Page 34 of Storm of Stars

I shrugged. “Couldn’t help myself.”

After cleaning up, showering, and pressing our two beds together, we fell asleep, a tangle of limbs, hands, and hearts.

I wished this little bubble of perfection could last forever. But even if it couldn’t, at least we had tonight.

CHAPTER

TEN

Bex

Only one trialstood between me and the medical trials, and after that, if our secret message had been heard and understood, the Runaways would gather at the gates of Praxis.

The rebellion we had been working toward, the uprising that had simmered for years, would finally ignite.

All that Praxis stole from the Collectives would finally be reclaimed.

It was almost time to find out if the Runaways were brave enough to honor their word... and if we were strong enough to finish what Briar and Thorne’s mother started.

Last night, the five of us sat right here in this living room, the air heavy with nerves. We talked about what it would mean if the Runaways didn’t show up, how everything we were fighting for could collapse before it even began.

The song we sang was catching fire in the forums, spreading faster than we could have hoped. But all the noise in the world wouldn’t matter if it didn’t turn into action. Plans didn’t change the world. People did.

We wrestled with it for hours, how to convince them to move past their fear, to take the risk.

And in the end, the answer was simple, even if it wasn’t easy.

We had to do it first.

We had to show them that we were just as scared, and that we were standing up anyway.

“As I was saying,” Nova’s voice broke through my thoughts, high-pitched, strained, entirely too screechy for this early hour. “You’re all required to arrive at today's trial separately. And there’s nothing I can do about it,” she added, exasperated, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“What’s the trial?” Ezra asked, his voice a low, gruff rumble thick with irritation.

“Lumber,” Nova answered simply.

“We know that,” Ezra snapped back. “I mean, what are they gonna make us do?”

“You know I can’t tell you that yet, Ezra,” she said, meeting his glare evenly. She wore a cotton dress today, simple but with a shimmering silver sheen, still undeniably Praxis, but somehow... softer. Less imposing.

“Why separate us?” Thorne cut in, frowning.

“Because this is an individual challenge,” Nova replied flatly.

“And it’s physical,” Briar added, more a grim statement than a guess.

Thorne leaned back, arms crossed. “For the lumber trial a few years back they had to build a structure. Then they blasted the roofs with water. Whoever stayed the driest won.”

“Last year,” Briar chimed in, “they dumped the challengers on an island and made them build rafts to sail back to the mainland.”

I nodded. I remembered both. But Praxis wasn’t likely to make the rest of this Run simple ...especially not for me.

Not after everything.

“Something tells me,” I said carefully, catching each of their eyes in turn, “we’re not going to have it quite that easy.”

They all understood. I could see it in the tightness of Thorne’s jaw, the hard set of Briar’s mouth, the way Ezra’s hands curled into fists at his sides. Even Nova, usually so practiced, so distant, let something flicker across her face. A brief, raw glimmer of regret before the mask slammed back into place.