Chapter 49
KIT
NEXARIUM
She’s strapped to a table this time, her arms and legs trapped beneath thick belts.
They’ve learned, she supposes, that she won’t give in.
That she’ll keep fighting them every time they come for her.
She was doing well, too, keeping her hunger strike going until Task brought her mashed potatoes and effectively forced her to eat.
It makes her even angrier, that he’s still able to manipulate her like that.
She sees him out of the corner of her eye, standing in front of the doorway, arms crossed and jaw set. Decidedly looking anywhere but at her. Alexander stands next to him, murmuring something under his breath.
Draven reclines in a chair behind her head, the healer quietly inserting an IV.
It’s not Yana today, but another young woman with short dark hair, deep violet eyes that seem to see through Kit in the same way that Draven’s do.
She hopes that Yana is still okay, that Draven hasn’t done anything to her.
She wouldn’t put it past him, given the way she’s been treated, the way he rules this planet, the things he’s made Task do.
The things that Task has chosen to do, she reminds herself. He could have said no. He could have stood up to him. And he didn’t, he hasn’t. The weak fucking man.
Kit feels lightheaded, even lying down, the hollow in her chest so vast, it’s like nothing will ever fill it.
She doesn’t know how much more she has to give, and she certainly doesn’t think they’re giving her enough time to recover between these sessions.
Draven is so eager to be at full strength again that even despite the healers’ warnings, he’s pushed her and pushed Alexander.
She has scars on her arms from where she’s been burned by her own magic flowing out of her, and Alexander’s hands are charred a deep black, lines of pink shot through them.
He’s unwrapping them now, setting the bandages on the table as he stretches his fingers and rolls his wrists.
“You could have made this so much easier for yourself.” Draven’s voice cuts across the room. “We wouldn’t have had to go this far if you’d only complied.”
Kit is silent. She turns her head so she doesn’t have to look at him, at Task, at anyone on that side of the room.
She can feel Alexander approach, the charge in the air as he holds his hands over her.
She tries to shift away, though she knows it’s a lost cause.
There’s nowhere for her to go. As his hands meet her shoulders, she closes her eyes, thinks of her brother.
His green eyes, his laughter, his silly comments.
Her father, still on Lumaria, with no idea of her whereabouts.
Perhaps doesn’t know that she’s been kidnapped at all.
Of Finn, who she assumes is beside himself with worry, who she hopes won’t stop until he finds her.
And then pain like nothing she’s felt before surges through her, starting at her toes and ripping up through her legs, her torso, her arms. She screams, her mind going blank as Alexander jolts back, hands leaving her body.
The pain continues to ravage her. Tears prick her eyes as she struggles against the restraints.
She’s breathing hard as his hands return, and she tries to go somewhere else in her mind, somewhere where the pain isn’t so acute, where it doesn’t feel like there are knives piercing every part of her body.
“Please, please stop,” she hears herself shout, tears flowing freely from her eyes now, the pain overwhelming her. “This isn’t — it’s never felt like this,” she whimpers, shivering.
She can see Alexander look to Draven for guidance, but his hands remain. She can’t be sure if her magic is still flowing out of her, can’t feel a thing beneath the agony, and she wonders, suddenly, if this is what it’s like for Task all the time.
“Uncle.” She hears his voice echo through the room, somehow soothing her frayed nerves. “She’s not well.”
“She’s fine,” Draven replies, voice stony.
“Please,” Kit gasps, her vision starting to blur, spots forming behind her eyes.
This is how it went last time, before she fainted, before they had to call the healer in.
But this time, she’s not sure they will.
Draven is so far gone, so hungry for what she provides to him, that she can’t count on it.
“Continue,” Draven says.
“Uncle,” Task cuts in again, voice louder this time, closer to her. “You should call the healer in. This isn’t normal.”
“Continue,” Draven repeats, and Alexander moves his hands from her shoulders, repositioning them further down her arms. The smell of burnt flesh floats through the chamber. Hers or Alexander’s, she can’t be sure.
“I’m not feeling anything,” Alexander says. “Her magic…I think it’s stopped flowing.”
“Keep trying,” Draven demands.
Kit feels the electric surge of Alexander activating his Siphon again, and she cries out, the pain overwhelming her so completely she can’t help it. She’s writhing on the table, tears streaming down her face, the room going purple at the edges as she struggles to stay conscious. “Please,” she begs.
Alexander ignores her, tearing whatever he can from her, maybe taking her soul altogether — she isn’t sure, can only feel her entire body on fire as she writhes against the restraints, screaming so loudly her voice goes hoarse.
“Stop!” It’s his voice piercing through the haze, and she swears she sees him cut across the room and shove Alexander out of the way, forcing his hands from her body.
Draven is shouting, but it sounds garbled to her, and she sees a flash of light, hears a thud.
She thinks there’s a struggle behind her head, something she can’t see, but she’s so engulfed in pain that she can’t focus on anything except her body.
She feels as though she’s burning up from the inside out.
What have they done to her? Her vision is nearly all purple now, her view of the ceiling only a tiny dot, and she feels dizzy.
If she closes her eyes, just for a second, maybe the pain will stop…
Task
It’s chaos as he rushes forward, throwing a lumi-dagger at the healer and watching her collapse to the ground. He moves to Caden, bodily pushing him off Kit. Caden is quick to recover, drawing his lumi-daggers from the sheaths at his thigh as Task grabs for his surge-saber.
“What the hell are you doing?” Caden shouts, blocking Task’s jab with his lumi-daggers.
Task ignores him, stepping back and launching at him again, arcing his surge-saber so it slices Caden in the arm.
Caden shouts but doesn’t step back. The pain only seems to fuel him, and he sheathes a lumi-dagger, drawing his surge-saber instead.
