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Nero Nights 19
When I wake up the next morning, I roll over to see Valen staring up at the ceiling. There’s a deep furrow between his brows. His hands are tucked behind his head. He’d deep in thought.“What are you thinking about?” I ask, resting a hand on his bare chest.He doesn’t answer me right away, and I can almost feel his tangled thoughts like they’re a tangible thing in the air. He breathes slow, hard. His vivid blue eyes don’t break their accusation of the ceiling.“The only way this ends is if we kill Cyrillius,” Valen eventually says. “But it’s nearly impossible to get to him with his armies, and then there are the Kinduri.”It’s the Kinduri that really worry me. I could have killed Cyrillius lunars ago if it hadn’t been for them getting in my mind. “The numbers aren’t in our favor, Nova,” he says. He places one of his hands over mine, holding it firmly to his chest. “A group of Nero tried to take Dominion out solars ago, and they failed. If just you and I go in there, I don’t know if w
Nero Nights 20
Valen punches in the command. And white-hot fire floods from the Neron, through my entire body, exploding my awareness with power. The ship launches forward, but as I harness the power, as I concentrate on the Core, we don’t shake and quake like the first time we punched through space. We sing forward. Expecting the force, we’re able to stabilize ourselves. Faster and faster until I can hardly breathe, we fire through space. My heart is racing. I think the skin has burned off of my hands and they’re nothing but bone anymore as the Neron grows hotter. My entire body is glowing Neron blue and my hair floats up, suspended. “Nova!” Valen yells, his voice strained. “I’ve got this!” I call back, even as my heart threatens to explode. “I’ve got this!” Faster, faster, faster. I keep expecting the ship to rattle to pieces, to tear itself apart, or obliterate into dust. But it’s smooth and quiet. And then there’s a pop. We slide forward, losing speed until at last, we come to a halt.
Nero Nights 21
My throat tightens and my heart is pounding in my chest.We have to get this just right, be so careful about what we say. We will only get one shot at this.“Where would the two of you like to start?” Arden asks. “I have a feeling there is a lot of ground to cover.”Valen and I look at each other. We talked about this. We planned. We strategized.“I’ll begin by saying that in some things I had my own free will,” Valen starts, looking right at Arden. “I’ve never known what it was to do good, or that influence and power could be used for anything other than domination. But even someone like me can change under the right circumstances.”He goes into his history. He talks about his childhood on Starvis. He talks about the tribes and how they worked, how savage life there was. He talks about finding his tribe slaughtered, and how he and the other children nearly starved to death.And then comes Dominion and Cyrillius. He talks about being rescued by the company and the man and being given
Nero Nights 22
“So instead of letting us know you weren’t dead, you’ve been shacking up with that dirty little puppet?”Nymiah. “I’m sorry,” I say, not even annoyed at having to explain myself. “We crash-landed on this planet across the galaxy and all communications were down. I had no way to get in touch until now.”“Excuses,” Edan teases, but I know I’m not the only one overjoyed to hear the other’s voice. “But I think there’s someone else you’re going to be a little more interested to talk to than the rest of us.”My brows furrow.“Nova.”And every emotion in me explodes. “Dad?”There are two beats and they’re the longest in the world as he gathers his voice. “I knew you’d make it through.”“You’re…you’re…” But even now, when I’m hearing his voice, I still can’t make myself say the words.“You saved me, Nova,” Dad says, his voice full of emotion.“Apparently, it took a bit for your Neron trick to work,” Edan says, “but about twenty minutes after you and that ship suddenly disap
Nero Nights 1
“As far as I can tell, all the major connections to the core are intact,” I say, wiping sweat from my brow. I’ve been crawling around down in the belly of the ship for over an hour, tangled in the mechanical guts of this beast, double and triple checking that every critical connection between the ship and the core is still working. “There are some cracks to the interior of the hull, but so far, all the majorly important parts of this ship are still functioning.” “So we can fix whatever is broken?” Valen asks. He’s crouched on the floor of the mechanical room above me at the opening of the hatch, looking down into the tunnels I’m occupying. My eyes rise to meet his. I shake my head and shrug. “That’s the problem. I have no idea what’s broken. I can’t fix it if I don’t know what to fix.” He extends a hand to me and pulls me up and out of the tunnel, back onto the floor of the room with him. “We will figure it out,” he says, his tone reassuring. “There’s a reason Cyrillius sent half t
Nero Nights 2
I crush the thought of him, trying to push away the image of his cut throat and all the blood pooling around him. I can’t. I just can’t process that right now. So I think about this ship. I think about its mechanisms. I think about the blueprints for every ship I’ve ever seen. I think about how I would design a ship like this if I were going to create my own. This is what you know, I tell myself. This is what you’re good at. Focus on what you know. With pipes and bolts and combustors flashing through my mind, I drift off to sleep. “Nova,” a soft voice says into my ear. Slowly, I blink, seeing the same eyes I was seeing just a moment ago. A little smile pulls on my lips. Valen smiles too, and my heart flutters. There isn’t another smile in the galaxy like Valen’s. “Come eat,” he says, extending a hand to help me up. I blink, slightly confused as my brain wakes and realizes Valen is actually here and isn’t going to fade away with the wind. I look around, re-orienting myself.
Nero Nights 3
My body hasn’t had time to learn this planet’s schedule yet, but somehow I know it’s early in the morning when my eyes slide open. The blankets are pulled up to my chin. My body is relaxed and comfortable. It’s actually…nice. And I realize it’s because I have some degree of peace of mind. Right now, I’m not pretending to be someone or something I’m not. After weeks of hiding everything on Isroth, here, I don’t have to be anything. I’m just Nova. Across the space, just five feet away, I see Valen. He’s still asleep. He’s sprawled on his back but his head is angled toward me, giving me a full view of his face. He looks younger when he sleeps. I’ve done the math and figure he’s roughly five solars older than me. But he looks incredibly young in sleep. He could nearly pass for a teenager. His black eyelashes fan out over his cheeks. His lips are pink and soft. There aren’t any creases in his forehead, furrowed with concern. He just looks peaceful. And I have to wonder, what a dif
Nero Nights 4
“It’s beautiful,” I say in wonder, shaking my head. “I still prefer Kaelea, but this comes in as a close second.” My eyes slide over to look at Valen. He looks straight ahead, holding a serious expression. But a small smile cracks in one corner of his mouth. I laugh, bumping his shoulder with mine, throwing him off balance. “You’re creating some unrealistic expectations, Valen Nero,” I say as I walk across the sand until the tips of my boots are touching the water. “I’m going to be disappointed by the time you actually take me to our planet.” My stomach knots as soon as I realize what I’ve just said. I stand stark still, my eyes freezing on one point on the water. Behind me, Valen is very still and very quiet, too. “I…” I scramble to make this better, to make things less awkward. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-” Valen’s hand slips into mine and I look up into his eyes. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “It…it feels right. We have seen our lives there, we’ve seen our family there. It
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