The Xaal seemed to come alive then. They traded blows. Each hit Ved sustained was an amplifier to his wrath—and when he was kicked back violently enough to force him to skid on a knee, he lost all patience for a slow fight. Bounding back up, he closed the distance again at a run. His adversary let out a war cry and beat a fist against his chest before rushing to meet him head on.
Good. This is what a fight should be—brutally close and viciously physical. His blood wasburningfor it.
They met in a clash of ruthless blows and colliding armor. “You came to Runus.” Strike. “Enteredmyterritory.” Another. “And fought likecowards,” Ved snarled.
The silver-armored Xaal landed a fist against the side of Ved’s helmet, but he barely felt it. He barely felt anything other than a black rage. Grabbing the Xaal’s arms, he growled, “Who sent you? Give me names.”
When his opponent still didn’t answer, Ved kneed him hard in the gut, causing him to snarl and twist out of his grip.
Ved didn’t give him a chance to recover, tackling him. They crashed to the ground in a violent tangle.
Not even the gods themselves could have braced against Ved in that moment. Pinning his opponent, he drove his fist into the silver helmet. Again, and again. The Xaal struggled beneath him, attempting to buck him off, pummeling his ribs, grabbing at his arms. At one point, he even managed to grab a dagger from somewhere and slice Ved’s bicep. But he didn’t feel the sting of it. He was lost to the red haze of combat.
He was relentless.
Finally, the helmet broke, exposing a bloody mess of a face. To be unmasked in battle was one of the greatest dishonors. Ved studied his features—his dark purple skin and wild blue eyes. That alone told him that his opponent was most likely from the planet Dremas. Lifting himself just enough to kneel, Ved pinned one of the Xaal’s arms down with his foot. “If you want to fight like a coward, then you can die like a coward. Who sent you?”
The Xaal spat at him. Shards of teeth hitting Ved’s helmet with soft clinks.
Ved punched him in the face. “Who?”
“You’re marked for death,Qon.” His words came out garbled as blood gurgled in the back of his throat. “I swear on my name, Produ of Clan Rax, that you’ll meet your stars at the hand of a Raxan, and we’ll take what is rightfully ours.” Crimson streamed out of his mouth from between broken fangs and teeth as he sputtered the final words.
Clan Rax? Ved had never heard the name. It meant nothing to him. Cleave was a strong clan, and the territory was advantageous in both position and resources. This clan definitely wasn’t fromRunus—Ved would know of them. They had to be from Dremas, but the attack felt too targeted, desperate even.
When had he made such enemies there?
“Name your qon,” he snarled.
Produ laughed before choking on his own blood. He knew death was coming for him and gained nothing from revealing more information.
So be it. Ved raged as his fists pummeled him again and again. Who had dared to come against Clan Cleave? Who had dared to act outside of the Xaal code of honor? Who was responsible for Kravis’s death?
But Produ, reeking of fear in his last moments, never gave him an answer.
Huffing out a sound of disgust, Ved pushed off his opponent. Stepping around the body, he seized the Xaal’s limp arm, pried open the armor around his forearm, and manually turned on his cloaking system. The body flickered out of sight. Exxo had yet to discern where they were, but it was safe to assume a bloodied body would raise more questions than even their downed ships did.
Turning his focus to the silver vessel, Ved strode forward.
A scent drifted toward him. He stopped to consider the composition of it—soft and at stark odds with the carnage he’d unleashed. A native of the planet? Whoever it was, he’d deal with them after.
First, he had Raxans to kill.
Chapter 4
Isobel
By the time Isobel reached the crash-made clearing, the sun had fallen well below the horizon of trees. It left the sky bruised with deep purples and gray shadows. She felt only the briefest concern about the falling darkness and her half-hour trek home before inquisitiveness overpowered it.
Isobel peered at the wreckage from between two trees. This close, the crashed objects were even larger than she could have imagined.
Were these what shooting stars looked like when they reached their final destination?
A metal-on-metal sound rent the night, the only noise that differed from the crackling and hissing coming from the doomed objects themselves. Odd—they almost reminded her of … ships? Stepping further into the clearing, she looked between the two vessels, trying to figure out where the noise originated from. Smoke as black as night danced off the obsidian one, so she gave it a wide berth. Only when she rounded on the second craft did she find what was making all the racket.
Well,who,actually.
She froze. She hadn’t considered thatpeoplecould be on the objects burning through the sky. Was that even possible?
