by Lili Zander
Mirak jerks his hand in the direction of the cockpit. “Okay, let’s get going. Nobody’s awake, so there’s nobody to convince. Danek, let’s get you and Naomi out of there before someone decides to review the battledroids’ feeds.”
Ruhan looks offended. “Give me a little credit. I’m blocking the feeds, obviously.”
I laugh. I hate to admit it, but it looks like Dariux was right. This mission was about as uncomplicated as they get. “Okay, let’s grab the floofs and—”
One of the stasis pods in front of me hisses open. A young man drags himself out. A boy, really. Brown hair, flopping over his forehead. Oddly familiar brown-purple eyes. Skinny. He’s wearing a turquoise prison jumpsuit. His right arm has the dreaded Draekon tattoo, the skin red and bruised. His knuckles are bruised too.
He fought the diagnosis. My stomach clenches in sympathy. I’ve never lived through the Testing—I was one of the original Draekons—but I know how it feels to have your world upended. This young man, who doesn’t look a day over twenty, has just had his life ripped from him.
He’s clutching his head, his face set in lines of pain.
Sixth snaps into the role of a scientist. “What you’re feeling is resonance sickness. There are drugs that will help. How bad is the pain?”
“Not unbearable. No worse than a bad headache.” The boy looks up for the first time. For an instant, his eyes are unfocused, and then he takes us in, and his expression hardens. “I’m on Noturn, am I?”
Why does he look familiar? “You know of the planet’s effects?”
He laughs, the sound short and ugly. “Oh, yes. It seems that my esteemed mother cut a deal with the scientists. I don’t know why I’m surprised.”
Naomi gasps, her hand flying over her mouth. “You’re Director Lashi’vi’s son?”
“I’m House Cindifin’s dirty little secret. The bastard son, abandoned at birth, because his father was Lowborn. Left to die.” His lips twist into a bitter sneer. “Except I didn’t. Fuck them all. I pulled myself out of the gutter and I made something of myself, didn’t I?” He catches sight of the tattoo on his bicep, the red inked dragon that marks the end of his life, and his face crumples. “I was going to be honored for my work,” he says, his voice anguished. “Spymaster Ru’vi herself was going to be at the banquet.”
Ru’vi. Every instinct in me screams a warning. “You’re a spy.”
“Not any spy,” he says. “I was one of the best. Nobody could get into Blood Heart, not until they sent me.”
All five of us snap to attention. “Why were you watching Blood Heart? How recently were you there?”
He frowns at the barrage of questions. “I broke bread with First last week,” he answers. “I was good at my job. No, I was great. They sent so many people, and they were all discovered, and then they sent me. I got the High Empire valuable intelligence. I was in First’s inner circle, and none of that matters anymore, because I tested positive. The Draekon gene is the only thing that’s important.” His face crumples. “They sent me here to lose my mind. In three months, I’ll be a gibbering idiot.”
“Danek,” Kadir says urgently. “We need—”
“I know.” None of the Rebellion’s people have been able to infiltrate Blood Heart. Theldre’s last contact hasn’t sent us any intelligence in the last month. There’s been no contact. He or she—Theldre won’t say—might be dead.
This young man, standing in front of us, Lashi’vi’s son, might be our only source of information.
We need to get the hell out of here. I need to get him to the Rebellion so that we can debrief him. So that we can finally find out what First has been doing since Hetov.
I address him, my tone sympathetic. “I promise—you’re not going to be imprisoned here on Noturn. We’re going to fly this shuttle out, and we’re going to head to the Rebellion, where you will be safe. Your life isn’t over. It’s just beginning.”
I thought I was consoling him. It turns out that I’ve said exactly the wrong thing. The man’s face contorts. “You don’t understand,” he snarls. “I’ve already clawed my way out of the gutter once. I want my damn reward. I want my life back.”
He takes a step back. In a flash, he pulls something out of a pocket. A syringe.
