Sea of Stars (Kricket #2) Read online

  He mulls over what I said, approaching me with caution. “No. We still have them—your bodyguards from the palace. They’re still tucked away safely in their cells. When we locate the other two, they may not be so fortunate.”

  “What do you want to know? I’ll tell you anything—just don’t hurt Trey. He’s only trying to protect me, nothing more. He loves this house. He’s loyal to Rafe.”

  Geteron steps into the ring of light I’m in. “How do the Alameeda get past our defensive shields?” he asks.

  I exhale a deep breath, because he wants information on something I don’t know. I’ll have to bluff him. Before I can answer, though, a loud, squeaky hinge sounds from behind Geteron. From the open doorway, Kyon strolls into the room. His arrogant mouth twists into a smug smile. “It’s not very difficult to infiltrate your defenses. You deny the supernatural. You find her gifts illogical, even when the proof of her abilities stares you in the face.”

  Geteron is confused for a moment. I’m not. I beg him, “Let me go! Please! He’s going to kill us!”

  Kyon ignores me; his focus remains on Geteron. “How many times did she tell you I was coming?” he asks Geteron as he moves closer to us. “A handful? More?”

  “Who are you?” Geteron asks with a wary tone. “Who let you in here?”

  “No one let me in here. I killed all your guards. You didn’t answer my question. How many times did she warn you that I was coming?”

  “You’re Alameeda!” Geteron sneers in an outraged tone.

  “I was worried she’d convince you of our arrival scheduled for a few parts from now. I decided to change our plan—make it earlier. I thought if we arrived silently, I’d have a chance of locating her before we decimate you. I believed she’d at least attempt to warn you of my new plan. She doesn’t trust me at all; it’s a failing of hers. So I have to assume you either didn’t believe her or you harmed her in some way, making her unable or unwilling to help you. Which one is it?”

  “Please let me go,” I whisper to Geteron, eyeing Kyon as he shark-smiles at Geteron.

  Geteron reaches for his harbinger, but he’s not quick enough. Kyon throws a star-shaped blade; it lights up, glowing with blue fire. It makes a whirling sound as it whips forward, striking Geteron in the middle of the forehead. Once implanted, it does the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, it latches onto his skin and drills into his head, boring completely through until it comes out the other side. The shiny stars continue to spin, boomeranging back around. Kyon lifts his wrist in the air as the killing star comes back to him, docking itself on the metal wristband. Geteron teeters on his feet for a moment before he buckles and falls backward to the floor. Brains shoot out of the hole in his forehead upon the impact.

  Kyon walks to him, kicking his foot with the toe of his boot. Then, his eyes lift to mine. My stomach clenches in fear as he assesses me with a cold stare. “For someone who can see the future, you don’t do it so well.”

  I laugh humorlessly, belying my terror. “It sometimes sneaks up on me,” I say as I raise my chin.

  “You shouldn’t allow it to do that,” he admonishes.

  “It’s a moot point now.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You said you’d kill me when you found me.”

  “And I always keep my word with you, don’t I?” he asks.

  “No. Not always. You seem to flake a little when I outsmart you.”

  “You are resourceful,” he replies in an offhanded way. “But you appear to be less so now.” He walks around the post, knocking on it behind me. It makes a hollow sound. “Forget how to blend in?”

  “Ugh! Just do it already and get it over with,” I snarl. I feel like I’m half dead anyway. I’m sick with fear—that part ending doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. But as soon as the words are out, I regret them.

  “Do what? Kill you? Do you want me to?”

  “It seems like the lesser evil at the moment.”

  He nears me, his massive form has never made me feel as small as I do right now. He extracts a long, sharp dagger from a shoulder holster beneath his arm. With the hilt in his hand, he lays the flat of the blade just under my ear; the metal feels cool against my feverish skin. The fingers of his other hand weave in my hair, pulling it back, forcing my eyes up to meet his steely blue ones. The flat side of the knife shifts in his hand, moving to the back of my neck. He twists his wrist; the sharp edge rests firmly against my nape. With one broad stroke of it, he can probably cut off my head.

