“This one. This Icarus follows Surra and finds her beautiful.”
A voice.
It had come to the Icarus in his sleep. How did he come to be asleep? Why couldn’t he remember?
A second male said, “We must be wary. Are we certain this Probability will produce optimal results?”
The first one replied, “Your caution may be well-founded but a might tardy, One. The specimen is already in our midst and forever altered. Look at his hair.”
Eyes closed, listening, breathing. Don’t wake and don’t alarm them. Let them carry on while the Icarus listened, laid out on a cold slab in a space which smelled of blood. No blood the Icarus had ever smelled before, but still the metallic tang couldn’t be mistaken.
The second male, called ‘One,’ said, “His reaction to the Seam was unpredictable. Do you suppose the Feast of Roses could kill him?”
The deeper voice moved further from the slab. His footsteps sounded heavy compared to One. The larger man boomed, “No time to run tests. You freed Surra as Zero had instructed, and now we have set these events in motion. The Icarus listens. Order him to submerge in our blood. I cannot stay while the other Primaries are on high alert. Be careful, One.”
“Be careful, Tumu.”
Rayne, startled awake, sat upright on her cot. Into the silence, she breathed, “Tumu.” Did she just dream of herself as Elden with Tumu in the room? The Feast of Roses was a space in the Seam, wasn’t it? Where Sagan had dipped into a pool of Aegis blood and surfaced with enough power to bisect a planet?
Razor’s dossier had mentioned Aegis agents of his father, Zero, once spied on him before the Tritans confined the Aegis within Gait’s core, but something kept recurring in the Pain Curator’s notes.
One is still missing.
Rayne had taken it to mean ‘one of them,’ but what if Razor had meant someone named ‘One’ was missing?
With a fist scrunched in her hair, Rayne tried to calm her rapid pulse. No need to alert Nox. Five months had passed since she’d last seen him, and Rayne was starting to worry he couldn’t find her because of all the lookalikes. Thousands of girls surrounded her at any location with her eye color, nearly identical bone structure, and black hair. It was… comforting after so many nasty-meaning people like Abresson had went on about how beautiful she was.
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Anonymity was nice, and it let Rayne secure this bed in a random hostel on Monarch 3. When she had checked in, the drone at the door commented, “You’re close, honey, but your eyes are a little too big and not far enough apart. But the hair?” He gave Rayne two thumbs up.
She couldn’t wait to tell Nox about it. And her dream. And all the people she’d interrogated. And…
A sliver of light shone in through the window. Rayne craved the moonlight, but being inside a giant tree, she settled for the milky street lamp outside. She lifted her palms into it and closed them, trying to capture it.
Rayne missed Nox.
Somehow, the dream had left her even lonelier than before. The apprehension left her unsettled, especially with the lingering suspicion of Tumu. And who was One?
Rayne missed Xelan, too. Several times a day, every day, she tried to reach him in his dreams—Communicating across the galaxy with nacre fibers she’d woven into a bridge based on Elden’s constructs.
Someone snored, and another person rolled over and scratched their side. The noises were amplified in the dark, so Rayne went still to listen beyond the room. People wandered along the avenues outside, some returning to their hives, while visitors sought a bed like the ones in this hostel. Their heartbeats betrayed their race to Rayne. Lamias beat closer to human heart rate where the drones fluttered in the realm of two hundred beats per minute.
All of them were waiting…
Waiting for the next battle.
The Concerted Empire of Iona Pax was a peace-loving effort among all the planets and Ishkur. Rayne was so proud of the Shadow, but here, in the outer worlds, an undercurrent of violence stirred.
Celindria.
The former Cult of Night Justice Rayne had interrogated on Earth confirmed it. He’d said, “Celindria came here two weeks ago and collected her pawns.”
Rayne had narrowed her eyes, asking, “Pawns?”
The man took a heavy drink of his scotch, humphing in the affirmative before saying, “Those who she’d granted nacres for their diligent service. They left with her, unable to turn her down.”
What a strange way to put it.
It was the same story on Lacceirus Capra and Cinder. The Caprent contact and the mad Icarus both raved about choice. Mostly about not having one when Celindria came to call.
Rayne looked forward to meeting this last contact here on Mon3 and regrouping with Nox. She most looked forward to making him smile at her jokes. For an Icarus with black eyes, they sure sparkled—
Why was Rayne’s brain doing this to her in the middle of the night? Giving up on sleep, she gathered her things and joined the heartbeats outside. A stroll and some fresh tree air sounded nice.
Out here, Rayne focused more on the Shadow. Tameka and Sagan. Pax and Echo. The precious moments she was missing out here on her own. She couldn’t wait for Xelan to sleep so she could get some news out of him—
“Our wedding will be a public event. We invite the entire Iona Pax to attend.”
As if summoned by Rayne’s wishful thinking, Sagan’s voice carried out of a bar on a side street. Hurrying to the entrance, Rayne listened for the rest of the announcement.
Over the projection, Korac said, “Join us for the reception on the Palatial Grounds in Ishkur. Celebrate the union of Earth and Cinder—the formation of Iona Pax with us.” He gave the date and exact location.
One month from now.
Rayne beamed. There was no way she was missing this. A little pain twinged her heart. While she would attend, she couldn’t let the Shadow know she was there, but at least this way she could see how everyone was doing.
One more contact, and Rayne was free to rendezvous with Nox on Ishkur. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d attend the wedding, too.