Ghosts & Ashes

by F. T. Lukens

  With the Corpsmen focused elsewhere, Ren slammed a hand on the wall, released his power and plunged the drift into darkness for the count of two breaths. Then he brought the lights back up, silencing the panicked cries of the populace.

  Nadie was gone.

  Asher grabbed Ren by the shoulders and pushed him into the crowd. They blended in and disappeared, and only when they were certain no birdmen were watching, they slowed.

  “Ash,” Ren said. “She hid and waited for us. They drove her from her business, her home, and she waited for us. To warn us.”

  “I wish you would stop believing everything you hear,” Asher said. He pulled Ren farther down the outside curve of the drift and then to a lift. He shoved Ren inside. Asher leveled a glare at the lone occupant, who scurried out. Asher slammed his hand on the close-door button. “Turn it off.”

  Ren nodded, cutting the video feeds. They rode in silence; the lift took them up and up and up to the higher levels of the drift.

  “She said—”

  “I don’t care.” Asher cut Ren off. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I had to help her.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “She was right before.”

  “Well, she wasn’t glowing and crazy last time, was she? Did you not see her, Ren? She had clearly lost whatever tenuous connection she had to humanity. She was star.”

  “That doesn’t mean she wasn’t accurate. If anything, it meant she was more so.”

  “Who knew what she saw? That could’ve been minutes into the future, or hours, or decades.”

  “So you admit that she was seeing the future?”

  Asher set his jaw. He watched the numbers tick by.

  “You… you didn’t like seeing her like that, did you? It reminded you of me.”

  Tapping his foot, Asher breathed heavily through his nose. “Yes,” he finally said, clipped, strained.

  “She was driven to that. The Corps had obviously been watching her, and they drove her into hiding, which makes what she said even more important. She waited for us, Ash. She was compelled to tell us those things.”

  “She made no sense. It was a jumbled mess. What does watch you cross mean? Huh? After I cross you? It was nonsense.”

  “It wasn’t nonsense.”

  Asher spun on his heel. He crowded close, pushed Ren to the wall of the lift with his body. Ren was suddenly overcome by the heat of him, the smell of his skin, the warmth of his breath puffing against Ren’s neck.

  “What do you want me to say? That I’ll betray you? That you’ll betray me while you’re in my arms? Do you want that future?”

  Ren shivered. “No, No.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t believe her. Don’t make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.” He swallowed. “Don’t keep secrets.”

  Ren met Asher’s gaze; Nadie’s words rang in his ears. Asher will cross him—betray him—to the Phoenix Corps, to get his rank back, his family back. Asher had already shown more allegiance to the organization that had taken him in as a teenager than to anyone else. And Ren was… Ren was a stupid duster who had been nothing but trouble—a star host, a being who skirted humanity, a person whom people feared. “I’m not keeping any,” Ren lied, voice even.

  Asher dropped his head and sighed. He nodded and pushed away as the lift dinged and slowed to a stop. “Okay,” he said. He rolled his shoulder and stepped out into the bustling corridor. “Okay,” he repeated.

  Hollowed out and rattled, with Nadie’s glowing eyes vivid in his mind’s eye, Ren followed.

  11

  “That’s for running off!” Rowan said.

  A slap to the back of the head wasn’t quite what Ren was expecting when he saw Rowan again, but he couldn’t complain. Well, he could, but it wouldn’t be a good course of action. Instead, he silently rubbed the sore spot and stared at the floor, trying to convey a mixture of guilt and apology. He didn’t pull it off, if Ollie’s snort was anything to go by.

  She smacked Ren again, and he ducked out of her reach. Then she did same to Asher, two quick taps to the side of his head.

  “Hey!” he yelled. He pushed her shoulder. “What did I do?”

  “That’s for making me worry.” Rowan put her hands on her hips. “Honestly, I don’t know what to do with the three of you.”

  “How about not hit us?” Asher said, rubbing the spot above his ear. “We’ve had a difficult week, thanks.”

  Ren bit his lip. Difficult was an understatement. He and Asher had hidden for two days while Rowan made her way back to Delphi. Staying below the radar was tougher than they’d first thought. Nadie had been able to hide as long as she did because she could see the future. But Asher was an AWOL Phoenix Corps soldier and somewhat of a celebrity, as the son of a high-ranking official. Ren didn’t stand out, but the Corps under VanMeerten knew every angle of his face, and though Ren could monitor vid feeds and comm systems, he wasn’t clairvoyant.

  Two days of using fake names, a credit chip, and the little charm they had, got them rooms in two different hotels. They’d changed after the first night, just in case. They didn’t leave their room unless it was necessary, and thus spent two long, tense twenty-four-hour drift cycles sleeping and staring at each other. It was maddening, especially since Ren held a secret, and Asher was determined to pretend he wasn’t aware of it.

  Also, Ren couldn’t shake Nadie’s visions. They pierced him; the truth of her words sank into his bones and made him wary and afraid.

  “What were you thinking?” Rowan asked, moving back into Ren’s personal space. She gripped him by the collar of his jacket and shook him like a naughty puppy. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed. You could’ve gotten Asher killed. And where is Jakob? I need to yell at him, too.” She whirled around, finger pointed, looking behind the pair of them. When she found nothing, she froze, and her eyes went wide. “Where is he? Is he okay?”

