Page 31 of Storm of Stars (Pride of Praxis #2)

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

Zaffir

The Show Center was chaotic and buzzing with the frantic energy that always came from the final moments of the Run.

Screens flickered with live feeds, editors shouted timestamps back and forth, and the air buzzed with an electric kind of tension, something between excitement and dread. The final trial had begun.

They’d called all the editors on-site for the last two trials.

Nearly every moment was going out live now, or as close to real time as possible.

Where usually we did our work hidden behind the curtain, we were suddenly given a front-row seat.

I had been working faster than I ever had in my life, stitching together footage from the islands.

Thorne and Briar had made it out mostly intact. Scraped, bruised, but moving with the unshaken calm of people who knew how to survive the wild. I’d expected as much from them.

But Brexlyn and Ezra…

Their screams had embedded themselves into my skull.

Ezra’s trembling hands, and fire covered body.

Bex’s voice, ragged with panic. I could still see the way the camera caught the moment Ezra spoke to the air then collapsed, eyes wide with something that looked too much like acceptance of death, and then nothing at all. Blank.

I had sent off the latest cut to the producers, but I couldn’t move from the main screen now. I couldn’t pretend to be useful. Not when Ezra was lying still, too still. His chest wasn’t rising. His heart wasn’t beating. The feed didn’t lie.

He was dead.

And I felt it like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my ribs.

There were too many eyes around. Executives, security, media reps, high-ranking officials from Praxis excited and eager for the carnage of the end of the Run. I couldn’t fall apart. Not here. Not now.

I forced my body to remain still, to breathe evenly.

But my jaw ached from how hard I was biting my cheek.

I could taste the metallic tang of blood.

My palms were sweating so badly they left streaks on the desk.

I clung to the edge of the table as I watched Brexlyn pull the machine up beside Ezra.

Her hands shook, her voice cracked, but she worked. She wouldn’t let him go.

“Come on,” I whispered. “Come on, Ezra. Please.”

“Stark.”

I jerked my head up. A producer stood near another terminal, her dark eyes scanning me too closely. I snapped back into the practiced cool I wore like armor. Hoping she couldn't see the cracks.

“Yeah?” My voice was hoarse but steady. Trying to focus on her face and not the endless flatline coming from the screen behind me.

“You got the victory feed ready? For your team?”

The Victory Montage. A propaganda-laced highlight reel that aired whenever a Challenger survived the Reclamation Run. A heroic story, a manufactured anthem of triumph over terror. Each year, they played one for each survivor, crafted from their best and bloodiest moments.

I’d spent weeks pulling footage. I’d poured myself into it. Every frame, every cut, every beat of music. But not for Praxis. It was for them. My team. My family. My Wildguard. Their battle deserved to be remembered as the spark that changed everything.

Brexlyn and Briar’s song played under the edit, layered with moths flitting across burning trees and stars falling like embers from the sky. The whole montage screamed rebellion. Screamed Runaway. The minute it played they would know that Rebellion was coming.

“Yeah,” I said, voice thick. “I got it.”

“Well, plug in. If they survive, we’ll need it on standby. The stream’s going to be basically uninterrupted from here on out.”

If.

That word sank into me like a blade. She said it casually, but it echoed like a death knell.

“And get Ezra Wynstone’s death montage ready too, just in case he doesn’t wake up.”

The words made me nauseous. My eyes burned, but I kept my expression steady, nodding slowly, pretending I had everything under control. I’d been putting off that montage for weeks. It should have been nearly finished. Ready. If I were a good editor, it would be.

But how do you cut together the last moments of someone you love? Create a highlight reel of their best moments only to lead to their bloody and horrific end? How do you score the end of their story? I never started it, because some stubborn part of me still believed none of them would need one.

“Please, Ezra,” I whispered.

I turned back to the screen, just in time to see Bex press harder into Ezra’s chest. The flatline beep stretched on, endless and merciless.

Then…

A sound.

A blip.

A heartbeat.

I gasped quietly, my whole body shaking with the exhale. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath. Around me, no one even seemed to notice the miracle.

He was alive.

Barely, maybe. But alive.

I walked to my terminal and loaded up the montages. One for each of them. Ready to go, should the universe show mercy. I lined up the files, fingers trembling.

