Broken Moon Series Digital Box Set

by F. T. Lukens

  “No coggin’ shit.”

  “You will not take that tone with me. I am your mother, no matter what you think of me.”

  “What I think is that you were scared of me, like everyone else, like you should be, and you couldn’t face that. Were you scared of Liam too? Is he like me?” Ren held out his hand. Electricity snapped and crackled down his fingers, flickering along his skin. “What didn’t you tell him? Where is he?”

  “Ren, I wasn’t scared of you. I was scared for you.”

  She stood and folded her hand over Ren’s, snuffing out the sparks of power. Her eyes flashed gold. Ren’s star receded, tucked back into his chest, and when he squeezed his eyes shut, the blue faded. He blinked and caught the fading color in his mother’s eyes.

  “How did you do that?”

  “There is much more going on than you understand,” she repeated. “I’m sorry you had to figure it out on your own. And you must know that everything I did was to protect you and your brother.” She released his hand. “Now, sit down.”

  Ren folded to the floor, partly in shock, partly from compulsion. Ren had always attributed his power to his nonexistent father. It hadn’t crossed his mind that his mother would be the one. He should’ve known.

  Asher patted his arm, a gesture that didn’t go unnoticed by his mother. “Do you want me to step outside?” he asked.

  “No. You should hear this too,” Ren said. He lifted his chin and waited for his mother to argue, but she did not.

  “I’m not powerful,” she said. “And I can only comfort and calm. When you were small, you toddled to one of your toys, touched it, and your eyes went blue. When that happened, I had your stepfather throw out all of the limited tech we had. And we kept it that way.”

  “I figured it out in Vos’s dungeon. Why we didn’t have tech. Why you wouldn’t let me go to the space docks.” His throat went tight. He had guessed about his mother’s knowledge all those months ago, but to hear it confirmed was entirely different. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you hide it?”

  “I was hoping you would never be forced to know. I was hoping that it would pass you by, and you would never know the star that pulsed within you.”

  Asher raised an eyebrow. “Your plan was that you hoped he wouldn’t need to use it? Wouldn’t be captured? Even though you knew there was a chance? That is the worst plan. That’s not even a plan. And what if he wanted to leave?”

  She stared at Asher with a flat expression.

  Ren turned his head away, against the realization that all his aspirations, all his hopes of leaving Erden would have never manifested if he hadn’t been taken by the soldiers. Liam had been right: His dreams were dust.

  “I was never going to leave here,” he said softly. “You condemned me to a life on this weedin’ planet, in this stupid village, because you were afraid.”

  “This is a wonderful life, Ren. This isn’t anything to be ashamed of, even if drifters deem it backward or spacers don’t understand.”

  Ren didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He didn’t know what to say. He bowed his head and stared at the dirt floor.

  “You couldn’t have left, Ren. You needed to stay here and remain hidden. There are things you don’t know. Things about us, about star hosts, and what we had to do to survive.”

  “I can’t listen to any more.” Ren stood. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “I think I’ll join you,” Asher said, also standing.

  His mother got to her feet, and the three of them huddled in the shack. The air was too close; the secrets were too thick.

  “You have to listen to me, Ren. You need the whole story.”

  Ren shook his head. “I’ve been figuring it out on my own. I can figure out the rest, too.” He brushed past Asher, pushed the blanket curtain aside, and left the shack. He heaved a breath of the crisp, unfiltered air.

  “Your son is wonderful and amazing and brave. He’s incredibly brave. I wish you could’ve seen that while he was here and trusted him enough to tell him what he needed to know. He’s survived, but not without cost, and that could have been prevented.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, as someone not burdened with the gift of the stars.”

  “No, it’s easy for me to say as someone who cares for him.”

  Ren sucked in a breath.

  Asher left the shack with a determined stride and stopped short. “I thought you would’ve walked a little farther away.” His cheeks bloomed with a pink flush.

  Ren licked his lips; his pulse beat hard beneath his skin. “You care for me?”

