Making someone’s agenda look like divine will.
“Vax,” I spat. “Or someone close to him. Can you fix this?” I asked her, waving a hand at the array.
She nodded slowly. “I can, but in order to also see to the grow facility’s problems, I’ll need a lot more time down here. I doubt you can spare it supervising me.”
I ground out a curse. “I can’t. But there’s one person I do trust in all this.”
She let out a huffy sigh. “Oh, no. Don’t say it’s that woo-woo lady who’s all hot on the prophecy bullshit.”
“Zelana would never do anything to harm this village,” I said, keeping a twitch from my lips. I didn’t know what “woo-woo” or “bullshit” meant, exactly, but I got the idea of it. And she wasn’t wrong, but still. “I’ll send her down, along with Venith, who can assist you.”
“Fine.” She shook her head. “But if she goes off on some mystical tangent, I’m going to tell her to stuff it.”
“Fair enough.” I turned toward the exit. “I need to seal the village. No one enters or leaves until we figure out who’s been in this chamber.”
“Even though we know who it is?” She cocked a hip. “Aren’t only a few people even allowed down here?”
“Yes, but until I’m certain, I can’t rule anyone out.” I winced, disliking having to admit to the next part. “We have a high level of trust in this village. At least, we did. I’m afraid the locks aren’t as secure as they should be.”
“So anyone could get down here?” She looked aghast.
I shrugged. “If they were determined enough.”
Cleo shook her head and shoved a curl from her eye. “Okay. Fine. But it’s still probably Vax. He hates me. And he was very much against letting me down here.”
“True.” I gave her a small smile. It was all I could muster. “Stay here while I get Zelana and Venith. Don’t touch anything without someone else here. I don’t want anyone accusing you of anything.”
She held up her hands, brows raised. “Okay, boss.”
I swiped my thumb over her chin. “You’re cheeky, but I like it.”
I was rewarded with a flash of surprise, followed by a wide smile that lit up her eyes. Cleo was already pretty, but the smile stole my breath. I wanted to see more smiles on her face, and I wanted to be the one who put them there.
So that I wouldn’t do something unwise, like give in to the urge to kiss her, I left quickly. There were bigger problems in my village than its leader’s obsession with an alien visitor. The weight of what I’d just seen settled over me. A traitor in my village. Someone willing to destroy everything we’d built just to… What? Prove a prophecy? Eliminate the sky people? Seize power?
I didn’t know. But I would find out.
And when I did, they would face justice that had nothing to do with prophecies or sacred marks or the will of ancient seers. They would faceme.
CHAPTER 9
Cleo
Two sun-cycles. Two long, exhausting sun-cycles spent between the underground tech chamber and the grow facility, repairing tubing, switching out fried connectors, and, of course, undoing the sabotage. The last part was easy. I still hadn’t fixed all the lightning damage.
My eyes burned. My back ached from hunching over control panels. My hands were scraped raw from working with old tech that had edges sharper than they had any right to be. And I was pretty sure I’d forgotten what actual sunlight looked like.
“Try it now,” I called to Venith, who stood at the main power distribution hub with her hand hovering over the activation sequence.
She plugged the power supply into its port, and for about five glorious seconds, the system turned on. Then it flickered, stuttered, and went dark.
“Damn it.” I sat back on my heels, fighting the urge to throw something at the nearest wall. “That should have worked.”
“Perhaps the damage is more extensive than we thought,” Venith suggested gently. She’d been here both nights with me, patient and sharp and absolutely invaluable. If I ever got out of this valley, I was stealing her for my engineering team. If I could pry her out of this valley.
I scrubbed my hands over my face. My skin felt gritty with dust and exhaustion. “Yeah. There’s probably one stupid connector we’re missing.”
Footsteps echoed from the chamber entrance. I didn’t need to look up to know who it was. My entire body went on alert every time Rezor came within ten feet of me.
