“It’s okay,” I said, rubbing his back. “It’s okay, little guy.”

It wasn’t okay. But maybe things would be better someday—for the kid in my arms, if not for me. First, though, I had to get him to the evacuation site without getting us both killed on the way.

That was going to be easier said than done: I gasped when I emerged from the trees into the clearing near the hut and saw the sky.

It was as bright as day, bright blue punctuated with quick-fire bursts of pastel pinks and purples all up and down the horizon. It was like the entire world was on fire. Maybe it was. The explosions were coming faster than I could count.

I couldn’t stop to think about it. Panic wasn’t going to do me any good, and there would be plenty of time for mourning later. Brandon and the evacuation ship would be leaving soon if it hadn’t already left. There had to be nine Garde. Brandon had said it and somehow I knew it in my gut. I had to get him to the ship before takeoff.

The vehicle was just up ahead. One step at a time.

When I strapped the kid in next to me and fired up the autopilot system, the screen on the console lit up in a sea of red. The system was still linked in to an LDF satellite that was reading conditions all over the planet, and the devastation already wrought across the surface of Lorien—rendered in blinking red patches on the screen—had most routes back to the evacuation airstrip looking risky at best. The route I’d taken to get here was completely obstructed.

With that no longer an option, it seemed like my best bet was to pass through Malka, and then rejoin the original route at its midpoint. I fired up the autopilot, cranked it up to the highest speed it could achieve, and took a deep breath. It would either work or it wouldn’t. The engine began to whir. The vehicle lurched forward and we went hurtling out into the burning night.

Then I turned to the still crying kid. I had no experience with children. I wasn’t even a Mentor Cêpan trainee. Once I dropped him off at the airstrip, he would go on to whatever his great destiny was and would cease to be my problem.

But I hated hearing him cry. I looked him in the eye and he gasped for breath a little bit as his wails became weaker. It was like he didn’t want me to see him like this. It was like he was trying to be brave.

“Listen, kid,” I said. When I spoke, his sobs got even quieter. “Things are going to be a little dicey for a little bit. You need to be brave. You’re a Garde, you know? Someday you’re going to have a lot of power. You’ll be able to be whoever you want to be. But first, you need to keep your chin up. After all, you’re the future of the whole damn Lorien race, right?”

The boy was looking at me intently now, no longer crying at all. He was hanging on my every word, his eyes wide and his small mouth formed into a tiny O. “You got it, buddy?” I asked. “We need you.”

He gave me a stern look and waved his fist in my face. “Kow kow,” he said.

“Yup,” I said, smiling. “Kow kow is right.”

SKWONNNNKKK. SKWONNNNNK.

Instinctively, my hands flew to cover my ears. The boy yelped. It was the sound of some kind of horn, deep and booming. It rumbled up through the wheels of the van, right up into my bones.

I had a feeling I knew what it was—the sound of a Mogadorian ship. There was nothing else it could be. This was not good. I checked the console. We were getting there, but we still had a ways to go.

The road ahead of us was littered with rubble, fallen trees and dead bodies every here and there. I tried not to look at them. To the right was a void in the sky where the Elkin Spires had once been. In the distance, the smoking ruins of Capital City were getting closer.

We had just reached Eilon Park, on the outskirts of the city, when we were hit.

I’m not sure what got us. It wasn’t a missile, or else we would be dead. It might have been flying debris from a bomb. It might have been something else. It really doesn’t matter. Whatever it was, a massive blast knocked against the van and sent us flying. Everything went dark.

I came to on my back. My head was bleeding and my vision was blurred. There was some horrible grinding squeak above my head. The boy was kneeling over me, looking down into my eyes with a concerned expression. “Kow kow?” he asked.

I looked up past him to see the bottom of the van—the seats, the center console—above me. I was lying with my back against the interior roof. We were upside down.

In pain, I moved my head and could see, through a freshly smashed window, the grass of the park.

I didn’t know what we were going to do. There was no way we were going to be able to get the van right side up again, much less running. I climbed through the shattered window, ignoring the glass that scratched my arms. When I was through, I turned around, reached out, and yanked the boy through with me. We rolled back into the grass together, out of breath.

SKKKWONNNK. SKKKWONKK. That noise again. Suddenly, next to me, the kid’s eyes widened. His jaw dropped. I flipped around and saw the monster standing right above us, so close I could smell the stink of his breath.

It was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen, probably a full two heads taller than me, with pale white skin and a mouth jammed full of tiny, crooked teeth that were pointier and sharper than knives. I know what his teeth looked like because he was smiling. At his side, a giant curved sword dangled.

This, I knew, was a Mogadorian.

He growled at us with narrowed eyes. The noise was low and menacing, throaty and guttural.

The beast raised its sword over its head.

