Loe raamatut: «Nexus»

CHAPTER 1

DEX

Dextro Arez had never truly believed that the Godstars were tangible beings.

They were soul-felt, a comforting presence inside your heart, an idea that filled your mind as if soldered on with iron and fire. Always nearby, yet as far away as the stars in the night sky.

Dex’s body was tattooed with the Godstars’ white constellations; a living shrine to their power and strength. Here, on his left arm, were the twisting, intertwining patterns that symbolized the twin Godstars of life and light. And on the back of his right shoulder, stretching up toward his neck—the angular constellation that marked the godstar of hope.

But tonight, as Dex slumped forward in his chair, the thick, rigid lines of the godstar of death stared up at him from his left hand. The tattoo stretched out like a narrowing eye as he clenched his fist. Dex looked away from it, swallowing hard. He felt as if death were truly here—a beast breathing down his neck as he turned his gaze to Androma’s pale, still form.

Andi had been unconscious for nearly a week now. Dex knew that it was due at least in part to the painkillers they’d given her for the wound on her chest—a parting gift from the traitorous Valen Cortas, who’d turned his blade on her after stabbing his own father during Queen Nor’s attack on Andi’s home planet, Arcardius.

But Dex also wondered if Andi’s mind just wasn’t ready to return her to this world yet, too terrified by what had transpired in the moments before Valen tried to kill her. And if that were true, how long would it be before she came back to them?

Wake up, he pleaded silently as he watched her. We can’t do this without you, Andi.

Whatever this was, Dex wasn’t quite sure. The fate of the entire galaxy had changed, the hopes and dreams of so many melting away into the shadows the moment Nor Solis took control. They’d all assumed that the Cataclysm had destroyed the threat of Xen Ptera forever; that the final battle had drained the planet’s resources and broken the will of its people and their queen. No one had ever imagined that Queen Nor would someday rise again, or that she’d somehow have the ability to bring all of Mirabel under her dominion.

There was only one person who might have the power to free the galaxy from Nor’s rule—and yet completely unaware that the lives of millions now rested in her hands.

Wake up, Andi, he thought again.

She looked so frail as she lay on the soft white medical bed now, lost in sleep. Dex winced as he imagined what she likely saw there.

Nightmares.

Never dreams, not anymore.

The harsh lights of the med bay bounced off of the silver plates implanted across Andi’s cheekbones as Dex leaned back, stretching his aching muscles. He’d hardly moved from this spot since they’d fled Arcardius, determined to be by her side when she finally awoke. Determined to be the one to tell her all that had happened...even though he couldn’t yet find the words to do so.

Dex closed his eyes, remembering that fateful night. Remembering the desperate words of Cyprian Cortas, the former General of Arcardius, as he lay dying in this very med bay.

The fate of the galaxy is at stake. The leaders are dead, and I’m sure their successors soon will be, as well... Androma is the only Arcardian on this ship once I die. If she survives... Androma Racella will be the rightful General of Arcardius.

General of Arcardius. Leader of the planet that had once wanted her dead. Godstars, how she would hate the very idea of it.

Dex sighed heavily and shifted his chair closer to Andi, tentatively grazing a hand against hers. The warmth of her skin was soothing, that small sign of life the only thing that made the knot of tension inside him loosen in the slightest. He studied the thick white bandage on her chest, just below her collarbone. Hidden beneath were the dark stitches that held her skin together. Mending the flesh that Valen’s knife had torn apart. Dex had seen and inflicted plenty of wounds, some far more gruesome than this. But seeing Andi in such a state brought back a wave of memories that sent his head spinning out of control.

Valen Cortas stood before Andi at the Ucatoria Ball, blood dripping from the knife that he’d just plunged into her chest. Andi fell to her knees, grasping for the hilt with shaking hands, wrenching the blade free. Then she swayed, and the knife tumbled to the ground as Andi collapsed, surrounded by a growing pool of her own blood.

He was too late. For a heartbeat, Dex thought she was dead. All around him, the room was growing quieter, the screams dying down. A few more shots here. A few more there. The thump of a body hitting the floor. The click of another silver bullet sliding into a rifle’s chamber.

Dex finally reached the stage. The system leaders were huddled together in their chairs, bodies of Patrolmen littering the ground around them. But Andi was the only person he had eyes for.

“Hang on,” Dex said to Andi. His fingers found her throat. A tiny heartbeat beneath her skin. “You just hang on.”

