Broken Wings (14 page)

Enough
. Her doubts held her back. Time to act.

Raea slouched beneath the canisters.
The warmth of the resonance passed through her to brighten the
marks on her hands. Aiming was another matter. She barely
controlled the power, but something was better than
nothing.

She lifted her arms out, careful not
to lift her head too far above the level of the barriers. The spray
of power flared in the chamber. She shivered from the cold left of
the instant release of the heat.

A few seconds later, the soldiers on
the catwalk lay quiet. Yes! But exhaustion overcame her in
releasing that much power.

Cris patted her shoulder near her
neck, shocking her with a moment of warmth and a pressure in her
head as if thousands of voices chattered at once in discord. It
faded a second after he removed his hand.

Her insides turned to ice with the
cold realization. She'd experienced a similar alert from the
Starfire once before—when Pallin touched her.

Meistal!
Cris
. Salera had learned
the same way about Vodin. The Starfire entities detected others
with it in their genes and warned their Keepers. The entities had
detected it in Elis, but then they had shown her pleasant memories
from her mother's life. They knew who she could trust, and she
trusted the entities. They had trusted Elis, guided her to him, and
she had almost forgotten.

If she had trusted them, Pallin would
never have hurt her.

Now she had other matters to worry
about.

Cris was
meistal
, if not also
Shirukan. Did the others know?

He smiled and slid away, barely
avoiding a shot that flashed overhead. How could she trust
him?

Corsa motioned her to join them near
the door. She'd get no refusal from Raea, who stayed close and
wished that she was wrong about Cris. They made their way to an
exit, or at least Raea hoped it was.

Ahead of them, Leksel followed behind
two others to a door. There, soldiers firing from behind cylinders
across the room pinned the trio behind a control panel.

The soldiers closed in on his
position, covering each other as they alternated movements. A flash
of light to Leksel's right halted him.

The blast came from the catwalk again.
But she had disabled them. Didn't she?

Raea looked closer and her heart sank
at the sight of the all-black uniforms.

Shirukan! They stepped over the gray
and black figures prostrated on the walk.

This was so not going well. Raea might
as well march out and give herself up.

No way. Try again.
It couldn't end like this.

WE ARE HERE.
The intentions of the Starfire came through as
clear as words.

In a wave of dizziness from her
exhaustion, Raea blinked and lost her balance, falling onto her
hands and knees.

FIGHT.
The single thought came from within. It could only be the
Starfire entities. Her hands and the crystal shard glowed through
no effort of hers. But as easily as the resonance came, she had
only to think of it to find that perfect pitch to access the
power.

As with facing Pallin in that moment
of life and death, the entities sought to take control. She
refused. Not this time. No more death.

FIGHT!

No.

YES. YOU PROTECT
US.

No.
She couldn't kill anyone again. Never again. She hadn't even
killed the soldiers on the catwalk, but stunned them. Pallin had
disappeared when she fired on him with the Starfire so close to the
portal.

CONTROL OUR POWER. USE IT
YOUR WAY. WE TRUST YOU.

They understood her
hesitations?

Raea looked up to a concerned frown
from Leksel a moment before he returned a barrage of fire. She had
to do it. The Shirukan filled the catwalk now, and she would bet
there were hundreds, if not thousands, more on their
way.

The power flared into a fire within
her. Elis had warned her in the beginning that too much could kill
her, but if the Starfire really wanted to be protected from the
Shirukan, killing her wouldn't help. They wouldn't let her die. Or
at least she hoped not.

They were surrounded.

Cris gave her a pleading
look.

She didn't want to kill, but she had
to do something. She was their best chance of escaping.

Raea lifted her hands and focused on
holding and releasing the power, one hand at the catwalk and the
other opposite. The power burned through her in a stream instead of
one burst.

But the firing stopped.

The world spun around her. Raea fell
to her hands and knees and dropped her head. Nausea swept over her
with the cold left from releasing the energy. She was going to be
sick. Her body trembled with weakness and spots filled her vision.
Oh, God, she was going to pass out.

Arms wrapped around her from both
sides. Corsa and Cris. They each took an arm and lifted her to her
feet.

The security of the two helped her
keep her feet beneath her without worrying about falling. They
carried her from the large chamber through more corridors of
pipes.

A couple corners and lengths of
corridors from the chamber, the noise died and Leksel returned to
her. ["Are you all right?"]

She shook her head. Whoa. Someone
needed to stop the room from spinning. Last time she released that
much energy, she had almost passed out, but Elis caught her
mid-flight. She had kept the power going longer this time,
though.

Next time she'd remember this. Third
time was a charm. Right?

Was that a smile cracking the hard
lines of Leksel's face, or was she seeing things besides the spots
in her vision?

["You did good back there.
Thanks."]

"No prob
," she wanted to say. Instead, she lifted her hand from
Corsa's shoulder. Her mouth didn't want to work, except to let lose
whatever her stomach decided it didn't want. She had no intention
of risking it there.

["Can you go on?"]

"Mmm…Yeah."

He frowned.

["Yes."]

His eyes darted to Cris and Corsa.
["Let's go."]

They hurried through a few more
corridors, with several of their team members rushing ahead at each
bend, their weapons ready. After a few darker, dirtier corridors,
they came to a door. One of the others popped the panel and played
with some squishy cables. The door hissed open and Leksel hurried
them through. The man at the panel came through last and the door
hissed and clicked behind him. ["They won't know we're
here."]

Leksel gave a nod and urged them
onward. The rest floated through Raea's mind like a
dream.

