you give up everything so quickly?”
“Ember,” he whispered. “Do you really not see it?”
“See what?”
He took a step toward her. “I give you permission to read me. Look inside, and you’ll see the truth.” His cheeks reddened in a maddeningly adorable way. “Just a peek, though.”
She plunged into his light before thinking about it. She shuffled through his memories, including the one with his grandmother, and found that he’d described it exactly as it happened. She went forward to their first meeting, saw his surprise, interest, then admiration. The warmth in her chest flared into something bright and hot, and she could barely contain the emotion she saw there. From admiration to warmth and affection, and then—something far deeper.
He loved her.
She pulled out, feeling her own cheeks flush at some of the thoughts he held about her.
He watched her expectantly, nervously. “Did you—” he began, but she didn’t give him a chance to continue. She threaded her fingers into his hair and pulled him downward, pressing her lips to his.
She felt his smile against her mouth, his hands pulling her against him. His lips moved against hers, insistent, impatient, strong.
Someone walking by hooted, as if they were just another couple. Two soldiers about to embark on a battle. Just two people from completely different galaxies whose futures were forever intertwined.
She finally pulled away, gasping for breath, and rested her head on his chest. His heart hammered as fast as hers, and his breathing was hard, as if he’d just run a race. His arms tightened even more around her waist, and the thin fabric against her skin felt even more scandalous than usual.
“It’s been torture keeping this to myself,” he whispered. “I’m glad you know.”
> Ember glowed inside. She’d kissed a gadjo, yet she didn’t feel any different. Well, that wasn’t true. She felt remade, whole. Complete. The filthiness and betrayal she’d expected to feel were completely absent, instead replaced by a pulsing heat she’d never felt before.
Love is a gadje notion. If that were true, maybe she’d decide to switch over.
She began to close the distance between them again, eyeing his lips, but he placed a finger on hers. “As much as I’d like to continue this, I think we’d better discuss a plan. You do have one, right?”
She checked her wristband. Thirty minutes until her meeting with Mar.
“Come with me,” she said.
25
They always know,” Kane snapped at one of his assistants. “How? They’re always in formation when we arrive.”
“I don’t know, sir. I wish I did—”
“Oh, stop sniveling. Are we ready?”
“All soldiers at battle stations, sir.”
Ember stood at the window again, but not in Kane’s office. They were in a control room with a huge window and several screens positioned on the walls. Twenty other men and women sat at control panels throughout the room, all watching Kane expectantly.
But Ember wasn’t concerned about them. Instead, she gazed out the window at the Union forces. It was easy to be impressed. Though the Union’s array of ships wasn’t uniform in size and the individual fighters couldn’t be less than three decades old, they did seem well armed and prepared for battle. Anyone who could make Kane go on a rampage like this was a worthy foe.
And a worthy ally, in her case. At least for today.
“They’ve sent us a message in text, sir,” a woman with headphones said. “Their leader requests an unarmed negotiation meeting.”
“I bet she does,” Kane muttered. “Foolish girl. Reply with an order to stand down and surrender.”
“Yes, sir.” She turned back to her panel.
Stefan was in his new department overseeing the new flickers and ensuring that what they saw got transferred to the weapons specialists. His part in the plan was simple and, Ember hoped, not too dangerous. Mar had installed a small stolen security mic in Ember’s jacket, which was connected directly to Stefan. He would hear Ember’s orders and execute them, making it look as if she had obeyed and leaving her free to complete her part in the plan. It didn’t allow him to reply to her, but Ember hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.
Mar had also managed to send an encrypted message to Amai by routing it through several other systems. It was risky, and there was no way for Amai to respond, but Mar seemed optimistic it had gone through. They’d requested that Amai bring a stolen Empire shuttle with an empty hold and wait away from the fighting. In just an hour and forty-five minutes, Ember, Stefan, and Mar would eject from the ship in an escape pod and find her.
Ember hoped the message would be enough to keep Amai from blowing up their ship with them still on board. She hadn’t done it yet, which was a good sign.
Ember’s role was the most dangerous of all. She would wreak as much havoc as possible to disrupt the Empire’s offensive efforts. But she’d have to be subtle enough to slip under Kane’s radar. Especially since he wanted her right by his side.
Another assistant was talking to Kane now, speaking quickly.
“. . . more ships than expected, sir. Do your orders stand?”
“They mean to intimidate us, but they can’t. We have something they don’t.” Kane stepped over to Ember and slid his hand along her neck, gathering some of her hair. She flinched at his touch, and he smiled. “Are you ready to show off our power, my gypsy?”
“Yes, sir.” Just not in the way he expected.
He dropped her hair, but didn’t move away. “Status, Leonard?”
“Armed and ready, sir.”
“The floor is yours.”
Leonard bowed, then began barking orders before he’d even straightened, and the room came to life as everyone scrambled to obey.
Kane squinted at the ships as he softly spoke to Ember. “I want you to look for a specific person. Their commander, a woman aged thirty-six. She’ll be heavily shielded.”
