Page 137 of Shadows of Stardust

She deserves to be loved and cherished, to have someone by her side who knows and appreciates every facet and flaw, every unspoken need and every broken place that needs soothing.

And I want to be all of that for her.

My mind starts to race.

The first time I saw my warrior, I made strategies and plans. I plotted and schemed ways to know all her secrets, to understand the mystery of her.

And now I’ll plot and scheme again, do anything, everything, to make a future worthy of her.

42

Zandrel

My footsteps echo on the hammered metal bridge connecting the spectator’s gallery in the Aux Council Chamber to the center platform where my judgment awaits.

On that platform, twelve council members and Chairman Riddik watch me approach. Seated at a raised, crescent-shaped bench, their expressions rage from mild confusion to bored indifference to one viciously pointed glower that stabs against my armor plating like the strike of shrapnel.

“Zandrel of Revexor, former unit leader of company Gamma-eighteen and recently reinstated member of Sigma-nine, come to address the council.”

The Council Chamber sits near the heart of the Aux Headquarters station, inside a vast spherical chamber no doubt designed with an eye toward intimidation and prestige. The chamber steward’s pronouncement echoes in the cavernous space, reverberating through my bones as I take my place at the speaker’s podium to argue my case.

Thirteen gazes fix on me, but my hands don’t shake and my voice comes out clear.

“It’s an honor to address the Council today, and I hope you’ll remain open to listening to what I have to say.”

It’s obvious which Council members are going to be the hardest to win over.

Several expressions harden along the length of the crescent, arms folding, brows furrowing.

And then there’s Veren.

The bastard’s somehow earned himself a Council spot in the months I’ve been away, and a flame kicks up in the bottom of my gut when I meet his eye.

Disdain, pure and skewering, sets itself in every line of his blunt, merciless features.

Cowards, I remind myself, always cowards at their cores—males like Veren, prone to crumbling completely when their ill-gotten authority is challenged.

I flick the band on my wrist, and a holo opens. Large and looming over the entire Council, it displays dozens of photos.

Aux-issued identification photos.

“What is this?” Veren asks.

“You don’t recognize any of them?” He doesn’t respond, so I fill the silence for him. “No. I don’t imagine you would.”

I run my fingers over the band again, and the face of a golden-feathered Aventri fills the holo screen.

“This is Zenya. She was recruited from the rubble of a battlefield on her homeworld. She was fifteen.”

Riddik leans forward slightly in his seat. “What is the meaning of—”

“She died when she was sixteen. On a training exercise in the Abdor System.”

Interrupting a question by the Council Chair may not be the smartest move here. But the words keep coming—unstoppable now that they’ve started—followed by more faces on the screen.

“Jensor. Age fourteen when he was recruited out of a dying world. He was removed from service following a catastrophic brain injury at age twenty.”

Another flick, another face.

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