Familiar ground for Task, who has been up against Caden time and again, thanks to Draven.
“Major Canmore,” Draven’s voice booms across the room, but Task ignores him. He’ll deal with Draven in a minute.
He dances forward, his surge-saber meeting Caden’s with a whine. Caden steps back, his arms shaking as he holds his surge-saber against Task’s trying to force it away. Task grunts, releasing his saber and ducking as Caden lunges for him.
“You’ll regret this, Canmore,” Caden says, recovering his balance and coming at him again.
Task raises his weapon, stepping to the left as Caden thrusts his saber forward, missing Task’s abdomen by a half-inch.
Their surge-sabers clash, release, clash again, and as Task dodges, feints, parries, he remembers how challenging it is to actually beat Caden.
Caden’s a good swordsman, knows the way of the Guardians, even though he’s not one himself.
Draven has managed to unleash himself from the wires and tubes that had connected him to the chair, and he’s shouting for his men as Task continues to battle Caden. He’s tiring, but he has to win this. He needs to get Kit out of here.
“What is the meaning of this?” Draven asks.
Caden looks over his shoulder, managing to deflect Task’s saber as he pivots. “Stay back, Governor. I’ll handle this.”
“He’s my blood,” Draven says, incredulous, watching as the two men circle each other, assessing.
“I fucking wish I wasn’t,” Task says, sweat pouring down his brow as he ducks another blow from Caden.
“Caden, finish him,” Draven shakes his head, as if Task is merely an inconvenience. As if he doesn’t matter at all. The words hit Task like a punch to the gut.
Caden surges forward, taking aim at Task’s sword arm, but Task pivots again, ducks under Caden and drops to his knees, releasing his surge-saber and grabbing him around the ankles. As soon as he touches him, he activates the pain echo, refracting everything he feels from Caden back into him.
“Look out,” he hears her voice, feeble. “Task!”
He turns his head, sees Draven coming at him with his lumi-dagger drawn.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. He tries to concentrate, to finish refracting the pain back into Caden, but Draven stoops low and grabs Task around the middle.
A fresh wave of pain churns through him, this time from where Draven touches him.
“You fucking traitor,” Draven snarls, spit flying as he drags him off Caden, flipping him on to his back. He looms over Task, the lumi-dagger at his throat.
“I’m a traitor?” Task wants to laugh. “You lied to me my entire life. Took my parents from me. Had Noemi killed. Pitted me against everyone here, again and again. Made sure my life was a living hell, manipulated me so that I was grateful to you, in spite of it all.”
The lumi-dagger presses into his neck further, Draven’s violet eyes wild.
Blood blooms at his throat, and he’s certain that Draven is going to kill him.
Suddenly, Task’s heart ratchets up its beating, as if telling him he’s still alive, and that he can’t let Draven kill him.
Kit is still here, and he needs to get her away from this place. Away from Draven.
He struggles beneath Draven’s weight, trying to stay calm even as he feels the energy from the dagger, the rage and anger of his uncle.
He stills momentarily, letting the dagger sink into him, and then he’s grabbing Draven’s arm, wrapping a leg around him and bucking his hips up, rolling them over until he’s managed to swap places with Draven.
“Guardians!” Draven shouts, realizing he’s at Task’s mercy, trapped in his grip.
It’s in vain. Nobody can hear him down here.
Task could do it now, overwhelm him with pain, but he can’t bring himself to, conflict roiling within him, even now that he knows what Draven has done.
He sits back, looking at his uncle, at the man who raised him, chest heaving.
He hears rustling behind him, and looks over his shoulder to see Caden pushing himself up from the ground, groaning as he grasps for the surge-saber that Task had discarded.
He thought he’d gotten close to killing him, but it wasn’t enough.
Draven had made him lose focus. The split second he’s looked away allows Draven to reach for another weapon, and Task cries out as the searing heat of a laser cuts across his thigh.
He falls off his uncle and scrambles backwards, trying to reach for something, anything that he can use to protect himself from their advance.
Caden drags himself forward, surge-saber in his shaking hand. “I will end you, Canmore.”
Draven stalks behind him, menacing as he towers over where Task still huddles on the floor.
Caden is about to raise his surge-saber, bring it down in an arc over Task’s head that would slice him in two, when Caden is hit with something, going totally still before he crumples to the ground. A lumi-dagger sticks out of his neck.
Task sees Kit across the room, somehow free of the restraints that held her, unsteady on her feet but staring at Caden, her arm still outstretched. She’d done it. She’d taken him out.
Draven has turned as well, eyes fixed on her. “Get back up there,” he snarls. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Kit!” Task calls, seeing her start to fold in on herself, as if the weight of standing is too much to bear. He runs to her, wraps an arm around her neck and under her knees to scoop her up, pressing her against his chest.
“Put her down,” Draven says, eyes locked on Task. “You goddamn lovesick fool. Put her down.”
“No,” Task says, eyeing the doorway just behind Draven. He only needs to distract him for a second, and he can get her out. He holds her to his chest, her head lolling against him.
Draven tracks his eyes, sees him calculating the escape, and rushes towards him, picking up Caden’s surge-saber as he does. Task can’t grab for his with Kit in his arms, but he shoves a hand into his uniform pocket, dragging out three of the wooden disks he’d woven earlier.
As Draven advances, Task takes aim, throwing one of the disks at Draven. It hits him, exploding. Draven grunts with pain — Task’s pain — and falls to his knees.
Task runs for the door, throwing another one behind him as he goes. It lands short of Draven, but he throws the last one, and it hits Draven square in the back, exploding again in a flash of purple light that knocks Draven to the ground.
He looks down at the woman in his arms, breath coming in sharp pants as he readjusts his grip on her, cradles her head to his chest. “I’m getting you out of here, Kit. Just hang on.”