Sea of Stars (The Kricket Series Book 2)

by Amy A. Bartol

  “Do you think we got Kyon?” Jax asks from his hoverbike beside us.

  “I wish I knew,” I murmur. My breath becomes an icy coil before my eyes. The world around me melts away.

  Seabirds fly overhead; their cries are mocking laughter on the ocean breeze. Kyon’s eyes, the bluest of blue, stare down at me. He reaches for the nape of my neck, tying a red flower around my throat. It’s a black-ribboned choker adorned with the rarest bud. His elegant black dress uniform seems out of place in the fading light of the setting sun upon the water. With sand between my toes, I stare at the lapping waves on the beach. Gold and silver shine in the tide along the shoreline, a seaside with all the stars of the heavens captured within it. The thin veil covering my eyes parts, his eyes lean to me, bringing with them havoc within my bones. I stifle my instinct to recoil. “With this flower,” Kyon says, smiling down upon me, “I keep thee to me . . . always. Welcome home, Kricket.”

  “Kricket . . . Kricket,” Trey rubs my arms that have gone slack around his waist. “Answer me. Are you okay?”

  I lift my head from his back. We’re still moving stealthily through the underground tunnels on his hovercycle. I’m disoriented, but I manage to say, “I’m fine.” I hear the thickness in my own voice that makes my statement sound like a lie.

  “Did you faint? Were you unconscious?” he asks, trying to discern the problem.

  “No. I don’t think so. I wasn’t unconscious.”

  “You had a vision, didn’t you?” Trey asks, continuing to rub life back into my dead hands.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You went limp against me—your skin is like ice—you were unresponsive.” He lists the facts.

  I worry my bottom lip between my teeth. We’re both quiet for a second with only the sound of the hovercycle’s hum as we weave through the tunnels. “Something happened.”

  “Did you see the future?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever it was, it just turned on, playing like a scene from a movie with me starring in it.”

  “Was it similar to what happened to you in my apartment before the Brigadets arrested us?”

  “Yes,” I admit.

  “What was it about, Kricket?”

  “What I saw when we were in your apartment together hasn’t happened, so maybe this one won’t either.” I tell him quickly, attempting to minimize the impact of what I saw.

  “Please explain what you mean by that.”

  “I mean that I know who the man is from my first vision. It’s Giffen, but when I met him, the incident I saw didn’t resemble what actually happened. So maybe this one won’t either.”

  “Okay. Back up. You think Giffen is the man who struck you in your vision?”

  “I know he is,” I reply with certainty.

  “But he didn’t hit you when you met?”

  “Well, he hit me, but not with his hand. He hit me with a metal crate that he moved with his mind. Oh, and he twisted my arm when we were in the overup. And he pushed me out of a moving overup. And he hung me on the wall when I tried to get away from him, but he never hit me in the face.”

  The muscles of Trey’s abdomen and back stiffen. After I tell him everything I know about Giffen, he says, “Tell me about the vision you just had.”

  I feel myself growing pale as I stammer, “I think . . . I . . . I think Kyon and I—Kyon was in it.”

  “Do you think he lived through the explosion back there?”

  “I know he did.”

  “How do you know?” Trey asks.

  “I’d feel it if he died.”

  “Why do you say that?” he asks.

  “Because our lives are so tightly wound together that I’d know,” I reply, trying to explain the unexplainable.

  Trey doesn’t argue with what I just said. He accepts it. “What was Kyon doing in your vision?” he asks.

  “He . . . he tied a ribbon around my throat—it had an exotic-looking flower on it—I’d never seen a more beautiful bud—”

  “It’s a copperclaw,” Trey says in a low tone. “The Brotherhood uses it in their ceremonies when a Brother commits to his priestess. It’s symbolic of the binding.”

  I’m having trouble at the moment being inside my skin. I want to escape from it—let my skeleton spill out of me. I need to tell Trey everything. It feels like a confession when I whisper, “Then he said, ‘With this flower, I keep thee to me—’”

  “‘—always,’” Trey finishes for me. His tone is grim.