  “Any last words?” he asks me.

  I remain silent, because screw him.

  “You’re so defiant,” he says, but there’s an admiration in his tone that he can’t quite hide. His hand tightens on my hair. “Aren’t you going to close your eyes?”

  I glare at him.

  A smile grows on his lips. “You’re stronger than them all.” With one brutal stroke he cuts off my hair. I bite down on my already swollen bottom lip as my hair is ripped from me. Bringing his massive hand in front of my eyes to show me, we watch my hair turn black and shrivel to dust. Kyon opens his fingers, letting the ashlike residue fall from his grasp. Reaching out, he threads his fingers in my silky blond tresses, which are growing back to their former length before his eyes.

  “Do you know why it does that?” he asks me. “Why your hair regrows so quickly?”

  “No, do you?” I quirk my eyebrow at him in question.

  “It’s part of your genetic engineering. Do you know what happens when I cut your hair?” He lets my newly regrown hair spill over his fingertips, and I’m reminded of a miser and his gold.

  “It renders me unable to sell it at Gurlz Need Weaves?”

  Kyon’s blue eyes dance with suppressed humor. “Is that a drawback?”

  “Where I come from, a little extra money would’ve been handy.”

  “You’ll never have to worry about money again.”

  “I guess that’s one good thing about dying.”

  “Do you know what hair is?” he asks me.

  I sigh, tired of his game already. “A collection of dead cells,” I reply.

  “To be more accurate, it’s made up of long chains of amino acids joined together by peptide bonds forming polypeptide bonds. When I cut your hair, it forces your body to regenerate cells more rapidly. It rejuvenates you, making you—”

  “—freakish?” I ask, attempting to find the word for which he’s searching.

  “Immortal . . . or very near to it. You won’t physically grow much older than you are now, if you continue cutting your hair on a regular basis.”

  “That won’t make me immortal, because you can still kill me with your knife.”

  He trails the sharp edge of steel over my cheek, heading for my mouth. “I find pleasure in your ability to reason. I’m growing tired of inane blonds.”

  “That sounds like a cultural hazard for you as an Alameeda. Most of you are pretty stupid.”

  He lets my insult roll off him, as if he agrees with me. “Priestesses can be very naïve, and most of them are spoiled to the core.”

  “So you deserve each other. How nice for you.”

  His blade rests against my lips. He lifts it and holds it away from me so I can see my mouth reflected in its silver gleam. “Look at this . . . your bottom lip is not so broken anymore . . .”

  I suck in my lip, running my tongue over the surface of it. The cracks that were there have healed a bit—the marks aren’t gone, but they’re no longer scabby.

  A shiver tears through me. “It’s ridiculous that you know more about my body than I do.”

  His knife skims lightly over my chin, down the front of my neck, over my chest, pausing above my frantically beating heart. “I should know everything about your body. It belongs to me.”

  “Yuck!” I make a face, “I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.�
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  He stiffens. “You’re so melodramatic.”

  “So your plan isn’t to kill me? You plan to keep me,” I say, already knowing I’m right. Part of me is relieved that he doesn’t want to cut out my heart right away, but another part of me is desperate because he still believes he owns me, and I can’t have that.

  “We’re going to destroy this ship. I came here to save you.”

  “I have another way you can save me: go away and don’t kill anyone. It’s a simple plan, one you can grasp.”

  He shrugs. “Eh, my way’s better,” he says with a smug smile. “It’s the prophecy, Kricket. A house will fall. We’re making sure that it’s not our house.”

  “You’re the only aggressors here,” I counter. “Rafe isn’t looking for a fight.”

  “Oh no? Why have they been after the Tectonic Peninsula? It’s a staging point to mount an attack against Alameeda.”

  “Probably because you moved your troops to the borders of Peney first. Don’t try to spin this. You guys were there when I arrived in Rafe.”

