I was about to ask after Xiphio and Ronad, when the former walked into the room. The merevin’s face lit up as he saw me and Navan standing there. I thought his features were going to crack, his smile was so wide.
“I swore I would not believe it until I saw you both in the flesh, and here you are! Now I will not allow myself to acknowledge your existence until I have embraced the pair of you!” he cried, rushing over to bring us both into a group hug. “I heard there were new arrivals and went to investigate, but you had already disappeared by the time I reached the foyer.”
I forced a smile as he released us. Seeing him, I realized what that must mean about Ronad, but I was too afraid to voice the question. Maybe he was somewhere else in the building, helping out with the Fed’s regrouping.
“Is it true, what they’re saying?” Xiphio asked excitedly.
“That depends—what are they saying?” Navan asked.
“Did you capture Orion and bring him here? Did you truly accomplish such a majestic feat of courage and bravado?”
“You flatter us too much, Xiphio,” Navan replied, while my cheeks flushed. “We did what we had to, following the orders that came through, though it was really Riley who came up with the plan to take both Stone and Orion away from the rebel base. I just followed her lead.”
“Miss Riley, you are truly remarkable,” Xiphio gushed, making me even more embarrassed.
“No, Xiphio, you are the one who is truly remarkable,” I insisted, gesturing toward the others.
He smiled sadly. “While it’s true that I managed to safely retrieve Miss Angie and Miss Lauren, I shall always regret that I could not save everyone in time.”
My heart sank, the truth still too difficult to handle. “Ronad?” I could barely get his name out, feeling it stick in my throat like a jagged barb.
“He was barely clinging on to life when I found him,” Xiphio explained quietly. “They’re performing surgery on him as we speak, but we have yet to receive an update. Miss Angie and Miss Lauren tried to patch him up as best they could—using quite marvelous skills that they learned on Vysanthe, I believe—but we will not know anything else until he’s out of the operating room.”
I sank against Navan in a moment of relief. He gripped me, propping me up to stop me from collapsing beneath the emotional strain. Xiphio had made it sound like Ronad was dead, but at least now we knew he had a chance. He was in this building somewhere, fighting for his life, and I prayed with all my might that he’d pull through. Stone, too.
“Wait, where are your nudus?” Navan asked, his brow furrowed. I glanced over at the others, realizing he was right—their arms were bare.
“When we got back here, we were all exhausted,” Lauren explained. “The nudus began sniffing out everyone who passed us, and pretty soon they lost interest in what we had to offer. We asked a few agents to come closer, to see if the nudus would take to them instead.”
Angie nodded. “Yeah, as it turns out, those beasties are fickle! I haven’t felt rejection like that since Luke Harrison pretended he hadn’t seen my Valentine’s card in fourth grade.”
“They moved over to the Fed agents?” Navan pressed.
Lauren shrugged. “Yeah, I guess they needed more nutrients than we had, since we were all running low. Besides, I think we were ready to give them up by that point. I know I was thinking about getting rid of them the moment we set foot in HQ again.”
“Speak for yourself. I’d just gotten used to having them leeching off me,” Angie muttered, pouting melodramatically.
“Maybe they picked up on your emotional vibrations,” I suggested, exhaustion pulsating through my body. “They might’ve sensed you didn’t want them anymore and latched on to someone else instead. They do seem to be open to mental suggestions.”
Lauren looked thoughtful, tapping her chin. “I think you might be right. They abandoned Ronad on the journey back because he was pretty beat up, but only when he started having this weird, delirious fit, where he tried to scrape them off with his bare hands. I guess they realized they weren’t wanted anymore and left him alone.”
“What are the Fed agents doing with the nudus—just carrying them around?” I wondered.
“They’re reinforcing the headquarters on Earth with a nudus dome, and reinforcing this base, too,” Xiphio replied.
Angie grinned. “They’re really going to town. I saw one build a dome over his cup of tea. Personally, I think they just wanted to play with their new toys.”
“I wish I knew what it was like to wield that kind of energy,” Bashrik chimed in unexpectedly, his voice sad.
