Delaney puffed her cheeks and sighed her frustration, staring at the quiche. It really did look absolutely delicious even if World War III was being waged outside their bedroom door. Better than rainol e lokks any day.
But she’d eaten rainol e lokks every day for a month straight, so maybe she was biased.
She tried to stay calm despite the sirens, emergency lights, and droning intercom, and took Torek’s advice—she refused to think she was following his orders. She sliced into the pie, taking care to carve and remove a neat wedge from the whole. She found his obsidian tableware—technically not silverware—and scooped up her first bite.
The crust was flaky, and the egg was soft, and the chopped plants were both sweet and mouthwateringly savory. After the day she’d endured, it took some restraint not to inhale the entire pie. She forcibly enjoyed each bite—slowly, as he’d recommended—but when she finished fifteen minutes later, he hadn’t returned. She had another slice, and another, until she finally gagged and had to give up.
A disaster that warranted sirens, power containment, and official government prerecorded messages wouldn’t be averted in fifteen minutes. She washed the dishes as she waited. She dried and returned them to the cabinet, then crawled into bed. She was not going to stare at the tablet’s digital clock display. She stared at the ceiling instead. She scratched an itch on her arm and another on the back of her leg. The ceiling remained unmoved.
Her resolve buckled.
Only one symbol had changed on the clock. Less than a minute.
She contorted her arm to scratch at the small of her back and groaned.
What was going on out there? How could a hibernating ice fish warrant this kind of protocol? And how did one “reinforce ice”?
And why the hell was the bed so itchy?
She peeked under the comforter and sighed. Torek’s shedding was out of control.
She glanced at the tablet again. A second symbol hadn’t changed yet.
Staring at the time wouldn’t make it pass any faster. Her hand curled into a fist. She refused to scratch. She refused to clock watch. She—
The sirens pierced her ears a third time, completely obliterating her frayed nerves. Before she even realized what she was doing, she had opened the door and was poking her head outside.
Considering the urgency of the sirens, she’d half expected the hallway to be under siege, but it was completely deserted. The emergency lights were flashing outside the bedroom in pulsing rhythm with the swell and ebb of the blaring siren.
Delaney stepped out, closed the door behind her, and crept down the back hall. She was distinctly aware of the fact that she was directly disobeying Torek’s explicit orders, but the sirens spurred her forward. Step after hesitant, halting step, their blaring call stole her breath and reason until an ignorance-induced panic completely overshadowed any sense of self-preservation. Delaney reached the end of the hallway just as the siren cut back to droning coordinates. She steeled herself against whatever was around the corner and peeked into the large round room where Torek’s guard typically sat, presumably guarding.
She blinked. They were watching a movie.
Their individual hologram computer stations were feeding a giant 3D projection in the center of the arena. It was a sci-fi flick, complete with a hover vehicle and ray guns. The hover vehicle was zapping a giant creature that had busted through the icy surface of a frozen river. Only half the creature had emerged, but judging from the half she could see, she most assuredly did not want to see more.
The creature was enormous, easily the size of a blue whale, with the head of an anglerfish, one of those alien-looking deep-sea creatures with dead eyes and millions of needle teeth. Its giant, unhinged jaw was larger than the hover vehicle. Behind its jaws where its neck should have been, or gills, considering its fishy nature, it had a flapping, rattling mane, similar to the poisonous dinosaur that had killed Ned in Jurassic Park. Its burnt-orange-and-brown-striped body was slick like sealskin, and it had arms like the rigid, boney claws of a vulture instead of fins. Those talon-tipped, skeletal appendages were reaching out between ray gun blasts to swat at the attacking vehicle.
“Talk to me, Commander,” Dorai Nikiok Lore’Lorien intoned. She was watching the movie and presiding over everyone from the vantage of the dais. Shemara Kore’Onik stood next to her, tight-lipped and wringing her hands.
The projection split into two images, the aerial battle on the left and a close-up of Torek’s face on the right.
