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2024-10-29 19:42:56“I don’t know why I just said that, Nova,” Valen says, his eyes still wide and confused. “I…. I didn’t even mean to get out of the water. Suddenly, all I could think about was getting back on the ship and getting back in space. I…” His hand goes to his chest and I realize just how hard he’s breathing. “I have to get back to Isroth.”
My stomach sinks and suddenly I’m so cold. I walk up the shore and out of the lake, my eyes fixed on Valen’s. When I reach him, I place my hands on either side of his head, keeping his gaze locked on me. “You do not have to go back. You are free. You’re here with me.” His eyes widen just a little more. “I can’t, Nova,” he says, his voice nearly a whisper. “I can’t stay here.” “This is what he did to you, Valen,” I say, staring into his eyes as if I can see down into his soul. “This isn’t you. This is his Kinduri. This is what he’s used against you, for solars.” Valen drops his boots in the sand and brings his hands up to cover mine. He squeezes his eyes closed and I feel his entire body begin to shake. “I don’t know if we can beat this, Nova,” he says, his voice quivering. “It’s like there’s a voice in my head, screaming over and over that I have to go back. There’s a hole in my chest and there’s a tether there, attached from me to Cyrillius, and it’s reeling me in.” I shake my head. “It isn’t real, Valen, but I know it feels like it is.” Valen’s eyes slide open and in that moment, I feel the door between our minds swing open. I’m falling through suffocating sand. It’s dark and lonely, and this tunnel is filled to the brim with fear. I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die. They’re going to find me and they’re going to skin me alive and make me watch as they eat me piece by piece. Savage, savage, savage survival. But there’s a bright spot. There’s salvation. I have to get back to Cyrillius. I suck in a breath and pull away from Valen, breaking our physical connection. “No,” I say, shaking my head, even as my entire body trembles. “It’s not real, it’s not now.” I take three deep breaths, taking three steps away from Valen before I can look back at him. He looks at me with fearful pleading in his eyes. “It’s all a trick, Valen,” I say, keeping my voice calm and even. “It isn’t real right now. I’m going to figure out how to fix what he did to you.” Valen is breathing hard, but I see his body calming. I see the fear and the memories beginning to fade. He returns to the present. To the here and now. “Nova, I-” “I will figure this out, Valen,” I say, my tone firm and hard. I close the distance between us, taking his hands in mine. “I will. Because I cannot live with the alternative. So if it takes me the rest of my life, I won’t fix that ship. We’ll spend the rest of our lives stuck here, while I undo what he did.” I see a conflicting typhoon of emotion ripping through Valen’s eyes. He’s never, ever had someone who cared about him, who promised to take care of him. It’s a part of his darkness. He’s survived on his own for so long. He doesn’t want to believe. He doesn’t dare. But still, he pulls me into his arms, crushing me to him tightly, as he buries his face in my neck.We go back to the ship. By the time we get there, we’re both freezing from walking around in the cool temperatures soaking wet. I strip my uniform off and hang it in the washroom and wrap myself in a bed sheet. While Valen does the same, I return to the Command Deck and I’m grateful when there’s enough power to close the hatch. I don’t have the same luck in turning on the interior heaters.
I head back toward the sleeping quarters, thankful that it is warmest there. It gets the most direct sunlight, creating natural heat. I stop dead just after I walk through the door, because Valen stands there, looking out the window at the brilliant day. He has only a bedsheet wrapped around his waist. Even in all our visions, in our time physically together, I have never seen Valen without a shirt. It’s certainly a view to appreciate. Valen keeps himself very physically strong and healthy. But it isn’t his beautiful physical body that stops me dead. It’s the endless scarring that laces over his whole body. There’s a long, angry scar that stretches from his waist, all the way up his stomach and chest, ending at his collar bone. There are at least a dozen lash scars across his back, and I remember seeing visions of him being whipped as a young teenager. Dozens and dozens of scars crisscross over his arms, his chest, his neck, his sides.Related chapters
Nero Nights 6
“Valen,” I say in a breath. I step into the room and he watches me as I approach. I reach a hand forward, gently touching the big scar that runs up his front. He grabs my wrist, bringing my hand up to his chest, laying it flat against his skin, over his heart. He holds his hand over my own. “One by one, these scars made me who I am.” There’s a dark tone to his voice that I don’t like, don’t want to be there. “Whether Cyrillius made me this way or not, these parts of me are who I am. The past doesn’t disappear. This…everything in front of us is going to be hard. Maybe impossible. Are you sure I’m worth it, Nova?” My eyes rise up to his and I let his words sink into me. I let them fill my heart, my stomach, my eyes. “That’s what we’re here for, Valen,” I answer him. “That’s why we crashed on this planet. To discover the answer to that question. But you’re a human being. No one deserves what he’s put you through all this time. I would do this for anyone.” I see the expression in Vale
