Reckless Energy

Never Emerges Gracefully

And Dies Easily

So History has taught

And History is a part of all of us

It belongs to us all

It has shaped who we are

And we shape it by what we remember

By what we conclude about those who have gone before

History so often paints a biased picture

As I pace these echoic halls so empty

Brittle glass crunching beneath my boots

Think of those who have tread the same path

Their thoughts, their dreams

Their fears, their plans

All a part of who I am

Twi, who is not invincible

Ject, who would do anything for his friend

Revel, who will rule them all

Xlack, who will become a legend

Before I can tell of me

One must understand these heroes and duty-seekers

Revolutionaries, rebels, and renegades

For my survival depends

Upon proving the truth

Of a simple statement

One person can always make a difference

—The One They Misplaced

Collector of memories

Teller of tales

Including this one

“One person can always make a difference.”

The words were inscribed everywhere—in the interwoven bars of the front door, on various pieces of jewelry, on the table beneath Xlack—rote and meaningless. He hadn’t expected the head scribe to give them voice.

“You believe that, don’t you?”

Yes, but what kind of difference was this scribe trying to make?

Xlack’s hands shook, fingers numb. His grip wouldn’t last. Maybe clinging to the ceiling hadn’t been such a great idea. How long would these old men keep talking?

“Our previous Protector was elderly and wise enough to know when to mind his own business,” the head scribe wheezed. He wouldn’t be the head scribe much longer. Xlack pictured him scraping out broken down litterbugs in the bowels of the sanitation department.

“There aren’t enough Protectors for every city to claim one of their own. Be grateful you were given one at all,” Pim Mianlan countered. His face was like a skull, eyes and cheeks sunken, nothing like the blunt visages of the officials to whom he spoke or the subtle curve of Xlack’s features.

The head scribe sniffed, hands folding on the table. “Our current Protector is a child, and Azmet is a distinguished district.”

“The most distinguished on the Napix homeworld, some would say,” his underling added. His medallion clinked against his wide belt as he leaned forward.

Three scribes lounged on dark divans curved around a low table. Mianlan sat cross-legged in a chair, perpetual scowl deeper than usual. Maybe he didn’t like this new restaurant that occupied the bottom floors of this district’s tallest tower. Maybe he found its open floorplan and rustic décor distasteful. Maybe it annoyed him that a basket of steaming breadsticks on every table filled the air with a warm, yeasty aroma, or that the din of happy customers made it difficult to hear. Maybe he didn’t like the company.

Xlack thought he would very much like one of those buttery breadsticks. Sweat gathered on his brow, dampening his pale curls.

“We have gathered a petition.” The head scribe offered a glass pane to Mianlan, and columns of text appeared as the document loaded. “We wish a more experienced Protector be assigned to Azmet.”

Xlack scowled. His grip failed, and his breath snagged in his throat as his hands fell from the ceiling. His knees started to follow, and he concentrated on keeping them attached to the boards above. As a fan’s tilted blade brushed his fingertips, a bundle of pewter and black scales tumbled from his pocket, asleep and unaware it would plop onto the scribes’ wooden table a story and a half below.

Xlack caught the beastling around his middle as a fan blade swiped beneath four dangling paws. With a squeak, the beastling wiggled, onyx eyes wide as his slender tail whipped his savior’s wrist.

“Rell, shh,” Xlack mouthed. He pulled the beastling to his chest and winced as needle-like claws dug through his jacket.

Below, Mianlan glanced at the offered screen. “Xlack Ekymé has been your Protector for a year n—”

“Don’t say his name, or he’ll show up,” the official sitting left of Mianlan snapped. His gaze darted to every corner, fringes on his pentagonal hat swinging wildly.

No one ever thought to look up. To be fair, these officials’ ridiculous hats made that difficult.

With a smirk, Xlack curled into a ball, hands reuniting with the ceiling’s mosaic of dark and light slats. His hold slipped once, twice, knees and toes shaking. Organic materials like wood, even long dead and highly polished, were difficult for his Talent to manipulate.

Snorting at the indignity of such an unstable resting place, Rell plodded onto Xlack’s belly and squeezed his pudgy feline body beneath the jacket’s slanted hem.

“Calm down. The shipment of contaminated goods we arranged will keep that little Protector tied up with datawork the rest of the day.”

Has no one ever told the head scribe his voice is annoying? Xlack finally got both hands pressed against the ceiling. If your nose isn’t stuffed up, don’t purposely sound like it is.

“What if a legitimate crisis struck while he was busy with trifles you made up?” Mianlan’s loose garb and bulky scarf made him look like a lumpy bag of vegetables plopped in a chair.

“This is Azmet District.” The head scribe huffed. “Who would dare threaten us?”

Everyone who wants what you have.

If Xlack somehow survived landing on his neck in front of these lard-brains, the shame would kill him anyway.He slid one hand in front of the other, knee following as he crawled toward a truss supporting the fans. That seemed like a much better place to await the right moment to reveal his presence.

“An alert and competent Protector is what maintains that status quo,” Mianlan lectured.

The scribe to his right bit a breadstick, and the crunch of its flaky crust echoed in Xlack’s ears, mocking him for having been too busy to eat today. His stomach growled.

Surrounded by warmth and darkness, Rell answered it with a purr, and tiny claws kneaded Xlack’s gut.

Xlack stopped, cheek trapped between his teeth to bar any sound.

Mianlan continued, “Xlack Ekymé is the Lead Protector’s favorite. You are idiots, and this petition of yours will only succeed in insulting them both.”

As Mianlan stood and gave a slight bow, Xlack’s elbow nudged the lump in his jacket. Punctuated by a hiss, claws fully extended into his abs.

“Rell!”

Xlack lost his grip on the ceiling. His heart dropped to his toes, weightlessness lasting only a moment. Pulling his legs in, he tucked into a flip and landed in a crouch atop the scribes’ table. The impact’s hollow, reverberating thud called every eye in the room.

At least he landed on his feet. He could call this a good entrance.

Plucking one of the breadsticks from the basket alongside his knee, Xlack straightened. “For once, I agree with Messenger Mianlan.”

With his face concealed behind a cloth napkin, the scribe to his left scrambled backward off his divan and ran for the door. “I told you!” His fear was frozen dew on Xlack’s skin, a wispy trail visible to his Mental senses.

The head scribe sat mouth agape, double chin quivering. Beside him, his underling backed away and swiveled into an empty chair at a nearby table, where the other occupants stared at him with a mixture of frowns.

“You might not be aware, but monitoring everything in the district includes monitoring you,” Xlack explained, “and you sure seem to not like that. What is it you don’t want me to see?”

The head scribe’s jaw flapped, but no sound emerged.

Rell peeked out from the bottom of Xlack’s jacket. His velvety nose twitched, searching for the source of the buttery scent. As he spotted the breadstick in his master’s hand, his soft-scaled, floppy ears perked, and his dark gaze zeroed in on his quarry.

Holding the bread like a conductor’s baton, Xlack knelt closer to the shivering man. “Here’s how this is going to work: You’ll return to your office. The title ‘Head Scribe’ belongs to whichever of your kind I think does his work the best, and there are several beating you at the moment. I’d suggest working really hard today.”

Rell slunk along Xlack’s arm, tail waving as he stalked his prey.

The head scribe’s mouth closed, and a delicate shine spread over his eyes. “You don’t have to make this personal.”

Xlack’s gaze narrowed on the petition. “You made it personal with this.”

The screen rose from the head scribe’s hand, then shattered with a firework’s boom. A yelping Rell dove under Xlack’s forearm. With his claws stuck in the sleeve’s underside and head tilted, he tracked the glitter raining on the scribe’s lap.

“Try something like this again, and it won’t be the screen that falls to pieces.”

The head scribe gulped and nodded quickly.

Xlack bit his bread. It tasted as heavenly as it smelled, a satisfying crunch with an inside that melted in his mouth.

Everyone still stared.

“That was it. Get on with whatever you’re doing.” With a dismissive wave, he hopped off the table.

Rell was the first to obey, resuming his climb on Xlack’s arm, but the sleeve kept bunching at his master’s elbow. Face scrunched, the beastling roared, small sound lost in the crowd’s growing chatter.

Mianlan waited, a specter with crossed arms and a disappointed glint in his pale eyes. His robe hung long enough to brush the ground, and his gait made no sound. If he had feet, Xlack had never seen them.

“Falling from the ceiling? You should be able to cling much better than that.”

Xlack ripped off a chunk of bread and held it out to Rell before shoving the rest in his own mouth. “I didn’t fall.”

Rell snatched the piece and scrambled to his master’s shoulder, where he could stretch out and nibble away at his prize. Mianlan never gave him food and was therefore beneath his notice.

The condescending slant of the older man’s sparse, wiry brows steepened. “How long did you maintain your hold before you began shaking like someone freezing to death?”

Xlack winced. “You saw that?”

“I didn’t have to.” Mianlan pivoted, glided to the restaurant’s lobby, and ventured left up wide, steep stairs. Though old and worn, the steps shone with frequent cleaning and made no sound under him. “I’m going to my room. If you have time to lurk about on ceilings, perhaps you should try completing the assignment I gave you yesterday.”

Xlack followed, and the bottom stair groaned as it took his weight. Gaze on his feet, he hurried past it. “Messenger Mianlan, if I hadn’t been here, would you have signed that petition?”

Mianlan paused, and a long sigh escaped as he turned. “Azmet is a large, influential district. I certainly don’t believe it should have been given into the hands of an incompetent child, but it’s not my decision.”

Xlack’s eyes narrowed in a crooked frown, jaw tight. “I’m not a child.”

“An adult should be able to control his Talents.” Mianlan resumed his glide up the stairs. The sinking daystar peeked through a window on the landing ahead, rendering him a silhouette.

“I know plenty of adults who can’t do what I can,” Xlack grumbled, staring at his hands. They were the same gray as the wooden stairs, the color of pyrite without the metallic luster. Dozens of paler scars marked nicks and cuts healed too quickly.

“Do you wish I didn’t expect so much of you?”

No, Mianlan’s austere methods were effective in pushing Xlack to perform at his best. It was hard, though, to live up to his ideals at all times, never caught off guard, never allowed to make a mistake without having it shoved in his face.

If Xlack lost his position as Protector of Azmet District, the shame would drown him. His father’s face, so proud at his graduation, would droop with disappointment, and Mianlan would still scowl.

“You told my father I should be held back, that caring for a district would put me behind in my studies, but it’s been a year, and I’ve proven you wrong. I’m stronger than—”

Mianlan whirled, leg swiping at the side of his student’s knees. Xlack jumped, but his teacher had the higher ground.

With his ankles swept to the side, Xlack twisted. His feet hit the wall and bounced into a retaliatory kick. As his toes brushed Mianlan’s bicep, the older man moved with the strike, letting it turn him. Xlack’s intended punch retreated into a block. A second jab was swatted away.

His shoulders hit the junction between stair and wall, and Xlack lost focus, arms flung wide, trying to grip anything. Mianlan’s hand clamped beneath his jaw, skin on skin above the high collar of his jacket. A chill radiated from the contact, as deep as a chasm and hungry as a black hole.

Hissing and fangs bared, Rell leapt at Mianlan’s wrist, but the teacher scooped him out of the air. A pale sheen spread over the beastling’s pewter scales, and the inky spot over his rump took on a hematite gleam as he collapsed on Mianlan’s palm, one forepaw hanging over his thumb.

I can…counter this.

Xlack flung a hand at Mianlan’s elbow, grip numb and lax. His fingers weighed as much as the planet. Even his thoughts were an icy sludge, urging him to curl up and sleep like Rell.

“You are supposed to become a legend. You can’t afford to display any weakness.”

“Is this a yes?” Xlack whispered. “You would have signed the petition?”

Releasing him, Mianlan backed away, and Xlack sat up with a gasp. His heart pounded. His fingers flexed and cracked.

“Just because I believe a cause is right doesn’t mean I’ll sign my name to it.” Mianlan sighed and slid Rell into his master’s outstretched hand. “The identity of Azmet’s Protector has nothing to do with me.”

No, Xlack supposed it wouldn’t matter to an old Messenger with a rare Talent who had no intention of ever caring about the commoners of this district. He wasn’t sure how much even he mattered to Mianlan.

He wanted to be someone his mentor would remember, though. He wanted to be known for the choices he made and the things he did, not only because he carried the surname Ekymé.

Not following as his teacher again resumed his trek up the stairs, Xlack kept his gaze on his pet. The side of his thumb stroked the beastling’s back, and scales darkened beneath his touch. With a grunt, Rell snuggled further into Xlack’s palm.

“Your name on that petition would have meant as much as ten thousand others.” Xlack’s voice was a brittle, broken leaf floating on the wind, and he hated it.

“To some.”

A quick, hollow series of beeps sounded, and Xlack pulled a nail-sized card from his pocket. As it unfolded into a flat device just larger than his hand, he scanned its screen.

“I have to go.” He got to his feet and started after his teacher. “I did finish that boring ice sculpture thing you wanted, though. It’s in the coolbox.”

Mianlan shrugged. “It was imperfect, so I destroyed it. Your assignment remains incomplete.”

Xlack froze, blinking several times. He had worked hard on that.

“It was exactly like yours.”

“Mine didn’t have lumps, and the lines were of an even thickness.”

Xlack crossed his arms as much as he could while holding a beastling in one hand and a datapad in the other. “You’re too picky.”

“I could do that simple of a task at age five.” Mianlan already rounded the next landing. Instead of a window, this one had another inscription of the ‘one person can always make a difference’ motto. “How old are you again? Do it correctly this time.”

Xlack didn’t move. “You couldn’t cling from the ceiling at five years old. Still can’t, even though you’re four hundred something.”

A phantom color clouded Mianlan’s gaze, same as the crackling chrysolite over gray Xlack always saw in his own reflection. On his teacher, it looked like cataracts.

“What I can’t do is irrelevant.”

“Right, because I’m supposed to be the legend.”

Mianlan leaned over the rail and rapped his student on the forehead with a pinky that felt more like a steel rod. “Never give way to doubt. If you don’t believe in your goals, you won’t work toward them, and if you don’t work toward them…” The teacher paused, wispy brows lifting.

Xlack sighed. “They never happen.”

* * *

“Ah, the peaceful sleep of a youth who doesn’t believe anything bad can happen to him.”

Sarqii Kys’ eyes snapped open. Darkness gripped the room, his room. The silken sheets draped over his back were the same ones he had pulled over his head before letting tears escape last evening. His pillowcase was still damp. Unless someone had relocated his whole bed with him in it, he was still within his chambers in the Emperor’s Palace.

The deep, sonorous voice spoke again. “Yet, several tragic things have befallen your family recently. Why would you think yourself exempt?”

Sarqii couldn’t place the accent of sharp-edged consonants slurred into growled vowels, but his eyes slowly adjusted to the dimness. A shadow attired in foreign armor stood alongside the bed.

Sarqii’s hand crept beneath his pillow.

“Arise, Prince Kys. I know you hear me.”

“What do you want?” Sarqii whispered as his fingers curled around a warm, metal handle.

“To save you.”

Sarqii squeezed his eyes shut, trying so hard not to think of that horrid day nearly a year past: a group hand-to-hand spar exercise. A thud behind him. His older twin brother collapsed on the padded floor. “You didn’t save the others.”

“If you stay here, tomorrow’s sunrise will be your last.”

Sarqii leapt to his feet, knife-like kanaber handle clutched in his left hand, but he didn’t activate its blade. If the intruder had intended to kill him, he would already be dead. Plus, the liqui-mattress still sloshed beneath him.

The memories were relentless—his fallen brother taken by a sequence of shallow tremors, then stillness, dark blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.

“What’s killing us?”

The intruder remained silent. Moonbeams trickled through the open balcony and glinted in his eyes. His wide gaze shone gray with a gossamer flicker of emerald and bronze.

Chrysolite. It was not the bright green-gold Sarqii normally associated with the term, but still, only those of the Aylata race exhibited the infrared color in any shade.

As far as Sarqii could tell, he held no weapons. Not that Aylata needed any.

“When you meet the leader of the Aylata, he will take your life.”

No, that didn’t make sense. Mind racing, Sarqii fought not to sink to his knees. The first prince had disappeared behind med-center doors, and Sarqii had not been allowed to see him, not until the Honoring. The body within the glass coffin had his brother’s face, but it lacked his intrinsic, wild energy. It was still, much too still.

A disease, they said, though where it originated or what exactly it was remained unknown. Medical experts still disputed how it killed him. His opponents from the spar had been thoroughly inspected and disposed of for good measure, no useful information gleaned.

The Ravida, highest ranked of all Aylata, hadn’t been around for any of that. He was supposed to be the mediator between the emperor and the overpowered Aylata race.

Overpowered.

Doubt trickled through Sarqii. Aylata were hybrids both genetically and by law, not fully subject to his father’s reign. They possessed inhuman powers. Could this disease have had something to do with them?

“I have to meet with the Ravida and gain his approval,” Sarqii recited with a shake of his head. “Without him, the Aylata won’t follow any emperor.” The words left his mouth with little voice. Most of his energy was invested in sorting out the mass of confusion in his brain.

Aylata could use that as a weapon, too. What Talent did this one have?

“You are an eighteen-year-old second son of an adored ruler, and a massive empire has been dropped on your shoulders. Your tremors are understandable.”

Sarqii knotted his free hand into his long hair and pulled, as if that would sort out the mess in his mind. “You sneaking into my room and telling me vague, daunting things is worthy enough of my unease.”

He backed toward the edge of the bed. He didn’t have a shirt, and his loose pants wouldn’t encumber him, but any sudden movement would easily see him entangled in the blankets or the bed’s canopy. He would rather have his feet on the solid stone floor or the braided rug, but even then he couldn’t fight an Aylata.

Where were his guards?

Sarqii swallowed an unhealthy dose of paranoia. “How do you know the Ravida’s plans?”

“I heard him speak them.”

Sarqii opened his mouth to protest, but the stranger raised a finger and held it a hairsbreadth from Sarqii’s nose.

“Before you ask how, let’s say it’s my duty to spy on Aylata. My knowledge keeps my people alive.”

Again, that made no sense. Why would he need to spy on his own kind?

“You don’t need to know how I know. Just know that I do. If you come with me now, I can ensure you’re protected, but if you stay, I can do nothing. I cannot confront the Ravida.”

Sarqii tried to slap the intruder’s finger out of his face, but the man returned it to his side before Sarqii finished raising his hand. His blow fanned empty air.

Indignation swelled within him. “You think I’m an idiot! Like I’d run off under the protection of strangers. You’re trying to get me to run from the Ravida so he can’t protect me. To tear apart the system of succession. To undermine my trust in my protectors.”

“Keep calm, Prince Kys,” the man advised, an unmoving portrait of serenity. “I mean only exactly what I say.”

Sarqii activated the kanaber. Its finger-length, flat laser blade cast an eerie glow over the spacious room, and the stranger vanished.

Sarqii crumbled, shins riding the liqui-mattress’ waves.

What do I do?

He didn’t trust the Ravida to begin with, and now?

The last memory of his father clawed to the top of his mind as tears flowed down naked cheeks, shining in the kanaber’s glow. Only two days ago, Emperor Gera Kys had patted his heir’s head and promised to join him for breakfast after this one conference. Within that meeting, he had collapsed. Death reaped him before a doctor could arrive.

His Honoring and Sarqii’s inauguration were tomorrow. The Ravida would be there.

The kanaber’s blade retreated into its handle as Sarqii fell sideways onto his pillow. What were the odds this was all only a stress-induced dream?

The thought made him feel marginally better. He would deal with reality in the morning. For now, he chose not to believe any of it.

Continued in chapter 2: Never Fail

Thank you for reading!

Anku Phy couldn’t believe this was actually happening.

As he exited a small jewel shop, he drew a shaky breath. A blend of city aromas filled his nostrils—bakeries, chandlers, and artisans competed with the perfume of the terraced terrain’s flowering vineyards. A sign read Rebalo Street. Another beneath it touted this as The Walking Sector of Azmet District. No vehicles allowed.

Don’t get cocky yet. That was nothing, not even a warm-up compared to what you’ve planned, Most Infamous Conman Extraordinaire.

Phy’s heart raced. Death was the penalty for most crimes in the Napix Empire, some deaths worse than others. No one contested his claim to the title ‘Most Infamous’ because dead men made silent rivals.

Still, he couldn’t stop a smile from blossoming within his faux goatee. As the daystar dipped behind the southeastern mountains, limning their peaks in silver, the final rays of evening set the windows in this affluent valley alight. Phy squinted, stance puffed and stride lengthened.

His wide belt scrunched beneath his ribs, and he adjusted it. Everything was clean here. Curves and smooth surfaces defined the cityscape. If Phy wanted them to believe he was a nobleman as his attire implied, he had to fit that image.

Shopfronts on either side offered his reflection from multiple angles. The swirled motif of the empire’s wealthiest clan bordered the hem of his ankle-length vest. His tilted beret boasted an expensive granok feather, though it had faded from proper inky black, stringy and lank. Other pedestrians gave him a wide berth, many opting to walk on the other side of the stunted trees that lined the middle of the brick path.

With a glance at the bandage on his right thumb, Phy recalled a tray with a dozen clear gems glistening like faceted glass in folds of soft, obsidian fabric. “Perfectly cut symarr,” the shopkeeper had bragged, “sliced from the hearts of dead stars.”

A wave of air evoked a startled blink as a young man landed in front of him. Horror kneaded Phy’s gut. The youth’s short, ashen curls weren’t uncommon in this territory. Nor were his middle gray skin or how his features seemed blended as if the artist forgot a face should have shadows. The eyes, though, immediately identified him.

“Good day, Nobleman. Where are you headed?”

Stepping around him, Phy kept walking. “To sell my investment and make a profit. That’s not a crime, is it?”

“Not unless your product was obtained illegally.”

Phy let out the most innocent laugh he could manage as his hands slid into his belled sleeves to fondle a small knife. The youth kept step alongside him. Recalling his great uncle’s advice to observe every detail in case he had to copy it someday, Phy raked him with a sideways glance.

Dark pants tucked into darker boots. Paler straps laced the inseam-half of the footwear. That pattern repeated under the right arm of his high-collared jacket. Within a pocket beneath a square sheath on his hip, something wiggled.

As they passed beneath a shop’s awning, the iridescent chrysolite in the youth’s eyes appeared to glow. He focused on Phy’s bandage. “How did you hurt yourself?”

Phy replied a wary, “What do you mean?”

“I’m sure your hand is bandaged for some reason. Did you, say, squeeze a gem harder than necessary, then deride the shopkeeper’s work because it cut you?”

Phy hastened, and his pinky toes screamed that these pointed shoes were not designed for this. “I’m in a hurry.”

“But I’m not through talking to you yet, Anku Phy.”

Everything stopped—breath, heart, feet—and Great Uncle’s words rang louder than ever before. If you get caught by an Aylata, you might as well bid the world bye-bye.

Less than an arm’s length from Phy stood an Aylata, a hybrid of the Napix and Magni races. Phy himself was Napix. Full Magni were extinct. This halfling’s stance bespoke an ease of movement Phy envied.

And Phy knew this one’s name. Everyone did.

Trying to sound unconcerned, Phy mumbled, “What do you want, Ravi Xlack Ekymé?”

“The symarr you took from the shop.”

Phy’s legs heeded the command to run. He couldn’t fight an Aylata, especially not an elite one like a Ravi, but he was a skilled hider.

He wasn’t fast enough. A hand locked around his wrist, and his knife escaped his sleeve of its own accord. Reflecting the deep shades of sunset, it hovered level with his nose.

It showed him his own beady eyes growing rounder. His voice had no breath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have nothing.”

The Aylata’s grip tightened. “If you have nothing, what were you going to sell?”

As numbness crept across his captured arm, Phy sunk to his knees on the rough, gray bricks. The knife dissolved, dust floating away on gentle wind.

“Please…” A crowd gathered—his marks, his audience, made to look multitudinous by all the reflective windows. “Citizens, I have been falsely accused!”

Ekymé frowned. “Unwrap the bandage around your thumb, then.”

Phy shook his head as he tried to concoct a plausible excuse. Even the daystar stared at him, peering over the row of terraced structures lined along this pedestrian path. Azmet was built of glass and jewels—too dazzling.

The Aylata’s smooth timbre wrenched back his attention. “I’ll give you one more chance to cooperate. Show us all what’s hiding in your bandage.”

Phy’s gaze dropped to the sheath at the Aylata’s belt. The Ier resting within was an inanimate tool, a weapon, an impossibly flat square while it slept. Yet, it dared him to keep up his defiance.

He gulped.

Slowly, he uncoiled the bandage, careful to conceal the stolen gem between his fingers.

Ekymé picked the tiny rock out of Phy’s hand anyway and passed it to a hunchbacked drone recording everything. “Return this to the jewel shop on Rebalo Street.”

With a series of clicks, the mechett scurried off the way Phy had come.

Released, his palms dropped to the ground. His stomach burned. How could this have gone so wrong?

That sliver of rock was nothing. Let them have it. He had bigger things to tackle.

Phy scrambled to his feet, but the crowd packed too thick, whispering and staring.

“Get out of the way!”

No one complied.

Ekymé tossed his Ier in the air, and the square plate snapped open with an electric hiss. Twisted strands channeled light into the shape of a thick, loosely-woven staff.

Catching the Ierat its middle, Ekymé twirled it like an athlete warming up. “Tell me, why should a man who repeatedly breaks the law out of greed be allowed to live?”

“I have a family,” Phy whimpered, “with little kids. And pets!”

“Really? Do any of these little kids have names?”

“Um…uh…my son…my kid’s called Rebalo.”

Ekymé’s face softened in mocking pity. “Did you name your kid after the street or the animal?”

“It was my wife’s idea.”

“Is she also named after a pest?”

The crowd laughed. Rebalo were vermin hated or feared by everyone of proper birth as symbols of filth and danger.

“Do you think I’m stupid, Mr. Phy?” Ekymé swung the tendrilled staff, boredom scrawled in his every line. How old was he anyway? Just a year over two decades, Phy recalled. Young Aylata were notorious for overzealously enforcing the law.

