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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
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
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 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 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 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 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 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.
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