Her words trailed off as she saw a flash of blue in the crowd. Lira, rushing toward her, Gilly and Breck just beyond.
She opened her mouth to yell at them, to tell them to run.
Her words were cut off by a gunshot.
The horrible, heart-shredding sound of Lira’s scream as she fell face-first to the floor. Another two shots. Another scream, this time from Andi’s own lips, Breck howling along with her as she and Gilly fell.
A soldier stood behind them, rifle aimed, blue smoke trailing from its barrel like a demon’s hot, hateful breath.
“You can’t win this battle, Androma,” Valen said. His lips were close to her ear, but his voice was far away. As distant as the safety of the stars.
When Valen dug his knife into her chest, she didn’t even feel the pain.
“You shouldn’t have gotten in the way,” he said.
Andi fell to her knees. She gasped, looking down to see the hilt of his knife sticking from her chest. She pulled it out. Dropped it to the floor and fell beside it into a pool of her own blood.
Valen’s image blurred as he walked away from the stage.
The last thing Andi saw was Dex’s face in the crowd.
Then the darkness arrived and swallowed her whole.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
* * *
DEX
HE WAS TOO LATE.
For a heartbeat, Dex thought she was dead.
All around him, the room was growing quieter, the screams dying down.
A few more shots here.
A few more there.
The thump of a body hitting the floor.
The click of another silver bullet sliding into a rifle’s chamber.
Dex reached the stage. The system leaders were huddled together in their chairs, bodies of Patrolmen littering the ground around them. But Andi was the only person he had eyes for.
“Hang on,” Dex said to Andi. His fingers found her throat. A tiny heartbeat fluttered beneath her skin. “You just hang on.”
He saw his hands moving, instinctively ripping off his jacket and pressing it to her chest. He’d kill Valen for this. He’d kill him slowly, bring him back and kill him again.
Her breaths were ragged. She was losing too much blood.
In the crowd, he saw Lira, Gilly and Breck among the fallen. Dex’s body shook.
This was a nightmare. One he couldn’t wake up from. It had to be.
A few partygoers still stood around silently, frozen in shock. One man huddled in the far corner of the room, arms wrapped around his chest, eyes wide.
“I’m getting you out of here,” Dex whispered to Andi as he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up. “Now.”
He could hear the faraway rumble of a ship tearing through the skies, coming ever closer. But what was the point?
These people were beyond saving now.
Bodies were spread across the floor like a carpet, eyes open to stare into the darkness above. Blood staining...
Dex paused.
With a strange sense of clarity, he took in the scene a second time. It was then that he noticed there was no blood.
Well, there were a few splashes of red or green or blue, from the soldiers the Patrolmen had managed to stop before the Xen Pterrans gained the upper hand.
But other than that, the room should have been flowing in rivers of steaming colors with the deaths of these men and women from all across Mirabel.
And yet the ground, the gowns, the suits, the ties...they were all completely dry.
Valen had crossed the room, walking over bodies with his head held high like a king of criminals, a lord that delivered loss. The soldiers, now grouped together near the ballroom doors, stood at the ready before him. As if...as if he was their leader.
A shiver ran through him.
Run now, Dextro. Run, before it’s too late.
The sound of the ship was growing closer. He could see its lights in the sky, and instinct told him it wasn’t help. There would be no help tonight, not after this.
He knew there had to be another way out of here. Dex had heard of secret passageways built on the leaders’ estates, to help them escape in the event of an attack. He simply had to find one.
Dex cautiously carried Andi off the far side of the stage. As he tucked himself and Andi into the shadows behind a nearby bar, all around the room, the dead began to rise.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
* * *
VALEN
A TWITCH. A curl of the fingers, the clenching of a fist. The blink of freshly opened eyes.
Valen watched it all happen before him, as promised.
He closed his eyes, imagined the little glowing blue thread in the back of his mind. It had always been there, something he’d seen and felt since he was a child.
Only after his time in Lunamere had he fully understood the meaning of it. The raw, pure power he had.
He focused on the thread and pulled.
The warmth of her mental presence arrived at once, just as it had when they’d landed on Adhira, and he’d called upon her. Valen sighed, relief flooding into him as their minds wove together, no longer two separate threads, but a shared tapestry. Here, in this intimate space between them, was where he belonged.
It was his birthright. His past and his present and his future all coming together. Everything finally made sense.
She’d given him the keys to understanding, and now he was whole.
The change is happening, Sister, Valen thought.
He could almost feel her smile, something so rare for her. As the feeling passed through him, his own mouth quirked at the corners. They’d had so little to smile about until recently. But all the months he’d spent in Lunamere had been worth it.
For this.
Have them ready for me when I arrive, she replied.
For a moment, there was silence between them, the space in his mind empty of her warmth.
Then her voice came again. You did well, Brother. My faith in you was never misplaced.
She was glorious. But it was more than that. She was victorious, a soldier standing on a blood-soaked battleground, watching the last of her enemies fall.
Valen closed the link, the tapestry gone, the single thread all that remained.
For a moment, he felt cold. Lifeless.
Then he saw the first body stand back up. A Patrolman, unmarred on the outside from the engineered bullets. Like beacons in the crowd, others stood around him. Women, children.
The ones who’d turned, surely ready to join the cause, looked fresh and alert, as if waking from a restful sleep.
The others, the unaffected anomalies who were immune to the substance the bullets carried... Valen knew he’d have to take care of them soon enough.
Like Androma, he thought with a twinge of sadness. He’d seen that bullet hit her, but she did not fall. She was unaffected by Zenith. So many times, he’d tried to compel her, only to feel a wall come up in her mind.
One of the soldiers approached Valen. “She’s landing, sir.”
“Good,” he said. “Take care of the remaining unaffected. I don’t want her to have to lay eyes on them.”
The soldier saluted, slapping a fist to his heart, then rushed off into the crowd as more people began to stand and wake from their stupor. The unaffected were easy to spot. There weren’t many, perhaps ten. They walked in circles, blinking, calling for their loved ones.
“A shame,” Valen said to no one.