Phy shook his head and backed away from the weapon’s long swipes.

Ekymé nodded. “Good. I don’t think you’re truly stupid either. You know what happens next.”

Anku Phy got to his knees, gaze on the ground. “I’m sorry. I took the symarr from the shop. Now I appeal to the Mercy of the Judges.”

The Aylata stepped closer, Ier held behind his back. “Step one: Admittance. You’ll have your day in court, but let’s make one thing clear. Today you lost your merchandise and some dignity, but if you steal in my district again, you’ll lose a lot more.”

* * *

“Fear of loss can drive one to madness.”

Sarqii repeated the phrase in an undertone as he stood behind his room’s dressing screen within the Emperor’s Palace. He was supposed to be the symbol of strength and serenity now, but he felt like a small boy playing in his father’s flowing garb and oversized shoes, dreaming and completely unprepared.

While Sarqii was tall, he was not the giant his father had been, so a servant sat by his feet and hemmed the emperor’s traditional feather-like robe.

They would see right through him. He couldn’t be his father.

Even his reflection’s hollow stare judged him. His father’s gaze had been wide and bright, saturated with wisdom and compassion. Sarqii’s clear, dark eyes were narrow and slanted, and he could never tell what they held.

“Would anyone find it too odd if I combed my hair over my face and let them pretend I am someone else?”

“That would be ridiculous,” his valet insisted as he swept Sarqii’s curtain of hair into a half-bun and secured it with woven wire. “Your coif must be exactly like your father’s.”

His hair was exactly like his father’s, darker than night and thick enough to damage most things meant to cut it.

With his left hand—his dominant hand despite how askance people regarded that—Sarqii tugged on a lock until at least some of his bangs hung in his face.

The valet gave him an exasperated look but left it, already reapplying the filigree to Sarqii’s sleeves.

“Change is inevitable.” Another mumbled quote of something sung to him in a dozen languages by a mother he barely remembered. Her eyes had been like his, though hers had contained a universe of secrets.

“Just please don’t talk to yourself at the inauguration,” the valet advised. His hands clapped Sarqii’s robed shoulders with a muffled thump. “You are the son of Emperor Gera Kys, the man with an infallible memory and the compassion of a dozen grandmothers. Everyone loved him. They love you, too.”

“They loved my brother, not me.”

“They will love you. There’s something about your family that’s indescribable but irresistible. The loss of your brother—”

Sarqii shut him out, but the memory had already triggered, and when he tried to shove it aside, it transformed into the nightmare of last night.

When you meet the Ravida, he will take your life.

It still made no sense. Sarqii didn’t know Ravida Vuet K’alaqk well, but his father had. These two leaders of the Napix Empire possessed deep trust in one another. Having seen it firsthand, Sarqii couldn’t imagine it being a façade.

It was a trap, he decided. The intruder must have been with some small, dissident faction. They didn’t want him to trust the Ravida because his paranoia would weaken the empire.

He took a deep breath.

I am the empire now.

As he stepped through the doors of the palace’s grand hall, bile stung Sarqii’s throat, and he fought to keep his steps steady.

I am the empire, he repeated as he tried to smooth out his face. This was his father’s Honoring, and Sarqii’s inauguration would come at the end of it. He couldn’t look sick.

“We live in the shadows of great pawns and kings.”

He whirled. Aristocrats and wait staff surrounded him, none close enough to have so intimately whispered the line in his ear. He frowned, fingers rubbing the end of his loose bangs.

“Is it proper for the emperor-to-be to look so anxious?”

“I’m not—”

He turned, and again no one was there. Or rather, several stood, too distant to have been the speaker but near enough to have heard him and put on questioning looks. Sarqii’s mouth hung ajar.

“It would be unseemly if they saw you drool.”

Sarqii resisted the urge to pivot toward the whisper this time and was rewarded with the faintest flicker in his peripherals. That could have been anything. Light sinking through the pool above the transparent ceiling glinted off jewelry and glasses and cast undulating shadows in this crowded antechamber.

“Are…are you invisible?” he questioned and remembered to swallow before he really did drool. “Or am I simply insane?”

Only the low, blended sound of the throng answered him.

Lips pursed, Sarqii allowed his gaze to roam. Refreshments waltzed around the room via trays carried on waiters’ shoulders. The scents of strong alcohol and delicate meats wafted through a miasma of perfumes. No chairs awaited the crowd’s desire to sit, traded for fur-lined mats in swirling rows for kneeling around the space’s center.

There, a throne—a heavy, ornate, and rigid thing—hovered above scenes etched in glass. Simple, white lines drew the story of this ancient empire’s second emperor, the founder of the Kys dynasty.

On the wall beyond it, massive double doors parted. A murmur rushed through the assembly as finally Ravida Vuet K’alaqk entered the room.

The highest-ranking Aylata was short compared to Sarqii. Though combed back, his hematite hair refused to lie flat, crowning him with stubborn, slanted pikes facing behind. A thin beard bordered his jaw, something never seen on purely Napix men. It reinforced the alien authority infused in his every line.

Through the crowd, Sarqii met the Ravida’s gaze. There was the green-gold chrysolite he recognized, flickering and pale over gray irises. Focusing on the color was like trying to map a kaleidoscope or staring into an opal’s depths, ever-changing, forming scenes that could not be.

Sarqii’s breath caught in his throat, and his father’s less-favored wife screamed.

Less favored by Father, not the noblemen. He only married her because of their insistence, and to spite them, he left her childless.

How he wished she was his mother, though, instead of the blurred figure in his memory. This woman was proper in every sense of the word. Why would she break that decorum and disgrace this solemn occasion with a scream?

As all turned to the widowed empress, a mixed reaction impelled those nearest her. Some scrambled back. Others rushed forward to examine the limp boy she cradled.

Chyr, Sarqii’s younger brother.

At fourteen, he had already caught up to Sarqii in height, and the former empress could not hold him, collapsing to the floor’s glass mosaic. Dark, glossy blood dripped from Chyr’s nostrils and the corner of one eye to stain her white gown.

Ever since his older brother’s demise last year, doctors had shadowed both remaining princes every waking hour. The one now at Chyr’s side shook his head.

Sarqii exhaled what he thought would be his last breath, a horrified moan escaping him. Anger and fear entwined and possessed his hands with tremors. He looked back at the Ravida. The man stared at him. Sad determination filled his kaleidoscope eyes.

I cannot confront the Ravida, Sarqii recalled the stranger’s words.

Well, I can, he thought. I will!

He took a heavy step forward. His shoulder bumped one of the guests and called his gaze for the briefest of glances, but there was no time to apologize. The Aylata’s words rang in his mind.

As his eyes returned to the Ravida, a wave of nausea overtook Sarqii, sight all but abandoning him. Yet, he could do this. He was the son of Emperor Gera Kys.

Forcing himself to straighten in a manner befitting his position, he stepped again. The room spun, and his head hurt like it would implode. He raised his left hand. A demand for acknowledgement rose to his lips, but he got no further.

Sarqii tripped, falling first on one knee, then on his side. A moment later, he realized he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t recall how to perform that rote and automatic task. His head hit the ground, eyes half-closed, and he couldn’t remember how to move them.

The crowd around him yelled and shook him and shuffled away. The last thing he saw was his step-mother’s face streaked with tears as she pulled him into her arms alongside his brother.

The last thing he ever heard was a Mind Aylata’s whisper, the kind only its intended heard. ‘Forgive me.’

* * *

“A spirit of forgiveness is not desirable for Aylata of our station.”

The first lecture from his Protector mentor wafted through Xlack’s mind as he read the new head scribe’s message asking for more details in the case of Anku Phy.

“You monitor everything in the district, mediate disputes, and apprehend criminals. The people feel safe because they know you will be there the moment something goes wrong.”

“But I’m supposed to be a legend,” fourteen-year-old Xlack had excused. “Aren’t legends supposed to do things differently?”

The teacher had rapped his student’s brow with a datapad. “You assume that along with the rest of the empire, but you’re not a legend yet.”

Seven years later, he still wasn’t.

And he was tired of getting hit on the forehead.

One would figure monitoring everything in a district would be interesting. Boredom’s my stalker.

He had hoped the nobleman bearing false credentials would turn out to be something more entertaining than a petty jewel thief. A whiny one, at that. After Anku Phy had been dragged off by capable custodians three days ago, Xlack hadn’t given him a second thought.

Without replying, he swiped aside the head scribe’s message and moved to the next notification blinking in the corner of his datapad’s screen. It promised to be less rote, at least.

Following its summons, he climbed the stairs of Azmet’s tallest tower, each story a smaller block centered atop the one below. As he neared the penthouse, his path spiraled around the building’s perimeter, encased in tinted windows hashed with metal supports. They framed a cloudless sky and a speck sailing over the horizon like a distant star.

Words drifted into his mind, small and stretched to their limit. ‘Good morning, baby boy.’

Not slowing, he caught the Mental string and held it, sending back a whisper of his own. ‘Mom, I’ve asked you not to call me that.’

‘You will always be my baby boy.’ Amusement, sweet laced with bitter like the aroma of rotting fruit, coated her whisper, and Xlack sent back the notion of a sigh.

‘I’m busy.’

‘What has snared your interest when you are so tired?’

Xlack grimaced. Of course she noticed every nuance of his mood. Though she was too far for her Mind Talents to sense his emotions as she would in person, stripping a whisper of all feeling was nearly impossible.

‘That’s what it means to be a Protector—too many things to do and not enough time to sleep.’

It was not the answer she wanted, but she chuckled, soft notes tickling as if tiny feet scurried across the inside of his skin. ‘Your father sends his greetings.’

Xlack loaded his response with doubt. ‘He’s not there with you. Dad’s arrival in Atetu yesterday was all over the dataseas.’

His mother huffed. ‘He calls me, unlike a certain ungrateful son.’

‘Mom, you whisper to me every morning as the station passes over.’ He paused on the stairs, gaze spearing the faux star directly above him. ‘And don’t chide me for never whispering first. No one has the crazy range you do.’

Her laugh fell heavier this time, like swollen raindrops. ‘Let me see your district.’

‘You’ve seen it a year’s worth of times.’ Even so, he touched a window and gestured for its tint to lighten.

Like thin, flowing cloth, a moment wrapped his final word: the feel of sun-kissed glass beneath his fingertips. The city’s mix of smells not quite scrubbed from the processed air. The view of the sprawling valley and crisp mountains clothed in tattered robes of lush vegetation, their crowns bare and dark as midmorning light danced on the forest’s ancient boughs and winked at the meandering river. Pride that he belonged here, watching over all of it.

‘The spectacle has yet to fade. I have told you a thousand times how proud I am of your successes as a Protector. I only wish it did not keep you so far away all the time.’

He barely heard the last line. As Enari Station slipped behind the mountains, their connection pulled through his Mental grasp, too taut to carry a reply.

With a swipe to darken the window, he continued up the stairs, but as he released the string, a final thought fell from it. ‘I have selected a lady of interest for you.’

His heart skipped, mind abuzz with a million questions he couldn’t ask without calling her, and his toes struck the riser. Hopefully, no one saw that.

Rumors were a part of his life. He had learned to ignore most of them, but with this revelation, they flipped through his head like pages at the mercy of the wind. Ammalyn Ekymé searched for a bride for her son. Had he already seen his mother’s choice in those unavoidable tabloids?

What was she like? Gorgeous, knowing his mother’s preferred company.

What if she was horrible, or what if her mom hated him?

He could not marry without his mother’s permission, and the same would be true for his lady of interest. His mother could bully anyone into a yes, but that wasn’t how he wanted this to happen.

His mother was picky, and whomever she selected would be perfect. He would call later.

Shaking his head to clear it, Xlack hopped up the last two steps and placed his palm against his front door. With a muted beep, it rushed aside.

An awkward scent spilled out with the warm, salty fragrance of home.

“When the monitors notified me that a Messenger Koth Vlokem entered my apartment, I hoped he wouldn’t put his feet on the furniture. What are you doing here?”

With a frosted glass of something that smelled like paint thinner, the paunchy, middle-aged Messenger leaned back as far as the chair would allow, feet propped on a counter. “What do you mean, ‘What am I doing here?’ Can’t I have a vacation to visit my friends?”

Xlack looked to his left, where a window-lined seating area hosted none except a wilted flower given to him by a grateful citizen last week. To the right, the kitchen lay similarly unoccupied aside from Vlokem’s misplaced feet.

What a great party.

“I wasn’t aware Mianlan was your friend,” Xlack drawled. “Where is he?”

Vlokem took a swig, ice clinking. Parted on the left and copiously gelled, his soft, dark hair fanned oddly around his broad face, and Xlack wondered that it managed to stay out of the glass.

“That old fuddy-duddy that wouldn’t know fun if it fell in his lap?”

“Yes, that Mianlan. I’m surprised he let you in.”

Vlokem shrugged. “He wasn’t here. There was a note though, made of ice probably out of some symbolism. I used it for my drink.”

Xlack sighed. “Because I obviously didn’t want to read it anyway.”

Peeking from Xlack’s pocket, Rell sniffed at the intruder and sneezed. He snarled, then sniffed again.

Claws curled into Xlack’s pant leg as the beastling ventured to the floor, tail held high. The appendage didn’t fit him, too long and slender. More silver than the rest of him, it protruded from the obsidian spot that splotched his rump and dripped down his hind legs.

Xlack looked at the Messenger askance. Who sent him? The fragrance of Kobolast District still clung to him—curated forests and sparkling lakes. Blending with his tincture of toothpaste and laziness, it permeated the suite.

“Skedaddle, rodent,” Vlokem grumbled, one boot swinging from the table to deter the beastling’s approach.

Rell tumbled backward, squealing. Xlack scooped him up and scanned him for injuries. His thumb straightened the fragile, sleeve-like fins running down Rell’s forepaws. They weren’t ripped or bleeding.

“Vlokem, you’re here for some reason. Tell me or leave.”

“You want drama, huh? How’s this: I bring you a message from the emperor!” Standing, the Messenger clenched his fist, punched the air above his head, and held the pose in a lame anticlimax.

Xlack would have kicked him out just for that, but instinct whispered louder in his ear, and his breath stalled in his throat. Information could be conveyed instantly via any number of devices. Aylata Messengers rarely performed the function implied by their caste title anymore, not unless the message contained instructions they had to see carried out. What could the emperor want with him?

He recalled rumors flying across the dataseas. Emperor Kys and his heirs were dead. The Aylata hid it from public knowledge to avoid widespread mayhem.

Those were only rumors, right? Despite his reputation as a prankster, Vlokem wouldn’t dare joke about this.

Fighting the urge to step back, Xlack swallowed, set Rell on the fluffy carpet, and gestured for him to stay. “Emperor Kys lives?”

“Uh, no.” Vlokem opened the cupboard, and the pale, plain scarf that denoted his Messenger caste snagged on the corner. “You got anything with flavor in here?”

“Who sent you, then?”

“The new emperor.”

Xlack crossed his arms. Getting information out of a Messenger sent to tell him stuff shouldn’t have been this hard.

“Who is the new emperor?”

“Just before the Ravida died, he named his son, Revel K’alaqk, emperor.”

Xlack felt like he had taken another datapad to the forehead, only this one was as big as a building and he lay flat beneath it. With a step back, he slid over the armrest of a lounge chair and plopped on its oversized cushion, his ashen curls falling over his eyes.

“The Ravida’s dead, too?”

“Yeah, some mystery disease wiped him out along with Emperor Kys and some other important people. You didn’t know that?”

“Obviously not.”

Vlokem shrugged and turned back to the cupboard. “Not my fault. Try to keep up, will you?”

Xlack’s mind raced. Why hadn’t he heard about any of this?

They were covering it up. Very few people knew. When the public found out, there would be chaos.

Rell padded closer to his master and let out a worried whine. At a second ‘stay’ signal, he sat. Practicing command signs usually involved treats. His tail slithered across the floor so fast, his little rump wiggled.

“Okay, Vlokem, you got me,” Xlack admitted. “I couldn’t tell you were joking.”

“That’s ’cause I’m not.”

“Revel K’alaqk can’t be emperor. No Aylata can. That’s treason.”

“Actually, it’s only an unwritten law that says an Aylata can’t be emperor, so depending on how you look at it, you could see it as okay. But no one cares about my opinions. I’m just delivering his message.”

Xlack stood, arms crossed and eyes in a crooked, frowning squint. “And that would be, finally?”

“He wants to see you about a special mission. You have”—Vlokem glanced at his datapad—“five hours to arrange for your district and rendezvous at Aylata Tower.”

Azmet hid in a verdant crater just south of Napix’s equator. Aylata Tower sat within Kobolast, a district that straddled the central latitude of Napix’s northern hemisphere, slid a smidgen west from Azmet and teeming with forests and lakes. It would take the entire time allotted to reach if using available ground transportation.

Xlack had no idea what to expect when he arrived. They were equals, but Revel K’alaqk acted like Xlack didn’t exist, and now he summoned him out of nowhere? This was too strange to ignore.

“Vlokem, you ever wish you were something other than a Messenger?”

A grin resided in Vlokem’s replying voice, but his face was lost somewhere in the cupboard. “Only when you’re not thinking about how much you want to be a Messenger.”

“Then watch my district while I’m gone.”

Vlokem fell backward and caught hold of the cupboard door to steady himself. “What?”

Already headed for the exit with Rell leaping at his heels, Xlack waved dismissively. “Consider it a favor.”

“But…” Vlokem’s small eyes became slits. “How exactly are you planning on getting there?”

A smirk snuck across Xlack’s lips. “I’ll fly your Oha. Since you’re staying here, you won’t need it. Never fail.”

Before Vlokem could protest, the door slid shut.

Continued in Chapter 3: Beyond the Cage

Thank you for reading!

The arrow-shaped hull of the borrowed Oha groaned as Xlack guided the plane down through thick clouds. Beads of moisture scurried up the windshield, and the gale hissed its irritation at being unable to reach the craft’s occupants.

Curled in Xlack’s pocket and oblivious of the outside world, Rell snored softly, content to be close to his master.

Xlack’s hands fidgeted on the Oha’s steering staves. He was a Protector, one of the four caste-like ranks of Aylata, above Messengers and Defenders and equal with Watchers. Protectors knew every cranny of their districts and rarely left them. That would be a breach of loyalty, a contradiction to duty.

Duty said summons from dubious emperors were to be ignored. Azmet should be Xlack’s priority, not satisfying his curiosity as to what Revel K’alaqk wanted. He should stay at home and call his mother.

If he called her now, she would want to know where he was and what he was doing, and he wasn’t sure of that himself at the moment.

He knew the where. The ship’s instruments reported his exact location along the route to Kobolast, Yakru, capital of the Napix Empire. He was almost there. As he broke through the clouds so far from his assigned home, a network of lush estates and pockets of urban areas appeared beneath him.

It was the why he didn’t want to discuss. She would say if he had the time to chase mysteries in the capital, then he had time enough to visit her. Datasea rumors would spout a million other things, and a lot of them would agree with the previous head scribe.

He hadn’t abandoned Azmet. Vlokem was there. He could handle it.

It would be a mess when he got back. Hopefully, this didn’t take too long.

Ahead of him at the southern edge of the vast Imino Lake, Aylata Tower resembled a pair of wings stretching into the sky, a showcase of sharp points. Perched alongside it, the Emperor’s Palace was a structure of sweeping curves, like waves frozen as they crashed ashore. The Tower both dwarfed and enhanced its neighbor, as if the massive wings were the palace’s own.

As Xlack landed in a hangar at the base of those wings, afternoon storm clouds hung heavy and low. The Tower’s metal and the palace’s foggy crystal gleamed at the touch of the daystar’s few penetrating rays.

Even inside, the air smelled of rain and forest, though the ventilation system contributed a cold, numbing aroma. As he entered a wide, tube-like corridor, Xlack pulled his datapad from a small pocket on his belt, allowed it to unfold, and synced it with the Tower computer.

Welcome, Xlack Ekymé, scrolled across the screen.

Where does the new emperor want me to meet him? Xlack typed.

Before the computer replied, shouts erupted behind him. Turning, he found a guard hopping on one foot, other leg in the air trying to shake off a certain beastling.

“Rell, here,” Xlack ordered and pointed next to his feet.

Obediently, Rell let go and bounded to the spot indicated, though he didn’t take his keen, dark eyes off the flustered guard.

“That creature of yours ruined my service shoes!”

Almost invisible punctures dotted the toe of the guard’s polished, fur-lined boot. Rell roared, and the tiny sound matched his tiny body.

“The pistol in your hand,” Xlack questioned, gaze on the palm-sized, L-shaped weapon held slack in the guard’s grip, “why isn’t it in your holster?”

Smile false, the guard rubbed the pistol’s chrome barrel with his half-untucked shirt. Both that and his open jacket were in violation of dress code. He also stunk of wet leather. “I was just polishing it.”

“If that weapon gets any shiner, it’ll blind someone.”

“We’re supposed to look pristine.” Chin held high, the guard zipped up his jacket.

Xlack’s head tilted, right eye narrowed. “I suppose that’s a valid priority since you perform the function of statues.”

The guard stiffened, free hand clenched and jaw working. “I know Aylata lump guards and troopers in one group and label us useless, but you shouldn’t be so rude. All guards are sons of noblemen, and we earn our positions protecting this Tower and the palace.”

“You think if you were ordered to keep me from entering, you could?”

As Xlack stretched out a hand, every molecule in the vicinity called to his Kinetic senses. His cells returned the greeting, thrumming like his heart but infinitely faster. Narrowing his focus to the guard’s weapon, he altered the pulse in his fingers, an action as rote as drawing a breath, and the gun flew into his grip.

Unmoving, the guard glowered, nostrils flared and cheeks billowed.

“Spoiler alert, you couldn’t.” Stepping closer, Xlack shoved the weapon backward in its holster on the guard’s thigh. “For the record, I don’t think you’re useless. Just unnecessary.”

The guard’s jaw dropped, his inhale audible. Before he could speak, a reply from the computer appeared on the datapad, asking if he would like to be transported to the meetup location now. Xlack’s thumb brushed the accept button, and the teleportation system moved him and Rell to a dim room deep within the Tower’s basement.

It wasn’t Revel K’alaqk who greeted them.

Xlack dropped. As his sharp-tendrilled Ier leapt into his hand, an arrow sliced above his head and burrowed into a wall behind him with a smooth thunk.

Two Messengers faced him with a menagerie of weapons, but neither wielded anything as ancient as a bow. That one stood closer, arm still cocked back from releasing the arrow. Topeca Xaff. Or Topeca K’alaqk now, married to the Ravida’s only son.

She carried herself with more confidence and maturity than she had at her wedding a year ago. Still, no amount of poise on her part would convince him she belonged here, staring him down with an expression that was part bewildered, part wild.

Her voice fell as soft as a feather’s landing. “Yield.”

One Messenger obeyed and straightened into a relaxed stance, hands respectfully behind his back. Petite and dark-haired with freckled skin, he hailed from a similar background as she did, likely her childhood escort and now part of her dowry.

The other, nearly three times her size, stepped in front of her, pistol aimed at Xlack.

Topeca’s blade-like heel clicked against the stone floor. “Yield, all of you!”

She shoved past the second Messenger, and his hands dropped to his sides, grip still tight on his weapons.

Xlack did not lower his Ier.

“You, too, Ravi Ekymé. Sheathe your Ier. We mean you no harm.”

He cringed at her Atetu accent’s rendering of his name, the m too forceful and left hanging without the final, soft eh.

“You shot at me with an antique arrow.”

“You weren’t supposed to appear in front of me like that.” She slung the bow across her slim shoulders, her hair swaying. Such was thick black silk, elegantly bound to keep it from brushing the dusty floor. Her crooked skirt wasn’t as lucky, pooled beside her right foot.

Just walking would be hazardous in that outfit, running impossible. What was she even doing?

The arrow was the only one of its kind here, though the supple wood it impaled lined all the walls, pocked and scarred. Scattered clay pillars and arches hosted torches, the only light source besides Xlack’s Ier.

This was a sparring room, and a Sereh, female of the Aylata race, stood in the middle of it with a bow.

What was he expected to do? Rell, skittish of the Ier, hid in his pocket. The Messengers watched him on high alert. The lady stared, firelight and Ier glow dancing alongside the eerily bright chrysolite in her eyes. The dusty air reeked of sweat.

“What were you aiming at?”

Topeca shrugged. “Aiming wasn’t the point. I was supposed to stop the arrow.”

“With me or the wall? If it was the latter, congratulations.”

“No, I was trying to control it with…” She trailed off and wrapped herself in lightless, mist-like secrecy.

“With what?” Xlack’s eyes narrowed, the right more than the left, but he didn’t bother evening it out.

“With nothing.” She avoided his gaze, and as she shifted her weight between her feet, the delicate chains that spiraled from her toes to her knees chimed. “I apologize for shooting at you. When I asked the computer to make sure I and my escorts were present when you arrived, I should have been more specific.”

Xlack pulled at the mist. “You’re learning to use your Talent.”

Surprise spurted from her, brilliant and quick, but she kept her focus on the floor.

“You were trying to control the arrow with Kinetics,” Xlack pressed, “like this.”

He grasped toward the wall, and the arrow flew to him. The Messengers tensed, but he only held the relic floating above his palm, rocking with each beat of his heart. The larger of the escorts had Fire Talents, as told by his wet-ash stench. The freckled one had Kinetics, fingers twitching as if he might steal the arrow away.

Topeca reached for it, but at her touch, the arrow shattered and rained as a shimmer of dust.

Her face scrunched. “Why do that?”

“So you couldn’t shoot it at me again.”

A whisper exploded in Xlack’s mind. ‘Do not break Topeca’s toys.’

Stillness prevailed, no one stepping out of shadows or pushing through a door. For Revel K’alaqk’s voice to have such an overwhelming boom, though, he must have been near.

Xlack spun in a complete circle. ‘Stop hiding and talk to me.’

‘Why did you not listen to Topeca when she said to put away your Ier?’

‘I was listening. Very hard.’ He still was. Xlack’s senses raked everything.

