Their Fractured Light: A Starbound Novel (46 page)

Flynn just stares at me, equally baffled—but Jubilee shakes her head, her eyes grim. “Blood,” she says shortly.

It’s only then that I see a heap of dark something at the foot of the staircase above; it’s only then that I see a flash of pink, and realize it’s a high-heeled shoe, and that the heap is a pile of bodies. Visions of the colorful passengers dancing in the ballroom loom up in my mind’s eye, and I have to clamp my lips together to keep from retching.

A hand, I don’t know whose, wraps around my wrist, drawing me down the stairs and away from the bodies. I try to breathe through my mouth, and keep moving.

The staircase leads to a lush carpeted hall I do recognize from when I arrived with Gideon. The carpet muffles our footsteps, making the silence complete. The husks are mostly outside the wreck, held there by Mori, Mae, Sanjana, and their allies, but we stumble across them here and there inside. Each time we pull back, duck for cover. Lilac must know we’re inside the ship somewhere, but if we can avoid a husk seeing us and reporting back, we’ll still have some element of surprise. The way they’re moving, in concentric, tightening circles, we’re pretty sure the rift is below us somewhere. But it’s not until a light blooms in the darkness, so faint I feel my eyes must be playing tricks on me, that I know our guess was right.

The light flickers, unsteady, but it shines blue against a tangle of metal protruding through the wall. In a heartbeat I’m back inside LRI Headquarters, watching the rift spring to life in front of my eyes.

“We’re close,” I breathe, touching the arm of the person nearest me—Flynn, it turns out—and gesturing toward the light. “This way.” We can only hope our friends outside can hold off Lilac’s army a little longer.

The hall leads around a corner and into what would’ve once been a beautiful foyer, the light growing stronger. We’re forced to scramble to keep our feet on the once-polished marble floor, using the giant jagged cracks in its surface to find purchase as we make our way across to the half-collapsed archway at the opposite end. We pull ourselves up against it, and in the faint blue glow emanating from the space beyond, I pause to scan the features of my companions.

No one’s thought of a way to save Lilac. Jubilee’s face looks ashen, even more so in the blue light.

She doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes, fixing her gaze on the wall behind me, where the real wood paneling has buckled and splintered in a line running from floor to ceiling. “He’ll never forgive me,” she whispers, pressing the palm of her hand flat against her leg, as if willing herself to reach for her weapon, and being unable to.

Flynn shifts, boots sliding on the sharply angled floor until he can reach her side. “Maybe not,” he replies, surprising me—I’d have expected one of his impassioned speeches, not this, just a few words in a soft voice. “But he’ll be alive. He’ll be sane. And so will the rest of humanity. You know what Lilac would want us to do.”

Jubilee’s eyes are wet, a realization that strikes me anew with shock. I didn’t know people like her ever cried. “But it’s Lilac, Flynn. How can I…She’s my friend.”

“I know.” Flynn’s voice is hoarse. “I wish I could tell you.…I don’t know what the right thing is. Only that we didn’t come this far alone, and you’re not alone now. We do this together.” He takes her hand between both of his, pulling it away from the holster and raising it to his lips.

Part of me feels like I ought to look away, let them share this moment privately, but I can’t—her eyes, as they flick over to meet his, hold such trust that it makes my heart ache. With pain, with gladness that Flynn found her despite the barriers between them, with an envy so deep my vision blurs. My mind flashes with the last vision I had of Gideon, dozing in the nest of blankets in the arcade, one arm still stretched out across the space where I had lain. How is it that a trodaire and the leader of the Fianna can trust each other so completely, while Gideon and I…They’ve overcome the walls formed by a generation of hatred and violence, and I can’t reach past the walls in my own heart.

The three of us stand in silence, absorbing the full weight of what we’re about to do. Then, wordlessly, we slip through the ruined doors.

The archway opens up onto the ballroom. Though I was here only a few short days ago, before the
Daedalus
fell, I almost can’t recognize the room—only the chandelier, lying in a heap of shattered glass and electrical wiring in the corner, sparks my memory. The shining floor is dull and shattered, caved downward, pit-like, as though sinking under the weight of the massive ring of metal nestled in its heart.