  “Of course, you know that.”

  Ren did. Away from the ship, away from tech, this fact was a solid, irrefutable presence in his middle, separate from the star. It had its own space, its own force, and Ren could’ve cried from the warmth. He lifted his hand, curled it around the nape of Asher’s neck, and drew him close. The kiss was soft, not filled with the desperation of their other kisses, but significant all the same. It took a moment for Asher to respond, and, when he did, he sank into it, relaxed the tense line of his shoulders, and pulled Ren closer with an arm around his waist.

  They kissed in front of the home where Ren’s parents lived, in the middle of a community of which Ren never really was a member. They kissed and didn’t care who saw, and while they did, while Ren’s lips molded to Asher’s mouth, he was at peace. The turmoil which constantly threatened to break him into pieces was soothed, and the universe shrank to Asher’s hand combing through his hair, and the movement of Asher’s mouth on his, and the beat of Asher’s pulse beneath Ren’s fingertips.

  It was Asher who broke away, too soon, and Ren wasn’t prepared to relinquish the quiet thrum of intimacy, of affection.

  “Does this mean I’m forgiven for being an arrogant drifter birdman?” Asher’s words vibrated against Ren’s mouth; his breath ghosted over Ren’s cheek.

  Ren huffed a laugh. “We’ll work on it.” He pressed a quick kiss to Asher’s cheek. “What about me? Does this mean I’m forgiven for being an unpredictable, sometimes homicidal, star host?”

  “We’ll work on it.”

  Ren smiled, and it wasn’t brittle. He didn’t feel as if he’d break.

  “I haven’t seen you smile in so long,” Asher whispered; he touched the corner of Ren’s mouth with his fingertips. “I had forgotten what it looked like.”

  Ren clutched Asher tighter, prepared to continue working on forgiveness, but a hurried crunch of footsteps and a loud voice stopped him.

  “Oh, thank the stars!” Jakob yelled. “I need to talk to both of you, right now.”

  8

  They found a fire and a ring of rocks. No one was nearby, which was a blessing, and the fire was large enough that it created a comfortable circumference of heat. They sat down, and Jakob kicked a bundle of firewood.

  “I’ve been here less than a day and I already want to get the hell out of here.”

  “Me, too,” Ren said quietly. He rubbed his hands together, then splayed his fingers toward the fire.

  “My father wanted to know why I didn’t come back sooner. He said I had shirked my duties here and said I was a coward for staying away so long.” Jakob crossed his arms and frowned. “It’s not like I almost died or anything.”

  Jakob’s admission was a surprise. To Ren, Jakob had led a charmed life of privilege, the only son of the head of the village council, the wealthiest man in the village. But there was more to the story, and, seeing Jakob hunched over his knees, Ren empathized.

  “We could leave,” Ren said softly.

  Asher snapped his gaze to him. “I thought you would want to stay. Coming home was what you wanted from the beginning.”

  Ren furrowed his brow. “I have wanted to come home. I’ve wanted to find Liam. But this isn’t my home. My home doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “No, it doesn�
��t,” Jakob said.

  Asher looked at them. “If you don’t want to be here, we don’t have to stay. We could head back to the port and find transport.”

  Jakob shifted. He stared at the fire. “I don’t know.”

  Asher gazed at Ren, searching.

  Ren shrugged. “I don’t want to be stuck here. And if I stay, I will be. And I… I don’t want to lose you. And the family I’ve built.”

  “Are you sure?” Asher asked.

  “No. I’m not.” Ren took a breath. “I’m not well on the ship. I’m a liability, a prisoner to the Corps there. But I don’t belong here either.” He swallowed. “I’ve outgrown it here. And Liam is still out there. But I….” Ren trailed off.

  “Face it, Ren. We don’t belong here. I don’t want to leave my sisters, but they are safe. And I have other things to look for.”

  Ren nodded. “Yeah. Yeah.” He scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “I wish I had a place where I belonged.”