‘Then why not do as she asked?’

‘I don’t take orders from girls.’ Except his mother. Sometimes.

A laugh crept into K’alaqk’s whisper. ‘Ever wonder why that is?’

Xlack backed toward the nearest door. ‘Says the one avoiding me like I don’t exist.’

“I recognize your existence.” Revel K’alaqk dropped between him and the room’s other occupants. At a flick of his hand, the teleporters relocated the spectating Messengers. “However, you generally fail to care for my opinion.”

Xlack stared. That was the emperor’s ceremonial robe draped loose and open over simpler Aylata attire. It was true then. Revel K’alaqk claimed the emperor title despite millennia of tradition insisting that was not a position an Aylata could hold.

“You call me here, then hide like a perfectly mannered host and have your wife greet me so sweetly in this lovely sparring room. The torches are a nice touch.”

“Delighted you approve.” Framed by one of the arches and hands hiding in the emperor’s long sleeves, he stood in front of Topeca.

Xlack glared. “Women aren’t allowed in Aylata Tower.”

“No women except for me,” she corrected, peeking around her husband. Despite her heeled shoes, her chin came just above his elbow.

The chrome cascades of wire-leaves dangling over her hair tinked, and Rell peeped out of Xlack’s pocket, entranced by the noise and shine.

“Topeca is in a unique position.” K’alaqk’s strong features too easily carried arrogance, a trait that bled into every line of his straight stance. “As am I.”

“So I heard. If the Ravida is deceased, the four Refraction Leaders should be in charge.” Images of his father and his mother’s brother hovered in Xlack’s mind. “What do they say about your position?”

“They have interesting opinions, but discussing those with you is not why I called.”

Ier gripped tighter, Xlack sunk into a defensive stance. “Then get to the point already.”

“What are your goals, Xlack Ekymé? Where do you picture yourself in the future?”

“I’ll be a Refraction Leader, possibly Ravida.”

K’alaqk’s left eyebrow rose, sniffing out the lack of conviction. “Possibly?”

“Or maybe you’ll be Ravida since we can’t all know everything like you.”

K’alaqk blinked the jab aside. “You do not approve of Topeca learning her Talent, do you?”

Xlack’s eyes jumped to where the Sereh sat on the dusty stone floor. Rell happily occupied her lap, nudging her hands in a demand to be pet. The soft white of her sheer arm warmers, cropped shirt, and dangerous skirt reflected a spectral glow in the Ier light, as if she were an apparition and might fade away at the slightest provocation.

Xlack had never met a Sereh without that alien quality, some sense of not belonging to this world, but then, weren’t Sereh prized for their foreign heritage same as Aylata?

With a step to the left, K’alaqk blocked his view. “You do not believe Sereh should learn to use their Talents.”

“It’s not that clear cut.” Straightening, Xlack searched for the words to explain. His mother used her Mind Talents to whisper, and she was far more skilled in that than anyone.

Yet, he recalled the first suggestion his mentors had taught him: still, a bridling of another’s psyche so that they could not move.

“My mother can do that,” he had claimed, but his teacher refused to acknowledge it.

“Grand Lady Ekymé has no use for vulgar tricks.”

He didn’t understand how the same task could be praiseworthy when he did it and vulgar for his mother, but eventually he, too, learned to ignore it when she performed feats propriety said she should not.

His gaze fell to the Ier, watching its glow pour over his hand. He could feel it, though that was also something propriety said he should not admit.

“There are skills Sereh need.” He looked up but didn’t focus on K’alaqk, attention beyond him on the girl and the beastling, sensing her stiffen as he called her out. “Lady K’alaqk has Kinetic Talents, and those are dangerous if left uncontrolled, but she doesn’t need to know how to stop an arrow. She doesn’t need to use her Talents to fight, not unless you’re saying you can’t protect her.”

“Then, you will accept society the way it is and refuse to see how things are beyond the cage in which you live?”

A cage? How often Xlack felt it, watched and judged constantly. It was the price of privilege, and like so many things, was not to be mentioned.

“If I live in a cage, so do you.”

“I have opened the door, but it must be your choice to fly through it.” K’alaqk smiled. “I would send you to the planets Tala and Knalz.”

Xlack’s feet screamed for him to run. K’alaqk didn’t smile and say normal things. His smile was the predator of common sense, and prey fled when in his presence. If this task took him to some planet Napix already controlled, that was a simple matter, but venturing to worlds beyond the empire? That was a job for a Watcher, and that was not Xlack’s caste.

“What about my district?”

“Did you not make arrangements for your district before coming here?”

Xlack didn’t answer, lost in a whirl of details that didn’t line up. Tala and Knalz had protectors of their own, ones the Aylataavoided. What could Revel K’alaqk, new Emperor of Napix, gain by this? Why send someone with no skill in foreign diplomacy to navigate what would become a touchy situation?

“Gather as much information as you can while in their territory,” K’alaqk continued, “especially information on their protectors. I warn you to expect cultural differences.”

‘Don’t send me.’ It was supposed to be a thought, not a broadcast whisper sent blindly to anyone with Mind Talents in the vicinity.

“Afraid?” K’alaqk’s taunting smirk strangled Xlack’s patience.

“This doesn’t make any sense. Why should I care about some far-off worlds?”

Despite what he had said about choices, K’alaqk’s stare hardened as if about to throw a suggestion, whisps of chrysolite twisting, breaking, and merging. Xlack met it, on guard.

“You are an Aylata, pledged in allegiance to Napix.”

“Which does not have an Aylata as its emperor.” Ier folding away, Xlack turned to leave. He was a Protector, and he would return to his district. What would become of the empire if order were allowed to fly out the window?

K’alaqk’s calm dripped from all directions, warm and sticky. “Test me not, Xlack Ekymé.”

Xlack stopped. “I have every right to.”

“There is no Ravida for you to run to and plead a case. If you speak against me, I will destroy you.”

Xlack scoffed. “You’d try.”

“I would not have to. Encumbered by roots of cowardice, you would not even best Topeca. You have been given such potential, but you squander it, preferring to sit lazily in your district.”

Composure fled despite the vice Xlack kept it in. A fight between him and K’alaqk would expand beyond the two of them. Death would reap its fill until it claimed one or both. Yet, the words still stung. He wasn’t a coward, and nothing about being a Protector, a good one anyway, allowed for laziness.

He wasn’t content with only being a good Protector, though, was he? Those ungrateful scribes wanted to get rid of him, and though they had been demoted and replaced, the spot they had prodded was still sore. Azmet was busy but monotonous.

If he were only a good Protector, he wouldn’t have come here in the first place. He wouldn’t now be wondering what these Tala and Knalz worlds were like. He wouldn’t feel this draw to be in the middle of everything, to be key in influencing the future, watching history as it unfolded. He would be happy to sit in Azmet, bored and trying to pry information from datasea rumors and Messengers like Vlokem.

And he would never be a legend.

“Athnak ta tzopo.” The ancient, traditional phrase slid off his tongue before he could truly weigh it, legal words that loosely translated to, “I shall act as you request.”

K’alaqk grinned. “Then you will leave immediately and contact me when you stand on the soil of either Tala or Knalz. I will tell you no more until then.”

Xlack glared at him, half-formed objections swirling around his head, but the desire in his heart vaporized them all before they could reach his mouth. Instead, he called for Rell. Upside-down and back leg kicking as Topeca tickled his belly, the beastling didn’t notice.

Topeca did, though. Scooping him up, she handed him to Xlack with the traditional parting words of her home territory, followed by the more widely used farewell. “Peace be yours, Ravi Ekymé. Never fail.”

As if the phrase were a cue, the teleporters sent Xlack and Rell to the exit nearest their borrowed Oha.

“Completely ridiculous,” Xlack mumbled as he stepped through the door. Nervousness and determination blended in a batter. The planets Tala and Knalz awaited, unaware, and Xlack knew little more than they did.

* * *

When all unknowns are gone and nothing remains to be discovered, we will find the universe a very dull place.

Topeca pressed a finger to her lip, gaze dipping beneath the quote on her datapad’s screen. Three attributions floated in separate, teetering bubbles, awaiting her selection.

She poked the name Ravida Lekon Inzui, and a limbed chevron filled in next to her choice. At her double-tap confirmation, the screen appeared to shatter. Shards faded, and crumbled words rose out of murky darkness: Incorrect. You fail.

Cheeks puffed, Topeca closed the datapad, letting it fold into a tiny square so she could tuck it in the hidden pocket at the wrist of her arm warmer.

The stupid game couldn’t know everything someone said in their life.

“You are adorable when you lose,” Revel remarked, eyes on his own reading material. Topeca paced behind his couch. “Did you make it further than before?”

“No, but there were some interesting proverbs.”

Would there come a time when everything was known? Topeca agreed with whomever the game had quoted. A world without surprise, newness, and adventure would be stale.

There was no shortage of those things in her life now: her husband named emperor, a Protector sent into foreign territory, she being allowed in this place traditionally forbidden to those of her gender. Though she had been Revel’s wife for a year, she had first stepped within this space, Revel’s quarters within Aylata Tower, only two days ago.

The room reminded her of ripples. The curved walls’ pale wood was set with dark grain drawn in expanding circles. On the stone floor, piles of river rocks formed swirls and rings, fire burning above them.

Topeca watched her long skirt tease the flame as she toppled over the armrest of the couch, spine playfully crashing into Revel’s side. “Want to see what I learned today?”

Revel’s silver and chrysolite gaze abandoned cluttered datacharts and slid to her. “Of course, but be forewarned: If your trick fails to impress, I will force you to memorize minute tax laws with me.”

Topeca grimaced, rolling so she faced him and the transparent sheets unfurled across his lap. Glowing diagrams overlapped, and columns of finely-printed exposition squeezed into every space. She couldn’t tell if they truly pertained to tax laws, but such was a subject she had little understanding of and less interest in.

She twirled, feet catching her when she ran out of couch. “You have to throw something at me.”

A suspicious smirk crawled across Revel’s lips as he grabbed the round pillow beside him and lobbed it at her. Topeca tensed, arms flying up in her defense, fingers splayed. The pillow sailed past her hands and alighted on the bend of her elbows.

“Nice posing catch.” Revel patted the cushion alongside him. “Come take a datachart.”

“Wait!” Nervous hands fisted at her sides, pillow fallen and forgotten. “This one works more consistently.”

She lifted one foot, silkily slippered with the onset of night, and stomped. A clatter like shattering rock thundered as a forcefield slapped the tile and rendered a web of cracks.

With a sidestep, Topeca inspected her accomplishment, pride prancing in every line.

“Impressive indeed. You can break the floor,” Revel praised. “Name your prize.”

He lifted a hand, and she took it, the embodiment of a smile as she glided onto the seat next to him. An Aylata equal to her in years and Talent would have considered her trick elementary and poorly executed, but she had made great progress in the few months since Revel had proposed she learn to use Kinetics.

“My prize is an answer to a question.” She leaned against him, head below the hidden scar that traversed his chest. He claimed he didn’t know how he had gotten it. “Protectors don’t do well when you take them away from their precious districts. Why send one so far outside his comfort zone?”

Revel draped his arm across her shoulders. “Do you wish to hear my true motivations or what I will tell the Refraction Leaders?”

“If you don’t already know the answer to that, you don’t know me at all.”

“Hmm, both. Truth first, then. Xlack Ekymé will be useful. If he learns the correct lessons.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“He will not return.”

Her heart pinched, and she glanced up, meeting Revel’s gaze for an instant before her eyes darted aside. She trusted Revel implicitly, yet to hold a Mind Aylata’s stare was unwise. A lifetime of looking away was a hard habit to break.

She bit her lip. “You’re not just sending him off to die? Like my brother was sent?”

“Have you so little faith in me, Topeca?”

“I have faith in you to the point of madness, Revel. Make me understand.”

As she looped her arms around him, a sigh rolled his shoulders beneath the heavy emperor’s robe. The garb was too large for him, generously layered and intricately wrapped. It all but concealed the simple tunic and pants she had always known him to wear.

“Our world ventures through major change. Some will not like it.”

“He embodies defiance,” Topeca admitted. “Some might consider getting rid of Xlack Ekymé prudent, if a little heartless.”

“I want him on our side.”

Timidity softened her words, and the fire’s whoosh overpowered her voice. “Everyone expects he will be Ravida.”

The sentiment hovered over dangerous ground. Revel, too, was a Ravi, a legal contender for the coveted position of Ravida. If he wasn’t emperor.

“They expected him to be older by the time your father passed,” she realized, “but despite that, he has great influence among the Aylata.”

Revel nodded. “He is an icon for those whose weighted opinions sway his decisions.”

“Your plan is to send him away and somehow convince him to listen only to you?”

Revel chuckled. “The way you paraphrase things always makes them sound so ridiculous.”

But wasn’t it? Xlack Ekymé didn’t believe in change like Revel did. He may even have opposed it.

Revel held her closer, and invisible reassurance swathed her like a blanket as she snuggled in. Did he hear her inner musings? It often seemed like he did.

“As it is said, ‘Caution is a great ally, always pointing out the best forks in the path,’” Revel whispered.

Topeca loved proverbs and recited her favorites frequently, but this one was new to her ears. She highly suspected Revel made up all his quoted adages himself.

“What does that mean?”

“There are several ways this could go. It is not always my choice which path we tread, but there are several I will accept.”

Topeca’s hands squeezed each other. “You mean you cannot guarantee Ravi Ekymé will or won’t return. He may even die. And you’d be alright with that?”

Revel’s reply fell gently in her ears like the last line of a lullaby. “Change makes cowards and heroes of us all.”

Even me? she balked, intrigued despite herself. Was she a coward? Plenty of times throughout her life she had been scared senseless, and she wouldn’t want those moments showcased.

However, she fancied becoming a hero. Would she be a legendary Sereh, a name on the tip of every historian’s tongue? She would surpass the great Sereh of old—Lady Arique Smirazi, who was pretty but didn’t really do anything; the deceitful Lady Sibsi Uanik; Lady Aviah Nalavoy, who destroyed everything she touched.

Topeca was learning to employ her Talent. That was a start. Already she could…break the floor. On second thought, that wasn’t such a great beginning.

The rhythm of Revel’s breaths lulled her into light sleep, yet the wedding pendant laced through the top of her right ear was pressed between them. Its combination of her family’s chevrons and the wending flames found in the K’alaqk crest dug into her cheek, reminding her who she was supposed to be now.

She sat up and shook slumber from her mind. “Is that what you’ll tell the Refraction Leaders, that change makes us all cowards and heroes? Xlack Ekymé is their most prized heir.”

“For now, they know nothing of Ekymé’s quest, and they need know nothing. It is too soon to script what they should hear.”

She leaned into Revel again, worry gilding her. “They say when taming an animal raised to despise you, step one is not to play fetch.”

“But a leash or a cage will only cause it to hate you more,” Revel countered.

“You mean to set him free?”

“You said Xlack Ekymé embodies defiance. If I tried to force him to accept change, would he? He must choose it.”

Topeca peeked up at Revel. Firelight played over the curves and angles of his face, adding seriousness to his words. This was an expression she knew well, some blend of teasing and thoughtful, but the ambiance hinted at extra mischief.

His black hair toyed with the light in a way she envied, and never lay flat. Always combed from one ear to the other, it stood in leaning pikes, giving his shadow an ominous crown. Yet, she knew his locks were softer than a beastling’s belly.

“Topeca, why are you staring at me?”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. His expression delved into a priceless mixture of curiosity and insult, and her mirth only grew.

“Revel,” she whispered, smile sweet as she brushed a kiss on his jaw, “I’m glad the Ravida named you Emperor.”

Continued in Chapter 4: The World Disintegrates

Thank you for reading!

“Wasn’t that kiss supposed to bring us luck?” Tyko Sep leaned against the tunnel’s metallic wall, closed eyes nearly hidden beneath the dark explosion of his bangs. Faint, distorted versions of him lounged in every surface, each one’s tan jacket coated in a wet mix of indigo and celadon.

Navaria Twi’s gaze flicked away from the macabre sight—the green was the blood of their opponents, the blue Sep’s own. There was a lot more of the blue.

The wall’s scalloped edges pressed into Twi’s back as she peered around a corner. “Those who hold their breath waiting for luck suffocate.”

“We’re a form of luck.” Sep’s voice matched the breeze, just as soft and bitter. “We are myths and nightmares protecting those that don’t believe we exist.”

Twi turned to him, and Sep’s eyelids rose, revealing slits of cobalt. She saw his anguish and terror, though he hoped she didn’t. She saw that wish also. “Would you rather live in ignorance?”

“No, but—” He tried to shake his head, and his breath hitched, clenched jaw biting off the word. Indigo trailed down his neck, bubbling at the air’s touch.

Twi had used all their bandages to wrap his claw-raked shoulders and lathered salve on any wounds left exposed, but the atmosphere here on Kelis would not allow Knalcal blood to clot. He panted, sweat beading on dusky skin several shades paler than usual.

He noticed her sightline and wiped his neck with a sleeve. “If no one knows what we do or believes in us, who will care when we’re gone?”

Me, she wanted to say, and aren’t I enough? If you die, my heart will shatter, and I will never find all the pieces.

The words could not pass through her lips. Sep would laugh and tell her a real Knalcal wouldn’t be so sentimental.

“We have to keep moving,” she said instead, but as she rounded the corner, murky rays of daylight within view at the end of the tunnel, Sep did not follow.

He lay on the ground not far from the bloodstained portion of wall. “I can’t. Just go.”

Twi knelt, hesitant hand reaching toward him. He grabbed it, grip so tight she feared their palms would meld together.

“Much as I want to witness you trample those overgrown bugs, you won’t win. One life for another.” His voice cracked. “Run. Now.” But he didn’t let go, narrow, azure eyes glued to her, fogged with pain but brighter than the sun here on this distant world.

Why did she always have to have an excuse to touch him—to spar or to address a wound, never simply to see if the obsidian scales that cut across his nose felt like a normal Knalcal’s? Never just because she loved him.

“You’re coming with me.” She hauled him to his feet, and he bit back a cry, every movement an explosion of pain.

Twi knew why he asked she leave him. Her Talent showed her that, same as the hurt she saw as tangible fog. He didn’t want her seeing him so broken. Yet, if she deserted him, she would break, too.

His knees could not hold him, and she strung his arm over her shoulders. His broken ribs shifted against her side, and he hissed in her ear. He wouldn’t scream; Knalcals didn’t scream. But he grew heavier, limbs slack as consciousness retreated.

“You can’t carry me.” His voice was spun sugar—blurry, weightless, and fragile. “Promise me you’ll make it out of here alive.” His head fell against her neck, hair stiffer and coarser than the black satin it resembled.

She couldn’t carry him. The chrome walls reverberated with the clamor of their pursuers closing in. Her hobbled steps toward the exit were too small, too infrequent, and too jerky. Sep’s pain formed a thick miasma blinding her.

“I’ll hide you. I’ll lead them away and return with help.”

“Promise me,” he persisted, “and run like the world disintegrates behind you.”

I will not promise to let you die.

Again, the words failed to escape. She turned to him, lips pressing to his.

Sep’s breath caught, half gasp, half wheeze, a grin whispering words against her mouth. “This is the first time you’ve kissed me.”

“My kisses are lucky, you said, and we need that luck.” Forehead against his, she brushed his bangs off his face. Blood bubbled from the ravine sliced through her first nail to her third knuckle, but she couldn’t feel it. The air’s constant sting had left her hands numb.

“It’s too late for luck now, even if you did believe in it.” Watery, unfocused gaze darting away from hers, he caught her hand, grip weaker than his broken, breathless voice. “Rifo and I used to argue over whether your blood should be blue or red.”

“Because I’m not a real Knalcal.”

“Tell him I’m sorry.”

“You have a myriad of reasons to apologize to Rifo, but dying here is not one of them. Don’t give up.” Desperation squeezed the plea, sharpening its edges and pitching it high. The emotion coated her skin like tepid, sticky ilk, and she hated it. This was not how a proper Knalcal acted.

Sep breathed words: “You have to…you have…to…”

Twi’s steps froze, waiting for him to end that sentence. The pause stretched into ugly dread. She held him tighter, displaced bones shifting, but he didn’t move. Dread grew thicker, the dull, lumpy shell of a geode concealing her rationale.

She bent, pulled Sep onto her back, and ran. Her thighs burned as she forced them faster, further, feet slipping in metallic gravel. Sep was not dead. Her Talents offered evidence of that: His pain still clogged the air, fresh and unfading. His life-signature pulsed, faint and slow like an echo bouncing off distant mountains. If Twi were fast enough, strong enough, good enough, she could save him.

The ground crumbled, and giant insects erupted from all directions, pincered mouths open and dripping brown sludge, skeletal claws cloaked in the stench of meat rotting in the sun. Their hisses filled her head, drowning out her battle cry. Her feet stabbed empty air, light at the tunnel’s exit replaced by rock and dirt—

She awoke with a silent scream, tears glossing her vision and breaths short, shuddering bursts.

“I couldn’t wake ya.”

Twi flinched. Safety-straps tight across her body prevented her from leaping to her feet. She sat in a narrow pilot’s chair, steering staves on either side of her knees and touchscreen controls arrayed around her.

“It was...vivid this time.” She sat up straighter, brushing blue-black plaits behind her shoulder as she stuffed her helplessness and resentment back into their cage.

“If ya don’t like how a nightmare ends, change it.”

“I can’t change what happened in reality, Lanox, and no amount of dream-altering will bring Sep back.”

“It’s not yer fault, Twi.” Pity slathered Lanox’s tone, slightly evening out her lilt. Though they sat back to back and Twi couldn’t see her teammate’s face, she knew the expression that accompanied that phrase: lowered brows over liquid aqua eyes and scrunched lips twisted to the right.

“I know it’s not my fault,” Twi repeated as she had every time someone had told her she wasn’t to blame.

“Ya say it, but ya don’t believe it, and that’s why it haunts ya. Ya did everything ya could, and the leaders denied yer request to return for him because there was nothing to go back for. Sep’s not there waiting for us. He’s not suffering. He didn’t survive longer than three seconds after ya got separated.”

Again, words Twi had heard a million times, but they found no roots in her splintered heart.

Lanox went on. “Sep was like a big brother to me, too. I miss him. But I’m glad not to have lost both of ya that day.”

But that was exactly it.

I returned home. Sep didn’t. How can I pretend that’s okay?

Patience. I am the last one who hasn’t given up on him, the last one searching. When I let go, then he is truly lost.

Twi’s right hand swiped a screen, and spiraled text scrolled beneath her tapping fingers. A straight, silver scar traced a line from the knuckle of her third finger to her first, a divot bisecting her nail. Amazing what three months could heal. And what it couldn’t.

That reminder would only toss her back into the nightmare. She focused on the text and its monotonous details, the computer’s unembellished report of how long she had slept—longer than she would have liked—and how little had transpired in that time—also disappointing.

Was this extended patrol along the ill-reputed fringes of the Zakernii Nebula meant as punishment for her boisterous insistence on returning to Kelis? Again and again, the leaders had told her they would not risk others to save someone already dead.

“Then don’t risk others. I’ll go. Just me.”

And they sent her here to the middle of nowhere to do nothing. Did they think anything would be resolved by letting her wallow alone in her thoughts?

I’m not alone. Lanox is here as she always has been, and I’m worrying her.

Lanox’s frustration and pity felt like worms slithering across Twi’s skin. She should change the subject, find something to draw a genuine smile on Lanox’s face, but instead Twi’s eyes fell back to the line marring her hand. The nebula’s colors flashed in the reflective scar.

She had a ship. Did she have enough fuel to get from here to Kelis? Would Lanox try to stop her if she asked the navi-aide for a route to that forbidden world?

I could make it within a few days. If the path was straight.

But no Alliance-developed ship could withstand the intense radiation of the nebulae. Even alien oha could not protect their occupants for long within the colorful clouds.

Around Alliance Space, nebulae were an ocean, beautiful but claiming all that fell into their clutches. The worlds of the Alliance nestled within a bubble in this ocean, an island with many lakes and rivers to be avoided. Every route was circuitous and winding.

The Zakernii Nebula was the largest and most dense of these deadly fogs, named for the giant star believed to be at its heart. It separated the twin planets Tala and Knalz from their own suns, and right now, it stood between Twi and the planet Kelis, luminous crimson, amber, viridian, cyan, and violet mesmerizing in a slowly swirling waltz.

“Twi, are ya listening? Twi!”

“My ears are faithful messengers.”

“Then make a noise of acknowledgement every once in a while.” Lanox huffed. “I said I’ve been watching this blip on radar, but far range sensors say there’s nothing there. It could just be a false echo—”

“Or it’s a stealth ship like an oha. Give the coordinates to the navi-aide.” Twi grasped the steering staves.

“Don’t get yer hopes up,” Lanox warned as they zoomed toward the speck on the screen. “This random blip could be nothing.”

Twi whispered, “Or this unknown vessel could be everything.”

***

“Unknown vessel, please state yer business and identify yerself.” The voice in his ear awoke Xlack.

Confusion reigned in his sleep-clouded mind, empowered by the clammy scent of Vlokem. The stench surrounded him, incongruous with either where he usually awoke or the gossamer starscape filling his view.

Memory slapped him—a summons to Aylata Tower, a dispatch to Alliance Space, plotting a course, deploying helmet and gloves.

Xlack’s half-closed eyes flew open. Four humongous ships encircled his Oha, their curved hulls resembling crescent moons.

Thanks, autopilot, for depositing me idle and vulnerable just beyond the cloud.

The voice repeated itself, this time without the ‘please.’

“Yeah, yeah. To whom am I speaking?”

“This is Rala Centra, commanding Nypet of the Tala flagship Araqut Nemul. Identify yerself,” ordered the transmission-distorted voice.

Xlack hesitated. His surname was a link to a line of exceptional ancestors leading all the way back to the first Ravida.

Explaining why she called her son after an ancient Magni word for tempest, the mother of the first Ekymé had said, “His eyes reflect a storm on the horizon, a fragile, pale gray pierced by lightning of chrysolite.” Now, the name was a beacon, heavy and bright. The eyes of the empire watched those who carried it, expecting greatness.

