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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
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
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