  From the pocket of his uniform, Kyon pulls out a silver disk. He touches it to the manacles on my wrists; it sticks to them like a magnet. Lights flash as it makes a high-pitched sound until one cuff clicks open on my wrist. “I wouldn’t dream of spinning anything with you. You’re a Diviner of Truth.” I don’t try to correct him with the fact that I can discern only lies, not necessarily the truth. He plucks the disk off the cuff, transferring it to the other one as he remarks, “You cannot deny that Rafe went looking for you at the same time as we did. That wasn’t an accident. They have an agenda, Kricket.” When my other restraint clicks open, I’m unable to hold myself up. Kyon catches me in his arms before I fall down. With a deep scowl, he murmurs, “You’re weak.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, as my cheek rests against his neck. I’m really not fine, though. I feel like I may pass out at any second. Black dots swim in my vision.

  Trying to focus on something concrete, I stare at Kyon’s tribal tattoos on his throat. They’re military—a distinction for those who serve, but Kyon’s are more than that because they’re unlike the ones I saw on Forester or Lecto, his former bodyguards. He has special markings, about which I know nothing. Whereas Trey’s markings are black swirls and flowing lines, Kyon’s are more like black, connected crop circles.

  “How long were you unconscious?” he asks, holding me to him.

  I lift my head from him trying to gain some distance, “Long enough.”

  “You never even had a chance to see me change our plan, did you?” he asks.

  “You wouldn’t be here if I did.”

  He scoffs at my bravado. “I think you overestimate your skills for diplomacy. You’re Alameeda; no one here can see past that.”

  “All of you Etharians are racists. You guys pretend to be more progressive than humans, but it’s really just a front. You hate each other for the most ridiculous reasons: different eye color, hair color, and skin tone. Seriously, I know a stylist in the ’hood who can make you a brunet in less than an hour.”

  “That’s an oversimplification of the situation.”

  “Is it? Okay, let’s lay it on the line: your lifestyle choices scare the hell outta me. You can’t own people. It’s wrong!”

  “We take care of our priestesses. We make you our consorts.”

  “That’s bullshit if there’s no choice, and you know it!”

  “Every civilization on both of our worlds has slavery.”

  “Not legally. Not anymore.”

  “But it exists, legal or otherwise, correct?”

  I ignore his point. “But it’s wrong. Might does not make right,” I retort.

  “Become mightier than me and we’ll discuss it.”

  He lifts me onto my feet, putting his enormous hand on the back of my neck. He bends like he’s about to scoop me up off my feet, but I stop him. “I can walk,” I say testily, trying to shrug off his possessive paw gripping me. His hand tightens, causing me to wince.

  “You’re still weak. Do I need to cut your hair again?” he asks.

  “No,” I mumble. Under my breath I add, “You total freak.”

  Kyon walks me past Geteron’s corpse. I want to kick Geteron because if he’d listened to me in the beginning, he’d probably still be alive. When we reach the doorway of the interrogation room, Kyon slips his hand around my waist, pulling me to his side. He raps on the door. It swings open to show a handful of heavily armed Alameeda soldiers. Amid them is a slight, waifish form of an Alameeda priestess. Her look is Goth-like, with thick, black eyeliner, making her blue eyes resemble hot-spring pools ringed with volcanic sand. Her hair is long, platinum, and wavy, pulled back in a ponytail. Attired in a dark Alameeda military uniform, she looks delicate despite the sharp lines it creates on her.

  In my confusion, my mouth gapes as Rafe soldiers walk through the corridor near us. No one raises an eyebrow or sounds an alarm. It’s as if we don’t exist to them. I scream to a pair of soldiers who get close to us, “Hey! Over here! Help me!” I wave my arm, but I can’t get anyone’s attention; they just walk on by as if nothing is out of the norm. I want to cry, but I clamp down on my emotions as my respiration doubles.

  Kyon’s hand shifts to my nape again. “They can’t hear you,” he warns.

  “Why?” I retort.

  Goth-girl’s eyebrows raise in surprise. Maybe she can’t believe the tone I’ve taken with him, or my hostility, or the fact that I’m resisting him at all, I don’t know, but it startles her. She murmurs, “You’ve become a shadow to them, and like all shadows, you’re dark and silent.”

