3. CHAPTER THREE #3
Her eyes swept across the crowd the way they always did, taking in the movement and the wave of raised hands. Then something snagged. Her gaze dropped, narrowed, and landed on me.
From the pit, I could see her face clearly. Those aquamarine eyes were brighter in person than any screen had ever managed to capture. They were pointed directly at me.
No way.
I glanced left—a couple was swaying, their eyes on each other. To the right, a pair of aliens were taking selfies. Nobody near me was doing anything worth looking at.
It was just me.
I looked back. She was still looking at me.
She’d gone still for a fraction of a beat, mid-step, her mic lifted but no sound coming out.
The band carried on behind her, but the tiniest hitch rippled through them.
People near me started to notice. I felt heads turning, gazes bouncing between me and the stage, trying to figure out what she was staring at.
Then she smiled.
As if it were just for me, which was insane, because I was one face in a pit of thousands.
This close, I could see the light threads in her hair shifting color, the sheen on her collarbone, and the way her chest moved when she breathed. Her dual-pulse flickered at her throat—a double flash, too quick, like it had stumbled.
Then she blinked, stepped back into the song as if nothing had happened, and the ballad poured out of her. But she kept finding me. Between movements, in the half-seconds when the lights shifted and nobody was supposed to notice where her eyes went, they came back.
Every time.
I flip-flopped from telling myself I had imagined it to wondering if it was just the glare from the spotlight that had made it seem that way.
The thing was, I’d seen her shows. All of them, archived and fan-recorded. She looked at crowds, cameras, and the front row as a singular mass. I had never seen her stare at one person for that long.
The rest of the concert blurred into an overload of color and movement.
There was an aerial section where she floated above us on a suspended platform, gravity cheated by some invisible rig.
There was a call-and-response with the crowd that shook the walls.
Then there was a final encore where she dragged out the last chorus until my throat burned from trying to match her.
When the last song ended, the arena exploded into sound—applause, screaming, and bracelets flashing like a thousand tiny stars blinking rapidly. Some Velans and humans were even sobbing and screaming, “I love you, Zhari!”
Zhari bowed her head, breathing hard, sweat—or the Velan equivalent—making her skin shine. For a second, she looked almost human.
“Thank you, Lumara!” she yelled to the crowd. “Can’t wait to see you all again!”
Then she took a bow, and the floor beneath her lowered her back under the stage.
Then, just like that, it was over.
The house lights brightened. The bracelet pulses slowed and stilled. People around me started moving again, their voices jumpy with adrenaline as they rehashed their favorite moments: the key change in the third song, the new choreography, and the surprise riff on an old hit.
I stood there for a long second, pinned in place by the ghost of the sound. My ears rang. My skin felt thin, as if everything might leak out if I moved too fast.
“So how was that?” the Velan from the line asked, reappearing at my elbow, her cheeks still glowing.
“I think I left my soul somewhere near the third chorus,” I rasped. My voice sounded shredded, as if I had swallowed a comet.
She laughed. “Her concerts are always transcendent. Every single time.” She bumped my shoulder lightly. “Are you staying in the city? You should check out the Prism Quarter. They have the coolest Zhari merchandise and the best Lunar Fizz on the whole planet.”
I smiled. “Lunar Fizz? I’m actually pretty parched.” I shook my head in disbelief. “I might never leave Vela! I’m having the time of my life.”
She flashed me a wink. “Enjoy your stay, human girl.”
We were swept toward the exits with everyone else, shuffling slowly through corridors that hummed with leftover energy. Holo-screens along the walls replayed highlights from the show we’d just seen, already edited and already perfect.
I caught a glimpse of the ballad shot from a side angle, and my feet stopped moving. Zhari was silhouetted against the crowd, her face tilted toward the pit. And there, just at the edge of the frame, was a figure.
Human.
You couldn’t see the face, just the back of a head, a shoulder, and skin that was very obviously not Velan. But I knew that shoulder. I owned that shoulder.
