"You are never well met, Zarnak,” Behtu retorts, a flicker of impatience in his cool gaze. He makes a show of pulling a thin band with pulsating lights from his pants pocket and wrapping it around the statue’s throat, a parallel to my own plight. "Release my female or see your precious relic destroyed.”
“An idol threat.” Warlord Zarnak's laughter booms a sinister echo against the cold metal walls. “You wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of returning the relic only to watch your female’s head evaporate into stardust.”
“You destroy my treasure and I will destroy yours.”
Behtu’s bluffing. I shiver and pray Warlord Zarnak doesn’t call him out on it, or I’m dead.
After what feels like a thousand years, the warlord signals for one of his many underlings with a sharp nod. The shackles that bind me are light made solid by some unfathomable technology and begin to dim. I gasp as the pressure around my wrists vanishes, the once unyielding restraints now fade away. Then the tightness around my throat eases, the collar disengaging with a click that rings louder than any shout of triumph. It falls away, clattering to the cold, metal floor.
Behtu doesn't wait for the echoes to fade. In a quick motion, he hands off the statue in exchange for me. His grip is both a lifeline and an affirmation,I am free.
A surge of warmth explodes through me as Behtu's arms encircle my waist, pulling me against his chest with a force that expels the last breath of cold dread from my lungs. He holds me as if I am both the victory and the spoils of war, precious and fiercely guarded.
Warlord Zarnak snatches the pulsing light collar from the statue with a sneer and hurls it at Behtu. He catches it, deactivates the lights, and stuffs it in his pocket.
Behtu swings me into his arms in a bridal carry. The hatch opens and Behtu is running with me cradled in his embracethrough an iridescent tunnel toward his awaiting ship just a few strides away. Only a shimmering, transparent light separates us from the ominous void of space that surrounds our fleeting passage to safety.
I don’t dare take a breath until we reach Behtu's vessel, where he settles me in the seat beside his at the command console. The hatch seals shut with a resolute hiss, severing our connection to Warlord Zarnak's ship. Finally safe aboard Behtu’s ship, the adrenaline ebbs away, leaving tremors in its wake.
"Strap in,” Behtu says, his hands deftly navigating the control panel. The ship responds to his touch like an extension of his will, the engines thrumming with pent-up energy.
I strap into the co-pilot’s seat, my body still riding the high of our escape. Behtu glances at me with a stormy sea of relief and unresolved tension in his cool gaze. He moves us a short distance away, not far enough away for my comfort, and turns the ship around to face the warlord’s craft.
“Why are we not leaving?” I say through stilted breaths.
Behtu extends to me a boxy device, its matte surface betraying none of its purpose. “You should be the one to do it.”
“To do what?” I eye the device suspiciously. "What is it?"
“Revenge,” he says, the corner of his mouth twitching with a smirk that belies the gravity of our recent peril. "Go on. Press the button.”
My fingers close around the cold metal, its weight alien and foreboding in my palm. The device is unadorned, save for a solitary button that seems to pulse with latent power beneath my touch.
"Go ahead, Jules,” Behtu encourages, his gaze locked onto the viewport where Warlord Zarnak's ship looms, a dark behemoth against the tapestry of space. “Before he becomes wise to what I’ve left with him.”
“What will happen if I press the button, Behtu?” I ask, uncertainty tightening my throat as Warlord Zarnak’s ship begins to fly toward us.
"Now, Jules!"
Behtu’s hand closes over mine and together, we press the button.
A moment passes—a heartbeat, an eternity—and then the universe folds in on itself. Warlord Zarnak's ship quivers like a mirage before collapsing inward with a silent, violent implosion. Destruction so unexpected it wrenches hysterical laugh from deep within me.
“Holy shit!” I gasp, tears streaming down my cheeks as laughter quakes through my body. "It's gone."
“Yes, and he can never hurt you again,” Behtu murmurs, his eyes reflecting the light of the imploding ship, now reduced to nothingness. “Compliments of a Ziarian imploder.”
“How did you sneak something like that aboard his ship without him knowing?”
“Inside the statue,” Behtu states, a savage satisfaction lacing his words. “The relic was a fake. I called in a favor from a trolite artisan, Talrut, whose life I once saved to make me a hollow replica.”
“You asshole!” My mouth falls open in disbelief. “What if the warlord had noticed the statue was a fake?”
“But he didn’t.”
“Lucky for me.” My temper flares knowing what would have happened had Behtu been caught trying to pass off his fake. “You put my life at risk for revenge! And here I thought you actually cared what happened to me. I’m such an idiot.”
“I do care what happens to you, Jules!” Behtu turns the heat of his glacial gaze on me. “If I had the Zorite Statue to give him, I would have, but I didn’t. I melted it down long ago.”