  “He stayed behind,” Ren said. “We found Sorcha, a friend of ours, and his sisters. He couldn’t leave them again.”

  Rowan nodded, then tugged on her golden braid. Her relief that Jakob was alive was evident. “I’m glad for him. He’ll be missed. He was good crew. But I’m happy he found what he was looking for.”

  “Yeah,” Ren said, throat tight.

  “And you? Did you find…?”

  “Not here,” Asher said, breaking his silence. He gestured at the open ramp, at the life and energy of the drift within arm’s reach, as well as vid feeds and comms.

  “Fine. Come on in. Though if you weren’t family and you couldn’t turn my own ship against me with a thought, I’d draw this out a little more. I’m still angry at both of you. Keep that in mind.”

  “Your stubbornness has been noted and will be filed in the proper receptacle,” Asher said.

  Rowan made a rude gesture. Asher smiled smugly. Siblings.

  Ren’s stomach ached.

  Rowan led them into the cargo bay, and Ollie shut the doors behind them. The yellow light from above cast them in a warm glow, though it didn’t do much to illuminate the rest of the area. After the kinetic atmosphere of the drift, the dim surroundings and the silence of the closed cargo bay were a reprieve. Ren breathed slowly. Being back on the Star Stream gave him a sense of peace he hadn’t felt recently. It was more home than anywhere else now, and Ren was happy to be back, happy to be in a place where he knew every wire, every conduit. It was familiar and comforting, and Ren cloaked himself in it, wrapped it around him like a blanket, and indulged in the systems that welcomed him.

  “Ren?” Rowan hedged, touching his sleeve. “You okay?”

  Ren sucked in air. “I’m fine. Why?”

  Rowan stared at him, brow furrowed. Ollie towered next to her with arms crossed over his chest and muscles bulging beneath his brown skin. He
also seemed concerned. “I’ve asked you the same question three times, and you haven’t answered. You stared off into space and glowed.”

  “Oh,” Ren said. He shook his head and cleared his mind of the ever-present crackle of the comm system and the glitch in the starboard thruster. “What?”

  “I said, did you find what you were looking for? I hope your insubordination had a payoff.”

  “I found my parents.”

  “Oh, that’s… good? You don’t sound like it was good.”

  “It wasn’t really.”

  Rowan raised an eyebrow. “I’m missing something.”

  “You’re missing several things,” Asher said. He crossed his arms. “To make a long story short, the Phoenix Corps believes I’ve abandoned my post and that I’ve gone AWOL. They are all over Erden looking for Vos and now us. And Ren is keeping information from me.”

  Ren glared. “Your short stories suck. First, the Phoenix Corps is all over Erden looking for star hosts and killing residents because they believe that there are more people like me hiding in the population. Second, we went to see Nadie.”

  Rowan’s eyebrows shot up. “The seer?”

  “Yes, and she warned me that Asher is going to cross me and that I’m going to cross him. So I’m sorry if I don’t feel like sharing all the information I have right now.”

  Rowan looked at them, mouth pulled in a frown. “Seriously? You’re back to fighting? I’d hoped time alone together would have led to making up.”

  “That’s not your business.”

  “It is my business when you two act like children and keep making me intervene. Also, when your relationship with a powerful being threatens my actual money-making business, then it is my business.”

  “Can we stop saying business?”

  “I swear to the stars you two will be the end of me. One of you start making sense. Now.”

  “The Phoenix Corps is evil,” Ren said. He stared at the deck plate. “They killed a friend of mine. They’re looking for a way to rid the cluster of people like me. And they’re doing it by killing innocents.”

  “Says your parents. Who lied to you your whole life,” Asher said, sharply.

  “Says my parents and Vos.”

  Asher dropped his arms. Ollie’s mouth fell open. Rowan’s eyebrows shot up.

  “When the hell did you talk to Vos?” Asher demanded. He crowded into Ren’s space. His expression was flat. “Is that why you needed the beacon? To contact him? Is that why Beatrice died?”

  Ren lashed out, shoving Asher away from him. Asher took a step back, and Ren followed, pushing again, with his palms flat on Asher’s shoulder. He shoved and shoved and shoved.

  “Ren!”

  Ollie grabbed him and pinned his arms down at his sides. Ren twisted in Ollie’s grip. His star throbbed in anger; his vision washed blue.

  “How dare you?” Ren spat. “How dare you say her name when it was your beloved Corps that killed her. They killed her. Not Vos. Not me.”

  “If you hadn’t turned off that stupid message, they wouldn’t have known we were there.”

  “Don’t take your utter denial about your place in all of this out on me.”

  “My place? What? Do you think I’m like Zag? That I went to planets and murdered people?”

  “You were a Phoenix Corps soldier. How do I know what you did while under orders?”

  “Do you of all people want to talk about murderers? That’s slippery ground for your kind.”

  “That’s enough!” Rowan barked. Her hand splayed across Asher’s chest, keeping him in place. She looked at them with lips thinned and eyes narrowed. “Ren, stand down. Asher, go to your quarters.”

