Help. Help me. Hurts. It hurts.
I’m trying, Arjan, I’m trying to help you, but—
It hurts. IT HURTS HURTS HURTS HURTS—
Arjan’s pain reverberated through me like a shock wave. I recoiled somehow, flying away from it. This wasn’t helping him…and I couldn’t stand hearing him and being unable to help.
But I had to do something. I reached out again, my mind stretching like an arm, a hand, fingers…stretching to a point where I thought it might break.
And then I was on the Kaitan, moving along the familiar metal panels and wiring, the pieces of a ship I knew as well as my own body. It was almost like trying to sense Shadow, but this time, my entire consciousness headed out with the pinging signal, seeking…There was another glimmering framework of a person there—only one, and one I recognized. Maybe there were others actually present, but she was the only one I could see like this.
It was Shadow; I was seeing the Shadow in her body, like I had in Arjan’s.
Telu?
The sparkling shape that was Telu jumped as if I’d sneaked up behind her and shouted in her ear.
Qole? Captain, where are you? Her voice hummed through me, louder than Arjan’s had. Perhaps she was speaking with her mouth as well as her mind.
I’m…I’m trapped, and I need help. Shadow is helping me, but not enough. Arjan, they’ve…I didn’t know how to describe what they’d done, it was so horrible. I can’t…My own voice grew weaker.
WHERE ARE YOU?
Down, deep…find…Nev…Nev was the only one, in this place, with the power to help us. In spite of everything, I knew he would. You can trust…help…
It was too much. I couldn’t keep hold of her, no matter how hard I tried. My grip on the connection slipped, something broke, and then I was torn from her as if someone were dragging me back, or as if I’d been sucked out of the airlock. Both Telu and the Kaitan flew away from me, and I was thrown into a blackness like space, except there were no stars.
Part of me still felt my back on the table in the lab, but the rest of me, the conscious, thinking part that mattered, was fading. And then I couldn’t feel anything. My mind dissolved in the darkness, and all my thoughts and memories and anger and fear broke apart as if they’d been torched with Shadow.
My mind was gone. Myself, gone. I drifted on a midnight ocean, utterly lost and uncaring.
It was there, within the slowly undulating, black waves, that the stars finally came out. They appeared gradually, on the edges of my diluted consciousness. They looked at first like only sparkles of starlight on the nonexistent water, but then the points of light sharpened and flared to life.
I floated through them, or maybe they floated through whatever was left of me. They began to gather in strange ways, as if outlining something. And then I realized they were outlining my body. They highlighted the shapes of fingers, and suddenly I had hands again. The stars moved up my arms, rebuilding them as they went. They ran down my sides like glittering rain, and I could feel my ribs and lungs again.
My mind was still mostly gone, and so my first thoughts—were they my thoughts?—were more like feelings than clearly defined words:
Need. Open.
That felt right, in some distant part of my brain that could still register these things, if only barely. Open. Out.
Not out. Open. Embrace.
For a moment, the light was beautiful, warm on my arms, and the thought of embracing it didn’t seem half bad. And then enough of my mind came together to remember that I didn’t want to embrace anything.
I wanted to destroy.
The lights flickered and shimmered away from me, as if shying from my touch.
But the lights were helping me. They could help me do…something. What I needed to do. Out. Destroy.
No.
Before they could shiver away from me again, I lashed out with my newly formed hand and seized them. The light exploded, obliterating the darkness. Black turned to white.
There was a ringing in my ears, and suddenly my body was no longer floating. It was heavy, held down against something, but I didn’t know what. I wrenched against the resistance and finally broke free of whatever it was. I couldn’t remember or see. It didn’t matter, because then my feet were moving.
It was like I’d been staring into the sun for hours. My light-infused eyes could barely make out shadows. I squinted and staggered, feeling my way along a wall. I had no idea where I was, or where I was going. Who I was. The walls turned sharp and cut my hands, but I didn’t stop. I had to keep going.
Out.
That was the only thing I knew. I had to get out. I wasn’t sure how long I stumbled, crashing into things and half falling until I scrabbled my way up from the cold ground. My feet were bare, my legs mostly bare and battered, my hands wet with blood. Finally, my weak knees buckled and I crumpled to what felt like a stone floor.
For one brief, shameful moment I considered staying in my quarters as Father had ordered me to.
It would mean I could deny that anything bad was happening. It would mean I could trust my parents to take care of me and everyone else in the way to which I had been accustomed, that the right decisions would be made, and that even if the wrong ones were accidentally made, I would not be responsible for them. It would mean my family would prosper, and our lives would proceed the way that Father intended.
Staying in my quarters would mean abandoning Qole in the horrible situation I had put her in. Refusing to take responsibility for what I had done to her. Forgetting about her.
And that was impossible.
If my thoughts were defiant, my actions, by all appearances, followed orders precisely. I returned to my suite as quickly as possible, without talking to anyone. I considered asking someone for help, but I couldn’t imagine there was anyone in the palace, perhaps on the planet, who would disobey their king. Even if Devrak, the one to whom I would most likely turn, wasn’t a part of this, he wouldn’t work against Father. It was unthinkable.
So what was I thinking? I wasn’t sure what I could do, exactly. There was no clear plan in my head as I stripped out of my party clothes and donned the dark gray protective training gear I had used in the Academy. It would allow me to move quietly and stay unnoticed if necessary, which would help me in the only course of action I was sure I wanted to take—finding Qole as quickly as possible.
From the dock on my desk, I snatched an infopad and comm, which I had been sorely missing. It was tradition for guests of the ball to leave behind any device that would be considered a distraction, and although many people broke the rules, I did not.
After all, I believed in the rules. Our rules were there to serve all.
My comm had a single flashing message. It was from Solara, and it was short.