Page 43 of Storm of Stars (Pride of Praxis #2)

A pair of hands seized my shoulders from behind. I fought like hell, elbows, knees, head, but they were faster, stronger. Zaffir tried to push up, to help, but the pain knocked him back down again, screaming as he gripped his ruined hand.

I kicked wildly as the guard dragged me backward, twisting in their grip, heart pounding like a war drum.

My eyes scanned the room.

Briar and Thorne were backed into a corner, hands up, weapons dropped, with rifles pointed at their heads.

Ezra lay facedown, unmoving, his pickaxe just inches from his hand. A guard stood over him, pressing the muzzle of a rifle into the back of his neck.

Everyone’s eyes found mine.

And I knew.

We had lost.

We were so close. We had the proof. We had the story. We had the moment. And Praxis took it all away with one bullet. History would never know the truth.

Unless we found another way to tell it.

“I admit,” a voice rang out, crisp and cruel, echoing through the chamber. “I didn’t think you’d be quite this stupid.”

The words seemed to come from everywhere, and nowhere, all at once. Then, the sharp click of heels began to echo against the tile, rhythmic and unhurried. We all turned toward the sound, tension spiking.

Archon Evanora Veritas emerged from the shadows.

She was wrapped in shimmering gold chiffon, the fabric whispering with every step.

It clung to her frame like a goddess carved in bronze.

Elegant, regal, and terrifying. Her hair fell in polished ringlets down her back, untouched by wind or war, making her look more like a vision than a person. More myth than mortal.

But when my gaze reached her eyes, I saw the cracks.

The dark circles just barely hidden beneath perfect powder.

The twitch in the corner of her mouth. Her gaze, sharper now, more alert, less sure.

Like she’d been staring into the dark a little too long and had started to worry what might be staring back.

We had done that. We’d gotten to her. Even if we weren’t able to finish this war. I could die knowing that we’d scared the unshakeable.

She smiled like a wolf. “The grid makes a wonderful hiding place,” she purred, her voice honeyed and cruel. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Stark?”

Her gaze sliced toward him where he lay slumped on the floor, his breathing ragged, his skin unnaturally pale.

He was curled around the camera he’d brought with him.

Protecting it like it might still be our salvation, if he got the chance.

The blood was still flowing from his ruined hand, and his eyes were fluttering, losing their grip on consciousness. My throat clenched.

Tears burned hot in my eyes.

“Brexlyn Hollis,” she said next, and the sound of my name in her mouth made me flinch. Her voice was velvet-laced poison. “Did you really think you were the first Challenger to try and fight back?”

I straightened, locking eyes with her as she approached, though the guard’s grip on me tightened. She stopped just inches from me, her perfume, rose and something sharp beneath it, filling my nose like a choking sweetness.

“Did you think we didn’t know about your little Runaways?” she whispered, her smile growing as her finger traced a cold line down my cheek. I didn’t move. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. But her touch made my skin crawl.

“A century,” she hissed, “a century of a system cannot be undone by a handful of desperate children and a single night. You think because you knocked on the gates, they’ll fall down?” She laughed, low and gleeful. “You stupid, foolish girl.”

She stepped back, turning to address the room, her voice rising like a sermon. “Did you really think all my guards were stationed at the towers? That I would be so careless? That even if you managed to subdue my armies, that my citizens wouldn’t also stand against you?”

The pit in my stomach dropped straight through the floor.

Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes, hot and angry and helpless.

I felt the strength drain from my limbs. The hope. The fight. It all bled out of me like Zaffir’s blood on the floor.

We were surrounded. Beaten. Outmaneuvered.

And Evanora Veritas had just reminded us that the monster we were fighting had multiple heads. And we’d miscounted.

“Why?” I asked. My voice cracked with exhaustion and fury, the weight of everything we’d lost pressing down on my chest. Zaffir bleeding on the ground. Ezra pressed to the floor. Briar and Thorne at gunpoint.

Veritas tilted her head at me like I was a puzzle she was bored of solving.

“‘Why,’ what , dear?” she asked lazily, lowering herself into a chair. She reclined, calm and unshaken like all of this was a performance and she already knew how the final act ended.

I took a shaky breath and stepped forward despite the guard’s hand still tight on my arms.

“Why don’t you listen?” I demanded. “When your people are screaming that they’re hurting? When they’re telling you they’re starving, that they’re dying, that they’re scared. You sit there in your golden palace while everything burns. Why?”