On the screen beside me, live metrics scrolled in dizzying waves. Millions were watching. More than ever before. The numbers just kept climbing. People all across the Collectives and hell maybe even beyond were seeing what Praxis was doing.

Were they moved by it? Were they sickened? Were they finally ready?

Were they going to meet us at the gates tomorrow?

I didn’t know. But I knew this, if my team survived this trial, if they made it through the hell Praxis threw at them, then I was going to make damn sure the world saw them for what they really were.

Not just Challengers.

Not just Survivors.

Symbols.

When Brexlyn collapsed, something inside me ruptured.

My breath hitched, a searing pain stabbed through my chest, and I clutched the edge of the console to stay upright.

Not her. Please. God, not her. I’d watched the pallor creep into her skin, the way her hands trembled from blood loss.

She was stronger than all of us, had been from the start, but how much could a body take before it gave out?

Movement flickered at the edge of my vision.

Across the hall, the studio door cracked open.

Archon Veritas slipped inside. The mask she wore for the cameras, composed, regal, untouchable, was cracked at the edges.

Her fingers twitched at her side, and there was a tightness in her jaw I hadn’t seen before. She was nervous.

I snapped my gaze down to the editing terminal, pretending to fiddle with the feeds.

I couldn’t let her see me watching. Not yet.

When the door clicked shut behind her, I turned my attention back to the main screen.

Thorne was cradling Brexlyn, blood staining his shirt.

Briar and Lark were screaming about blood bags, trying to find the right supply. I had to trust them now.

It was my turn to do my part.

I slipped out of the pit, avoiding the floorboards that creaked.

Every step was calculated. I kept my head low, my breathing shallow.

The studio Archon had entered was mostly used for high-production post-Run segments, clean lighting, acoustically sound, pristine for propaganda.

She was recording the “victory” message.

The one they aired every year. I needed to know what she planned to say. .. and what she planned to hide.

Circling the perimeter of the corridor, I kept to the shadows.

The building had once been a broadcast center before Praxis repurposed it into a weapon of misinformation.

I remembered taking a tour once, there was a back stairwell that led to the grid above the studio.

If I could reach it, I could monitor everything from above. No one ever looked up.

The door to the stairwell stuck. My heart pounded as I forced it open with slow, steady pressure, wincing as it gave a low groan. Once inside, I closed it behind me and bolted up the stairs two at a time, ignoring the ache in my chest and the burn in my legs. There was no time for pain.

At the top, I stepped onto the grid, a suspended metal walkway of crisscrossed bars and cables that overlooked the studio floor.

It swayed beneath me. My palms were slick as I grabbed the nearest rail and pulled myself into a crouch.

Down below, Archon Veritas was already in position.

She sat in the studio’s throne-like chair, haloed by key lighting. A gold serpent on a marble pedestal.

“Alright, Archon,” the cameraman said. “End of Reclamation. Take one.”

She didn’t blink. “Good evening, Nexum. And thank you for joining me on this day, the final trial of the Reclamation Run.” Her voice was smooth, oiled with power.

“Below me, you will see the final standings for each Challenger, and the resources they’ve secured for your Collectives during their trials. ”

A chill crawled down my spine.

“I know many of you have grown attached to these Challengers, rooted for them. Some of you even loved them.” She nearly spat the word.

Her distaste for my Wildguard was clear and evident in her wicked tone.

“And while we traditionally celebrate their victories with interviews and tours…” Her lips curled into something cold and amused.

“…I’m afraid this year, we will be taking a different approach. ”

No.

She continued. “Your Challengers have elected to forgo the fame and festivities, choosing instead to return home to their Collectives quietly, where they can live out their lives with the resources they’ve earned.”

She was lying. I knew the ritual. The post-Run circuit was always mandatory. Smiling faces. Public interviews. Glory for the winners. If they weren’t going to parade the survivors, it was because there were no plans to have any survivors.

I felt my breath catch. I couldn’t move.

“By the will of Praxis, you are always welcome.”

“And cut,” the cameraman said. “That’s perfect, Archon.”

“Good,” she replied.

The camera man slid from the room while her assistant slinked forward like a rat. “Guards are stationed, ma’am,” he said.