CHAPTER SIX

ZANE

“Zane? Zane!”

A voice kept yelling my name over and over, but not in an admiring Zane-you’re-such-an-amazing-warrior way. Or in a passionate Zane-you’re-such-a-fantastic-lover way. Not even in an indulgent Zane-your-shampoo-commercial-is-so-silly way. No, worry punctuated this voice, and the sound of my own name beat against my ears like a frantic hammer.

I tried to open my eyes, but they wouldn’t cooperate, and pain kept zipping through my chest like someone was dragging hot daggers across my skin over and over. All I wanted to do was let go and fall back into the peaceful black void of unconsciousness, but that frantic voice wouldn’t stop shouting my name. Even more surprising was the sensation that flooded my brain, like a cold little pebble was angrily vibrating in the deep, still pool of my mind and stubbornly keeping me awake, whether I wanted to be or not.

My eyes still didn’t want to open, so I reached for my power. In addition to being a strong telekinetic, I also excelled at creating psionic shields, which let me ignore extreme injuries and keep fighting instead of being crippled by the agonizing pain. My shields were some of the strongest among the Arrows, and I could take far more wounds than most before my power gave out and I finally dropped.

I imagined erecting a permaglass barrier in my mind, a clear, sturdy wall with me on one side and all the hot, pounding pain on the other. Slowly, my psionic shield solidified, and the pain died down to a more manageable level of warm throbbing. I also tried to shove that annoying little vibrating pebble behind my psionic shield, but it refused to budge.

I cracked my eyes open, not quite sure where I was or what was going on. To my surprise, I was lying on my side like a battered test dummy in my father’s workshop. Green smoke wafted up off my ruined tailcoat, and an acrid, electrical stench invaded my nose, slithered down my throat, and coated my mouth like I’d just swallowed a handful of ash from a Magma planet.

Ah, yes. Now I remembered. I’d been shot point-blank in the chest with a Techwave hand cannon. Wonderful.

“Zane? Zane!” that voice kept shouting at me.

I opened my eyes a sliver wider. The remaining two Black Scarabs had overpowered Asterin, had grabbed her arms, and were now dragging her down the corridor toward Silas, who was still clutching his hand cannon.

“Let’s go!” Silas ordered, backpedaling all the while. “We need to reach our primary objective before someone comes across the dead Arrow. Bring her. Now!”

He whirled around and jogged down the corridor. Asterin kept yelling and struggling, but the two Black Scarabs easily pulled her along and rounded a corner, and they all vanished from view.

I tried to jump to my feet, but the pain spewed up like red-hot lava against the permaglass wall in my mind, threatening to melt right through my psionic shield, so I slumped back down and rested my cheek on the cool tile floor.

Baby steps, Zane. Baby steps.

Sweat streamed down my face, but I gritted my teeth and forced myself to slowly sit upright. Gray stars blinked in warning in my eyes, but I kept breathing, and the stars slowly faded away.

Fuck. That had hurt.

I glanced down. Silas’s cannon had scorched an impressive hole in my tailcoat and shirt and severely blistered my skin underneath. But why hadn’t the energy blasted right through my body? I patted my chest, and my fingers brushed up against something that was nestled over my heart: the jewelry box I’d been carrying around all evening.

I pulled the box out of my charred coat. The lunarium shimmered with heat, and tiny flecks of blue, red, green, and other colors blazed in the stone, making it resemble a fire opal. The box had absorbed and deflected just enough of the cannon’s energy to keep it from killing me, the same way the lunarium blade of my stormsword would soak up and swat away blaster bolts in a battle.

I would have laughed at the bloody irony if it wouldn’t have hurt so much.

The jewelry box might have saved my life, but sharp needles of pain stabbed through my chest with every breath, indicating that I had at least a couple of cracked ribs to go along with my burned, blistered skin.

I tucked the box back into my ruined coat, then fumbled for my belt. My shaking fingers slipped off the slick black leather a few times, but I finally managed to pluck a small silver injector out of a slot. I rammed the injector into my right thigh, and a skinbond flooded my body, the healing chemicals zipping through my veins in a cool, soothing wave.

