I took a deep breath when I rose, my eyes shifting back to the path toward the research facility. Now what? I was certain that D’aron was lying when he said we had more time. Rumors were flying left and right that hostilities were mounting, and if the natives discovered us here, we’d be the ultimate target—hostages they could take and leverage against the Kertinellian Empire. Not just the empire, but because we were Aderians, Aderia would put pressure on Kertinal for our safe return.
My brain was spinning, and later I might blame this choice on a chronic lack of sleep, but I turned away from the facility and headed deeper into the jungle. If time was running out and the danger was mounting, I needed to get my samples—many of them—and quickly. Perhaps if I hadenough material to work with, I could continue my research elsewhere.
As I walked, I kept puzzling over Koratalin’s connection to this. We shared the same father but had not been raised together. My mom had always kept me far away from him, and it hadn’t been until I’d come of age and gone to study at the university in the capital that he’d reached out to me to form a bond. At the time—lost and strange, even by Aderian standards—I’d been desperate for meaningful connections. Hadralin hadn’t come alone; he’d brought with him an eager sister for me to bond with. For a time, it had felt amazing, and it had pained me greatly to lose Koratalin when I’d discovered the truth about Hadralin and cut him out of my life.
I tried to picture my half-sister as I picked my way through the jungle toward the flower field that had made this site ideal for the temporary research facility. She was tall and beautiful, with a sweet smile that could light up a room and a certain kind of earnestness that made you want to believe every word she said. I recalled that she had been engaged to a very promising doctor-surgeon at one point, but that had fallen through with no explanation.
My foot caught on a root, and my tired body struggled to right itself for a moment. I wobbled in the muck, but a sturdy branch offered me the support to keep going. Koratalin had been a friend more than a sister, the kind of woman who would draw me from my dorm and take me shopping, who would laugh over simple things and delight in the delicious Keftir ice cream. I gazed at the clearing of flowers and saw in them my sister: sweet and delightful,warm and caring.
My thoughts dimmed, coolness washing down my spine. That wasn’t all there was to Koratalin, was there? I considered the flowers with their pale purple petals as I began selecting samples. These pretty little things had thorns, hidden deep beneath the leaves so you didn’t see them until it was too late. My sister was just like that, with hidden depths and hidden barbs. I did not want to consider the failure of my supposedly powerful empathic gift, but what if it had failed?
Going to my knees in the soft dirt, I took out my foldable shovel and began digging out a collection of roots. Hadralin, our father, had been a very, very bad man, and he’d managed to trick my senses long enough for me to get briefly entangled in his web. What if Koratalin was the same? What if she was even better? I knew I had inherited my empathy from my mom, but the power—that part came from my dad’s side.
I did not realize justhowbad things were when I returned to the facility a few hours later. My body was pleasantly exhausted, my head cleared of the chaotic muck the failed experiment and my eavesdropping had created. I thought I’d head to bed and finally sleep without dreams for several hours. Instead, I was met with mayhem.
“There you are, Head Researcher Hiraza!” D’aron was waiting for me by the gate with that greeting. His fist closed around my upper arm, and I found myself hauled inside as though I were a misbehaving child. My senses vibrated with a barrage of feelings, but foremost among them was a fear so thick it nearly choked me. Shocked, I cast my eyes wide and came to a startling revelation.
Lined up in a row inside the fenced-in courtyard, the rest of my team was kneeling. They all had their hands on theirheads, and our Kertinal guards surrounded them, laser rifles at the ready. I saw no sign of any of the Aderian soldiers assigned as our protection details, but Litarun stood off to one side with his hands on his hips. He was not under gunpoint, but he also did not appear to be in charge, no, that was all D’aron.
“Kneel with them,” the Kertinal head of security said, and with a shove, he sent me stumbling toward my team. That’s when I had the chance to look into the open doorway to the facility and spot the booted foot of an Aderian soldier, with a spreading pool of blood next to him. I cursed silently, and pain lanced through me, quickly followed by horror.
Kneeling, I slipped close to the bigger frame of Jeltom, who seemed the calmest out of the small, bedraggled group of scientists. Unlike the rest, Jeltom had chosen research as a second career, and he was not an intuitive or a sensitive like the rest of us. He’d been a soldier once, and I needed to wrap myself in the calmness of his brain, or I’d get swept away on the tide of fear and aggression that swamped the courtyard.
I should have sensed this before I stepped through the gate, but they must have turned on its electric protective measures; that always worked as a shield. It had to have been on purpose—a trap just for me—because D’aron had been lying in wait at the gate to snatch me as I came through.
“What do you want, Kertinal?” I demanded, lifting my chin. I caught how Jeltom gave me a minute shake of his head, a warning. He didn’t want me to speak, but I was the one in charge; I was responsible. Still, my head turned to the single boot and the spreading blood just inside the facility—a reminder that one false move could leavemore of us dead.
