“Mom!” Tayel urged.
Mom grabbed her hand again. “I’m here,” she panted. “Hurry.”
Tayel ran. She led the way over another line of thick wires several meters ahead, whipping her head to the side in time to glance the raider standing there, something small, square, and dark in his grip, a rounded button on top.
Distance shrunk Otto’s hunched frame as his dash propelled him ahead. Tayel was being left behind. She’d been running at his pace before, but now something was different. She couldn’t catch up because something dragged her down. Her frenzied mind couldn’t place what, but the station was right there — only another thirty seconds. It could be twenty seconds if she could just—
The ground shuddered. The sudden sway knocked her off her feet as a fiery explosion erupted from behind. She crashed into the ground while the orange-glow of the blaze illuminated the world. The ground still shook, and everything ached, but the station wasn’t far. She jumped to a stand and sprinted. A small crowd ascended the steps to the station, but Jace and Otto stood at the base of the stairs. She made it to them.
“Tayel.” Jace didn’t look at her while he uttered her name.
She followed his far-off gaze. There was that something which had held her back, that precious person she’d relied on more than halfway through the journey up. Tayel endured the ice-hot fire of shock in her veins at the absence of who should have been holding her hand.
Mom jogged, her whole body drooping from fatigue and her arms moving loose at her sides. Behind her, the ground fell away. The cement caved toward her like an inverted ocean wave, spouting dust as chunks disappeared. She reached out her hand. Tayel ran forward, reached out her hand, too, and stared straight into the dark green eyes of her favorite person in the universe. And then she watched that person fall through the sky.
“MOM!”
Metal arms wrapped around Tayel’s middle and hoisted her into the air. They dragged her away from the eroding road and carried her up the steps while she kicked and screamed and watched as the ground stopped dissolving just past where her Mom fell through.
She yanked the leather jacket underneath her. “Let me go!”
Jace touched her arm, his own face contorted by grief, but she slapped it away. At the top of the steps, Otto set her down. She cried. She bawled. She had no concept of time. Ages passed before she opened her salty, swollen eyes. It must have been a lifetime she sat there.
“I’m sorry, Tayel,” Otto said.
Her lips trembled, but everything else had gone numb.
Jace knelt beside her. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. She… she may have… There are plenty of things she could have caught hold of before…” He looked up above her head, and went quiet.
She buried her head in her knees.
“Last call!” an officer yelled.
“If you two are gonna get going, now is the time,” Otto said.
“You’re not going?” Jace asked. Panic tightened his words.
“Not yet. There are others who need me here. Listen, I’ll try’n find your parents, Jace. I really will. Tayel, well. Maybe I can bring some peace o’ mind to Elsha with me.”
“Tayel.” Jace squeezed her arm.
She grimaced at the fear in his voice. She had to move. What was she going to do — stay here with the raiders and the deteriorating city? That would help nothing. The idea of abandoning home hurt. Everything hurt. Thinking hurt. But there was nothing left for her here.
“Let’s go,” she breathed.
He nodded. “I’m sorry, Tayel. She… she would want you to keep going.”
Tayel took a steadying breath. She stood. She climbed the rest of the stairs, her whole body shaking from tears, and trudged into the shuttle behind Jace. Otto held up a hand in farewell outside. He promised once more that he’d find Mom — give Tayel some peace — but Tayel knew she would never see her Mom again. The door slid shut, the engines roared, and the shuttle took her away from everything she’d ever known.
Chapter 3
Iselglith strode through Modnik’s capitol building corridors, a bodyguard to either side of him. Blue fire torches perched along the walls dimly lit their path down the stone walkways, but the cool glow did little to distract him from his nerves. His escorts toted enormous weapons. If they discovered who he really was — a shapeshifter, a Rokkir — he’d be dead. For now, he took the shape of a wolf-like Varg, just like them. Not just any Varg, either, but Modnik’s newly elected councilman.
He turned left with the two men into the hangar. A pristine white cruiser waited there primed and ready, its engines already hot.
“Your ship, councilman,” one of the bodyguards growled.
“This is impeccable timing, sir,” said the other. “It is Karun’s will you were elected when you were. Are you certain you don’t require an escort?”
Iselglith met the man’s concerned stare. His stomach churned. Were it not for their false god, would he have gotten away with such coincidences? He turned to the ship before him and summoned his proudest, most commanding voice.
“I know how to pilot a ship, and the stealth systems will see me past the invasion.” He tongued his canine teeth. He still wasn’t used to sounding so guttural, so… animalistic. “And only a councilman should ever have to leave home.”
Both bodyguards bowed. Iselglith bowed back — shaky and quick — and stepped inside the spacious vessel. There was enough room to stand in the hold, but he had to crouch to settle into the cockpit. His large ears twitched as he maneuvered the controls and took flight into the blizzard.
Below, against the stark white surface of planet Modnik, dozens of dark portals sprouted from the snow and let through countless battalions of raiders. They brought with them land vessels and weapons and a thirst to destroy. Those invaders weren’t even the worst of it. Rokkir war ships would come later to take the Varg.
Iselglith tore his eyes away from the beginning of the end for those poor creatures. He shouldn’t feel sympathy for them, but he did. Maybe it was because he lived among them for three months. Maybe it was nerves. Either way, it didn’t matter now. The invasion had already begun.
He shook his head and focused on the void of space before him. It was almost peaceful until the ship’s comm device went off, a sharp beeping that cut through the quiet and caused him to veer too far left. He pressed the blinking button on the dashboard.
“Y-yes?” he greeted, bringing his ship back on course.
“Iselglith.”
His hot-blooded Varg heart froze solid in his chest. He’d done something wrong — terribly, terribly wrong. “R-Ruxbane, sir?”
“I need to come aboard your transport. Our systems show you’ve left orbit.”
“Y-yes, sir. I’ll prepare a disc right away, sir.”
Iselglith clicked the connection off with a trembling paw. Why did the leader of his people want to see him? He switched on autopilot. His breaths drew shallow and hot in the hold as he pulled a small circular disc out of his robe’s pocket and laid it on the floor. Maybe the Varg found out who he was the moment he’d departed. Maybe the Rokkir’s plan was ruined because of him.
The tiny slivers of solidified dark aether in the metal disc glowed purple for a beat before a tall, dark portal grew from it. Ruxbane stepped through.
The man was an intimidating sight to behold, even if he did shape himself as a human. His dark eyes and angular face warned of the danger in his presence, and a tall stature with chin held high hinted at the power he held. Iselglith seemed to shrink in the ship, as though all the walls had suddenly sprouted higher.