  “What?” Asher’s jaw clenched. His cheeks reddened. “Why? Are you siding with him?”

  “Are you questioning an order from your captain? Because let me remind you how utterly pissed I am at you and how I can have Ollie throw you back out onto that drift into the waiting arms of the Corps.”

  Asher’s gaze flickered to Ollie. Ren couldn’t see Ollie’s expression, but Asher paled. Still shaking with anger, and with one last glare in Ren’s direction, Asher stalked off into the belly of the ship. His stomps echoed, and Rowan sighed. She rubbed her temple.

  “Little brothers.”

  Ren blinked. The phrase wiped away his anger and reminded him of his purpose. He sagged in Ollie’s arms and scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  Rowan waved off the apology. “Just tell me the facts, and we won’t have a problem.”

  Ren nodded, and after a quick walk to the common area and after sinking into the lumpy couch cushions with a cup of tea, he did. He told Rowan and Ollie everything. He talked about Beatrice and the program of Vos and the possible outpost on Crei. He talked about the ghosts in the farmhouse which could’ve been birdmen—Rowan snorted at the nickname—and the blaring message at the castle. He told them about Sorcha and Jakob and Ezzy and about Zag and the shot meant for him.

  When he finished his tea, Ollie handed him a trinket from the broke-box. Ren spun the old tool in his hands and fiddled with it as he continued, fixing it with barely a thought as the words poured from him.

  He talked about failure and fear and seeing Nadie driven mad and how Asher had told him he hadn’t been much different.

  He talked about Liam.

  He talked about his parents, about their beliefs, their warnings, about how Asher had reprimanded his mother. He talked about the story of his kind, of the star hosts, how they’d been driven to the planets to hide. And then he stopped, throat parched, with the words drying up in his mouth.

  Rowan crossed from the table and sat beside Ren on the couch. She rested her hand over his; her palm was cool and comforting on his knuckles.

  “I’m sorry, Ren.” She closed her eyes, took a breath, and her hand closed over his a little tighter. “One of the hardest lessons I learned when I was younger was that sometimes the people you want to believe in and look up to aren’t who you think they are. Sometimes the people you love aren’t good people. And it’s awful. It’s hard to reconcile the image you had with the things you know. But hard as that is, the good news is that you don’t have to follow in their footsteps.”

  “And you get to make your own family,” Ollie added. “And those kinds of family, the ones you choose, are the best kinds.” Ollie took the now-fixed tool from Ren’s fingers and slipped another item from the box into his free hand.

  Ren swallowed. He turned his hand over and gripped Rowan’s.

  “Thank you.”

  She smiled. “I would say it’s no problem, but you’ve been a cog in the system since you stepped on board. And I’m still angry with you, but you do have a place here, if you want it.”

  “I want to find my brother.”

  “I know. And you really think he’s on Crei? With Vos?”

  Ren shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I think Vos might know where he is. If he doesn’t, we might be able to find a clue.”

  “I’ll have to think about it, Ren. I can’t endanger the crew. Again. And I have to think about Asher, too. He’s my brother and he’s considered AWOL. We may be able to get that reversed, but I don’t know what it will cost him.”

  Ren looked away. “I know.”

  “I don’t think you do. Look, stars know he can be a jerk, and arrogant, and a standoffish cog. But when he ran away from our mom at sixteen and joined the Phoenix Corps, they took him in. They became his family of choice. And he needed that. So if what you say is true, about what they’ve been secretly doing for years, and with him witnessing the events with Zag, he has things to work through. You may have found out that your parents weren’t shining examples of humanity, but Asher also found out that the organization he holds allegiance to is shady and corrupt. And you know he has to be replaying all the missions he’s been on, ques
tioning if he’s contributed to the destruction of your kind.”

  That was true. Asher was probably in his room, head in his hands, eyes scrunched shut, agonizing over every detail.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m going to go talk to him. Hang out here with Ollie and—” she picked up a broken spanner— “fix things. Honestly, I don’t understand boys at all.” She stood and dropped the tool onto the couch. She straightened her shirt, tugged it down, and smoothed out the nonexistent wrinkles.

  Ren mustered a smile. “It seems I don’t get them either.”

  Rowan laughed. “Idiot. Don’t worry. It will all work out. You’re both under stress, and I know from experience that stress makes the pair of you stupid.”

  Ren didn’t argue, but history had proven otherwise. They worked well under duress. They clicked when things around them fell apart. It was all the other times when they couldn’t get along. Ren rubbed the end of his sleeve over his face. He didn’t know how they could go from kissing in the midst of a life-or-death crisis to being safe on the ship and at each other’s throats.

  Rowan left, and Ollie moved from his position on the arm of the couch to the cushion next to Ren.

  “So you want to go to Crei?”

  Ren nodded. He handed Ollie the repaired spanner and accepted the next broken item. He was thankful for Ollie’s strong and steady presence. It calmed him, and the mindless work kept his star occupied while he tried to think.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you sure? What if you find something you don’t want to? Like with your parents.”

  Ren shrugged. “I want to find Liam.”