  “Yeah,” I whisper. Neither one of us says anything. The silence makes me feel smaller and smaller. After a while, I straighten, finding my spine. “We don’t know if it’ll happen. Like I said, Giffen didn’t slap me when we met. He forced me to meet the future, but he never slapped me to get me to do it.” I sound desperate. When Trey still says nothing, I blurt out, “I’ll change it—I’ve done it before—I can do it again—I can change it.”

  Trey lifts my hand to his lips, kissing the back of it tenderly. I feel it tremble against his mouth. “You’re not alone, Kricket. I’ll help you change it. We’ll do it together. Now, tell me everything that’s happened to you from the time that I was separated from you until this moment.”

  When Trey’s tunnel ends, we move into the drainage line leading out of the city that they had shut down a couple of rotations ago. Not long after, Trey cuts the engine to the hovercycle and lifts the lid to the compartment when we arrive at the end of the pipe. There’s a service tunnel with connecting drains that leads outside. The sun is still up, streaming light into the grate that covers the hole to the outside world, the opening of which is hidden in a drainage ditch. Beyond it, a large pasture spreads out for as far as the eye can see.

  All of the Cavars dismount from their hoverbikes, stretching their arms and legs after being slouched in the same position for so long. “We’re going to rest here until the sun goes down, Kricket,” Trey explains.

  I scan the cement tunnel that leads to the drainage cover. It’s only wide enough to fit one of us at a time. The hovercycles won’t squeeze through it. Turning to Trey, I ask, “Are we leaving the hovercycles?”

  Trey nods his head. “We can’t take them, Kricket. They have a heat signature that’s easily detected.”

  “We’re mammals. We all have a heat signature,” I point out.

  “What’s a man-imal?” Wayra asks, wrinkling his nose. “I’m no man-imal.”

  Jax looks puzzled. “Sounds like she called us half man, half animal in her Earthling.”

  “It’s English,” I say with a grin.

  “That’s what I said,” Jax replies, deadpan. “Earthling.”

  “Kricket.” Wayra insists upon my attention, like he’s trying to teach me something, “We’re not human or animal. Jax—” he points at him menacingly “—weren’t you supposed to teach her about anatomy? This is getting ridiculous.”

  Trey ignores Wayra, saying, “We have something to combat their sensors, Kricket. You don’t have to worry.” He comes to me and leads me to a quiet place to rest while we wait until dark.

  Nestling against Trey’s side, I fall into an exhausted sleep. I awake with my head resting on Trey’s thigh. He’s stroking my hair, watching the other Cavars move around the tunnel. As I sit up, I hear a soft nicker outside. Curious, I rise to my feet, walking stiffly over to the mouth of the smaller tunnel. I duck my head, crouching as I walk nearer to the grate covering the opening. Outside in the field, hundreds of spixes roam the meadow grazing on the lush, thick grass that is the type of green one sees in pictures of Ireland, but that don’t exist in Chicago.

  “Have you named any of them yet?” Trey teases as he crouches down behind me.

  “That one”—I point to a huge beast of a spix—“I’m calling Flea. And that one”—I point to the white spix with brown socks—“will henceforth be known as Compost. And that
little one over there—”

  “The plump one?” he asks.

  “No, the really little one next to Scoundrel; the one with the short horns.”

  “I see it—the docile one,” he whispers in my ear. His nearness is causing my insides to do backflips.

  “That one is Raging Bull.”

  Trey chuckles. “I love you.” He presses his lips to my cheek. “And to prove it . . .” He pulls out the gifts that I was given at our engagement announcement.

  “You brought the venish!” I say with delight. We sit down opposite each other with our backs to the circular walls as Trey unwraps the meat pie and hands it to me. I take a bite, finding it delicious. Breaking off a piece, I hold it up to Trey’s lips for him to eat. He looks at me for a moment, surprised by the offering, but then he leans forward. Opening his mouth, he allows me to feed him.

