Page 8 of Storm of Stars (Pride of Praxis #2)

My eyes snapped back to Bex and Ezra. Their fingers moved fast, but I could see the strain, the desperation in the way their shoulders tensed, in the way their eyes scanned the screens as if willing the code to make sense.

If Bex had ever seen code like this before, she’d have it memorized, and would've been able to recite it perfectly.

But brilliance meant nothing when the language was foreign.

Another heavy groan of metal. Six.

Only two spots left. With three of them still in there.

My pulse pounded so hard it was all I could hear.

“Fenly Nots, Stormwatch,” Briar whispered, leaning closer to me, her voice just a breath against the roar in my ears. “They haven’t won a tech trial in years. He’s in the same boat as Bex and Ezra. It’s not over.”

I nodded, but the movement felt distant, like it belonged to someone else. I wasn’t in my body anymore. I was floating somewhere outside it, caught between hope and horror.

Then…

Clang.

Bex’s cell door flew open.

Relief slammed into me so hard my knees nearly buckled.

I was already moving before I registered it, sprinting across the floor as she stumbled from the cell, her face pale, her chest heaving.

She embraced Briar first, and my sister pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, whispering words meant for only her.

And then, Bex turned and she was in my arms, colliding against me with a force that rattled every bone I had.

Her heart pounded against mine. Or maybe it was mine pounding against hers. I buried my face in her hair, breathed in the scent of her sweat and adrenaline. My arms tightened around her like I could anchor both of us with sheer will alone.

“Thank God,” I whispered, voice breaking as I pressed my lips to hers.

She kissed me back, fierce and trembling, like neither of us were sure this moment wasn’t a dream that would splinter apart. I held on anyway.

But even as the relief swelled in my chest, a jagged, brutal fear still lingered.

Because Ezra was still inside.

And there was only one spot left.

“Ezra,” Bex whispered, her voice barely more than a breath against my chest. She twisted in my arms, her eyes darting to his cell across the room.

I followed her gaze. Ezra was still at his terminal, his shoulders hunched, his jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might shatter.

His whole body was a coil of tension, the kind of pressure that could crush a person if it lasted a second too long.

“He’s still got a chance, love,” I murmured against her hair, holding her tighter, like maybe if I kept her close enough, my words would become true.

Briar sidled up beside us, her voice low, almost ashamed. “Fenly looks just as lost,” she said, motioning subtly toward the last remaining Challenger, Fenly Nots, sweat beading on his brow. “Same boat as Ezra and Bex were. He’s scrambling.”

I hated how Praxis had turned me into this, someone silently hoping for another person to fail, for a life to be condemned just so the people I loved could crawl one step closer to survival. How easily these trials twisted us into their monsters.

“Come on, Ezra,” I whispered under my breath.

“That was nearly impossible,” Bex choked out.

Her fingers clung to the fabric of my shirt like a lifeline.

“I think I… I just got lucky. I caught a pattern in the code, but barely. And if he can’t…

” her voice cracked, and she bit down hard on the words like maybe if she didn’t say them, they wouldn’t come true. “What if he can’t do it?”

She started trembling, a ripple running through her body. I tightened my hold.

Then a metallic clang echoed through the room.

Another cell door slid open.

Bex screamed. A raw, gut-wrenching sound that tore through the chamber like a blade. The sound of a heart breaking open in real time.

Fenly Nots stepped from his cell, pale and shaking… but free.

And just like that, Ezra was the last one left.

Bex broke from my grasp, sprinting forward before I could catch her. She collided with the bars of Ezra’s cell, gripping them so tightly her knuckles went bloodless. Ezra was already there, meeting her at the divide, the two of them just inches apart but impossibly far.

“No, no, no, they can’t… they can’t do this!” Bex sobbed, trying to reach through the bars, desperate to touch him.

“Shh, baby,” Ezra murmured, his voice so gentle, so steady it made my chest ache. He cupped her face through the bars, his thumb tracing the wetness on her cheeks. “It’s okay.”

“I can’t lose you,” she cried, her voice shattering around the words. Her legs buckled beneath her, and she crumpled to the floor, clutching at the bars like she could tear them down with sheer grief.

Ezra dropped down with her, mirroring her posture, refusing to let her fall alone. The anger that had lived in him through the trial was gone now, in its place, something quieter, heavier. Acceptance, maybe. Or the last, thin veneer of bravery.

“You’ll never lose me,” Ezra promised, voice rough. “I’m yours, Bex. My soul, my body… all of it. It’s yours. And no matter what happens to me, you get to keep it.”

Bex sobbed harder, banging her fists against the bars like if she hit them enough, they’d bend for her. Ezra caught her hands in his, holding them tight.

“Look at me, baby,” he begged, voice breaking. “I’m so sorry. We had so much left. You and I… God, we were just getting started.”

He lifted her hands to his lips, kissed them.

His gaze flicked, for a fraction of a second, to where Zaffir stood off to the side, camera still rolling, as if his words were meant for him too.

Zaffir’s jaw twitched, his face straining to stay neutral, but I saw the sheen in his eyes, the tremble he was fighting.

But there were eyes everywhere, and he couldn’t show them how much he cared.

Not unless he wanted another trip to Archon’s torture chamber.

“I love you, I love you,” Bex whispered, over and over like a desperate prayer she could use to barter with.

“God, Bex. I love you too,” Ezra breathed, a tear slipping down his cheek. “But you’re gonna go out there, and you’re gonna win this.”

