by Abby J. Reed
Tahnya played with a split end of her hair. Her bottom lip mashed between her teeth. “You know what the most scary thing about her is? She doesn’t seem scary. I mean, she doesn’t seem like the type of person who would call down Extrats on an unsuspecting planet.”
“There’s something my papá used to tell me about a flower and a dragon.”
“Is this one of those double code riddles? I’m too tired to think.”
“It’s a story.”
“Then what type of flower?”
Brody bounced on the balls of his feet, still watching the newsfeed. “Whatever flower you like best, obviously,” he said.
Tahnya tsked at him.
“A suncot,” I said. “They both loved the sun—the dragon because the sun reflected his power, the suncot because the sun gave her life. The flower was afraid of the dragon because he liked to trample on her.
“One dia the sun went out. The dragon was frustrated but still had claws and scales and could make his own fire, so he continued on his way. But the flower—the suncot had everything to lose. It needed the sun to thrive. At first, the suncot learned to survive on starlight. Then learned to deepen and strengthen its root to support a larger stalk. It grew and grew and grew, determined to reach the sun and turn it back on. Eventually, its roots wrapped around and through the entire planet, and in the midst of the flower’s stretching, the planet shattered, killing the dragon, too.”
Tahnya nodded. “So, in the end, the suncot was the one to truly be afraid of.” She traced over the veins in her wrists. A wisp of a smile grew on her face and it was the closest thing to true warmth in this room. “I like that story.”
A sheepish smile crossed my face. I remembered the way she lit up at the Bazaar and didn’t hesitate entering a new world. The way she tried to hold Raelyn at gunpoint, even if she didn’t realize the safety was on, and how she stared down Leader before we boarded the Leech. I didn’t know you could wrap kind and determined and fierce in such a beaut package. “I thought you might.”
A glow flooded her cheeks. Her hand traced my inner arm, sending a chill quite different from the cold through my body. She turned back to the screen. “When are we gonna break out and fly the hell away from here?”
Brody suddenly seemed far more interested in what we were saying.
I moved my arm away. “What?”
“To escape.” She leaned to rest on her hip, all those elongated curves, looking at me, slightly confused. “We can’t just stay here.”
“Why not?”
She slid off the bed. “My father is the chief of our compound. I know how this works. The Queen has my pouch of Scarlatti dirt. She can figure out the rest. We need to take this chance.”
“You do realize we’re sitting in a prison in the middle of a floating ice island.”
Tahnya folded her arms across her chest. “I just have to do something.”
I swept my arm across the room. “How do you plan on getting out of here? How are you gonna sneak out of a palace we’ve never seen before, get off a planet we’ve never visited before, go to a planet you’ve never returned to before? In fact, how are you planning to get past the antiship net? You can’t flank inside it. Just tell me that bit. It has the entire city on lockdown.”
Tahnya sputtered. “I, I don’t know yet. I haven’t got a plan. I just, I just can’t sit here and be afraid and not choose to do anything.”
In the back of my brain, all I could hear was ShuShu whispering, You know she is right.
“Doing nothing is a choice in and of itself.” I leaned against the headrest. My last true convo with ShuShu came to mind. The image of Avonley’s spacescrapers filled my mind. ShuShu’s spinning teacup vanishing into the night. My insides had split in two, warring against each other. How was I supposed to be the man ShuShu thought I could be, that Tahnya thought she saw in me, when I couldn’t even believe in me?
Tahnya opened her mouth—
Brody’s voice cut her off. “Hey, isn’t that Raelyn and Levi?”
Both Tahnya and I looked back to the newsfeed. Sure enough, Levi and Raelyn’s bloody and dirty faces took over the screen. Levi’s skin was gray with dust and Raelyn’s hair was more knot than sleek. They held signs in front of a mob saying THE HERO CAN UNITE US painted in bold, bright colors. They spoke in several wedge dialects. On both of their shirts were the phrase, Live brave, Live true.
