Chapter 2
RYNETH
The men who stepped through wore dark armor, broken only by faint lines of dull gray. Masks covered the lower halves of their faces, and their eyes were hidden behind mirrored visors that reflected the cramped rows back at the passengers. They carried short-barreled guns.
“Everyone, stay where you are,” the first one called. His voice was flattened by a modulator, more mechanical than human. “Hands visible.”
“What do we do now?” Lysa whispered, panic cracking her voice.
“We stay put,” Karo hissed.
They all watched as the uniformed men moved row by row, ignoring the screams, their attention fixed on the multi-slates that sat around their wrists.
“I don’t want to stay put.” Lysa tried to get up, but both Karo and Ryneth jerked forward and held her down before she could be noticed.
Good Light, Ryneth wanted to run. He wanted to break the window and fling himself into the black if it meant not staying here.
Dragging his fingertips over the glass, he wondered for one stupid second why this was happening to him, why he hadn’t taken the Kassa run, why he’d never see Tavi again.
Then he looked back at the horror unfolding in front of him. People were being tagged. Orders were being barked.
There was nowhere to go. No shadows to vanish into. No way out.
He drew a breath and forced his hands out of his pockets where they’d crept back. The static climbed his forearms, hot and restless, looking for metal, looking for somewhere to jump.
“Eyes forward,” one of them said. His boots struck the deck in a measured pattern as he paced down the aisle. “Row 7 through 10. Anyone moves or doesn’t shut up, we make an example. I promise you don’t want to volunteer.”
The nearest man moved along their row, scanning faces like inventory. His visor passed over Lysa, flicked to Karo, then caught on Ryneth. He stopped.
Ryneth stared back. His heartbeat pounded in his throat while he tried to keep his expression blank. “There’s nothing here for you,” he said as calmly as he could. “Just contract labor.”
The man tilted his head. The movement was sharp and oddly animal. “Pretty contract labor.” His gaze dropped to Ryneth’s hands. “Look at them.”
Ryneth’s knuckles were giving off the faintest halo. Only someone looking right at him would see the tiny static arcs jumping between his fingers.
The man smiled then, a small curl that didn’t touch his eyes.
Another voice from the front called, “Shackle them all. Everyone! You are now prisoners.”
They came down the aisle in practiced formation, guns up, boots hitting the deck in time. People flinched out of their way as far as the harnesses allowed. Karo threw an arm in front of Lysa. Someone at the back unbuckled and lurched for the opposite aisle.
The nearest masked man didn’t even turn. He swung the butt of his rifle sideways. The sound of it connecting with bone was flat. The person went down and didn’t move again.
Lysa’s scream tore through him. The rifle swung toward her.
“I warned you,” someone spat.
Ryneth’s body moved before his brain caught up. He half-rose from the seat, the harness biting hard across his chest and jerking him short. One hand came up out of habit, palm open, as if he could push them back with nothing but stubbornness.
A gloved hand caught his forearm, hard enough to bruise. Another fist crashed across his face. Ryneth’s head snapped sideways, his teeth cutting into the inside of his cheek. Copper flooded his mouth.
The static surged anyway. He swallowed it back on instinct, every muscle locking down as he forced it inward. His vision blurred at the edges, heat crawling under his skin, but nothing jumped. Nothing showed.
The men swore anyway, more irritated than alarmed. “Careful,” one barked. “Concordant keeps their assets intact. Especially a pretty boy like that. Don’t damage the merchandise.”
Concordant.
The name hit him like a blow.
Concordant was a word people only used in whispers. A story told behind locked doors, about the ones who took people and left empty beds behind.
“Concordant?”
Saying it out loud made his stomach drop.
Lysa’s breath hitched. “No—no, that’s just stories,” she whispered, knuckles white around her harness.
Karo went rigid beside her, his bravado gone in an instant. “They don’t come this close to Helion, do they?”
“Stop,” Lysa choked out. “Just stop talking.”
The nearest man swung the gun a fraction toward her. “Quiet.”
Ryneth stood before he could breathe again. “Leave her alone!”
The man turned his visor back to Ryneth. “Or?”
The shock-stick slammed into Ryneth’s ribs.
Pain lanced through him. An electric burn coiled in his chest, trying to meet it.
For a second, he couldn’t tell where he ended and the shock began.
His knees buckled as the world tilted and he hit the floor hard enough to knock what little air he had left from his lungs.
Voices blurred around him.
“Finish restraining them,” the leader ordered. “We’re still on course for Helion. Five hours out. Once we land, sort the lot by destination and prepare transfer to buyer routes.”
Good Light.
The words hit like ice, sending dread through him so fast it turned his stomach.
They were still taking them to Helion, only now Helion was no longer where the journey ended. They were landing there to sort them, to move them, to send them wherever they had been sold.
This had been a worker shuttle. A job. Money. A future for him and his foster family.
This was meant to be safe.
Ryneth tried to push himself up, but his arms shook.
Hands rolled him onto his side. Cold restraints bit around his wrists and ankles, locking with dull clicks against the deck.
Something rough slid over his head, down past his eyes, his mouth, cinching closed at his throat.
The inner lining tingled faintly as it settled.
The world narrowed to darkness and the scratch of mesh against his lips.
Air still reached him, barely enough to breathe.
He felt Lysa’s fingers brush his ankle. He tried to answer her, to say her name, but the hood stole the shape from his voice.
“Ryneth!” she cried. The sound cut off as if someone yanked her back.
“Tower, upload the manifest,” a voice said close to his covered ear. “Begin bidding. Mark this one premium.”
They were going to sell them off.
Could this be what happened back home?
But how?
Ryneth and the others had defended the Ward. They had done everything right.
He tried to kick his feet, but panic made the movements jerky. A canister hissed and something cold flooded the hood, burning his throat as he inhaled.
Ryneth fought, but his body felt strange, as if he was no longer in it but floating above the scene. Back home. The kitchen. Mara and Tavi and the other boys.
“Easy now,” someone muttered, almost soothing.
The pressure shifted. The static twitched and failed. His hands trembled behind his back, and he pressed the chip at his hip, fingers shaking.
If something feels wrong, you get off the ship at the first safe port. There are more places than Helion.
Mara?
But no one answered.