Page 127 of Last of Her Name

My stomach sinks. I dare not look out the window, but I have to. I have to. Feeling nauseated, I push away from him and grab hold of the nearest porthole—and my heart drops.

The Prismata is gone.

Where it was, there’s only a cloud of sparkling dust expanding outward in the darkness. The sky is fuzzy and green. The night vision only makes the scene even more surreal.

I would scream, if I could find the breath. But everything in me locks up, my body turning to ice. Horror opens in my stomach like a black hole.

“We have to get out of there!” Pol says. “The debris will rip this place apart. Hey! Riyan!”

A space suit drifts toward us, effortlessly graceful even in zero gravity. “There you are!” Riyan says. “We need to get away—”

“I know,” Pol says. “Stace, come on. It’s gone. There’s nothing we can do.”

He has to peel me away from the porthole.

They destroyed Clio.

The one thing I was meant to protect. A being far older and purer and more complex than we’ll ever know, and she’sgone.

I shut my eyes. I’m shaking in my suit, my teeth chattering. Pain splits my head like an ax. Pol and Riyan pull me along, but I’m barely aware of them. Riyan is tessellating, moving aside soldiers who block our path; their bodies pinwheel past, arms and legs flailing, their screams burrowing in my skull. I feel frayed inside, like some essential wire has been cut, disconnecting me from my own body. I’m dead weight, towed behind my friends like a defunct ship.

“My mom and dad,” I whisper. “Where are they?”

“I don’t know,” says Pol. “But we have to keep moving.”

“I can’t leave them behind again!”

There’s a scuffle ahead. Some soldiers are fighting to get to the dock, but there’s too many of them to fit through the narrow doorway leading there. One turns and shoves another, and we hear a pained cry as the soldier crashes into the wall.

“Mara,” I whisper. “That’s Mara.”

“So?” Pol says harshly.

I pull away from him and push myself to Mara’s side. She’s rolling in midair, clutching her leg.

“Help,” she groans. “I think it’s broken.”

Seeing her in pain, something stills within me. I can’t do anything about the Prismata, but here is someone Icanhelp. I link arms with her and turn back to Pol and Riyan.

“Someone’s got to fly us out of the field of debris,” I say. “And Mara trained in an asteroid belt. She’s the best chance we’ve got.”

Pol hesitates, then nods. “We need to move faster. Brother?”

Riyan flexes his hands. “On it.”

My stomach sinks first, then the rest of me, as Riyan tessellates. It must take a monumental effort, but he manages to restore enough gravity to the corridor so that we can run. Mara leans on Pol and Me, and Riyan follows behind, our boots heavy on the floor. Startled shouts sound from the soldiers who find themselves suddenly gravity-bound again. When they try to intercept us, Riyan crushes them to the floor.

“Have I ever told you,” Pol pants, “how freakingcoolyou are?”

Riyan gives a short, dry laugh.

Together we guide Mara down the corridor and into the docks. Similar to the palace’s configuration, the docks are a long, narrow chamber with round ports opening to the ships. Ahead, a group of soldiers is spillingintothe dock—soldiers in Union red. They’re facing off against the white-suited Loyalists, but everyone seems to be hesitating. With all the Prismic energy dead, they can’t use their guns. They have no weapons to fight with, and hand-to-hand combat in space suits is just awkward and pointless.

The vityazes must have attached to the station before firing on the Prismata, maybe in hopes of taking some of us alive.

Pol curses, pulling us aside into an empty alcove. With the soldiers in the way, we can’t reach theValentina.

“Can you handle them?” he asks Riyan.