Page 5 of Storm of Stars (Pride of Praxis #2)

CHAPTER

THREE

Bex

The rebellion started slowly, as I think most rebellions do.

In those early mental trials, we each tried to sneak in one or two of the phrases we’d found while scouring the encrypted pages of the Runaways’ hidden site late at night.

Words and phrases that would seem meaningless to anyone who wasn’t looking for them.

Little signals to prove you were paying attention, that you were one of them.

We agreed to fold them into casual conversation, careful to keep them light, to brush past them quickly so no one who wasn’t listening would notice. It was dangerous, every word we spoke could lead to our execution if just one person who understood the meaning let Praxis know. But we did it anyway.

During the tools and materials mental trial they stuck us in a half-collapsed building, dust clogging the air, and set us loose to solve math problems and number puzzles scrawled on walls, old blueprints, and crumbling ledgers.

Each solution unlocked one of the battered lockers scattered through the building.

The right combination of tools inside was supposed to defuse a live bomb they’d wired into the floorboards.

Thorne made it look easy, his mind sharp, practiced, faster than anyone I’d ever seen.

He solved those equations like they were child’s riddles and walked out of there with first place so fast it left the rest of us scrambling.

Briar managed to hang on, placing in the top five.

Ezra and I both finished in time to stop our bombs from going off, thank God, but didn’t place high enough for resources.

When Zaffir interviewed Thorne after, all grins and shining teeth for the cameras, he asked how it felt to take the win.

And Thorne, never missing a beat, leaned on the railing, flashed a crooked grin and said, “You know, math’s always been a bit of a natural thing for me.

Me and numbers, we’re like this.” He intertwined his index and middle finger for the camera. “Like a moth to a flame, ya know?”

It sounded harmless enough. A clever turn of phrase for the cameras. But those of us who knew, who were watching, listening, we knew what he’d meant. The moth. The Runaways had claimed it as their token.

After that trial, the secret message boards had run wild with theories that we were in on the rebellion. But there were still some doubts.

The electricity trial was a nightmare. A sprawling power grid puzzle, with a single legend posted at the entrance of the plant. A map of the proper connections and sequences. Once you crossed that threshold, though, it was gone. No second chances to study it. No helpful reminders.

Easy enough for me. So I was able to lead my team through it quickly and easily.

Devrin was locked in too, laser-focused, his brow furrowed in determination.

I remembered Briar mentioning this was the one he’d been gunning for.

Said it was the trial that mattered most to him, the one he wouldn’t let himself lose.

For a moment, I considered beating him so soundly in this trial he’d carry the sting of it for years.

Just to remind him how it felt to lose. To be helpless.

To be trapped. Like I had been, back in those flooded canals.

But then, just as fast, I let it go. Because no matter how stupid, reckless, or selfish Devrin could be, he wasn’t the one who’d sent me into the canals in the first place.

And he sure as hell wasn’t my real enemy.

So when I saw him reaching for the wrong coupling, a connection that would’ve lit him up like a goddamn torch, I called out. “Left one,” I said, voice sharp but even.

His eyes snapped to mine, wary, distrustful. “Why the hell should I trust you?” he spat. “You’re probably hoping I fry.”

I shook my head. “Not all stories need bad endings,” I told him, the words soft but pointed, a phrase from the boards, a message the Runaways had used.

What Thorne’s mother had said to him as she was dragged from their home.

It was a reminder that we didn’t have to let Praxis write the last chapter.

His expression twisted, caught somewhere between suspicion and something heavier. He looked like he wanted to fight me on it. Then, slowly, he switched to the coupling I’d pointed out. The grid whirred to life, a clean, perfect connection.

He shot me a tight, wordless nod before moving on.

Devrin won the trial. And we let him, much to my crew’s irritation. Briar and Thorne looked like they could chew glass. Ezra was already mentally preparing his revenge. But I shot them a look to remind them what really mattered.

The week continued on at that relentless pace.

Two trials a day, every day. No breaks, no mercy.