The rift itself dominates the cavernous ballroom, almost as though the machinery has grown to accommodate the room around it—blue light cascades off every twisted surface, reflected a million times over in the shards of the mirrors that once lined the far walls. The dais where Lilac and Tarver stood at Roderick LaRoux’s side is smashed, scattered in pieces across the pit before us. Overhead, the vast windowed ceiling that once looked out into space is gone, leaving a jagged, empty hole that shows nothing but the dull reddish blackness of the Corinthian night sky.

The voice we’d heard continues, one long stream of syllables that only resolve into words as we draw closer, taking cover behind a fallen pillar.

“…thought a picnic might be nice, like we used to have, like your mother used to love. Just you and me, my darling girl…Nothing has to change. Nothing ever has to change now.”

My eyes pick out a dark silhouette to the left of the rift, and as the light from the rift rises and falls again, I make out his features: Roderick LaRoux. He’s huddled on the floor, still clad in the grimy, torn, sweat-stained eveningwear he sported the night of the gala. For a confused moment it seems as though he’s speaking to the rift itself, until a second figure emerges from behind it.

Lilac, too, is still wearing what she wore the night the
Daedalus
crashed. But where her father’s clothes are filthy, hers are as spotless as if she’d only just gotten ready for the gala. Her black dress falls in sleek folds, moving like silk as she passes her father without giving him a second glance. Not a hair is out of place; a single ringlet falls, styled just so, across her neck.

“Of course, Daddy,” she murmurs, her voice echoing strangely, as though coming from more than one place. “After we help everyone else.”

“Of course,” he repeats. “Of course, of course…rifts…make everywhere safe. Never lose anyone again.” His mumbling continues, subsiding once more, and over my flare of hatred and disgust comes something so surprising it steals my breath for a moment, makes me sag down against the pillar.

Pity.

There’s a soft click beside me as Jubilee takes the safety off the gun. My heart’s pounding, my stomach sick, and I can hear her breath shaking. I don’t know Tarver or Lilac, not really. I hated them both, because they were part of LaRoux, attached to the thing I wanted to hurt most in the entire universe…but I hated them from a distance, the way you hate the rain or the traffic. I never really hated
them
. Not the reality of them. In the brief moments on the
Daedalus
before everything shattered, I actually found myself
liking
them; Tarver’s quiet humor, Lilac’s quick wit. Their devotion to each other.

But now we have to destroy them both.

“Daddy,” comes Lilac’s voice suddenly, cutting through the unintelligible monologue coming from the floor. “We have guests. You sneaky thing.”

My heart seizes, my eyes meeting Jubilee’s, then Flynn’s, where we’re concealed behind the column. I’m about to lift my head and look over the column and try for a distraction to give Jubilee the time she needs, when a third voice drags me to a halt.

“I wasn’t trying to hide,” comes a voice from the opposite side of the room. When I peek over the edge of the column, I see Tarver picking his way down into the sunken ballroom, boots sending trickles of dust and debris raining down below. Mori’s words come back to me.
They’re in there.
She didn’t just mean Lilac and her father. Tarver’s voice is low, almost conversational. “I’m not smart enough for that.”

“Just a big, dumb soldier?” Lilac speaks the words like they have significance, and I can see her smile from here.

Tarver flinches, skidding to a halt in the bottom of the ruined ballroom.

My eyes scan the darkness beyond them, hope and fear sending my blood into a panic as it rushes past my ears—but I see no sign of Gideon anywhere. Maybe they’ve given up their plan to shut down the rift. Maybe…I hold my breath.

“Why are you here?” Lilac asks, turning to face him and smoothing a fold in her dress, a movement so
human
, so habitual, that it makes me shiver to see it combined with the look on her face. No human hates like that.

“You don’t know?” Tarver’s brows lift. “You can’t just scan my thoughts, see my every plan?”

“Not with that nasty little trinket in your pocket,” she replies, as if she’s commenting on a fashion faux pas. “But I know you, and I don’t imagine you came alone without a plan. I don’t think you left
all
your friends outside.” Lilac’s eyes sweep the shadows, and for an instant she grimaces, but it seems she can’t quite find Gideon either—or us. “They’re not doing very well out there, by the way. The numbers are against them.”

Tarver’s jaw squares, and he visibly forces himself to relax it, pushing his shoulders back.

Lilac laughs, soft. “I can see how hard you’re trying. I’m sure you think you’re going to somehow ‘save’ me at the last minute.”

“Not you,” Tarver murmurs. “Lilac.”