A knot in my chest released. Thank the Angel. They were alive.
Onscreen, Raelyn beat her chest passionately, addressing the mob in Human. With each pause of breath, the mob cheered. “We need someone to stand behind. Someone to unite the factions. Someone with the reputation and the integrity to lead us—”
I grabbed the hair on my temples and cursed.
Tahnya jumped at the acid in my tone. “What does it mean?”
“Estupido gits. Remember when I said Leader picks who joined her faction because of their influence?” I swept my hand across the mob on screen. “They’re using it. Of all the stupid—” I drifted into another round of cursing. Why was the Queen letting us see this?
“They’re whipping up the mob?”
“They’re directing the mob. How are they financing this? There’s no way they have access to this much money. They must have someone with power and wealth backing them. A medito lot of money.”
“What are they trying to do?”
“Set it up so somebody can step in and tie the factions together. ShuShu is—” My tongue seemed to freeze. “—dead. But I was the closest to him. And now I’m the Hero of Salvade.”
Realization dawned on Tahnya’s face. “They’re trying to help you take over the factions. How do they even know you’re alive?”
“I guarantee there was some vid lying around. Leader couldn’t possibly have dismantled all her tech during the attack. Raelyn probably hacked it.”
Tahnya gave me an up-down, her eyes scanning my knotted arms, my fierce frown. “You don’t want to help, do you? You don’t want to take over.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Why not? Your uncle did a great job. And if your old team thinks you can—”
“You don’t get it, do you? They’re calling me the Hero of Salvade. Hero. My uncle was a hero. My old teammate Kev was a hero. Look where being brave got them. Got Kev. Got ShuShu. Hell, got us. You don’t know what it’s like to have that pressure on you. To be called to be someone you’re not.”
“Guys.” Brody said, as though not capable of seeing our battle.
Tahnya’s breathing turned ragged. Something inside her had snapped. Her words were clipped and soft. “Oh don’t I? I, more than anybody else in your tiny universe, know exactly what it’s like to be handed something you’re not ready for. To be asked to be someone you don’t believe you are. It’s banging terrifying. It’s terrifying to step into it. The world doesn’t stop for you to catch up. Life will keep happening with or without you. You have to choose.”
“I don’t have to choose anything. I’m a prisoner.”
“Guys, do you hear that?” Brody wrinkled his nose and walked over to the corner of the cell.
Tahnya’s skin practically radiated heat. “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s the real reason you don’t want to do anything. I thought it was grief, but it’s not, is it? You want to be here, don’t you? You want to stay safe in this dank little cell. Because being a prisoner gives you the perfect excuse to hide.” She took a deep breath, as though trying to force her emotions into place. A frustrated noise escaped from her throat. Then a bang-it expression crossed over her face. Her volume rose until she was near shouting. “You and me are more alike than I ever thought. We both like to hide, in our own way. Well, guess what. You’re gonna have to choose to come out of hiding or waste away. You’re gonna have to choose real soon.”
“Guy
s!” Brody yelled. He waved his arms, stomped his feet. “Banging shut up!” He gestured toward the corner where he stood over a tiny vent. Thin wisps of lavender colored fog drifted from the floor. “It’s making a hissing sound.” He knelt over to sniff it. “Smells sick-sweet.”
My heart constricted. “No! Don’t—” I leapt off the bed and dragged him away from the vent. Too late. He had inhaled it. I glanced back at the vent. The fog poured out faster now, like a teapot boiling off steam.
Tahnya grabbed on to me, her anger gone. “What’s wrong? Is he okay?” She shoved Brody onto the bed and flipped him over. His eyes already did the tell-tale dance.
The lavender fog covered the floor of the room and rose higher and higher.
I grabbed Tahnya as though I could protect both her and Brody, argument long forgotten. I held her against my chest. Met her panicked gaze. “It’s a hallucinogen gas. Whatever you see—it’s not real. It’s. Not. Real.”