We all knew he wasn’t talking about the Reclamation Run anymore. The war was already moving in the background, gathering like a storm on the horizon. And Ezra, even now, was still making sure Bex would be part of it.

“I can’t,” she sobbed, shaking her head.

“You can,” he vowed, pressing her hands to his heart. “And you won’t do it alone. You’ve got them.” He motioned to me, to Briar, even broadly toward Zaffir. “Let them help you, baby. Please.”

Bex nodded, barely.

Ezra leaned forward, pressing a kiss to her lips through the cold, unyielding bars. Both of them were crying now, and I felt the burn of my own tears sliding down my face, unstoppable.

A piece of me that had begun to heal these last weeks was being torn open again, raw and bleeding.

Bex finally collapsed fully, sliding to the floor. I moved fast, dropping beside her, pulling her into my arms as she clung to me like the world might tear her away next.

“Keep her safe,” Ezra told me, his voice steady but his eyes betraying everything.

I nodded. “You know I will,” I said. And I meant it.

Briar crouched, reaching for our girl, and Bex shifted toward her, letting herself fall into Briar’s open arms.

I stood, pacing a few steps away because the walls felt too close, the air too thin. My lungs couldn’t find enough to fill them. I ran a hand through my hair, trying to pull myself together before I shattered too.

“I’m so sorry,” a voice said, soft and hesitant.

I turned. Fenly Nots. His face was blotchy, eyes rimmed with red. I felt a sharp burst of rage, white-hot, an instinct to lash out at the easy target. But I swallowed it down.

It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t set the rules. Praxis did.

I took a breath, forced my voice steady. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “So am I.”

Fenly’s gaze drifted, his eyes distant, fixed on the display across the room where Bex clung to Ezra in their tear-soaked goodbye. Cameras circled them like vultures, every eye in the chamber drawn to the heartbreak on full display. His voice came so softly it barely reached me.

“I didn’t know it was him,” Fenly murmured.

I turned, watching him. His face didn’t move, but I could feel his mind working, his thoughts roaring. His eyes stayed locked on the scene, as if by looking away it might make the weight of what he’d done real.

“I didn’t want to separate your team.”

The words lodged in my chest. There was so much I wanted to say, or scream, but even though the cameras might not have been on us, I didn’t want to chance my ire being broadcast.

“You didn’t,” I said quietly, though the words tasted bitter. I bit my tongue before I added anything else. As furious as I was, as much as my heart ached knowing we were one down and might never get them back, I couldn’t risk what was left of our goal.

I watched him carefully. There was something so… contemplative about the haunted tilt of Fenly’s shoulders, the way his fingers toyed with the edge of his sleeve like a man stalling before his last move.

He finally turned to me, and for the first time, I really met his eyes. There was something there I recognized. A quiet finality. The same look my mother had worn the night she pressed a card into my hand and told me my fight hadn’t started yet.

“Yeah,” Fenly said, his voice low, almost a sigh. “It was them.”

A flicker of shock crossed my face before I could stop it, the breath stalling in my lungs. Something unspoken passed between us, a wordless understanding only people marked by their anger could ever truly share.

“You’ve all done a lot of good for us,” Fenly murmured after a moment. “You’re brave. Braver than most I’ve seen in years.” He smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’ve given a lot of people out there something to hold onto.”

I opened my mouth to thank him, but he wasn’t finished.

“That kind of hope doesn’t stay quiet forever,” he said, leaning in slightly. “It’s the kind that ignites what’s been simmering… you know.”

I swallowed hard, my pulse pounding in my ears. He reached out and gripped my hand, firm, steady, resolute.

And then, barely louder than a breath, he whispered, “I always believed that one day the stars would shine on us again.”

The world tilted. My stomach dropped. My jaw parted on instinct, words scrambling up my throat, questions, demands, pleas. It was a line only Runaways used, a promise buried in whispers and rebellion. My mother’s words.

“And I think you all might be our stars,” he whispered, glancing back at the others. Ezra, Bex, Briar and even Zaffir, though his participation was a carefully guarded secret.

But before I could ask him anything, before I could so much as tighten my grip, Fenly was already moving, sauntering toward the cameras like a man heading to the gallows on his own terms.

“I can’t accept this victory,” he called out, loud enough to bring the entire room to a stunned halt. His hands lifted in surrender. “I cheated. I didn’t complete this trial fairly.”

Every head turned. The guards stiffened. Murmurs rippled through the crowd like a crackle of wildfire. Someone barked into a comm. Another raised a camera. Faces twisted in confusion. Nobody understood what he was doing.

Except me.

I felt it like a pulse in my chest.

Praxis guards closed in around him, their hands clamping down on his shoulders, but he didn’t resist. No fight, no struggle. He simply let them lead him away, a strange calm settling over him like a man who’d made peace with his fate. The heavy bars of his once opened cell slammed shut behind him.

And a second later, Ezra’s opened.

He spilled out, the shock and disbelief on his face melting instantly as Bex flew into his arms. He held her so tightly I thought she might break. He whispered something unintelligible as he kissed her face, her hair, his hands running along her arms as if he was trying to memorize her touch.

But I couldn’t look away from the cell that Fenly now inhabited. Couldn’t shake the truth in his gaze. The belief. The sacrifice. He’d given himself up so we could stay whole. So we could finish what we started.

And somewhere deep in my chest, the old words stirred again.

One day, the stars will shine on us again.