Page 68 of Storm of Stars

The devastation.

The truth that he had been carrying it all in silence, tucked behind that sharp Praxis-born composure.

He wept like someone who had spent every hour of every day watching the people he loved be torn apart and could do nothing to stop it. And that’s exactly what he’d done. He hadn’t been on the front lines with us in the trials, hadn’t bled in the dirt, hadn’t taken the hits or felt the fear rise in his throat every time the speakers crackled to life with a new decree, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t suffered.

He suffereddifferently.

He sufferedalone.

He watched Bex fight to stay human. Watched Ezra get burnt half to death. Watched me nearly fall to my death. Watch Thorne struggle to keep his humor amongst the pain. And through it all, he could only watch.

So when he broke, when his sobs cracked the air around us and his hands clutched his people like lifelines, I realized something…he really was one of us.

Cut off from the fight but not from the pain. Not from the guilt. And now, finally, he was here. With us. Ready to do something. To take Praxis apart from the inside.

I was glad Bex had him.

I was glad Ezra did too.

And even though I hadn’t trusted him at first, I did now. Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“So, we ready to make a plan?” Ezra asked, a spark in his eyes.

“Edgar, how many people do we have out there?” I asked.

He glanced up at me, a soft smirk on his weathered face. “Just over seven thousand.”

Devrin gave a low whistle. “Damn.” He chuckled. “Didn’t think I’d live to see the day.”

“Wow,” Bex whispered. She leaned into Thorne, and he pressed a kiss to her temple.

“It’s a hell of a showing,” I said.

“But we’re still outnumbered,” Zaffir added cautiously. “I’m not trying to kill the mood, but if we charge in blind, we lose.”

He was right. We had momentum, but not numbers.

“The Praxis defactor is right,” Edgar added and I didn’t miss how Zaffir flinched at the moniker. “They’ve got numbers and training.”

“Then we don’t charge blind,” I said, stepping forward. “We go in waves.”

Devrin nodded beside me. We’d discussed this on the bus ride. It was as good a plan as we could conceive. The numbers we had would help.

I pointed to the map we’d laid across a makeshift table of bark and old crates, Praxis stretched across the parchment, its towers, relays, and walls marked in crimson ink.

“If we go slow, methodical, we can pull their legs out from under them,” I said. “They know we’re coming, so we have to be smart about this.”

“The first wave will go at night.” Devrin said.

“We need those high-tech Collectives,” I added, looking to Edgar “People with hacking and sabotage experience, any of it. They’ll disable the outer surveillance, jam the perimeter frequencies, and create blind zones across the city grid.”

“We’ve got a team,” Edgar replied.

“Silent entries only,” I confirmed. “No conflict unless absolutely necessary. That buys us stealth and time.”

“Once the perimeter is compromised,” I continued, “Wave two moves. We need the Collectives with engineering experience.”

“Or explosives,” Devrin added with a shrug.