I blink back to the present.
Eleven years. That’s how long Gabe’s been working on making nightstone airborne.
And he’s finally done it.
The vapor now stretches above us like a foreboding black cloud.
“How long will it last?” Kalden demands, fists still clenching onto Gabe.
Hearing this much emotion break through his controlled, stony facade sends a fresh wave of pinpricks down my arms.
Gabe, though, seems unfazed as he basks in his accomplishment. “We carbonized the nightstone so it could easily form a strong covalent bond with the oxygen in our atmosphere.”
Gem crosses her arms tightly around herself. “Are you saying you turned nightstone into a greenhouse gas?”
Gabe nods. “The carbon nightoxide molecules are dense, so their rate of dispersion is low. Which is why we struggled to find a sufficient method for infusing it into the atmosphere. The missile has to be a specific weight and ignited with a temperature of at least twelve hundred degrees.” He shakes off the dazed expression and blinks down, as if just noticing Kalden’s grip on his vest. “To answer your question, it could take a day or two for the carbon nightoxide to decay, though some of the finer nightstone particles may linger in the air for longer.”
Kalden finally releases him with a shove and stalks towards the fallen Sol a few yards away.
“What’s his problem?” Gabe asks, coming down from the high of his experiment proving successful.
Gem shrugs. “Maybe he’s pissed that you stole the hero moment from him.”
“A hero, huh? I guess I did. What about you?” Gabe angles towards me, and I can hear the smug grin in his voice. “Aren’t you glad I’m here now?”
I respond with a knee-jerk, “No.”
“Seriously? That thing was seconds away from sinking its talons into you.”
I tilt my chin up. “That’s one less Sol for those of us who need to prove a kill. We could’ve handled it without you.”
More likeKaldencould’ve handled it. Me? Unlikely.
I retrace my steps back up the dune, sparing myself from Gabe’s gloating.
Inky smoke rises from the bare, charred corpse. The area around its heart took the brunt of the explosion, judging by the gaping wound splaying out its chest cavity. Any trace of the golden light flooding its veins has been extinguished, along with the unyielding thirst inits now colorless eyes.
It almost appears . . . human.
Well, a human with skin blackened to a crisp. But those parted lips? They might’ve been soft and rosy once. And the dainty, upturned nose reminds me so much of Taurance that a pang stabs my chest.
Who was this person, before they became this thing? Do they have a family? Is there someone out there right now missing them as fiercely as I miss Taur?
Stop empathizing with it.
Regardless of what it might’ve been once, there’s no humanity in the Sol sprawled before me. If our positions were reversed, it certainly wouldn’t mourn me.
Kalden, who’s knelt beside the creature, presses his gloved fingers against the pulse point on the side of its neck, right above what looks to be a collar. Seconds pass, and he lowers his head.
The gesture is so close to tender mourning that I freeze in place.
“Dead.” Kalden confirms what we both already knew, voice returning to neutral as he rolls back on his feet.
“That’s great, right?” I ask, taking a cautious step forward.
He shakes his head as he walks past me. “A life lost is never something to celebrate.”
I double my pace to match his. “Even if it’s our enemy?”