Dex blinked at the sound of Andi’s sudden groan.

He realized he’d been squeezing her hand too hard. The ends of his fingernails, ragged from chewing the past few sleepless nights, were biting into her palm. He let go at once, but leaned forward all the same, unable to look away from her face.

“Andi?”

Her eyelids fluttered.

For a moment, Dex feared she was dying. That her stitches had become infected, or the blood that Lon had donated in the few precious moments after their escape had mixed wrongly with hers, universal donor or not. Perhaps even the godstar of death, still so hauntingly present in this room, was laughing as he raised a shadowy scythe and readied himself to bring Andi to the other side.

But then her eyes opened.

Gray as a storming sea.

Dex let out a whooshing breath that he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.

“Hey,” he said, feeling the tightness flood from him, gone in an instant. “How are you feeling?”

“Dex?” For a moment, Andi simply looked around, as if trying to make sense of her surroundings. She seemed calm, just a person waking from a sound night of sleep.

Then her eyes slowly moved to lock onto Dex’s, and confusion seemed to sweep through her as her forehead wrinkled.

“What...happened?” Andi asked. Her voice was raw from disuse, a whisper trying to break free into something more.

“You’re alive,” Dex said, unable to stop a smile of relief from spreading across his face. “You’re safe.”

“Safe?” Andi asked. She tried to sit up and groaned, a hand flying up toward the white bandages covering the knife wound in her chest.

This was the most awake she’d been in days. Dex took a deep breath, reaching for her hand, still unsure of how to explain it all to her. She may have been gravely injured, but she wasn’t a child. She wasn’t weak in her heart or her soul. She could handle this, though it might come close to breaking her.

“There was an attack on Arcardius,” Dex said. “During Ucatoria. Do you remember?”

Andi’s eyes hardened.

“Nor Solis...she came, and...” Dex’s words trailed off. How could he explain what had happened? How could he tell her that an entire ballroom of people he’d thought dead had suddenly risen and pledged allegiance to the very woman who’d attacked them? The very woman they’d all feared, hated, for nearly ten years?

Worst of all, how could he tell Andi that her crew was among the dead-then-risen who had joined Nor’s side?

“Where is Lira?” Andi asked suddenly. “Breck and Gilly?”

Dex’s heart nearly stopped beating. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

And then he saw Andi’s expression change as she remembered, the memories slamming into her, making her recoil away from him.

“My crew,” Andi croaked out, voice still raw. He handed her a cup of water. She gulped it down greedily.

“Androma,” Dex pleaded. “I tried. I tried to get to them, but...there was so much chaos. So many enemies. And you were dying.”

Her eyes were wide with fear and rage. Her entire body had begun to shake. “Where. Is. My. Crew?”

She sat up so suddenly he couldn’t stop her, the lurching movement so rough that she cried out in pain. The cup clattered to the floor. Her hand became a vise over Dex’s, his fingers crushed beneath hers. She gritted her teeth and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, facing him head-on, and pain flared in her eyes as red began to blossom against the white of her bandages.

“Where are they?” Andi asked. “Please, Dex. Tell me where they are.”

“They’re...” How could he be the one to break her with such news? He’d only just earned back her forgiveness mere days ago, after years spent hoping to find a place in her heart once more, and now he’d betrayed her again. He was a coward. A failure, for not being able to save her crew before Nor had overtaken them. “Godstars, Andi. I’m so sorry. We left them behind.”

He hated the words the second they fell from his lips, but what was he to do? He couldn’t hide a damned thing from her. She’d already seen the answer in his traitorous eyes, and that the moment she left this med bay, she’d find the ship cold and empty, Lon the only other soul aboard.

“No,” Andi mouthed. So silent, Dex could hardly hear the word. She shook her head, disbelief flooding her features, darkening the half circles beneath her eyes. “No.”

“There was no way for me to get to them in the aftermath of the attack,” Dex said, his voice choked. “The last I saw, they were alive. But they were... Andi, they joined with Nor.”

Everyone in that Arcardian ballroom had. Everyone but Dex and Andi and a few others, but Xen Pterran soldiers had slaughtered those other people at once.

He’d never forget the way that Andi’s fierce crew had fallen. How they’d risen again, and hailed Nor as their queen. Leaving them behind had pained him, still haunted him.

He would relive that day forever in his heart and in his mind.

“We have to go to them,” she insisted. Before he could open his mouth to respond, Andi was on her feet, the loose gray pants she wore swishing as she whirled and stumbled for the door.