“She’s out for blood, literally, I think,” Torek’s projection said. “Rak.” He pulled back on a steering column.
The vehicle on the left somersaulted around a swatting claw.
“My reinforcement team is on the ground on standby,” he said.
“Your team cannot reinforce the ice until she is beneath it,” Nikiok said. Her voice was calm, as if she was expressing her opinion on bagels vs. donuts for breakfast and not the best technique to ice a giant Anglervulturasaurus.
“Yes, Dorai. I’m aware.”
Shemara leaned into Nikiok’s side. “He shouldn’t be in combat. I haven’t cleared him yet.”
Nikiok waved her claws dismissively.
“How did he gain access to the flight hangar?” Shemara pressed. “He can’t—”
“He can and he is,” Nikiok hissed. “I cleared him.”
Shemara blinked. A lifetime of restraint poured into that one blink. “You?”
Nikiok faced forward, returning her attention to the movie.
Shemara shook her head. “He’s not ready,” she insisted. “We’ve made progress, but you can’t just—”
Nikiok cut her off with a glance.
Shemara bowed her head. “Dorai. Respectfully. Torek Lore’Onik Weidnar Kenzo Lesh’Aerai Renaar should not be leading this combat mission.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Torek said dryly.
Shemara glanced up at the hologram. “It’s not my confidence you need, but my clearance.”
The guard shifted uncomfortably. They glanced at each other, at Shemara, and back at each other, uneasy.
“Filuk Renaar is ready,” Shemara persisted, oblivious. “Torek’s second is well chosen and well trained, and I—”
“You never finished your thought from earlier.” Nikiok didn’t look away from the hologram. “What can’t I do, Shemara Kore’Onik?”
Shemara bowed her head again. “Nothing, Dorai.”
Nikiok leaned into Shemara’s face, her gaze never leaving the hologram, and hissed. “He’s already in flight. Whether or not you approve, I approve, and he will have our support.”
Shemara’s bow deepened. “Yes, Dorai.”
Delaney glanced from the movie and Torek’s likeness to gaze out the window. She wasn’t sure what made her look. A movement in the corner of her eye, maybe, but that seemed unlikely considering how small and distant the movement was. Instinct, more likely. No matter its size and proximity, or what had made her look, there it was. A hover vehicle was maneuvering in crazy acrobatics midair, blasting rays of light into the dark valley of a snowy ravine. This far away, the hover vehicle was no bigger than a gnat, but its sweeping movements as it dipped and flipped and charged were identical to the vehicle on screen. Its little spits of light and the explosive blasts detonating in great holographic detail mirrored real life.
This was no movie.
Jesus Christ, this was happening. That was Torek. And the, the thing he was battling was the hibernating ice fish this world was fortified against. The zorel.
That wasn’t a fucking fish. That was a nightmare creature from frozen hell!
She recognized the ravine with sudden startling clarity as the same ravine that she’d fallen down. The ice, now blasted through by the zorel, was still stained with her blood.
Out for blood, Torek had said, and Delaney covered her mouth at the quelling thought that crept into her mind: this was her fault.
He’d told her to eat slowly. That he’d be back before she finishe
d dinner.
All the many helpings of omelet pie that she’d devoured curdled in her stomach.
He might not be back at all.
“Commander?” Nikiok intoned.
“Just one moment. She’s locked in on me now. I just…”
The hover vehicle swirled into a nosedive, its trajectory plummeting directly into the creature’s unhinged mouth.
The horror, the guilt, the insensible denial: it all slammed together in a triple-decker pileup inside Delaney’s throat. She covered her mouth before it released a scream.
The zorel ticked its mouth open another notch, if that was possible, so its jaws were practically bent back 180 degrees, forcing a protective layer of its slick skin to seal over its eyes.
Torek jerked the hover vehicle up and out of its nosedive moments before he would have plummeted straight down the creature’s esophagus. He was reversing out of the jaws surrounding him but hadn’t quite cleared them yet when he blasted a volley of fire down its throat.
