Nexus

by Sasha Alsberg

  The air had cleared enough for him to make some shapes out through the white veil of snow, but the ice dragon’s lumbering form was nowhere to be seen. It must’ve gone back under the ice, but somehow he knew, deep in his bones, that it would be back.

  Someone touched his shoulder, and he whipped around to find Klarisa standing there, her arm twisted at an odd angle.

  “You’re hurt,” Dex said, stating the obvious.

  She shook her head, batting him away. “Nothing I can’t handle. Better than half my crew—that thing took them into the ground with it.”

  “Godstars. I’m so sorry.” Even as Dex said the words, he realized they fell short. But this wasn’t the time to grieve, and he was sure Klarisa knew that, too. “If we wait around here any longer, we’ll be monster bait, as well. Where’s your transport?”

  Klarisa pointed off into the distance. Dex scanned the horizon—the transport’s sleek form was nearly a click away. That beast had really tossed them on their asses.

  “Let’s find everyone and get the hell out of here,” Dex said. Klarisa nodded in agreement.

  They came across Andi first, who was helping Lon stand. Dex let out a breath, thanking the Godstars for sparing his small crew.

  Then the ground rumbled beneath them again.

  “Not good. We have to run,” Andi said, supporting Lon, whose leg was bleeding through his suit. A jagged ice shard lay on the ground behind them.

  His suit was compromised. They only had a few minutes before Lon would die of exposure out here on the frozen tundra.

  Andi must’ve seen his gaze wander. “He’ll be fine as long as we get to the transport before the cold gets him first.” Her eyes pleaded with him not to put voice to the thought that was in both their minds.

  If they could get him to the transport in time. Which was looking less and less likely by the minute. Lon’s backpack, somehow, was still squirming, Havoc hissing furiously inside.

  The only casualty Dex had hoped for had survived.

  Dex turned to see the two remaining members of Klarisa’s crew running toward them. But before they’d taken more than a few steps, the ice splintered in front of them and a new hole formed, sucking the two men below the surface. Their screams were cut short as the dragon, twice the size of the Marauder, shot through the jagged hole and hundreds of feet into the sky, its long body whipping through the air effortlessly. It looked as if it were made from ice crystals, carefully arranged into a skeletal structure, and Dex was momentarily struck by the harsh beauty of the creature.

  Then transparent wings unfurled from its back, making the beast arc through the sky. It looked graceful, but Dex knew that beautiful things were often the most deadly. Its body did a dance midair, its bones clinking together as it turned and nose-dived downward, its mouth yawning open, razor-sharp teeth glinting in the fading light of the approaching storm.

  Dex didn’t plan on becoming monster food tonight. But it was Andi who was the first to move.

  “To the ship, now!” she roared, pulling Lon with her. Klarisa and Dex followed in their wake just as the beast landed behind them.

  Dex jumped over a crack that split the ice a few feet wide. Once clearing the rift, he pointed his gun behind him, shooting at random, but even when his shots met their mark, they didn’t slow the beast. It was as if there was nothing to penetrate, all its organs protected fiercely by its bone-work scales.

  The transport ship slowly came into view. A shard of ice shot through the air, narrowly missing him.

  It struck a different target instead.

  Klarisa screamed and fell to the ground, blood quickly drenching the snow.

  “No!” Dex dropped to his knees beside his old friend, staring at the ice shard embedded in her stomach. Klarisa looked up at him through her helmet, eyes full of pain, but determined.

  “Save yourself,” she whispered. “Get to the ice pub.”

  “Dex, come on!” Andi yelled, hurtling past him, Lon close behind.

  “Back to the stars, Guardian,” Dex choked out, reciting the words he’d said to fallen friends before. Klarisa’s eyes closed for the last time just as the ground trembled again.

  With a final glance at her still face, Dex ran for his life. The ship was just a few paces ahead, but the dragon was closer.

