The lasgun blatted in her direction but Callista was already dodging the bolt before the owner of the weapon fired it. She expelled the air from her tight lungs and replaced it with a breath that fuelled the laugh she tossed towards her opposition. For a brief moment she went blind, then found herself watching the Primus gang member adjust their aim, their weapon moving sluggishly as though sliding through syrup — it was so easy now, to call down visions in the heat of the moment. Anticipating where he’d shoot next, she ducked, straightened, then blasted him straight in the gut.
Her shoulder ached as her arm suddenly shot out perpendicular to her torso. Callista flung her gaze down past her elbow and her eyes widened as she took in the lasbolt hovering in front of her palm. She slapped her hand down to the pavement; the bolt followed. Breathing hard, Callista wasted precious seconds staring. Chippers needed time to build up forcefields strong enough to move objects. All she’d done was think a split-second command at the lasbolt.
Not willing to trust her safety to a power she’d barely started learning how to use, she knelt to scoop up the personal shielding device she had dropped and glanced around at her fellow Maria as they fell into a protective ring with her at its centre. Rolling her eyes at their assumption that she was in any way important, Callista forced her way to the edge of the ring just as the one surviving light in the alley weakened, then putted out.
Lasbolts thundered down the street, striking shields and concrete. Callista bellowed a challenge as she broke free from the group and surged forward. A foreign spike of worry suddenly stabbed at her and she hesitated for a costly moment, feeling Bolt slide along the edges of her mind.
Someone shouted.
Callista swung her small shield up and cursed, narrowly missing being shot in the head.
Quit distracting me! she sent to Bolt.
She sprang up and ran full tilt towards the barricade of smoking hovercars that the Primus had set up across the street. She did not need to look back to know she was being supported by her clan; she felt them, just as she felt her dream man. Bolt’s presence was so strong it was as if he stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder.
Mere days ago it would have startled her to sense his energy this far across the city, right near the hoverbike bar that the Primus used as their headquarters, but now she found herself expecting it. Over the past fortnight, the happiest two weeks of her life, Callista had grown used to feeling him and speaking to him inside her mind. She and Bolt had spent their days almost exclusively together, trading knowledge and kisses.
But right now, as she barrelled through a gap between two trashed vehicles, following her shield and lasgun, she had no time for her memories or for him.
I could help… Bolt said.
Ala has barred you from any missions until you’re ready — and you really shouldn’t expose your powers just to bail me out of a small skirmish! she scolded him.
Outwardly, Callista was grinning. She’d just come across two startled Primus clanspeople.
The hot edge of her shield scored the chin of one; her lasgun drove a bolt through the other’s skull. She then transferred her weapon to her left hand to finish off the first man as the Maria poured out from behind her. While her companions killed those remaining on the street, Callista stood in front of the bar, shaking her head. The dingy windows were boarded up with thin slabs of wood, a flimsy material that would never stand up to a barrage of lasgun bolts.
Their headquarters don’t look particularly secure, Bolt commented.
‘It’ll be easy wipe them out,’ Callista said and threw a look at Matron who was now beside her. ‘You going to stop me or help me?’
Matron straightened, her lasgun resting on her hip like a tired child. ‘Not gonna stop you. But I sure as stark won’t be running in and getting us all killed. I’m the one in charge so I’m the one who gets the heat, you know.’
Callista gritted her teeth. She should listen to Matron, but here was a chance to eradicate an enemy for good.
‘Fine, but you can’t stop people coming in with me if they want to,’ Callista said. Matron opened her mouth, but Callista was already bellowing to the others, ‘We can destroy these fuckers right now — and we’ve got ’em cornered! So who’s with me?’
The Maria cheered in response and followed her, lasguns held high. Callista didn’t bother looking back to see if Matron was among them.