The Daughter. Of course Kane would seek her first. Ember didn’t intend to kill her, but she scanned the ships, pushing ever farther. It was difficult to scan so many vessels at once. Pilots, mechanics, security, soldiers. Children. She flinched. There were families on some of the ships. They were frantically evacuating, but it was clear the Empire had caught them before they were ready.
“I don’t sense her, sir,” Ember said honestly. “She must be giving orders from afar.”
“Her death would greatly accelerate this war, gypsy, perhaps save thousands of lives. Keep looking.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The first shot is off, sir!” a soldier cried out unnecessarily. The flash of light that burst from an Empire ship ahead was impossible to miss. The well-aimed shot slammed straight into a freighter at its weakest shield-point, and its side erupted in flames.
It’s begun, Stefan and Mar. Please be safe.
“Look for their general, then,” Kane told her. “Once he’s dead, take out the captains. They employ sixteen per carrier and two on smaller vessels.”
“General and captains. Yes, sir.” Ember didn’t want too many casualties on the Union side, but the lack of deaths would be suspicious as well. She hoped Stefan had gotten the message. He would focus the weapon room’s efforts in trying to minimize Union damage.
The battle had begun in earnest now. Shots flew on both sides, explosions scattering debris like feathers at a pheasant hunt. Ember focused her attention on the decks below. She would have to avoid a systematic approach to her ship’s destruction. It would be too obvious.
Stars, forgive me for this.
She tested a captain first, a particularly sour man who barked orders and physically attacked his soldiers when they didn’t move quickly enough. She sent a blow to the man’s hot, angry soul. It flickered, and for a moment Ember held her breath, watching it carefully. It dimmed but didn’t go out.
Relieved, she released her breath, then went back to work.
* * *
She couldn’t say how long it had been. Ember’s face felt too warm; her uniform was soaked in sweat. Kane was relentless in ordering entire ships taken down. It had taken her nearly an hour to render an entire ship unconscious, something that enraged Kane. He screamed at her, threatened her, breaking her concentration.
He didn’t know what else she’d done in that time.
She checked her wristband, surprised to see that nearly an hour and a half had already gone by. Ember had planned to sneak out while Kane was issuing orders, but the man remained at her side the entire time.
“Sir,” an assistant cried from the back of the room. “There seems to be something poisonous on deck three. The entire deck is on the ground.”
“Quarantine sequence,” Kane snapped.
“Already initiated. Several teams are already down there testing. They can’t detect anything unusual, sir, but it’s spreading upward now. A third of deck four has already succumbed.”
Kane was quiet. How many people per minute?”
“Sir?”
“I want to know how many of my soldiers fall each minute. Ask them.”
The assistant relayed the question, waited nervously, then came back. “Between forty and fifty per minute.”
Kane’s face darkened, and he turned to Ember. Her heart nearly skipped a beat under his murderous gaze.
“Sir?” she asked, but he wasn’t buying her act any longer.
With a growl, he yanked Ember by the collar. “You think to attack my ship, you filthy little traitor?”
She immediately reached out to his inner light—and found it locked away behind an impenetrable shield. “Of course not, sir. I’m obeying your orders.”
Without releasing her, Kane addressed the assistant. “Call the medical bay. Ask if they’ve had an unusually high rate
of officers fall in the past half hour.”
The assistant complied, his face growing paler by the second. Finally he closed the call. “Yes, sir. Six captains and two lieutenants have fallen with no warning whatsoever.”
“Perhaps the Union has a flare too, sir,” Ember said quickly. “Surely you don’t think—”
“I don’t think, you rat. I know.” He released her with a disgusted look and held the trigger so she could see it. “Forty to fifty at once. You’ve been deceiving me all along.”
“Oh, I’m the liar?” Ember shot back. “You never intended to protect Earth.” She felt along Kane’s invisible shield, but the edges were insubstantial. It was like trying to grasp air.
“What the Empire does with its own land is no concern of yours.”
“What you do with my people and my home is absolutely my concern!”
His fist slammed the trigger, and suddenly she was on her knees in agony. She gritted her teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction of crying out.
He grabbed her arm and dragged her toward a door on the opposite side of the room as the pain tore through her insides. The specialists watched her struggle until the door slid closed. Only then did Kane throw her arm to the ground and release the trigger.
Ember trembled, but she forced herself to scan the dark room. It had to be Kane’s quarters—tall and fancy and smelling dreadfully like him. Cupboards much like the one he’d kept the collar in lined the walls. He was opening one now. Kane retrieved a tiny black box, slammed the cabinet shut, then stalked toward her.
“Remember that machine you broke?” Kane said, his voice deadly. “It was a lengthy examination of that machine that made me realize I’ve been going about this the wrong way. Seeing what a flicker sees is slightly helpful. Collaring and torturing a flare into submission is one step further. But it still leaves too much power in your hands, and we can’t have that. You’ve made that all too clear.”