Page 30 of Cage of Starlight

“Action speaks louder than impotent apologies. This is why I’ve brought you here.

I’ve been displeased with reports of your recent conduct.

Creating rifts within your unit. Reckless behavior.

Destruction of property.” Kirlov’s lips curl, and Tory takes a moment to consider role models.

Vantaras can be irritating, but he has nothing on this guy.

The stick up his ass must go on for miles.

Kirlov turns to a basin and washes his hands with infuriating slowness, like he needs to scrub off their presence. Tory stalks forward, mouth opening to give the guy a piece of his mind.

“ No .” Sena’s hand twists in his sleeve and pulls him back.

It’s not the word that makes him stop. It’s the bone-white knot of Sena’s hand in his sleeve, the pitch of his whisper—not an order but a plea.

Tory crosses his arms and waits for Colonel Germophobe to finish.

After a while, Kirlov dries his hands on a rag folded over the basin and turns back.

“It is my judgment that both of you should be disciplined. Have you heard of a NOVA, Seed?”

So that’s where Sena gets the wretched nickname. “Yeah.”

“I am an officer. You will address me as such.”

“Yeah . . . sir,” Tory drawls, because fuck if he’s going to acknowledge the guy’s rank.

“You are well on your way to being fitted with one. If I lodge a complaint, you’ll need only two more marks on your record until you, too, are assigned an Overseer. That won’t take long if I don’t want it to. Are you aware of the device’s function?”

A kill-switch. “Yeah.”

Kirlov’s gaze slices through him.

“Yes, sir,” Tory corrects himself.

Kirlov lifts his wrist. He touches the dial.

Sena’s shoulders go up, chin ducking. Tory’s stomach plummets at the uncharacteristic display.

“Perhaps you are. I certainly can’t know what you’ve heard. But words are only words, Seed. You need to see in order to understand what you’ll have to look forward to if you don’t shape up. Lieutenant,” Kirlov says. “Don’t you agree?”

Sena pauses, swallows hard. By the look on Kirlov’s face, he pauses too long.

“Yes, Sir,” he whispers.

Tory found such perverse pleasure in creating a rift between Sena and Kirlov when he first met them. Now, his insides twist with sickness, and Kirlov is Sena’s Overseer , and Tory desperately doesn’t want to find out what that entails.

Kirlov sighs, and at the same time Sena hauls in a frantic, shuddering breath, turning away as if from a blow. His eyes meet Tory’s for a single, terrible moment.

Kirlov’s long fingers stab at one of the buttons on the watch, then he twists a dial around its face.

Sena goes impossibly straight and still. A sound starts in his throat, like he’s trying to breathe out and can’t. A rending, high-pitched keen makes goosebumps erupt on Tory’s skin.

Before he can open his mouth to ask what’s happening, Sena drops.

The keening turns to an awful scream that cuts off almost before it starts.

Kirlov, expressionless, twists the dial higher.

On the ground and on his back with his eyes wide open, mouth stretched wide with no sound coming out, Sena jerks like he’s seizing.

The bile-bite of fear paralyzes Tory, rips strength and thought from him. His knees hit the ground, the impact making his teeth clack. He extends a hand—curls it into a fist and draws it back. He doesn’t know what to do to make this stop .

The keening starts up again, broken by ragged exhales with no inhales, and it’s wrong, all wrong. Sena’s not actually breathing , his skin bluish, tendons corded in his neck, spine arched like he’s trying to break himself in half. Blood paints his lips like he bit them on his way down.

At last, he stops. Everything. His eyes close, his body relaxes, and he falls limp.

Kirlov takes a measured step forward. “Arknett. On your feet.”

He tries, but he can’t tear his eyes from Sena’s too-still form. Fear is a shrill thing in his ears, a pins-and-needles chill in every limb.

“On your feet. ”

He manages it, stomach rolling.

“Look.” Kirlov gestures down at Sena, like a man might gesture to a pile of garbage discarded a few feet from a bin.

It’s wrong to look at Sena from above like this.

“ Look at him.”

Tory complies. Frozen-pale, chest still, Sena lies lax like a corpse, the blood on his lips startlingly bright.

“This is what you have to look forward to if you don’t shape up.

It’s a graceless state, even more base and vile than your current one.

I or another Overseer will be able to bring you to heel in an instant.

This is merely a sample of a NOVA’s capabilities.

I could have let it go on for longer, but prolonged exposure can sometimes cause them to lose their bowels, and the last thing I need is to have to clean up after any of you. ”

Tory holds his breath only a fraction as long as Sena has held his, and his chest burns with it, blood hot with panic and vision narrowing to the third button on Sena’s jacket, just above his heart. He wills it to move.

A sob-like cough of panic works its way up Tory’s throat. “He’s—he’s not . . .”

Kirlov says nothing.

Tory jumps when Sena arches and gasps, drawing in a whistling breath like he’s been drowning and just broke the surface of the water. Tory breathes with him.

Kirlov steps back and turns away. “Lieutenant,” he says.

Sena moans, hazy eyes opening to half-mast and finding Tory before they squeeze closed again, lashes clumped with tears.

“Show your charge to the tents where he’ll be sleeping.

I received news; we’ll be splitting up to take on a splinter group of infiltrators on the Arou Cliffs tomorrow.

They still insist the claim to that area is theirs.

The others will proceed to the site of the last skirmish as planned, and a portion of us will break off to handle this. ”

Sena’s lips move, but no sound comes out. He swipes blood from his lips. Tory waits what feels like hours for him to curl onto his side, then push himself up on an elbow, onto shaky knees, and then onto both feet.

“You’re dismissed.” Kirlov turns to Tory. “Remember this, and learn.”

He won’t be able to forget.

Sena makes his way out the tent flap before he’s down on one knee again. His breaths come in odd, rasping gasps, like his lungs can’t remember how to work.

“Can I . . .” Tory whispers. He remembers, suddenly, that first time Sena arrived to take him to training, the way his gait looked wrong—wrong like this. “How many times—”

Sena shakes his head, doesn’t even look at Tory. Tory wonders if he’s aware of the sound he makes when he forces himself to his feet, a low whimper that makes Tory’s body flush with shame.

“T-told you,” Sena manages. “I— told you . . . to s-stay there.”

Tory’s voice deserts him as he takes small steps, trying to stay behind Sena. It’s hard. The long strides that usually leave him in Sena’s dust are drunken and staggering, his knees locking or giving out at odd times.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers when he finds his voice.

For being the reason Kirlov hurt Sena this time, and probably times before this.

For standing over him and looking down on his body like he was a thing.

For sassing Kirlov. For not sassing Kirlov, not fighting back. For things he can’t put into words.

“Apologies are . . . useless,” Sena whispers. He makes a sound almost like a laugh, except it’s bitter and cracked and nearly voiceless, more a cough than anything. He brings Tory to the outcropping of tents where he’ll be sleeping.

“Here.” Sena stands stiff like his bones will crumble if he doesn’t.

Tory wants—needs—to say something, do something, to explain, but he can’t make his mouth work. He watches Sena go in silence.