Page 40 of Above (Darkness Reigns #1)

Nova

“The first time I saw a dead body was when I was three. It wasn’t due to hunger or the elements, though I’ve seen that since.

No, this girl—who was about the age I am now—was brutally raped by an official, then left for dead on the pathway in front of our house.

She was so bloody that none of us recognized her at first. Not until her father came screaming and sobbing, begging the stars for mercy.

The girl survived thanks to Mama, but the next morning, she killed herself in the same exact spot.

I have no idea how I remember it so vividly, but I do. ”

T he first death came the day after our fourth illusion.

While I had known it wasn’t uncommon for trainees to die during academy, I hadn’t expected it to be by their own hand.

Jeanette Rhoden, the trainee who had beaten me to a pulp on our final day of the grey phase, had been found at the base of the clock tower that sat in the center of the courtyard, her brains and innards scattered across the cobblestone.

At first, I struggled to believe that someone would choose such a gruesome death, and I even considered that Otarn and Zade had done it.

But Jeanette had been close with them, often doting on the cores.

Plus, we had all witnessed her breakdown after her illusion.

She had to be dragged out of the training center kicking and screaming, vomit still coating her training leathers.

When they tried to put her to sleep, she bit the hand of the medic.

Her screams echoed long after they had left, the sounds chilling.

Now she was dead. We held no service. Did nothing to honor her.

In fact, Captain Zade suggested we had gotten rid of a weak link.

Once again, I found myself wanting to rip her stupid head off.

But Talon and I were on rocky ground, neither willing to talk about our fight a few nights prior. Not that I could take her anyways.

Often, I came to the conclusion that many were unable to see what I did.

They did not recognize how dangerous and uncertain our futures were.

Nor did they question the way things were done.

They followed, and sometimes I was inclined to do so as well.

But there was a price to knowledge if you had a conscience. And, unfortunately, I did.

As we sat in class, Jeanette’s blood barely cold, I wondered if that was our sacrifice for the shadows. Losing your ability to empathize—your humanity gone.

Would I one day be just like Captain Zade? Her uninterested face only lighting up when someone was in pain? Her hatred for anything she felt was less than she was? Her desire to prey upon men like Altair who she held power over?

No, I had my family. They would keep me steady. If I could find a way to save them, that was.

“Trainee Tershetta, which planet did we learn about the use of long distance communications from after conquering it?” the educator asked, their mask tilting to the side as they looked at me.

Why they insisted on wearing them so often, I didn’t know.

But what I did know was that they loved to call on me in the hopes of making me stumble.

“Planet two-zero-four, also known as Envotrista.”

“And what was it that they crafted to do so?”

“They utilized some sort of brick-like device that allowed them to speak across miles.”

“What did we create in response to gaining this knowledge?”

“We developed a way to merge our shadows with tech, training the two to take sound waves and transport them like bodies or parchment. About nine hundred years ago, Colonel Lenne Xentofar turned that into live projections of one’s body, which appears in a very similar way to the maps cartographers craft. ”

“Correct,” the educator groaned, moving on to another trainee. But they would try again to catch me saying something wrong. Always testing me not just because I was an akhata, but because I had the audacity to be a smart one.

All at once my thoughts about their hatred for me, their disinterest in Jeanette, and their utter lack of a heart collided. Merged. Forming one cohesive conclusion.

Being smart wasn’t a blessing from the stars. It was a curse. We thought more deeply. We were plagued with the reality that the bliss of ignorance hid others from. We saw the truth, we knew what the world was and understood our inability to stop the pain.

Intelligence directly led to suffering.

Even worse, people expected more from us.

They gave less grace for missteps and refused to accept our limitations.

When someone who failed ten times over barely succeeded on their final attempt, they were extraordinary.

When someone who had succeeded ten times over went on to fail a single time, they were a waste of talent.

They were only ever seen as their defeat.

We were born to fail, whether that be by death or exhaustion or the anxiety that plagued us. Like Jeanette, we would fall.

I would.

“Is this seat taken?” Talon asked, his bronze cheeks reddening.

I shook my head, patting the chair beside me.

We had been uneasy around one another, and in that time he had developed a habit of asking before doing.

While it was unnecessary for him to ask to sit next to me at dinner, I did appreciate it.

However, today wasn’t a good one for talking. It seemed that every time I fought off the hopelessness and defeat, it found a way to come back stronger. I would go from believing in myself one moment, to feeling utterly out of my depth the next.

“Are you okay?” Talon asked, concern pinching his brow.

His hand lifted, reaching toward me and then stilling just above my own.

While I wished I were capable of tucking mine in my lap, I wasn’t.

So when his amber eyes flicked between my own and our hands, I knew he’d see it as acceptance. And he did.

His palm was warm, like the days that were beginning to fade into excruciating heat. It made me think of Altair’s cold skin.

Yes, I could do so much worse than Talon.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I answered, smiling at him. He beamed back, his bright teeth showing and his eyes crinkling at the edges.

He wore his training leathers, the black decorated with hints of red.

