Page 46 of Cage of Starlight

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A crisp breeze mutes the sweet reek of gore and the tang of exploded shells on the battlefield.

Bent over and silent, Tory navigates a path through corpses, stepping over gummy swaths of crimson-black.

Carrion birds, startled into flight by his arrival, circle overhead and settle on the roots arching into and out of the ground.

A few brave birds hop around in the distance, blinking glassy black eyes at Tory when he comes close.

Some of the bodies, there’s nothing to scavenge—barely enough to tell they were human.

He targets the intact ones, holds his breath and swallows hard, and tries not to look at faces.

He fails. His eyes find a scar that warps an ear and part of a swollen face.

The eyes have gone milky gray and flat, unrecognizable.

Tory chokes and tastes bile. He knows that face.

One of Gavin’s buddies. Not too far behind him is Gavin.

The massive hole punching through both of their chests makes them a matched set. Perhaps one tried to protect the other.

Tory takes weapons off the bodies, slings the straps around his neck one after another, then digs into pockets and packs for rations, canteens, and ammo—whatever he can find—and stuffs it into a sack strapped across his front.

As careful as he is, there’s no avoiding the blood that gets under his fingernails.

He leaves the bracelets on the bodies, though Riese said the metal could be melted into bullets.

The tags might be all they have to put names to the fallen.

He doesn’t find Randall, no longer remembers where he fell. Wherever he is, maybe Niela is beside him.

Tory pulls that foolish thought out by the roots. They’re dead. It doesn’t matter, anymore, what these people wanted or who they loved. Those things are no use to dead men. Nothing is of any use to dead men.

One after another after another. It’s different, being here again.

Silent. Frightening in a marrow-deep way he didn’t have time for in the heat of battle.

Death has become something insidious and mundane, a thing that lingers.

After a lifetime at the work of staying alive, the fact that Tory doesn’t lie among these bodies comes down to luck.

Luck, and maybe Sena warning him about that shell.

Every shift and crunch and caw of birds sends a surge of anxiety through him. The movement in his peripheral vision is only the other Seeds Riese sent to comb the battlefield, but Tory’s brain rolls out images of Arlunian soldiers walking from the trees, ready to fight.

Shaded by the tree line, Sena stands sentry.

When Tory’s pack is as full as he can fill it and he has two rifles slung over each shoulder, he snags a communicator from a fallen officer’s belt, clipping it to a pocket underneath a heavy rifle like it belongs there, and turns to bring his loot back to the wagon.

He drops the communicator at the edge of the woods as he runs and hopes Sena finds it.

He heads back as soon as he dumps his loot. The communicator no longer lies where he dropped it. The stones and leaves where it fell are arranged in a crude smiley face, which shocks a snort out of Tory. It’s still so strange, the idea that Sena can be funny.

He fills the sack again, slinging rifles across his chest three at a time.

Two more runs, and on the third he returns to Riese, barely resisting the urge to veer off and check on Sena. Sena slept most of the way here, restless against the tarp-covered back of the rickety wagon they brought. He was slow to wake when they arrived. Confused.

“Where’s Sena?” Riese asks. “We’re out in five whether he’s here or not.”

Tory searches Riese’s face for suspicion but finds only impatience. “I—” His mouth is bone-dry. He won’t lick his lips. Mark of a liar. “I’ll get him.”

Riese stares, dark eyes unwavering. “Five minutes.”

Tory runs. Now that he has a sense for Sena’s energy, he’s like a beacon.

He finds Sena in the woods with his forehead against a tree.

“Hey!” Tory whisper-calls.

Sena doesn’t do anything.

“You look ridiculous!” Tory tries again.

Sena coughs out a low laugh. “Five days,” he says.

“Huh?”

“We have five days until they disable our Cores.”

That’s—

Tory frowns. The way Sena talked about it before, he thought their reprieve would be longer. Indefinite . Far more than five days, anyway. “Riese is being cagey about letting me in on his timeline. I don’t know if that’ll be enough.” He pauses. “You didn’t tell them about Riese, did you?”

Sena drops the communicator, stomps it into the ground, and kicks fallen leaves over it.

“Of course not. I said we were isolated and injured near the border, trying to make our way back. They started out promising three days . . . said we should be able to rendezvous with teams scouting the area in that time. I managed to talk them into more, so—well. It could be worse.”

“I mean, that’s not so bad, right?” But there’s something wrong with three days, with five. With a reprieve so short. It settles too late. “We can just . . . I mean, I can—” Tory goes cold. “ Shit .”

