Chapter 16 #2
Rhyden didn’t look up from his laptop when he scoffed, fingers still moving. He sat on the couch far from Cyrus. "Trainee," Rhyden said. "You’re no full-fledged Hunter. A fledgling, maybe. And a liability."
Her watch buzzed suddenly, and she lifted her wrist, staring at the message that came across from Xara.
I need you, please.
A beat passed. Then another message came. It’s about Keir. He’s being reckless.
Her brows furrowed. Xara would truly ask her to come in the middle of a city-wide blackout?
She felt a warning thrum at the base of her skull. This wasn’t like her to be so rash, so foolish. Mostly. If she couldn’t help as a Hunter, maybe she could help as a friend?
A shadow drifted over her bare feet, cool like the winter. She shivered even as the apartment’s heavy air burned with every inhale.
The shadow coiled higher, as if spurred by her reaction, until she felt it nudge her spine, curl around her earrings, and seep into her ears, straight into her brain. Whispering things to her. Things she couldn’t hear, but feel.
She felt as if she had no other choice but to go.
Rin was in a trance as she walked to Rhyden’s room, where she’d left her phone. She lifted it and found Xara’s message there.
She typed a reply. Where are you?
Xara responded immediately. Our dorm. Come quickly, please? Another pause. And alone.
Atlas whispered into Vesperin’s ear. His shadows drifted over her, into her. This was the only way. She would never have gone of her own volition. No, his Star was too smart for that. Vesperin already had suspicions about the other girl. She needed a nudge.
Atlas must be the one to do so.
It was a masterful web the Celestial wove. The clock was ticking.
And time was running out.
Soon.
But first, he made them sleep.
Rin dressed quickly in tight pants and a thin, white top with small straps. She laced up her holster-style corset on top, filling it with her Echogun and a few knives, before she shoved her feet into her boots.
Every time Rin paused, trying to shake herself awake, the shadows forced her to continue.
Until she left Rhyden’s bedroom and walked down the hall in a daze.
It was quiet. She waited for them to stop her, ask after her.
Nothing ever came. Rhyden was slumped over his laptop, Cyrus was asleep on the couch, and Auren was awake—watching her.
He stood before the door, cloak on, hood drawn. Scythe in his gloved hands.
Rin stopped and stared up at him.
"Vesperin, where are you going?"
"Out," she said, the word breathless.
From the shadows of his hood, Auren’s eyes searched her face. "To be a Hunter? You understand I cannot let you go."
"Not to be a Hunter, but to be a friend. You will let me go, Auren." Shadows tickled her nape. "I have to go."
Whatever he saw in her eyes made him step aside, scythe lowered. He stood taut like a bowstring, head following after her as she opened the door and left the apartment.
He would follow her, she realized distantly. Wherever she went.
Solar City’s oppressive heat clung to Rin as she walked the short distance from Rhyden’s penthouse to the Academy gates. Inside, she breathed a sigh of relief. It was the quietest she’d ever seen the Academy. Everyone was gone, called to hunt.
When she pushed open the door to her dorm, she saw Xara standing in the kitchen. The lights were off.
"Xara?" Rin asked.
Xara didn’t turn. There was a small bottle in her hand. She shook it absently, and Rin heard a rattle—pills.
"Xara, what’s wrong? You said it was Keir. Is he here, too? Are you both okay?"
"It’s not Keir. I just needed you to come." Xara turned, holding up the bottle of pills. "I wasn’t going to drug you. I wanted to give you a fighting chance against them." Her voice broke.
"Drug me—Xara, what are you talking about? Against who?"
Faint sounds came from outside the door, like hushed footsteps. Rin pulled her Echogun out of her holster, thumb resting on the safety.
Xara’s chin wobbled. "I wasn’t going to drug you. I promise, but—" Her hands shook as she uncapped the bottle. Rin saw the label. Somnocept.
It was then that Rin knew:
"You drugged Cyrus at the gala."
Xara sobbed. "I had to. They made me. If I didn’t—my mother. She’s sick. She needs medicine. Sabine Blackfall blackmailed me into helping her to help my mother, to get her the medicine she needs." She tipped the bottle over, and pills clattered onto the floor. "They’re outside, waiting on you."
Rin struggled to keep track. It was only her training—and that cool pressure at her nape—that made her keep her wits about her. "Who, Xara?"
"Director Ilsa. She’s outside with President Shin. Sabine Blackfall told them to be here, to wait on you, after I-I drugged you. I’m sorry. I had no choice."
