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  She looked toward the ground and nodded. “I made the decision to track him down, sir. I had to know if my memory was correct. If he was the weapon I suspected. That we need.”

  “You made the right choice, Lieutenant.” Schrader shook his head, lips pulled to one side as he considered what the confirmation meant. “But you should have come to me with your suspicions from the beginning. Thorn nearly died—you understand that, yes?”

  “Yes, sir.” It was hard to look him in the eye, so she stared into the middle distance, seeing nothing but feeling the weight of her decisions.

  “We cannot afford to lose a talent like that. In terms of a Starcaster Officer, he’s little more than a child. In terms of his power? He’s a bomb with limitless energy. He’s a supernova. Or more.” Schrader took his place behind his desk once more.

  “I agree with you there, sir. But what does that have to do with me?”

  “You are close with Private Stellers.”

  “I was once, yes, sir. I think we still have some degree of connection, though we’re not kids anymore.”

  “We would like for you to speak with him. He’s decided to leave the Starcasters, though he hasn’t come to me with this request yet. It’s a seed in his mind, because in his core Thorn is noble and loyal. He fears himself over all else, which is good…to a point. He’s going to ask me if he has value, but I can’t even let the question be posed. If he does come to submit his resignation because of some failure on my part to convince him otherwise, we will have no choice but to oblige by ON policy. A resignation request denied is a clear indicator of a future issue. A problem that can arise in combat, or even worse, at the moment of truth in this war. Believe me, Thorn will be at the nexus of combat every time he flies into the black.” The Commander pulled a file from a stack at the corner of his desk and thumbed through the documents. Eyes-Only dockets were the only paper files still used within the military, so Kira diverted her attention.

  “What do you want me to say to him, sir?”

  Schrader kept his attention on the files. “Don’t lie. I’ll never ask you to lie, but the unalloyed truth might be too much at this point. How are your diplomatic skills?”

  “Rusty, but good when used, sir. We had to wheedle every meal at the home together as kids. It’s a natural response in me, now,” Kira said, with the first smile since she’d entered the room.

  “How am I supposed to meet with him tonight, Commander? Fraternizing is…inadvisable, given our rules of conduct.”

  “We will arrange for a meeting, off the books. Be at the East Bend of the river tonight. He’ll be there.”

  “Yes, sir.” Kira stood awkwardly for a moment. “Am I dismissed, sir?”

  Commander Schrader waved his hand at the door. “You are, Lieutenant.” When she was about to walk out, he added, “And Lieutenant, do not disappoint. This is the culmination of the most important and rare of things, us finding Stellers.”

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “A lucky break.”

  Thorn was surprised to see Narvez enter Drigo’s med unit that evening, and even more stunned to see her grin easily as she sat on the bed. The lieutenant’s hard lines appeared softened even in the florescent lights of the medical room. She focused on Drigo, reaching out with a delicate touch and running her fingertips over the bandages of his shoulder. Without turning away, she spoke.

  “Stellers, I need a few moments with Drigo. I’m going to help him, and the process is not for anyone else to see,” Narvez said.

  “I’d rather not leave, ma’am,” Thorn said, his voice flat.

  She turned, her eyes boring into his, mouth opening to lash him—and stopped. Officers had to plan ahead. Good officers planned three steps ahead, and that was what Schrader, Narvez, and Ashworth had done. The last element was Thorn himself, so Narvez did something out of character.

  She smiled gently. “You will, because it’s an order. You will, because I’m speaking to you as a fellow human—I need you to trust me, Thorn. For just this moment, trust me, and see what I show you.”

  “I—yes, ma’am.” Grudging, he stood, watching her. A touch in his mind, gentle but firm, and Narvez sent him a map built of memory. A riverbend, close by and with some purpose other than merely getting him to leave so she could work.

  Thorn twitched as the image flooded his mind, then he twitched again at the realization that he was keeping her from helping Drigo.

  This isn’t about you, he told himself . “Clear, ma’am, and thank you.”