Here it would be different. When last Aylata had interfered with these worlds, Ekymé the Great had still been a hidden, unknown child. The name would mean nothing to these foreigners.

Xlack wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“I think I’d rather remain anonymous.”

“Anonymity is unacceptable. Name yerself and accept visual contact or prepare to be towed.”

Xlack tapped the navi-aid, searching for an escape route. “Let’s just end this conversation here, and we can pretend we never saw each other.”

The Oha rocked, encased in a swath of light, and a rising hum made his ears itch.

He tugged at the steering staves, splayed fingers white-knuckled over the buttons arrayed on their inner side. The Oha roared, and spectral mist pooled around the engines on its wings.

With a pair of thuds, two more beams latched around his ship, holding him in place from three angles. The Oha bucked at their opposing pulls like a beast trying to throw him off, and Xlack was glad for his safety straps and empty stomach.

Curled in a protective pocket, Rell clung to Xlack’s leg, nails dug in like curved needles.

With a howl, the engine on the right wing caught fire, flames brief-lived but bold and brilliant. Smoke sullied the luminous mist of trapped thrust, and lightning flickered in the cloud, threatening a worse explosion if he didn’t stop.

Xlack released the staves. “Now I feel so welcome.”

“If there is a reason ya should feel welcome, ya have yet to share it with me,” Centra reasoned. Xlack found her lilt hard to follow. “Now would be a good time, before the lassos pull yer vessel apart.”

That’s how these people do things? They spot someone lost and just decide, “Oh, I think we should shred them”?

He had to get out of here, make them let go. With his fingers stretched over the control panels on either side of him, Xlack aimed at the closest ship and fired a rapid volley. Bolts launched from the Oha’s wings like a rain of slender comets and shattered in sparks against the larger vessel’s bubble-like shields.

“Cease fire—”

Xlack deactivated the receiver, not listening and not abating his barrage.

A jagged electric stream shot from the flagship and struck the Oha. Screens arrayed around Xlack faded to darkness, polished surfaces reflecting the thick scribbles of lightning that crawled across the hull.

He punched the dashboard, realized that wasn’t very productive, and flipped the com on in time to catch, “Just cooperate, and things will go a lot smoother. Who are ya?”

“I’m the person who’s probably the most annoyed at you right now. If I’m not, I’d like to meet that guy. I’m sure he has a good story.”

“In yer situation, I advise ya to at least attempt to act like a mature and reasonable individual. If ya don’t… Hold on.”

Another ship slipped out of the distance. It possessed the same arrowhead shape as Xlack’s transport, a cylindrical engine rested on either wing, and luminous thrusters left a visible wake. A tail split into four thin slices and angled up from the body like a fan, cradling a smaller pair of engines.

It was undeniably another Oha. Had someone followed him?

This newcomer came to a stop just above Xlack, protective like a mother bird, and its reception appeared much warmer. That likely had some connection with it not having fired at the larger ships.

Of course, Xlack wasn’t privileged with even a muted line in on their conversation. They could have yelled insults at one another or awkwardly heralded silence. They could have pleasantly chatted about the weather. Whichever the case, they took their time. Xlack felt like pulling his hair out.

Finally, Centra’s voice returned. “Ya are released under the authority of the Adjuvants. Board the Araqut Nemul and repair yer engine.”

As if he had a choice. Their leash was already reeling him in. The newcomer coasted alongside him as a hangar in the largest vessel’s underside engulfed him.

They set his ship on its belly, land legs still tucked away in the hull. Facing him but keeping its distance like a distrustful animal, the other Oha alighted on the opposite side of the hangar.

At Xlack’s command, his helmet retreated into his collar, gloves similarly folding into his undersleeves. As soon as the Oha’s clear canopy swung out of his way, he hopped out. Aside from the two Oha, everything gleamed pure white, playing with deceitful shadows of zigzagging walkways above. It smelled as stark as it looked.

Curiosity spurred him, but he forced it to hide behind a façade of confidence. With only a cursory glance around, he got to work on his damaged engine.

***

“That looks like a real piece of work.” Already unbuckled, Lanox stood, ready to hop out of the oha.

Twi placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Where are you going so fast?”

“To say ‘hi.’ It’s called being polite, Twi.”

“I don’t recognize his signature.”

“But he’s not Aberrant either.” Lanox pulled off her helmet. “He’s got black Adapt clothes and a black oha. Aberrant wouldn’t dare fly that color. Remember, they say it represents the empty space that swallowed their precious ‘true relatives.’”

She was right, of course. Twi’s stare slimmed, cutting across the distance to analyze the stranger. His outfit was rendered in black and dull silver. A tiny chrome swirl pierced his collar, and burst rectangles had been sketched on his right thigh. Snug undersleeves hooked over his thumbs, the strings meant to lace the jacket from elbow to wrist left loose at impracticality’s suggestion.

From this distance, there was no way Lanox could tell if the fabric was actually Magni Adapt, yet no one with access to it would wear anything else on a space venture, and Lanox had a penchant for assumption.

“Go find out where he’s from,” Twi said with a nod, “but be careful.”

***

“My name’s Lanox. What’s yers?”

Xlack turned as a young woman came to a stop on her toes, hand extended.

The first Emperor of Napix, Drin Nar, and his brother, Vozin, had fought their final battle above Knalz. The legend told few details regarding the Knalcals’ appearance and mentioned Tala even less. Xlack hadn’t expected them to look too strange—they had also intermarried with the Magni. Yet, with her lanky humanoid shape, he could have mistaken Lanox for a common pedestrian on the streets of Kizmet if not for the slits along either side of her nose. They flared slightly as she breathed.

She was just alien enough to give him pause. Her life-signature whispered her Magni heritage, swift and alacritous. She rode in an Oha and wore Adapt, both of Magni origin and privilege. Should he treat her as a Sereh like his mother or Topeca, then? Address her with the title Lady?

No, she was not a Sereh.

Xlack swiveled back to his engine. “I’d rather not tell you my name.”

“That’s rude, ya know. Oh well, can I call ya Anonymous?”

“If you want.”

As Lanox climbed over the side of the Oha, Rell scrambled under the seat, and Xlack held in a chuckle. The beastling probably thought the platinum curls piled atop her head were a monster.

“Where’s yer amaraq?”

“My what?”

She leaned over the seatback and rummaged through storage compartments, booted feet in the air. “Then are ya a sutae?”

“Your insistence on not making any sense isn’t helping me fix this engine.”

“Wow, ya are cranky. Well, if ya aren’t a sutae, and ya don’t have an amaraq, then how…” She jumped down, hand held before her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I…” Sympathy welled in her bright eyes. Her skin glowed, but not like a light-emitting Zalerit’s. Trillions of tiny mirrors hid in her pores. A little distracting.

Xlack shook his head. “You should be sorry, climbing all over my Oha like a nosy lyoko.”

“A what?”

A twist of the tool in his right hand melded the exposed ends of two wires. “You heard me.”

“But I didn’t understand ya.”

He grimaced at the next scorched bolt to be loosened. Would anyone notice if he used his Kinetics on it, and more importantly, how would they would react?

“I know it’s hard for ya to feel anything but anger at the world right now, but I’m trying to help ya.” She looked ridiculous draped sideways over the seatback, but honesty pervaded her steady stare, and her vivid eyes filled with innocence.

As Xlack’s focus slid back to the engine, she added, “I’ll ignore whatever ya just termed me, and we’ll take ya and yer ship to Tala.” A gentle hand landed on his shoulder. “Ya aren’t alone, Anonymous.”

“Please take your hand off me.”

She gestured toward the Oha’s cockpit. “Get in the ship, and we’ll make sure ya land safely on Tala.”

Was this a shortcut to mission accomplished or a trap? Xlack couldn’t tell. Lanox didn’t look like she had a pinch of deception in her.

He closed and sealed the singed engine panel, deciding a full repair would take more than he had on hand. Oha were adaptive and resilient, though. Even in its current state, the engine could carry him a little further.

“Alright, Lanox. I’ll follow you to Tala,” he accepted and hopped back in the Oha.

“See ya on land!” she hollered, running toward her own ship as Xlack closed the cockpit, analytical gaze following her. Lanox’s smile overflowed into her stride as her thigh-high, netted boots skipped across the white floor. Her vest and asymmetrically draped shirt flounced with each step, and she radiated a liveliness to compete with any daystar.

He flipped on the transmitter. “Lanox says you’ll make sure I land safely on Tala. Is this true?”

“I’m not a liar,” Lanox radioed back.

“I was speaking to your pilot.”

“The pilot can hear you.” Another girl.

Xlack blinked away his surprise. Sereh never drove. The task was considered beneath them.

They aren’t Sereh, though.

As the other Oha lifted into the air, he cleared his throat. “My right engine is damaged, so if you could lead easy, I’d appreciate it.”

A cord shot from below her split tail wing, dug through the nose of Xlack’s Oha, and wormed itself into the administrative systems. His screens flickered, commands and double-checks scrolling faster than he could read. With a bone-rattling roar, his transport rose.

“Hey, I didn’t say I couldn’t fly!”

“The injured and slow get picked off,” the pilot responded as the two Oha glided through open hangar doors. “This is my way of ensuring your safety.”

“Is there any way you could do that without turning me into a trailer?” He stabbed in disconnect codes, but all his buttons were useless.

“Be mindful of words. A trailer gets in the way, but an appendage can be useful.”

“There’s got to be a third choice that doesn’t involve my ship being attached to yours.”

“Can you define that third choice?”

There had to be one. Xlack was just too frustrated to think of it. He drummed his fingers on the dashboard, waiting for inspiration, but none came. This worthless, odorous Oha had transformed into a prison. Had he been kidnapped, and by two girls even?

“I don’t like just sitting here.” He scanned the panorama of distant stars and wispy nebulae, glaring as if these wonders of the universe had betrayed him. “It makes me feel useless.”

No response came from the other Oha.

He flopped back against the seat, arms crossed. “Hello! I’m talking to you.”

More beats of silence.

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“Maybe I don’t wish to tell it to you. There is a sense of security in anonymity, isn’t there?”

“Go ahead, be stubborn while I rot of boredom.” Xlack glared at his own reflection in the windshield, right eye a slender line. His uncle often told him his uneven stare was not befitting of a Mind Aylata, that it lacked any intimidating aesthetic.

Xlack tried to adjust it.

“Maybe you should consider the emotions of others around you,” the anonymous pilot advised. “You’re not the only person in the universe.”

“Right, like you’re taking my feelings into consideration.”

“How do you feel, then?”

She swerved. Xlack’s ship flung to the right and fishtailed before jerking back in line. Inside, where the inertial dampeners had somehow gotten turned off, he and Rell were thrown against the sides in quick succession, eliciting a series of disgruntled snorts from the beastling.

“I feel like cargo,” Xlack snapped. “Very annoyed cargo.”

“Odd. Cargo’s usually much quieter.”

“Fine, I like silence better anyway.”

“You’re the one who started the conversation.”

Xlack tsked. He was done with this stupid dialogue.

Sitting on his lap as far from the offending walls as possible, Rell stared up at him, and two growing orbs hovered in the beastling’s onyx eyes.

Xlack looked up, and the sight stole the few words he had managed to scrape together. Two planets loomed just beyond the Oha’s clear canopy, caught in an eternal dance. Tala’s embrace with Knalz was far from shy as they spun opposite each other. A faint halo of shared gases churned with their movement as, around them, tiny dots of steady traffic swerved and crossed paths on beat, like the inners of a clock.

The space scene gave way to thickening clouds, then a rocky landscape. Anxiety blazed as they skimmed karsts and ravine walls. He had barely met these people, and already he had discovered a horrifying truth. They knew how to torture him.

He didn’t even notice the cave until the mouth of it rushed past, stealing all daylight. Only her lead lights fought back the darkness, and from his view, the body of her Oha blocked most of what they revealed.

He could escape. It wouldn’t be hard now that they were within Tala’s atmosphere. Even if the computer wouldn’t let him open the cockpit, his Ier could cut through it. Then he and Rell could jump to freedom, ridding themselves of Lanox and her irksome pilot.

Yet, his Ier remained sheathed, the cockpit closed. Curiosity pinned him in his seat, wanting to see where they would lead him.

Contiuned in Chapter 5: Seven Questions

Thank you for reading!

Curiosity was not friends with patience. Though the former compelled Xlack to see this through, to wait and discover what loitered at their destination, his severe deficiency of the latter almost had him leaping out of the cockpit anyway.

After what felt like forever, the narrow cave opened into a larger cavern. Hidden fixtures provided dismal illumination, and tidy rows of varied vehicles decorated the space, Oha plentiful among the mix.

Their two ships landed lightly alongside one another. Cockpits swung open, air rushing in warm, damp, and sweet, like the fragrance of freshly baked dessert.

Xlack jumped out of the Oha and hit the ground harder than he anticipated, hand leaning against the ship’s side. This planet was heavy. His heart hammered to keep blood supplied to his brain, and dizziness threatened to pounce. Remaining motionless, he took in slow gulps of sugary air as his body adapted and his eyes roamed his surroundings.

“Are you coming?” the pilot called, already halfway to one of the many doors on the ground level. Her helmet muffled her voice, reminding Xlack he had forgotten to redeploy his.

He didn’t step away from the ship. “When do I get to fix my Oha?”

“Maintenance teams will care for your vehicle. Follow us, please.”

She had a striking accent with sharp t’s and hollow l’s, and part of him wondered what it would sound like if she said his name. A larger part of him wasn’t done sulking.

Spine toward to her, Xlack held out a hand to his pet, and the beastling hopped onto his palm. Claws left a dozen instantly-repaired punctures in his sleeve as Rell scrambled up and perched on his shoulder.

He didn’t turn as the canopy lowered, though he heard a door slide aside at the pilot’s approach. As she stopped alongside the entrance, her impatience formed a spear prodding at his shoulder blades. Its strength hooked his curiosity, and though he tried not to look at her when he finally did turn, his eyes refused to focus on anything else.

Ms. Security in Anonymity was shorter than Lanox, curves accentuated by the jacket cropped at her ribs and a pair of laces sauntering down her shirt. A utility belt hugged her hips, and pants the same leathery texture as the jacket disappeared mid-shin into soft, obsidian boots. Her fingers were all that showed of her skin, fair as moonlight.

As she stepped through the open door, mystery slithered in her wake, and Xlack followed.

Lanox leapt in front of him, visor raised to reveal her cheerful eyes. Hard on the outside but flexible when pressed from within, her helmet stretched to accommodate her mountainous hair and seemed misshapen.

What kind of face did the other girl’s visor hide? Was she as ordinary as her friend?

Lanox pulled off her helmet. “Don’t mind Twi’s rudeness. Welcome to Tala, Anonymous!”

As he stepped around her with a muttered, “Much obliged,” she folded the headgear into a small card and tucked it into one of her rows of vest pockets, heralding a ridiculous smile.

“Ooh, what is that?” She pointed at Rell, and he perked one floppy ear, both wary and intrigued by her interest.

Xlack glanced at her, gaze bouncing back to Twi and the narrow, rough-walled corridor ahead. “An elitbeast.”

“Where’d ya get it?”

“From his mother. Where else?”

Envy puffed, sprinkled with confusion. “We’re not allowed to have pets, at least not here in Vlavaran. What hrausq are ya from?”

If he wouldn’t even tell her his name, what made her think she could start asking random questions?

He put on his best haughty glower. “What hrausq are you from?”

“Seven-One-Nine, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Uh…I’m from Three-Two-One.”

“Doesn’t exist,” Twi quipped, and though he still couldn’t see her face, he felt her judgmental stare.

“Sorry. I meant Eight-Nine-Nine.”

Twi whirled. “You’re big for a two-year-old. How did you get assigned to such a young hrausq?”

“I—”

“It doesn’t matter for now. Come meet our hrausq!” Lanox opened a door and shoved Xlack through.

The square room boasted whimsical landscapes and intricate patterns painted haphazardly on otherwise silver walls. Overrun by gutted electronics, the furniture arrangement was the design of chaos incarnate, and six randomly placed ladders added to the obstacle course feel, connected to hatches in the ceiling.

Xlack’s gaze slid over the abandoned mess. “There’s no one in here.”

“Well, they’re not invisible or imaginary, I assure ya.”

“Lanox,” Twi rebuked as she started up one of the ladders, “why do you always expect our team to all just be sitting in here, waiting to welcome you back with open arms? They have lives of their own.”

“But I brought them a guest!”

“They don’t know that yet.”

Lanox bounded over to the ladder, whining, “Find them, Twi. Anonymous needs to meet them.” As she stomped her insistence, the pale bushels of curls atop her head grew more uneven.

Rell hissed.

Twi dropped to the floor with the grace of an autumn leaf, helmet and jacket no longer in sight. Curiosity, suspicion, and compassion mingled intrinsic in her expression, highlighting features that teetered on the border of sharp and soft. A skein of thick canvas occupied her arms, and she looked from it to Lanox with a sigh, resignation prancing.

Her gaze, glistening silver and chrysolite, met Xlack’s, and he flinched.

“Do you want to meet them?”

Looking away, Xlack shrugged, hand rising to curl over Rell and quiet him. “Sure.”

“Alright then. Teree is the closest.” Her tail of black plaits swung as she set down the canvas and turned to the door. Amongst the maelstrom of other objects, the cloth held special dignity, perfectly folded and placed with reverence.

As she led them back into the hewn hallway, Xlack’s sightline bounced between it and her, but then the door closed, and there wasn’t much else to distract him. He strove not to stare at the streaks of shining silver that ran through her skin, patterned around the corners of her eyes. They reminded him of smoke dancing in a fickle breeze.

“I think you wore that helmet too long.”

Her gaze jumped to him. “Why?”

“Because it left stuff on your face.”

“My face?” She rubbed a hand along her cheek. “It’s never done that before. Lanox, does—”

“There’s nothing on yer face,” Lanox interrupted, head swaying.

“Yes, there is.” Xlack stepped within her space, and her scent was ambrosia, as sweet as the air here but deeper, fuller. “You have these silver lines by your eyes and your hairline and across your nose.” He started to trace one, but she retreated from his touch, glare trained on him.

“Don’t be an idiot. I’m Knalcal. I should ask you why you don’t have birthmarks.”

“Because I don’t.”

Her suspicion swelled into a bonfire crawling across his skin. “You act as though you’ve never seen a Knalcal, and when Lanox asked about your hrausq, you didn’t know what she was talking about. Even the laity know what a hrausq is.”

Way to make me feel stupid.

Hands on hips and gaze steely, she walked backward as she continued to lead the way. “Would you mind giving me the definition of amaraq?”

“Of course not, if you first recite the definition of sutae.” He thought he knew the word, but it was old, and no one used it anymore. Except Lanox, apparently. Surely, she didn’t mean to call him a shepherd.

As they entered a mid-sized auditorium—no chairs, floor sloping toward a flat space in the center, all carved straight into the cave’s dirt and rock—Twi stopped. “I asked you first.”

“And I asked you second.”

“Exactly, so you’ll answer first, and I’ll answer second.”

“No, you asked first, so your answer also comes first. You said something, I said something, so now it’s your turn again.” An illogical argument, but he hoped he had lost her somewhere in there and she would just give up.

Arms folded, she frowned at him with one eyebrow raised. Rell slinked around Xlack’s neck, relocating to the other shoulder, where he could better hide from her line of sight.

Small children suddenly poured into the space, yelling, laughing, and shoving each other. None paid any mind to the trio of young adults arguing by one of the doorways.

Predator eyes sharpening, Rell scampered down Xlack’s back and joined the stampede.

“Rell, come back here. Hey!”

As a Knalcal child crashed into his knees, Xlack snatched him up by the back of his shirt.

“Hey, ya!”

Without releasing his kicking prisoner, Xlack turned to find another boy scowling at him, semi-shaggy hair curled around his ears. This one, too, wore Adapt fabric—an open sandy jacket with rows of tin zippers and matching pants. Though half Xlack’s height and age, at least he was older than the toddlers swarming around them.

“Who are ya, and why are ya in my spot?” the preteen demanded, glowering up at him.

Xlack thought the sight funny. Glowering was usually reserved for people one could physically look down at, not persons twice one’s size.

“I didn’t know this sport was yours.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed even further, jaw rigid as he pointed at Xlack’s feet. “The marker has my name on it.”

Xlack looked down. Under the toes of his boots there was indeed a small x with some scribbling around it, but he couldn’t make out what it said. His head hurt, and dimness crawled from the corners of his vision. The children were much too loud, young minds flinging a hodgepodge of emotions thick enough to smother him.

One or two kids would have been a nuisance, but this is an assault.

He pushed their minds away—their crashing waves of sensation—because if he didn’t, his vision would only continue to retreat. If he focused, he could make this chaos leave him alone, or so his uncle always assured him. It usually didn’t work, but Xlack strove to act like nothing was wrong anyway. He just had to collect Rell and get out of here as soon as possible.

A hand clapped his shoulder, and he jumped.

“Easy, Teree. Are ya okay, Stranger?” As if encircled by a strong shield, this newcomer helped push away the chaos, and his timbre, though lilted like other Tala, possessed a soothing quality.

Xlack nodded. “I’m fine.”

Straight hair spiked like a desert plant, the shielded stranger stood a head and shoulders taller than him. His slit nostrils were more obvious than Lanox’s but not as notable as Teree’s. The preteen’s nose was almost flat, contributing to the sharpness of his voice. All three had the same shimmery quality to their skin. Twi, too, if Xlack looked for it. Hers was much fainter.

“Be nice to him, Teree. He’s likely someone important.”

“Don’t put me down in front of my charge!” Teree keened with a gesture at the children scrambling around them.

“Then don’t give me anything to put ya down about and get yer class under control.”

“They are under control,” Teree argued just as the boy Xlack held finally succeeded in kicking free and took off. “Kahrin, no running!”

Kahrin stopped and contemplated this rule for a moment before taking one large, quick step, hesitating, then taking another.

“Kahrin!”

“I’m not running!”

“Ya are going to fall flat on yer face like that!”

Kahrin paid no heed to this warning, but Xlack no longer understood their shouts—jumbled syllables distorted and lost in the sea of ragged, wild emotions pouring from the crowd. He drowned, breaths growing faster but accomplishing nothing. Detritus sliced him—fickle, half-formed shards of annoyance, glee, surprise.

He grabbed them, yanked them, stilled them. Several snapped and shied away, like rodents scurrying from the light, but he held the rest in a death grip.

“Sit!” The shout echoed throughout the auditorium as the thought flowed into each of the minds he held. The result resembled a wave, children nearest him plopping down the fastest.

“That’s an impressive class of suggestion,” the tall one acknowledged. “He helped ya, Teree, and I don’t think he’s someone ya want to offend, so be polite.”

“Fine,” Teree groaned and extended a hand.

Xlack could barely see him, vision fogged over with clouds of overdramatic emotion. He squinted. “What do you want?”

The preteen rolled his eyes. “You never meet someone before? Hello, I’m Teree, and ya are supposed to shake my hand now.”

Hesitant, Xlack grabbed Teree’s wrist and made the hand attached to it shake.

With furrowed brows, Teree looked at the tall one. “He’s weird.”

Xlack scowled. “I’m not the one who asked for someone to shake my hand.”

Twi laughed, a delicate, throaty cadence carried on a waft of amusement. Xlack liked the sound. He sensed that she needed to laugh, but he didn’t appreciate that she laughed at him.

Turning amid a mix of emotions he didn’t care to identify, Xlack wove through the restlessly sitting multitude, heading toward where tiny Rell terrorized a group of children.

The tall one kept step with him. “I’m Alez Rifo.”

“You want me to shake your hand now, too?” Xlack didn’t slow or reach toward him.

If Rifo wished to repeat that stupid ritual, he didn’t know if he should comply. He wanted away from the crowd, but Rifo’s dampening presence was helpful, nice. Did the sigils like exploding rivets on his boots and belt have any significance? Things like that always had significance among Aylata.

“Ya got a name?”

“I’m called Ekymé.”

Clapping, Lanox popped up from an argument with some seated kids. “Oh good, ya met Rifo, Anonymous! Now ya only have to meet Zeln and Aarex, Naday, and…”

Xlack stopped paying attention as she rambled, and evidently, so did Rifo.

“Why are ya here, Ekymé?”

Lanox interrupted her own run-on. “He lost his amaraq, and we found him and rescued him, but I think he lost his memory, too, because he talks awfully strange, no offense of course. Oh, and that thing on his shoulder is an elit— wait, where’d it go?”

“Thank-ya, Dr. Know-It-All.”

“Ya asked,” she excused with a shrug.

“Maybe I wanted to hear it from him.”

Her shoulders rose again, brushing aside the counsel as a small girl tugged on the longer end of her pale shirt.

“Oh, ya are so cute!” Lanox scooped the child into her arms. The toddler cooed indiscernible sentences to her, and she cooed back.

“Ya hungry, Ekymé?”

Until Rifo mentioned it, Xlack didn’t realize how famished he was. His stomach’s mournful grumble answered for him.

With an exaggerated bow and chuckling smile, Rifo responded, “Well then, right this way, and we’ll get ya some food.”

At hearing these well-loved phrases, Rell bounded over, toting a scrap of fabric. Slender tail waving, he leapt at Rifo’s ankle, and claws dug into the tough Adapt of Rifo’s boot as the beastling climbed. His nose twitched, whiskers shaking as he sniffed at the lowest of the pockets lining Rifo’s leg. Baby fangs sunk in a moment later, stolen fabric allowed to fall away at the prospect of a better prize.

“Hey, Pipsqueak, I bite back.” Rifo caught Rell by the scruff of the neck and lifted him to eye level. “Ya might make good filling for a sandwich.”

Rell swatted at his captor’s face, little paw nowhere close to reaching its target.

Xlack tried to keep his tone light as he snatched the growling beastling away from Rifo. “Rell would scratch and claw the whole way down.”

“I’d prefer an easier meal. Ya coming?”

Xlack’s stomach voiced complaint again, aggrieved that Rifo hadn’t pulled food from one of his myriad of pockets. Rifo laughed, leading the way to an exit.