  “How are we going to get the ship in the sky before that thing takes it down, with us inside?” Andi asked through the com in their suits.

  She had a point. The beast could fly, and if this transport went down, they’d either be dragon food, or scorched to death if the ship blew. Either way, dead was dead.

  Dex got to the loading ramp first, shooting rounds at the beast to give Andi and Lon time to board. Finally, the two of them reached the ramp. Lon dumped the backpack on the floor as he slumped into a chair, breathing heavily.

  Blood pooled from his suit.

  “Now what?” Andi panted, ripping a medkit from the paneled wall as she turned to Lon.

  “We fly this bird,” Dex said, racing to the front of the hull. He buckled himself into the pilot’s chair and turned on the engines. They made a satisfying hum.

  “It’s almost on top of us!” Andi shouted in warning.

  Havoc screeched, claws lacerating a hole through the backpack as the dragon’s roar closed in.

  “Andi,” Dex heard Lon say. “It’s useless.”

  “No,” she growled. Dex looked over his shoulder to see her hands shaking as she sliced Lon’s suit leg open wide and frantically pressed gauze to his wound. The gauze soaked through instantly, and she cursed. “Dex! Get us the hell out of here!”

  Dex punched the throttle and lifted the ship into the air. But it wasn’t fast enough.

  The dragon’s claws raked down the open ramp, lurching the ship back toward the ground. Dex pushed the thrusters to full power, but it did little to dislodge the beast.

  “Andi! Get over here now!”

  He heard her muttering under her breath as she joined him. Together, they searched the console for something, anything that might help them fight back, until Dex heard Lon’s weak voice behind them.

  “Tell Lira I love her, and I will see her in our next life,” he said. Dex jerked his head around just in time to see Lon pull a grenade from the backpack. Havoc launched out as well, scurrying into the shadows beneath the dash.

  “Lon, what are you—” Andi started.

  The Sentinel met Dex’s gaze. “Tell her the truth, Dex. Tell her what she truly is.” His eyes flitted toward Andi briefly. Then he turned, before either of them could stop him, and launched himself out of the transport, toward the beast.

  Andi screamed as the dragon swallowed Lon whole and released its grip on the transport.

  Then the beast exploded into flames as the transport took to the sky.

  CHAPTER 10

  VALEN —THREE YEARS AGO

  Today, Nor gave him the sun.

  Or, at the very least, she’d tried to.

  Valen stood in his older sister’s crumbling tower, peering up at a sky that refused to open wide and reveal that blazing orb of light he’d missed so deeply during his months in Lunamere.

  “I know it’s not as you’d hoped it would be,” Nor said, stepping up beside Valen to rest her palm against the glass window that protected them from the acid rains. “I’ve heard stories about the sun on Arcardius. They say it shines so bright, it’s blinding.”

  Valen shrugged. “It hardly matters now. Arcardius isn’t my home any longer.”

  His real home was a place that existed beyond where he could see, far in the depths of outer space. In another galaxy entirely. Exonia.

  Valen often wondered if anything from his past had ever truly been real. He saw his sister Kalee in his mind’s eye. Not a full sister, as he’d always thought, but a half sister, like Nor. He could still see Kalee’s smile, still hear
the fading remnants of her laugh. Those memories were the ones he’d hung on to while he rotted inside his cell in Lunamere, completely unaware that his imprisonment was all part of Nor’s plan to help him discover his true self.

  Kalee’s laugh, when he tried to conjure it up now, fell flat. The sound was off, like a melody sung out of tune.

  He saw his mother, Merella—the only mother he’d ever known. He remembered the way she’d always been so gentle with him, so kind. Perhaps it had been out of pity, for she had always known that Valen wasn’t truly her flesh and blood.

  Most frequently of all, he saw his father. The ruthless General of Arcardius.