  She waved him away as her eyes went blank, power filling the space between her and Drigo. Her magic was suffused now with a sense of purpose—to heal and comfort, rather than to sow disorder and chaos. Thorn stood for a second, stunned at the complete reversal of her sorcery, then he stepped out of the room into a hallway where the air was antiseptic and there was no looming cloud of healing energy.

  “To the river, then, for a quiet moment,” Thorn said, but the hallway did not answer, and his feet moved of their own accord.

  He would speak to the night while Narvez waged war on Drigo’s pain. Maybe it would be enough.

  The night air was brisk, the sky grazed by scudding clouds that broke the moonlight into a slow dance of shifting rays; some blue from the smaller moon, some buttery gold from the fat orb hanging higher in the west. He took his time, breathing deeply as the graveled path crackled underfoot. With a final turn, the path widened, and Thorn smelled water—a clean, sharp scent, followed by the sounds of a river at night. Water has two faces; one that is seen, and one that is heard. The moons lit a dark ribbon just ahead, occasional panes of silver breaking the busy surface.

  Open space yawned ahead in the forest. A riot of flowers opened their faces to the moonlight, vines so black they seemed to steal the light around them. Only the petals glowed, unhindered by the shadows.

  “I’m here,” Thorn said to the night.

  “I am as well,” came Kira’s unexpected answer.

  “Kira?”

  “Come forward. Sorry about the ambush. I’m terrible at stealth. And diplomacy,” she admitted, stepping out into the moonglow.

  “Nice place,” he said. It was. A long stone bench waited for them, close to the river’s edge. They sat as one, both turning to look at the water. “This isn’t accidental, which means Schrader thinks I’m going to leave. He’s pitching me to stay.”

  Kira said nothing but let her eyes go up to the stars as she turned her head toward him.

  “I’m right,” Thorn said.

  “You are,” she admitted. “You always had insight. Even before you knew about your power.” She paused, crossed her legs, and leaned back on the bench. “You never asked why I’m here with the Starcasters.”

  “You’re right. I never thought twice about it. Even though you were younger than me, you were never—”

  “Actually younger than you? Yeah, I get that a lot. I was forty when I was twelve.” Her laughter was bell-bright and real.

  “Glad we agree about that.”

  Kira shrugged. “You. You’re the reason I’m here. And the war, sure, but mostly you, because of what you told me when we spent all those hours practicing something that had always been thought of as a lie. A myth. You knew magic was real and then…you showed me. And you taught me, at least something. I went away to the Navy thinking that nothing they could do to me was worse than our lives when we were young. I was right. And then they explained the real war—not what we saw back home, but the real fight. The scorched planets, the barren systems.”

  He tilted his head in admission. “The thing behind the thing.”

  “Exactly. It’s never what it seems. It’s what’s controlling events from the background. For us, it’s a war so vast that we can’t even imagine surviving it, let alone winning.”

  “We can win,” he said simply.

  “I know we can. Now, anyway,” Kira admitted.

  Thorn dangled his legs above the still water. “I wasn’t wrong about you. You
’ve always had that gift. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. Savvy, too, even when we were kids.”

  Kira’s face lit up with a smile. “Gift. Or curse. My family,” she said, turning the word family into a slur. “You have the talent.” Her smile faded then. “My father had the talent. I might have it. Hell, I’m his true daughter. I even look like him.”

  Thorn turned toward her slowly, brows rising. “He had—what? Magic? How did I not know that?”

  “I never thought it mattered. We were too busy surviving that…home.” She kept her eyes on the water now. “I don’t have his level of talent. I wasn’t born to it, like he was, or at least it wasn’t a manifest part of me. I feel like it’s something I can coax out of…somewhere. Like a hidden reserve, maybe, and even then it might not be soon enough to help us in this war. That’s proof enough to me that the universe has a sick sense of humor. Sometimes, anyway.”

  “There are only a few ’casters, but the need for good—great—officers is never going to go away. Not in this war. Your skills are elsewhere, maybe. Tactics, intelligence, command. Those go a long way.”

