We’re on a ship unfamiliar to me, but one that looks a lot like Allele, Aura’s vessel. It has an organically shaped interior with swooping curves to the archways and passages. “Whose ship is this?”
“Eluni’s. This is Zia. She’s a bit bigger than the others, as a protector of Amphiran history should have.” Fieri leads me into a private room and motions to the medical bed. “Face down so I can fix your wings.”
“Don’t bother,” I say, stopping in the doorway.
Fiery pauses and lets out a breath. “Jorusk, I know you are hurting.”
“I don’t care about the physical pain.”
“I know.” Fieri turns to face me. “The other kind is much more powerful. It’s why I have the Storm I do. Because I let my loss make me angry and fill me with hatred of this world. But that has its place. If you let your pain turn you into a monster around even those who do not deserve it, then you cause them the pain you so desperately want to stop within yourself. Do not become someone else’s pain. Fight evil to protect love. Otherwise, the universe will fall into chaos, and the only thing anyone will know is that feeling you carry inside you now.”
His words are unexpected. Fieri is one of the toughest soldiers I know. I never took the time to consider his past before. He always seemed so unbreakable. And now I know it’s because he’s already broken, and I never got to see the pieces before he put himself back together.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” he says quietly. “Now, please, work with me. I am trying to help you.”
I lie down on the medical bed he directs me to. Every movement and positional change sends shooting pains through my wings. Fieri props them up on rolling carts and lowers a machine from the ceiling that hums and glows with soft white light.
Fieri begins work on my fractured wings first. The device heats the flesh and bone near my back and immediately eases my pain.
The Amphirans have more advanced technology than the rest of us. I have tried to learn everything I could from them to help my kind survive.
He’s quiet for a long time as he works. When I glance over my shoulder at him, his eyes meet mine. There’s uncharacteristic worry in them. “You are not too unlike Aura. Your power is…exceptional, under-utilized, and needs more training. You also fight it like he did. So it builds and builds until it blows. Then you both do stupid shit, and end up hurting yourselves or others.”
“I didn’t hurt anyone else.”
He inhales deeply like he’s quelling the urge to snap at me. So I change the subject.
“Did you ever recover the last Amphiran females the Denarso took?”
“Six were still missing after Bakka’s forces invaded. We did bring them home. They’d been sold to Novarks but held as entertainment pieces instead of mates. Used their Storms to power ships and kill enemies. It will take time for them to heal, but they are strong.” Fieri moves on to another fracture, and the heat of his device follows toward my wings’ thumbs.
“How is Allele?”
“Very happy.” Fieri was never very talkative. He moves the healing device to my left wing’s broken third finger.
“Jorusk, whatever you think you did to deserve dying, you did not do.”
“I killed Kalihtanis, the cloaked Talhuskin on your ship,Gravion. They have waged a war of vengeance on us since then.”
“They are not related, Jorusk. This war is not your fault.”
Frustration tightens my chest. “How can it not be?”
“Talhuskins hate your kind because of who they are, not because of who you are or what you did. They have tried to rule you for centuries. They took you from your homeworld like Denarso take females. But they did not…”
A searing presence enters the room, and Fieri stops mid-sentence.
“Kleitak!”Stop!I know the female’s voice anywhere. Mother Cinuska’s Inferno heats the room as she enters and circles my wing, opposite Fieri. She wears the battle armor of Pyraforce. I am relieved she is alive, but I am certain she’s here to reprimand me. “Do not speak as if you know us.”
“I do,” Fieri states. “I have been to your home system. It is not dead. We simply could not navigate it because our ships did not have the necessary bumper panels for the mines or the Inferno to make the clouds part.”
What is he talking about?I know Fieri’s older and has seen a lot of things I haven’t, but I have no idea what’s going on.
She hisses at him and bares her pointed teeth. “Leave us.”
“No.” Fieri continues his healing.
