by Rebecca Rode
A list of names and photos popped up immediately. He quickly scanned through the information, then sat back with a sigh. Nearly all of them were flickers, and all had experience as officers. They’d have soldiers under them, investigating and reporting back. And he had Karyl the skeptic.
“Very well, then,” he muttered. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter 7
Five days. She’d been working with the team for five days and they’d made little progress. They were falling into a rhythm now, at least, and Ember knew some of their strengths and weaknesses. Most had very basic training and a limited range, so she’d paired the more experienced flickers with those individuals. Over time, some began to stand out as exceptional.
The twin Brennan had a quick mind, a courageous spirit, and an obedient nature. But even more, he could glean information from a person more quickly than even Ember.
The boy Bex seemed to consider himself one of the adults and insisted on being treated as such. He preferred to keep his history to himself. Syd the teenager wanted to participate in every demonstration to show off her skills to Ember. She could handle up to nine lights at once where most struggled with four. And Reina—
Well, Reina was Reina. She came to every practice but rarely participated. She acted as though their training sessions were her personal entertainment, standing there with her arms folded and smirking when someone failed. Ember didn’t find it necessary to discipline her, not as long as the others were working hard to push the limits of their ability.
Mar had said not to trust her. Obviously the feeling was mutual.
They practiced hand-to-hand combat today, Brennan doing surprisingly well with his partner. They pulled their punches, but Brennan’s moves were especially crisp. Ember couldn’t help but recall Mar saying he wanted to beat the bad guys. He seemed to be training to do exactly that.
His sister hung back yet again, refusing to engage. Ember was considering a lecture when shouting across the room caught her attention.
Shoving his sparring partner, one man shouted, “You call yourself a flicker? I’ve seen four-year-olds throw a better hook.”
“With your stance, a four-year-old could down you by looking at you cross-eyed,” his opponent snapped, shoving him back.
Then it began. The two threw themselves at each other, fists flying, their eyes wild and angry. The sparring session pulled to a halt around her as the other flickers stopped to watch.
Ember stood there. Bex shouted at them to stop. Reina and a few others watched Ember as if waiting to see what she would do. Brennan was already making his way over, looking determined.
You could end this in a second.
The thought felt disconnected, like a whisper in her ear. It was true enough. The men’s shields were weakened by emotion. She could reach in, send a blow, and level them. Easily.
The thought came again, stronger this time. End this. Show them the power you hold, and they’ll never cross you again.
That made her pause. Only Reina had crossed her, so to speak. She had nothing to prove to her team other than her determination to help, and showing off would weaken what fragile trust had developed. They needed to be a team, a unit—and that could never happen if she knocked them around like inferiors.
You’re in charge. Act like it. The words pulsed in her mind.
But they also need to respect me enough to act like soldiers instead of children, she chided her thoughts. And now she was talking to herself. Perhaps she should have accepted Mar’s offer after all.
Respect is earned, the voice said.
Reina smirked, probably thinking Ember was too afraid to step in.
With a sigh, Ember extended her inner arm. But instead of making contact, she threw a gentle blow at the first man’s internal shield. It cracked, then fell away weakly. The other’s came down immediately afterward.
The two men on the floor froze, gaping at her, the fist of the guy on top still cocked in midair.
“Stand and apologize,” Ember said firmly. “Now.”
The first one grumbled something to his companion, who muttered back. Both had blood dripping down their noses, although the first seemed to have gotten the worst of it, his swollen eye already turning purple.
Ember folded her arms. “Not to each other. To me.”
Silence.
The first man bowed low. “I’m truly sorry for interrupting your practice, Lady Flare.”
“Thank you, Lady Flare,” the second man said. His voice trembled. “Thank you for not hurting us. It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t.” Ember whirled around and headed for the door. “That’s enough for today. Dismissed.”
“What just happened?” somebody whispered across the room. Ember didn’t wait to hear the response. Instead, she stepped out into the sunlight and positioned herself on the platform, motioning for her driver to approach. She felt Reina’s disapproving eyes bore into her back.
When the driver pulled up, Ember stepped gratefully into the vessel and sagged into her seat with a long sigh. She was no officer. The Daughter asked too much of her. A few short months before, Ember had been a simple future teller. Her experience with the universe consisted of a wariness of unclean meat and her desire to return home to her sick father. And now she was expected to train a military unit? She’d only come to—
The driver turned to face her. Neraline.
“I need to speak with you,” she said urgently. “I’m sorry, but it’s the only way.”
Ember glanced longingly at the door, which had just closed. Then they were pulling away. “I guess I don’t have much choice.”
“You have to know about your father. I know this isn’t a pleasant topic for you, but word is getting out about your training sessions. You’ll receive your first mission assignment soon, and then it will be too late.” She turned back to the instrument panel.
Ember groaned inwardly. The last thing she needed right now was a collection of emotional stories about her father that would only make this worse. Dai had married her mother. She wanted to remember him that way.