What the fuck—why wasn’t he searched before they put him in stasis? Dread soaks me. I have a very bad feeling about this.
He places the needle on a vein in his forearm.
“Danek,” Sixth’s voice cracks like a whip. “Stop him.”
I barely hear my brother. I’m already diving forward.
30
Naomi
Time slows to a crawl.
Danek dives toward Lashi’vi’s son, trying to stop whatever is going to happen.
He’s not fast enough. He can’t make it in time, and he knows it. The needle pierces the other man’s skin.
Danek knocks him to the ground.
The two of them roll around. Tussle. The Cindifin scion fights dirty. He stabs Danek with his fingers, aiming for the cut on his forehead. Danek takes the blow without flinching, his fingers locked on the other man’s wrist.
Then it happens. The needle stabs Danek’s palm, and the contents of the syringe drain into my Draekon.
For a second, the world is hushed.
Then he starts to scream. He screams and screams and screams, as if he’s being burned from the inside out. He claws at his eyes and pulls his hair, and I’m frozen in shock, horrified, terrified.
A black mold seems to grow across his face. His skin starts to smoke. And I know, with absolute certainty, that he’s dying.
An ocean of panic opens inside of me, and I start to go under.
“Naomi.” A voice tugs at me. It’s Sixth’s hologram. He’s kneeling next to Danek, his eyes inches from Danek’s face. “I need your help.”
“Yes. Anything.”
“Danek’s body is shutting down. Whatever was in that syringe…” His voice trails off. “You need to get him into stasis.”
“Okay. Of course.” My Draekon’s probably got a hundred pounds on me, minimum, but I don’t care; I’ll make it work. I have to make it work.
I start to tug Danek toward the stasis pods, but he’s a deadweight. “The antigrav cuffs,” Ruhan exclaims. “I almost forgot. Use them.”
“Anti-what?”
“In his pack.”
I empty the contents of the pack on the floor. Ruhan points to four dull platinum cuffs. “Get them on him.”
My fingers are shaking. I snap them around Danek’s wrists, then his ankles. Ruhan shows me how to turn them on, and then, as if by magic, Danek starts to levitate. My heart in my mouth, I tug him into one of the vacant stasis pods.
It’s never looked more like a coffin to me.
He’s cold. So cold. His skin is bumpy and ridged, riddled with the mold. His eyes are closed, and his breathing is faint, so faint I don’t know if I’m imagining it.
I could drown in my ocean of panic, but Danek needs me. He’s never needed me more. He was there for me. He saved me. Now it’s my turn to do what I can.
I push him inside the stasis unit, crawling inside with him to get his body to slide all the way in. “You need the cuffs,” Sixth says. “For the kid.”
Oh, right. Lashi’vi’s son. I glance back and see that he’s still on the ground, convulsing in agony, clawing at his face the way Danek was. My stomach churns. Oh God, what the fuck was in that syringe? What’s going to happen to Danek?
I move over Danek’s body as gingerly as I can and remove the cuffs from his ankles. I’ve got my hands around his wrists when his eyes flutter open. “Naomi,” he says, his voice so soft I have to strain to listen. “I love you.”
Tears pour down my cheeks. “I love you too,” I choke out. “I love you so much.”
But his eyes have already shut, and I’m not sure he heard me.
It’s too late.
31
Naomi
My memories after that are a little blurry.
Ruhan hacks into the stasis pods to check Danek’s vitals. Whatever he sees freaks all of them out, and Sixth tells me to comm Kenia, the Cindifin scientist, and get her here in a hurry.
It takes her two hours to get to our dome. Two long, terrifying hours. To her credit, the second she sees Danek’s vitals, she doesn’t waste any time asking stupid questions like ‘Why is there a secret dome here?’ and ‘What is this shuttle filled with Draekons doing on Noturn?’ and ‘What happened to your bondmate?” Instead, she snaps into action, following Sixth’s directives without question.
At the four-hour mark, Mirak and Diana touch down in a small, sleek spaceship. They sprint out, dressed in spacesuits.
