Page 56 of Cage of Starlight

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

H elner falls in beside Tory as soon as the soldiers drop him off inside the Compound’s door. “You’d better have your story straight. Kirlov wants your report right now. ”

The weight of the pack Riese gave Tory, stuffed with contraband, increases a thousandfold on his shoulder. “Can’t I swing by my room first? Or—or wash up, at least?” He could put the pack in his locker. “Surely it’d be disrespectful to face the colonel like this.”

But Helner with her plausible deniability has no idea what she’s making him do.

“No time.” She pulls him to a stop at a nondescript gray door and, before Tory can explain, tugs it open and shoves him inside. “Brought the Channeler!”

Colonel Erwin Kirlov waits on the other side of a gray table, hands steepled and posture rigid.

His cold eyes pin Tory. “Arknett.”

Ice rushes through Tory. He quells the instinct to lean the shoulder carrying his pack away from Kirlov.

“Sit.”

Kirlov’s gesture exposes the watch he used to hurt Sena, and heat floods Tory.

He should probably greet Kirlov with his rank.

Should probably say something—anything at all.

But Sena isn’t here for Kirlov to punish for Tory’s mistakes, so Tory just drops into the uncomfortable chair screwed into the floor on the other side of the table.

He slides his pack from his shoulder—as casually as he can while his heart drums double-time—and tucks it between his knees.

He white-knuckles one of the straps when Kirlov’s eyes go to the bag but unclenches his fist from the thing, bones creaking, to offer the man an unkind smile.

“What’s so important I wasn’t allowed to shower? ”

Kirlov’s expression doesn’t change in any way Tory can pinpoint, but the air in the room goes thin and frigid. “We’d like your account of what happened to Lieutenant Vantaras.”

Matter-of-fact, without mercy.

Tory’s fists ball, stomach churning acid.

It’s fine. Whatever they see on his face, it’ll only help him sell the story.

“We were pushed over the cliffs by an explosion from a modified shell. We survived the fall, but Se—Lieutenant Vantaras was injured.” The title comes easily, so far removed from Sena as Tory knows him that he can almost imagine he’s telling a story about someone else.

“It worsened as we traveled. We made it back to the battlefield to get our hands on a communicator, but . . .” After all the people he’s healed—people whose names he can barely remember— “I couldn’t heal him.

I tried .” He twines his hands together under the table and squeezes as tight as he can.

He wants to move, not think, but he can’t mess this up.

Fidgeting will get him pinned as a liar, could draw attention to the pack between his knees.

“And the body?”

Wouldn’t you like to know? It probably shows on his face, because Kirlov’s eyes narrow. Tory wipes his expression clean. “In the woods.”

“Which woods?”

“Ones with trees. I’m crap at navigation.

Sena’s—” He closes his teeth on his lip, lets the sharp burst of pain clear his head.

“The lieutenant was the one who knew the terrain. I just went where he said. I . . . before he—” He’s so weak.

He can’t even say it. “He said as long as I kept going northeast, I’d hit either the Compound or the road, so I kept going. I got here.”

Helner ticks the sharp heel of her shoe against the floor. “If we’re finished . . .”

“I believe we need a more thorough account of the lieutenant’s decline. Arknett?”

Thorough like Sena’s gentle smile by the light of the fire—apology and farewell in one? Like the way he tried to dissuade Tory from hoping he’d survive?

Like the whistle of air in his chest, maybe. He never once had hope for himself, and this bastard is the one who denied him that. Anger sits bitter on Tory’s tongue. Back in Hulven, Tory had Hasra and Thatcher behind him, feeding him kindnesses he never let himself embrace.

Who did Sena have?

Helner paces over to the table. “Colonel, enough. This is getting morbid.”

“ Doctor. I did not ask your opinion. You will not be the one writing the report to the Grand General informing him of his son’s passing. Arknett, as much as you remember.”

Tory forces himself to speak. “When . . . when we hit the water, Lieutenant Vantaras took the brunt of it. Broken ribs, at least. He kept moving, said we needed to get back or we’d die.

” The words come out rote and flat. That’s probably bad.

It probably sounds like he’s lying, but he can’t make himself linger.

“He was fevered on the second day, delirious. Coughing. I could tell it hurt. The last time I saw him, he was—” he chokes the words back.

His head feels too full, a bare moment from cracking open.

Lungs too small, air too far, bones too big.

