Chapter 18
TASK
SFS POLARIS
Task awakens with a start, his heart hammering. He jumps from his bed, eyes searching the room as he tries to remember where he is.
Not on Nexarium, not holding his mother as the light leaves her eyes, not trying to back up his father as he runs forward to try to hold off the assailant. None of the things he’d just dreamed about. None of it happened.
He takes a breath, wandering to the window, pain coursing through his veins.
He should have woven last night, after the interrogation.
His men had performed well, delivering him information sooner than he’d anticipated, which meant he’d had a suspect to extract information from.
A bit of conversation overheard in one of the lounges late at night, which led them to another Guardian in his own wing.
He’d felt nothing as he’d touched the man, imbued him with pain until he was shouting, writhing in agony under Task’s hands. He’d deserved it, the traitor.
Task called Draven on his Prism after that, reporting to him what he’d gathered.
There were Revs on board the ship, and they’d infiltrated the Force.
Draven looked haggard, frail, even as he remained stoic in the face of this information.
“Keep your wits about you, Task,” he’d said, before ending the call.
“You are in line for the Governorship, after all.”
Task wasn’t sure what to make of the statement. It was as close to a formal announcement of heirship as he’d ever heard, but it still wasn’t official by Nexarian standards. It made Task wonder if, perhaps, Draven had less time than he’d imagined.
He'd dialed the Grand Healer afterwards, her face appearing on the holo in front of him as she sat behind her desk in the infirmary of Nexarium, blue screens with white lines and charts, an image of a brain and a spinal cord illuminated behind her.
“What can be done to keep him alive? What have you been doing in my absence?” he demanded.
She’d explained they’d been dosing the Governor with cortidium daily, and that it had helped him to sustain his ability, but that it was coming at the expense of his physical health.
They’d still been searching for a different solution, something that would address both his waning power and his ailing physical form, but had so far been unsuccessful.
She’d looked at him with compassion, then quietly suggested that Task may want to have a conversation with one of Draven’s court scholars to ensure everything was appropriately situated for a peaceful transfer of power.
He’d ended the call, thinking about how he could best persuade Draven to rein in the use of his power. He was stubborn and had an immense need for control, two things that did not make it easy for him to simply stop using the ability he’d relied upon for the better part of his life.
But Draven is all Task has, and the thought of losing him from something he could have stopped is almost too much to bear.
Task scrubs a hand across his face. He’s tired.
He hasn’t slept well since he boarded the Polaris, and now, with the relentless thrum of pain coupled with never-ending anxiety about his uncle, he feels he’s hanging on by a thread.
The initial relief at being away from Nexarium has quickly dissipated, replaced by a constant unease.
The dream didn’t help. It’s made him feel that something is off, though he doesn’t know what.
It’s not like him to wonder about these things — he trusts Draven, almost innately.
But since their interaction with the Jaguar back on Lumaria, since Alexander Caden boarded the ship, since finding the Project C file with information he still hasn’t been able to understand, he feels as though he’s being left in the dark.
He stares out the window, nothing but deep purple galaxy spread out before him, the quiet hum of the Polaris’ engines beneath his feet.
It’s somewhere close to 5:00 in the morning, which he supposes is good enough a time as any to start his day.
He’s on duty to guard the ambassador again, something he feels could be done by almost any Guardian in the Nexarium Force, but which Draven continues to insist Task do.
He supposes the assignment is twofold — guard the ambassador and keep an eye on the only living Vitalis in two decades.
He dresses in his uniform quickly, glancing at himself in the mirror as he buttons the collar at his throat, adjusts the pin he wears.
He wants to laugh, because he objectively knows he’s handsome, sharp cheekbones and a smoldering gaze, that his uncle would like to marry him off sooner rather than later.
He has his pick of the women on Nexarium as Draven’s Hand and if he plays his cards right, future heir, even if the pain echo makes having an intimate relationship difficult.
In spite of all of that, he found himself baring his soul to Kit the other night in the sundome — a Lumarian, the woman he’s supposed to kidnap.
He grabs his surge-saber and two lumi-daggers from where he’s stashed them by the door, and slips into the corridor to face the rest of the day.
He breathes a sigh of relief that Kit is not on duty today.
After their encounter in the sundome, he feels exposed in a way that makes him uncomfortable.
He shared something he shouldn’t have, even if it was innocuous.
