The Blighted Stars by Megan E. O'Keefe

Author:Megan E. O'Keefe [O’KEEFE, MEGAN E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2023-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-EIGHT

Naira

Sixth Cradle

Naira let her pathways scream, let them make her steps sure and silent as her long strides drew her deeper into the funeral woods, farther from the fiery spark of humanity. Her left leg dragged, the shot in her thigh leaking blood as her pathways struggled to keep up with the demand she placed on them.

Distance was all that mattered. Forget the pain and the threat. She needed space between herself and the campsite. Needed to make them think twice before they came for her.

A weight lifted from her shoulders with every step. Sure, this was bad. Food was scarce, the planet was dying, but she was free—freer than she’d been in years—and as much as she wanted to remember the threat of canus and everything else, part of her didn’t mind if she died now. Because she’d die as herself.

But that’d just put her back on ice.

Her breath came short and hot, so she slowed her headlong sprint into a jog. The bullets that’d chased her into the night had long since stopped, the campsite an ember on the far horizon. She’d run straight out at first, putting as much distance between herself and the camp as possible, then started an oblique arc away from the location of the cave, and those misprint-infested woods.

The reminder of the misprints made her slow to a brisk walk, bringing up the pistol that was now her only weapon. No one in their right mind wanted to fight an exemplar, especially in the dark, but the misprints didn’t have the same survival instincts.

Naira regretted Paison’s anger. She was a clever woman, hiding a spine of steel beneath her slouched posture, and would have made a fine Conservator, if she weren’t a creature of Mercator. Naira sighed, watched her breath cloud to white in the frosty night. She’d been a creature of Mercator once, too. Maybe after this the captain would come around.

The silver staining the captain’s pathways was a concern—she’d seemed intense about the prospect of halting relkatite mining—but if Tarquin used the amarthite to replace relkatite pathways, then that intensity would fade.

Tarquin. Naira’s thoughts shied away from that particular man-shaped thorn in her side. She slumped her weight against a tree and cupped her hands to collect rainwater, then tipped it to her lips. Why had she told him she’d meant everything she’d said? It’d be so much easier to let him hate her for manipulating him. Easier, to walk away from whatever had been building between them.

Naira selfishly wished Kav had been outed with her. They hadn’t had the time to formulate a plan after learning about the infection, and knowing that canus was in their pathways changed everything. That knowledge, more than her own map, needed to make it off this planet.

In the long dark between them, she imagined how this would end up. Tarquin returned to his father where he could develop the amarthite pathways and be lauded as a hero. Naira herself escaped, perhaps, if she was lucky, but relegated always to the role of terrorist.

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