Her fingers laced through mine, desperate. The whites of her eyes turned lavender. “Jupe—”
I couldn’t hear the rest of her sentence. The cell exploded with a hundred Extrats, all wearing my dead uncle’s face.
Chapter 15
MALANI
Flames flittered and played in my brain. I groaned at the pain streaking down my wing and the sharp stabbing in my chest. I couldn’t breathe right. Couldn’t get the air in. And if I did, the chest pain worsened. So I sipped lightly at the air like I did the wine at the Elik festivals. Too much and it’d go to my head.
My lung fought to expand. The knife must’ve made it collapse. I stared at my surroundings while waiting until the dark matter energy kicked in to start the healing process so I could breathe easier.
My feathers had embedded in the floor, pinning me into place. Probably the only reason I hadn’t snapped and cracked every bone. I smoothed away some of the blood trickling from my forehead and swiped at a scarlet streak in front of my face.
I swiped again until I realized the scarlet wasn’t going away. It wasn’t blood.
The tip of a tree branch dripping sap said hello, mere centis from my eyes. A tree. A tree inside the ship. I almost wore branches instead of a head.
Oh, Astook.
I sucked in air a little deeper. The searing in my right lung evened out. The butterflies still danced in my brain cells and both stab wounds hurt, but it wasn’t near what I experienced in the Heron cells. My hand skittered across my chest, where blood flowed free. It was a nasty-looking cut.
I gently, gently felt along the backside of my flaccid wing. A tear greeted my touch. The searing pain came back. All right. Turns out dark matter on dark matter did the most damage. Good to know. Instinct told me this wound would take longer to heal.
I was probably safe to move though.
My wing released. I tottered to my feet, grimacing and groaning.
The ship’s wall, port side, acted as my new floor. The tree extended through the ship’s wall, like a giant’s fist punching through the hull as though it were flimsy fabric. It had smashed into the interface, which I could now only reach if I flew straight up. The interface surface was completely demolished, revealing a tangle of cables and wires and tiny colored sparks, though the very top dangled. A quiver here and there, like the remnant of a dream, hovered through the tree leaves—azure and silver, the colors of the holo map.
Map.
Escaping.
Where was—?
Chief Malvyn sprawled across the wall-floor closer to the tree hole. His leg was near perpendicular to the rest of his body. I bent over him, moaning, checked for a pulse. He was alive but unconscious. Still, I searched him for the knife. Just in case. The pink line on his cheek had faded to his normal brown skin tone. I prodded at where I stabbed him. Sure enough, what would’ve eventually been a fatal wound had already slowed its blood flow to a trickle.
He hadn’t bonded to any dark matter, otherwise, from Breaker’s and my experience, his hair would’ve shown it. How could he be healing so quickly?
He’d be waking up anytime now and I lacked the motivation for another fight round. Leaving him here didn’t seem like the best idea, either. Could I drag us to the ramp? It involved flying up to the door. I glanced at my injured wing.
Ehh. That wasn’t going to happen.
Through the hole, then.
“Come on, wings.” I sucked in, the chest pain an echo of what it used to be, and lifted him onto my back. His feet dragged behind me, but he wasn’t as heavy as Breaker with his old prosthesis. Not that I could fly until my wing healed. I dragged him to the hole. Sawed weakly at the branches, moving them aside until I got a clear shot of the ground.
I dropped Malvyn to the ground. The crunch of another bone reached me. Good. It’d keep him down.
I followed, using gravity and my good wing to my advantage. When I reached the soil, I paused to breathe through the pain. Then grabbed the chief by the wrist and started dragging him away from the wreck.
I turned back toward the ship. Hope looked like it had been thrown across the planet by a monster. My emotions unlocked and I almost fell to my knees with the weight of what just happened. I almost died. All ‘cause of that stupid, khaim-assing coward.