Lanox jumped to her feet. “Where are ya going?”

“Yer guest is hungry.”

“Oh, okay,” she conceded and returned to her cooing.

Lanox was weird. Xlack was glad her mind seemed so closed. Getting lost in it would be the stuff of chaos and nightmares.

***

According to Rifo, the space with ladders and murals and chaos for a housekeeper was called the hrausq room. As the door rolled open and Xlack stepped through, his gaze fell on the pristine canvas Twi had left perched on a small, square table in the middle of the carnage. Curiosity dared him to unfold it and discover why it was so special. Did it have something to do with the murals? Had Twi painted those?

Rifo trudged to the far corner and pulled open the door of a coolbox nearly hidden by unidentifiable objects. Or parts of objects. It looked like a mechett had exploded in that corner, many of its scattered pieces scorched. Rifo didn’t seem to notice. Rummaging through the icy cubby, he muttered something about Stevalok having pirated his cookies again.

Keeping a wary eye on him, Rell jumped down and set about exploring the space, clambering over the electronic detritus that littered the floor.

Unsure where he should sit or stand in this mess, Xlack let his gaze roam the murals. The ceiling was a mosaic of scenes, none larger than the length of his arm. Several spaces remained blank silver, throwing back his faded reflection.

The panels on either side of the door were similar in their vacuity, but they lacked the same untouched clarity. Faint afterimages lingered as if rain had blurred and washed away what had once been there. This fading effect afflicted only the center of the adjacent scene.

By contrast, the most vivid mural spanned much of the back wall. It depicted a dizzying drop into a vine-coated canyon with sparkling swirls of architecture laced through its cliffs.

“Is that a real place?”

Rifo froze, finger hovering just short of the start button on the cookbox he had loaded.

After a moment, the cooker acknowledged his touch with a hushed beep, motor whirring, and Rifo turned away, deliberately not looking at anything. “It’s Mumir. On Knalz.”

Xlack noted a faded black scar splashed across the ravine, hanging over the landscape and ruining some of its depth. Several of the murals had these slashes now that he looked for them. Were they supposed to be words? Did these aliens write with scribbled splashes? It was said ancient Zalerits wrote by dripping scented dye on dried leaves.

“Did Twi—”

“Twi is removing the murals.”

Why? Xlack wanted to ask, but the heavy sadness and regret pulsing through Rifo silenced him. Rifo didn’t want to talk about the murals, and they weren’t important. They had nothing to do with Xlack’s mission.

Retreating to a squat, square chair positioned against the wall, thick cushion relatively free of clutter, Xlack sat on its edge, retrieved his datapad from his belt pocket, and prompted the fingernail-sized device to unfold.

“Sorry.” Rifo swept electronic inners off the seat. “When Entrycii and Lanox get into a project, they can make quite a mess. I don’t even notice it anymore.”

The cookbox hooted, and Rifo returned to it. Xlack sat back, mysterious mission looming at the front of his mind. He stared at his datapad, a device now about the size of both his hands held alongside one another. It was a rectangular prism as thin as an eyelash and just as weightless, a shiny black touchscreen in a smooth metal casing. A variety of ports hid unless called upon while eight hematite ovals adorned the back, designed to take commands from warm fingers.

Rifo pulled Xlack’s gaze away from it, handing him a piece of flat, bumpy food.

“This smells like bread.”

“That’s because it is bread.” Rifo ripped off a piece and tossed it in his mouth.

“It looks like it has a disease.”

Rifo chuckled and nearly choked on what he had just swallowed. “That would be an interesting concept, having to give yer bread medicine so when it was better, ya could eat it.”

Xlack laughed, too, and took a tentative bite of the flatbread. It was warm, soft, and buttery, melting in his mouth much like the breadsticks back home.

Rell emerged from beneath the chair, a sock gripped in his sharp teeth.

“Rell, give me that.” Capturing the beastling and setting him on his lap, Xlack traded the sock for a fluffy crumb. Rell happily gobbled it, onyx eyes wide in hopes of more as his master draped the sock over the armrest.

“It’s funny.” Rifo slid into the chair next to Xlack’s. “People try to compare their own experiences to those of others. My own amaraq died on Kelis not too long ago.”

Xlack wished he knew what an amaraq was.

“Yet, there’s no way ya are feeling the exact way I was because circumstances are never exactly the same. Even the slightest difference is still a difference, but still, the first words I think to say to ya are ‘I know how ya feel.’”

Interesting sentiment, but Xlack doubted Rifo knew what he felt. Debating what he should do next, he turned on the datapad’s screen. Its glow grabbed Rifo’s attention.

“What’s that?”

“A device.”

“I can see that. What are ya doing with it? What’s it for?”

“I’m sending my report and receiving further orders,” Xlack replied, typing: This is Xlack Ekymé. I have accomplished my objective and am reporting to you from Tala. Awaiting further instructions.

Rell pawed at the back of the datapad, a reminder the bread wasn’t all gone and if Xlack was done with it, he would gladly finish the rest. Xlack gave him a bigger piece, and Rell lay down to winnow away at it.

Rifo leaned on the armrest and read over Xlack’s shoulder. “Those are Zalerit letters.”

Xlack clenched his typing hand into a fist, offense bubbling like some nefarious concoction. Nayatilix was the beautiful and ancient language of the Napix. How dare anyone call their letters Zalerit.

“Ya aren’t from around here, are ya?”

“That would be correct.” Xlack dug deep for a polite grin. It felt too rigid. “Tradition dictates that in respect to you, after I tell you my name, I must truthfully answer the first seven questions you ask me, and you’ve already asked five.”

“Okay. Where are ya from?”

He wasn’t supposed to ask that. Considering how exactly he should answer, Xlack recalled what little he knew of these people, all gleaned from very old legends.

The Knalcals and Tala had been cohorts of Vozin Nar, the traitor, the renegade whom the first Emperor of Napix had hunted down right here in Alliance Space.

Suppressing a shudder, Xlack took a deep breath and placed his hand over his Ier. “Napix.”

“Hmmm.”

Not the response Xlack expected. He said nothing. Mistrust blistered with surprise and suspense.

After a thoughtful pause, Rifo added, “If ya aren’t an Adjuvant, what’s yer affiliation?”

“I’m an Aylata.”

“Which is?”

“You’ve already asked seven questions.”

“So what, ya can’t ever tell me the truth again?”

Annoyance seeped from Rifo, sawing at Xlack’s nerves. A noise nudged his ears, no louder than an exhale. Cradling Rell, Xlack leapt to his feet, stiffer than Rifo’s spiky hair.

“Whatever an Aylata is, ya sure are jumpy. Listen, this place has security coming out its figurative ears. Nothing will get ya in here.”

“You can’t guarantee that. Look—” His datapad beeped, its signal lost, likely because that signal had been detected.

Rell wriggled. His soggy bread piece had fallen on the floor. Xlack felt like that, everything familiar falling away, the hand of tradition and duty holding him tight.

He showed Rell he had more bread, and the beastling stilled.

“Am I being held prisoner here?”

Rifo flung his arms at their benign surroundings, disbelief clinging to the gesture like ornate sleeves. “Does it look like ya are?”

“Then I’m free to go. Is there a way out?”

“Where there’s a way in, there’s a way out,” Rifo told him, arms crossed, “or so says my sutae.”

Xlack stepped out the door. “Will you show me the exit?”

Rifo’s eyes narrowed to slits as he leaned on the wall. “Maybe I should just stop answering yer questions. I’m sure ya’ve asked more than seven by now.”

“Fine. I’ll find it myself.” Xlack slipped down the hall, but Rifo wasn’t far behind.

“Even if ya won’t tell me what an Aylata is, I want to know why ya are here. I’ll keep following ya until ya tell me.”

“I’m learning.”

“Learning what?”

Xlack shrugged. “I don’t know yet.”

“What are ya running from?”

Xlack stopped and turned, finding himself face to face with Rifo. “What makes you think I’m running from anything?”

“Because I’m Tala. I really do know exactly how ya feel.”

Continued in Chapter 6: A Nest of Rebels

Thank you for reading!

The cookie was supposed to be round, but its cerulean body, flecked with paler toppings and darker burnt spots, was too dry. Crumbled bits had fallen away, leaving it some indefinable shape.

At least it smelled nice. Maybe it could serve as potpourri, and for once Hrausq Seven-One-Nine’s room might welcome them home with something other than the scent of scorched metal. Besides, the sweet hovered much too close to Kix Entrycii’s nose to still be considered edible by Twi’s standards. She watched through the open hatch in the floor, paint-speckled canvas spread across her lap in one of the cubbies above the hrausq room.

Entrycii stared at the treat cross-eyed. “What kind of cookie is it?”

“It’s a cookie. Just eat it and be happy.” Lanox shoved it even closer to his face, and the pastry’s color reflected in the silvery Knalcal birthmarks on his cheeks and ears. “It even matches yer hair like it was made for ya.”

Twi held in a chuckle. While it was true—Entrycii’s short, purposefully messy locks claimed an amalgam of blues, from near-black like her own to pale platinum—she had never thought matching one’s hair was a defining factor in cookie choice. Leave it to Lanox.

Entrycii made no move to take the confection, brows shoved high. “If I eat this, will you make some joke about it representing my state of mind and me eating my own brain?”

Lanox’s head tilted, and golden-silver curls cascaded over her shoulder. “Do ya often think about eating yer own brain?”

“Is this a trick question?” Suspicion crawled across Entrycii, inciting schemes. Twi saw it in his stance, in his icy eyes, in the twitch of his tan fingers near the pouches on his belt. A chrome crescent glistened on the back of his right hand just above his thumb. He had gotten the scar in a fight with Aberrant, he claimed, back when Twi thought every member of her hrausq family invincible.

It should have been a clue, a warning of how childish and ridiculous that belief was.

She recalled a bandage wrapping that hand, Sep’s laugh as he commended Entrycii for his bravery. The younger boy’s prideful smile extended from one ear to the other. Sep was like his big brother, his hero, his rival, his idol. A ‘good job’ from Sep was worth more than a planet’s worth of jewels.

Twi knew the feeling.

I should intervene before Lanox and Entrycii end up making a mess.

With a tired sigh, she set aside the canvas, sliding the carefully folded cloth next to the others beneath her bunk.

Tell me every detail, and I’ll paint your battle scene, Sep had told the younger Knalcal. That Aberrant must have been real desperate to resort to biting, right? That is what the wound on your hand looks like, a bite.

A nervous chortle had escaped Entrycii. Twi knew that was how the scene was supposed to go, but as her boot touched the top rung of the ladder, instead a gaping maw stretched between jagged pincers in her memory. Putrid slime sprayed her face. On her back in the mud with a great weight on her chest, she couldn’t breathe. Powerless fingers pushed against rock-like exoskeleton as that mouth descended.

Purple flashed with the sound of an explosion. A hot, acidic stench surrounded her as Sep’s weapon sliced vertically through the Kelis that had her pinned. It fell to either side, and she scrambled to her feet. Another giant insect leapt on Sep—

Twi’s toes hit the floor, and the scene cleared. She was no longer covered in mud and pain. Dry, not drenched by rain and blood. The air was sweet and easy to breathe, gravity reliable and strong.

Kelis was gone, and Sep with it.

Entrycii stood less than an arm’s length in front of her at the bottom of the ladder, blinking rapidly.

He didn’t know I was here. I was less than half a body’s length above him this whole time, and he didn’t notice.

Complacency is a serial killer, her teacher would have said. She needed to mention something like that to Entrycii, to chide him to better scan his surroundings, but she hated sounding like a lecturer.

I’m only nineteen, barely three years older than him.

“Have you received mission assignments for tonight?” he asked, and Twi forced a grin to tug back one corner of her lips.

“You mean these mission assignments?” She held three glittering datasticks fanned in her raised hand.

Entrycii reached for them, but Twi pulled back.

“I’ll give you a cookie for one,” he offered. She hadn’t seen him take the treat from Lanox, but he had it now, held out with both hands and a slight bow.

“You’ll trade a cookie that’s already been bitten off of? Such a great negotiator you are.”

“Lanox, you gave me an already-been-chewed cookie!”

Lanox shrugged, false innocence shining in her aqua eyes. “Ya didn’t ask me where I got it.”

Entrycii’s glare latched onto her, not deigning to track the cookie as it flew into the trashbin in the corner with the cookbox.

Lanox ignored him. “What’s up with the assignments?”

Twi gestured with the datasticks. “These were written before Ekymé showed up.”

“And the problem?”

“He’s...different.”

Lanox raised a finger to count off each point. “Ya mean his gray skin and hair and how they’re almost the same shade, so it looks a little weird, and how he doesn’t have a smidgen of color?”

“Except for the chrysolite in his eyes,” Twi corrected. “That stare is sharp, a sword designed to slice thoughts. He has Mind Talents, and he used a shout suggestion on those kids.”

“So?”

“If you attempted a shout suggestion, what would your sutae tell you?”

Lanox’s face crumpled somewhere between a pout and confusion. “She’d say it was reckless, ill-advised, and forbidden. But maybe he’s just a really skilled Tala?”

“He’s not Tala at all, not as far as I can tell.”

Lanox shrugged again. “So?”

Twi’s foot tapped. “Have you ever known of any non-Tala with Mind Talents?”

“Cinosals,” Entrycii supplied.

Twi shook her head. “Cinos is a conglomerate colony. They have Tala ancestors.”

“Maybe he doesn’t even have real Mind Talents then,” Lanox excused. “Like, maybe he can do shout suggestions, but he can’t even whisper?”

“That’s it exactly. There are too many maybes, too many unknowns.” Twi’s hand tightened on the ladder’s rail. Her reflection hovered in Lanox’s dark pupils, a rigid, proper Knalcal, though she felt about to collapse. “He said he was from Hrausq Three-Two-One.”

Entrycii’s face scrunched, his offense like warm paste flooding the room. “That awful nickname the Aberrant call us?”

“It’s not that awful,” Lanox protested. “It has a certain cleverness to it. I mean, they believe Magni hybrids are superior beings meant to take whatever we want, so they think we’re backward for using our skills to help our worlds.”

“We’re backward fools and our days are counting down,” Entrycii said with exaggerated emphasis. “It’s supposed to be an insult. That’s why there’s no hrausq with that name.”

“And Ekymé didn’t know that,” Twi reasoned. “These mission assignments send us into the city, and I feel that to leave him here to wander unattended is to invite disaster into our home.”

Lanox stomped. “I don’t see why ya are putting up full security shields. Didn’t that patrol find Ekymé’s ship sailing out of the deep gases? None of our transports have shields that can withstand the inner nebula. Not even our worlds venture in there.”

Unease shifted Lanox’s feet. It formed a restless sea pounding against Twi’s unsteady sense of security.

She met her amaraq’s turquoise eyes with all the strength her Talents allotted. Parting the overwhelming and obvious, she searched for truth. “Why are you defending him?”

Lanox looked away and focused on her deep brown boots. “Who knows how Ekymé lost his amaraq or what he’s been through, but we can’t expect him to tell us everything right away. How were ya when ya first came back from Kelis?”

Twi flinched, then sharpened her gaze. “I should report him our sutaes.”

“And embarrass every last bit of pride out of him?” Her arms flailed, and her eyes turned pleading. They were mossy pools of innocence that belonged in some secluded, peaceful haven, never having to witness evil.

Twi wished she could protect her.

“He seems to get along pretty well with Rifo,” Lanox went on. “Give him time. Ask him to come to the city with us. Rifo, too.”

With a nod, Twi headed for the door.

“You’re actually going to follow her plan?” Entrycii’s brows twisted to match the trickle of incredulity she sensed from him.

She didn’t look back. “If you have a better idea, I’m listening.”

***

There has to be a better way to do this.

The hallways wove on endlessly, lined by a million doors that led to mazes of rooms. Frustration was a mild term for what Xlack attempted to keep bottled up. On his shoulder, Rell growled, and Rifo still followed, humming like a muzzled bird.

Backtracking, he eventually found his way to the hangar that housed his Oha, but the heavy doors refused to grant him passage. Beyond them and the very long, dark, twisty cave, outside awaited.

He whirled toward his songbird stalker. “Do you know how to open the doors?”

“Yep.”

“Then open them.”

Rifo crossed his arms, murky eyes accusing. “Last I knew, I wasn’t supposed to take orders from uncooperative strangers who refused to answer more than seven questions.”

Xlack sighed. “Fine. You want to know what an Aylata is?” He snapped out his Ier.

A straight, simple beam of light emanated from its center. Special magnets amplified, divided, and curved the laser as it ran along the length of the weapon’s structure. Wind swirled as the burning tendrils shredded most of the molecules they touched.

The Ier wouldn’t hurt the hand of the Aylata for whom it had been made, though. Paired to his life-signature, it recognized him, and a barrier protected his living flesh from its deadly caress.

Other things had no such protection.

Xlack stabbed the Ier into the door. Sparks flew as the weapon cut a hole large enough for him to fit through.

“Short definition, that’s what happens to anything that stands in an Aylata’s way.” Xlack curled an arm around his back and dug Rell out of his jacket. He had shown the Ier to the beastling several times so it would become familiar, but Rell insisted the tool was scary and always hid.

Wide-eyed, Rifo paused, lips twisted.

A high-ceilinged cave with dripping rock formations greeted them beyond the opening, and a smirk crept across Xlack’s lips. The silver Ier still pulsed in his hand, but he had never used it to injure anything animate. The sight of it was enough to persuade most offenders to compliance.

“That weapon of yers reminds me of mine,” Rifo admitted, following him through the broken door, “but blast-resistant metal considers itself safe from my ju’wack.”

Xlack shrugged. “Then maybe you should get a better weapon.”

“The cave is a maze. Ya won’t get out if ya lack a guide.”

Xlack ignored the warning and kept walking. The rest of the base had been a maze, too, and he had found his way here without assistance.

Jogging to catch up, Rifo offered, “I could be that guide, show ya the way out, but on one condition.”

Xlack threw him a sideways glance. “What?”

“Ya try to consider us friends and not obstacles.”

“Hard bargain.”

“No harder than blast-resistant shielding. Accepted?”

With a grin, Xlack nodded. “Sure. Which way?”

Leaving plenty of space between himself and the Ier, Rifo stepped around him and pointed down a narrow path to the right. “The tunnels are dark. Keep yer weapon on.” Pride trickled from him, a distracting, sour stench to Mental senses. What exactly did Rifo think he had accomplished?

As they turned, the Ier’s glow revealed a person in the mouth of the passage.

“Hello, Rifo. Ekymé,” Twi greeted with a nod for each of them.

Xlack flinched at the address. He hadn’t told her his name, but Lanox had overheard it. He wasn’t sure he liked how easily it rolled off her tongue, as if the elongated y in the middle supported the entire weight of the name.

Rell sniffed at her, leaning as close as he could without falling from his perch in Xlack’s hand.

A blend of concern and relief seeped through Rifo’s brief, potent coating of surprise. “What’s up?”

“Aberrant gather in Vlavaran,” Twi explained. “Estiga wants to know what’s attracting them.”

This time, Xlack hid his flinch, though barely, at the ancient Magni term used exclusively for Aylata of higher status than the speaker. An Aylata likely hadn’t given her this mandate.

Rifo rolled his eyes. “Where the Aberrant gather, we go.”

Twi’s gaze flicked to Xlack. “Would you accompany us to Vlavaran?”

He would have accompanied them anywhere as long as it was outside.

“Sounds interesting. I’d like to go.”

“Good.” The slightest of smiles found Twi. “I must collect Stevalok. Meet us at the top of vacporter four.”

“Will do,” Rifo agreed as Twi left them, shadows stealing her from sight.

With a snort, Rell settled into Xlack’s palm to hug his master’s thumb and chew at its tip.

As Rifo walked on, Xlack followed him, wondering if one of these groups could be the protectors the stories spoke of—the protectors K’alaqk had meant when he mentioned collecting information.

“Ow, Rell, stop!” Xlack hissed, thumb tearing free and tapping the beastling’s velvety nose.

With a disgruntled yip, Rell retreated. Jumping onto Xlack’s side, he squeezed into the Ier’s sheath. Xlack let him stay there, attention returning to the vagueness of his mission.

“Hey, Rifo, what’s an Aberrant?”

Rifo laughed. “They’re people like ya and me, I guess.”

“Then what makes them Aberrant? That means something like abomination, doesn’t it?” Xlack’s gaze raked the tunnel walls as if a horde of monsters might crash through them. Shadows danced over their lumpy sides, slime and dust winking in the Ier’s light. Wet stalagmites called to his Kinetic senses, pulsing an alien tune with low, thunderous growls.

Rifo seemed oblivious. “The Knalcals meant it as an insult, calling any Magni hybrid an aberration. Do ya know what imprinted genes are?”

Of course Xlack did. They were the source of Aylata Talents.

Rifo looked at him in silence, expecting an answer.

“They carry traits that only manifest if a gene to counter them is absent—something common in hybrids.”

“Right,” Rifo said, hesitation and glee clipping the word. “We’re physically and mentally stronger and faster than the purebreds of our worlds, and we can do things they can’t.”

Also true of the Aylata.

Frigid slime dripped from a stalactite and landed on Xlack’s forehead. He winced, wiping it off with a sleeve. “If you’re both Magni hybrids, then what’s the difference between Aberrant and…whatever your group is called?”

“Adjuvant,” Rifo corrected. Ahead, more oversweet slime rained from the ceiling. Thousands of droplets pattered against the formations below, dust washed away in shiny rivulets. Rifo stomped into the chaos. “We’re called Adjuvants. It means a thing that aids or contributes.”

“Then why don’t you just call yourselves aides? It’s easier to say, and more people would know what it meant.” Xlack trailed his guide, a flickering forcefield overhead deflecting most of the rain. The Ier hissed, steam rising from its luminous tendrils.

The thick spikes of Rifo’s hair sagged. “‘Aide’ doesn’t have the depth of meaning that Adjuvant does.”

“You mean it doesn’t sound as cool.”

“That, too,” Rifo agreed.

Now beyond the downpour, the space was no longer narrow, only one wall touched by the Ier light. Darkness loomed opposite it and above, heavy and thick. Rifo bowed and shook out his hair.

Xlack stepped back to avoid the spray, and his heel found the edge of the walkway. Pebbles broke off beneath his boot, tumbling down an unseen cliff and splashing somewhere far below.

“Do the Aberrant use their Talents to protect those weaker than them?”

Standing, spiked head even wilder than before, Rifo grimaced. “I guess they would if it served their interests, but that’s rare. Easily defined, they’re an organization of underground gangsters with strict rules and driven by selfishness.”

“Sound like great friends,” Xlack drawled. “We’ll meet some in Vlavaran?”

Walking on, Rifo shrugged. “That’s just the way it’s always been: Aberrant make a mess, and Adjuvants clean it up.”

Were these Adjuvants the ones Xlack was meant to study, then? Did K’alaqk know about their Aberrant evil cousins?

The Magni who fled to Napix were those loyal to their king. The others were rebels. Why did K’alaqk send me to a nest of rebels? What information is he looking for?

Rifo glanced at him askance. “Yer thoughts scrape the bottom of an abyss.”

“They’re just runaway thoughts. Nothing important.” Xlack returned the sideways look. “What’s with the girl who always shows up out of nowhere?”

“Twi? Yeah, she’s pretty, ain’t she?” A sly grin appeared on Rifo’s face, but his next words chased it away. “She’s a good person. My amaraq’s death hit her hard, but don’t worry. She won’t let ya get captured by Aberrant. She has…history with them.”

“What do you mean by history?”

“What do ya think I am, a blabbermouth? Go ask Lanox.”

Rifo waved at a smooth portion of wall, and it slid aside to reveal a bright, narrow room. Xlack plucked Rell from the Ier sheath and returned him to his shoulder, then closed and put away his weapon before following the Adjuvant.

He would rather have taken stairs.

Vertiporters—contraptions employing pulleys or the like to carry passengers along a vertical shaft—always felt like a trap. One way in or out. No place to hide. Little space in which to dodge. Traveling in a vacuum, vacporters only decreased one’s chances of escape.

This cylindrical room was the latter.

As Xlack stamped down stubborn paranoia, the computer requested, “Please select a destination.”

“Outside,” Xlack directed.

Several beats passed before the computer replied, “I apologize, but—”

“Surface level.” Rifo’s muddy eyes studied Xlack again as the door closed and the vacporter carried them up through the vacuumized tube.

Great show, Xlack. You can’t even command a vacporter right. He thinks you’re an idiot.

“If ya get separated from the rest of us, ya will need this.” Rifo handed him a small pendant on a chain. “Unless ya plan on cutting through every door ya come across.”

Rell scampered down Xlack’s arm, whiskers twitching, and a curious paw swatted at the shiny thing.

Xlack inspected the pendant—a fingertip-sized equilateral triangle with a datasphere in the middle. This last looked like a glittering, translucent jewel. Twi wore a near-identical ornament on a short necklace, and Lanox wore hers looped through her bundled curls, though Lanox’s was a seven-sided shape that reminded Xlack of a fish.

“What is it?”

“An Adjuvant emblem. It used to belong to my amaraq, but he doesn’t need it anymore.”

Back home, Aylata emblems opened otherwise locked doors and served as tracer signals for Messengers. A local emblem could come in handy.

“Thanks,” Xlack said, shooing Rell back to his shoulder and dropping the emblem in his pocket.

“Don’t mention it. Really, Twi’d kill me.”

“Said with that false smile, I could think you believe she’s a monster.”

Rifo grimaced, gaze distant. “Put in the right circumstances, anyone can be a monster.”

***

“Are Aylata monsters?” a preteen Anku Phy asked his father long ago.

Through his signature trust-me grin, Father replied, “Some might think so, but to let that thought escape aloud would get you killed.” He winked.

Phy winked back, trying to do it exactly like his dad.

Father’s grin hadn’t worked on the Mind Aylata that caught him a few weeks later. Extortion, the Aylata claimed, shattering the veneer of trust Father’s smile had built over the crowd of neighbors.

