Page 114 of Last of Her Name

This looksnothinglike his usual stress fields.

Most terrifying of all are Riyan’s eyes, which shine silver from end to end, even the whites obscured. He looks alien, devoid of emotion and thought, less human than cosmic force bound by gleaming dark skin and ragged robes.

This is Riyan out of control.

He has the same look as when he attacked Pol and nearly killed him, as if some other force has possessed him. It is terrifying and entrancing all at once. And I remember all too well what he said could happen when a tensor loses control.

The missile is five seconds away.

My grip on the chair tightens until the blood leeches from my fingers. Mara lets out a frightened sob.

Three seconds.

Riyan’s head ticks slightly, the smallest mechanical tilt to the left, and in front of the ship, the gravity stormchanges.

It happens so fast I almost miss it: the teeming darkness parts and forms a perfect circle, a round, terrible, and almighty black hole the size of theValentina. Riyan has gone beyond a stress field and instead ripped open space-time itself, opening a portal so strange and powerful that theValentinabegins to shudder. Mara yelps as the ship lunges out of her control and starts to slide toward the hole. I feel the strength of it in my teeth—a merciless hungry strength that pulls at my every atom. It sucks us in, and Riyan lets out a deep, guttural cry as he fights to keep it open.

Then a bright flash of light bursts on the edge of the black hole; it must be the missile intended to blow us to pieces. Instead, it vanishes into the darkness, and with a final cry, Riyan releases his hands. The hole snaps shut and vanishes, so quickly I almost believed I imagine the whole thing.

Riyan collapses. Natalya catches him before he hits the floor, her cheeks damp with tears. She murmurs and strokes his face, kisses his forehead. “Good work, little brother.”

A moment passes in which none of us can speak or breathe. We’re all still staring at the spot where Riyan opened the black hole and sent the missile hurtling into stars know where—another dimension? A limitless void? My mind can’t even begin to make sense of what I just saw, but I do know this: I’ve never been so grateful to have Riyan onourside.

“Mara,” I say quietly, “get us out of here. Someplace we can hide until we’re ready to warp.”

“I’ve got coordinates,” says Pol, and he keys them in.

I sink into the chair between Pol and Mara, locking my harness in place and trying to ignore the queasiness in my gut. Natalya helps Riyan to the lower deck. He’s conscious, barely, but doesn’t look like he’ll be doing any more tessellating for a while.

Mara angles us away from the planet and throws theValentinainto full speed. We fall into our seats and strap in, the ship rattling hard from the stress of acceleration.

Finally, Mara lets autopilot take over. She pushes back her hair, letting out a long breath of relief.

“Well, that was fun.” She turns and looks at me. “Now what?”

TheValentinahums as it idles in the shadow of an uninhabited gas giant adjacent to Alexandrine. It took us five hours to reach the spot, dodging vityaze patrols all the while. The ships thinned the farther we got, and now the massive planet’s emissions hide us from their scanners.

Riyan, Pol, Mara, and I stand in a huddle on the control deck. Natalya is below, having fallen asleep after complaining of a headache. No wonder. She’s had the roughest day of all of us, after I basically fried a circuit implanted in her brain. Riyan keeps glancing at her worriedly, but she seems stable. In fact, he looks worse than she does. Opening the black hole left him gaunt and wreathed in shadow. I don’t know how much of it is the effect of his mighty exertion and how much is guilt from his shattering the tensors’ most rigid law, the one he’s upheld every moment of his life till now. But he says nothing of it, only focuses on what’s ahead.

They tell me the short and bitter story of their half-cocked, and ultimately failed, mission to rescue me from the Committee. They had to flee Diamin quickly, Mara and Pol smuggling Riyan out before he could be stripped of his ability to tessellate, while the tensors were distracted by the Committee ships. I guess their first thought was to come after me, even though they knew it would probably end terribly.

When they’re done, they listen as I relay the events in the palace, both before and after they were nearly executed by Volkov. The only thing I don’t mention is Clio. I skip over the part where I searched for her in the prison, the awful night when I realized the truth about her, and the part of Danica’s message that connected Clio with the Prismata.

I’m having trouble looking at Pol. I know he must be aware that I’ve learned the truth about her; he’s been side-eyeing me ever since we escaped the Palace, like he’s itching to ask me about it but isn’t sure how. And I haven’t been ready for that particular conversation, but I know I can’t put it off much longer.

“They copied the Firebird code,” I finish. “All of it. And once they translate it, they’ll find and destroy the Prismata.”

“Because it’s …alive,” Pol says, looking as if he still doesn’t quite believe it. “And because its life energy fuels our entire civilization.”

I glance away. “Right. And if Volkov destroys the Prismata, the entire galaxy will go dark. Ships will crash, cities will collapse, billions of people will die.”

“Why would he want that?” asks Mara.

“Because he knows the Prismata’s alive, and he’s afraid of it. It’s why he revolted against the Leonovs in the first place—he thought they were being controlled by this alien mind, that the Prismata could wipe us all out if it decided to. He doesn’t trust it.”

“So his plan is to wipemostof us out?”

“To save the rest, yeah. At least that’s how he justifies it.”