The furious aura melted away on her tongue, fizzled out like a candle, and Sonara swore she saw the Hadru’s tail lower… swore she saw it back down from the fight as she sent that peace back towards it. But she hadn’t the chance to know for sure, because out of the black, Thali finally appeared.
The cleric set the torch aside as she scooped up Lazaris and, with a sudden finality, shoved the blade deep into the beast’s belly.
It let out a rattling sigh.
Then darkness came, as exhaustion pulled Sonara abruptly into sleep.
Chapter 19
Karr
It started as a simple tingling in his fingertips, gaining strength as it spread through him. It warmed, like the first kiss of daylight.
Then, without warning, it turned hot.Blazing hot.
Karr Kingston screamed, his entire body seizing as if he’d touched a live wire.
He opened his eyes to bright sunlight.
He blinked once, twice. His vision flickered out, then back again, fuzzy at first until he was seeing clearly. Not sunlight, then, but a lightbulb hanging above him. Bright as the heavens—and annoying as hell.
His head pulsed,beat, beat, beat,and Karr had the strangest sensation that he’d drunk far too much again. The memories were gone, only a thick haze was in their place.Definitelyalcohol, Comet Whiskey, if the past was any indication of the destruction he often caused under the stupor of the hellish drink.
Karr lifted a hand to his eyes and groaned. “Can someone shut that damned thing off?”
A crash sounded from his left. A chair, toppling over as Cade leapt from it,his footsteps far too loud as he rushed over to Karr’s bedside.
“I thought… Oh, God, Karr, we all thought you were…” He fumbled to form words as Karr’s muddy mind tried its best to keep up.
Tears ran down Cade’s pale face, and Karr thought, for a moment, that perhaps his older brother had gone insane. Until he blinked a final time and took in the white room in which he lay. The medical bay of theStarfall.
“Cade, what’s going on?” Karr’s voice ached from disuse. He sat up slowly, feeling like his head might topple off of his shoulders. It wasn’t just his head. His entirebodyfelt like it had been hit by a runaway Rover. Karr reached up, placing a hand over his aching chest. “What the hell happened?”
Cade sniffed and straightened himself again. “It’s my fault. I never should have brought you here. I should have left you on the ship with the others, kept you safe from it all.” Tears and snot streamed down his face, stealing years from his appearance. He looked, not like the seasoned captain he was, but like a scared child.
That shocked Karr more than anything else, for he had never, not even when their parents were murdered, seen Cade lose his composure like this.
Cade lifted a wet hand and placed it on Karr’s cheek. Then he pulled back. With haunted eyes, he said, “You died, Karr. You were… you weredead.”
“Dead?”
The word hung there between them.
It took Karr a moment to conjure up the memories, twisting and tugging at the lock on his mind.But finally it broke and the memories tumbled forth.
A blue-haired girl drove a sword into Karr’s heart. It sank right through his S2, splitting the armor like a hand parting through cool waters.
There was pain, but not as he’d expected. A cold, creeping feeling washed over him.
Jameson screamed from beside him. Cade ran over, his face warping in horror beneath his visor.
“He’s gone, Captain,” Rohtt said. “Leave him.”
“Do it!” Cade screamed. “Take them all down!”
Shots rang out, and an all-out war began.
“I’m not dead,” Karr wanted to scream. But his voice was gone. His body was cold. He’d hovered above himself, fading away as he rose, like he was soaring towards the stars. He saw Rohtt hauling Cade away, shoving him into the safety of their bulletproof transport, Cade howling and stretching for Karr amid the chaos as the Dohrsaran warriors closed in.
