Page 66 of Storm of Stars

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

Briar

I’d always been drawnto strategy. Not just the rules, but the rhythm. The way problems unfolded like puzzles. Goals mapped out, options weighed, assets positioned just right. I understood how people thought, how they moved, how they could be steered or inspired or shattered. Strategy was all about reading the field. Reading people.

It had served me well in the past.

But I never imagined it would come to this…standing over a battered map of Praxis, planning the overthrow of the very system that raised me.

Planning a rebellion. A rebellion that my own flesh and blood started.

Devrin stood beside me, arms crossed, jaw set. As much as a part of me still burned with resentment over what he pulled in the canals, I couldn’t ignore what he’d done since then. He helped save Ezra. And no matter how murky his past, he was just as much a victim of Praxis’s cruelty as we were.

That counted for something. Maybe not forgiveness. But something close to trust.

Edgar was sitting on an overturned crate, his eyes narrowing at the map in front of him, deep in thought..

“A direct assault would be a bloodbath,” I said, gesturing at the city’s outer sectors. “They’ve got guard towers at every approach. We’d be walking into a grinder.”

“I agree,” Devrin said, nodding. “We can’t win head-on. The only way to slip past is to disarm them, make them chase shadows.”

Bex sat on a crate a few feet away, unusually quiet. Her eyes flicked between us as we spoke, unfocused. Distant. Thorne was still out with Ezra and Zaffir, finishing the final tally of who had shown up for us.

And it was a lot. More than I expected.

Brexlyn had done that, rallied people from the fringes of Praxis, from the slums, the wastes, and the broken Collectives. She pulled them into the light. Gave them something to believe in. Gave us all a reason to hope.

And now, sitting here, she looked like it was all weighing on her at once.

She kept picking at her fingertips, rubbing the raw skin around her nails. The silence around her was louder than the rest of the camp.

I moved to kneel in front of her, gently taking her hands in mine. She had washed up and donned some new clothes courtesy of Edgar’s supplies, but she still faintly smelled of campfire. I found that the scent wasn’t as offending on her. She startled slightly, but met my eyes.

“Hey you,” I said softly.

“Sorry. I’m listening,” she murmured.

“I know. I just…” I hesitated, dropping my voice. “Are you okay?”

She gave a small nod. But I saw the way her shoulders hunched inward. The way she bit her lip.

“You don’t have to lie to me, Hollis,” I said gently, brushing a knuckle across her cheek.

She swallowed hard. “I guess I’m just scared,” she admitted. “I brought all these people here…thousands. And what if this plan fails? What if we led them out of hiding just to get them killed?”

I let the silence settle for a moment. I knew that fear. I carried it in my bones too.

“My Ma started this fight with nothing but a whisper and a fire in her chest,” I said. “And I don’t know if I have her courage either. But I do know what she’d tell both of us right now if she were here. We fight because the alternative is living in chains.”

I wish I’d let myself get to know that version of my mother.

Not just the caretaker. Not just the loving woman who rocked us to sleep. But the fire underneath…the rebel. The leader. The one who chose to resist when silence would’ve been safer.

The truth is, I did see it. Even if I didn’t care to admit it. The small acts of defiance. The way her eyes would harden when a patrol passed. The quiet protests no one else noticed, the things she fixed, the people she sheltered, the questions she dared to ask.

But I turned away.