My body should have been screaming with exhaustion and pain. The last twenty-four hours had been brutal, and as I ran back down the hallway, I was dimly aware that earlier I had been limping from where Eton had managed to land a particularly savage kick near my knee. But now I had no limp, no pain, and no exhaustion. I felt fiery exhilaration. Unbidden, my mind conjured an image of that single trickle of blood from Qole’s nose, and I knew I’d made the right decision to go back for her.
I didn’t dare use the photon rifle yet, as any discharged weapon was sure to set off any number of alarms. If I was lucky, no one would know about what had just transpired in the cell for at least a few minutes. If I was fast, I could get Qole out of the laboratory, into a starfighter in the landing bay and escape. Fear gripped my heart again; this was a free fall of a plan, and it could turn to disaster at any second with just one wrong move.
I pushed it away, focused on the fire in me, on Qole, and ran faster.
When the door to the lab hissed open, I had only a second to spot the lab suits gathered around a still thankfully conscious Qole—who was also angry, frightened, and now shocked-looking—before my attention was diverted by something important I had forgotten.
They really hadn’t been after me at all. Only her. There was no other reason the Bladeguard would be here, turning his featureless mask toward me as I entered, his sword sweeping from his hip into his hands in a barely visible snap.
This would have been a perfect time to use the photon rifle, if only the lab hadn’t been full of equipment that I knew all too well was, out here in space, as unstable as Shadow. If I missed and hit an oxygen line at full power, we might all be dead. And yet if I took the time to fumble with the rifle settings, I’d be in meaty ribbons on the floor. Instead, I dove for where our belongings had been deposited. They were still there, off to one side, and I understood what true good fortune felt like for the first time in my life.
At some point, long ago, some clever scientist had discovered an effective energy shield against photon and plasma blasters. And then another clever scientist had discovered that the best way to compromise such a shield, which was great at stopping energy blasts and terrible at stopping mass, was a blade—a Disruption Blade. Over the centuries, certain people began to specialize in getting close enough to heavily armed soldiers to hack at them, and they turned into the elite of the elite: guardians of kings, queens, and potentates. Or into assassins. Without shields of their own, they had to be that much better at blocking and dodging, but their personal safety wasn’t the priority. Wielding a Disruption Blade meant you were trained to succeed at near-suicidal missions.
I whirled up from my bag in the last split second, and metal clashed on metal. An errant spark flickered in the air as our blades grated. The white veins of light down the centers of our twin weapons made an X between us. I grinned, baring all my teeth. One family in particular was known for training the best Bladeguards in the systems.
Mine.
“I am Nevarian Dracorte. Who are you?”
Most Bladeguards weren’t prone to flights of ego like me, so there was no response. He disengaged smoothly and lunged again, flicking his sword toward my torso and face with lethal speed. I danced back from the attack, then brought my blade in hard for his head. We met, and he swept my sword out wide and to my right, leaving my torso exposed. As he started to bring his blade back in to disembowel me, I stepped in close and delivered an uppercut right under the chin of his helmet with everything I had.
He crumpled like a discarded suit of clothes.
Oldest trick in the book, I thought. Then, Ow, as something hard and metallic hit me upside the head. Pain blossomed in brilliant colors across my vision. I dropped on top of the Bladeguard, twisting as I fell to bring my arms and blade up to protect myself, but another blow swept the sword out of my numbed hands. One of the lab suits stood there, face emotionless, as he lifted the storage unit he had turned into a makeshift weapon and brought it down again, hammering past my arms and into my chin. Then again.
Ow.
The lab technician hitting Nev was what pushed me over the edge.
Strange, I thought as my vision went so dark it was like I was watching the world through a black-tinted window. I’d hit Nev myself only a little while ago.
But he’d come here to help me against all odds, and when he’d started attacking, my heart felt like it was going to explode from both delirious relief and shame. Shame, because when he’d first burst in, I thought he’d sided with our captors.
I would have been horrified and furious to find that blasted Disruption Blade aboard my ship, but here I’d felt a surge of vicious joy to see it singing through the air.
…Until it had clattered on the ground after the lab technician kicked it out of his hand. Nev had brought down a Bladeguard—so legendary a warrior I’d thought them mythical—and yet all it took was one lab tech to drop him and begin pulverizing his face.
So fragile, these bodies, I thought, and the blackness sank a shade darker.
Except for yours. I felt so detached that the second thought almost didn’t seem like mine. The cold metal of the table against my back and the stinging sterility of the air in my nose were so present suddenly, as sharp as the newly printed scalpel on the instrument tray next to me. And yet, at the same time, I could barely register anything, only feel it. The flood of sensation passed by me, dazing me. Shadow usually heightened my awareness, but this…It was like facing into a blast of wind or noise so strong, I couldn’t think, only act.
I acted, wrenching at one of the metal restraints that held me to the table. It groaned under the pressure.
I was in control, but not. I was sitting in the bridge of the ship that was my body, but only instinct drove me, not rational thought. This had never happened to me before. I was losing to the darkness. But I didn’t care. It had risen with my rage, and I would drown them all in it.
The two lab techs who had been prepping me spun away from Nev at the noise. They must have deemed him subdued enough—or decided that I was now a higher priority—because one of them quickly approached with a syringe. The second, who had already cut off the fur-lined robe I’d been wearing with a pair of medical shears, began snipping up the center of my black tank top, as if Nev had only been a minor interruption. My leather leggings would come next, I had no doubt, and then…what, my skin?
The darkness in my vision throbbed, like a heartbeat. The extra-awareness surged through my body like never before, and I moved.
More than moved. My arms cut through the alloy and fiber as if they were blades themselves.