  Kira looked him in the eye. “You taught me that my brain is valuable despite my lack of talent, Thorn. Even when we were kids.”

  “You didn’t need me to know that.” He shook his head, teeth bright in the moonlight as he smiled. “Everyone could see that, even among all us leftovers. And now here you are, an officer, and something tells me your career will go on past this rank.”

  Kira laughed. “Glad to hear that. The pay at LT sucks, so I guess we’ll have to concentrate on living long enough to get that sweet pension.”

  “A noble goal. I like the whole part about living longer. It beats the hell out of a plasma cloud in some forgotten point in space.” He sobered, then added, “I hope I can control this.”

  “Your power? Or the war? Big goals, if it’s the latter.”

  Now he laughed, and it felt good. “I’ll start small and aim for harnessing whatever the hell is cutting loose inside me. I can feel it down—I don’t want to say in my bones, but it’s somewhere in a place that feels like it’s on the edge of my senses. Like if I turn my head slowly enough, I can glimpse my, ah…talent, but only for a second, then it’s gone. A memory. Or a taunt.” He lifted one shoulder, fingers spread on his thighs. “Do you think magic can truly be learned? Shaped, I mean?”

  “I do. In fact, I convinced myself I could learn anything.” She smiled, and her next words bloomed in his head, clear and crisp. So I taught myself telepathy, reaching back to the echoes my father left for me to find. How’s it sound?

  “Loud and clear—Kira, what the hell? How?” he asked, stunned. I thought telepathy was only for Purecasters. He’d responded to her without thinking.

  She spoke aloud once more. “And yet here you are, a Scorch, a Lifer, probably a few other things we don’t really grasp, and now a telepath, with complete facility and ease. I watched your face. You did it like breathing. Second nature. Command has no idea what you’re capable of, and neither do you.”

  Kira got to her feet and walked a few paces across the rocky surface before turning to face him. “The thing is, we need you. I need you, as a fixed point in my own past. You also happen to be the untapped fountain of—well, I don’t know. Magic, but of a kind that scares the shit out of people. Not me, though. And not Schrader, and certainly not the admiralty.”

  Thorn stood slowly. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Nyctus have been advancing. The recruits will be deployed soon, and we’re not ready.” Her body grew tense, and she let her eyes sweep the darkened sky as if the Nyctus would fall on them any second. “But you, Thorn, you are everything I remember you to be.”

  “I’m not what you remember of me, Kira. I’m no better than any of the other ’casters here, and I’m sure as hell not ready for battle. I might—who knows? I might set myself on fire, torch a ship. I could do something you don’t have a term for, because even I don’t know what it is that I’m creating out of this power.”

  She sputtered in frustration. “Who gives a damn? We don’t have options—not any longer. Whether or not you’re ready, or if you think you’ll turn a fleet to ash with wild magic isn’t the point. The point is this, and only this: it’s almost time to go to war, because there aren’t enough ’casters, and we’re losing. End of story. We lose one more big battle with our standard weps, and it’s over. The Nyctus will chew through planetary defenses with those big ass rocks, and we won’t be able to stop the volume of stone coming down on us. We have to fight, and soon. You most of all.”

  He stepped toward her, pointing at the medwing. “Drigo has a missing arm. You sure it’s time to cut me loose?”

  Kira reached out, took his face in her hands, and turned it up to the stars. “They’re out there, Thorn. Entire fleets of those murderous pricks, and every ship is aimed at the guts of our territory. If we win one battle—just one—we stop the bleeding, and we get room to breathe. Our shipyards are firing keels as fast as the Nyctus can turn them into scattered atoms, but we can’t replace the people. That’s where we come in. We’re the last line of offense. Not defense—to hell with defense. That’s a sucker’s bet. We can win, but we have to take the fight to them, not sit obediently and wait for the blows to land.” Her breath came short until she stilled herself with an effort.

  Thorn took her hands, then let them go, uncomfortable at how easily he’d done it. “Okay. Let’s go tell Schrader to put me in a witchport and get the hell out of the way.”

