Chapter 48 #2
It’s just after 5:00 in the morning, and he stands in the courtyard, a stack of daggers next to him.
The suns are only just rising, the sky a purplish pink, and it’s chilly.
Task’s arms are pebbled with goosebumps, but he doesn’t care much, relishing the way the desert air wraps him in an icy blanket.
He’s spent hundreds of hours out here, training.
After he’d come to in his room, he couldn’t fall asleep, so he’d tossed and turned angrily for most of the night.
He’d finally given up and come out here.
He usually fights with more advanced weapons — lumi-daggers and surge-sabers and laser-guns — but there is something about old-school knives that still appeals to him.
Throwing a lumi-dagger doesn’t hit the same as throwing a dagger at a target and watching it stick, hearing the thud of the knife as it makes contact with the wood.
He raises another behind his head, releasing it as his hand comes over his shoulder, watching as it sails into the target.
He wipes his brow, picking up another from the stack.
He thinks he should get his men to train with these more often; they’re deadly in a more profound way than a lumi-dagger.
They won’t breach an energy-shield, but he thinks of how much blood one could spill if it was aimed at the right part of the body once an energy-shield is burned out.
The neck, for example, or the chest. And of course, there’s the satisfaction that comes from hitting the target, the emotional release.
The anger that has been roaring through his veins since last night is enough to make him want to explode.
His chest feels tight, and it was a feeling that even weaving couldn’t touch.
He’d woven for hours, sliding the disks underneath the loose stone in his chambers, and still the anger remained.
He’s not dumb, of course. Weaving only works when it is directly related to pain; it doesn’t fix emotional wounds of this sort.
He’d wanted to confront Draven immediately, but he’s forcing himself to be patient. To think it all through. There has to be a reason for all of this — a reason why Draven lied to him about his parents being killed by rebels. Perhaps there is more to the story.
Even as he repeats these platitudes to himself, he doesn’t believe them.
This isn’t the first time Draven has lied to him.
It was Noemi, first. Then his parents. The way he’s treated Kit as nothing more than a battery.
And recently, Draven’s been excluding him from plans, even going so far as to dismiss him from the latest High Council meeting, despite being his named heir.
It had infuriated Task, but he’d gotten up from the table and left, unsure why he was being dismissed, but feeling the stares of the other High Council members on his back as he departed.
Something has broken down between him and Draven, something he’s not sure will ever be repaired.
Something he’s not sure he wants to be repaired, with what he’s learned.
For so long, he felt as though he was uniquely valuable to Draven.
That he was using his pain echo in service of a greater good, ultimately ensuring the stability of the Consortium.
And yet, in addition to the anger that flows through him, there is a sour feeling in his stomach.
Something oily crawling up his esophagus that makes him want to retch, dispel whatever it is and get far, far away from it.
He picks up another dagger, arcs it over his head and is about to release when he hears footsteps behind him. He lowers the dagger, bracing himself for whoever has dared to interrupt him.
“Shadow,” Voss says, his brown beard interspersed with flecks of gold and red in the early morning light. He wears his uniform pants, a black t-shirt tucked in, and a sleeve of daggers strapped across his chest. “Didn’t want you to be out here alone.”
Task nods once, says nothing. Resumes throwing dagger after dagger, while Voss takes up position next to him. Task can feel him looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and turns to him, sighing. “Spit it out.”
Voss stops, turning toward Task and crossing his arms. “I wish it wasn’t me who’d had to deliver that information to you.”
“I asked you to look into it,” Task shrugs, trying to keep his face blank, even as the grief and the anger threaten to erupt.
A moment of silence passes between them, Voss worrying his bottom lip between his teeth before looking back at Task. “What are you going to do?”
“What do you mean?” Task sighs.
“Will you ask Draven about it?” Voss asks.
“Perhaps,” Task replies. “But what does it change? My parents are gone. For whatever reason. I’m still Hand to the Governor, still Draven’s heir. It will still one day be on me to command the planet, rule the Consortium.”
“I suppose,” Voss says, surveying Task. His friend — the only person that has stood by his side through everything. That knows everything and somehow doesn’t hate him. The same cannot be said for the woman currently locked beneath Xaria.
“Do you ever wonder if it’s right?”
“If what’s right?”
“What Draven does? The way he commands the planet?”
Voss contemplates this, then says, “There isn’t such a thing as a perfect ruler.
Everyone is flawed. But some….some are more flawed than others.
Some let their flaws run them. Rule them.
Sink their claws in and take them hostage.
And I think, when that happens, right and wrong don’t matter as much anymore.
They’re serving themselves.” His words are adjacent to the question that Task asked, but he hears what he’s saying nonetheless.
That maybe Draven has focused more on serving himself lately.
That he’s forgotten about what’s good for the planet.
Voss turns back toward the target, launches another dagger across the courtyard. And then, without looking at Task, he says, “I think it might change everything.”