She didn't remember anything more
until the hard floor greeted her. That lasted a few seconds, long
enough for her to mutter a simple thanks and fall into
blackness.

* * *

Raea woke up to the smell of something
sweet. She sniffed. Not just sweet, but also dank.

["Morning!"]

She recognized the voice and opened
her eyes. Cris sat nearby, his back to the wall. ["How long was I
out this time?"]

["Just a couple hours."] He tossed
something up and caught it. ["Hungry?"]

Her insides rumbled their answer.
["Starving."]

["Here. Corsa had to run an errand, so
you're stuck with me."] He grinned, his wings lifting
slightly.

Why him?

Why not. He was better than Leksel. If
she had to choose between moody and annoyingly cheerful and
ambitious, the latter was far less stressful. Raea sat up and took
the steaming bowl he handed her, the brown mush within it speckled
with flecks of dark green and orange. ["What is it?"] It smelled
edible, but that didn't mean it was tolerable.

["Same old dehydrated mush, but it'll
satisfy your stomach."]

Raea tested a piece.
Bitter.

["Eat."]

Sure. Easy for him to say. He wasn't
the one with a bowl of mush in his hands.

["Leks will shred my wings if I don't
make you eat."]

Shred his wings, huh? Then he was
desperate to make her eat. She might use that and avoid the mush in
the process. ["Tell me something first."]

["Sure."] He tossed the small cylinder
in the air again.

["You're…
meistal
."] She spoke in a hushed voice, despite no one else
nearby.

He caught the cylinder and stared at
it, all amusement gone from his face. Maybe she shouldn’t have said
anything. ["You noticed. I've heard Keepers can feel
it."]

["You've heard a lot about Keepers."]
Too much to be coincidence.

Cris shrugged and his wings tucked
close. ["It's our job to know. Marin wants to kill anyone with the
Starburst marks. We're fighting against that. It's important to
know why."]

It made sense, but he seemed almost
hesitant.

["The Shirukan are
meistal
. I thought
all
meistal
were
Shirukan."]

Ah! There. His face pinched for an
instant. ["Not all, especially in the free states."]

["So, why are you here?"] She stirred
the mush, hoping she could dump it before he made her
eat.

He stared at her a few seconds, his
mind working on something. Uh, oh. She recognized the coy smile
that crept up one cheek. ["Eat your food, and maybe I'll tell you.
It's a long story."]

Figures
. With a proposition like that, he must have known she
couldn't resist.

After the first bite, she
almost gagged. Cris chuckled. ["It's not
that
bad."]

["Oh, yes it is. Why don't you
try?"]

["Already ate my share."]

That was too quick. How'd he get it
down, and keep it down?

["Hurry up. Leks won't stay here long.
Shirat soldiers are bad enough, but the Shirukan who attacked
weren't there by coincidence. They know where we are now, or at
least the area. We can't sit still long."]

"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah." She hurried as
fast as she could when each bite made her want to gag instead of
swallow.

When she could eat no more, she set
the bowl down. ["Something to drink?"]

["Sorry."] He handed her a small
bottle from his other side.

Sorry that he forgot? Or making sure
she ate first? Raea took the bottle and sucked down the water,
washing away the bitterness left in her mouth. Much
better.

["Ready?"]

Not really, but what choice did she
have? Raea followed him with her bowl, which a red-winged woman
took.

Leksel met them around the bend of a
thick pipe. ["You're ready to move?"]

As ready as she could be. ["Where are
we going?"]

["We have to get you out of
here."]

["How?"] Would they take her home?
Impossible. Only a portal could get her home, unless they had ships
that could reach Earth. They did! She'd seen it in her most recent
visions. Oh, wait. Salera had provided the portal for the whole
ship. Damn. Nothing like dashing one's hopes over a cliff. ["Where
will I go?"]

["One of the searoot islands or the
nearest free state,"] Leksel said.

["Free state? But…"] She hesitated.
The Shirat Empire was smaller than she thought. ["How big is the
Shirat Empire?"]

["They control about twenty percent of
the population of Inar'Ahben, but if Marin controls all the
Starfire, she can threaten the rest into submission with Heffin's
Gate."]

Yeah. She'd bet Marin could. As she
understood, the portals jumped through the Starfire's home
dimension, where they existed as pure energy. No matter could exist
there in theory. Heffin's Gate could end the portal there,
instantly disintegrating any solid matter. Instant death or
subjugation were the only choices.

["Why has it lasted this
long?"]

Cris shrugged but said, ["Most of the
general public enjoy the peace and prosperity she's brought to
them. They don't see the strife she's caused or hear about the
growing problems with the Ahben in the oceans. They think the
outside newsvids lie because they have it good, unless one
protests. And the free states don't want to start a
war."]

["Politics."] Even on
Inar'Ahben.

["We won't let her have yours…or
you."]

Or me?
She so did not like the way Leksel looked at her, like he
longed to be close. He turned away a moment later, but she was sure
now—Leksel liked her. It wasn't impossible. Flattering, maybe. But
she had no desire to stay, much less to be interested in anyone but
Elis.

Her chest hurt when she thought of
him, of the laughter they'd shared, the quiet moments cuddled
together, the Starfire lessons and the flying. It was Saturday, or
maybe Sunday already, at home. A day or two she could have spent
completely with him, or her friends. She could only imagine what
they were doing. Linds probably finished morning chores by now and
Jess probably had a date, or called Josh and Linds to hang out.
Jess hated being alone. She'd never gone more than a week without a
boyfriend since they were freshmen.