  “That’s the spirit. And one more thing,” Kira said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Burn every one of them you can see, because they’ll do the same to us if they can.”

  9

  Sleep came easily to Thorn that night, the scent of the river still filling his senses as he dropped away into silent rest. Despite Drigo’s condition, he felt needed. More importantly, he felt wanted, if not entirely trusted, and that was fine because he didn’t entirely trust himself.

  Drigo’s arm was completed, and surgery was scheduled for the next morning to attach it to the scorched stump, now a pinking mass of keloidal scarring that would serve as a base for the elegant technology that would make him battle-ready. Thorn had worried about Drigo’s response but realized that being alive was a far cry better than the alternative, and frankly the arm wasn’t without some added benefits. It was powerful, nearly indestructible, and after glancing at the complex device, Thorn had to admit the new arm was an improvement over Drigo’s original, given his tendency to sunburn and blister.

  The commanding officers had been understanding enough of Thorn’s absence from training, and he relied on that understanding for the remainder of the day. Tomorrow he would return to the field, but he needed to see his friend before he could dedicate his mind to the course materials once again. Peace, it seemed, came from a quiet moment at Drigo’s bedside.

  “Does it—” Thorn began, but Drigo nearly growled at him.

  “Itch? Yes. Like a friggin’ army of feverspot bugs have stung me in the forest. I might cut my own head off just so I can stop itching,” Drigo said, glaring at his bandages.

  “Please don’t. I’d have to drink myself into forgiveness, and I can’t afford the hangover. Got a big war coming up.”

  “I’ll hold off on the knife then, but they better get this arm on now.”

  The nurses came in, all professional bustle, and Thorn was unceremoniously removed with assurance that his commander would be informed of any issues. Fighting the urge to resist their directions, Thorn heard a loud noise while standing in the hallway.

  It was his stomach.

  “Ah, right. Feeding time.” It had been days since he’d had a proper meal, and the mess was close enough that Thorn detected something close to coffee on the wind. “Right, then.” He went unerringly toward chow, noting the skies full of jump planes and general sense of purpose throughout the camp. Across the yard, new recruits were dis
gorged from a helo, their faces masks of shock as they took in the controlled chaos unfolding around them. There were less than two dozen in all.

  Must be at the end of the Purecasters, Thorn thought sourly. That didn’t bode well. If what Kira had said was true—and he was almost certain it was—the ON would need battalions of ’casters to send the Nytcus back to their darkened worlds. No one really knew where the Nyctus originated, but they weren’t fans of bright stars or high grav.

  The planes kept coming, and to Thorn’s relief, more recruits—infantry and ship-boarding—streamed into and out of the medwing. He wasn’t part of a mass recruitment, but this influx seemed a bit excessive, even for ON infantry standards.

  His mind drifted to a life that felt so long ago. Working reclamation, he had no responsibilities but to himself. He could sleepwalk through his days, smeared in mud and low expectations. In some ways it was easier that way, but it was also a lonely, monotonous life that brought no fulfillment. Here, there was a promise of war, but also, maybe, life afterward.

  Luckily, the mess hall was serving breakfast for all of the incomers. Thorn blended in well enough, but only until Kira spotted him.

  She marched over to him. “What are you doing here?” Then she grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him out of the line.

  “Hey now.” He lifted his tray so as not to spill what was already served. “Watch the grub. I fought a wave of wide-eyed newbies for this.”

  She glowered at him. “I can pitch it in the shitcan if I want.” She looked at the tray with a gimlet eye. “Might even be saving your life. Is that…ham?”

  “It used to be.” He lifted a chunk of the offending food with his thumb and forefinger. “Now, I think it’s just dangerous.”

  Her shoulders relaxed at his joke. “Thorn, you can’t be here right now. You’re supposed to be in drills, anyway.”

  Suddenly it dawned on him. “Last night.” He bent forward, his breath close to her ear. “Did you risk your commission for me?”