Tory pushes up from the chair. “I can’t do this. ”

Because here’s the awful truth of it: Sena had him, and maybe only him, and Tory promised to stay. Sena wasn’t well. Maybe he didn’t even know what he was doing when he left. Riese said he was confused.

It’s easy to blame Kirlov, but Kirlov never played at being a friend.

“Sit down , Arknett . I will inform you when you’re free to go.”

But he can’t. He’s not sure his legs would bend for him if he tried.

“He’s fresh from a slaughter, Colonel,” Helner says. “The only person who survived with him is dead .”

“That’s the question, isn’t it? Arknett, how are you sure he’s dead? Before you left him, did you check for pulse and respiration?”

“I—” Tory’s spread hands blur and waver on the table. The room grows smaller.

A hand seizes his arm. Helner? “We’re leaving. This is going nowhere. Track the corpse if you need it so badly.”

“I might. But we’re not finished here. Once he’s calmed down, bring him back.”

With any luck, Tory will be long gone by the time Kirlov thinks to accost him again.

They make it to the door before Kirlov’s voice stops them.

“Arknett.”

“ What ?”

“Do you intend to leave your pack here?”

Adrenaline sears him. Tory snatches the pack from the floor and stalks out with Helner at his side, Kirlov’s eyes following him the whole way.

*

Helner tracks him down after his shower. His hair’s still dripping into his eyes, skin livid pink with the blistering heat of the water.

“Sorry to hit you with this, but for once in my life, thanks to some of the reports we’ve received of your performance in the field, I’ve gotten permission to run you through some exercises to see whether you’d be useful in the sword corps.

I don’t plan to waste the chance.” She leads him down the hall as he towels his hair dry.

“I really do think, if the generals stopped defining Seeds in such restrictive ways, we could change things for the better. Can you imagine Fielders doing offensive maneuvers? Creating a dome forcefield around a group of enemy soldiers and—” She makes a dome with her hands and collapses it with an accompanying squishing noise.

“—just crushing them ? There’s more to all of us than they think. ”

She pauses, steps slowing, in front of a door. “I’ll have to leave you here for a minute while I gather some things. I truly wasn’t expecting to get permission this time—”

Her voice dies in her throat as she tugs the door open.

Tory’s traitorous heart lurches at what’s inside.

A dark-haired officer stands inside the room. Familiar undercut, dress uniform. A familiar stance.

But the officer turns, and he’s too short, and too solidly built, features squished onto a mundane face. His expression is flat, lips pursed like he’s bored. “Ah, Doctor. I’m sorry to interrupt, but you won’t be performing your experiments today.”

Helner’s eyes narrow. “Won’t I?” Her hand doesn’t fist at her side. The fingers narrow to a spear-point, like she’s considering Reaching into the officer’s throat and pulling out his trachea.

“Change of plans,” the officer drawls. “I was ordered to accompany a shipment of prototypes by the Grand General himself.” At this, he stands straighter and gestures to encompass the high-ceilinged gray room.

At the back, a massive pile of boxes has been stacked.

A large, round target with red and white concentric circles has been mounted above the boxes, and a small group of Seeds stands facing the back wall.

One wears a strange, bulky vest, like the one the Grand General wore when he visited.

Tory’s knees knock. Back then, he didn’t know how to recognize the static-sharpness of Sena’s energy, but it’s a beacon, bleeding off everything in those boxes. Off the target. The vests. He was never anything but an object to these people.

The officer gestures to the boxes. “You were informed they’d be arriving.”

“A lot’s happened since then.”

“Well. General Vantaras’ priority is to test these against battle-trained Seeds and see how they hold up. I’ve spoken to the sword corps and called away a few of their Kineticists to start.”

“Why not do that in the capital?” Helner says, the kind of sweet that hides a sharp point.

“The other STAR compounds house Seeds with primarily non-offensive abilities. STAR-7 is our best bet at getting proper feedback.”

“I’ll take care of it, then. You can go,” Helner says coldly.

“I’m afraid not. I’ve been asked to observe.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“We simply believe two sets of feedback will be best. Besides, I’ll be able to give my report in person. You may provide notes and offer suggestions, but I’ll be taking the lead.”

Helner’s hand twitches at her side, and Tory wonders what organ she’s daydreaming of removing. “Lieutenant—”

“ Major ,” the officer corrects her, smile strained. He looks back to the gathered Kineticists. “Gentleman, please continue. Ah, hmm . . . #1, please throw an attack at the target. #2, direct an attack at #3. This time, please use all your strength.”