“Those unfaithful little critters may not think you’re pure, my love, but I know you are,” Angie said, putting her arms around him. “In fact, you’ve built your own nudus dome right across my heart. Only you can get in, and I’m never letting you out.”
On an ordinary day, I’d have made gagging sounds or cracked some sort of joke, but for once, I was happy to watch two people in love showing their adoration for one another. I mean, Bashrik did look a little uncomfortable, but he wasn’t the most romantically expressive person I’d ever met… unless Stone was in the room, that is.
“Wait, why aren’t they trying to rebuild the shield over Earth?” Navan asked.
“It is with a heavy heart I must tell you that a lot of the nudus died during the host transfer. Nobody knows why, but their lights dimmed and there was nothing we could do to restore them,” Xiphio replied, shaking his head. “There aren’t enough left to rebuild the shield. Plus, we still don’t know how the bearers’ locations got discovered. The Fed do not wish to risk losing more nudus without being sure the threat of being discovered again has dissipated.”
My heart wrenched at the thought of the nudus who’d died. They hadn’t asked to be brought here and had only done what we’d told them to do—what their instincts had told them to do. Now, they’d ended up as more innocent casualties on a seemingly relentless list.
“I’m sorry to hear they didn’t make it,” I murmured.
“I insisted on them having proper burials, though I think the other agents thought I was crazy. They don’t seem to understand how precious those creatures are. Only those who have wielded them can truly know the purity of their souls. All they wished to do was help us.” Xiphio sighed sadly. “How are you two, anyway? What happened down there?”
I looked up at Navan, too weary to recount everything that had gone on. With a smile, he sank down on one of the sofas and laid me down so I could rest my head in his lap. Feeling sleepy, I listened to him summarize the events that had taken place in the rebel base: Lazar’s “capture” of us, and our trickery in the windowless rooms while listening to Orion and the queens hash out their differences. I heard the others gasp at the revelation that Brisha was still alive, a rumble of shocked discussion rippling around me. After answering a few questions, Navan continued, telling them about our grisly fight in the autopsy room, followed by taking Orion hostage and making a deal to exchange him for Stone and a ship. He mentioned Commander Mahlo’s call, and the transfer of nudus over to a coldblood named Orval, before regaling everyone with the story of how I’d tricked Ezra into allowing Orion onto the gangway, only to retract it at the last moment and haul him inside the ship.
I kept drifting in and out of what he was saying. Now that I had a second to slow down, I realized I was tired down to the very depths of my bones, with the start of a vicious headache pulsing in my temples. All I wanted to do was curl up in a dark room and sleep for a week. Unfortunately, we only had three days until the ceasefire ended. And, given the way Gianne had broken her previous ceasefire agreement with her sister by unleashing the Titans, I wasn’t ready to believe she would honor the treaty.
Still, a small part of me hoped that all three—Orion, Brisha, and Gianne—would uphold the promise of a ceasefire, just this once, so we could all get a moment’s rest. We’d earned it.
Chapter Fourteen
We sat around a table in ano
ther section of Lunar HQ, eating dinner in silence. A few agents had laid out a meal for us, and the delicious scent of richly spiced stew and fresh breads made my mouth water. As we ate, I glanced around at everyone, feeling Ronad and Stone’s absence. An agent had been in to tell us that both of them were stable, but they would not be able to take visitors until the following day. There was so much I wanted to ask the others and so much more that I wanted to say to them, but I didn’t have the energy to speak. I barely had the energy to lift my fork to my mouth and chew.
I went to bed soon after, wishing everyone a good night before dragging Navan to bed with me and curling up in his arms until sleep claimed me. Drifting off, I could feel his soft breath on my neck and the murmur of half-heard words as he whispered in my ear, singing a quiet lullaby to help me fall asleep. It wasn’t one I recognized, but it soothed me. With him, I was always precisely where I wanted to be, even if I couldn’t savor the moment properly.
