Page 3 of The Brightest Night

Drax dropped his chin to his chest. “It’s fine. I tried to run, and I ended up right back here. Maybe this is my fate.”

Fate? No. Being here was a choice I’d made for him, and now he was making another choice to save me. “You could have kept your mouth shut and not told them who you were. You could have taken your chances and⁠—”

“Your power manifests to protect you, right?” I nodded. “So how long before it would have manifested if you were put into a procreation pen?”

My scalp pinched. “Not long.”

“Yeah, and then my father would have his hands on you. And then…I have no idea what would happen. No one who exhibits green energy has ever been brought to the palace. And I have no desire to find out what happens if one is. If my father wants you, then he is not getting you.”

My chest warmed at his words and the heat of determination in his eyes.

I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. “But your father can wield the green power, so why does he want more people that can? Surely he’d want to remain special.”

His eyes narrowed, and his jaw tensed. “If he can, I’ve never seen it.”

“You think he’s lying?” Velos said.

“I think much of what the people of Veridia believe is a lie. It’s why I ran. I didn’t want to be a part of it.” He lifted his chin, face etched in determination. “It’s why when they come for me, I will order them to let you go. You came here to find the truth about your existence, and I believe that your truth could set us all free. It’s important.”

He wanted me to let him go back to his tyrant sire? To walk away and leave him to his fate? A week ago, I’d have given him a salute and done just that, but now…Drax felt like part of the crew. He was mine, just like Gabe and Naxon, Velos, Kai, and⁠—

“Rex!” Velos took a step toward the bars.

The spider mech scuttled across the floor toward our cell, his metallic limbs tapping delicately against stone.

If Rex was here, then Kai must be close by too.

“Stop!” Gabe said. “The bars are electrified.”

Rex spun on the spot and made a chittering sound before a red beam shot out of his head and scanned over us and the cell. He locked on to something on the wall out of view and scuttled across the flagstones toward it.

The air fizzed, and the strange tension that hung in the atmosphere dropped.

“The barrier is down,” Gabe said.

Rex scuttled into view, beelining for the bars that made up the door and began fiddling with the lock, his chittering growing more and more agitated.

“He can’t unlock it,” Gabe said. “But I can.” He grabbed the bar housing the lock and pulled. It snapped with a brittle sound. The door swung open.

I grinned up at him. “Looks like it’s time to leave.”

Chapter Two

There was no one on the upper floor of the dungeon building, and we were able to sneak out into the settlement. Coming in, a blizzard had obscured most of the landscape, but I’d gotten the impression of open space and caught the shape of a few squat buildings through the drifts of snow swirling in the air before we’d been dragged into a building bursting with heat from an epic hearth and down worn stone steps into their dungeons.

We slipped into the night, sticking to the shadows and moving stealthily around the side of the building. The blizzard had died, but the chill hit hard, ice burrowing through my clothes to bite at my skin.

Drax sucked in a sharp breath. “We need warm clothes. Furs. Boots.”

Velos, the slightest one of us all, hugged himself, teeth chattering hard.

I rubbed my wrists, still sore from the shackles Rex had helped remove. We had thermawear on the ship. Useless to us now. We had to grab Kai, who according to Rex was waiting outside the settlement, and make our way north, farther into the frozen wastelands, which with no fucking supplies was going to be a bitch. “We’re gonna have to steal some clothes and food.”

“There are supplies on the snow vehicles,” Gabe said. “I noticed when we were loaded into the side cabs. There is a compartment holding necessities.”

“Okay, so we steal clothes and a couple of those mobiles, zoom out of here, grab Kai, and be on our merry way before the magimechs get here.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Drax said. “Can we add not get killed to the list?”