Page 7 of Storm of Stars (Pride of Praxis #2)

CHAPTER

FOUR

Thorne

The technology trial was nothing like the others. No sprawling arenas, no physical challenges, and no teamwork. Just a locked, suffocating room with a single flickering computer terminal and the grim promise that no one else was coming to save you. It made my stomach twist.

Briar and I had grown up in Darkbranch, where we’d managed to win our fair share of technology trials.

Even if we preferred to be out in the trees, chasing the wind and climbing crumbling towers, at least we knew what a terminal was.

How to navigate a screen. What code looked like when it scrolled like a living thing across the glass.

But Bex and Ezra? Canyon barely had enough power to broadcast the Reclamation Run on cracked public screens, let alone put a terminal in anyone’s home.

Ezra once admitted he hadn’t touched a computer in his life until Zaffir taught him how to turn one on.

The thought of him locked alone in a room like this made my chest ache.

The cell they shoved me into was claustrophobic and windowless, lit by the pulse of dim, blood-red emergency lights.

An alarm blared overhead, a high-pitched, shrieking sound that cut like a knife through the thick air.

The only thing in the room besides me was a rusted computer terminal, the old keys grimy beneath my fingers as I slid into the chair.

The screen flared to life in front of me, strings of code rolling like a tide.

It wasn’t a language I fully understood, but I could spot the patterns.

The loops, the false ends, the triggers buried inside lines of commands.

Annalese had told us the rules before locking us in, eight winners, one loser.

The first eight to complete the task would be released. The last?

The last would die here.

Not like a public execution. Just a quiet, unnoticed death behind sealed bars. Left to rot in the dark until nature took them or Praxis decided to speed things up.

My stomach churned as I flexed my fingers and got to work.

I could feel the clock ticking in my bones, though no timer counted down.

Every second was a second closer to someone’s life ending.

My life. Ezra’s. Bex’s. I couldn’t help them here.

Couldn’t shout through the walls or trade a glance that meant, ‘I’ve got you’.

The thought of one of them not making it through this was a weight that sat heavy in my chest, making it hard to breathe.

Losing more people to Praxis would hurt me in ways I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to recover from.

My mother’s eyes were the same deep, warm shade as ours.

Like rich, melted chocolate. But that night, they shimmered with something else entirely.

Fear barely concealed behind the mask she wore when she didn’t want to scare us.

The sounds outside were getting louder. Angry voices. Heavy boots crunching against gravel.

She didn’t flinch. Not when a bottle shattered against the wall outside and smoke started climbing inside, not when the distant roar of a small army of guards rolled toward our doorstep like a tidal wave.

Instead, she turned to me and gripped my shoulders so tightly it almost hurt.

I could feel the tremble in her hands, even though she tried to hide it.

“Listen to me, honey,” she said, her voice low and thick with urgency, the kind of voice you use when you know you don’t have much time left. “I don’t want you to ever think I regret what I said, or what I’ve fought for.”

I nodded, though my chest felt tight, my throat too thick to speak.

“There are so many of us out there,” she whispered, her gaze darting to the window where the angry glow of torches was beginning to flicker against the night. “But we’re in the dark right now. And we need someone, someone brave, to shine a light on it.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand, Ma,” I stammered, the weight of the night settling heavy in my bones.

“I know, baby,” she whispered, her voice cracking in a way it never did. “I know you don’t. But you will.” She pulled something from the pocket of her worn, patched coat, a small, slick card. She pressed it into my palm, her fingers wrapping around mine, firm and unyielding.

“Hide this,” she breathed. “Don’t let them see it. No matter what happens, no matter what they say, this… this is the beginning of a new chance. A key to a new Nexum. For all of us.”

I glanced down at it, confused and scared and desperate for this to be some awful dream. “Ma… you’re not making any sense.”

“It won’t. Not for a while,” she said, tears glinting in her dark eyes. “But one day… one day the stars will shine on us again.” She spoke it like a vow, like an old promise passed down through bloodlines and desperate prayers.

A crash came from outside, followed by a shout, and my heart lurched into my throat.

“Briar, honey,” she called out, barely loud enough to be heard over the chaos. And then she was there, thundering down the stairs, face pale, eyes wide.