D’aron paced in front of our miserable row, then paused and abruptly spun on one heel right in front of me. “What do I want? I want you to get your blazing shit together and make this damn cure. This is taking way too long. But you’re not dragging your feet on purpose, are you? You’re just one of many in a line of scientists failing to produce as promised.”
My hackles rose, anger of my own swirling beneath my skin. Excuse me? Science took time, and we hadn’t been here much more than two months. I was close, I knew I was. My mouth opened, and I was ready to snap something at him, but Jeltom clasped his hand around my wrist and squeezed hard enough to bruise. Instead of anger, fear filled me now, but it wasn’t mine; it was his. Jeltom knew how powerful my gift was, and he was trying in every way he could to warn me.
“If you want me to finish making this cure, you need to let me take these samples into the lab. I’m very close, and the longer you have me sit here, the more my samples will degrade…” I left the words hanging there, making the implication clear. I was certain everyone could hear how hard my heart was pounding inside my chest. That fear wasn’t all Jeltom’s; a good amount of it was mine, too.
D’aron sank to his haunches in front of me, bringing us eye to eye. He was not the most typical shade pairing for a Kertinal, and that would have intrigued me—if not for his very unpleasant aura of darkness. A very faint purple, so pale it was a pastel that barely held any glow, dominated most of his hair. Whereas most Kertinal—the rest of those present being prime examples—had mostly black hair streaked with highlights, his was the opposite.
The cracks that crisscrossed like broken porcelain across his skin were wide and numerous, so the black of his skin was obscured in many places by that soft, deceptively friendly-looking purple. I had a theory that his unusual appearance was what had turned him into a mean-spirited bully. Even his eyes were pale and soft, lacking the usual Kertinal punch. I thought that, in some ways, that pale purple was even freakier than the pure black of my own eyes—though I knew most species found our lack of a visible iris and pupil made Aderians eerie to look at.
“You’re not lying, are you? I don’t like liars,” D’aron drawled in his deep, sub-harmonic voice. I blinked at him, forcing back the instant retort that he was a liar himself—making him a hypocrite. I was pretty sure Jeltom would vehemently object to that kind of talk right now, and I was pretty sure I wanted to follow Jeltom’s lead.
“I have no reason to lie,” I said through dry lips. “I want this cure as much as anyone. Let me return to my lab with my assistants right now, and we can get back to work.” I didn’t think it would work, but D’aron barked out a laugh. Then he had us marching past the dead Aderian guards inside the facility and straight into the lab. I had a feeling I’d done exactly what he wanted: offer to continue to work even under threat of gunpoint.
He wanted to station armed guards inside, of course, but Jeltom cleverly warned them that their presence would contaminate our results. It made me rush to pull out our protective clothing, jumpsuits for work with dangerous materials. We did not need them, but shaking out the suit was enough to convince D’aron to order his guards to campoutside our door.
When it swished shut, I shook so much that I collapsed against the nearest lab table. Jeltom did not approach; he did not offer me an arm of comfort the way my three other assistants were huddling together. He gave me a dark stare, his eyes gleaming with my reflection. “We’re screwed, Danitalin. How close are you, really?”
My gaze went to the failed experiment I’d abandoned last night, my expression growing tight. I did not want to disappoint them, but I knew we were still weeks away from anything viable. It had seemed we were closer last week than we were now. This was bad, this was really bad.
I shook my head—just a tiny jerk of my chin—but I felt the wave of fear and disappointment crash into me like a tidal wave. Jeltom’s, the others’, my own. I collapsed from the weight of it, my knees simply giving out. Nobody came forward to help me up; I was on my own.
Chapter 3
Jaxin
My body was beginning to feel like my own again. I hadn’t thought it ever would, but three days ago, I’d woken up and hadn’t felt like my chest was breaking apart. This morning, getting out of my tank, I felt like a new male. Perhaps that had to do with the note Ysa had sent to my comm—somehow timed to play right as I woke, so it was the first thing I heard as I stomped into my boots.
“Report to engineering, shark dude,” that’s what she said in her cheerful voice. She had a thick accent on the word “shark”—she wasn’t human, but Ulinial—and she’d just enjoyed adopting the description very much. I didn’t know why that message made my heart pound with hope, but it did. Perhaps it had something to do withthe fact that I’d begged her to take the broken, shattered pieces of Bex and solder her back together.
It was one of my lowest points, begging Ysa from my hospital bed to fix my precious cannon. Even after a round of emotion-numbing exercises, it still made my throat grow tight recalling the absolutely devastated expression in her eyes when she had to deny my request. I’d never seen tough-as-nails Ysathea cry, but that had done it.
