Page 1 of Storm of Stars

PART ONE

THE REBELS

PROLOGUE

Bex

The downsideto a memory like mine is that I often relive the worst moments of my life in bright, vivid clarity. In the middle of the night, sometimes instead of dreams, my mind will cycle through the greatest hits of my darkest moments.

My mother’s death.

My brother’s illness.

Ava’s family’s devastation.

It doesn’t come gently.

It rushes in sharp and sudden, stuck in a loop. Her face. His hands. Their cries. The sound of someone screaming… me, probably. I don’t always remember that part right away.

And when it hits, it feels like I’m back there again. Like no time has passed at all.

People think memory is a gift. But it isn’t. Not always. Not when it’s this sharp. Not when it cuts both ways.

Because when you remember everything, you don’t get to move on from anything. You just carry it forward.

All of it.

And I do.

I carry those moments like a wound that never scabs over. Like pain that no one can see.

But maybe that’s why I’ve never felt comfortable in the skin Praxis forced me to wear. Maybe it’s because no matter how many glittering veils they drape over their violence, no matter how many smiles they stretched across hollow faces, I could still see it. I can’t unsee it. The death. The destruction. The devastation. The names of every person who’d ever lost their life in the Reclamation Run.

I remember what they tried to bury. I remember what they want scrubbed from history. I remember that for every gleaming gift Praxis offers, they take something greater in return.

Maybe, at first, all I felt was sorrow. Grief. Regret. A mourning for the world I thought I knew.

But it’s different now.

Now, I’ve seen the truth with my own eyes. I’ve watched the light leave someone’s face. I’ve laid awake, night after night, replaying it. The blood. The silence. The blind adoration.

They cheer for our deaths like it’s a game. They celebrate loss and call it entertainment. They hold resources over our heads and call it reclamation. They call us heroes and send us to die.

And somewhere inside me, something broke. Something small at first. A crack. A shift.

A whisper of rage threading through the sadness. Now it’s more than sorrow. Now, it’s fire.

There’s a darker anger rising in me. Something that doesn’t tremble or apologize.

A spark of something dangerous. And for the first time in my life…

I think I’m ready to let it burn.

CHAPTER

ONE

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