I’ve only met Diana once. She squeezes my hand. “It’s going to be okay, Naomi,” she says reassuringly. “Draekons are tough. Especially these guys.”
But Mirak doesn’t say anything, and the stress on his face delivers a different message.
I don’t remember the journey back to the Rebellion. I don’t remember the take-off, or the wormhole jumps, or docking alongside the colony ship. Those things must have all happened, but my mind doesn’t hold thoughts, and I have space only for one person. Danek.
Who is dying, as this virus that he’s been infected with eats him from the inside out.
My vigil begins.
32
Naomi
Danek is in a healing tank. His organs are shutting down, one by one. The virus, whatever it is, seems to be rewriting his genes.
“Hey.” I have an overwhelming urge to touch him. This tank is not as tall as the one on Noturn. It looks like a shallow swimming pool. I stand over him, tears filling my eyes. “I miss you.” I brush my fingers across his cheek. “Pumpkin, Plague, and Pestilence miss you too. They keep escaping from my room. I think they’re looking for you.”
He’s unconscious, and I doubt he can hear me, but it can’t hurt, right? He talked to me when I was fighting for my life. Just eighty days ago. How can someone become so essential in less than three months? How does someone carve their way into my heart that quickly?
Sixth comes running into the room. “What did you do?” he demands.
I jump back. “I touched him,” I stammer. “I’m sorry. Is that bad?”
He scans the readings, and then he looks at me, his eyes shadowed. “You’re his mate,” he exhales. “Naomi, I’m so sorry.”
“What?” Sixth hasn’t slept either. Is that why he’s confused? “No, that’s not real. That was just our cover identity on Noturn.”
“No. When you touched him, the rathr became dormant. You’re his mate.”
“I don’t understand.” But I do. He’s my mate, and he’s dying. In one breath, the universe gives me everything I want, and in the next, it takes it all away.
“Keep touching him. It helps.”
My vigil continues.
33
Naomi
The days pass. I live in the hospital. I talk to Danek. I keep touching his icy hand. His cold face, covered in that horrible black mold. His bloodless lips.
He’s never alone. I’m always in his room, and I’m not the only one. Sixth and Raiht’vi, an unlikely duo, bark theories to each other, trying treatment after treatment, one drug cocktail after another, racing frantically to save him.
Nothing seems to be working.
Lashi’vi’s kid hovers at the edge of death too, or so Alice tells me. He’s young—so young—and it’s so very tragic. I’m too numb to absorb it.
Will went quickly. He died in the car crash. I never thought of it as a blessing. For months after the accident, I railed against the universe, angry that I never got a chance to say goodbye. That I never got a chance to tell him how much I loved him.
But now, at Danek’s bedside, I realize there’s no good way to say goodbye. There’s no way to make my peace with this. Danek could die in an instant, or he could linger, balanced between life and death, slowly and inexorably tipping over to the dark side, and neither hurts any less. They both shred my heart.
The vigil continues.
“Naomi.”
I look up. It’s Mala, the healer, and she’s holding a cup in her hand. “Drink. It’s tea. It will help.”
I take it from her. “What time is it?” What day is it? It’s dark outside. I don’t remember the colony ship switching to ‘night’ mode. I must have dozed off.
“Two. Have you eaten anything?”
“Yeah.” I wave to my half-eaten slice of pizza. “Kadir brought me lunch.”
“That was hours ago. I’ll bring you something.” She sits down next to me. “Naomi,” she says, her voice very gentle. “I don’t know if Sixth has talked to you. But Danek…”
“I know.” With each passing day, the odds of a recovery decrease. We’re approaching miracle territory. “Sixth told me.” He also told me he wasn’t done fighting. He promised me that he’d never be done fighting for Danek. As long as Danek clung to life, Sixth would work around the clock for a cure.
I believe him. I have to. It’s all I’ve got.