“Look,” Ember said. “Your stories about Dai—I mean, my father, they’re in the past. A friendship with me will not heal whatever happened between you two. That was a long time ago. I think we should just move on.”
The older woman grinned into the mirror. “Oh, dear. I don’t wish to rehash my relationship with your father. I came to terms with that long ago. What I want to discuss is his special ability, the power you inherited.”
A couple of weeks ago, Ember would have been excited to ask her questions. But now that she knew what her power entailed, it was the last thing she wanted to discuss. Well, second to last. And she’d already made her decision—she would use her abilities as much as she had to in order to free Stefan and make the Empire suffer. This was far greater than whatever Neraline worried about.
Ember turned away. “You’ve told me about the cost, and I appreciate your concern—”
“I told you I knew what your father was before he did,” she rushed on, as if Ember hadn’t spoken.
“Forgive me, but I doubt that. He was the first flare who ever existed.”
“Not true. He was the second, Ember. His mother was the first.”
Ember tensed, turning to Neraline. The woman carefully watched her in the mirror, waiting to see how she would react.
“His mother,” Ember repeated. “But not his father?”
“Not that we know of. His father was a flicker, but that’s as much as I could discern. I worked on the flicker breeding program as a medic under my mother, who was a physician. She told me what Nick really was.”
Now she had Ember’s attention. Ember stared at the woman as if seeing her for the first time. “You worked for the Empire?”
Neraline threw her hands up in a defensive gesture, then grabbed the wheel again. “Don’t look at me like that. Your father did too, if you’ll recall. My job was to monitor the flickers, to try and ca
tegorize them by strength and skill.”
Ember didn’t speak for a long moment, trying to process this new information. “You knew my grandmother.”
“I didn’t know her personally. She was strictly quarantined, so not even my mother could have spoken with her face-to-face. I knew of her. But that’s not why I’m here, Ember. I want you to know that this power of yours, this ability that makes you different from the other flickers, isn’t what you think it is.”
“I think it’s a curse.” The words broke free before she could stop them.
“Your father called it that too when I told him what my mother had said about him. You see, his abilities didn’t manifest until his late teens. He’d thought he was a flicker until a routine round of testing revealed something different, something unique. I had to warn him.” She paused. “I think I was in love with him by that point. There I was, studying to be a physician like my mother, serving honorably, only to be derailed by a pair of pretty eyes.”
Ember’s stomach twisted. Her mother had often praised Dai’s eyes framed by long, dark lashes. Hearing the same from Neraline cheapened her mother’s memory somehow.
Neraline swallowed and turned back to her driving. “Anyway, he and I were both excited at the prospect of his new gift. Commander Kane was too when he received the report. He came back a few days later and took Nick away. It was a long two years before Nick returned. When they brought him back, he—well, he’d changed.”
“How?”
“Kane ordered him evaluated because Nick’s powers had grown so strong he could barely contain them. It was like his power was taking over his mind, like his control was slipping. There were moments when his eyes would grow hard and he barely remembered who his friends were. And then he would do strange things. Horrible things.”
Ember sat back in her seat and stared out the window. She couldn’t recall her father ever losing control. He avoided the others in the village, yes, but he was a private man. And he never used his gift, not that she noticed. He refused to discuss Ember’s gift at all. That was one of the reasons she hadn’t known about it until her kidnapping.
Was it true? Had Dai spent Ember’s childhood fighting a battle against himself?
“We couldn’t cure him,” Neraline went on. “He was having nightmares and violent panic attacks that often ended with bodies on the floor. Commander Kane wanted to use him anyway, to keep him locked up between battles so he couldn’t accidentally hurt any innocents. But Nick couldn’t live like that, so he told me he was running away. I convinced him to let me come along.”
So she’d won that particular argument. Ember recalled what she’d seen in Neraline’s memories—the hurt and betrayal as he tried to leave her behind. It seemed almost life and death to her. “And?”
“We disguised ourselves and went to a shady station in the second sector to take work at a warehouse.” Neraline’s voice was strained now. “It was there we both realized the depth of his problem. He could no longer protect me from himself, so . . . he left.”
Ember didn’t push for more details. He must have found a solution, hollow as it was, because he had been in control of his faculties when he stumbled across the Roma village. He had to have been to capture the heart of Ember’s mother.
Did he feel he was betraying Neraline every time he took this new Roma woman into his arms? Did he imagine Neraline when he leaned in to kiss her?
Her heart clenched, and she folded her arms against the thought. No. Her parents loved each other. She’d seen it in the way her mother waited for him at the door, how he embraced her when he returned from work. Her death had changed him forever. And now they were together somewhere in the stars, watching over Ember. She just had to remember that.
“You’re worried I’ll lose control like he did,” Ember said. “That the inner light will take over my mind.”
“That about covers it, yes. That’s why you must never use your power again. It’s far too dangerous. For you and for those you keep close to you. For all of us.”
