Lon stepped up beside Lira and spoke. “It will be yours, Lir. Your ship. You’d pilot it for good. For Adhira. For us. And I would be with you on your adventures! It’s everything you’ve ever wanted, Lira.”
Lira felt herself spiraling into a deep, dark space.
There were so many memories here. Of her childhood, the pain of her mother leaving her, the feeling that there would be no one to care for her and Lon. Then the rescue, when their aunt brought them into her mountain fortress. Into her heart and her waiting arms.
This was a chance to set things right with Alara and Lon. This was a chance to come home, and still do what she loved most.
No leading the planet. No title other than pilot.
Hell, she didn’t even have to captain the ship if she didn’t want to. Someone else could make those choices, and she’d simply keep her hands on the wheel, her eyes on the sky.
Everything inside of her begged her to accept.
But then her aunt’s words filtered back through. Lira glanced up at the two standing before her. “You said General Cortas was involved. That you were...negotiating with him?”
Lon bit his lip again. This time, the blood broke through. A tiny bead of delicate, springtime sky blue.
“The offer only stands this once,” Alara said. She seemed to stand taller. “On the stipulation that you remove yourself from the current mission at hand. Say the word, Lirana, and you will be free of General Cortas’s job and all of the dangers and frustrations that come with it. Your crew can remain here, of course, until their ship is fixed. But when they leave, you would remain on Adhira. I have already set aside the funds to begin building your ship.”
Lon stepped forward, close enough that Lira could feel his body heat. He took her cold hands in his warm ones. “Just say yes, Lir. You’ve had your fun. You’ve had your adventures, and they wouldn’t be over. They’d just be...safer. Something the Godstars would approve of.”
Lira’s heart rocketed into her throat.
She felt thrust into a battle, the two sides of her heart waging war.
Smoke filtered up from the heat on her scales. And yet, Lon did not let go, even though she knew she was burning him.
“I...”
Two sets of eyes upon her.
Two dreams.
“You have until your crew leaves this planet to decide,” Alara said.
“And the girls?” Lira asked. “What if I wished for them to be my crew, here?”
Lon pushed the screen into Lira’s hands, the sketch of the ship—and Lira’s name above it—still in full view.
“We love you, little bug,” Lon said. “And we want the best for your future.”
“And we feel that future should not include them,” Alara said softly.
Lira stared at them both for a moment, then looked back at the screen in her hands. She felt her scales betraying her emotional state, so Lira simply nodded curtly before turning to leave the room.
Walking out into the halls.
Seeing the past and the future colliding. The faces of her crew. Dead bodies lying at her feet. The pain of leaving her family behind, and the joy of finding a new one beyond the Adhiran borders.
After wandering for some time, Lira finally found Dex in the living area of their borrowed quarters. Alfie sat beside him on the couch. The AI was oiling his gears while Dex oiled his insides with a bottle of Griss.
“They’re in the Well,” Dex said, waving a hand.
Lira raised a brow. “Doing what?”
“They are attacking each other, quite voraciously, with a series of defensive and offensive moves,” Alfie said without looking up from his task.
“It’s called training,” Dex explained. He caught Lira’s eye. “Gilly said there were no boys allowed.”
“She’s correct,” Lira said. She watched Dex for a moment as he talked with Alfie, smiling as the AI asked further questions. “Dextro?”
Dex glanced up.
“The story that you told Andi, back on the ship,” Lira said. “Was there truly no other way to save them both?”
His smile fell as he said, “If there had been another way, Lira...” He shook his head, his brow creasing as he took a long gulp of Griss. “I would have torn apart the galaxy in order to take it.”
Lira nodded in understanding. Dex lifted his bottle of Griss to her in a gesture of farewell as she left the room, heading for the Well, a freshwater lake deep inside the mountain where her crew would be waiting.
Her heart twisted with the weight of the offer she’d just received.
Chapter Fifty
* * *
ANDROMA
“YOU’RE SULKING AGAIN,” Breck said to Andi as they circled each other like two hungry sharks.
“I’m not sulking,” Andi said. “I’m simply regretting my decisions. Deeply.”
Breck lifted a dark brow. “You’re too much in your head. It’s time you got out of it.” She lunged forward, and before Andi knew it, Breck’s giant foot was in her gut.
Andi went flying.
She landed, with a great splash, in the massive lake that made up most of the Well. It was twice as deep as it was wide, and colorful, flashing fish swam beneath its depths, sucking the algae away so that the lake remained a glittering, almost crystal shade of blue.
Andi came up sputtering for air and shivering to find Breck, Lira and Gilly laughing by the water’s edge. Their laughs echoed throughout the massive cavern, slipped across the surface of the blue lake. Workers nearby looked up from their posts on the bridge that spanned the lake, their tubes that pulled water from the Well momentarily forgotten.
The Well of Rhymore was not exactly a prime location for training. The space surrounding the giant lake was slick, solid rock, and the only source of light came from the random flashes of the fish beneath the surface of the water. It was hard to see and difficult to move, plus they had a captive audience of Queen Alara’s workers watching.
All of which, to Andi, made it the perfect place for her and her crew to practice their fighting skills, something they hadn’t been able to do on solid land in quite some time.
“She just owned you,” Gilly said as Andi hauled her dripping self from the lake. A suckerfish, with its almost humanoid mouth, just barely missed a chance to latch on to her leg.
“Not funny,” Andi said as she slung the water off and shook out her hair. She never should have allowed that kick to make contact. She felt slow, as if her mind were weighing her down.
“It was actually quite humorous,” Lira replied with a grin.
“As humorous as this?” Andi asked.
With a growl, she sprang.
Lira deftly sidestepped her, bare feet moving with ease across the rocky shores of the inner-mountain lake.
Andi’s punch nearly clipped Gilly instead, but the young gunner ducked, then came back up with a punch of her own. Andi blocked it with her cuffs, and Gilly howled like a creature of the night.
“You’re going to pay for that!”
She lunged at Andi, but Breck stepped in front of her, and Gilly’s swings missed their intended mark.
“Lira, on my side,” Andi commanded. “Breck and Gilly, face off.”
Her pilot joined her, and together, they turned to face Breck and Gilly.