VALEN
A TWITCH. A curl of the fingers, the clenching of a fist. The blink of freshly opened eyes.
Valen watched it all happen before him, as promised.
He closed his eyes, imagined the little glowing blue thread in the back of his mind. It had always been there, something he’d seen and felt since he was a child.
Only after his time in Lunamere had he fully understood the meaning of it. The raw, pure power he had.
He focused on the thread and pulled.
The warmth of her mental presence arrived at once, just as it had when they’d landed on Adhira, and he’d called upon her. Valen sighed, relief flooding into him as their minds wove together, no longer two separate threads, but a shared tapestry. Here, in this intimate space between them, was where he belonged.
It was his birthright. His past and his present and his future all coming together. Everything finally made sense.
She’d given him the keys to understanding, and now he was whole.
The change is happening, Sister, Valen thought.
He could almost feel her smile, something so rare for her. As the feeling passed through him, his own mouth quirked at the corners. They’d had so little to smile about until recently. But all the months he’d spent in Lunamere had been worth it.
For this.
Have them ready for me when I arrive, she replied.
For a moment, there was silence between them, the space in his mind empty of her warmth.
Then her voice came again. You did well, Brother. My faith in you was never misplaced.
She was glorious. But it was more than that. She was victorious, a soldier standing on a blood-soaked battleground, watching the last of her enemies fall.
Valen closed the link, the tapestry gone, the single thread all that remained.
For a moment, he felt cold. Lifeless.
Then he saw the first body stand back up. A Patrolman, unmarred on the outside from the engineered bullets. Like beacons in the crowd, others stood around him. Women, children.
The ones who’d turned, surely ready to join the cause, looked fresh and alert, as if waking from a restful sleep.
The others, the unaffected anomalies who were immune to the substance the bullets carried... Valen knew he’d have to take care of them soon enough.
Like Androma, he thought with a twinge of sadness. He’d seen that bullet hit her, but she did not fall. She was unaffected by Zenith. So many times, he’d tried to compel her, only to feel a wall come up in her mind.
One of the soldiers approached Valen. “She’s landing, sir.”
“Good,” he said. “Take care of the remaining unaffected. I don’t want her to have to lay eyes on them.”
The soldier saluted, slapping a fist to his heart, then rushed off into the crowd as more people began to stand and wake from their stupor. The unaffected were easy to spot. There weren’t many, perhaps ten. They walked in circles, blinking, calling for their loved ones.
“A shame,” Valen said to no one.
They would all die.
He heard the ship landing, felt the vibration of the ground beneath his feet. His heart raced, and his mind whispered, family, blood, truth.
The shattered glass from the doors crunched underfoot as another set of guards arrived.
He turned and made his way to the stage.
There was a wet, red smear where his father’s body had been. Valen clenched his jaw.
Andi, he thought.
Her body was gone, too.
Dex, he thought right after. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they hadn’t escaped. Not in Andi’s condition. And not with his guards blocking every exit.
There were other, far more important things to attend to at the moment, however.
The crowd was just beginning to brew with the sound of voices. Questions. People staring at others around them, wondering what had happened, why there were soldiers guarding the doors. And yet, thanks to the bullets, they stayed mercifully calm.
Valen scanned the faces again, his eyes falling on Lira, the pilot. She stood beside Gilly, both of them staring silently.
Again, the tug at Valen’s mind came, and he knew his sister was close.
He faced the crowd, spreading his arms wide. “Look at me.”
His voice rang out steady and true, and when they looked at him, it was everything he’d ever dreamed of. Not quite adoration...but acceptance.
Valen without a shadow. Valen without the stain of his father beside him.
All eyes were on him, rapt with attention as if his voice was a magnet, and they were helpless to resist its pull. Behind him, the guards brought forward the leaders from the Tavina, Prime and Stuna systems. They stood to Valen’s right, silent as night.
“The time to choose has arrived,” Valen addressed the crowd. “Today, in this room, we will change the course of the future. We will turn our eyes to the one true ruler, instead of these feeble impostors.”
He lifted a hand toward the system leaders of Mirabel.
The room was silent, like the moment before a blade was drawn, before a bullet was loosed. Before a life was taken hold of and remade.
Before Valen asked the question, he already knew, with confidence, what their answer would be. He pulled his shoulders back. He took a deep, steadying breath and looked down at the people.
“Who is the rightful ruler of Mirabel?”
The answer came from a young child, standing closest to the stage.
“Nor Solis,” the child said.
Her mother patted her on the head. Her father smiled.
Other voices rang out, one at a time at first, then stronger, filling the room with the sound of the one true name. Valen saw Andi’s pilot and the young gunner, Nor’s name on their lips, as if it had been there all their lives.
The doors behind them opened. Valen heard the crunch of boots on broken glass. Soldiers jerked to stand upright as a hooded figure appeared, hands reaching up to pull the hood back and reveal red lips, dark hair and eyes as glorious as the setting sun.
“Bow to your queen,” Valen said.
The crowd bowed, reverent and ready, as Nor Solis, the Queen of Xen Ptera, the Savior of Olen, the new ruler of Mirabel, arrived.