He emerged from the closet and tore off his loose infirmary gown. He was a green priest; he needed no clothing other than his traditional loincloth. He worked his way through the well-lit corridors, creeping along, ready to hide if he heard someone coming. The station seemed empty.
In the loading bay, Aelin found one of the inspection pods still sitting there. The small ship was too slow for anyone to use it for escape, but it suited him just fine. He did not wish to get away. Whatever the crisis might be, it did not interest him.
With his mind so vast and open, it took him considerable effort to limit his thoughts to mundane matters, such as operating the controls of the pod. This was important. He felt the pull of that presence out there.
As the inspection pod drifted away from the station, he saw the ominous shadow cloud looming above the extraction operations like a cosmic thunderstorm. Iswander ships rushed everywhere, scrambling for safety. With his newfound sensitivity, Aelin could sense the angry chaos of the Shana Rei, but the bloaters beckoned him.
He flew out into the emptiness.
ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN
OSIRA’H
After the attack in the archives, Prince Reyn and his parents were kept in secure quarters as the King and Queen prepared to depart for Theroc. Osira’h would travel with them to the supposed safety of the worldforest planet, although she suspected the Shana Rei could reach wherever they liked. She could not forget the shadowy blankness in those possessed Ildirans who had tried to kill them in the Vault of Failures…
Gale’nh was also distraught about the incident. “I should have felt it,” he told her, hanging his head. “I watched the black nebula engulf the Kolpraxa—but this type of darkness strikes through the thism, as it did on our mother’s birthday. Yet I was unprepared. It can take hold of anyone, anywhere.”
“But you resisted it,” she pointed out as they walked toward Rod’h’s quarters in the Prism Palace. “Maybe I can, too. Maybe all of the halfbreeds can.”
Because she would be departing for Theroc in a day, she wanted to say goodbye to her siblings. As she and Gale’nh approached the closed door to Rod’h’s chamber, though, Osira’h felt a thrum of pain like a dagger jab. It came from Rod’h.
Gale’nh felt it as well. He pushed forward and hurled open the chamber door, prepared to fight, ready to save his brother.
Startled by the interruption, Rod’h yanked his hand away from the open flames in a bowl of contained fire. His eyes sparkled with a sheen of pain. Embarrassed, he snapped, “You shouldn’t have interrupted me. I nearly succeeded!” He stared at his burned hand, then held it close to his chest.
Osira’h ran to him, reaching for his arm. When he resisted, she tugged harder, pulling his hand toward her so she could look at the blisters on his palm. “You held your hand in the fire!” The reflectorized bowl continued to shimmer as flames ate at the fuel crystals, building higher with intense white fire.
Rod’h was defensive. “The faeros are out there, but they don’t care. I was using the fire to call them, to demand that they listen to me. I needed to feel it burn.”
Osira’h suddenly understood and chided him. “The faeros listen because they wish to—not because you inflict pain on yourself.”
Rod’h shook his head. “I know the story of Mage-Imperator Xiba’h. He went into the center of Mijistra, stood before his people, doused himself with fuel—then ignited his body, burned his flesh from his bones. And that was enough.” Rod’h clenched his fist, ignoring the pain. “It was enough!” He closed his eyes and turned away from the bowl of bright fire. “I need to do something! Why do I have these powers if not to use them? Why was I born?”
Osira’h was guarded. “The faeros are capricious. I have communicated with them, in a fashion… but they also destroyed many of our worlds. They leveled Mijistra. Do not be so eager to rouse them.”
“Unless there is no other way,” Gale’nh said.
He stood fixated, staring at the bowl of fire. He extended his hand toward the bright white flames, hesitant at first and then steady. Reaching his fingers into the fire, he touched the heart of the fuel crystals.
As soon as Gale’nh touched them, the flames went out.
He lifted his hand away, flexed the fingers. “We may need more than fire this time.”
Alone in her quarters, having packed for her trip to Theroc, Osira’h sat meditating. She had lit a small bowl of fuel crystals. The flames were tiny, flickering fingers.
Even after the end of the Elemental War, she had been among the faeros, had felt their volatile thoughts, incomprehensible emotions of joy and energy, of rage and defeat. Osira’h knew the fiery elementals were afraid of her, and furious with her, but considered her different, an intriguing anomaly.
Could she call them? Maybe they would listen—but only if they wanted to. She had to make them want to. She had to make them notice her.
She reached into the bright flame and touched the fire. She flinched from the pain, yanked her fingers back. The white flames danced as if laughing at her.
She forced her fingers into the fire again, reaching out with her mind. Far away, she felt the faeros, sensed them stir. At the back of her thoughts she held the awful echoing image of Mage-Imperator Xiba’h standing in his own pyre.
Osira’h kept her hand in the fire for as long as she could endure the burn, then yanked it away. In a distant part of her mind she felt a tremor, a surge of bright heat. The faeros had noticed her.
ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN
LEE ISWANDER
The horrific shadow cloud loomed over the extraction field, the harvesting equipment, the bloaters, and their deflated husks. Black hexagonal ships emerged and were joined by another squad of ominous vessels: Klikiss robot ships!
Alone in the admin module, Lee Iswander transmitted over the main comm, “All ships head down into the star system and regroup.” He remembered those last hours on Sheol, when he had been unable to save his people at the lava-processing facility. Here, instead of being surrounded by magma plumes and thermal spikes, his operations were in the cold dark of space—and the shadow cloud was the coldest and darkest of all.
Iswander clenched his jaw. This time, he would make certain his people got away. He had no room in his conscience for further blame. The Sheol disaster had been caused by bad luck, overconfidence, and poor planning. Here, though—how could he ever have planned for the Shana Rei and the Klikiss robots?
Outside, Alec Pannebaker drove a bulky cargo ship filled with ekti cylinders. He accelerated at full power, but the load was so massive he gained little speed. An obvious target, he seemed to be daring the Shana Rei to notice him. Pannebaker headed up and away from the bloaters, trying to outrun the shadow cloud. Over the comm, he let out a whoop of triumph, as if he did this sort of thing for fun.
As the robot ships blasted at the evacuating ships, Iswander watched the bloaters, holding his breath. He had seen images of how Elisa “accidentally” ignited the ekti-filled bags in the first cluster—with disastrous consequences. Knowing how volatile the bloaters were, Iswander had taken tremendous precautions, providing shielding and insulation to dampen any ignition source in the ekti-extraction field. Still one stray spark could cause another chain-reaction explosion.
Iswander narrowed his eyes. Maybe that’s what he needed.