  “Is that your schtick? Making us shadows?” I ask scathingly.

  “Schtick?” she echoes in confusion. “What is schtick?” She looks to Kyon for guidance.

  “Ignore her, Phlix,” he advises. “She’s a savage.”

  I can hardly believe what I just heard. I let loose on him, “I’m the savage? Me? I’m not the one bent on eradicating whole houses of Etharians. That’s you, freaks!” I point to all of them.

  Kyon ignores me, “Lead us out of here, Phlix,” he orders Goth-girl.

  “What did she mean about us eradicating whole houses of Etharians?” Phlix asks in a weak, whispery voice.

  Kyon doesn’t bother to answer her question, but barks, “Phlix!”

  His tone startles her; she must be unaccustomed to him yelling at her, especially in a tense situation like this one. She turns and leads us away from the interrogation room, past laughing Rafe Brigadets gathered around another animated soldier who is telling the story of how Trey shot me with the freston, restarting my heart.

  All around me, life continues as if we don’t exist. Whenever someone comes across our path, we skirt them, maneuvering against walls. It doesn’t sit well with the brawny Alameeda soldiers that Kyon has amassed, though. Their disdain for their enemies is apparent in the way they hold out their guns to the heads of the oblivious who pass us by.

  As we walk, I size up my genetic rival, frightened by her power. But when she glances back at me, I don’t get the sense that she sees me as her enemy, much less her rival. Phlix is simply curious about the savage priestess Kyon has uncovered.

  While we weave our way up and out of the underbelly of the floating city, the unsuspecting citizens surrounding me make my stomach ache. They have no idea that their world is about to end. Entering the deck level of the ship, I shield my eyes from the streaming sunshine that illuminates through the geometric windows.

  We pass through great domed lobbies with gleaming floors and lush atriums; they make the City Insurance Building where I once worked in Chicago look like a hovel. To my right is a beautifully appointed cafeteria-style dining station where officers and their staff are eating at round tables. Delicate urns of kafcan arise from the center of tables on gleaming trays. Embedded in the tables are men
us whose selections are delivered by floating tray-bots. The aroma of the food is enough to make my stomach growl. It’s been too long since I’ve had something to eat.

  Feeling faint, I sway against Kyon. My hand goes to Kyon’s back in an attempt to keep myself on my feet. Kyon pauses for a moment. Holding me to his side with his arm around my waist, he lets me rest my cheek against his chest. He strokes my hair. “My little savage isn’t infallible after all? Shall I carry you?” he asks.

  My hand brushes up against something cold and steely holstered on his thigh. I snatch the weapon off him, holding his harbinger in my hand. I press the Gatling-like barrels up under his chin. “Welcome to the future,” I murmur. My hand trembles from the weight of the weapon. “You’re on time delay, Kyon. You do only what I want you to do.” I bluff, as if this is all part of my plan.

  I back away from him, keeping his harbinger that I have no idea how to fire pointed at him. His entourage trains their weapons on me. Kyon waves them off as he barks, “I kill anyone who harms her!” He brings his eyes back to me and says, “Kricket, no one wants you here. You need to come home now. I’ll take care of you.”

  “I’m not a part of your cult! You don’t own me,” I growl. Stumbling back from them, ice-cold air permeates the space. I push through it, stirring black smoky swirls around me. The smoke rises in plumes and evaporates into the air as I burst from within Phlix’s shadow world bubble.

  I bump into the table behind me, scattering the contents of a half-eaten meal unto the floor. The soldiers at the table jerk to their feet, startled by my sudden appearance among them out of thin air. I shiver in dread, no longer able to see Kyon and his entourage in their circle of secrecy. I push past the table, colliding with a chair and almost falling over it. A Brigadet reaches for me; I turn the harbinger on him. He raises his hands to me in surrender. I randomly swing Kyon’s weapon around, pointing it in the most unprofessional way at anyone who comes near me as I continue to retreat.

  “The Alameeda are here!” My tone is desperate with unshed tears. “They’re going to kill all of you if you don’t stop them! You have to do something!” I look at their faces frantically. “Do something! Please!”