“Got it!” Torek confirmed.
The creature shrieked. Its trilling cry reverberated from the many speakers inside the arena in harmony with its real scream echoing across the countryside. It tossed its head, snapped its jaws closed, and swiped out in blind panic and outrage.
Had Torek reversed out of its jaws in time? Was he trapped inside the hover vehicle, inside the mouth of that monster?
The projection speckled with dancing white flecks as the creature collapsed in on itself, still shrieking. Delaney squinted, but the static was so thick, she couldn’t discern what was happening. Had it plunged back under the ice? Were they losing signal? Was someone going to fix it?
Where the fuck is Torek?
A low rumble backdropped the creature’s incessant shrieks, and a disorienting sensation tickled the back of Delaney’s mind. She glanced out the window again and noticed that the shadow of the ravine was blurred by a white cloud. She blinked. Not a cloud, a poof of snow. Blowback from an avalanche.
A streak of snow punched through the blowback, and the gnat-sized hover vehicle soared across the sky like a comet.
Torek.
Delaney’s lungs heaved.
“Mission complete. The zorel is neutralized, and our reinforcement team is well underway.”
The room erupted in cheers. Lorienok jumped up from their desks and punched the air. They lifted both hands high overhead, turned to their neighbors, and bumped the sides of their fists together. They whooped with joy and relief and victory.
Delaney doubled over and retched. Just air at first, and then the second and third heaves were all half-digested egg, crust, and vegetable slop.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and froze, glancing up at the celebrating guard, but the sick lay there, as unnoticed as the animal who’d produced it. She crept back a step, tensing to leave.
Again, she didn’t know what made her look; she couldn’t blame movement this time. Perhaps the complete lack of movement had caught her attention. As everyone else was celebrating, Dorai Nikiok Lore’Lorien remained completely still, her laser-precise gaze homed in on Delaney.
Delaney let her gaze wander smoothly past Nikiok without blinking, without pause or hesitation. She was a golden retriever, and she didn’t recognize or fear the suspicion and calculation in Nikiok’s gaze. Shit, she was trembling. Delaney left the congealing slop of her dinner on the floor and wandered back down the hall to her room, where she should have damn well stayed until Torek’s return.
Twenty-One
Torek caught himself about to knock on his own door. Anger, resentment, frustration, and, above it all, concern flooded over the exhaustion that his adrenaline high had left behind, and in that void of quaking vulnerability, he couldn’t ignore the telling scent of antiseptic.
Delaney had left the room while he’d been away, as he’d expected she would. But she’d been sick in his absence, which he hadn’t expected. Petreok had eagerly informed Torek upon his return that he’d cleaned the hallway himself. He’d beamed with pride, as if the thought of Torek’s ill animal companion was something to beam over.
Torek should count his blessings. He’d returned whole and hale from the season’s first zorel breach, not something that could be said of every Genai. He’d been greeted with praise and adoration upon his return, something that could be said of every zorel victory, the support of which had prolonged the heady rush that battle always stoked in him. The danger, the flight, the fear, and resulting praise was like a drug he couldn’t quit, and no matter how many seasons passed, no matter how wrong a zorel containment could go, the many times it had gone right was enough motivation that the horror of coming face-to-face with death was always tinged with a strange, indescribable feeling of homecoming.
Zana had never understood. She’d never doubted or questioned him, but she’d never really understood. Some of his fellow guard didn’t either, but a select few—usually the ones who died young or who made a lifetime career of it, like him—shared his sentiments. Same as his forefathers, the fight was in his blood, and with his blood surging in that moment of attack, he reached a higher plane of clarity.
His thoughts were blades. He could see the zorel’s muscles bunching and tensing, and he’d know her next move before she did. How did he flip the hovercraft mid nosedive? How had he known the killing hand of the zorel was swatting his right blind spot? How did he escape her jaws when his monitors were iced by snowfall?
He didn’t know. He just did.