This whole time, he’s had his own Core and the battle and Riese’s plans and a million other things on his mind. He’s been on fire with Riese’s promise, Riese’s purpose, Iri’s strange and lovely truths. He didn’t think—

He didn’t think . Sena has no promise of salvation waiting at the end of this.

Five days of life isn’t much at all. What they’ve done to Sena, they’ve given him no choice. Return or die.

“You have to go back.”

Jaw set, Sena says nothing, half-moon bruises under his eyes the only hint at his exhaustion.

When they met, Tory thought him a coward, an obedient doll—Kirlov’s perfect soldier.

This bravery in the face of death is so much worse.

A coward would survive . If Sena were Tory, he’d go back to the Compound.

He’d smile and play nice and crush himself down as small as they asked him to, because nothing’s been more important than surviving until now.

“They may change their minds, of course,” Sena says, dry.

“I wouldn’t put it past them to disable one or both of us to prove a point, so it’s best to get your Core out as soon as possible.

We’re only special when we’re in their hands.

As soon as our risk outweighs our potential contribution .

. .” He waves a hand. “You looked like you had something to say?”

Desperation is an ache in Tory’s throat. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s clearly something, for you to run all the way here.”

Tory swallows. “Riese sent me. Says we’ve got five minutes before he leaves without us.”

“He won’t.”

“He will. He said so.” He doesn’t mean to snip, but the words come out rough.

“No,” Sena says, matter-of-fact. “He’s smart. He wouldn’t leave us. He’d kill us first. As I said, we’re too big a risk.”

A risk.

Something swells in Tory, incendiary like the explosion that threw him over the cliff into the cold ocean—something too big for his hands to take the shape of, too frightening to name. Something that could kill him.

He tries futilely to produce words as they walk back in silence.

*

Tory swings into the back of the covered wagon to absolute silence. No one moves as he helps Sena up.

“Just in time to go down with us,” Riese whispers.

Tory takes in everyone’s drawn faces.

“What?”

Iri answers, trying out a wan smile. “Military patrol.” His eyes dart to Sena. “They’ve got Null. Saw them with tranq rifles and syringes.”

“Null?” Iri used that word the first time they met.

Riese speaks again, eyes cold and flat as they travel over Sena.

“Not long ago, we discovered the Westrian military was testing weaponry that disabled Seeds. Iri here theorized that the military had a Voidseed and had adapted a weapon to neutralize our energy. The results are excruciating. The effects of a single dose can last a whole day. If they have Null, it doesn’t matter what our skills are. They’ll slaughter us.”

Sena goes ramrod straight. “I didn’t know.”

Riese sighs. “It doesn’t matter. If they saw Iri, they’ll be monitoring the roads out.”

“Then we go and meet them,” Spark says. “Travin and I can zap at least a few of them before they hit us with a dose of that shit, and even if I can’t zap ’em, we have guns.”

“And show our hand? They have communicators. Do you want to bet our whole mission on the hope that they won’t be able to call out for reinforcements, won’t hit one of us with Null and capture us while we’re in too much pain to move?

I know everyone here would promise me their silence, but believe me when I say they would make you talk. We can’t face them head-on.”

Chest tight, Tory says, “There has to be another way out.”

“With our supplies? We’ve got cliffs on two sides and freezing ocean beyond.

Woods to the third. There’s only one road out.

Travin could ’port us in small groups, but he can’t ’port the wagon.

We’d have to leave most of the supplies behind, and we can’t risk losing the upper hand they give us, not now. ”

Shouts in the distance, drawing closer. Iri’s eyes dart to follow them, fists clenching.

Riese hunches forward. “We have to give them someone to chase so we can slip away when they’re not looking.” He trails off, examining each silent, pale member of his group.

Sena is the first to speak. “Send me. My presence compromises everyone’s abilities, and I’m injured and can’t travel well on foot.”

At his words—so casual—Tory’s heart leaps into his throat.

He opens his mouth to object, but Riese beats him to it, eyes darting between Tory and Sena with a conflicted expression. “I can’t let you do that.”

“ Damn right he can’t!” Tory blurts. “ What’re you thinking?”

Tory startles as Travin ’ports in beside him. He didn’t even notice him leaving.

“They’re close,” Travin says, breathing labored. “We don’t have long.”

Riese scrubs a hand over his face. “Damn it!”

“I’ll be the decoy.”