“Andi!” Dex lunged toward her. “Stop!”

She slammed the red exit button beside the door, then wobbled and nearly dropped to a knee, gasping in pain. But she recovered as the door opened, the silver hallways of the Marauder waiting beyond. Dex leaped in front of her, arms outspread.

“You have to rest,” he said. “You’re going to rip open your stitches even more. Valen almost reached your heart.”

Andi looked down at her chest, as if just noticing the wound for the first time.

“I wish he had reached it,” she said, eyes wide and reddening with tears that Dex knew she wouldn’t shed. “I don’t want to live without them.”

Already, her blood had soaked through the bandage. Andi wobbled, leaning against the door frame. She had too many pain meds in her system. She hadn’t eaten in days. Dex didn’t even know how she was still standing.

“Move,” she growled. “Please, Dextro. Before I move you myself.”

“Don’t you think I want to?” Dex asked. “Andi, I’ve hardly slept since we left them behind. I’ve hardly eaten, hardly done anything but sit by your bedside and relive that night in my mind.”

Gilly. Lira. Breck.

They’d become important to Dex, too. And he’d betrayed them, betrayed Andi, by leaving them behind. Even Lon, normally so gentle and calm, had looked as if he’d wanted to kill him when Dex arrived on the Marauder with Andi and the general in tow, but without Lon’s twin sister, Lira.

Why had it all fallen to Dex? He couldn’t change the tide of this war alone.

He swallowed hard. “There’s nothing we can do. Nothing. You weren’t conscious. You didn’t see what happened to them. You didn’t see how they changed.”

Dex reached out to grab her shoulders, to guide her gently back to the bed, but Andi screamed in fury, slamming the wall with her fist as she stumbled away from him.

“Damn you, Dextro. Get the hell out of my way!”

“Please,” Dex begged. Already he could feel the weakness inside of him, that hideous fear of losing her again when he’d only just gotten her back. “Please, just let me help you. There’s nothing you can do for them, Andi. Not before you rest and heal.”

“You can’t do this to me,” she whispered. Her voice shook. “Please, Dex. You can’t hurt me like this.”

“I’m trying to protect you.” Because I love you, Dex thought. But the words failed him, and his hands fell to his sides.

“I don’t want to be protected,” Andi said. “Not now.” She turned around, shoulders slumping as she pressed one hand to her chest and shuffled back toward her bed, breathing heavily.

Dex ached, seeing her this way. He ached because he was a traitor to her, a traitor to her crew. But there was no way to save them. Not now, at least. Maybe not ever. He still didn’t know how Nor and the Xen Pterrans had taken control, or what was in those silver bullets, or if there was any way to reverse what had been done to everyone’s minds.

And he had no idea how far and how wide Nor’s reign had spread in the days since they’d fled Arcardius. For all Dex knew, Nor now had control of the entire galaxy.

“I swear to you,” Dex said, trailing Andi across the room. “I swear on my life, Andi, we’ll figure out what Nor did to your crew. We’ll figure out a way to get to them. We just have to—”

Andi whirled around, her face a mask of pain as she swung her fist at him.

Dex ducked reflexively, but the hit connected at the last moment. He gasped at the pinch of pain in his neck. Then a languorous warmth flowed through him, as if he was sinking into the hot springs of Adhira.

Dex reached up slowly, dreamily, his fingers clumsily removing the empty syringe buried in his skin. The same syringe that had just been sitting on the bedside table, left there by Lon, should Andi wake in too much pain. The syringe full of soduum, a potent pain medication.

“Why?” Dex gasped. But he should have expected something like this. The syringe fell with a soft clink to the floor, and Dex followed, hardly aware as his knees hit the ground. He knew he only had moments before the soduum would steal him away. Warmth swam through his veins, too fast for him to ignore, already beckoning him to enter the folds of deep sleep.

He heard gentle footsteps and ragged breathing as Andi stepped closer. When he looked up, her features were already melding together, fuzzy at the edges as she stood over him, her chest bleeding bright red in the stark med bay lights. A trickle of blood seeped out from the wrappings, staining her shirt as it slid down her abdomen.

“I’m sorry, Dex,” Andi said, her voice like a funeral dirge as his head hit the floor. “There is no me without them.”

When she left the med bay, she was no longer Androma Racella.

The Bloody Baroness stepped into the halls of the Marauder, a captain who would tear apart the skies to rescue her crew.