Nero Nights 7
There’s a bitter taste on my tongue when I wake. Like copper and silt and vinegar. I blink my eyes open, searching the space. There are no signs of Valen. As I sit up, my stomach is in knots. My heart is heavy. I don’t know what I was expecting. I always think I’m more capable than I am. Maybe I thought I’d go into Valen’s mind and it would be easy to undo what Cyrillius did. Which was so slam stupid. The Kinduri have been manipulating him for solars. They’ve built up layers and layers of darkness. But I’m still crushed. I’m still shaking with the weight of what I saw in Valen’s mind. Get over it, I try to tell myself. I retrieve my uniform from the washroom and pull it on. There are no signs of Valen in the ship and when I get to the Command Deck, I find the hatch open. Looking for a few more moments of solitude, I step out of the ship and scale it. I climb the slick surface until I settle on top of the core, letting its warm, swirling mass warm me from beneath. It’s cool o
Nero Nights 8
But he doesn’t say anything. He just lies down beside me, pulls me into his chest, and holds me as I cry over all the things that feel too big in this moment. I spend the rest of the day buried in the belly of the ship, because that’s what I know how to do. Ships and mechanics are simple. They’re straightforward. A, B, and C. One, two, and three. Copper. Steel. Titanium. I find a crack along the main hull, down at the very bottom of the ship. We’re slam lucky they were still working on this ship when we stole it. The ship is full of tools and supplies and everything they were using to finish it. I find a welding machine and I spend the rest of the day repairing the crack. By the time I finish it, it looks better than it did before we took off from Isroth. In total, the entire day, Valen and I say less than ten words to each other. We’re both lost in our own heads. We need to not constantly run through it all. So that night, we both climb into bed. We don’t say anything. And I go
Nero Nights 9
I’m like a bullet. I dive in deep and fast. I fly past the swirling images around me. I ignore the storms. I’m a focused laser. I know what I’m looking for. I know where it is. I sail straight for it. And there, right in front of me, I find it. The pulsing darkness. I hear the screams. I see the lightning. I feel the dark pull. I am stronger than this. I am better than the Kinduri. Without fear, I march straight up to that darkness. I gather Neron around me. I let it fill me, fill me right to the brim. It’s coursing through me, beating with the steadiness of a drum. I hold my hands up. They’re alight with Neron. And I plunge my hands into the heart of the darkness. Screams. Mine. Valen’s. Screams of a thousand Kinduri. Screams of Cyrillius. I’m overcome with noise and madness. Like sound is pummeling me and will leave me a bloodied, broken mess on the ground. But then the darkness shatters. Pieces of it fly everywhere and instantly dissolve into the air. And a smile pull
Nero Nights 10
I reach forward, lacing my fingers through Valen’s, looking into his endless eyes. “You know about Zayne,” I say. “We were together for a long time. We worked together. He was one of the few people I could stand. On paper, we should have had a future together.” Valen’s brows furrow, and I can tell he doesn’t like hearing about my past relationship. But this is real. This is our beginning, and we’re supposed to talk about these kinds of things. “But he wasn’t enough for me.” I hate the words. I hate myself for confessing them and feeling their truth, because I have to be a terrible person to think that about someone who is wonderful. “In the end, we weren’t balanced.” Valen’s fingers tighten around me, and I just have this feeling in my gut. That even though Valen and I are so opposite, even though everything in the galaxy is against the likelihood of us being…us, we are perfectly balanced. “Zayne was the only person I let in,” I say, looking at Valen, opening the truth in my hear
Nero Nights 11
Valen shakes his head. “It isn’t as if they’re completely ignorant to the fact that there are other ways to live; that there are other, more advanced societies. The people are foolishly loyal to their planet and their ways. I truly think they’re all willing to die there, to slowly kill each other off until the planet is empty. It’s their way. Their tradition.” I shake my head. “It’s just so…savage. So brutal. I don’t understand it.” Valen doesn’t say anything, and I can tell he’s already thinking about something else. But it occurs to me. Valen isn’t just the way he is because of Cyrillius and Dominion. It stems from the very planet he was born on. He was brought into a world that valued hunting one another down. A planet that runs off the survival of the fittest. “But not everyone is like that on Starvis, right?” I ask. He takes a moment to respond as he shakes his trousers in the water. “No. Most, but not everyone. If a ship came and offered them safe passage off the planet, the
