Page 155 of Stardusted

I nodded and tried for levity, spreading my hands to encompass the car. “You’ve got a captive audience since I’ve been, you know, abducted by aliens.” His serious expression wavered, and he shot me a dry look. I managed a weak laugh and wrapped my arms around my middle. “Take your time.”

“Thanks.” He squeezed the back of his neck with one hand and sighed.

The car’s interior seemed to shrink. The seat had begun to warm beneath me, but I couldn’t relax into it. It took all I had not to lean toward him.

“The ship I was born on is trapped here in this sector,” he said, lowering his arm. “It’s a very long story, and I’m going to try to keep it short.” A pause, during which he pursed his lips. The rain’s song was nearly as hypnotizing as his gaze. Dark and unreadable, it searched mine, and then he said, “The Pladians and the Enil have been at war for almost a century.”

I jerked back. “Atwar?”

“Yeah, at war. The Enil…” He rubbed his knuckles beneath his chin, scrubbing the stubble there. “The Enil are what you’d call a culling race.”

“What’s a culling race?” I was turning into a parrot in my shock, repeating everything he said. At least it wasn’t a chicken this time.

Sky shifted, rolling his shoulders as if he could shake off whatever unpleasant thing he was about to say. “Basically, their goal is to find planets like their own and evaluate any life found there. If they believe it doesn’t measure up in some way, they wipe it clean and plant something else. Something intheirimage.”

A block of ice settled in my stomach. “So—wait. You’re saying they’llwipe outexisting species and…”

I couldn’t finish. That made it sound like the Enil had some sort of…some sort of twisted god complex. It was horrifying enough that it didn’t even soundreal.

But it was, if the darkness in Sky’s eyes was any indication.

“Yes. That’s what I’m saying.” He settled back in his seat again, balancing his wrist on his bent knee. “They’ve ended entire thriving civilizations because they didn’t fit their mold. Because the Enil believe they’re the highest form of life.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, clutching at my burning throat. “Is that what they’re trying to do withEarth?” Fear licked down my spine, colder than the rain had been outside, but Sky shook his head.

“No. No, they’re not here for humanity. They’re here for the halix, too.”

That didn’t exactly make me feel better. My palm gave a phantom prickle. “But why?”

He opened his mouth then closed it. Instead of speaking, he blew out a slow breath and tipped his head back until it bumped the window, studying the SUV’s gray fabric ceiling. “This is even harder than I thought it’d be,” he said, after a long moment.

Breaking his oath or telling his story? Either way, I felt for him. I did. But I also wanted these answers. Needed them to help make sense of this new reality.

I edged closer in wordless encouragement.

Sky tilted his chin down to meet my eyes in the muted dark. “I told you before that Pladians were—are—explorers, right?” At my slow nod, he turned his attention to the storm-wrappedhighway. “The ship I was born on was once part of those science fleets. The ones that discovered and documented other worlds.”

He plucked at his wet shirt, shifting in his seat. He radiated restless energy. So unlike him. He always seemed so damncalm, it was disconcerting to see him twitchy.

But he kept going. “The Pladians were in a sector of space not far from here when we encountered the Enil for the first time.” Outside the window at his back, lightning cracked apart the clouds, a jagged slash of cold light through the rain. “They’d found a race they’d decided wasn’t worthy and were already reshaping the planet, the first step to seeding it. Which also meant they were killing…everything.”

My mouth went dry. “They were reshaping an entireplanet?”

They coulddothat?

“Yeah.” Sky’s expression hardened. “We tried reasoning with them. It didn’t go well. Can’t exactly reason with mindless purpose.”

I tightened my fists on my thighs. Listening to this felt a little like falling into deep, dark water. Scary, monster-infested water. The Enil were even worse than I’d imagined. And that was saying a lot.

Sky ran a hand over his drying curls. “But Pladians being Pladians, we couldn’t sit by and watch an entire world get wiped out of existence like that. So the science fleet intervened. Or tried to.” He let his arm fall back into his lap. “The Enil are more advanced than us, and their technology outmatched ours.They didn’t appreciate our interference. And—well,” he spread his hands, “it started the war.”

I was barely breathing, too busy absorbing all of it. Pieces began to fall together.

Sky watched a set of headlights streak past, voice going husky. “The conflict went on for a while. Our fleet got torn apart. We lost…” His voice hitched. He swiped his palm over his mouth like he could erase the emotion. “We lost a lot of people. And so many ships, too. Close to the entire science fleet that’d been out here.”

I knew that emotion. Grief. I saw it when his eyes flitted to mine, then away, full of stars and galaxies and an old ache I knew all too well.

He’d lost people close to him. I wondered who but couldn’t bring myself to interrupt.