There was no resistance from the hoverbike racers in the bar. Unwilling to reach for their lasguns, they parked themselves beside tall glasses of something so vile and thick it might have been globbed into the drinking vessels instead of being poured. Some racers raised their hands in surrender; others pointed out Primus clanspeople hiding behind the tables. The Primus were then brought kicking and screaming into the centre of the bar, their death throes lit by ghoulish green lighting that made them appear to be the victims of some terrible ague.
Only when the bar was clear of Primus did Matron enter. Callista averted her eyes from the appointed leader of the mission and watched the bartender offer drinks to his new management. She was unable to shake off the unease tickling the hairs on the nape of her neck.
‘The Alcazaar are going to want blood for this,’ Callista muttered.
‘You still on about the Alcazaar usin’ them as muscle?’ Matron asked, stalking over to hold out a glass to Callista. ‘Give it a rest. If the Alcazaar really wanted us gone, they wouldn’t bother wasting coin-chips to pay some other clan to fight us. They’d take us out from the inside. Much cheaper.’
Waving a hand to decline the drink, Callista kept her voice casual to avoid inciting an argument. ‘Just trust me. I feel that I’m right.’
‘I need more than feelings, Dancer. So does Ala.’
Callista winced. Was she now so used to someone finally understanding and accepting her that she was becoming careless? She settled for a shrug. ‘I suppose we’ll find out after the Alcazaar discover this mess.’
***
Sandsa knelt on the floor beside his bed and rested his elbows on the blanket, pressing his palms together as though in prayer, just as he had seen so many souls do in his deserts and in the domains of his brothers and sisters. He could have killed any of the Primus clanspeople who had threatened Callista’s life, but she had sensed his desire to interfere and had talked him out of it. How could he continue to hide his abilities if it meant that she could get hurt?
He had enjoyed their days together but wondered how much patience he needed to burn through. He was acutely aware that while he had aeons to become an expert on Atsa’s intricate gang politics, Callista had perhaps lived a fifth of her life already — could she really afford to waste her time like this? But he didn’t push. He wanted her trust. He would need it for…for when he revealed his true identity. On the rare occasion that she thought about the gods, her mind was filled with a mixture of scorn and disbelief.
Last night he had woken in a panic, reaching for his mother as she succumbed to the ravages of time and crumbled to ash, murdered by her mortality. The images haunted him even now, searing across his vision until he was blind, his eyelids flapping uselessly. He could not call his mother’s face to mind. All he saw was Callista, a mortal, withering away in his arms. He had to save her.
He collapsed into a puddle of sand that then disintegrated.
‘Father!’ Sandsa shouted at the edge of the desert, loath to venture further from Atsa City, his booted feet planted solidly on the last patch of concrete unsullied by sand. ‘Father! I must ask something of you!’
He waited for over an hour, carefully keeping track of Callista to ensure that she did not return to find him missing. Eventually, the Ine arrived and offered to walk along the dunes with his son. Sandsa refused him, his fear tasting like bile on his tongue as he looked out at the desert.
‘You are afraid that the moment you return to your domain, you will be forced to leave her behind,’ his father said from several paces away, where his bare feet touched sand. ‘That fear is nothing compared to what your people are feeling. They wait for you, they cry out for you, and they still try to bind themselves to each other in your name, though even their least gifted know you have abandoned them.’
‘I wish to bind myself to a woman,’ Sandsa said through his teeth. ‘I deserve to have that option just as my people did.’
The binding process involved the mingling of spilled blood from two people, bringing them together forever; Sandsa had allowed his people to use the Magic they had within them to achieve it. After the ceremony, they carried identical scars on their palms for the rest of their lives, to show their loyalty to one another. It was how the Ine had bound himself to his human wife, so long ago. His immortal blood, after mixing with hers, had ensured her longevity. Of course, when the scars were taken from her, she had been condemned to death.
‘I must ask you something,’ Sandsa began, then hesitated, almost too afraid to know.