Ember reflected upon the training session earlier. Her ability was the only thing keeping her team together. It made her valuable, made punishing the Empire possible. As much as she hated her gift for the pain it brought, at least it would restore some measure of what she’d lost. Neraline asked the impossible.
The floating pods outside were thinning, Ember noted in relief. She could see their building in the distance. A dull anger began to pulse in Ember’s chest. Neraline’s claims were too outlandish. The woman was obviously unstable.
“He meant so much to me, Ember. He was a good man, easy to love. He’s had a piece of my heart ever since. I always expected him to return. Waited years, decades. If I hadn’t heard of his death, I’d probably still be waiting.” She flushed. “But enough about that. I’m sorry for your loss.”
The anger inside flared to a burning heat. “You were children,” Ember said. “You barely knew each other.”
“Sometimes young love is the purest, Ember. We loved each other despite our differences and weaknesses. I wish the same for you someday.”
Ember’s breath hitched. How many times had Dai used that phrase? Happiness is being with the person you love. I wish the same for you someday. It wasn’t until just before Ember’s kidnapping that Dai mentioned the possibility of arranging a marriage for Ember. Even then he’d respected her wishes and allowed her the freedom to choose for herself—his last gift to her.
Stefan’s smile returned to her mind now, filling her with warmth. She still remembered the feel of his arms around her, his utter acceptance of who she was and who he believed she could be. His interest in her culture. The look of awe on his face when she sang for him. Even now his absence made her feel strangely cold. What would Dai think of Ember’s fight to rescue him? Would he approve of Ember uniting herself with an Empire-bred flicker?
Yes. She knew he would because he’d raised her to believe in love. Neraline’s presence in that cycle made Ember’s thoughts sour.
Neraline’s voice quieted. “There’s one more thing. I have reason to believe your father’s unnatural gift, the oddity he inherited from his mother’s DNA, wasn’t an Empire discovery. I believe the Union found it first.”
“Unnatural? Oddity?” Ember burst out. “You make Dai sound like a medical specimen.”
“He was, to the Empire.
“But why would the Union experiment on its own people?”
“I’m not sure, but it did,” Neraline said a bit too calmly for Ember’s taste. “My mother worked with them before defecting. Hence why the Empire placed her so highly—she told them everything. Stole every medical secret the Union had.”
They were drawing near the building now, and Ember could see her guards leaping to their feet and drawing themselves into a salute.
Medical secret? Ember gritted her teeth. “I don’t care what you believe. Flickers and flares were created by the stars. My gift may be a curse, but it’s not a medical one. And my father was not an oddity.”
“Ember—”
Something inside her snapped. “No. I’m done talking about this. You’ve insulted my father’s memory enough. He loved my mother, and she loved him. He never spoke your name, Neraline. Not once.”
Neraline flinched as if Ember had slapped her. She opened her mouth as if to say something. But she must have thought better because she snapped it closed and sharply yanked the wheel, steering the vessel to the platform. Then she sat there, blinking rapidly as she stared out the window. “I always thought we’d die together,” she said, her whisper almost too faint to hear. “In battle or some such nonsense. That was always the plan. When I heard he’d passed . . . .”
Ember couldn’t bear this conversation any longer. “You should have moved on like he did.” The moment the hatch opened, she stalked out, forcing the guard to scramble out of her way.
“I tried,” the older woman’s voice said behind her. It broke on the last syllable.
The image of Neraline b
linking back tears lingered long after Ember had bolted the door behind her.
Chapter 8
After pacing her quarters for thirty minutes, Ember finally emerged from her room and knocked on Neraline’s door, intending to apologize for her harshness. Whatever strange theories the older woman held, she was genuinely trying to help. Ember wasn’t here to wound any more friends, even if that did include her father’s ex-lover.
But nobody answered.
She tried again with no success. There was no sound from the other side of the door. If the older woman was there, she didn’t want to see Ember.
Perhaps both of them needed a little space. Ember needed time to process Neraline’s words. She didn’t believe her gift had originated in a lab, and certainly not with the Union.
But it wasn’t the medical part that gripped her mind. Neraline’s haunting words about love were what troubled her. She found it harder to push Stefan from her mind these days. He was always before her, that ever-glowing beacon tethering her to happiness. He had to be alive. If she made it through this only to find he’d been executed . . .
The thought sent a very real pain through her chest, and she turned from Neraline’s door with a gasp. She couldn’t be alone right now. She would return to Neraline’s quarters later and try again. For now, there was someone else experiencing her same pain, someone in need of an even stronger apology from her.
She must see Harlow.
Her guards seemed surprised when Ember asked for a boat. They called in her request, then stood at attention while she waited. She wondered what these soldiers thought of her. Had they resisted this assignment? Did they know about Ember’s past? Or was guarding her simply another part of the job?
When the driver arrived, Ember was surprised to see Nervous Man, the guy who had taken her to the Daughter her first day here. He watched her expectantly, waiting for her order. Not a man of many words, it appeared.
She sat down, ignoring the seat harness. “I’d like to see the prisoner who attacked me.”