“Good morning, beautiful,” he murmured as I stirred. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully clothed, as if he’d already been up and about. I didn’t remember actually falling asleep, and it took a moment for reality to come back. A window in our room looked out on the lunar terrain—an endless stretch of craters and crests, framed by a starry sky.
I’m not in Kansas anymore, I mused, trying to force down the antsy sensation bristling through my tense nerves. Every single limb in my body was heavier than lead, my lungs clenched in a weird grip, my mind just as slow and sluggish as everything else. Despite all the sleep I’d had, it didn’t seem to have made a dent in my exhaustion.
“Good morning.” I yawned, stretching out my weary muscles before reaching for him. “Where have you been, anyway?”
“You looked so wiped out that I thought I’d let you sleep a while longer,” he explained. “I’ve just been out to debrief with Commander Mahlo, Agent Phocida, Warrior Anai, and a few of the others who made it back yesterday. I told them everything we know about Orion—they’re holding him in a secure cell as we speak, though nobody is quite sure what to do with him just yet.”
I frowned. “You went without me?”
“I couldn’t wake you, Riley. You’ve earned the rest.”
“Did Dio and Alfa make it back?” I thought of what Stone had said about them fighting with the Fed and felt a pang of worry for them.
He nodded. “Dio was hit pretty bad, but he’s in the medical wing getting patched up. Alfa is MIA, but so are a lot of the Rexombra. Anai told us they’ve probably gone into assassin mode, taking out as many rebels as possible without drawing attention to themselves. Chances are, Alfa is fine. Anai is confident about it, and so am I.”
“That’s good, I guess,” I murmured, my brain spacing out. “Wait, where’s my suit?” I glanced around in a panic, looking for the camo-striped military suit I’d worn the day before. It had Cambien’s stone in a secret inside pocket. I’d had it with me since leaving Zai, and all through the fighting we’d endured, never letting it leave my person—if I’d lost it somewhere yesterday, I knew it would be the last straw. Somehow, it had become a symbol of hope for me. Without it, I’d crumble.
“You looking for this?” Navan asked, plucking the stone off the floor and handing it to me. I took it from him like a starving child desperate for food, clasping it to my chest. My heart was pounding violently, making me feel suddenly woozy at the rush of adrenaline.
“Thank you,” I gasped.
“Are you okay?” He looked really worried.
“I will be. I think I sat up too fast, that’s all.”
“You can stay here and rest if you want to,” he suggested, reaching out to stroke my leg tenderly. “We’re supposed to be starting retaliation preparations, but I can go and help on our behalf and tell you everything later. If you’re still wiped out, you should stay in bed.”
I shook my head slowly, even though the movement made my temples pulse. “I’ll be fine in a minute. Anyway, it’ll do me good to be up and about, keeping busy. I’m not spending the day stewing in bed while everyone else is out there helping.”
He smiled, leaning down to kiss my damp forehead. “I didn’t think you would, but I thought I should suggest it anyway, being the concerned husband that I am.”
“Nice try, but I’m not stopping until all of this is over,” I insisted, reaching up to kiss him again. His skin felt cool against the feverish heat of my lips.
An hour later, dressed and semi-refreshed, Navan and I joined the others in one of the aircraft hangars. Agents of all kinds were at work on the Fed ships, repairing the damage that had been inflicted during the battle. The whole place echoed with the clink-clink of wrenches and hammers, followed by the soft roar of welding guns and various alien tools I’d never seen before.
Bashrik and Xiphio were already at work when we got there, replacing burnt-out mechanisms in the engines with new ones. Angie sat on the ground beside them, passing up tools as they asked for them.
“Does that look like a proton coupler to you?” Bashrik poked his head out from under the ship’s belly, brandishing the tool she’d just given him.
She shrugged. “Clearly, you didn’t describe it well enough.”
“I said you didn’t have to join us if you didn’t want to.”
“Who says I don’t want to? I’m having a whale of a time, can’t you tell?” Her tone dripped sarcasm.
“We interrupting something?” I asked, nearing the ship.
Angie grinned. “Just our usual morning squabble, nothing to worry about. It’ll blow over by noon.”