I drew in a breath, and air filled my lungs a little more easily than before. The skinbond also eased the hot, pulsing ache in my skull, although that strange little vibration kept tweaking my mind, like someone was plucking a bowstring in the bottom of my brain again and again. No doubt I had a concussion to go along with my scorched skin and cracked ribs. Wonderful.

Zane? Zane!

Asterin’s voice ripped through my mind. I blinked in surprise. Was she trying to reach me telepathically? Could she even do that? According to Beatrice’s research, Asterin had some sort of power, although my grandmother hadn’t been able to pin down exactly what kind of psion Asterin was or what abilities she might have. Yet another mystery surrounding the Erzton lady.

I listened, but Asterin’s voice didn’t sound again, either in my mind or out loud. The industrial part of the castle had soundproof walls, and the only noise was the steady hiss of the air-conditioning system. Perhaps the concussion had made me hallucinate her voice.

Either way, I needed to find her, so I plucked a second skinbond injector off my belt and rammed it into my thigh. Another wave of healing chemicals flooded my body, easing more of my injuries. My mind cleared, and I was able to wall off the rest of the pain and pack it all down into a little permaglass box, where it would stay until I released it—or died, whichever came first.

I braced one hand on the wall, then slowly staggered up and onto my feet. Asterin’s blaster was lying on the floor, so I scooped it up and hooked it to my belt. The Techwavers had also left behind my stormsword. I reached out with my telekinesis and waggled my fingers, and the sword flew up off the tile and zipped over into my hand.

As soon as my fingers closed around the silver hilt, renewed energy flowed through my body, and the blade glowed a pale blue, as though the innate power stored deep inside the lunarium was refueling and refreshing my own psionic abilities.

I twirled my sword around in my hand, straightened up, and hurried down the corridor. I had to reach Asterin before Silas decided he didn’t need a hostage after all.

I hadn’t been incapacitated for more than a few minutes, but that was long enough to give the Techwavers a big head start. I moved from one corridor to the next, trying to figure out where Silas had taken Asterin, but the soundproofed walls cloaked their passage, even the loud, clanking footsteps of the Black Scarabs.

No one else seemed to realize that the castle had been breached, because no alarms blared, and I didn’t pass a single guard, which meant they were all outside on the lawn with the Regals.

I was on my own.

In some ways, I had always been on my own. Sure, I had my father and my grandmother and my numerous cousins, along with the other members of House Zimmer, but the weight of being a Regal, especially an heir, had always fallen on me since I was an only child—

I shook my head. Nope, not an only child. Not anymore. Now I had a sister.

Perhaps I was more concussed than I’d thought because I couldn’t stop thinking about Vesper. What would my little sister have done if she were here? Probably broken into one of the R&D labs, grabbed a bunch of disparate parts and pieces, and engineered them into the perfect weapon to defeat Silas and his Black Scarabs.

A grim smile tugged at my lips. Right now, I would have happily used one of Vesper’s unorthodox creations if it meant killing the Techwavers and saving Asterin.

I reached a junction where the corridor split left and right. Both were empty and quiet, and I couldn’t tell which direction Silas had gone. But I only had two choices, so I headed toward the left. That corridor led deeper into the industrial side of the castle where more of Jorge’s labs were located and thus the most likely place for the Techwaver to steal something.

I took three steps in that direction before I abruptly stopped.

No.

The word popped into my mind, firm and insistent. What was that? Had Asterin . . . just whispered a thought to me? But it didn’t feel like a telepathic thought from someone else, more like a nudge from my own power. Besides, Asterin most likely thought I was dead, just like Silas did, so she would have no reason to try to telepathically send a message to me.

I shook my head again and took another step toward the left.

No.

The word bloomed in my mind again, and a sense of frustrating wrongness swept over me, as though I was trying to shove my foot into a boot that was two sizes too small. I didn’t know what was happening, what my psionic abilities were trying to tell me, but I spun around in the opposite direction and stepped toward the other corridor.

Yes.

The wrongness vanished, replaced by a buoyant rightness, so I tightened my grip on my sword and hurried in that direction.

I followed the twists and turns of the corridor and went up some stairs, stopping every so often to look and listen, but I still didn’t hear anything that would tell me exactly where the Techwavers had gone—

Clank-clank.