Nero Nights 12
Five days. We spend five days in peaceful bliss. Hours spent hunting and foraging. Exploring the beautiful planet we crash-landed upon. We clean up the ship, organize it, go through all its cupboards and storage places. We sleep. We carry water from the lake to the ship. We begin to fall into a comfortable routine. And I don’t spend one single minute trying to repair the ship. There’s a little thought in the back of my head, one I feel too wicked to give acceptance to. There are hints of the future dancing on the edge of my memory. But then, a little over a week after we crashed here, I wake to find Valen watching me, his eyes intense and boring into me. It’s a look that freezes me in place. He doesn’t say anything, but his jaw is clenched tight. He’s breathing hard. And I can tell he’s barely containing words that aren’t really his. “The pull is still there, isn’t it?” I say, because I know. I can see it all over him. The need to return to Cyrillius is killing him, and he’s ba
Nero Nights 13
I nod. “The Kinduri only touched me once. I can’t believe how sure their hold was on me, considering I didn’t even realize it had happened at first.”“You’re sure it’s gone?” he asks, reaching a hand up and brushing his thumb over my cheek.I think of it again, this time changing the way I kill Cyrillius. I imagine slicing him right down the middle with my Neron staff.I nod as a wicked smile crosses my lips.“What about you?” I ask, excitement sparking in my heart. “Did I do it? Did I break the weight?”Valen lets out one breath and brushes his thumb over my lips just once. “It’s small, but there’s still a little tug in the back of my brain. I think one more time and we’ll eliminate it.”“Let’s do it then,” I say, my voice excited. I raise my hands up to press my fingers into his temples, but Valen catches my wrists, lowering my hands into his lap.“You need to rest, Nova,” he says, his voice calm and gentle. “You’re depleted after everything we just did. We can try again in the morn
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Nero Nights 22
“So instead of letting us know you weren’t dead, you’ve been shacking up with that dirty little puppet?”Nymiah. “I’m sorry,” I say, not even annoyed at having to explain myself. “We crash-landed on this planet across the galaxy and all communications were down. I had no way to get in touch until now.”“Excuses,” Edan teases, but I know I’m not the only one overjoyed to hear the other’s voice. “But I think there’s someone else you’re going to be a little more interested to talk to than the rest of us.”My brows furrow.“Nova.”And every emotion in me explodes. “Dad?”There are two beats and they’re the longest in the world as he gathers his voice. “I knew you’d make it through.”“You’re…you’re…” But even now, when I’m hearing his voice, I still can’t make myself say the words.“You saved me, Nova,” Dad says, his voice full of emotion.“Apparently, it took a bit for your Neron trick to work,” Edan says, “but about twenty minutes after you and that ship suddenly disap
Nero Nights 21
My throat tightens and my heart is pounding in my chest.We have to get this just right, be so careful about what we say. We will only get one shot at this.“Where would the two of you like to start?” Arden asks. “I have a feeling there is a lot of ground to cover.”Valen and I look at each other. We talked about this. We planned. We strategized.“I’ll begin by saying that in some things I had my own free will,” Valen starts, looking right at Arden. “I’ve never known what it was to do good, or that influence and power could be used for anything other than domination. But even someone like me can change under the right circumstances.”He goes into his history. He talks about his childhood on Starvis. He talks about the tribes and how they worked, how savage life there was. He talks about finding his tribe slaughtered, and how he and the other children nearly starved to death.And then comes Dominion and Cyrillius. He talks about being rescued by the company and the man and being given
Nero Nights 20
Valen punches in the command. And white-hot fire floods from the Neron, through my entire body, exploding my awareness with power. The ship launches forward, but as I harness the power, as I concentrate on the Core, we don’t shake and quake like the first time we punched through space. We sing forward. Expecting the force, we’re able to stabilize ourselves. Faster and faster until I can hardly breathe, we fire through space. My heart is racing. I think the skin has burned off of my hands and they’re nothing but bone anymore as the Neron grows hotter. My entire body is glowing Neron blue and my hair floats up, suspended. “Nova!” Valen yells, his voice strained. “I’ve got this!” I call back, even as my heart threatens to explode. “I’ve got this!” Faster, faster, faster. I keep expecting the ship to rattle to pieces, to tear itself apart, or obliterate into dust. But it’s smooth and quiet. And then there’s a pop. We slide forward, losing speed until at last, we come to a halt.