Auren would come for Rin—he was probably here now, watching.
Xara’s sobs were so violent, she fell to her knees and rocked.
Rin’s heart twisted. "There’s always a choice.
I’m sorry you felt pushed into this, but I can’t help you.
I can’t give myself over to them." She began to walk down the hall to the room she’d once called hers.
Because she knew now—this place, the Academy, the dorms—it wasn’t hers anymore.
A flash of white stood by her closed door.
Auren was here. He lifted a finger to his lips and made a shushing sound. Rin met his eyes, nodding.
From the kitchen, Xara was still gasping. "No, no, please—you don’t understand. Just go with them. Pretend to be drugged, if you have to! They won’t hurt you. I promise."
Rin stopped, lips twisting downward into a pained grimace. She held up her hand to Auren, then returned to the kitchen, knowing he was listening, waiting for her signal so he could portal them away from here.
"Did Sabine tell you that they wouldn’t hurt me?
If she did, she lied. She has hurt me, and many others.
" Rin threw caution to the wind, lit it on fire. "She’s been hurting me since I was a little girl. She and Talor have been illegally experimenting on Aetherborns. That’s what she wants to do to me—that’s what she has done to me.
If she and Blackfall Industries had their way, I would be kept in a cage for the rest of my short life, bled and sedated.
" She stared at the bottle of Somnocept, pills scattered on the floor by Xara’s knees.
"If you cared about your mother, you would never let her take any more of Blackfall Industries’ drugs ever again.
If she’s sick, it may not be what you think.
Sabine Blackfall has a way of twisting everything for her gain.
Don’t trust her, Xara. Please. This is me begging you.
You… you’re my friend. I care about you and your mother.
Tell Keir and run far from here. Don’t be a pawn in someone else’s game. "
"Keir doesn’t want me."
"What?"
"He doesn’t want me. I’ve pushed him away. I see him staring at Jasver. Sometimes, I wish the two of them were Soulbonds instead. The Stars made a mistake."
The words shattered over Rin.
She’d never heard of anyone wishing their Soulbond away before.
What if she and Kit had been a mistake? What if instead of being her Soulbond, he was meant to be her enemy? What if the Stars had gotten their bond all wrong?
What was love, really, but a choice?
"Do you love him?" Rin asked softly.
"Keir or Jasver?"
Somehow, that was all the answer Rin needed. "You have feelings for Jasver, too, don’t you?"
"I’d give my life for him—for them both. They don’t need me, though. They’re better off together."
"Tell them, Xara. Love who you want. We’re all destined for the same place."
She turned her back on Xara and entered the darkened hall, taking Auren’s offered hand. He cut his scythe through the air, pulling her alongside him.
Fate was a fickle thing. Atlas had been watching it, studying it, weaving it, for so long he was numb to its intricacies.
All it took was one insignificant thing to change the trajectory of a life.
That was why he had to pay such close attention to everything, everyone.
A nudge here, a whisper there, a carefully placed word, place, or moment—all to ensure Vesperin walked the path he needed her to.
So he could have her finally.
The meeting with the girl seemed of no consequence, but without it, Vesperin would never have returned to her Soulbonds with anger in her belly, slighted again by the women who had adopted her.
She never would have stumbled out of the portal with Auren, into the living area, where Cyrus Soltren and Rhyden Valkar were awakening from their sleep. She never would have uttered darkly:
"If the power in all of Solar City is out, then we need to take this opportunity to bring it all down. The Academy is empty. Whatever they have below—we need to get rid of it. Now. Before they hurt anyone else."
And most of all, Vesperin Vox would never have realized that love is more than a bond of Soul. It was eternal. It was a name given to a fallen being on the first planet, it was devotion, and it was what he felt for her.
They were not Soulbonds, but he would love her still, regardless.
Rin pulled the mask up over her nose and mouth. Her holster sat heavy at her waist and hips, loaded with weapons.
Rhyden cocked his gun and slid it into his own holster. His dark mask matched hers, red eyes gleaming. He wore his usual leather jacket, thrown over a skin-tight black shirt and black pants. His boots were laced tightly, as were hers.
It was the first time she’d seen Auren in such dark clothes.
He wore tight black pants and a long-sleeved black shirt—borrowed from Cyrus, as they were similar in size.
She watched Auren thread the leather of his belt through the hoops with a suddenly dry mouth.
He looked up and met her eyes, heat simmering there.
She looked away first, grateful for her mask, as it hid how she bit her lip.