  Asher touched the back of Ren’s hand. “We’ll leave and if we don’t find a place, we’ll make one.”

  “But what about…” Ren trailed off. He hadn’t heard anyone mention Sorcha’s name.

  Jakob kicked the firewood again. “She’s not here, Ren. No one has seen her. I asked about her family and… well… apparently there is a gravesite at the village.”

  “I know.”

  Jakob pressed his lips together. “You didn’t tell me.”

  “Because I didn’t want to take away your hope.”

  Jakob nodded. He tossed a twig into the flames. “I am going to keep looking for her. I’m not going to give up.” He sighed. “So what happened with you? I saw you two had made up.”

  “We’re working on it,” Asher said.

  “My mother and I had an argument,” Ren said. He tilted his head and looked at the canvas above him. It blocked the stars. A spot in Ren’s chest ached because he couldn’t trace the familiar patterns. “About what I am.”

  “She knew, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sucks.”

  “Understatement.”

  They sat in silence, the only sound the crackling of the fire, and the distant hum of the encampment. Asher held out his arm, and Ren squirmed to his side, enjoying the closeness while lost in his thoughts. He laid his head on Asher’s shoulder and watched the flickering flames. His eyes became heavy-lidded. Emotional and physical exhaustion caught up with him. He slipped into a doze, curled into Asher’s body.

  Ren dreamed. He couldn’t make out the setting. The area was dark save for a small light. But he wasn’t afraid. The dark wasn’t ominous, but merely there, a void. He squinted into the distance, and a blob of color appeared, but it had no shape, and the longer Ren stared, the harder it was to discern anything about the figure. However, he would swear he heard Liam’s voice. “This is much harder when you’re not connected to your own power.”

  “Liam?”

  Before he could receive a response, Ren was shaken awake, and he snapped to the present.

  “Ren?”

  “I’m awake,” he grumbled.

  “Sure you are,” the voice was not Asher’s or Jakob’s.

  Ren craned his neck to see Beatrice, her hands on her hips, her red hair spilling over her shoulders and sticking up in places to create a halo in the firelight.

  “I hear you weeds want to get out of here.”

  “Where did you hear that?” Ren asked. He sat up, pulled from Asher’s embrace, self-conscious under her knowing stare.

  “A little bird told me. Sound travels in the hot box. Might want to keep your voices down next time.”

  “What’s it to you?” Jakob said.

  Beatrice arched an eyebrow. “We’re going on a supply run to the castle in the morning. If you haven’t noticed, we could do with comms and alarm systems, maybe even force-field tech for the entrance. You weeds want to come?”

  Jakob and Ren exchanged a look. It would give them a purpose, at least for a while, and delay them having to make a decision to leave Erden altogether. They could help the encampment while using the time to think about their own destinies.

  “You could look for clues,” Ren said. “Maybe find a trail from where Sorcha escaped.”

  Ren knew any trail would be long gone, trampled over, broken up by weather and the change of the seasons, but Ren couldn’t take away Jakob’s hope, not when Ren clung to his own.

  “And you could have breathing space,” Jakob replied.

  Ren gathered his legs beneath him and stood. He was slightly taller than Beatrice, and she crossed her arms.

  “We’ll go.”

  “Good. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

  “Do you have a place where we can sleep?”

  She raised her eyebrows, but didn’t question that they would not sleep with their families.

  “We have a communal area with free beds. You can doze there.”

  They followed Beatrice into the heart of the camp. Asher placed a hand on Ren’s shoulder, and Ren was bolstered by the touch.

  * * *

  Ren settled down at Asher’s side in the communal tent. Though he was exhausted, Ren couldn’t sleep, but Asher’s soft snores were a calming rhythm in his ear. His mind flitted from thought to thought, flinched from his mother’s duplicity, and wondered what his brother could do, whether he knew his power, and where he might possibly be. He thought about going back to the citadel, and asked himself if that was a wise choice. Maybe they should go to the spaceport instead and leave, leave this place where Ren didn’t fit, where Ren would remain for his lifetime, if his family had their choice.

