Kellee
The ship jerked out of motion, and the vines, which had tangled across my chest during travel, almost severed me in half from the force of the sudden deceleration. I clung to consciousness enough to know the wash of bright light pouring in through the ship’s windows was not normal. Where it touched the floor, small curls of smoke drifted into the air.
Talen, fully latched into the ship’s systems by hundreds of silvery veins, jerked in the chair and threw his head back, agony tearing through him.
I freed a handful of claws, cut my restraints, and lunged for him. I hadn’t guarded him for hundreds of years for him to die now, bound to the chair by tek-and-organic veins, his eyes wide, silver, and unseeing, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to fix whatever was wrong with him.
“What’s happening?” Sota was out of his chair and heading toward the light-flooded windows, but the moment he touched its glow, he stopped. The light, where it touched his boot and leg, began to melt both.
“Get out of the light, you idiot!”
“But it doesn’t hurt,” he remarked.
Sirius hissed something alien and fae. “This is Safira…” He approached the light, his aura pumped up on Faerie’s magic, setting him ablaze. “But something is very wrong.”
Something was wrong, all right. Talen hissed every breath through his teeth. I reached out to touch his hand, clamped on the flightchair’s arm, but the tek tying him down writhed and sank deeper into his veins, forcing me back.
“This was a fucking terrible idea, Talen! If you die, you fae son of a bitch, I don’t care where your wretched soul goes, I’m coming after you so you can explain what happened to Kesh. Do you hear me?”
His chest heaved.
I considered cutting him free, but crudely severing a ship’s bond with its pilot would kill them both.
“Pole… star.” He pushed the word out.
“Is that what that light is?” Hulia asked. “It’s stunning.”
One problem at a time. “Dammit, Sirius, can you help him?”
The guardian tore himself away from observing the light. “Light from the polestar is flooding the ship’s external sensors. Talen is just experiencing too much stimuli. He’ll recover.”
My heart plummeted through my gut. “If that’s the polestar out there, then where’s Kesh?”
“It’s not the entire polestar.” Sirius dug the acorn and the thimble out of his pocket, both glowing in his palm. “Not yet—”
“Take the pieces to her!” Talen struggled to speak, and just as Sirius looked down at the pieces in his hands, a blast of light stole the guardian’s fire-laden presence away, transporting him right off the ship.
“You finally got rid of him, right?” I asked Talen.
A hint of a smile lifted his lips.
“Kesh is alive?” I asked.
His lashes fluttered but didn’t fully blink over his silver eyes. “Yes.” I could only imagine the mindfuck he was dealing with, but at least he was coherent. “Then take us down there, Talen.”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Dark fae… coming. Hunt… coming. Need control and power above Safira.” His speech came easier now, and although his eyes stayed silver, he blinked over their sheen. “We opened the door…” he said. “Now there’s nowhere left for anyone to hide.”