Then came the grief and anger and resolution. Grief, because the home I chose now laid crushed in copper soil. Anger, because I didn’t want to be here in the first place.
Resolution, because: Oh, Astook. Breaker is going to kill me.
Not that he needed to. We just lost our only way off this planet.
Scarlatti was truly a death trap now.
Chapter 16
LUKA
I crouched at the core entrance, ready for action. A trill ran through my blood. Might as well have been in an open field with nothing but sticks to guard our backs. We were easy prey here. The challenge was delightful. Behind me, snatches of song drifted as the Elik made more weapons from the remaining dark matter.
Outside the core, only wailing reached my ears, coming from where Cal tended to the injured and dead. That was normal.
Footsteps echoed, running toward me. My legs flexed, my minis ready for a fight. But the figure lumbering down the hall wasn’t an Extrat.
“The ship!” Nocklie shouted, then bent over, his thick chest heaving. “The ship flew and crashed and—”
Not the ship. Not our exit. Always protect your exit. I flung a gesture at a freshly armed group. “Guard the core.” I turned to Nocklie. “Show me.”
I ran after him, maneuvering eastward through the tunnels until we found the exit hatch. I burst into the open air. A balding spot of soil stretched to the north and south. Behind me was a straight shot westward all the way back to the compound square. The mist had retreated again, collecting near the orchards. Must’ve been drawn by the noise of the ship launching. The compound attack was over. For now.
Nocklie didn’t need to point out the wreck.
The smoke from the crash rose right near the boundary fence. I sprinted to the wreck. A quick glance behind me showed about ten of the braver survivors had followed. Should’ve given them all an order to stay. I didn’t trust the Extrats to keep away long.
Up close, the boundary fence was toothpicks and between being mowed over, drowned, and uprooted, most of the trees were gone, exposing the wreck like an unfolded map on bark paper.
Two figures emerged from the twisted mass. Malani and Malvyn.
She was heaving his unconscious ass away from the ship. One of her wings dragged, and the way she favored her side told me she was injured. “Malani!” I leapt over what remained of the fence, slowing down as I neared and took it all in.
I whistled long and low.
The ship, our way out, was destroyed. The nose crunched against the ground. One of the wings lay abandoned in the crushed trees.
I grunted. Nothing short of a bloody miracle anybody or any piece of the ship survived. And now we didn’t have a faction with the resources to fix this type of damage. “What the hell happened?”
Malani tossed the chief at my feet. Blood streaked her face, her clothes. She was clearly in pain, but her eyes seemed alert. The top of her tunic was shredded, revealing a knife wound near her collarbone. I must’ve looked concerned because she waved me off. “He tried to steal the ship and escape. I’m okay, by the way.” She reached out a hand to Breaker, who had appeared next to me. He touched her hand, the top of her chest, blanching at the sight of the blood on her tunic, almost reassuring himself she was alive.
“That’d explain why the khaim used the override codes to let in the Extrats,” I said. “It was a banging distraction. Bastard was willing to kill his own people to secure his escape.” Another quick glance behind me, and I groaned. Even more survivors had climbed out of the underground to see the ship, bringing the number near twenty. Some of the Herons and Elik even joined. Khaim-asses. They were practically dangling the come attack us flag.
Breaker kissed the top of Malani’s head. “You’re okay? Really?”
Malani shifted, her wince deep. She padded the blood-soaked area lightly. “I’m alive, thank Astook. I’ll be all right.”
Breaker finally turned his attention to his ship. He sank to the ground. His hand lay palm-up in grief at the sight.
Cal pushed forward out of the crowd and immediately set to work on Malani, asking questions, prodding, whatever else a doctor did.
All I could do was stare at the limp form of the man at my feet who had done so much damage. I kicked him in the ribs. A bone snapped. The sound was a soothing balm to an infected cut in my soul. I drew back to kick him again, but Yana grabbed my arm, throwing me enough off balance to force me to set down my foot. I didn’t even notice she was here.