  That was what stung the most. He had talked nonstop about leaving, about working on the drifts, about honing a skill that would be marketable, that would earn him passage. His parents had heard every word, often at the dinner table after a long day of shearing or planting or harvesting. What had they thought when he babbled about the contrails he had seen that day? Why had they remained silent? Had they cared? Ren gave up trying to sleep. He slid off the cot and the blanket and stood.

  Asher stirred immediately. His eyes blinked open in the low light of the banked fires. “Ren?” He smacked his lips. “You okay?”

  “Fine. Stretching. Go back to sleep.”

  Asher huffed. “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Asher rolled over, pulled the thin blanket up to his ears, and dropped into sleep on the next snore.

  Ren left the communal area, which was just a large tent in the middle of the camp with several beds. Beatrice explained it was a good place for guards on duty to sleep between shifts and a transitional place for new refugees before their own accommodations could be arranged. They’d had a steady stream of new people for a while, from different villages, but the numbers had decreased once winter struck. Ren understood why. He wouldn’t have wanted to search for a hidden encampment in the middle of winter either, unless he absolutely had to.

  Ren wandered a few feet from the tent and stretched his arms over his head. His shirt rode up; goosebumps bloomed over the skin of his stomach in the cooler air away from the fires. He yawned and sighed and looked up at the canvas. He frowned. As silly as it seemed, he did miss the view of the stars. He sighed and imagined the twinkle of the constellations against the blue-black sky.

  A twig snapped to Ren’s left, and he turned quickly, peering into the darkness. “Is someone there?” he whispered. He took a few steps toward the sound. His bare feet were noiseless on the packed dirt and moss. “Hello—”

  A hand clamped over his mouth, cutting off his speech and his air, and a strong arm wrapped around his middle, pinning his arms to his sides. He yelled against the gloved palm, twisted and turned in the iron grip, but his captor lifted Ren off the ground. He fought, kicked his legs, and threw his head back only to find a ha
rd shoulder, but the arms held him, crushing Ren to a strong chest. Fingers dug into his jaw, and it hurt.

  Ren lashed out with his power, but found no tech, nowhere for his star to go. He could only thrash and make noise as he was dragged to the outskirts of the camp, out of sight of the communal tent, away from the banked fires.

  “Quit struggling.” The voice was frustrated and fierce, loud in the shell of Ren’s ear, but hushed.

  Ren froze. His stepfather’s large hands clutched him, and they were not gentle, but Ren didn’t think he would hurt him. He held himself stiff and tense, waiting. His stepfather dragged him to the very edge of the encampment, where the trees began to grow thick and the canvas drooped. A line of snow marked the end of the hot box, and Ren shivered as they crossed it. They came to a small break in the branches, and his stepfather stopped.

  “Set him down.”

  Ren’s bare feet sank into the snow. The cold stung his skin, and when he was finally let go, he wrapped his arms around his body. His breath came in fraught, cloudy puffs.

  “Mom?”

  She held a candle but it barely illuminated the space. The darkness was dense under the twined branches of the Laurels. Ren glanced up and spied the broken moon.

  “Yes. I needed to talk to you.”

  Ren’s mouth dropped open, and he settled his incredulous gaze on the cloaked figure of his mother. “Are you serious? You had to kidnap me? What the weedin’ hell?”

  “I had to get you away from that birdman you are traveling with. I couldn’t talk to you in front of him.”

  Ren narrowed his eyes, but didn’t confirm Asher’s identity. Beatrice had warned them sound traveled in the hot box, and it seemed his mother had heard Asher refer to himself as Phoenix Corps. Ren looked at his stepfather, who stood nearby, arms crossed, watching intently, and his expression was confirmation.

  “And the best way to do that was to make me think I was being captured again?”

  “We don’t have time for you to be difficult.”

  Irritation flared, but Ren didn’t speak. He clenched his jaw and gestured for her to continue.