Androma.
Her name whispered into his mind. Past the Jurum, past the wall he’d tried to build up.
He saw for the first time that she was the main spectacle the circle had been formed for. This Andi was so unlike the one he knew. She glided across the sand as if it were a polished dance floor. She spun in circles and twirled through the air, landing lightly as a feather. Her arms and legs performed dances of their own, flowing with the wind that fluttered through the desert.
She was sound and wind and movement. The elements that made up the world were hers to command.
And in this moment, he could see only her.
The rest was background noise.
Dex watched as she swayed forward and grabbed a hand in the crowd, bringing the observer into her dancing spell. Though his mind felt stuffed with cotton, Dex could still register the annoyance he felt upon seeing that the person was Valen.
The pretty little package all tied up like a bow, ready to be delivered to General Cortas.
Valen seemed cast in a shroud of undulating shadows as she danced around him. He stood there in a trance of his own, eyes glazed over, body barely rocking to the music.
The crew joined them, Breck and Gilly and Lira laughing as they danced around Andi.
She laughed with them.
The sound of it made Dex’s blood sing, but the laugh hadn’t been for him, and at the thought of that, fury raced through him, shocking him like a spark of fire.
Damn it all to hell and back.
Even with his head muddled by Jurum, Dex couldn’t blame the intoxicating brew for what he knew he was about to do.
Tonight, he was going to be an idiot.
He would deal with the repercussions tomorrow.
He moved forward on instinct, breaking through the crowd, their cheers roaring against him.
“Andi.” His voice was a low, purring whisper. Smooth as the Jurum running through his veins.
She wasn’t his—never truly had been, and never would be.
That was what undid him.
She didn’t see him approach at first, but when she spun around, she stopped, gaze transfixed on him. Valen’s eyes widened, and he took a step back, then another, until he faded away into the crowd.
“Dex,” Andi said.
At first Dex thought she was going to punch him for interrupting her show.
He braced himself for the impact, readied himself for a fight, despite the warmth running through him, the ground undulating beneath his feet like rocking waves. But instead of curling her fists, Andi did the complete opposite.
She ran to him, leaping the last few steps into his waiting arms.
“Dance with me,” she whispered, her breath tickling his lips.
Her words were full of such passion, Dex almost fell.
Her lips were so close as she pressed her body against his.
“Andi,” Dex breathed her name like a sigh. “We shouldn’t do this.”
And yet as he held her in his arms, pressing her tightly to his chest, he didn’t want to let go. There wasn’t any space between them, and he reveled in their closeness, in the familiarity of it, the strong sense of balance between the two of them that had always made them so great.
“We should,” she said.
So long, he’d wanted this without even knowing.
His mind screamed at him to stop, that she wasn’t thinking straight, but his body hungered for more. She was looking at him like she used to, long ago. Her fingers were digging into his back.
The world around them fell away. The past disappeared, swept away in an instant.
Just before their lips touched, the desert exploded in a blast of fire and light.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
* * *
ANDROMA
SCREAMS, WROUGHT WITH terror, rang out across the Sands of Bailet.
Time seemed to snap back together, a band of rubber popping into place.
Bodies began dropping around her, people fleeing from the crowd as masked figures appeared, rifles firing. They bore a strange symbol painted on their weapons, their red helmets and battered armor.
Something Andi had seen before.
Something she knew she should know, but there was a thickness still blocking her mind, like water drowning her brain.
Someone screamed and fell to the ground beside her.
It was a young Adhiran man with eyes as blue as the Endless Sea. A scaled patch shimmered weakly on his cheek as he gasped, pressing his hands to his chest.
“Lon?” Andi heard her Second say.
Lira fell on top of her brother, shouting his name, begging him to stay with her, pressing her hands against his chest.
Dex yanked Andi to the sand, covering her body with his as the crowd erupted into ear-shattering screams.
It was enough to clear Andi’s head, rip the veil away, as she looked up, suddenly remembering the origin of the symbol on the rifles.
After fifteen years of peace, the Xen Pterrans had come to take their revenge.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
* * *
VALEN
VALEN DROPPED TO the ground and crawled blindly, feeling as if the world had sprouted claws and the sand around him had begun to turn into stone.
He had to get back to Arcardius.
He couldn’t go back to Lunamere.
The festival began to fade from his sight. An image of cell doors took its place, stained with the black burn marks of electric whips.
The sky disappeared, replaced by the image of a cold, unbreakable stone ceiling.
Every gunshot was like a whip lashing down on Valen’s back.
There were a thousand feet running past him, flashes of bodies sprinting past, tangled up in explosive screams as bullets ricocheted through the crowd.
He couldn’t see the Marauders. He couldn’t see Dex.
A soldier sprinted up to him, clad in armor, the Xen Pterran crest splayed on his chest.
The soldier lifted his rifle. Time slowed. Valen saw the soldier’s gloved fingertip stretching toward the trigger, and in Valen’s mind, he saw it all as if he were lying on cold, frozen stones, darkness closing in around him like a dense fog, the flash of a blue whip about to rip into his skin.
Valen lifted his head, forced his lips to stop quivering as he looked to where he thought the man’s eyes were, beyond his mask, as his finger reached the trigger.
“No!” Valen shouted. “No! Not me!”
He closed his eyes and waited for the shot. But instead, a body brushed past his.
Valen opened his eyes, and the soldier was gone.
You have to move, Valen, his mind begged him.
He crawled forward in the sand, closing his eyes when his hands felt the sticky wetness of blood, ignoring the press of his skin against someone else’s, clammier and colder than it should have been.
He begged himself to stay focused, to stay present, but the world was spinning, a planet cast free from its axis, and he couldn’t keep himself in control.
He found a booth empty of its keeper, a severed tentacle arm splayed on the dirt floor. A smear of blood pooled across the suction cups. Beside it a golden droid lay motionless, torso blasted open and silver liquid oozing out.
Valen was about to crawl inside and hide himself in the darkness when a scream rang out with his name.
“Valen!”