“Oh no,” I muttered.
Zhari’s eyes in the shot were locked on that exact spot, and her expression was one I couldn’t read. She looked almost confused.
The cameras hadn’t caught the double-stutter of her pulse. But they had caught the direction of her stare.
It was aimed right where I’d been standing.
My chest went tight. It wasn’t my imagination. She had been looking at me. At me specifically. The replay was right there on a ten-foot screen, and it wasn’t lying.
Maybe none of it had happened. I’d been telling myself that. Maybe my brain had edited reality for narrative flavor.
I walked up the stairs to the coat check kiosk, flashing my wrist comm ticket.
Within a minute, my suitcase and bag were handed back to me.
I smiled, stepping off to the side as I pulled out my notebook.
I wanted to sketch before I headed off to find a hotel room.
There was no way I could let a show like that fade from my memory. What an incredible show.
I was still replaying it in my head when my brain moved on to merchandise.
I definitely needed a souvenir to bring back, maybe five.
A shirt, maybe a poster, and definitely one of those chromeskin bracelets I’d seen people wearing outside.
Something physical I could take home and hold up as proof that tonight had actually happened.
I scanned the corridor for a merchandise stand when a hand tapped my shoulder.
“Vada Lamoth?”
I turned. Two security staff members in dark, shiny shirts stood behind me, badges glowing softly at their collars. They were both Velan, each taller than me by a head.
My stomach dropped, as if it had left the rest of me behind.
“Uh—yes? I paid for my ticket, I swear.” I quickly activated my wrist comm and showed them the ticket.
“We know,” the one on the left said. “You’re not in trouble. Ms. Lumis has requested to meet with you.”
My brain did not process that sentence. It received the words, held them up to the light, turned them over, and then returned them marked insufficient data.
“I’m sorry,” I said, confused. “Ms. Who has requested to… what with me?”
The one on the right’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close. “Zhari Lumis. She’d like to see you backstage.”
“That was rhetorical. I obviously know who she is,” I muttered, looking down and shaking my head.
“Zhari Lumis wants to see me,” I repeated, as if saying it more slowly would make it make sense.
“Me. The nobody human with the smudged mascara and the Earth sticker on her wristband. That Vada Lamoth.” I looked up at them. “You’re sure you have the right one?”
“You’re the only Vada Lamoth in the building, miss,” the one on the left said.
That tracked, actually. The gate scanner had read my holo-ticket on the way in—name, species, seat assignment, probably my shoe size for all I knew. If Zhari had described me to security, all they had to do was pull up the scan log. One human woman in the pit section with long purple hair.
Not exactly hard to narrow down.
“Right. Obviously. Sure.”
I stood there for a second, mouth open, my brain completely offline. Then it rebooted into the most unhinged possible response.
“Can I grab merchandise first?”
They both stared at me.
“She’s one of the most famous women in the galaxy and wants to see you right now,” the one on the right said, “and you want to stop at the merchandise booth?”
“I’ve been eyeing this chromeskin bracelet all night, and I just—you know what, never mind.
Lead the way. Merchandise can wait. Merchandise can absolutely wait.
” My voice had gone up about three octaves.
“Oh my stars. I can’t believe she wants to see me.
I have been a huge fan of hers since… well, forever! ”
They looked at each other and rolled their eyes.
“Follow us, please.”
I looked past them, down the corridor that led to the regular exits. I could make a break for it. Probably. These two were tall, but I was scrappy and full of adrenaline, and my brain was currently running on dial-up.
Then I looked the other way, where the guard was already opening a side door. Beyond it, the light shifted—cooler and bluer, the color of places only staff and stars got to see.
My heart picked up a syncopated rhythm in my chest, all off-beat and reckless.
I tightened my grip on the strap of my bag. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go before I pass out and make this everyone’s problem.”
Whatever this was, I was already in it. There was no version of my life after this hallway that would look anything like before.