“Or we’ll blow up, depending on what she tries to hand me next,” Bashrik quipped, though I could see his annoyance had faded as quickly as it had appeared.
“How are you, anyway?” Angie wondered. “We missed you at breakfast, but Navan here told us you were sleeping like the dead.”
“Believe me, I tried to wake her,” he said defensively, putting his arm around my waist.
“Hey, I bet you did… though, Riley, you still don’t look too good. Are you sure you should be up and about? Maybe you just need to sleep off all of yesterday’s chaos.” My friend’s face was a picture of concern.
“That’s what he’s been trying to get me to do,” I said, leaning into Navan. “I’ll tell you what I told him—no way. As long as everyone else is out here helping, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Well, maybe you should eat something before you get into the heavy lifting,” she suggested, flashing Navan a look. Evidently, they thought I didn’t notice. “Come on, I’ll take you up to one of the break rooms and we’ll see what we can find. I’m going to put some color back in those cheeks if it kills me!”
I was about to protest when she jumped up and grabbed my hand, dragging me all the way back across the hangar before I could say a word against it. Navan watched us go with a wave. I was starving, but my appetite had been drifting between clawing hunger pangs and gripping nausea.
“Where’s Lauren?” I asked, as we pushed through a doorway, heading back into the main building of the Fed headquarters.
“She’s been at the med unit all morning, sitting at Stone’s bedside. I caught her trying to sneak there last night, but I told her she had to go to sleep or else she’d break. I marched her back to her room myself and stayed outside the door until I was sure she’d nodded off.”
I smiled at the mental image. “Mama Angie, always keeping us on the right path.”
“You’d better believe it.”
“I should probably head there myself today, to see how he and Ronad are doing. There are probably a couple of scrapes I should get looked at, too, while I’m there.” I pulled a face, hating the idea of doctors prodding and poking me.
Angie nodded. “You really don’t look too good, and I mean that with all the kindness in the world.”
“It’ll just be hunger, or exhaustion, or something,” I insisted, not wanting to worry her too much. In truth, I still felt weird, like something was wrong, but
I wasn’t about to add any more concerns to everyone’s plates, not when they already had so much to fret about.
As we entered one of the break rooms, which had wall-to-wall video screens playing out the news on Earth, I froze, hypnotized by the images. I was glad Navan wasn’t here with me; he didn’t like me stressing myself out by watching the craziness that was going on down there. All last night, he’d kept me away from most of it, ushering me past the screens that were playing news broadcasts, but he wasn’t here to stop me now.
“Some believers are suggesting that this is what Nostradamus predicted, that Earth’s last days would be brought about by the arrival of strange creatures who came down from the skies in a haze of blue,” a newsreader said, looking dubious. “Others are saying that world leaders have brought this upon us by making secret deals with alien lifeforms. Coming up later, has the US military been sending soldiers through a so-called ‘stargate’ since 1969, and could this be the reason we’re under attack? We have the facts, next.”
I raised an eyebrow at the last one, while listening out for the rest of the broadcasts that were playing simultaneously. There were conspiracy theories of all kinds—some wildly wrong, saying this was the apocalypse or the beginning of the Rapture, while others were closer to the mark, suggesting that we had something the aliens wanted. On every screen, there were flashing images of riots in the streets, mass prayer sessions, and even new cults worshipping the aliens, begging them to spare their lives. Earth had gone mad. Guns were selling like hotcakes from every store and black market, while grocery stores were being looted in preparation for the end of days. I wasn’t sure what good a ten-pack of tomato soup and six bulk boxes of ramen would be if the apocalypse was coming, but to each their own.
On one screen, there was a clip of two young guys selling funny t-shirts, one with a picture of the US president carrying a nuke, saying the words “Take me to your leader” in a speech bubble. Another t-shirt had a caricature of Oprah sitting opposite an alien, saying, “I find your questions very probing.” It was disturbing in its own way, but I supposed that was the human way, using gallows humor. We always had a way of making light of even the most troubling situations.