The Aylata didn’t have proof, but Aylata never needed any. One moment, the Ier slept on its master’s belt. The next, it had severed Father’s upper half from his lower.

Phy wouldn’t move from that spot, staring numbly at where his father had last stood, even long after they had removed the body. Great Uncle came for him, and another six months passed before Phy uttered a sound.

Great Uncle made it a point to entrepreneur only in districts that were between Protectors. Under his tutelage, Anku Phy honed his own signature grin. Cockiness grew, and he tired of his senior’s thumb.

He made the biggest mistake of his life.

How crazy was he to think he could pick one of the most bejeweled cities on the Aylata homeworld, hustle it, and escape care free?

He wasn’t dead yet, though. The Aylata hadn’t killed him.

“You know what happens next,” Protector Xlack Ekymé had said, and Phy had been certain the Ier would crash down. His appeal to the Mercy of the Judges had been a last recourse buoyed to the surface of his consciousness by desperation. He hadn’t dared hope it would work.

This holding cell wasn’t half bad either. It was clean, immaculately so, every surface gleaming like freshly polished dishes. The bed was hard and shaped like a pill. Phy decided not to sit there once his imagination supplied a vision of it swallowed by a giant. He had long ago learned to sleep leaning against a wall anyway.

“Hey, you,” a young voice called.

Phy didn’t move, spine to the bars and shoulder against a slim metal partition. Some of his associates back on Zalerit would have crumpled it like paper.

“If you tried using my name, I might answer.”

A sigh with a hint of amusement preceded the next address. “Prisoner two?”

Phy huffed, pride a ravaged, mutilated thing, barely recognizable. “Not my name.”

“No one cares.”

The easy dismissal strummed Phy’s thin nerves, prompting a peek over his shoulder at the pest. A scribe stood there, a city official.

Scribes’ power depended upon how involved those above them wanted to be, and there was an overabundance of them. This one wore the silken undertunic and long sleeveless coat of a nobleman with the added fur collar of official service. A medallion embossed with Kizmet’s mountainous vista seal hung on his chest. His surname appeared beneath the stylized peaks: Skrinul.

A spoiled brat who’s always been handed whatever he wanted on a soft bed of lyoko fur and fragrant kriri petals, just like the annoying Protector. They’re probably friends.

“Have you anyone who could speak on behalf of your character?” Scribe Skrinul questioned, fingers ready to type on a small screen.

Phy trusted his great uncle more than anyone in the universe.

Great Uncle would kill him if Phy got him involved in this.

“Who’s prisoner one?”

Prisoners were ranked by priority, not seniority, and as much as Phy shouldn’t have wanted to be their most valuable captive, he had hoped…

Skrinul smirked. “Not a valid witness, nor will he be available to attend your hearing at this week’s end. He is a suspected journalist spreading slander about the emperor having been murdered. This evening he will record a redaction while being ripped limb from limb. You may hear the screams from here. Don’t let it bother you.”

Phy turned, eyes wide. He hid quivering hands behind his back and swallowed hard. He wasn’t worried. Why should he be worried? He was a simple thief, nothing like a journalist.

“What if he doesn’t say the words you want?”

The scribe looked at Phy like he was an idiot. “Skillful editing.”

Phy hated that look. It was too close to the self-righteous mien worn by the Aylata he also hated. His disdain was a simmering, wounded monster hiding deep within him, long ago having accepted there was nothing he could do. It was stupid to fight Aylata.

Skrinul seemed the type to ride in the shadow of the Aylata’s power and love every moment of it.

Phy leaned back on the flimsy wall, not bothering to correct his feathered beret. It had slid too far to the right, but he hoped it gave him an enigmatic, nonchalant appearance. He stroked his fake goatee for added effect.

The beard was itchy.

He tried to ignore it, wishing he had splurged on finer material like the faux beards of delicate lyoko fur often donned by noblemen envious of the Aylata. Skrinul was one of those wannabes. Beneath his fringed, pentagonal hat, his shadowy hair was even long enough to be pulled into a petite tail. Purebred Napix, regardless of gender or age, typically possessed thick, coarse tresses that refused to grow longer than a thumb. Emperor Gera Kys’ luxurious coif was a mystery many also strove to emulate.

The scribe met Phy’s gaze. “Upon your imminent death, whom should be informed?”

“Wait a lard-slicing moment, I appealed to the Mercy of the Judges. Surely their benevolence won’t allow a good man to die for one tiny mistake.” Fear’s tremors rattled Phy’s hand, but he continued to rub his chin, refusing to be the first to look away.

Skrinul shook his head dismissively as he slipped the datapad into a pocket on his coat. “You are pathetic to think the judges would side against their Protector. They never do. This is all just a formality, and there are multiple charges against you.”

“Like what?” Phy scoffed. “I borrowed the tiniest gem, and it has since been returned.”

“The Athikil clan wishes you penalized for infringement of their state-recognized pattern. You will be required to strip and publicly burn the clothes you now wear.”

Phy didn’t have to reach deep for his best offended nobleman voice, arms folding across his front. “You’ll provide me with suitable replacement attire?”

“If you failed to bring alternate covering, it’s not my problem.” Again, the scribe’s dismissal felt like sand slowly scratching away at Phy’s flesh. “You won’t have much time to wallow in your humiliation anyway. In case you weren’t listening closely enough, your death is imminent.”

Phy’s fists clenched, partly in anger beget by the scribe’s calm arrogance, partly to conceal the panic steadily overtaking him. “They may choose to bestow the lesser sentence. Petty theft with a recovered item usually results in the loss of a limb.” Not an ordeal he wanted either, but it was better than dying.

Skrinul stood with his hands loose behind his back, smirk small and self-satisfied. “According to code four-o-two, section three, amendment sixteen, your punishment shall be decided by the Protector.”

“Grand theft merits a quick death.” Phy hated how squeaky that came out. He had witnessed the executions of business associates—usually a swift gutting with an Ier. He hoped this wouldn’t be one of those occasions where Aylata chose to show off their Talents. Mind Aylata were the worst in this regard, trapping victims in their own little horror world until they dropped dead.

Xlack Ekymé had Mind Talents, Phy recalled, breath hitching.

Skrinul’s smile possessed a sinister slant, pale eyes too stark against his shaded lashes. “Our Protector prefers not to dabble or dawdle with the darker side of our judicial system. He usually leaves such decisions to me.”

He turned, smile unfaltering as his heels clicked against the hardwood floor. A steady rhythm carried him to the exit.

“The record will show you have no next of kin or close associates. Out of some shard of loyalty, most perpetrators seem to prefer this. Enjoy the lullaby this evening.” He rounded a corner, and a heavy door slid shut behind him.

Regret filled Phy. He had to get out of here. Was that one tiny gem worth his life?

No, it hadn’t even been about the gem, really. He had done this so he could brag to his great uncle that he had managed to slip past the elite Protector in a place as revered as this.

So much for bragging rights. Phy wanted to bawl.

He lay for some indeterminate time in a fetal position on the unsoiled floor. Just as sleep finally came to mercifully close his eyes and transport him away, the screams began.

Continued in Chapter 7: Free to Move

Thank you for reading!

Night hung over Kobolast, and Topeca slept soundly, lost in a land of pleasant dreams until an irksome beep pulled her back to her bed. Turning on the light, she scanned with bleary eyes for the noisemaker and found it on the bedside table: Revel’s datapad, and he nowhere around.

Stupid thing.

She punched the ‘lights off’ button and rolled over.

The beep persisted, and she shoved a pillow over her ears.

I shouldn’t open it. Be a good girl, Topeca.

It beeped again.

But if I don’t open the message, it’s never going to shut up!

It beeped again.

I don’t actually have to read the message, just open it.

It beeped again, and she grabbed the datapad.

At first as small as the nail on her littlest finger, the device unfolded, growing larger than both her hands together. Its screen illuminated her face in the dark. She squinted at it, searching for the ‘open message and shut up’ button.

I am pathetically nosy, she chided as she opened the message and began reading.

It was from Xlack Ekymé. He had made it to Tala and wanted to know what his mission was.

That was fast. It would be incredibly rude to make him wait after he so quickly did as asked.

“Computer, where’s Revel?”

As always, there was a bit of lag before the computer’s voice interface understood her question and formed a response with the grainy timbre of an old man. “Revel K’alaqk is in a meeting with the High Defenders of Yakru.”

“Without me?” she blurted.

“You are not invited.”

Topeca’s lower lip jutted out before she realized the computer would say such for her protection. It was programmed to believe she never secretly attended these meetings.

She fixed her pout. “He left his datapad here. Will you give it to him?”

“Is that an order, Lady K’alaqk?”

Topeca had only been allowed in the Tower for three days now. She kept forgetting the computer didn’t understand her mannerly speech.

“Yes, Computer, I want you to give Revel his datapad. It’s important.”

The computer’s response was an unintelligible series of squeals that made Topeca wish she had read the fire evacuation plan. She made a mental note to do so as soon as possible.

As she searched for this information on Revel’s datapad, the computer questioned, “Does a Sereh’s order outrank those of Watchers?”

Topeca highly doubted it. “Explain your dilemma.”

“Prior to your command, Revel K’alaqk ordered he not be disturbed. His meeting is currently in a heated dispute. I predict the order you gave instructing me to interrupt will put his life in danger.”

“Then don’t!” She jumped out of bed, tripped over a furrow of river rocks, and flung open the tiny closet. “Leave him be!”

She imagined the careful tension in Revel’s meeting. If the computer were to smash it with a datapad delivery, it would turn volatile.

And the High Defenders likely don’t know about Ekymé’s assignment yet.

She threw a dark disguise over her nightgown. “Forget about my order. Here’s a new one: Direct me to where this meeting is and inform me when the discussion is less tense please.”

A map appeared on Revel’s datapad, and a line traced a path for her through the maze of Aylata Tower’s corridors. It was ridiculously far.

Pointing on the map to a place just outside the room where Revel was, she amended, “Uh, actually, I’d rather you teleport me right there.”

“Is that an—”

“Yes, that’s an order. Teleport me there!”

Gripping Revel’s datapad against a wave of nausea, Topeca found herself in a brightly lit hallway. She looked at the door before her, noted the yelling voices beyond it, and began pacing. Her eyes fell back to the datapad, fingers reopening Ekymé’s message.

Recalling her earlier conversation with Revel, she thought of how Ekymé’s loyalties and life were easily lost so far away. Her mind ran through a dozen absurd situations, including one where he was captured and refusing to talk, awaiting further instructions before deciding what to do next as huge, ugly thugs beat him to death.

“A good commander doesn’t leave his people waiting,” she whispered, repeating the most famous quote of the first Ravida.

On the message screen, she hit reply.

***

Xlack stared at his datapad, wondering if his response had gone through. He was out of range of the Napix dataseas, but the datapad was an adaptive little device. It told him it had contact through the network here and claimed his message had been delivered. He would just have to trust it, his only connection to home here in Vlavaran, Tala.

The city gleamed in diminishing sunlight, not that the daystar had been all that bright to begin with. Tala and Knalz were the foster children of many stars, shuffled from one to the next in a long revolution around the bulbous Zakernii Nebula.

The tram Xlack rode followed a translucent band of light between blocky, shimmering skyscrapers. The car was crowded and pungent with the press of people, a slightly sour smell amongst all these Tala, like a sodden lumberyard. Rell would have found it fascinating had he not slept, belly full, curled up in the pocket beneath Xlack’s Ier sheath.

Feet braced against the tram’s sudden turns, Xlack stood between Alez Rifo and Kix Entrycii, a Knalcal as tall as Xlack’s shoulder. Birthmarks glistened silver against the wet-sand shade of his skin.

Twi and Lanox loitered on Rifo’s other side, while behind Entrycii, the one introduced as his amaraq, Srev Stevalok, leaned against a long window, dripping in boredom. His stocky, corded build was a common trait of Zalerits, as were his sharp nose, wide mouth, and eyes without sclera, but there the similarities ended. Unlike a Zalerit, Stevalok had only one pair of eyes, and vertical pupils sliced large, paler irises.

Datapad held inconspicuously by his thigh, Xlack thumbed open an app and ran an analysis. As translucent layers of a human-shaped diagram appeared on the screen, he raised an eyebrow, gaze too easily adopting its crooked squint.

Hydrostatic tubes formed the alien’s skeleton, giving stability to muscles woven in mind-boggling complexity. Many creatures made use of the flexibility, strength, and finesse inherent in hydrostatic designs—humanoid tongues were of similar construction. Yet, beings whose whole bodies relied on this were usually simple, like the worms found in the soil of almost every inhabited world.

Stevalok’s humanoid form was a million times more complicated.

In a voice Kizmet’s librarian would have approved of, Rifo noted, “Ya don’t recognize what he is.”

Xlack matched his volume. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

Rifo smirked. “He’s from Lettaplex.”

“Where is that?”

Stevalok threw them a condescending look. “Think you’re so highfalutin you can’t ask me questions directly?”

Xlack blinked at him, taking a second to decipher the twang. “You speak?”

At the top of vacporter four, Stevalok had let Entrycii voice all the introductions. Now his gaze burned into Xlack, body stationary in an unnatural way aboard the rocking tram. Arms crossed, Stevalok appeared half-asleep, but something about him promised an explosion of motion at any moment.

“You can stop staring at me anytime, Creepface.”

“Be nice, Stevalok,” Rifo chided.

“I am nothing if not nice. I am the very essence of— Ack!”

“Oh yes, ya are the essence of a scream. That explains a lot,” Rifo mocked with a roll of his eyes, but Stevalok was already launching off the window. He landed in the center of the car, stance a low crouch, as the crowd parted. Rell clung to the back of his stretchy shirt, tiny claws fully extended, five per hind foot and six per forepaw.

Grabbing him around the middle, Stevalok stood and held the beastling high. Rell squirmed.

“You have very sharp teeth, Runt.” Stevalok’s dark fingers probed a circle of punctures at the nape of his own neck, nearly hidden by his cords of hair. Blood welled, rendered glossy slate with a faint shimmer of chrysolite to Xlack’s eyes.

As surprise prickled, he reminded himself that chrysolite blood simply marked Magni heritage—not something only Aylata possessed.

Stevalok’s face softened. “You are a little cute.”

Rell’s teeth sunk into Stevalok’s thumb.

Flung and squealing, the beastling flailed.

Xlack caught Rell and cradled him close to his chest. “Don’t throw him!”

Clinging to his master’s jacket, Rell hissed at Stevalok, who sucked his wounded hand.

“Now ya are infected.” Lanox rummaged through a satchel slung over her shoulder. “Ya had better let me inject ya with the antidote.”

“No needles,” Stevalok refused, words muffled around his hand.

She captured his arm. “But ya will sprout purple pimples and transform into a swamp monster.”

Entrycii waved at her serious tone. “That’s how he wakes up every day.”

Xlack’s datapad beeped. Revel K’alaqk’s name blinked on the screen.

“Lanox, not joking! Don’t stick me with anything!”

With a ding, the intercom proclaimed, “Tram two-five-six approaching stop seven-seven-six. Please exit orderly and be respectful to yer fellow passengers.”

Despite the recording’s admonition, the opening doors triggered a mass exodus that involved a lot of shoving, and the small group of Adjuvants was squished against the opposite wall.

Slipping into the crowd, Xlack exited the tram.

“Wait, Ekymé, ya are—” Rifo started, but the doors rushed closed, and the tram took off again.

“This is Snook Park. Welcome,” a recording announced as Xlack stepped beyond the deck’s wooden slats at the city’s edge. Brambly trees twisted together to form high arches above a rocky path, shadows dripping from their black bark and metallic leaves. It smelled like pudding left in the sun. The temperature was dropping, and he was glad for his versatile Adapt fabric.

Pewter and inky scales glistening, Rell scampered down to explore and find a place to do his business.

Xlack opened K’alaqk’s message: Your speed is unmatched, Ekymé. I am extremely busy at the moment. Please hold on.

“Weird message,” he mumbled. “Kind of pointless.”

He typed back: Tell me the details of my mission now!

After a few moments, the reply came: ARE YOU IN DANGER?!!

“What’s with the caps?”

He sent: LIKE YOU CARE! Tell me my mission or I’m getting back in my Oha and going back to Kizmet, and I’ll never ever take another order from you.

The space beneath this last message remained blank. Xlack paced, fingers hovering under buttons opposite the datapad’s screen. His response sounded childish, and he wished there were a way to retract a message. Was K’alaqk laughing at him, rushing from room to room within Aylata Tower, showing all his friends?

Rell tacked across the path, sniffing every other dry fern. A branch of a spiky plant shivered in the wind, and he swatted at it, pleased when it shivered harder.

With another beep, a new message appeared: Your mission has something to do with bringing something back.

What was that supposed to mean?

Like what, a rock? A feather of some ambiguous bird that only lives on some imaginary mountain? Grow up, K’alaqk. I’m serious.

The next message came as soon as he hit send: I’m sorry. Please don’t fly back yet. Just hold on a little longer. Call you soon! :>

Now a smiley face? This was the oddest messaging series he had ever had with anyone, and disturbingly, it was with Revel K’alaqk.

Xlack stopped, unease dripping down his back. He turned, eyes scanning the canopy of thick branches above for what his Kinetic senses assured him was there.

“I wondered how long it would take you to notice me.”

“What are you doing here, Spycykle?” Xlack glared, radiating despise, though Lorm Spycykle seemed blind to such concepts when they were directed at him.

Rell charged to take his preferred position just in front of Xlack’s left boot, grainy roar dropping into a gurgling growl. He stood proud and tall, smaller than his master’s foot but every bit cast of bravery, onyx eyes fixed on the stalker.

Like a young rebalo crawling among the rafters, Spycykle was barely visible, cloaked in shadow high in a thick tree. His clothes were dark like most Defenders’, but his shoulders lacked the short cape adorned with a shining sigil that would have marked to which legion he belonged. Instead, faded sigils lined his sleeves and marched down his back and chest, one for every legion that had rejected him. Fifty-two was a lot, especially considering he was only about to turn thirty.

Spycykle glared back, exuding the same despise. “What am I doing here? Same thing you are: rescuing the crew of the Isike, capturing a few Adjuvant prisoners, and returning home not to share one degree of glory.”

“I was sent here. Please don’t tell me K’alaqk thought sending an irresponsible Defender would accomplish anything.”

Spycykle inspected his nails. “You don’t seem to think highly of me.”

“Let me put this simply: Go away.”

Hands raised, Spycykle jumped out of the tree, and Rell scurried behind Xlack’s boot.

“Ouch. Words are weapons, Ekymé.”

“Your pride and ambition are choking hazards.”

Spycykle laughed. “Maybe we aren’t the same, then. See, you will fail this mission, and I will succeed, even if I have to make sure you don’t get in my way.” His gaze dropped to the beastling peeking around Xlack’s ankle, and a cruel smile sliced his lips.

Xlack drew his Ier. As the weapon’s electric snap echoed between the trees, the fervent beep of his datapad chased it.

Spycykle vanished.

Xlack scanned the dense forest as he answered the call. “Talk!”

“Calm, Ekymé.” K’alaqk's face appeared on the screen. “You sound as if something has gone wrong. Topeca assured me this would be good news.”

Why would Topeca—

He must have been messaging Topeca earlier. That made a lot more sense now.

Xlack bent and scooped up Rell, who had occupied himself with gnawing at a bootstrap. The beastling slinked along his arm, growling at the datapad, often his rival for his master’s attention.

“It was good news until Spycykle showed up.”

“You have watched your back since the day you were born. Spycykle should be no threat.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about.”

As Xlack’s mouth formed the words, surprise softened them. He shouldn’t have cared about these people, but as Spycykle’s taunts ran through his mind, he saw Twi and Rifo, faces twisted in agony. Pity mourned for any subjected to Spycykle’s mercy.

Rell had almost reached the datapad, paw raised and claws extended to slash at the screen. Xlack caught the scruff of his neck and placed the beastling near his Ier sheath. Grunting, Rell found his favorite pocket below the weapon’s home and crawled inside.

“I’m curious to receive the details of my mission.”

“Of course. You remember our experimental ship, Isike? It disappeared some time ago and was captured by Knalcals. Each member of the crew wears a tracking device. Rescue them and return them home.”

So, Spycykle had been right about part of the mission.

“I shall—”

“While accomplishing that, do you think you could handle bringing back a local of Magni descent?”

Okay, Spycykle had suspiciously known about this whole mission.

Xlack gripped the datapad tighter. “Did you send Spycykle here?”

On the screen, K’alaqk’s face gave nothing away, silver eyes sharp like shards of a shattered mirror. “That, I will leave to your discernment.”

“I’ve already discerned it. What were you thinking?”

K’alaqk sighed. “Ekymé, the crew of the Isike relies on you, as does the entire empire. Avoid Spycykle if you feel you must, but do not fail us.”

Xlack wanted to throw something, but as satisfying as it might have been to watch the datapad sink into a thick tree, that wouldn’t answer his questions.

He forced his hand to remain still. “Why natives of Magni descent?”

“Like the lightcurvers, they are cousins to us, but we know little about them.” K’alaqk’s head tilted, and the leaning pikes of his bangs impaled the datapad’s frame. “You understand how they might be a threat?”

Xlack nodded. Lightcurvers were dangerous.

“I shall do as you ask, K’alaqk.”

“Good.” With a smile, he cut the transmission.

Xlack sent: See you soon! !>

K’alaqk replied: If you wish me to suspect you are a teenaged girl at heart, do continue to type like one.

Xlack fell over laughing.

***

Dusk tumbled beyond the horizon, and the city lights of Vlavaran cast ever-moving, upside-down shadows. Their undulating dance reminded Twi of giggles, as if the darkness laughed at her. On a flat section of roof belonging to the Knalcal Embassy—a building that resembled a frozen splash—she and Lanox waited for Rifo, Entrycii, and Stevalok to return.

“The missions tonight were quick.” Lanox leaned back on a slanted eave, one knee bent, as the warm wind toyed with her myriad of ringlets.

“Keep alert.” Twi stood near the edge of their level ledge, scanning the scene below. “The Aberrant we met tonight were low-rankers.”

Lanox rolled her eyes. “We’re low-rankers.”

Looking over her shoulder at her amaraq, Twi grinned smugly. “Stay a low-ranker if you wish.”

“Like I’d want my life to be as complicated as yers.” Lanox mimed a yawn. “Ya see my hair, how it blows in the breeze? It represents my freedom, unlike yers, how it’s twisted and confined in that conglomeration of braids crisscrossing every which way.”

“It’s still free to move.” Twi flipped a few plaits over her shoulder. “You're comparing everything to hair today.”

“Ya would have us be invincible.”

Twi’s grin turned grim. “If only we could be invincible.”

She used to tell Hrausq Seven-One-Nine they were. Or could be if they tried hard enough. Sep’s death on Kelis had wrenched such confidence from her, though. She knew Lanox missed the old Twi, that she forever searched for her just as Twi scoured the skies for Sep.

Lanox’s eyes scanned the stars now, and she changed the subject, voice soft but accusatory. “Ya weren’t really looking for him.”

“Ekymé stepped off the train on purpose. If he wants to, he’ll return. If he doesn’t”—Twi shrugged and rested a hand on a protruding roof piece—“let someone else take care of him.”

“Someone like the Aberrant or the authorities who’ve been greedy to use hybrids like us since forever?”

Twi didn’t acknowledge the attempted guilt trip, eyes on the skyline. Fear chilled her as lights in the surrounding structures flickered. They spelled out a scrolling message that would only have been readable from this vantage point. She followed the blinks in a counter-clockwise circle.

Three-Two-One.

Twi whispered the numbers aloud, taking an indecisive step back, and Lanox leapt into a readied stance. As a volley of sharp-edged discs flew toward them, Twi lifted both arms, ’netics calling for the air to harden in a semi-spherical shield.

The discs never reached it.

Behind her, a lone figure dropped to the roof, and under his command, the weapons hovered. “Hello, Navaria.”

Twi whirled, meeting silver eyes that mirrored her own. Thin lines of Knalcal scales glinted in the city lights, tracing a pattern near identical to hers through skin a shade duskier.

“Rogii Moshee,” she breathed, drawing back.

He smiled, voice full of false charm as the discs tucked themselves into a pouch on the back of his belt. “You remember me. I was afraid you wouldn’t after that nasty fall I heard you had.”

“I’d rather plunge from a thousand balconies than have anything to do with you, Aberrant.”

“Harsh.” Rogii’s head wagged, his hair—a vivid smalt to cobalt to white gradient—too gelled to move. His wrapped tunic and pants claimed the deepest blue edged in brown to complement his woven boots and the half glove concealing his left palm.

Colorful and dark to help him blend with his natural habitat of shadows, but nothing black. Aberrant never wore black.

Behind him, Lanox tiptoed closer, a kanaber’s sleeping handle gripped in the fist held at her side. As she raised her arm and a short laser blade flashed into crimson existence, a giant pounced, curling her into his somersault.

A pink hand caught the kanaber.

Stillness reigned an instant later. Lanox was dazed and glassy-eyed, piled hair an uneven cascade of white-gold. Her body hung limp in the rough embrace of a Lettaplexal man twice her size, hands engulfing her biceps.

The kanaber hovered at her throat, held by a stocky Zalerit woman whose short, white hair was pulled into four tufts, two tiny and two larger in mimicry of her two pairs of eyes—a rare trait considering all Zalerits here were greatly mixed. She had their Talent, too. The luminous skin that peeked through the crisscrossing ribbon of her shirt deepened to match the crimson of her weapon.

Twi raced to Lanox’s rescue, sidestepping Rogii. As a coin flew from his pocket and met his hand, it expanded into a thin cylinder and sprouted a glowing tentacle. The lightwhip cracked, coiling around Twi’s ankle. Quick steps kept her on her feet as her gaze cut to Rogii’s mocking grin.

“Feel like testing me, Navaria?”

“Release Lanox.”

“If you insist,” Rogii conceded, smirk condescending. “Narkom, Mikana, when have we ever wanted little Lanox?”

As his fingers snapped, his intention sunk into Twi’s heart.

“No!”

Lanox tumbled down the side of the slick, steep roof and dropped into the lightless alley below. Twi leapt after her.