  “Yum. Venish,” I coo, chewing greedily. “Wayra’s the best when it comes to food.” I break off another piece, feeding it to Trey as he watches me hungrily.

  The next time I feed him, my fingertip slips into his mouth along with the morsel. He sucks it softly. Immediately, my insides riot as my abdomen clenches tightly. I stop chewing and swallow. Setting aside the nearly empty tin, I lean forward; Trey meets me halfway. The next thing I know, I’m straddling his thighs with my arms wrapped around him. His hands are running over my back, while his tongue strokes and teases mine.

  “Ahem.” A clearing of a throat at the other end of the narrow tunnel makes us break apart abruptly. Glancing in that direction, I see Drex and Hollis with their backs to us. Drex says over his shoulder, “We need to get in there and cut the grate off or we’ll fall behind schedule, Gennet.”

  “Of course,” Trey says absently, while running a hand through his mussed-up hair to try to straighten it. “We’ll move.”

  With as much dignity as we can muster, we put our little feast back in Trey’s pack and move out of the way of the soldiers. After they enter the smaller tunnel and begin cutting the iron tie bars away, Trey leans near my ear. “We might have a problem. I can’t seem to keep my hands off of you.”

  “That’s a problem?” I ask, biting my lip and trying not to laugh.

  “That question shouldn’t make me as happy as it does,” he replies.

  “Shouldn’t it?” I tease him.

  “Stop distracting me,” he admonishes with a sensual smile and a quick kiss. “I have to help unload the supplies from the hovercycles. Stay here and try not to get into any trouble.”

  “Leave the venish.” I smile, bouncing a little bit as I suck in my bottom lip so that I won’t grin like a total fool. He hands me the small pack with yet another kiss. I watch him move away.

  I shouldn’t be happy; I know that. The entire world is one big series of scary events, but right now, at this moment, I’m having a hard time focusing on all that. I just want to live in this moment—in these seconds—with Trey. I know it’s wrong. I know when it ends there will be no soft landing.

  In no time at all, all the gear is unloaded from the hovercycles. Dusk is quickly turning to darkness when Trey joins me. “Wayra and I are going to gather the transport. It shouldn’t take long.”

  I lose any hint of a smile I had. “What? You’re leaving?”

  “I’ll be back in less than a part.”

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  He leads me to the mouth of the smaller tunnel once more. “You see the roof of that building over there?” he asks.

  I nod, fear turning my stomach. “Yeah. It looks like a barn of some kind.”

  “Wayra, Fenton, and I are going there to gather spixes. I know the owner. I’ve worked with him for many floans—he’s a family friend. We’ll bring the spixes back here, load up the gear, and we’ll be on our way.”

  “Ohh . . . no. No, no.” I shake my head. “That’s not a good plan.” I clutch his forearm. “We need a trift—or a skiff. Spixes are unpredictable. You can’t just put fuel in them to make them go.”

  Trey smiles like I made a joke, but I’m completely serious. “Kricket, no technology means the Alameeda can’t find us easily. That’s why we were so successful at avoiding them in the Forest of O. We didn’t use anything they could track. It will be nearly impossible to hide from them as it is. They can employ aircraft and satellites at will here.”

  Everything he is saying is true. “Okay,” I agree, “that makes sense. I’ll help—I’ll go with you.”

  “Wayra, give me a fleat,” Trey says to the waiting Cavars. Leading me away from the opening, he takes me to a quiet place by the hovercycles. Raising his eyebrow in a questioning look, he asks, “I need you to stay here while I do this. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we always stay together.”

  “There are going to be instances where it will be better to have you remain in a safe place while I scout ahead. Are we going to have an argument every time something like this comes up?”

  I point my finger at him. “Don’t make me sound like a crazy, clingy girlfriend,” I retort. “This isn’t the same thing.”

  “Kricket, just listen to me. Stay here. I’ll be fine. I’ll be back in less than a part.”

  He turns and walks toward where Wayra and Fenton are waiting for him. I panic. Don’t go! I think, wringing my hands. “I wish I knew if it was safe,” I whisper.