Clank-clank.

The sounds echoed down the corridor. Definitely Black Scarab footsteps, coming from somewhere up ahead and over to my . . . right.

I moved from one corridor to the next, my strides becoming quicker and longer with each passing second. I reached another junction and slowed down. Despite my growing concern for Asterin, I forced myself to stop and peer around the corner.

Up ahead, the gray tile gave way to pink stone, indicating that I had moved from the industrial part of the castle back into the old-fashioned quarters where the Rojillo family resided. I frowned. Why would Silas bypass all the R&D labs with their proprietary projects, designs, and technology and come to this section of the castle? What was he after?

I eased down the corridor. I didn’t hear any more footsteps, but the Black Scarabs had definitely come this way. In the middle of the corridor, a door was creaking back and forth, barely clinging to its hinges. Deep grooves were visible in the door, as though a Black Scarab had punched its spiked fingers deep into the thick wood and forcibly ripped the barrier open.

I crept up to the broken door. No sounds drifted out of the room, so I lifted my sword a little higher, drew in a breath, and rushed forward straight into . . . a library.

My gaze darted left and right, but the area was empty. No Silas, no Black Scarabs, and no Asterin.

Frowning, I lowered my sword and took a closer look. Wooden cases bristling with books, statues, vases, and other knickknacks. Several comfortable, overstuffed chairs arranged in front of a small cold fireplace. Framed family portraits lining the stone mantel above. Gold, silver, and bronze-colored honeysuckles sitting in pots on a high, wide shelf, their tendrils draping all the way down to the floor like a glittering, metallic waterfall.

My frown deepened. If Silas was here to steal House Rojillo tech, then why hadn’t he gone into the main R&D lab that Asterin had breached earlier? The most valuable prototypes were stored there, along with terminals and servers that would contain scores of potential designs and other sensitive information. This library looked like all the other ones I’d seen in the castle. Why, it wasn’t even the largest one I’d passed, and I didn’t spot anything worth stealing—

A glimmer of gray caught my eye. Asterin’s cloak was lying in a crumpled heap in front of one of the bookcases. I hurried over and snatched up the cloak, but no blood stained the fine fabric. Silas and the Black Scarabs hadn’t hurt her—yet.

But the longer I looked at the cloak, the more it bothered me. Earlier, outside the R&D lab, I’d yanked hard on the garment, but it had remained securely wrapped around Asterin’s body. Now here it was, just lying in the library. Why? One of the Black Scarabs could have ripped it off . . . or perhaps Asterin had deliberately taken it off and left it behind as some sort of clue.

I dropped the cloak and looked at the bookcase. A small antique sundial was squatting on one of the shelves, although it was turned at a strange angle, with part of the silver casing hanging over the edge of the wood. Curious, I took hold of the sundial. It wouldn’t lift off the shelf, but it seemed like it would twist to the right . . .

Click.

Part of the bookcase popped forward, then rolled to the side, revealing a small alcove with a standing desk and a lone terminal tucked inside. My eyes narrowed. Smart of Jorge to hide a terminal in this library, although his cleverness had backfired. Silas must have decided it would be far easier to access this terminal instead of trying to breach the R&D lab, although Asterin had managed it—

Beep-beep-beep.

I glanced down. A small black grenade was lying below the terminal, a red light flashing on the side. Terrific. Just what I needed. A booby trap.

I cursed and shoved the sliding bookcase back into position as far as it would go, in hopes that it would partially contain the impending explosion. Then I whirled around. I was too deep in the library to escape before the grenade detonated, so I rushed toward the largest, sturdiest-looking piece of furniture, a wooden desk tucked in the far corner next to the fireplace.

I leaped up and slid across the top of the desk, sending plastipapers and gelpens flying in all directions. A small, potted silver honeysuckle also flew off the desktop, smacked against the fireplace, and broke apart, spewing dirt and pottery everywhere.

I landed on the opposite side and shoved the accompanying chair out of the way, sending it banging back into the wall. Then I ducked down and scrambled beneath the desk, plastering myself up against the side closest to the wall and the farthest away from the grenade, hoping, hoping, hoping that the thick wood would be strong enough to shield me from the coming blast—

BOOM!