Nero Nights 19
When I wake up the next morning, I roll over to see Valen staring up at the ceiling. There’s a deep furrow between his brows. His hands are tucked behind his head. He’d deep in thought.“What are you thinking about?” I ask, resting a hand on his bare chest.He doesn’t answer me right away, and I can almost feel his tangled thoughts like they’re a tangible thing in the air. He breathes slow, hard. His vivid blue eyes don’t break their accusation of the ceiling.“The only way this ends is if we kill Cyrillius,” Valen eventually says. “But it’s nearly impossible to get to him with his armies, and then there are the Kinduri.”It’s the Kinduri that really worry me. I could have killed Cyrillius lunars ago if it hadn’t been for them getting in my mind. “The numbers aren’t in our favor, Nova,” he says. He places one of his hands over mine, holding it firmly to his chest. “A group of Nero tried to take Dominion out solars ago, and they failed. If just you and I go in there, I don’t know if w
Nero Nights 18
I’m looking at the insides of the ship once more, trying to figure out how the void we jumped through space so quickly. Yes, this ship is the most advanced in the galaxy. Yes, it’s complicated and I don’t fully understand how it works yet.But Cyrillius once told me that it could travel from the N Sector to the A Sector in eight days. Which is wicked fast. But we traveled from the N Sector to the V Sector in a matter of minutes.My eyes scan the insides of the ship.“How was that possible?” I breathe out.Maybe I haven’t fully adjusted to life here on this empty planet, because it takes me a few minutes before my brain tells me that I shouldn’t be hearing another female voice.My heart jumps into my throat and I dart out of the mechanical room, looking both ways down the hall.The voice is quiet, coming from the Command Deck.I summon Neron, letting it flow freely around my hands as I creep down the hall, my knees slightly bent as I walk.“Just as it seems we’re free of the one and on
Nero Nights 17
Wires and electrical currents. Connections to internal satellites. Amplifying relays and long-range signals.The communications system is the most complicated part about this ship. I think the surge of Neron when we punched through space nearly melted everything through. I feel like I’m rebuilding everything from scratch. Having to reform every connection and wire.Valen doesn’t say a word to me as I work throughout the day. He walks by once an hour or so, pacing. I feel the uncertainty, the questioning in him.He doesn’t know how he feels about this, either.All throughout the day, I’ve felt this rising sense of…more, building inside of me. This isn’t all you were meant for, a little voice in my head whispers, and it sounds a little like Evander Nero.I shove the voice out and concentrate on what I do know. I know I can fix this communications transmitter. It’s just going to take me some time.Around mid-day, Valen brings me a plate of food and I offer a small little smile as thank
Nero Nights 16
It isn’t comforting that the ship’s power will only turn on for a few minutes at a time, here and there. Unless we’re fully going to build a shelter outside the ship with a fireplace and a chimney, we can’t build a fire inside this ship. We run the possibility that we’ll freeze to death inside here.Every morning when we wake up, there is frost coating the windows in the sleeping quarters. My nose is frozen, and it’s torture having to get out from beneath the covers and each other’s warm bodies.So I go back into the mechanical room. I slip into the mind of a mechanic and engineer. The electrical board is complicated, the most advanced I’ve ever seen. I have to go through it, one wire at a time, tracing where it goes, what it does. One by one, I check them, fixing the damage I find; replacing what was fried in our punch through space.I find core connections that were melted in our jump. And if I were anyone else in the galaxy, we would be in trouble. There aren’t spares on the ship
Nero Nights 15
I roll out of the bed, being careful not to jostle it. I don’t want to wake Valen. I don’t want him to see me like this. As I walk across the room to the washroom, I try to reason with myself.It isn’t logical that Valen and I will be in each other’s physical presence every minute of every day. It probably means nothing, the fact that I didn’t see him there with me. We still have to lead our lives, we’re still individual people.I pull my uniform on and brush through my hair, telling myself to forget about it.Valen still sleeps when I walk back out so I decide to leave him to rest, and head into the Command Deck.The sky is still dark outside and when I look out, I only see the peak of the mountain beginning to have a silhouette as the sun makes its way around the globe. I can’t hear anything through the thickness of the ship, but I can see the vague form of a bird as it soars through the air. I see a beast dart through the clearing, heading back into the trees.Alone in the Command
Nero Nights 14
And I smile when I see that he’s pushed three of the beds together, making one huge bed. He’s piled all the blankets and pillows on it. He wears only his under things and opens the blanket for me to climb in with him.I drop my towel on the floor just to the side of the bed and climb into the nest with him.His skin is warm and I don’t know why, but I blush slightly as I think about my bare legs against his bare legs, and my bare arms brushing his bare arms.“You’re like ice,” Valen says, his brows furrowing as he rubs his hand up and down my arm, trying to warm me up.“Think you could stitch all those pelts together and make me a coat?” I say with a little shivering laugh.“Of course,” he says, and his tone makes me think he’s wondering why he hadn’t thought of it before.I laugh but I turn my face and bury it into the base of his neck. I breathe his natural scent in, and I’m washed in comfort.“I’m not the kind who likes being taken care of,” I say softly, my words scratchy and tire