Her lips twitched, almost like a smile. But her eyes were cold. She didn’t blink.

“You’re in a position of power,” I continued, voice rising. “You could change it. You could end the Reclamation Run. You could release the stockpiles. Feed the families. House the kids sleeping in alleyways. People trusted you. Believed in you. You were supposed to protect them.”

She watched me silently, her fingers drumming against the armrest.

“You could make things better for everyone. So why don’t you?”

The silence stretched.

Then she smiled. Slowly. Venomously.

“Oh, Brexlyn,” she said, her voice syrupy sweet, “because fear is control.”

I stared at her, not understanding. She leaned forward, her voice dropping into something almost intimate.

“If people are afraid, they obey. If they’re desperate, they comply. Hunger makes them quiet. Sickness keeps them too weak to riot. A frightened citizen will do anything to survive…including turn on their neighbor.”

She stood, now, moving toward me like a viper poised to attack. She stopped just inches from me. Her perfume was cloying and thick, sickly sweet.

“If my people were safe, if they were happy and full and free… then they wouldn’t need me. Not really. And they certainly wouldn’t tolerate a system like mine.” Her smile sharpened. “So I make sure they’re never quite comfortable enough to dream.”

I felt the air leave my lungs.

“People like you,” she said, “you believe in the lie that the system is broken. That it just needs to be fixed. But you’re wrong. It isn’t broken.” Her voice was a whisper now, just for me. “It’s working exactly the way it was designed.”

She stepped back, sweeping her arms wide like a game show host presenting her prize.

“The Reclamation Run was never about distributing resources,” Veritas said, her voice like honey laced with poison.

“It’s about ensuring the Collectives stay just weak enough to never rise.

” Her eyes gleamed with something unholy, selfish righteousness, the kind of moral certainty that only comes from someone who’s convinced themselves they’re the savior in a story they wrote.

She took a step forward, palm rising to cup my cheek like a mother comforting a child.

I flinched at the contact. Her skin was cold, too soft.

“I offered you a deal once,” she said softly, as if we were the only two people in the room. “And you threw it away. Normally, I wouldn’t repeat myself. But you, Brexlyn… you are something rare.”

I twisted away from her touch, and her hand fell.

“So,” she said, voice lowering to a whisper so intimate I could feel it coil through my ears like a snake, “Out of the goodness of my heart, I have another offer.”

She smiled. I didn’t.

“Go on camera. Address the Collectives. Tell them the rebellion was a mistake. Tell them Praxis was right all along. Call off the Runaways. Tell them you were misled, manipulated…deluded, even. Say it however you like… just say it. And I’ll let you live.”

The bile crawled up my throat.

“I can see the refusal in your eyes,” she said, chuckling like this was some tedious chess match she was still winning. “So, let me sweeten the deal for you.” She leaned in, her next words curling like smoke around my ear.

“If you do this, I’ll let you choose who else can be spared. Your Wildguard… or your brother. Your choice, of course.”

The room spun.

“I won’t even make you pick right away,” she added with a smirk, “though I imagine you already know.”

My mind reeled.

Jax. My little brother. My blood. My lifeline. Still just a kid, tucked away with Ava for now, but dying every day. Praxis didn’t need to kill him with a bullet, they were killing him with denial. Denial of treatment. Denial of care. Denial of life.

And my Wildguard, my found family. The people who bled for this cause, who followed me into every dark place, who believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.

Ezra, still gasping beside me. Thorne and Briar, bruised and beaten, yet still standing with silent defiance.

Zaffir, barely conscious, clutching his camera in his hands as he barely held his eyes open wide enough to watch.

Briar shook her head slowly. Thorne gave a slight, solemn nod. Ezra’s eyes, so full of pain and love, locked onto mine like he could transfer strength through his stare. And Zaffir… his fingers twitching over his camera like even now, even bleeding out, he still hoped it would bring us salvation.

My heart shattered and rebuilt itself in the same breath.

I looked then, beyond my circle, to the guards. Praxis soldiers, worn and battered just like us. Just like the citizens they were trained to subdue. And I wondered how many of them had family. How many believed they were the heroes, just like we did. How many were hurting, too.

I looked back to Veritas.

She stood poised, expectant, so sure she had me. So sure that power and cruelty and a gilded smile could crack a girl like me.