I suddenly recognized him. That light in his eyes, that impossible grace, the crazy laugh. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before—but I’d been so young at the time. Teveton Gregorus had been all over the media in the years prior to my time in the Academy as one of the most gifted and iconoclastic students. The crags in his face and his graying facial hair had helped hide it, but still. He had been a celebrity for his genius in battle simulations. He’d disappeared after graduating, and I’d always wondered what had happened to him. Everyone had thought he was going to be a hero.
Instead, he was here in a damaged hangar, single-handedly fighting off a squadron of the most elite troops in the systems—troops that could have been his comrades in arms. He was a hero, just not in the way anyone had expected.
I did my best to defend him. The rifle felt heavy in my hands, and guilt tore at me. No one was shooting at me, and yet I trained the glowing sight of my weapon on human beings I no doubt knew by name. Still, I fired, hitting arms and legs, trying to disable them and knock them off the ceiling. As they crawled on, faster than I could track, I realized it was a fool’s game. Heart pounding, I took deadly aim, trying to convince myself this wasn’t real.
I had never taken a human life before. Now that the time had come, how could I possibly bring myself to do it? Could I really cross that line, or did I simply think I could because I’d watched others do it?
I began to fire. Some Bladeguards were mowed down by Eton, their shields and armor futile against his barrage. Some fell to my shots, dead or alive, I didn’t know.
But one made it through.
He dropped from the ceiling above Eton, his blade flaring. He landed directly on Eton’s shoulders, and yet the big man stayed standing. As his knees flexed, his hand flickered and his subcompact whipped up to the Bladeguard with impossible speed, firing as it went. But the Bladeguard brought his sword up just as fast to shield his face. The white band in the middle disappeared in a brilliant burst as the photon blasts hit it…and just as it turned blue.
Squinting in an attempt to sight the attacker, I found his blade melted to nothingness. But it had done the job; Verta’s cannons winked offline, as did Eton’s other weapons.
Everything happened at once. The Bladeguard leapt away, throwing a knife at Eton, just as Eton tossed a grenade high into the air. Reacting without thought, I fired straight into the Bladeguard’s chest.
The grenade went off, blue lightning cracking out in a single sharp blast, my vision disappearing in the brilliance.
I didn’t feel a thing. I blinked to clear my eyes.
The Bladeguard lay sprawled out on the floor, dead, the hole in his armor smoking, while Eton, with a grimace, pulled the dagger out of his leg. He fell to his knees. Blood immediately began to pool on the ground beneath him.
The grenade had been an EMP. It had fried every other type of weapon and device in the hangar, including the mag-gloves of the Bladeguards, who now rose from where they’d fallen—some stiffly, others only halfway, but still too many.
That is, it had fried every type of weapon except one.
Lines of light flickered across the darkened expanse. One, then two, then thirteen, gleamed to deadly life.
This was it. The moment where I learned how far I would go for what I believed in—for whom I believed in.
“Eton.” I dropped my rifle and brought my hands around my back. My blades appeared in my grip in twin flashes of light, flaring in answer to the ones around us. “It’s my turn now.”
Shouts echoed behind Basra and me, more voices than just Nev’s and Eton’s, followed by gunfire, but I didn’t turn back. If I hadn’t already been used to the sensation of things tearing me apart both inside and out, leaving them behind with the Kaitan would have brought me to my knees. As it was, I felt a distant twinge, gritted my teeth against it, and tried to focus a different sort of sense, on what I could feel rather than see.
Arjan. He was close, somewhere in these labyrinthine halls and rooms. I hadn’t been able to feel him before through all the Shadow muddying my perception, but I’d cleared a lot of it out.
…Along with wiping out many, many lives. I couldn’t think about that, any more than I could think about abandoning my ship and half my crew to whatever was behind me. I had to find Arjan. He was all the family I had left.
No, that wasn’t true, because the crew was my family too. Nev…Nev was also more than a friend to me, more to me than I even wanted to admit to myself, especially now that I was leaving him.
But Arjan was my only remaining kin, and our blood was apparently a rare and endangered substance. I didn’t care how many people wanted it or how much; nobody was going to take my brother from me while I could still draw breath. I would gladly die to get him out of here, and I would take Arjan into oblivion with me before I abandoned him to further torture.
Oblivion. It almost sounded nice right now, like a peaceful, never-ending nap. My ancestors believed our spirits returned to the Shadow grounds around Alaxak when we died. I wondered if mine could make it back there if I was killed on the other side of the galaxy, or if I would just drift on the wind, lost. Or if there was only bottomless darkness waiting for me once I closed my eyes for the last time.
My vision shuddered, rippling like a dark pond. The walls seemed to be flexing and pressing in on me, and only the Shadow I’d drawn inside me seemed to keep them, or me, upright. I knew Shadow existed in my flesh and bone, but I’d never pulled more of it into my body before. I wasn’t sure how I’d done it, or what would happen to me once I let it go.
I might just kill myself before anyone else could. But so be it.
Basra walked with the same air of finality, the photon rifle held ready in his hands. He clearly knew how to use it. As a trader, especially one with his skills, I imagine he’d gotten himself into some sticky situations. I’d always sensed something capable and unflinching in him, something dangerous. I’d been expecting his relationship with Arjan to drive the two of us to conflict, not into an alliance against one of the most powerful royal families in the galaxy…and likely a suicide pact.
If Nev couldn’t be at my side walking into this with me—and he only wasn’t because he was guarding my back, my ship, and the rest of my crew—then Basra was the next best option. I was grateful to have him, whether or not his “secret weapon” amounted to anything. He felt like a secret weapon himself, here with me now.
“Thank you,” I said, as we slipped down a darkened hallway. Only one light flickered at the end, sending spastic pale flashes over the expanse. The walls were cracked, and not just in my mind. I wasn’t sure if the drone had done such damage or if I had. In any case, Arjan was in this direction.
“Just focus,” Basra murmured, “and find him. Then it will be me thanking you.”
I was focusing so hard that I nearly walked into a pair of guards as we turned a corner.
Basra’s rifle was up so fast that a burst of white-hot light hit one in the chest before I could blink. The guard went down in a sizzling heap while the other whipped up his rifle.