A ruby, a chain, a roaring bear. From my vantage point I could make out the muscles beneath, his build so large that he quite literally looked like he could hug someone to death.

His shoulder-length hair was pulled up in his usual bun, exposing the hard edges of his square jaw.

His lashes and eyebrows were thick, nose wide and mouth large.

He was handsome. More than handsome. And he was kind.

So why couldn’t I just accept his affection without having to think twice?

“Well, I’ve missed you. I thought more about our conversation and I think I understand better what you were trying to say.

I know that if I hadn’t gotten magic, I would want my family to fight for me, too.

” Earnestness seemed to inflate each word, his honesty burning my lungs like bubbling blisters as I held my breath.

A but was coming. “But, I do think you focus so much on your family that you stop yourself from seeing your own potential. Look what happened to that one girl this morning. She wasn’t focused, and that cost her her life.

If you don’t make it, Nova…I don’t know how I will. I need you.”

There it was. The real truth. He supposedly understood my desperate need to save my family, but he also had no idea why I couldn’t just focus.

No one could feel how I did and disagree with my priorities.

But I was done with arguing. His choices were his and mine were mine.

We didn’t need to agree. When all was said and done, he’d grow tired of using me for whatever rebellion he was waging against his parents, and then I’d be free to return to my family.

“I’m right here,” I offered, rotating my hand and gripping his back.

It was the first time I had ever reciprocated something so plainly, and it was obvious on Talon’s face that he realized it, eyes wide and nostrils flaring slightly.

His cheeks heated once more, his hold growing tighter on me. Then he leaned in and kissed me.

Stars, I had fucked up.

The small peck was innocent enough, but I had never manipulated anyone like Talon before. Never needed to lie and steal when it came to someone I cared about, because it was only ever my family I felt that way for. But I had grown to like Talon, clear biases aside, and now I was leading him on.

He’d forget me and move on.

I hoped he would, at least.

My focus went back to my food, and I used the excuse of me being left handed to let go of his fingers, grabbing my fork firmly and not looking away from my plate of chicken, rice, and broccoli as he began to chatter on. At one point, he brought up his mother, and I fully tuned in.

“I swear she is sleeping with fucking Altair. I don’t know what he gains from it, but I saw them leaving one of the closets before strategy class today. Lipstick was all over his neck and her leathers were still unzipped at the back. She even had the audacity to turn and let him zip it for her.”

“Ew,” I said, scrunching my nose. “How low can she sink?”

I never talked poorly of Talon’s mother when he went on these tangents, but I couldn’t help commenting.

“Right? And if my father catches her…” He trailed off, his eyes widening as he shook his head. “She will be dead before she can even try to make an excuse.”

“Wow, I didn’t realize how seriously cores took the sanctity of marriage,” I admitted, surprised by how egregious his father would find it. She wasn’t sneaking around well for someone risking death. And all for Altair? That made no sense. He was such an entitled ass.

“Men do. Women, well, they deal with whatever the man deems best.” He shrugged, shoving nearly an entire chicken breast into his mouth and chewing loudly, brows knitted together as he thought.

The sound of his chewing and his shaking leg made my headache worse, but I couldn’t tune him out.

Not when I was so interested in what he was about to say.

Fingers twirling my necklace, I gritted my teeth and waited.

“My father, for example, is known to take women to our house rather often. He makes Mother sleep in her separate quarters of Castle Zade on those occasions.”

What in the fuck was wrong with cores? “And she doesn’t get mad?”

“She doesn’t have the right to,” he responded, shoveling rice into his mouth.

“But he does when she commits the very same crime?” No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t push back the disgust in my voice, making it sound throaty.

“Well, yeah, she’s his, not the other way around.”

Like owning a pet. Core family values at their finest.

“Have you read the latest chapter of the history text?” I asked, changing the subject before I lost control of my feelings. “It went over our quickest conquest, which was planet four-one-nine. It’s very interesting.”

Talon’s head titled, eyes squinting slightly. My breaths became labored, the feeling of his expectations suffocating me slowly.

“That’s how it’s meant to be,” he deadpanned, unwilling to let the topic change. “If women were allowed to feel as if they were equal to men, then nothing would get done properly. Believe me, I’ll be the first to say I hate my father, but it’s normal that he leads our family. It’s the old ways.”

If only he could hear himself with a clear mind. Could see the lies and biases he had been force fed for decades. But I feared at that moment that he would never comprehend reality as so many of us saw it.

“You said you didn’t see me as any less than you the other night,” I pointed out, wishing immediately that I hadn’t.

Because now Talon looked at me with wide eyes and an open mouth, as if I had somehow suggested I would one day be his wife.

So I did what I always resorted to. I changed the subject again.

“I’m pretty tired, Talon. Want to head back to the room? ”

Momentarily, we held one another’s stare. It was like a standoff of sorts. Our warring beliefs and views of the world colliding. But, as he so often did, Talon broke first, smiling brightly at me. “Of course, Supernova.”

That night, though I hated myself for it, was the first time since having my own bed brought in that I accepted Talon’s offer to sleep in his. And when he pulled my face to his and kissed me, I let him.