“Hysan, please! We’re all putting our lives on the line here. He deserves to make his own choices. You can’t control all our destinies.”
He sighs and looks into Neith’s eyes, beaming something out from his Scan. After a moment, the android’s shoulders sag with relief. “Thank you,” he says to me.
“We have to help,” I say, seeing some of my friends battling up to three Marad soldiers at a time. Mom, Gyzer, Skarlet, and Eurek can hold their own, but Engle, Gamba, Qima, and Numen are struggling.
I run into the fray, and the others follow. The Marad are no longer fighting with their Murmurs because the Zodai are all shielded, so most have resorted to hand-to-hand combat, though some carry daggers or pistols.
I force a shield around me, and I make a fist until I’ve grown a set of electric brass knuckles, and then I come up behind one of the soldiers fighting with Gamba and land an electric blow into his unprotected neck. He falls immediately.
I run and do the same with one of the three soldiers Engle is fending off, and when I turn, I’m face-to-face with Mallie of Aquarius.
She raises a pistol.
“Mallie, do you even know what you’re fighting for?” I ask as she cocks the gun.
Her eyes look glassy and lost, and her suit is covered in dirt and blood. She has no idea what she’s doing, but she’s given up so much of her soul to this cause that she can’t stop now.
“Sorry,” she says, a tear falling from her eye, and she fires.
My whole body hits the ground, and it takes me a moment to realize I wasn’t shot—I was shoved. I look up to see a dark-skinned woman wearing Cancrian blue disarming Mallie and knocking her out with the butt of her own gun. Then Sirna turns and offers me a hand.
“You sure took your time getting here,” I say, grinning as she pulls me up.
“Mind if I apologize later, Holy Mother?” she asks as bullets sail over our heads.
“Sounds good!”
We race through the chaos, and I’m relieved to see only a few Marad soldiers are still fighting—we’ve beaten most of them back . . . or worse. Then I see the fallen Zodai on the ground. Numen. Qima. Traxon.
Before I can mourn their deaths, I notice that Mom and Gamba are outnumbered, and I point them out to Sirna. “Can you help my family?”
She nods and immediately goes, while I look around to see who else needs help, and I spy Hysan’s golden figure racing over. “Are you okay?” he asks, and I nod, pulling him into a tight hug.
“We need to get back to the ships,” I say.
“Let’s get—”
“Now where were we before that rude interruption?”
Aryll appears behind us, the Scarab on his wrist aimed at me. “I believe I was going to share some empathy with Rho. But I had a better thought.”
Hysan shields my body with his, and Aryll laughs. “You really are a mind reader! That’s exactly what I was thinking. To kill a Cancrian properly, first you must take out her heart.”
He’s going to shoot Hysan.
I wrap my arms around him and try to push him out of the way, but Hysan is too strong, and he won’t let me. “I’m sorry, Rho,” he says, blocking me from Aryll’s view.
Then he turns his head slightly in my direction and shouts one final word at me: “RUN!”
“NO!” I hug him tightly as Aryll presses down to shoot—but something huge soars in front of Hysan right as the poisonous dart flies out.
“NEITH!” shouts Hysan as the android falls before us.
“He’s okay—” I start to say, then I remember Scarab poison renders technology useless. Neith’s mouth is open, his eye twitches, and smoke comes off his Kartex skin.
I fix my eyes on Aryll and start walking toward him. “You’re dead,” I growl, but he doesn’t bother to raise his Scarab. He doesn’t look scared at all. He looks amused.
“Oh, Rho,” he says when I’m just a few feet away. “You’re just so . . . adorable.”
I raise my Barer in the shape of a sword.
Hysan springs over, and even though his expression is broken, I can see that he won’t let Aryll hurt me.
“Mathias!”
At the sound of Pandora’s piercing scream, Hysan and I look away. A Marad soldier has injured Mathias’s right arm, and he can’t raise his Barer. Pandora leaps in front of him, and I turn to Hysan desperately. “GO!”
He looks from me to Aryll like he’s going to disagree, and I say, “Hysan, trust me!”
And he does.
When he runs to help Mathias, I face Aryll again.
“That is some impressive pet training,” he says, his yellow eyes dancing. “You’ll have to show me that trick sometime.”
I raise my electric sword. “Let’s do this.”
“You think you’re so dark!” Aryll laughs at me as I approach. “All because you lost some people and had a few nightmares?”
He pulls out a dagger that looks like the one he used to kill Rubi. “You’re not dark, Rho. You only dream of darkness.” His voice drops to a whisper, like he’s sharing a secret. “True dark dwellers dream of light.”
He raises his dagger to stab me, but I dodge him. Then I shove my sword forward, but he dodges it, too.
“Your real name is Grey Gowan,” I say as we circle each other. “You were born on Capricorn. You had pale skin and black eyes and you were thirteen when you started shifting for the first time.”
“That’s a pretty story,” he says, flashing his sharp teeth in a cruel smirk. “But do you really think you can play on emotions that aren’t there?”
“You left behind a Snow Globe for your family, and Ferez found it. That’s why you didn’t like being on Capricorn when we were there. Some part of you realized you were home.”
“I’m home now,” he says, and there’s an edge in his voice that proves he’s not as indifferent as he claims. “And I’d say it’s time you went home, too—and reunited with your brother.”
He raises the dagger just as a flash of blond hair comes up behind him, and Aryll freezes as Mom presses a pistol to his temple.
“A family reunion!” he says gleefully. “Too bad there are no Grace men left to rescue you—”
Mom fires.
Blood gushes everywhere as Aryll’s head explodes. I recoil in shock as blood sprays my face and uniform, and I stare at Mom aghast.
There’s no emotion or hesitation on her face. There’s only the feral look she wore when she killed the Maw that attacked Stanton. And now she’s taken out the beast that murdered him.
“Mom,” I gasp, my hand clutching my chest. “Thank you.”
Her face softens. “Rho—”
A blade suddenly bursts through her chest.
“MOM!” I shout as her eyes fly open in horror. The metal withdraws, and she falls into my arms, blood spurting out of her wound.
We drop to the ground, and I stare into her pallid face, her bottomless blue eyes fading fast. “No, please, hang on,” I say, my tears dropping onto her. “Please don’t go, please. . . .”
But her death is instantaneous—the blade went right through her heart—and I look up to see Blaze holding the bloody sword that killed her.
“Oh, Rho,” he says, his face pinched in faux pain. “My deepest condolences about your mom.”
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