The lightwhip caught her wrist. Though her feet kept going, her arm did not, and she fell on her back, hanging by the faintly glowing cord. It defied her ’netic push, feeling alive as it tore through her durable sleeve and into her skin.

Rogii hauled her back onto the ledge. “All I want is to talk.”

Scrambling to her feet, she twisted free of the lightwhip’s hold. “You can talk to your flunkies.”

“If they had the information I needed, I wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of finding you. Now spill everything you know about the stranger in the black oha.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

Rogii laughed. “You can’t just walk up to an Aylata and ask questions. They’re like…like… Narkom, help me out with an analogy.”

The Lettaplexal grinned, pointed onyx teeth cutting his lip. “A bag of chips.”

“Narkom, that doesn’t make any sense.”

Twi ran.

The highway that curved around the embassy looked like smoldering lavender glass. Above it, a flamboyant billboard floated level with this roof. Gaze on the racing vehicles below, Twi jumped for the advertisement.

Narkom’s round eyes gleamed through the pale green mask stamped into his ruddy skin—another mark of Aberrant. “She wouldn’t.”

“You bet she would.” Rogii sprung after her.

Twi leapt off the billboard. Wind howled in her ears, competing with the growl of an approaching hovercycle. She extended her arms, directing her course. As the skeletal transport dashed beneath her, Twi’s ’netics lassoed it.

The vehicle bobbed. Twi’s feet slid from the back of the soft seat to the shelf behind the driver’s heels as their trajectory leveled, toes half a body’s length above the slick road.

The driver twisted around. “What—”

“Can you give me a ride?” She mustered her sweetest smile.

“Sure, what true biker wouldn’t give a ride to a beautiful girl who fell out of the sky? Where—”

A rain of gunfire erupted. Thick bullets encased in white light screamed as they tore through transports and bounced off the road—wild, beautiful sparkles.

The bike spun, incompliant with the driver’s panicked attempts to correct its course. Other vehicles were blurred streaks skimming much too close. A wispy forcefield distorted them further, taking out a bridge’s rail just before Twi’s ride crashed. She and her driver would plummet into oblivion, their deaths mentioned in subtext on the morning news.

The driver clutched the nearest object—rough, cold, hard. Not falling. He opened his eyes, finding he hugged part of the guardrail. Debris splashed into the wide river far below.

Righting the bike, Twi shook off the burn of his fear and forced his viewpoint from her mind. “You’ll be compensated for your cycle.”

“Yeah, but that’s actually my uncle’s bike!”

She winced, but in this moment, she needed it more than he did. Without a reply, she took off, racing against traffic.

Behind her, the three Aberrant wove through a shrieking mix of small, pike-like transports, other sleek hovercycles, and big, boxy barges. All coasted no more than hip height above the shining, svelte road. Travel instructions winked in soft gold on its surface, upside down to Twi since she headed in the wrong direction.

She folded into the cycle’s aerodynamic pocket and slammed her heel on the speed control.

Mikana had acquired a racer’s bike, its paint convincing the eye that flames danced across its body. She was close enough, Twi could have grabbed her hand.

Banking a hard right, Twi drove up a fancy Welcome to Vlavaran sign. Her stomach flipped, protesting gravity’s grip as she twirled through the air and sailed over the Aberrant. With another stomp on the speed controls, she landed in the flow of traffic, headed the right way this time. Sharp-edged towers blurred beyond the highway’s edge.

Mikana pulled a tight one-eighty. Narkom and Rogii followed.

Despite passing traffic left and right, Twi’s bike was no match for the racer. In the mirrored casing on the handlebar, she watched Mikana devour the space between them.

This isn’t working.

She exited the freeway and dove into the maze of darker city streets.

At the first traffic signal, she turned left without bothering to notice which direction the indicator faced. She turned left again at the first narrow alley. Taking a right at the next street, she twisted through bumper-to-bumper traffic. The racer’s motor rang in her head.

Mikana was on the other side of the line of transports. “Surrender, Cousin, and we won’t have to harm you!”

At least ‘cousin’ was less demeaning than ‘three-two-one.’ Twi turned right.

The Aberrant followed. The shops lining this slender corridor were closed to respectable business this time of night, windows darkened, offering anonymity to those who sought it. Mikana’s glowing magenta skin was a beacon here, her fear and frustration palpable.

Zalerits hated the dark. To Twi’s Mind Talents, the blend of emotions was a spicy heat at the back of her throat.

A silver circle appeared in Mikana’s hand, and thunder accompanied its transformation into a long, tendrilled staff, like a double-ended broken wisk. That crashing sound as it opened gave the weapon its slang name: ju’wack.

It swung down on the front of Twi’s cycle.

She swerved. The electric pink strands of Mikana’s ju’wack sliced a shallow ravine across her cycle’s nose. Smoke rose from melted edges, but the vehicle kept going.

“I’m more trustworthy than a Napix Aylata,” the Zalerit claimed as her weapon careened down a second time. Scarlet tendrils met it and shoved back—Twi’s own ju’wack gripped in her right hand and angled awkwardly across her front.

“Running just makes it harder on yourself.” Rogii’s voice boomed from all directions. His ’netic specialty was air. It carried sound however he wanted. It moved however he wanted.

As Twi deflected Mikana’s strikes, a whirlwind formed around them. The gale ripped her from the hovercycle and stole her breath, squeezing her like giant, invisible fists.

Twi pushed back. Sweeping gestures and angled palms dictated her course. Her eyes closed at the wind’s insistence. She felt rather than saw Mikana and her racer soar through the tornado, ju’wack sundering Twi’s borrowed hovercycle.

She cringed. She would have little difficulty anonymously depositing its worth in its owner’s account later, assuming she survived this, but without a vehicle, outrunning these Aberrant became a lot less likely.

Diving under Mikana’s slash, Twi stretched toward the racer, her own ju’wack closed but still in hand. The burning tendrils of the Aberrant’s weapon passed a fingerbreadth above her arm, and her skin tingled in warning.

As the stamina-draining whirlwind subsided, the racer dropped back to regulation height. Twi grasped the handlebars, elbows locked to prevent her from faceplanting on the headlight. Her legs curled, feet hanging above the road.

A racer was not designed to have a passenger dangling from its front. It zigzagged as Mikana tried to keep it from spinning out of control. Twi flinched as buildings and vehicles whipped by.

With a kick at the Aberrant’s wrists, she knocked the ju’wack from Mikana’s hand. One danger gone, but off-balance, the racer fell on its side. Sparks flashed as it skidded down the smooth street. Twi landed on the hovercycle’s current upside, gripping the fuel tank behind the handlebars.

Thunderous and reeking of grease, a barge drove over them. Its bumper brushed Mikana’s pearlescent tufts as she yanked Twi into a headlock. Twi thrust her elbow up under the Zalerit’s ribs. Mikana grunted, weight pressing on Twi, but her hold hardly loosened. A cargo transport pulled alongside, oversized and formed of a million square panes.

The driver leaned out his window. “Some of us are actually trying to drive here!”

Unlatching a pistol from her belt, the Aberrant took a haphazard shot at him, and the transport sped away.

Twi twisted out of the headlock, knee prying Mikana’s leg from the bike. Her left foot pushed off the ground as her right mashed the speed controls, and the racer righted as it took off without the Aberrant.

They would not catch her now. Twi wove her way back to the Knalcal Embassy and found Lanox on the ground behind disheveled trash bins. She was unconscious, a swelling bruise on her forehead, but besides that, no major injuries stood out to Twi’s scrutinizing eyes.

Relief escaped her in a sigh. She didn’t ask how Rogii could do this. His games were always cruel, but rarely did he come to her with a question.

Wrapping Lanox’s vest tighter, Twi hoisted her onto the back of the racer. The Aberrant wanted to know about ‘the stranger in the black oha.’ Ekymé obviously, but what did Twi know that she could spill anyway? What in the world was an Aylata?

She ordered the sys laced over her ear to dial Rifo. Either he, Entrycii, or Stevalok would ensure a doctor tended Lanox. Twi had someone she needed to find.

Continued in Chapter 8: Cute Ashen Curls

Thank you for reading!

“You look lost.”

“This transportation system is insane.” Xlack’s forehead leaned against a glass map board in one of Vlavaran’s transit stations. The depicted tram routes resembled a giant knot, their color-coding lost to Xlack’s eyes.

Setting a datapad to search for tracers and following the radar were elementary skills. Catching a tram shouldn’t have been any harder, but after a night of riding the transports in circles and even falling asleep on one of them, Xlack was now further from his destination than when he had begun.

If I had walked in the first place, I’d be there by now.

“Aren’t tourists supposed to have guides?” the newcomer asked, then laughed.

Head still leaning on the map, Xlack glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “What’s so funny?”

“Just that I was about to ask if your guide got lost, then I realized how ironic that would be.”

Admittedly, that was funny but not enough to wipe evidence of his sour mood off Xlack’s face. Straightening, he gave the talkative stranger a skeptical look, complete with crooked squint. “Did that seem funnier in your head?”

“It’s not my fault if you don’t understand Knalcal humor. Few foreigners do.” He shrugged. “Are you going to ask me for directions?”

Xlack paused, scanning this gregarious stranger. His hair’s asymmetrical slant made it look like half his head was exploding. A scarf concealed his face from the nose down, one end left to wave in the wake of passing trams, the other tucked into his pale Adapt jacket. Like Twi, he had shimmering Knalcal birthmarks, though his dripped from a mask-like burn surrounding his eyes—shining scaled droplets unable to douse the portrait of flames.

“Is it your job to give people directions?”

“I’m trying to be helpful out of the goodness of my heart, and I’m beginning to think I should have chosen someone less difficult to help.”

Xlack pointed to the bottom-left corner of the map. “This is where I’m trying to go.”

The stranger’s eyes widened, and elated determination coursed through him. To Mind Talents, it roared like rallied soldiers.

A tiny frown weighted Xlack’s lips, one brow arching. “You know it, Oddly Friendly Stranger?”

“Call me Azin, and yes. The trams don’t go there anymore, though old tracks run near it. You could hijack one, but those meddlesome Adjuvants would show up.”

So, he wasn’t Adjuvant, though his life-signature claimed he was very Magni. What was the other group Rifo had mentioned, the underground gangsters?

“I’ll help you.” Azin’s eyes darted askance as he retreated. “Wait here.” He leapt onto the side of an escalator and was gone before Xlack could ask him why he would help or what he planned to do.

If he follows me around humming, I’ll knock him unconscious.

A boom rent the air, floor shaking, screams and sirens in its wake. Smoke slithered from a tram entrance tunnel, smelling of chemical fire, and Xlack started toward the chaos, an Aylata Protector to the core. This wasn’t his district, but the need to help those beset by disaster was deeply ingrained.

The stranger dropped in front of him, arms held out to herd Xlack in the opposite direction. “This way. Quick.”

“But—”

“I did that. They’ll be fine, and it’ll keep the Adjuvants distracted for a bit. Our ride’s waiting for us.” Azin glided down a row of stairs onto a loading platform, trusting Xlack’s curiosity to tow him along.

Face twisted in uncertainty, Xlack followed. His nose wrinkled as they approached the tram. Cold fog poured from its open doors, reeking of bile.

Azin stepped into the front car, and the cloud cleared around him. “Hold your breath a bit in here. I was in a hurry, so the seda-fog turned out a little strong.”

As Xlack boarded the tram, his Kinetics kept a bubble of untainted air around him. Stepping over comatose bodies strewn across the floor, he latched the pocket that held a sleeping Rell and trailed his guide through a crumbled wall into the pilot’s booth.

The fog was thickest here, Xlack’s barrier of clean air markedly apparent. With his scarf pulled loose, the helpful stranger gave him a grin of approval and leaned over a pilot slumped in his seat. No bubble protected Azin. Instead, his Kinetics constantly transformed a shallow breath’s worth of fog back into safe air—a difficult task.

If Azin had also created the fog, that sometimes made the process of turning it back easier. Reversing the steps was simpler than figuring out what parts needed swapped. Plus, things preferred to be what they once were. Pieces gave less resistance on the way back to their favored positions.

Still, Xlack wouldn’t give up his bubble and try it.

Picking up the unconscious pilot’s fingers, Azin tapped buttons projected in the air in front of him, and the back of his hand caught Xlack’s eye. It was scarred with the same scaly, shiny texture as his birthmarks, though this was thicker, beveled, and choppy. Like the burns on his face, it was an artist’s rendition of a flame dancing in the wind.

He’s been both burned and cut deliberately.

The tram flew out of the station, fog retreating toward the back of the car as they gained speed. Vlavaran’s buildings whipped by less than an arm’s length from the windows, but Xlack’s eyes remained on Azin’s scar.

“You find my score interesting?”

“It indicates a number of points you’ve earned?”

“Not exactly. It means I’m much more Magni than Knalcal, so I’m considered true-talent. It was cut into me when I was little as a warning to those who might oppose me.”

Xlack sympathized with that. The ratio of Magni to non-Magni in a hybrid was important to Aylata, so much so they ranked these percentages. Xlack was genetically the most Magni thus far in his generation, so he was ranked first.

Yet, he wouldn’t ever cut a symbol of this into his skin. Not even Zalerits would do that.

“A Zalerit that is mostly Magni is called a lightcurver. You’re like a Knalcal version of that.”

Azin put on a facetious frown, and amusement sprinkled the area around him. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Xlack’s frown was genuine. “A lightcurver is to be killed, no questions, no exceptions. That’s the law.”

“So serious.” Azin laughed, hip leaning against the back of the pilot’s seat. “Good thing I’m not a lightcurver then. Mine is actually a very honorable existence. Depending on whom you ask.” His hand flipped in a dismissive gesture.

Out the window, the landscape changed from a metropolis to a brambly forest. Their train hung from a band of light above the trees’ sparse canopy. The datapad’s beep grew ever more fervent, excited that Xlack headed in the right direction.

This rival Magni had actually helped him.

“You don’t seem like the maniacal lightcurvers of legend.”

Honestly, none of the Magni hybrids he had met here matched that description. They were different but also familiar. If he brought them home like K’alaqk wanted, would they easily don the mantle of Aylata or Sereh? Would they instead prove to be as monstrous as lightcurvers? Or was there a third niche waiting to be filled by these lost cousins?

Azin chuckled. “Too bad. Are those legends terribly entertaining?”

“They’re not supposed to be entertaining.” Xlack’s hands curled at his sides.

“Your signature claims you’re very Magni as well. I’ll dare to guess you’re also Napix. An Aylata?”

“You know of Aylata?”

Azin’s head wagged. “Not as much as I’d like to.”

That sounded like an invitation for Xlack to launch into a lecture, but even if he had been willing, there wasn’t time. The tram slowed to a stop as they reached a ravine. The delicate hands of dawn poked at the edges of the sky, Vlavaran’s glittering towers barely visible on the horizon, and the datapad’s beep mimicked a racing heart, signals close and coming from beneath Xlack’s feet.

“This is Vlavaran’s border and the end of the rail.” Azin waved at the tram doors, and they slid aside with a hiss. Fog spilled out over a rotting platform and into the forest. Spiky bushes sagged at its touch, and trees leaned away from the undulating, opaque gas.

Azin ignored nature’s response to his creation and let the fog spread where it willed, its task complete. It had earned him a tram uncontested, and the tram had brought him where he wanted. Both had served their purpose and were abandoned.

Xlack attempted to transform some of the fog back into clean air, but that was complicated, there was a lot of it, and his guide walked over the edge of the ravine. Xlack hurried after him and peered over the cliff. Azin walked down the side of the precipice.

Now he’s just showing off.

He thought about doing the same, but the slate gray walls of this barren ravine reminded him of Lakol District, where he had spent his teenage years. Like the cliffs there, this one was slippery to his Kinetics, containing a generous portion of sand. Sand was glass, and glass was annoying.

Xlack crawled down the cliff feet-first, Talent supplementing his grip, but he didn’t go through the trouble of making it look like he walked on level ground.

He caught up to Azin when the showoff stopped alongside a wide door set into the stone, knees gripping the vertical surface as he knelt.

“Think there’s something fun inside?”

“In such a conveniently placed entrance? There must be.” Xlack glanced at his datapad. The signals pinged from far below this spot but definitely somewhere within the cliff side.

He dug in his pocket for the Adjuvant emblem Rifo had given him. Also occupying the pocket, Rell swatted at his intrusive fingers and fell back asleep, purring softly. Xlack held the chain, pendant dangling, as he scanned for a reader or proper spot to use it.

Azin placed a palm flat on the door, and it peeled open with a soft groan.

“Aren’t you afraid of setting off an alarm that way?”

Azin shrugged. “This is an old, abandoned place.”

Xlack doubted it was still unoccupied. The tracers worn by the Isike’s crew were somewhere in there. But no sirens heralded their arrival, and no one appeared in the dark chamber the door guarded.

Azin slipped inside, and the tile where he stood illuminated. As he stepped to another, light followed him, and the previous tile dimmed, soon glossy black like its comrades.

The floor responded likewise to Xlack’s weight. The air reeked of antiseptic. Silence was held at bay by the whoosh of a ventilation system and the datapad, its soft beep on rapid repeat.

Azin shivered. “I hate it when they put up so many conflicting fields my ’netics can’t see anything. It’s like being in a blizzard. That thing going to guide the way?” He pointed at the chirping datapad.

Xlack nodded and took the lead.

Not the eeriest place I’ve ever been, but it ranks up there.

“The signals are still beneath us, so look for some stairs or—”

A thud and a muffled cry sounded behind Xlack, and he whirled.

Azin was gone, a tile’s light fading.

Xlack retreated, squinting into the space’s dark recesses. His heart pounded. “Azin?”

Nothing. Not even a life-signature, though like the sound of a paper dropping in the middle of a symphony, that could easily be drowned out by all the other magnetic fields here. He felt half-blind.

Definitely ranking high on the creepy list.

Impaired though they were, his Kinetic senses found stairs along the room’s opposite wall. They spiraled further than he could feel.

Calm down, Xlack. You’ll be a legend, right? Darkness isn’t scary. Oddly helpful strangers who disappear are admittedly worrisome. But I am not leaving this building without those I came here to rescue.

Another thud. Xlack tore across the room and raced down the winding stairs.

In another spacious hallway like the one above, illumination provided by burdened tiles, Twi awaited him. Sweat glistened on her brow. A few of her looped plaits hung lower than the others, and several rips in her Adapt pant leg were already patching themselves. Ice could not compare with the chill of her presence, her steely stare just as cold, stopping him on the last step.

“What is an Aylata?”

Did these people think he was a dictionary? Declining to answer, Xlack continued on as if she weren’t there. His datapad screamed that the Isike’s crew was just beyond the door at the back of the room.

Twi stood in front of that door, stance stiffening. “Do not take another step forward.”

Adding authority to her soft voice, a weapon leapt into her hand and opened with a sound like metal slamming into a wall.

Before Xlack realized it, his Ier occupied his hand, banishing shadows to the oddly angled corners of this large corridor. He couldn’t see the exact shape of Twi’s weapon and couldn’t perceive its light. Instead, he caught rippling, ghostly glimpses along its length, like heat waves blurring the distance. It hummed in front of his chest like contained thunder.

Like his Ier, it had the basic tendrilled-staff structure of an Aqkashi, a relic of the Magni. Hers was closer to that ancient design than Xlack’s Ier, though he thought they were supposed to have glowed.

Twi’s gaze remained on him, wary but steady like her stance.

He met her stare, snatching at that wariness as he suggested, “Move.”

Her emotion slid from his grasp before the suggestion could properly trace it, and the inserted thought landed awkwardly in her mind, instantly crushed. Wincing, Xlack blinked.

“If you release the people in the room behind me, you will put them in even greater danger,” Twi warned.

“I can protect them.”

“To what point? This is an Aberrant base.”

“An abandoned base, and the Aberrant might not be as bad as Rifo thinks. The one I met was just as nice as you were.”

Twi shook her head. “They’re only nice when they want something. The people you intend to rescue, can you alone protect them from an entire hrausq?”

“Unless you intend to help, get out of my way.” He slammed his Ier into the invisible strands of her Aqkashi.

“Or two hrausqs?” One foot retreated to strengthen her balance.

As he passed, she ducked and kicked at the back of his knees. Xlack jumped, barely high enough in this elevated Tala gravity, and again swung his Ier at the Aqkashi. Disarmed, she would be less bold and annoying.

Still low, she spun under his swing. His wrist twisted, angling his Ier so its other end dipped toward her. She leapt over it, and her vertical staff thrust down. The Aqkashi’s tightly woven strands speared through the looser tendrils of the Ier and entwined them together.

Gripping the Ier with both hands, Xlack whirled and flung her. Their weapons slipped apart with a horrendous snap. Twi hit the wall feet first and sprung, diving to harpoon the Ier again. With a step to the right and another turn of his wrist, Xlack avoided such, and the two weapons bounced off one another with the cold, hollow sound of rushing wind.

As she landed lightly and pulled her weapon close, the edge of one strand scraped his elbow.

Arm and pride stinging, he leapt back, fear a gelid weight. His left hand covered the wound. It was a superficial scratch—nothing of any consequence except that an Ier-like weapon caused it. Ier not only slit through flesh, muscle, or bone, they confused nerves and sent infectious messages to the brain.

Insanity and death had found victims with lesser scratches than Xlack now had.

But Twi’s weapon was only Ier-like, and Aqkashi did not have such mad effects. He probed his mind. Would he feel the craziness slipping in? How long would it take?

He had to finish this before then.

Ier slammed into Aqkashi, two powerful blows in succession jarring Twi’s weapon loose. A third sliced through the staff’s fragile handle at its center—the only part of it he could see—and rendered it useless. She dropped the piece that remained before its melted edges could burn her.

Her shock echoed through him, sieved through his Mental defenses as a distant, academic thing. Despair at the weapon’s loss followed similarly.

She has to let me pass now. She’ll run.

Xlack stepped toward the door, and Twi launched at him. Her foot crashed into his chest, accompanied by a forcefield—a clear, distorting cloud made more visible by white veins of energy. It added strength to her blow. As she pushed off him and soared into an untucked backflip, he stumbled a retreat toward the stairs.

Now he knew why K’alaqk tested him with the idea of Topeca learning her Talents. Twi was not defenseless, relying on escorts. She had been taught to fight and to use some form of Kinetics.

As she vaulted again, she cupped a thumb-sized, chrome ovoid in each palm. Another wispy wave of charged air snapped into existence, and he sent one back. The ovoids shot toward him, already on his side of the forcefield, but stopping them wasn’t its purpose. It shoved Twi at the ceiling. Her hands touched first, the fulcrum of a tight flip, feet tucking against the solid surface.

She dove.

The ovoids veered to pass on either side of him, and Xlack realized what they were. At her command, they would grow a link between them and encircle him. But they were closer to him than to her.

He stole influence over them and shoved the ovoids away as their connection activated. Their link, a jagged, smoke-like shadow, crashed into Twi’s left bicep, and a virtual cord tied multiple loops around her arm.

Her reversal was immediate as the ovoids bored into the metal ceiling, too far apart. They were meant to come together once they captured a prize, but Xlack had pushed them at different angles. As they fought to reunite, their link constricted.

Twi deactivated the restraint, dropped, and crumpled on the ground, left arm limp, right hand clutching her wound. Slashes marred her Adapt sleeve, and chrysolite-sheened blood seeped through the rips. Her pain screamed.

Xlack turned to the door, stomping down sympathy. She was not anyone he should care about. An obstacle. An enemy.

“Prove it! Prove you have what it takes to overcome anything that stands in your way, because as soon as you free those prisoners, the Aberrant will pounce.”

Xlack halted. Twi stood, gaze as sharp as an Ier slicing into his back.

“How can you protect them if you can’t even stop one Adjuvant?” She moved like a river, graceful and daunting, as she planted herself between him and the door. Her left shoulder was crooked, dislocated, and swelling, but discounting that, her fighting stance was solid and flawless. Her right hand extended toward him. Determination and tenacity burned in her eyes.

Xlack grabbed these along with her raucous pain and twisted them into another suggestion. “Sleep.”

Again nothing, like a pebble tossed into an ocean.

Twi would not relent. As she had said, he must prove himself a worthy savior. To pass, he would have to kill her.

Rell mewled, no longer asleep. His glossy eyes peeked out from under the safety of the pocket flap.

Twi sprung, kick blocked, hand catching Xlack’s wrist. He twisted, flipping her onto her back as he tore free. Her feet found the ground first, trapped beneath her, right hand touching down a moment later, and everything stopped.

The Ier’s endpoints hovered above her clavicle.

She looked up at him, silvery gaze wide with pain and disbelief. Xlack fought not to look away as his Ier slid lower, devouring the distance between its sharp tendrils and her heart.

And stilled.

Knocked away by another defending Aqkashi. Rifo stood at the other end, stony stare set in a shocked expression.

A projectile flew at Xlack from behind, and he whirled, Ier chopping the small disc in half. With a hand on Twi’s uninjured shoulder, Rifo dragged her back a few more paces—just far enough to buy a smidgen of hope, not to reach genuine safety.

Backing to gain a view of both the disc-throwing Stevalok and Aqkashi-wielding Rifo, Xlack stated the obvious. “She’s hurt.”

“And what are ya doing here?” Distrust and disdain saturated Rifo’s every syllable. His Aqkashi was also invisible, though, as with Twi’s, Xlack felt it, every strand in clarity as it pulsed alongside Rifo’s life-signature. It matched him, like an Ier matched only the Aylata for whom it was made.

“I have a good reason for being here, but I don’t see yours.”

“Like I don’t have a good reason! Would ya really have killed Twi had I not been here?”

“It was necessary.”

“Add a syllable to that: It’s unnecessary!”

How was he supposed to get out of this now—two against one with a third already injured but glaring at him like she considered rejoining this fight?

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Xlack advised, unsure if he warned them or himself.

“That’s what we’re asking of you,” Twi replied through gritted teeth.

Xlack jumped back, Ier piercing the closed door that stood between him and the captive crew of the Isike. Stevalok and Rifo appeared on either side of him. Extricating his Ier from the door, Xlack blocked Rifo’s advancing Aqkashi.