  A man who’d killed Valen’s real mother—murdered her in cold blood, when she was meant to be set free, delivered safely back to Xen Ptera with Valen. But on that Arcardian warship, during the final moments of the Cataclysm when his father and mother, Klaren, had hovered above Xen Ptera, Valen supposed that Cyprian had never planned to let Klaren live to see her two children united.

  Somehow, he’d discovered a way to fight Klaren’s compulsion. And because of that, he’d broken her, refusing to allow her to raise Valen and Nor together, as a family.

  Perhaps that had been his father’s mission all along. For he surely knew that if Klaren’s two children ever found each other, they’d become powerful beyond measure. Ruthless, perhaps even more than Cyprian had ever been.

  “The sun is a reminder,” Valen said now, sitting down on a small stone ledge carved into the tower. His body still ached, but Nor had assigned her personal physician to look after him, a cyborg woman who had come to his new suite of rooms and spread oils and tonics across his back until the lash wounds stitched themselves back together.

  Nor had given him more food than he’d eaten in months—the best she could offer from Xen Ptera’s limited supply, to help him grow strong.

  And now she’d done what she could to give him a ray of sunlight to cast away the shadows of his past.

  “A reminder of what?” Nor asked.

  Through the glass, Valen surveyed the streets of Nivia, Xen Ptera’s capital city. “That there will always be a new day.”

  “And if you can’t see the sun?” she wondered. Her expression was full of grief as she gazed down at her people below—as if all she could see was death.

  “Then we will make our own,” Valen swore. “Together. And then the world will be ours, and bow beneath our will.”

  Nor looked slightly heartened at his declaration. “The message our mother sent to me before she died... It wasn’t only about you. She told me that Exonia was dying, too. Imagine it, Valen. Our true home is an entire galaxy like Xen Ptera. Desperate for escape. We can be that escape for them, when we tear open the Void.”

  They would do it. He knew, just from the look in her eyes each time she spoke of the future, that she would help him hone his power to its greatest potential. And someday, they would change the fate of not just one galaxy, but two.

  “That’s why I come up here,” Nor said quietly. “I force myself to stare down at this hideous place, because it reminds me of what’s at stake. And now I hope it reminds you, too.” She glared at the skies, with that icy gaze he had come to know as strength.

  It made Valen itch with the need for revenge.

  Not for himself. But for these people. For his sister.

  For all the lies his father had ever told him.

  For Exonia.

  * * *

  One moment, Valen was lying on a soft pillow of moss in Kalee’s garden, feeling Nor’s presence fade away from their mental doorway. The next...a deep breath, a press against that thread of power within his soul...

  Valen stepped into the confines of his mind.

  Here was the threshold of his power.

  The sky was dark overhead, clouds rumbling as the wind howled like a wounded beast. A battlefield lay before him, heavy with the corpses of dead demons from his past. Fear, and insecurity, and the certainty that he would never amount to anything. Valen himself had slain them all on his journey to unlocking his compulsion.

  He’d left their bodies to rot. Physical reminders of how far he’d come, since that very first time Nor and Darai had shown him how to craft this domain.

  Some of those dead demons would rise again, as they always did.

  But for now, they remained motionless. And that was fine with Valen, for he had work to do. Minds to connect with, orders to give.

  The frozen grass crunched underfoot as he walked down the sloping hillside, a torch held tightly in his fist. The flame flickered, but did not give out, even with the power of the wind.

  For Valen controlled all things here.

  This was his kingdom. His domain.

  And far across the battlefield, waiting for him, like a monster in its own right—a dark fortress. The place where his compulsion, the height of his ability, the center of everything for him and Nor, stood. Valen smiled, his first real smile in days, as he stepped over the dead, his eyes on the giant obsidinite castle that cast a shadow across this land.

  Here, he was a king without a crown. But he didn’t need one—not in this place.

  Here, there were no limitations on what he could do.

