Page 126 of Last of Her Name

“You don’t understand,” I say. “Volkov wants to destroy you. And if I use you to destroyhim, this will never end. More will just come for you, and it’ll go on and on. Tell me what to do!”

“I’ll tell you whoItrust,” Clio says, with a sly sort of smile. She reaches up and frames my face with her hands, then tilts my head and kisses my brow. “I trustyou. And I trust you will find the path. Now go. You must go.”

All at once, she dissolves like a drop of wine into water.

Clio?I call out, reach for her, but I’ve lost my hands. I’m formless, voiceless again, just a spark in the sun.Clio!

Then the Prismata hurls me away.

It throws me aside like a hurricane flinging a grain of sand, and I panic. But my fear is meaningless against the tide of the Prismata’s surging energy. It sweeps over me and carries me off, and then I feel it:

A cluster of Prisms speeding through space, getting closer and closer.

Missiles.

Volkov is here. He has already opened fire.

And the Prismata, Clio, doesnothing. She could stop them. She could absorb them. I know how powerful she is now. If she wanted to, she could snap the Prisms powering those missiles or turn them around and blast Volkov out of the sky.

But she doesn’t.

She justwaits.

I rush backward, borne helplessly away from her, a scream trapped in my thoughts.

One moment, Clio burns in the sky, ancient and golden and brilliant.

Then the missiles strike her heart, and she shatters.

I wake with a gasp, my heart knocking in my chest. The shock of being slammed back into my body leaves me blind for a moment, and I cast out for something to grab hold of. I’m completely weightless, I realize, drifting in zero gravity. Panic grips me; I imagine that I’m floating in space, untethered and alone. I grapple at the visor of my helmet, trying to rip it off, before my senses kick in. Whatever’s going on, my helmet may be the only thing keeping me alive.

My vision begins to clear, but everything is tinted green. The lights must be out, and my space suit visor has activated its night vision. But it’s blurry and disorienting; I manage to get a grip on the wall, anchoring myself so I can make sense of my surroundings. Everything looks different in the grainy green haze of night vision. But I manage to make out the counters and cabinets of the old Leonova lab; I’m in the same place we were when Zhar found us. The room is a jumble of bodies and screams, figures in bulky space suits struggling in zero gravity. Someone collides with me, knocking my hand loose, and I careen through the air, crashing hard into the far wall. Rebounding back, spinning out of control, I find myself crushed by bodies. Everyone is shouting; someone’s elbow hits my helmet, and a crack splinters across my visor.

“Stacia!” A hand reaches out; the night vision makes it impossible to distinguish between the limbs and torsos and bulging helmets around me, but I’d know that voice anywhere.

“Dad?”

I try to reach him, but someone pushes me aside and I crash into the wall. In the collision, the crack in my helmet’s visor branches out like a spiderweb. My night vision flickers and then returns.

The soldiers are trying to make for the docks, but in the zero gravity and close confines, it’s sheer chaos. A space suit drifts past me, the visor shattered; inside, a pale face stares blankly, mouth stretched in a rictus of agony. I don’t know the soldier, but he died terribly.

I grab an air vent and press myself against the wall to keep from being crushed like that poor soldier.

“DAD!”

My voice is lost in the current of shouting and screams. But someone pushes free of the soldiers and grabs my arm.

“Stacia! This way!”

“Pol!”

He pulls me down the corridor toward the docks, shoving aside any soldiers who get in the way. Keeping our arms linked, we drift along, nudging the walls and floor to keep ourselves propelled in the right direction. The station is completely powerless; the walls groan and rattle around us, the way theValentinadid when Riyan took us through the Diamin Wall.

“You okay?” he asks. I can’t make out his face; his visor is just a blank green screen on his helmet. If it weren’t for his voice, I’d have no way of recognizing him.

“What happened?”

“You passed out. Then Volkov fired on the Prismata. The power went out. Gravity, lights, everything is gone. Even my gun is dead. Stace, it’s bad.”