He pulled Stevalok into a headlock, but the Lettaplexal had his own invisible staff, and together with Rifo’s, they knocked Xlack’s Ier from his grasp. Both Xlack’s and Stevalok’s weapons flew away from the trio. Though they deactivated when they hit the floor, they destroyed the light-tiles where they landed.

Stevalok hauled Xlack into a somersault. Using his own momentum against him, Xlack flipped Stevalok in turn, threw him into the wall, and scrambled to recover his Ier.

Rell hissed in complaint of the wild ride. Every one of his twenty-two claws stabbed Xlack’s leg.

Stevalok did not get up.

Ier in hand and reactivated, Xlack swept the weapon toward Rifo. The Adjuvant reacted with precise timing as if he knew his foe’s next move. All swings from either side were blocked. They circled one another like a pair of predators, tiles lighting under their feet.

“Rifo,” Twi called, standing now but shaky, “back off. He’ll hurt you. Let him open the stupid door if he wants.”

“Yes, let him do whatever he wants, even if it is imbecilic,” another voice chimed.

Emerging from shadows above, the speaker leapt over the stair rail and landed between the three of them. Her bulky, ochre cloak fluttered as if she could walk on the air, feet concealed in large, off-white boots. The shade of her hood did little to hide the creases webbing from her eyes and around her mouth, entwined with the slashes of her birthmarks.

Xlack was surprised a woman of her years could make such a move without breaking a hip.

“What a spectacular show.” She giggled, umber lips twisted in a teasing grin. “I’m disappointed to have missed the beginning, but I had to deal with the Aberrant welcoming party.”

“You expect us to believe you fought off a whole group of Talented gangsters alone, Old Woman?” Incredulity flattened Xlack’s statement.

“How quaint.” She chuckled. “Cute Ashen Curls here thinks there was only one group.”

Xlack flinched. It had been at least a decade since anyone besides his mother had referred to any part of him as cute within his hearing. Yet, here stood this crone making grandiose claims, her stance unflinching despite her empty hands. This last was subject to change, though. Anything could have hidden in her voluminous cloak.

He glanced at the others for a cue. Rifo was stuck between surprise, anger, and a need to stand at attention and salute. Respect emanated from Twi, tinted by bated wariness. If Xlack attacked the woman, Twi would offer herself as a shield.

Deciding to ignore the cute moniker for now, he crossed his arms. “You’re not making your story any more believable.”

“Twi might have helped a trifle.” The old woman’s hand emerged from her wide sleeve to offer a bright, blotched scarf. “This belonged to your Aberrant friend. You’re welcome to try to return it to him, but he might not want it, seeing how much it’s stained with his bodily fluids.”

Assaulted by the briny stench of sweat, blood, and charred meat and hair, Xlack’s nose wrinkled. Why would she keep this thing in her sleeve? Spoils of a conquest? He hoped she didn’t plan to wear it. He didn’t want to touch it, not even with his Talents.

“Is the former owner of that scarf dead?”

She made a grandly dismissive gesture, and the scarf disappeared somewhere along the way. “Oh, no, Cute Curls. Adjuvants do not kill unless it is absolutely necessary.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Then you should properly introduce yourself.” A smile spread across her face, her hood’s shadow sharpening its edges. There was no friendliness in it, no grandmotherly affection as Xlack was accustomed to from elderly ladies. This was the grin of an elitbeast who had cornered her prey.

He didn’t want her to know his name.

“He told me he’s called Ekymé,” Rifo divulged, and the woman’s smile grew, gaze steady on Xlack.

“I am very honored and all that to meet you, Ekymé. I am called Mystis after the tree that burns and never dies.”

“Great, we’re all friends. Can I go rescue my people from behind the door now?”

“You’re welcome to open the door, but no one’s there.” She turned, and Rifo stepped aside to avoid her outstretched arm. “Well, there are a few unconscious Aberrant, but it’s not a pretty sight.”

Xlack held his Ier higher, feet shifting into a more offensive stance. “Where did you move the Isike’s crew?”

“I’m known for accomplishing impossible things, but moving people who were never here is beyond even me.” Her candid eyes, glittering kaleidoscopes of several shades, slid to Twi. “This was a trap, one I was investigating, but it wasn’t until Twi found me and said the Aberrant searched for an Aylata with adorable hair that it made any sense.”

Had Twi really called his hair adorable? Judging by the unamused twitch in her eye, she hadn’t. Why did he feel disappointed?

Fingers brushing his bangs out of his face, Xlack cleared his throat. “Why would the Aberrant set a trap for me?”

“Answer this first: How did you plan to transport the Isike’s numerous crew?”

Disquiet dripped down Xlack’s spine, a blizzard raging in his toes.

“You hadn’t thought that far ahead?” Mock surprise polished Mystis’ smirk. “Life lesson, little Aylata: You cannot fly through life so as to leave no footprints. Your actions leave marks, and if you are unable or unwilling to look where they lead, do not invite others along to share your fate.”

Xlack frowned. “Do I have to solve riddles to get an answer out of you?”

“Life is a riddle.” Mystis laughed. “Here is my second tip: Nothing can be accomplished alone. Accept help, even if its form is nothing like you expected.”

“Are you saying you’ll help me?”

“If you want my help, follow.”

She turned and glided up the stairs. Xlack trailed her, sheathing his Ier. He also called the ovoids out of the ceiling and directed them into a pocket.

Twi crouched alongside Stevalok. The Lettaplexal was limp and motionless, his arm like a rag as she lifted it, but his life-signature pulsed strong, even from across the room. He was unconscious but alive.

The scratch on Xlack’s arm itched more than stung now, a thin scab that would disappear in a few hours. He didn’t feel insane.

Rell whimpered, and Xlack patted him, already halfway up the stairs. He wanted to apologize for the fear and resentment emanating from Rifo, for Stevalok’s comatose state, for the weeping wound on Twi’s arm and the tears in her eyes. He couldn’t take any of it back. What good would his regret do? It would just tie him down in guilt.

He mumbled it anyway, a breath at the top of the stairs. “Sorry.”

Continued in Chapter 9: Stunted by Impatience

Thank you for reading!

Sorry answered nothing. Twi heard the Aylata’s whispered word as he disappeared up the stairs behind Mystis, but it satisfied none of the questions burning in her mind. These competed with the deep ache in her torn shoulder as she stepped into the med-center of Vlavaran Base, a place of billowing curtains and rough rock walls scrubbed until they shone.

Med-aides surrounded her, taking the limp Stevalok from Rifo’s arms and dashing off in one direction while they ushered her in another. Their faces blurred together as she endured their attentions. Lanox’s life-signature caught her focus. The Tala still slept peacefully as machines watched over her.

Now two members of my hrausq are unconscious.

She clenched her fists, short nails digging into her palms. The mechetts scoured away all trace of dirt, but scars and callouses remained, and Twi’s hands had plenty of both. Sinister fire crawled through her arm, but she ignored it. She concentrated instead on reaching toward her pocket, ’netics drawing out the fragments of her ju’wack.

As she spun them above her right hand, light glinted off their melted edges. Owning one of these old and hardy weapons was a privilege. There were only a few thousand left, each one believed to have come to Knalz with the Magni countless generations ago, before the Knalcals even knew what space was. They had called these contraptions Aqkashi. Their modern owners called them ju’wacks.

Now this artifact of her heritage, this strong and graceful tool, sat in pieces in her hand, unable to activate and defend her. Was it repairable?

How did he manage to break it? Even on its more fragile handle, a ju’wack is impervious to others of its kind.

The Aylata’s weapon was similar but not identical.

At their base, each of a ju’wack’s strands was as thick as the distance between her finger’s tip and its first joint. Its widest point, where the tendrils flared, was half the span from her wrist to her elbow. From point to point, the weapon’s length measured sixteen times that width, about Ekymé’s height.

His weapon stretched at least a head and shoulders longer. Its strands were thicker, brighter, and flayed at a greater angle. This left the wide portions at either end looser and the tendrils’ curve to individual sharp points more apparent.

Most curious in Twi’s mind, though, was the difference in handle. The chrome hilt of her ju’wack extended one and a half times the width of her palm and was about the circumference of her wrist. The grooves for each of her fingers, thumb included, had adjusted to fit her hand as it had grown accustomed to her. Though it sprouted searing tendrils from either end, the handle was the heart of a ju’wack and necessary if it were to learn to serve a new master.

Ekymé’s weapon had no handle. Its strands ran uninterrupted from one end to the other, modestly covering all its mechanics.

Then there was the Aylata himself. Whatever the label meant, this one claimed quick reflexes and extraordinary Talents, as would be expected of an Adjuvant with an extreme amount of Magni heritage.

Ekymé was no Adjuvant though. That left a worrisome question.

Is an Aylata a friend or enemy?

No friend would have ignored her warnings and tried so blatantly to kill her, but…

Rifo knew something, but Rifo had gone after Mystis and Ekymé.

As a mechett retracted its tools and wrapped her arm with a blur of metal hands, Twi caught a glimpse of the silvery scabs spiraled around her left arm. Her shoulder felt languid, but the swelling had been chased away by efficient meds. A faint bruise remained, the palest cyan against her creamy skin.

Almost done. Hurry. Impatience pesters me with questions.

As soon as the bandage was in place, she pulled on her jacket and slid off the medical table, ignoring the mechett that ordered she sit back down. She didn’t take orders from mechetts, and Rifo had some explaining to do.

***

Mystis refused to answer Xlack’s questions.

“Why should I explain anything to someone stunted by impatience?”

“Stunted? I’m taller than you, Old Woman.” By a hair maybe. Xlack stood straighter.

Mischievousness emboldened Mystis’ narrow features. “Mentally, you are a midget, and I am a mountain. If you follow me, you must do so at my pace, and your destination will be greater than any you could find on your own.”

Now she had him standing within the Knalcal Embassy in Vlavaran, encircled by a throng of Knalcal officials with expensive-smelling perfume, outlandish dress, and snobby stares.

Fourteen seats surrounded him, each an artwork of stone positioned at the pinnacle of a staircase. The stairs were the radii of the sunken circle where Xlack stood, spotlights dotting the stage and deepening the shadows beyond the amphitheater.

At least two of those sitting appeared kindly and genuinely concerned, less caught up in themselves. He hoped one of them was in charge. He really hoped the man with the perpetual scowl was just somebody’s secretary.

Perched on Xlack’s shoulder, Rell ignored them, attention enraptured by a brittle bone—all that was left of the greasy drumstick Mystis had presented him. His snout shone with its juice, as did Xlack’s shoulder.

“Let me be sure I understand,” a woman with a huge feather coming off her small hat asked. “You want us to release the crew of a trespassing ship you say is yours just because you asked with the word please?”

It was more because Xlack had long since grown tired of saying please and his Ier itched to make an appearance. He sighed, wondering how Spycykle planned to reclaim the Isike. This way was torture.

One of the kinder-looking representatives—a Tala, as told by her softly glittering skin and lack of birthmarks—spoke up. “I must ask you never to mock an Aylata. It is a very unwise course of action.”

A white-lace mask surrounded her eyes, and a long, silken gown dwarfed her. Sweet serenity amplified her presence, though she seemed too fragile to be the source of such power. Her voice matched her appearance, though her accent was Knalcal with the same sharp t’s and hollow l’s as Twi and Mystis.

The feathered hat woman and her supporters frowned at the tiny Tala. “You will remain silent until spoken to, Rep Per’nyé.”

With a sly smile, Per’nyé stood. “Now you’ve spoken to me.” Bowing deeply, she retook her seat. “This miniature committee of the Conglomerate asked for a representative of the Aberrant so you could share our insights. I am simply advising you of what I know.”

The scowling man grumbled, “So, what do you know of the Aylata?”

Per’nyé leaned her head upon her hand, crushing a few curls. “Sir Ekymé, what are you: a Watcher, Messenger, Defender?”

“Protector,” Xlack answered with a smile, glad to see the woman with the feathered hat wasn’t the absolute monarch of the group.

“Then what are you doing here? Protectors protect districts.”

“I’m here to protect the crew of the Isike.” He made up the mandate, but it sounded like a rational reason. How much did Aberrant really know about Aylata? Rifo and Twi hadn’t recognized the title.

“Good answer, Aylata.” Per’nyé turned to the officials, conspiracy dancing in her fiery eyes. “I wouldn’t be happy if someone prevented me from completing my assignment.”

The woman with the feathered hat smiled weakly. “Per’nyé, I advise you to regain your composure and be silent.”

“Or what, you’ll have your guards toss me out?” She grinned, a bellicose mix of sweet and smug. “We both know how well that would go.”

The woman’s fake smile plummeted. Xlack wasn’t sure how this diplomatic stuff was supposed to go with Tala and Knalcals, but to him it didn’t look like it was going too well.

Per’nyé left her chair and strode closer, soft voice cutting through tension in the air. “Aylata, Sir, I will be honest with you. These people have no authority over the fate of your comrades.”

Of course not. Why was he here again? Mystis had conveniently disappeared.

What would a Watcher do? Bow theatrically and excuse himself? Whip out his Ier and make them see how incredibly annoying they were?

Diplomats yelled over one another, accusing their neighbors of being liars and cheats, but they didn’t throw anything. Xlack wanted to throw something.

Rell snatched up his bone and retreated to his favorite pocket lest some barbarian attempt to steal his prize. With no pocket to hide in, Xlack kept a mask of calm and bowed.

“That’s disappointing to hear.”

Did his words find any ears? Seemingly not. Did they need to? Not really.

As he straightened, Xlack slid his Ier from its sheath and snapped it on. Wariness drizzled from every direction, cold and sharp but weightless. It coated everything in silence.

“I don’t care who has the authority,” he announced. “I want the crew of the Isike released to me and, while we’re negotiating so nicely, the ship itself, too. Someone here must know how to get it for me.”

Weapons all over the room aimed at him, but no one dared be the first to fire. Though Per’nyé stood closest to the end of his Ier, its silver glow highlighting the curves of her face, a grin captured her lips, coy and daring.

“I will tell you a secret, Sir Ekymé,” she whispered. The walls caught and repeated her words, throwing them around the circular room. “The Knalcal scouts, for all their reputed strength, could not take down the Isike. So, they asked for help.”

“From the Aberrant?”

She lowered her head in a slight nod. “The Isike and its crew belong to us now, but they are not priceless. For the chance to speak with you, my superiors would release the Isike, fully loaded with supplies and its entire crew.”

That seemed too easy.

Xlack pointed to a balding man who stood by the woman with the feathered hat. “You, Scribe, make official record of her words.”

With flying fingers on an onscreen keyboard, he did as ordered.

Per’nyé still grinned, bright eyes burning against the backdrop of her dark eyeshadow. “Will you come with me to meet them, Ekymé?”

He gestured with his Ier toward the door. “Lead the way.”

This had trap written all over it, but traps could be turned on their masters.

***

Waiting is a trap. It invites your mind to wander.

Len despised waiting, especially in places like this Knalcal Embassy, where fragile things glittered and stole his concentration. His reflexes were quick, his mind quicker. These were the main causes of his lifelong battle with boredom.

“I see them!” he said no louder than a breath. The mic in the sys clipped to his ear picked up the words and transmitted them across the narrow hallway to his hrausq member, Lyten.

“Keep composure, Len. Not yet.”

Watching the Aylata waltz by and not doing anything was agony. Len avoided the protruding glass artworks as he slipped to his next hiding spot, feet soundless on lush, purple carpet and spine against the charcoal granite wall.

Per’nyé was a drop of elegance, a river flowing alongside a mighty tree. The Aylata was tall in comparison, his movements solid and alert.

“Do you think Per’nyé’s in danger?”

“She’ll tell us if she is,” Lyten responded.

“What was she thinking, choosing that long white gown today? She won’t be able to fight, and the copper swirls on her belt are too sparkly.”

“And not half as stunning as her hair.”

“Don’t say that so wistfully!”

“Both of you, be quiet,” Rrosh rebuked. Len had no idea where she was. As a Zalerit, she could maintain invisibility better than he could, especially in this tricky lighting. The high sconces were programmed to mimic rays scattered through dancing leaves.

What if he treated this as the forest they tried to evoke? Hands light and quick on the glass decorations, Len climbed.

The Aylata’s gaze flicked around the hall. “Someone’s following us.”

More than one someone, sludge-brain. Come on, I came here to see what makes an Aylata able to defeat ten thousand. This guy’s not legend material.

A zap-cord’s pair of ovoids flew from the Aylata’s pocket and straddled an invisible object. Len gulped as their shadowy connection coiled around something long and slender. He had a hunch he wouldn’t like what was about to happen.

The ends met, and he felt their shock from all the way on the ceiling. Rrosh appeared on the floor, bound and semi-conscious.

Len dove for the Aylata. Xlack Ekymé stepped back. Len hit the carpet and rolled as Lyten joined the party, cobalt ju’wack cutting Rrosh free.

Three against one. This’ll be so easy!

Len lunged. Something grabbed the back of his shirt and threw him down the hallway as if he were a discarded fruit peel.

Ier in hand, Ekymé swung at Lyten, driving him away from Per’nyé. She didn’t move, hands loosely holding one another as if she admired scenery in a peaceful field.

The Aylata thinks he’s protecting her, Len realized, keeping his eyes on the battle as he rolled to a stop. He has no idea why we attacked. Wait, why did we—oh yeah, that was me. Per’nyé’s gonna yell at me later.

Per usual, Lyten placed himself between Per’nyé and their foe, ju’wack swinging at Ekymé’s legs. The blow was blocked, strike after strike redirected.

As Len sprinted to rejoin the fray, a large, cloaked figure appeared at the Aylata’s back. She brandished a crescent of glass and lightning—an enershield. Len gasped and tripped. What was Mystis, most infamous Adjuvant leader, doing here?

Wielding a golden ju’wack, Per’nyé leapt at the Adjuvant and was shoved back as Mystis’ ’netics pushed at her fine dress. Per’nyé regained her footing alongside Lyten and Rrosh, the three of them fanned before their opponents.

Headed for Mystis, Rrosh disappeared.

The Aylata concentrated on Lyten, who retreated. Len watched with growing horror as Ekymé led their dance toward a tragic conclusion. Thanks to his Mind Talents, Lyten foreknew an opponent’s moves, but the Aylata had found his pattern, his weakness. One last sideswipe, and—

Per’nyé blocked the blow. Disapproval and calculation ticked in her orange eyes, and Len felt her nudge within his mind. He flowed with it, shrugging on her will like a familiar jacket.

Mystis’ enershield whacked Rrosh, and the electric shell sent her flying. With a lurid thud, she hit the faux stone wall, and her color returned.

Len didn’t like Mystis. She was too full of tricks. He would have to take her down before he could help with the Aylata.

He shook off Per’nyé, disappeared, and charged, but his shoes fell out from under him—her stupid ’netics again!

Rrosh stood up and vanished, calling Mystis’ attention.

Len fell into a front handspring, feet barely missing the end of Ekymé’s Ier. He landing in a squat and dropped back on his hands to duck under the swinging weapons. Rrosh had Mystis. He would go after the Aylata now.

Keeping his eyes trained on the blur of blows above, he kicked Ekymé’s heels.

The Aylata stumbled and somersaulted over Len as Mystis leapt over them both, engaging Lyten. Again, Len had no idea where Rrosh was, but she couldn’t be unconscious and invisible at the same time, so that was a good sign.

Needles jabbed his chest, and he looked down. A tiny bundle of pewter scales clung to him, slender tail swaying and a gnawed bone gripped between sharp teeth. As Len scrambled back, the creature bounded away, climbed up Mystis’ cloak, and perched atop her head.

“Traitor,” Ekymé chided the animal, back to back with Mystis.

“You need to retreat, Ekymé.”

“And miss all the fun?” Laughter lightened his voice, but disdain tethered his gaze to Per’nyé. Had he realized yet that their goal wasn’t to kill him, strikes aimed at arms or legs, intending injuries he could survive?

But Mystis we want dead.

“You run first,” Ekymé told the elderly Adjuvant.

The beastling growled, ugly little thing with drool dripping from its exposed teeth, bone still held tight.

Mystis used the absconding-shoes trick on Lyten, and he fell. He narrowly rolled out of the way of Ekymé’s Ier and crashed into a side blow from Mystis’ enershield. Energy bolts ran along him, and he lay unconscious.

Len yelled, though not even he knew what the word was supposed to be, and slipped away from where Ekymé stood on him. Jumping on Mystis’ back, he wrapped his arms around her neck, a kanaber in his grip. The beastling hissed and slashed at his face.

Mystis grabbed Len’s hand and threw herself down. She was much larger than him, and though, as a Lettaplexal, he had no bones to break, air and sense fled.

The beastling tumbled. It squealed as its claws dug into the dark carpet and it ran back to Ekymé.

Mystis slipped out of Len’s stunned arms and leapt to her feet, enershield at the ready. Her hood had fallen back, and platinum locks escaped the scarf tied over her head. They stuck to her face, contrasting her deep bronze skin and the azure scales swirled over her nose.

Rrosh appeared alongside Per’nyé, and together the girls slapped a pair of lightwhips around Ekymé’s Ier.

Yes!

Len’s brain sent the necessary commands to spring to his feet, but his body didn’t respond.

Ekymé pulled both girls into the air, but Per’nyé still had him. Now held at eye level, her strong gaze stared directly into his.

“Sleep, Sir Ekymé,” she whispered, and he collapsed.

I knew she could do it.

Relief and pride covered Len, effecting a smile as the world dropped away from him.

***

“The world I thought I knew just turned upside-down, and there’s something I think you should see…or not see…or…you’ll understand when you get here,” the mechanic told Twi, summoning her to the underground hangar of Vlavaran Base.

Ekymé’s damaged oha was gone.

“It disappeared while we were working on it.” Mechanic Vian ran a hand through his rigid, short mane. It was dark like Twi’s, his skin just as fair, Knalcal birthmarks platinum and eyes a deep teal.

He was a good friend of Entrycii’s. They both liked to take stuff apart and figure out how it worked. Unlike Entrycii, Vian had hardly any ’netic Talent and no inclination for adventure. He never left the base and never wanted to.

The rough cave walls appeared as they always did, deep golden brown and swirled in texture. Lights hidden in alcoves and stalactite clusters fought the darkness. A variety of ships were displayed on terraces. The crimson hull of Twi’s own preferred vehicle was only a few paces behind her as she approached the team of mechetts gathered around a clear, oha-shaped space.

The foreign oha appeared absent, but she could still feel it. Throughout her life, she had found that if her eyes told her one thing and her ’netic senses another, the latter were usually correct.

She reached out, and cool metal met her fingers, but still she couldn’t see it. She had never heard of a ship that could be invisible, but the concept wasn’t too farfetched. Zalerits and Lettaplexals possessed the skill of invisibility. With enough effort, surely someone could come up with a way for a machine to mimic that Talent.

’Netics digging through active circuits, she found the ship’s mask and switched it off. The black oha reappeared.

“I wish I could do that,” Vian lamented, nervous hands lost in his pockets. Like many, his scant Magni heritage had led the Aberrant to discard him as an infant.

“I wish I could wear grease-stained coveralls five sizes too big and make it look cool.”

“We all have our strengths, I guess.” Vian laughed halfheartedly, gaze shyly sliding away from her and fixating on the eviscerated engine. He snatched a tool from a mechett and busied himself. “Though I’m not really the one considered eye candy around here.”

Twi frowned.

“I was wondering. Since Sep is…no longer here, maybe—”

“Sep will return.” Her stance stiffened.

“And I completely believe that, too, but in the meantime, if you get lonely waiting for him, I’m always here.”

“And I’m always busy.”

He flinched, shoulders hunched. How could any answer not have stung sweet, dependable Vian aside from the yes she could not give? She did not want to hurt him, but no, she could not afford kindness, allowing weeds of attachment to grow, especially not if he would insinuate himself as a replacement for Sep in her heart.

And it was true: She was forever busy.

Rifo rushed into the cavern hangar, solemnity and worry a heavy cloud tethered to him.

“What’s wrong, Rifo?”

“I don’t know exactly. I was in the Knalcal Embassy with the Aylata and Estiga Mystis. She gave me this datastick with an important message for Estiga Myr.” He flashed the mentioned hardware as he passed, not slowing. Twi kept step with him. “I just came back here to get my oha so I can fly to Lettaplex Six, where Estiga Myr is.”

That cloud of worry sunk into Twi and blossomed. “She sent you without an amaraq?”

“Apparently it’s that important.”

“Is it about Ekymé?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t read it yet, but I have to go.” Rifo climbed the side of his green-hulled oha.

“I’ll send Zeln and Aarex after you. Success to you.” She placed a brief, reassuring hand on Rifo’s forearm.

Vian registered the touch and scowled.

“Ya, too.” Rifo slid into his seat.

Twi retreated as the cockpit closed and the oha lifted into the air. The thick blast doors rolled open, and Rifo flew off out of sight.

She felt Vian’s gaze on her back, his envy, disappointment, and calculation. Anger wriggled deep within her. To Knalcals, a touch was a claim, but not to Rifo. To Tala, a touch was a necessity, like air.

Even if this weren’t the case, Vian had no right to judge.

His jealousy reeked like rotten fruit. “This oha’s pilot, did he follow you home?”

Twi sighed. “I dragged his oha here because it was broken and you can fix it.”

“Which I am graciously doing, though if you deliberately brought him here, I wonder—”

“Analyze the ship, not me!” At his startled look, she softened her voice. “Is there anything different about it, special?”

“Oh, yes. For starters, I thought I had maxed out speed stats on Entrycii’s oha, but this thing would make his seem like a baby learning to crawl.”

“Record that and anything else you find. It’s important.”

Vian saluted, bringing a thumb to his lips, then raising it overhead. “I will perform a full analysis if you promise to read every boring word.”

Cynicism tugged at Twi’s eyebrow. “Just be a traditional Adjuvant and say you’ll do as you’re told.”

Vian grinned. “For you, Milady, anything.”

Continued in Chapter 10: Change is Inevitable

Thank you for reading!