  Valen visualized himself wearing a cloak of deepest crimson—Nor’s favorite color—as he did each time he visited the castle in his mind. In the space between one breath and the next, the cloak appeared, fabric snapping in the wind like the crack of the whips that had once been used to drag him down to the depths of humanity in Lunamere—to force his compulsion to manifest, if he wished to survive.

  The fabric shimmered with each step he took, illuminated by the steady flame of his torch, and bones shattered beneath his boots as Valen reached the edge of the battlefield. The wind, howling at his back, seemed to quiet. It had always talked to him, the wind. Whispered little things that were like secrets from deep within his own soul.

  But tonight, it was silent. As if everything came to a sudden stillness when he reached the threshold of his domain.

  Valen looked up, craning his neck toward the top of the castle, taking in each perfectly aligned black obsidinite stone. This fortress housed every mind he compelled across Mirabel. Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands, all bent to his will.

  Home, his body hummed. For a moment, he thought he heard Nor’s voice calling his name. A flicker, distant as he glanced back across the battlefield, to that dark tunnel that led to their linked doorway. But the sound faded almost as soon as it began, and he carried on, dismissing it as he drew closer to his castle.

  It was a shadow even darker than the battlefield, spreading as far as his eyes could see, left and right, the rigid walls snaking across the horizon. The irony of its resemblance to Lunamere was not lost on him, as the mere mention of the prison moon had once caused his knees to quake. But Valen chuckled to himself now at the thought of that wretched place, where he had spent months weak and shivering, because it was now his greatest memory in life.

  It was there where Valen had first tasted power.

  Where he had first learned who he was...and who he could be.

  He reached the castle doors, towering masterpieces made of obsidinite. A carving of the triangular Solis family crest was spread across the two doors.

  Gold, the color of Nor’s eyes.

  Valen ran his fingertips across the symbol. He could feel his power purring in response, like a great beast awaiting its master’s return. If Valen listened closely enough, he could hear the murmurs of those beneath his compulsion. Like whispering souls, wandering aimlessly through the black corridors.

  He took off his boots as he entered, placing them down gently on the dark stone floors.

  “Home,” Valen said.

  His voice echoed across the walls. There were no portraits here. No fine decorations. Just dark, endless hallways that stretched on for miles.
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  Valen set his torch in an empty bracket on the wall. Immediately, the other torches in the corridor flared to life, stretching on forever, as far and as wide as Valen’s mind would allow, illuminating the vast space.

  Lining both sides of the halls were doors, nearly identical to those that had once caged him in his cell on Lunamere. But inside these cells, the prisoners were not people.

  They were minds.

  The very essence of a person. Their hopes, their dreams, their desires. The minds of nearly every man, woman and child across Mirabel resided in this castle. Or rather, Valen’s connections to those minds.

  He still shivered every time he felt a new mind join his network. It was like another piece of himself clicking into place, and with each addition, his castle walls had expanded. They’d grown taller. Wider. Until the castle became a fortress that could not be shaken or overtaken.

  Valen took a left now, striding down the first hallway. As he walked, he occasionally glanced through the barred windows of each doorway. Eventually, he slowed to a stop before one door and peered inside the cell, pressing his face to the cold bars.

  As soon as he made contact, it was as if Valen had suddenly been transported across the stars, soaring through darkness until there was a spark. A jolt. A scene materialized before him, images flickering into existence as Valen saw into his victim’s mind. As he saw the world through their eyes, like they were his own.

  A young child, judging by the size of her hands. She was sitting crisscross in a patch of amber grass that swayed in the wind. Native to Uulveca, Valen realized.

  The girl was playing with a doll. A newly fashioned one, for when the child turned the doll around, Valen saw the rouged lips, the ringlet curls, the golden crown nestled atop the doll’s head.

  It was Nor.

  The child giggled as she made the doll dance.

  “Worship your queen,” Valen whispered into her mind. “Worship her, carry out her commands, and you will have peace.”

  He felt the compulsion sink into the child. Like a parasite nestling in deeper, beside one that had already been there, growing steadily day by day.