I had tried. I had. We had almost made it. Now it was over.

There was no use pretending my body would make any real shield for the kid. We would both die from the same blow.

Then I heard the strangest thing. It was something like music. I recognized it. Before I could react, there was a giant flash of light, and the music got louder, so loud that it sounded like it was coming from inside my skull.

It was Devektra’s song. It was beautiful.

The Mogadorian reeled backward and dropped his sword. His face twisted into a horrified mask of pain. He let out another growl—really more of a roar—and fell to his knees.

I didn’t even think about it. I knew what I had to do. I sprang to my knees, grabbed the sword and, with dazzling white lights flashing all around me, swung it with every bit of strength that I had. A geyser of blood erupted into the air as his head went flying.

I never saw her. I don’t know how she found us, or why she didn’t reveal herself. There probably just wasn’t time. But it was her. Devektra had saved me. More important, she had saved the boy.

He stood up, looked up at me quizzically, seemingly unfazed by what had just happened, and pointed to something that was lying in the grass a few yards away.

“Motorcycle?” he asked.

CHAPTER 15

We arrived at the airstrip in time.

I parked the cycle and raced to the ship with the kid in my arms, searching for Brandon, pushing past a group of Kabarakians and LDF Garde who were chaotically arranging a perimeter around the airstrip.

The Mogadorians would be here soon. These Loric would be the only thing protecting the ship as it took off. Like me, they would remain behind. We were going to die. There was no way around it. But with a little luck, the nine children and their Mentors would live, and with them, the Lorien people would survive.

The eight Mentor Cêpans stood outside the ship, waiting to go, while eight young children—ranging in age from infancy to six years old—were arrayed in a circle on the ground. Another man was leaning over each of the children, touching their heads.

It was the Elder Loridas. It looked like he was blessing them or something. Well, if I was going to die, at least I could say I finally saw one of the Elders.

When Brandon saw me approach, a look of disgust began to creep into his face. Until he saw the boy.

“This is the ninth,” I said. I knew they’d be leaving any minute and, anxious to make my case, the words tumbled out in a rush. “It’s not too late. You have to …”

“Quiet,” said Brandon, taking the child. He rushed over to Loridas, who had just finished whatever he was doing with the children. I nervously watched them confer, wondering how Loridas had made it to the planet.

“He’s the last.” I turned to see a woman with long dark hair in her early thirties. She had read my look of confusion. “The other Elders are gone. They sacrificed themselves for us.”

“Pittacus too?” I asked, stunned. I had never really thought much about Pittacus Lore, never reacted to his name with the unreserved awe that so many other Loric had for him, but it was still a shock. Even with everything that had happened tonight, it had never occurred to me that he could be gone. It was almost unimaginable.

An uncertain frown crept across the woman’s face. “Pittacus is … missing,” she said. “He may still be alive. We don’t know.”

I didn’t respond. What was there to say?

“You look awfully young to be a Mentor Cêpan,” she said.

“I’m just a trainee,” I said, my eyes locked on Brandon, Loridas, and the boy. “Engineering. Not a Mentor.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” she said, glancing over at the boy. Loridas took him by the hand and laid him down in the sole remaining part of the circle. The other children all looked on as Loridas began to perform some kind of ritual.

“Why are they all so young?” I asked the woman. “They’re too young to have been trainees at the Academy.”

“These children were identified by the Elders as the most powerful of their generation,” she told me. She sounded wistful as she said it. “They have a long road ahead of them. They will have to learn to adapt to a new home, and a new way of life that’s unlike anything we know here. It will be better if they have as little memory of Lorien as possible. It will be easier for them.”

I nodded sadly and turned back to watch the ritual. I was eager to take the whole sight in, but Brandon pulled me out to the edge of the airstrip.

“He has been admitted. The Eight is now Nine,” he said. “Funny thing is, Elder Loridas wasn’t fazed at all. When I said the ninth had arrived, he turned to me and looked at me as if he’d known he was coming all along.”

I turned back to the collected Mentor Cêpans, to the Garde arrayed on the ground, to the ship that would take them off this planet. I feared what my own fate would be, but was determined not to let Brandon see my fear. I wanted to make a gracious and noble exit.

“Go,” I said. “I’ll join the perimeter guard.”

The suns were just starting to come up, the dusk colored by the flame and smoke of the planet’s destruction.

“Good luck up there,” I said.

“Stop,” said Brandon. I turned back. “You’re coming with us.”

“Me? There’s not room.” I felt my heart rise in my chest. But I couldn’t go along. “What about the rest of the people here? The ones who have been fighting all along? The ones who actually believed?”

“The boy needs a Mentor. You brought him here. He trusts you. And the bond has taken place—I can sense it. It has to be you.”

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