Instead, he finds Tullia, one of the healers from Nexarium, bustling around the quarantine ward as she checks patient vitals.
Remulus is awake, so Task asks him how he’s feeling. Remulus coughs, roughly, blood still bubbling from his lips, but says he’s better. Or at least not worse.
Tullia looks up from where she bends over Grayson, eyes cutting across Task. He doesn’t recognize her from Xaria, so assumes she must have been stationed elsewhere.
“Everyone is improved today,” she announces, sweeping her plaited hair over her shoulder. “I think the newest iteration of the antidote that Luminary Hart put together has been helping to keep the infection at bay.”
Task arches a brow, though he’s not surprised.
Kit is smart, and every day she’s tinkering with different ingredients, different measurements, trying to figure out how to banish the Crimson Fever once and for all.
The fact that Remulus is awake and speaking is a good sign, especially after he’d been comatose last week.
He’s cautious in his optimism, though. A day of improvement doesn’t mean much. “What’s in it now?”
Tullia frowns. “I’m not sure. I think she readjusted the selenium to opaline ratio and added more pink salt.”
As soon as she says it, Task realizes that he hasn’t followed up on his promise to replenish the pink salt reserves aboard the Polaris. “How much do you have left?”
Tullia beckons him to follow her out of the quarantine ward, into the hallway where the supply cabinets are located. She unlocks the one containing the pink salt, picking up the jar and shaking it. “About a quarter of a jar left.”
“I’ll see if we can get more,” Task says. Assuming he can persuade Draven to release an allotment to Nexarium prematurely, he’ll need to convince Captain Claiborne to make a stop somewhere so they can collect it.
“You think the Governor will be willing to release more?” Tullia asks, tossing the pink salt jar between her hands.
“I’m excellent at my job,” Task replies, smug.
“Right,” Tullia nods once, narrowing her eyes as if trying to place something. “You’re the governor’s Hand?”
“Yes,” Task replies, motioning to the pin on his chest.
“And nephew,” Tullia says, more to herself than to Task, as if she’s just realized.
Task nods once.
“You’re the Pain Echo,” she murmurs. It seems as though she’s finally put all the pieces in her head together.
Task is not sure how she knows this. It’s not something widely advertised, and is in fact, mostly classified outside of the High Council.
Sensing his confusion, she offers, “I was at Xaria early in my career. I oversaw a team of healers on the grounds.” Then, more softly, “I think you knew Noemi?”
Task takes a step back. Noemi. Her name slices through him like a lumi-dagger.
He tries to pull it together. “I did.” He feels his lips twitch into a half-smile as a memory of her surfaces — her bright eyes, the way she was always slightly breathless and full of life in a way he was not.
“I thought so,” Tullia says, smiling. Then her face becomes serious, her lips set in a straight line. “It was a shame to lose her the way we did.”
Task’s heart just about stops. “Lose her?” Draven told him she’d been relocated, but Tullia’s words indicated something more sinister.
Tullia smooths down her uniform with a hand, before looking back at Task. “She’d gone missing for a few days. One of the Guardians found her body floating in the Caliphrades River. The High Council told us it was a suicide.”
Task feels his stomach plummet. Dead? By her own hand? There was no way. She was the happiest person he knew, full of joy, a bright future ahead of her. And she had him. She wouldn’t have, couldn’t have.
“I couldn’t believe it either,” Tullia says, sensing the utter chaos she’s unleashed within Task.
She tucks a strand of loose hair behind her ear and crosses her arms, leaning against the supply cabinet behind her and shooting him a pointed look.
“You know, after she started spending time with you, Draven took a particular interest in her.”
“What do you mean?”
Tullia shrugs. “He was always sending her away on different errands. Seemed to me like he wanted to keep her out of Xaria. Away from you. Said to me that she was distracting you from your training.”
“And she just…wound up dead?” Task cannot wrap his brain around this. This is not what Draven had told him. Which means that Draven lied to him.
But there must have been a good reason. Why else would he have said she’d been relocated?
Tullia nods once. Task can tell she partially blames him, even if she doesn’t say it directly. “Miss that girl every day. She was a light.”
“She was,” Task agrees, mind still whirling from this revelation.
“Look, I need to get back in there,” Tullia says finally. “I’ll see you in a minute?”
“Sure,” he says, his voice far away. He’s buried under a landslide of questions that he doesn’t have the energy to process right now. The primary one, though: why had Draven lied?