Weapons. Solar. Air Filtration. Technology.

Agriculture. Sanitation. Education. Each one was designed to test us, to whittle us down, to see who cracked under pressure, who faltered, who the crowd would mourn and who they’d forget by the time the next challenge began.

The more mentally focused trials didn’t stack bodies the way the physical ones did, but death still came, quieter, crueler, and often avoidable if Praxis had cared to make it so. By the end of the week, three more names had been crossed off the board.

The Horizon Collective’s elected, a wiry kid named Callen, died during the electricity trial. One wrong connection, one misread coupling, and the surge hit him hard enough to drop him where he stood. The room smelled of scorched cloth and copper after they pulled him out.

Stormwatch’s chosen succumbed next from the aftermath of the solar trial. The prolonged exposure to solar energy left her blistered and delirious as she couldn’t create the shield quick enough. By morning, she was gone.

And Nellie Fulton from Oasis was killed during the sanitation trial.

Tasked with creating a working sanitizer formula from scattered, unlabeled supplies, she picked the wrong combination.

It wasn’t an instant death. The formula spread contamination instead of neutralizing it, and within hours, infection took hold.

Nobody died during the education trial, thank God.

For once, it was nothing more than a written exam, no traps, no sabotage, no sudden-death.

Just a simple little test on the history of Praxis and the so-called ‘Reclamation’ of Nexum.

Except it didn’t feel like history. It felt like propaganda disguised as education.

Questions like, “Why was Praxis forced to take control of Nexum and its resources?” and “How long has Praxis been generously caring for the Collectives?” littered the page, each one more nauseating than the last. It was indoctrination.

Once I swallowed the bile rising in my throat, I forced my hand to move, giving them exactly the answers they wanted. Lies dressed up as history. Stories written by the victors.

In the end, my compliance earned me third place.

Not that it mattered much. I wasn’t sure any of us were going to survive the end of this Run, or what would be left of Nexum when it was over.

But if our rebellion didn’t catch fire the way we hoped, if we failed here at the heart of everything, at least our Collective would have a year of education secured.

Although, what kind of education would they really be getting?

A watered-down curriculum, scrubbed clean of the real truth, the brutal, bloody history of our country rewritten into a neat little fable.

A glossy package where Praxis stood tall as the righteous, benevolent savior, while the death, the blood, the staggering loss they caused was buried beneath layers of lies.

Maybe an education curated by an overreaching government was worse than no education at all.

Now, only nine of us were left. More than half the contestants in this brutal, twisted game were gone, some with resources won for their collectives, others with nothing but blood and silence to mark their exit.

And with every name crossed off the roster, the balance shifted. My team… we were still standing. Stronger than most. It meant that we nearly outnumbered the remaining Challengers now.

We could feel it in every glance, every tense silence.

I saw them watching us carefully, like they were studying our every move.

Maybe they didn’t trust us. Didn’t like us.

We’d become the threat lurking in the room, the alliance to watch, to fear, to despise.

I found myself often wondering how close they were to open sabotage.

Of banding together, not because they believed in each other, but because taking us down felt like their only shot at surviving what came next.

Zaffir hadn’t heard from the Archon since the night he was taken. None of us had. And even though we kept a brave face for the cameras, for the others, and for ourselves, there was a thread of unease wound tight through every one of us.

We were careful. So careful. Zaffir and I.

Not a glance too long, not a brush of fingers, not a single word exchanged outside the house unless it was part of the Run or the necessary interviews.

Even at home, we kept our distance when Nova came by, which was unfortunately very frequently.

She’d stay past her welcome, rattling off what we needed to know about upcoming trial schedules.

Every night she was there, eyes sharp and grinning all teeth, and every night I pretended not to ache for him.

And I did ache. I was starting to miss him in a way that was bigger than the walls we’d built between us.

Not just the feel of his hand in mine or the warmth of his body close to mine in those stolen moments we used to allow ourselves.

I missed the way his eyes met mine like we were always in on the same secret, even when no one else could see it.