His father answered the question he had left unspoken. ‘Yes. Your immortality would pass to her if you used the binding.’ The Ine surged forward and grabbed Sandsa’s shoulders. ‘My son! Listen! You cannot cut yourself off from your people for too long or it will pain you in ways you cannot imagine — ’
Sandsa clenched his fists. ‘I don’t want to be their god! And you made a mistake, telling me this. Now I know I will never lose her to death.’
He turned to go, but a whisper of hot wind, sent from the other side of the planet where the star still burned, touched his cheek. Sandsa drew in a breath. His heart ached. To roam the sands again, to guide his people, to whisper in their ears…
‘I want nothing but her,’ he said and retreated to the solace of his room. He lay on the bed, listening to the steady drip, drip, drip of a leak within the walls. His heartbeat evened out to this sound as he waited for Callista to return.
But still he heard the muted, desperate pleas from afar. His skin grew slick with sweat. Gasping, Sandsa threw himself out of his room and into the large shared bathroom, tearing off his clothes so he could sit in the corner of the showers, icy water streaming over his head, plugging his ears and washing away the creeping guilt that threatened to take hold of him.
***
Raucous cheering greeted the heroes of the night but Callista refused to be drawn into the revelry. Her eyes darted around the lounge room, scanning for one target. Finding him missing, she pinched the sleeve of Bock’s jacket and asked, ‘Did Ala forbid Bolt from joining the party tonight?’
The teenager would know. Bolt had been spending his idle hours in the armoury, where Bock seemed to live permanently. The pair were often caught discussing which weapon Ala would let Bolt use — if she ever granted him permission to carry a firearm.
‘Nah, but I think he knows he’s not her favourite clansman,’ Bock replied, grinning. ‘That’s me, obviously, ain’t it?’
Callista dropped his arm and ran up the stairs towards the sleeping quarters. When she cleared the last step, she slowed, blinking against the glare that assaulted her eyes. After a moment, her vision adjusted and she was confronted with the undulating rise and fall of barren sands that stretched into the horizon in front of her and — a panicked glance around confirmed her fears — behind her as well. The wind moaned, sounding deeper and more mournful than anything she’d ever heard in her life.
Tears leaked from her eyes but never made it to her desperate lips, now chapped from the heat. A cord wrapped around her heart, leading her forward. Her legs felt distant and wooden, like uncontrollable stilts, causing her to sway.
And then she found him, sheltered between two dunes. He was crushed, deflated, his body surrendered to the ravages of the desert. But when he looked up, his blue eyes were a bright oasis, lit with hope.
You found me…
The scene melted away. Callista started when she found herself in the male bathroom, an icy spray moistening her skin. She held out her hand to help Bolt up from the floor of the showers, then blushed when he accepted, his nakedness suddenly evident. Callista tossed a towel at him.
‘Do you miss it?’ she asked, turning her back in his direction.
‘You mean the deserts?’
‘What else?’
Bolt’s hands curved over her shoulders and his lips grazed her neck on their journey over to one ear. Callista closed her eyes, trying — and failing — to stifle the ensuing shivers.
I would miss you more, he said. And there was only torment in the deserts for me. Only torment — until you found me in my dreams.
Callista arched backwards, moulding herself along his chest. I would miss you if went back there.
So I will not go, he said.
He moved her jacket aside to kiss the shoulder left bare by her tank top and then turned her around to capture her lips. His taste was so wonderful, so enticing, and she followed him into his room where she curled up beside him on the bed. They sat silently in the dark, absorbing the warmth of each other. After a while, Callista said, ‘My powers are growing. Did you see what I did tonight?’
He nodded. ‘I did. But I wonder if you can replicate that when adrenaline is not strengthening your focus. We will find out tomorrow.’
Eventually she grew tired and, waving off his offer of help, staggered into her own bed, divided from him by several walls. She sipped some coffein to keep awake, but soon found herself drifting into his subconscious. Bolt’s mind was full of sand gently dancing against his skin.
It soothed him in a way she never could.