“Loss is a part of my profession,” she says quietly. “It doesn’t get easier.” She exhales slowly. “Fifth isn’t getting better. I don’t want to tell you what to do, but—”
“But what?”
She puts her hand on my shoulder. Her voice is infinitely kind. “It’s not long now. If there’s anything you want to say to him, do it before it’s too late.”
She leaves me, and then, it’s just the two of us. Danek and me, alone in the dark.
A few days ago, my biggest problem was finding a grey strand of hair. I’d been jealous of Kenia, for fuck’s sake. Danek couldn’t take his eyes off me, and I couldn’t bring myself to believe it.
I was afraid of heartbreak.
Joke’s on me, isn’t it? One way or the other, my heart is going to shatter.
I lace my fingers in his stiff ones. “Hey,” I whisper. “It’s me again. Mala thinks I should tell you stuff.” I have to force the words out through the sobs. “You know I love you, right? I love you so freaking much.”
He sat at my bedside, night after night, when I was sick. He pulled me from my nightmares. Whenever I needed a helping hand, he was there. Always. Without question. He mocks my cozy mysteries and he grumbles at my pets and he’s the rock that anchored me to reality. When I was lost in the dark, he showed up with a lantern and helped me find my way back. He’s everything to me.
I brush the tears away. “You always made me feel special,” I force out. “And you always make me feel normal. I know that’s a contradiction, and I know I’m not making any sense, but you know what I mean, right?”
I bend over the healing tank, and gently kiss his cold lips. “If this is the end, then I want to say this. I would never trade my time with you for anything. I would do it all over again. I would willingly sign myself up for the scientists’ torture, because that’s what brought you into my life.” I’m crying so hard that I can’t continue. I don’t want this to be the end. I don’t want it to be over, damn it. The universe owes me. It took Will away from me.
It can’t take Danek away too.
My vigil continues.
34
Naomi
Two more weeks go by.
I’m dozing off at Danek’s bedside when the machines start to beep. I jump awake with a start, dread filling every inch of my body.
The door explodes open. Sixth barrels into the room, Raiht’vi at his heels. He rushes to the displays. For a long instant, he scans the readings, and then he sinks to the floor, his head buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking.
My heart stops.
“What is it?” I demand. “Sixth. Please tell me, what is it?”
Raiht’vi looks at the displays too. She turns to me slowly. “His cells are fighting back,” she says, answering the question I’d asked the Draekon. “This is a miracle.” She draws in a deep, shuddering breath. “He’s going to get better.”
In the healing tank, Danek op
ens his eyes. He turns his head slowly, and then he notices me sitting next to him.
Our eyes meet.
When he sees me, he goes very still.
And then he smiles. “Hi.”
35
Danek
A month later…
“I’m moving like an old man, and I don’t like it.”
“If you don’t want to sound like an old man, stop grumbling,” Kadir advises me with a grin. “Okay, where do you want the flowers?”
“Everywhere, obviously.”
Alice laughs at my response. “Fifth,” she says. “You’ve got balloons. You’ve got sandwiches. You’ve got flowers. If people find out about this, your reputation as a fierce, grumpy solider is going to be in tatters.”
It probably already is. I’ve spent more than a month in the healing center. I lost half my body weight. I’m regaining my strength, but it’s slow going.
I never wanted to be the Draekon Warlord. I never wanted people to flinch away from me in fear. I wanted something far simpler, and far more complicated.
And now I have it. I have Naomi.
While I lay in hospital, fighting for my life, the Rebellion interrogated Thruk, Lashi’vi’s son. What they discovered was bad. Very bad.
First has kidnapped two dozen scientists and he has them working on one problem. Eradicate the Draekon gene.
Experimental gene therapy, Sixth calls it. Raiht’vi, who has studied the Draekons her entire career, called it sheer hubris. “Does First think it hasn’t been tried?” she’d asked, her expression furious. “Does he think we are fools? That if we could roll back the Draekon gene, we wouldn’t have? It isn’t possible. Not anymore. We are all Draekon.”