“Ma, there’s people out there,” she panted, fear making her voice crack in a way that made my stomach twist.

“I know, sweetheart,” she said softly, brushing the hair from her forehead with a tenderness that made my eyes sting. “And I need you both to listen to me very carefully now.”

She knelt, one hand on each of us, her fingers warm and rough and real. “Do exactly what they say. Don’t fight them. Don’t look them in the eye. Don’t talk back. Don’t give them a reason.” Her voice broke then, just a little. “Your fight… your fight is not today. Do you hear me?”

“What do they want?” Briar asked.

“They’re upset at the things I’ve said. The injustices I’ve shed light on,” she replied, nodding reverently.

“Tell them you didn’t mean it. Take it back!” Briar cried, but she was already shaking her head.

“No, honey. Because I did mean it. I meant every word,” she said, and there was something so beautiful about the strength she carried, even to the end.

“No, Ma,” Briar started, voice thick with defiance. “We can help you ? —”

“No,” she snapped, then softened immediately, her eyes pleading. “I need you to promise me, Briar. Both of you. Promise me you’ll be smart. Promise me you’ll survive this. To fight another day.”

Her words wrapped around us like a threadbare shield, a last-ditch protection against a world that didn’t care if we made it out alive. She leaned in closer, pressing her forehead to ours.

“Promise me.”

The words hung in the air, sharp and heavy.

“We promise,” Briar and I whispered together, though the words tasted bitter in my mouth.

She embraced us both then, fierce and trembling and so heartbreakingly human. I buried my face in the worn fabric of her coat, breathing in the scent of her, rosemary, woodsmoke, something wild and untamable.

“It’s not enough to just survive, my loves. You need to live for something.”

Then the door flew open with a violent crack, light and noise spilling inside like a tidal wave. And my mother stood, squaring her shoulders, facing them down like a warrior made of fire and shadows.

And she didn’t look back.

I bit my lip to force the memories back and let my fingers fly, stringing together commands, bypassing dead ends, watching as the screen flickered when I hit the correct sequence. Faster. Faster. I pushed down the rising panic, the sound of the alarm like nails dragging down my spine.

I hit the final key.

For one agonizing heartbeat… nothing.

Then the red lights in my cell flickered, stuttered, and snapped to stark, sterile white. The bars in front of me groaned and slid open.

I didn’t celebrate. Didn’t even smile. I just bolted. Sprinting out into the circular chamber beyond where the other contestants still worked in their cells, faces illuminated by the sickly glow of their terminals. Eight cells. Eight Challengers. And only seven spots beside me left.

I didn't care about the victory. Didn’t care that I’d made it through. My eyes weren’t on the scoreboard. They were on the faces of the people I loved.

Because if Bex or Ezra didn’t make it, if Praxis took one of them here, I wasn’t sure any of us could crawl our way back from that.

I felt Zaffir beside me, the quiet hum of his camera whirring as its lens stayed locked on me. I flicked him a look, sharp and fleeting, the kind of glance no one else would ever catch but us. A message in a fraction of a second.

Then the clang of a cell door snapping open cut through the thick air.

Another Challenger. Then another.

I didn’t need to look to know which Collectives they were from. Shocker, they’d all be from ones that’d won the tech trial in the last decade.

My stomach twisted as my gaze snapped toward the still-closed cells where Ezra and Bex worked.

I could see them through the bars, both hunched over their terminals.

Ezra’s brow furrowed, his lips moving with each string of code, fingers stumbling now and then.

Bex’s face was tighter, her jaw set like stone, but panic flickered in her eyes. The kind she couldn’t hide.

Fuck.

Another heavy clang, and Briar burst from her cell, her dark hair damp with sweat, eyes wild as they darted across the room. I knew she’d be able to do it, but relief hit me nonetheless as I reached for her hand and squeezed once.

“How do you think they’re doing?” she asked, breath ragged, her voice low but sharp.

Ezra slammed his fist down on the desk in his cell and let out a guttural sound of frustration.

I swallowed hard. “Not good.”

Another door slid open.

Five now. Five of us safe. All of them from Collectives with the luxury of screens in their homes. If I wasn’t so goddamn terrified for the people I loved, I’d be shouting about the injustice, the impossible weight stacked against them. Praxis didn’t even bother pretending this was fair.