  My breath turns to ice as my body turns to fire. I try hard, but I can’t stay on my feet. It’s almost like the floor raises to hit me in the cheek; blood spits out of my mouth and from above my body. I watch Trey run back to me and pick me up in his arms.

  When I return to my body, I’m dead cold. Gasping for air, my head aches and my cheek throbs. Tasting blood in my mouth, I’m fairly certain that I’ll never be warm again.

  “Kricket.” Trey shakes me lightly, trying to get my attention.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I lie. I feel like I almost died. “It’s okay to go get the spixes now. You were right, it was safe—it is safe—whatever.” I hold my head, because even a hangover would be better than this.

  “Do you mean to tell me that you just forced yourself into the future to make sure that it was safe to go to that barn just over there?”

  “Yeah—and I know you’re mad now, but—”

  “I’m not mad. I’m furious. Why would you hurt yourself like that when I already knew that this task was a minimal risk?”

  “Well, now we know to a greater degree of certainty that it’s safe.”

  He looks so angry that if there were nails to be chewed, he could do it. He lifts my head off the pillow of his thigh and rests me on the ground with my head upon a balled-up shirt. He places a blanket over me before he straightens. “Jax,” he growls.

  “Sir,” Jax says by his side.

  “Make sure she’s okay,” he orders.

  “Yes, sir,” Jax says.

  Trey doesn’t look at me as he moves away toward the exit again. I call out to him, “I’m sorry too.”

  He whips around, looking like he has never been this angry in his entire life, not even when I put a znou near my ear in the Forest of O. “I didn’t apologize!” he barks in frustration.

  “I know,” I say weakly, “but you’re going to get to the barn and you’re going to feel really bad about being a total knob knocker to me right now, and then you’re going to apologize to the future me that you know is there watching you. Err . . . or is she the past me now?”

  He turns around abruptly, striding out of the tunnel and into the night.

  Jax crouches down next to me. He checks my pulse the old-fashioned way: by holding my wrist. “That was a bit unnecessary,” he observes.

  “This time,” I say in a way that lets him know I’m not above doing it again if any of them pushes me.

  “Was
it worth it, though? You stayed away way too long, Kricket. I thought you were going to stop breathing—so did Trey. If you gave it a few more fleats, you might not have been able to return to your body, even if you wanted to. It was that bad.”

  “I had to make sure he wasn’t walking into anything,” I reply stubbornly.

  “This is a gift for sure, Kricket,” Jax says quietly, examining my cheek. “But if you abuse it, it could become a curse—or your end.”

  I drop my eyes from his.

  “You may have a concussion, and this is going to bruise,” Jax says, rubbing his thumb gently over my swollen cheek.

  “No it won’t,” I mutter. “Cut my hair.”

  “Excuse me?” Jax asks, like he didn’t hear me right.

  “Do you have some scissors?” I ask him.

  “You want to cut your hair? Now?” He looks as if he thinks I’ve lost my mind.

  When I nod, he gets up from the floor and goes to his medical pack. He comes back with a pair of very sharp scissors. I sit up, but I almost have to lie back down again from dizziness. It takes me a second to focus enough so that I can take the scissors from Jax’s grasp.

  He’s gravely concerned about what I’m about to do. “Trey might get angry with me for letting you cut your hair. He seems to really like it the way it is. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “It’ll grow back.”

  His anxiety grows as I put the blades to the back of my head and gather a large handful of my hair. “Sure it’ll grow back,” he argues, seeing how short I intend to cut it. “But wouldn’t it be better to wait until you can have a professional do it—you may not be happy with the results when you—”

  I snip off a large section of my hair; Jax winces. As I pull my shorn locks away, they turn black and curl up into dust. New hair springs from my scalp, extending down my back to fall to about the same length as before. Jax’s mouth hangs open.

  “I’m sort of a freak,” I explain with a grimace, but I can’t regret showing him because I immediately feel better. The dizziness is receding. He takes the scissors from my hand, using them to cut off another section of my hair. When it regrows, he cuts more off with the same result.