But she continues like he hasn’t spoken, like she fails to acknowledge any difference between what she is now and who she was before. “It’s not going to work, though—and you know why? I’ll tell you the secret, if you like.” She steps closer to him, halting a few steps away, just out of arm’s reach.

Tarver says nothing, staring into her face. He’s armed, I can see the weapon in its holster, but his hand is nowhere near it.

“You can’t save me,” Lilac says, leaning in as though sharing some deep, profound secret in a stage whisper, “because
I’m already dead.
”

Tarver’s fingers curl at his sides, tightening into fists. The light from the rift throws his features into sharp relief, outlining in shadow the lines of muscle as he clenches his jaw. Lilac just laughs, the same, sweet, silvery laugh I recognize from HV celebrity shows and press conferences, and pats his cheek.

She turns away, and that’s what makes Tarver move again. The step he takes after her is halting, jerky, but his voice is quick. “Wait. I know you’re in there. Lilac, listen to me. I know you can hear me. Keep fighting—hold on.”

“How sweet.” Lilac doesn’t seem at all perturbed, but she does halt, and I see Tarver’s weight shift as she turns back toward him. He looks almost…
relieved
.

A tingle runs down my spine as realization dawns: Tarver’s
distracting
her. Buying Gideon time, wherever he is, to attempt their plan. Which means we might have only moments to act, before they risk blowing the rift wide open and giving Lilac access to all the power she could ever need.

I glance over at the others as Flynn silently pulls the shield from his pocket, handing it to Jubilee. Her mouth twists, agonized, as she stows it inside her vest. We don’t know how far its protection reaches, and if we get separated, we can’t lose our crack shot. Then, at Jubilee’s nod, we all creep out from behind the pillar. Tarver and Gideon’s plan isn’t all that different from ours—only it’s Flynn and me distracting her from Jubilee, rather than Tarver buying Gideon time to reach the rift, plant the virus.

Lilac’s back is to us, but Tarver has an easy view, and the second we move, he’s alert. Now his hand goes to the gun at his hip, eyes scanning back and forth across us. Lilac turns, moving as gracefully as the real Lilac ever did. She couldn’t be more unlike the husks creeping through the wreck.

Flynn’s quick to lift his hands, and I follow suit. “We’re unarmed,” I say, letting my voice shake.

“It’s a party,” Lilac murmurs, one reddish-gold brow lifting in amusement, though even distracted as I am, a part of my mind notes that her smile is just a fraction off, strained. “I’m curious—what is it you think you can accomplish? I can move faster than any of you, and I’m smarter than all of you. I’ve had years to study your kind.” Her gaze fixes on Flynn, lips quirking. “What’s your problem, anyway?” One perfectly manicured hand lifting so she can point a finger at him. “You’ve still got that one.” And unerringly, her hand swings around to point at Jubilee, where she was making her way along the wall in almost perfect silence.

Jubilee’s lips draw back into a snarl as she freezes in place. I don’t know if she’s trying to distract Lilac from the gun in her hand, or if her rage is real. Both, perhaps. “What’s his
problem
? You have the blood of hundreds of thousands of people on your hands. You don’t even pretend to care! November is burning all around us, and—”

“This is Corinth.” Lilac interrupts her smoothly, sounding bored, if anything. “November was years ago.” She pauses, and then her lips part and curve into a smile. “Oh, I see now. You didn’t arrive with my Tarver—you’re here for something different. You came to
kill
me? My, your little group falls apart easily, doesn’t it?”

“Easily?” I find my voice, forcing the words out—I have to drag their attention back to me. “The death of whole city sectors is nothing? Just an inconvenience?”

Tarver’s eyes move back to me, as do Lilac’s, and beyond them, I can see Jubilee lifting the gun. I know the instant the tiniest flicker of my gaze gives me away. Lilac’s gaze starts to swing toward Jubilee, and I know that once she sees her, she’ll be able to knock her aside as easily as she did Tarver on the
Daedalus.
My senses are keyed up to almost unbearable intensity, my world narrowing down to one movement as Jubilee’s finger curls around the trigger.

One shot,
Sanjana warned us.

Then the explosion of a shot fired shatters the air and my ears, and I’m back onboard the
Daedalus
after firing the plas-pistol, I’m on Avon right beside an explosion, throwing myself to the ground.