Onidus 29
Metal rattles overhead. Pieces move and scrape. I am too weak and broken to care who it is or what has become of my body or my soul. My world has shattered.
“Onidus? Solara?”
A panel rips free. Sunlight beams inside our casket. Ryz’s face peers down. He disappears again. Voices shout. More metal moves. And soon, there’s a large enough hole for us to crawl through.
Ryz offers me a hand. “Come on.”
I just look away and clutch Solara’s body to me.
A hole blows open beside me. Kassian appears in a burst of fire. He crouches and eases inside. “Ooh, shit. Is she…”
I nod, unable to get my voice to work any longer.
Chris appears in the opening. “Move, child.”
Kassian scoffs but does as he requests.
Chris hunkers inside with me, frees the stuck metal that’s pinned my legs, and collects Solara in his arms. Then he makes his way out. “Come.”
Kassian and Elsion help me out and get under my arms. They support me as I stumble after Chris and toward his ship.
ION and the others are loaded in the hangar. When we enter Chris’ medical bay and our Embers deposit me on a bed, I find Ulian already working on Solara, who has an oxygen mask strapped to her mouth.
“She’s gone,” I tell him. “No heartbeat.”
“That’s only what you think,” he says, opening each of her eyes and shining a flashlight over them. “I’m not ready to call it.”
“I will get us back to Silvian as fast as I can.” Chris leaves. Seconds later, the ship hums with powered-up thrusters, and my body sinks heavier into the bed. Kassian and Elsion stay with me, keeping me steady during the jarring ascent.
Outside the windows, Amphirans and Earthen Federation ships patrol the skies.
“Did the souls make it home?” I ask, to distract myself from the hope that Solara will survive. Hope has only ever been a liar to me.
“Almost there now.” Ulian motions to Ryz, who grabs a blazing gold injection cartridge from a cabinet and hands it to him. Ulian snaps the medicinal cylinder into an injector and presses it into her core.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Her Vibrance is unstable. I need to merge the pieces of it.” Ulian withdraws the needle and places it into her again.
“It is fractured. But I can bring it together. It won’t look pretty.
More like a wicked sun than an orb, but that’s better than her dying.
And she needs it to help her heal from this massive hemorrhaging. ”
Massive… My heart wrenches with agony.
Ryz rests a hand to my shoulder and grips it. In his eyes is the same worry I feel.
“It looked like she’d taken a shot to the chest when I found her,” I offer.
Ulian chews his lip. “That’s what I’d guess too. The only reason you two survived was your Afterburn blast torched off a lot of debris. Then her shield went up.”
“A shield, when she’s this broken?” Ryz asks. “When she has fragmented Ignesium Vibrance in her?”
Ulian connects her to a soulfire IV that pumps golden fluid into her veins. “We all have a basic function. Some of us heal. Others like to burn.” He glances at Ryz and then me. “Her instinct is to protect, to shield. And she…”
Ulian wipes his sweating forehead on a sleeve. “She healed Oriclen the traditional way. She summoned her harness’ power to save him after barely two days of training.”
Elsion and Kassian look on from the doorway.
“But she’s human,” Kassian remarks.
“Was. She’s going to need surgery to remove the fragments. So once I’ve got her stable, I need everyone out so I can sterilize the room.
“Strap him down, would you?” Ulian directs to Kassian and Elsion.
They bind my body to the table while Ryz connects me to an IV.
“Superboss Afterburn, by the way,” Ryz mutters.
“I didn’t want her…” I look over at Solara’s motionless face.
“I get it,” Ryz says, gently patting my shoulder again. “See you in a bit, brother.”
When Ryz and the Embers have left, I reach out and snag Solara’s hand with a finger. Ulian scans her repeatedly until he determines she’s stable. Then he uses an assistive arm to pull out pieces of metal and her wrecked exo-suit from her chest.
The surgery takes hours. I’m battle weary and in my own pain. But I refuse to let myself fall asleep.
The moment he’s done and has bandaged her up, he assesses me, patches me up, turns her monitor so I can watch her slow heartbeat dance over the screen, then leaves us to rest. But I can’t, not until I see her eyes look up at mine, and her lips curl in a smile.
I need to have her with me to feel at peace enough to sleep.
When I have the strength, I unstrap myself, sit up, and put my boots on the floor. Walking to her isn’t as easy as I’d hoped, but I manage the clumsy attempt, then crawl onto her bed and tuck myself around her.
I sweep the strands of hair from her face.
She didn’t seem to mind that my face was scarred or that I was secretive about some of my emotions. She didn’t care that war is my life. She wanted to be out here with me.
For the rest of the night, I lie beside her and cling to every beep of her heartbeat.
I could’ve prevented this if I’d never offered the option, if I’d asked her to be mine, lied and told her that was the only way.
But I couldn’t lie to her. I needed to know what she would choose.
And she chose to run to me in the end, even though she knew she would die.
“I’m sorry I didn’t put you before the others. I should’ve just carried you out of the prison. But there were so many. It’s my job.” Pain binds my lungs in tight bands. But I’ll never do it again,” I whisper to her. “Just don’t leave me here without you.”
Leaving a kiss on her forehead, I rest my head beside hers. Come back to me, please.
She inhales a deeper breath.
I clutch her hand in mine.
Then another deeper breath. Her heart beats faster. Solara’s eyelids flutter.
“I’m here.” I run a finger over the pumping vein in her neck.
Solara weakly turns her head and peers sleepily up at me with eyes that shimmer gold.
I can see her soulfire.
“Hey.” I stroke her cheek with my thumb. “You made it.”
“It…fucking…hurts,” she wheezes, then draws in another breath through her mask. “Why didn’t anyone…tell me…how much Vibrance burns?”
Solara twists her neck, straining to get away from a vein of gold light. “Oh… Ow.”
“Ulian!” I call out. “She’s awake!”
He rushes in with everyone else as I get up. I sit beside her on a stool and kiss the backs of her fingers.
“Hello, you little spitfire,” Ulian says. “Let’s get your healed Vibrance checked out.”
Solara looks over at me again, the new light in her irises filling me with excitement for the days ahead.
She laughs. “I can feel it…in my eyes. Fire is way cooler…than diamond halos. Tasia would be furious.”
I laugh and wipe the tears from my face, relieved she’s still with us. I’m never letting go of her again.