He’d tempted death and evaded its clutches for so many seasons, innumerable times, that he lived on it. The danger nourished him. The adrenaline strengthened him. The perfect synchrony of mind and beast made him bigger than his mortal body. He stared down the yawning maw of that mighty creature, down into death itself, and was mightier.
But the high didn’t last. Fear and doubt and self-chastisement at the risks he’d so readily taken depressed him long before the cheers of his people faded. They were still celebrating his victory and would for days, maybe weeks, to come. Until the next zorel attack, most likely, and he’d face her and the yawning snap of her jaws again gladly.
Yet the thought of confronting Delaney made him hesitate entering his own living quarters.
Steeling his resolve, he dropped his fist and opened the door.
His room was empty.
“Delaney?” His eyes scanned the room and narrowed. The window was open.
He strode to the window, equal parts uneasy and feeling ridiculous for that unease. Becoming ill with fright after seeing the zorel was one thing. Throwing herself off the ramparts of the estate from that same fear was quite another. Still, his heart was racing as swiftly as his stride as he lunged forward, ducked, and angled his horns through the window, craning his head outside.
Delaney was sitting on the ramparts, huddled with her knees to her chest.
“Delaney,” he whispered carefully, loath to startle her from her perch. “What are you doing?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, then away. “I need to think.”
“Think inside, where it’s warm.”
“I like the balcony, where it’s private.” She turned a glare on him. “You reinforce the ice?”
“Yes.” He glanced down at the courtyard far below. At this height, he could cover the fountain with his thumb. “Come inside.”
“No, thank you.”
“That wasn’t a request. Come inside, now. You’re freezing.”
“I am fine.” She huddled into her fur coverings so only her eyes were exposed. “I finish dinner long ago.”
He tamped down the spark of frustration that tried to light. She needed compassion right now, not admonitions. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
“Late,” she said, her voice muffled by the fur. “You leave me then go die in battle but sorry for being late.”
He sighed. “Come inside, and we’ll have this conversation in the warmth of my living quarters.”
She twisted to face
him, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He held out his hand to steady her.
But she didn’t take it. “You lie.”
“I never lie.” He growled. Rak, patience.
“You say you return.”
He spread his arms. “And here I am!”
“How you return if you die?” she burst.
Ah. “I wasn’t in danger of dying. Well, there’s always some danger, but—”
“I see you in battle! I watch as you fly that hover vehicle into—into—” She slapped her wrists together, her curled fingers chomping the air.
“The zorel.”
“—that giant mouth with teeth, and you say you not in danger of dying? You lie!”
“I was closer to death during my fever than I was battling the zorel.”
Her pale face turned bright red. “And I battle for you against that fever. I risk everything—”
“You risked everything?”
“—just for you to fly into that monster’s mouth and die.”
“I don’t need your permission to protect my people and my estate,” Torek snapped. “I’m captain of the guard. It’s my job to—”
“You still on medical leave.”
Torek barked out a laugh. “Is that the excuse you’ll give the people of Onik when the zorel storms the estate on a path of blood and death? Parents will be comforted when their children and spouses are slaughtered knowing that I’m completing my therapy. Oh, that’s right, no one will hear your excuses because they’ll all be dead!”
“I not give excuses. I not speaking!” She shook with the force of her shout. “When you die, they sell me to someone else. Maybe that someone will care for me like you, and maybe that someone not care. But that someone not you.” Her glare and her sneer and her words were fierce, but her voice suddenly cut short on a trembling whisper. Her hand lifted to cover her mouth. “That someone not you.”
Torek’s anger deflated. She’d been terrified. He could see it in the shudder of her body as she endured the punishing cold. He could hear it in the wet cotton of her words, and he could smell it like the copper tang of spilled blood. He couldn’t begrudge her that. In fact, as he witnessed her distress, the opposite occurred. His chest swelled with answering affection, and his voice, so harsh just a moment ago, was soft and coaxing when he murmured, “Come here, little one.”
Beyond the Next Star Page 20
