Page 107 of Only Cold Depths
“I still don’t know how to fix it, not exactly, but I have to try—or Kyrion is dead.”
We left the House Collier hoverbike in the alley. This time, I took the lead, and we moved from one street to another until we reached the antiques emporium. I skirted around the emerald-green dome, and a few minutes later, we reached the street where Asterin’s workshop was located.
No guards were posted outside, but the door was cracked open.
Zane noticed it too, and we both drew our stormswords. His blade shimmered like an icy moon, while mine blazed with dark blue fire. Zane nodded at me, and I yanked the door back so he could rush into the workshop. I barreled in behind him into the dark space—
A light snapped on. Zane and I both spun in that direction. A shadowy figure was sitting at a table, a silver blaster glinting in their hand.
Zane stepped in front of me and lifted his sword. “Who are you?”
The figure got to their feet and stepped into the light. Asterin grinned at Zane, her silver eyes bright and her blaster leveled at his chest. “I’m really starting to enjoy meeting like this.”
“You just want to shoot me,” he countered.
“Absolutely,” she agreed.
The two of them stared at each other for several long, tense seconds. Then Asterin huffed out a breath and lowered her blaster.
“Maybe one day I will actually get to shoot you,” she said.
Zane’s head tilted to the side, and a bit of magic sparked in his eyes. “Perhaps you will. But today is not that day.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
Asterin shrugged. “I spotted you climbing out of your suite. I knew you would come here to try to figure out how to fix the Techwave cannon, and I want to help.”
“But what about your mother and stepfather?”
“Verona and Aldrich are wrong to shut you out, Vesper. Esmina is obviously setting a trap for the Hammers, even if Siya and Rigel are too stubborn to admit it.” Asterin’s face softened. “Besides, I know how much you care about Kyrion, and not just because of the truebond.”
She was right. Ever since Kyrion had been taken, I hadn’t given the bond one blasted thought. His magic and the bond and our combined power didn’t matter to me. Not really. No, I loved Kyrion Caldaren forhimself—forthe caring, considerate person he was, for all the ways he listened, supported, and comforted me when I needed it most.
Deep down, I had known the truth for a while, but I hadn’t wanted to admit it. I hadn’t wanted to give Kyrion the ability to break my heart the way Nerezza had so many times in the past. For as much as I trusted Kyrion, I hadn’t trustedmyself.
Nerezza had abandoned me, and Beatrice had ignored me. If my own mother and grandmother wouldn’t—or couldn’t—love me, then who in the galaxy ever would? But over the past few days, I’d realized loving someone was a choice. I wasn’t being influenced by the truebond. Not in the slightest. Even if the bond and our psion power and all the rest of it vanished, I would still feel the exact same way about Kyrion. It was a choice—my true choice—to love Kyrion, and it was the easiest decision I’d ever made.
Zane’s eyes narrowed, as if he could hear my whispered thoughts with his telepathy. “You actually love the broody bastard, don’t you?”
“With all my heart.”
I should have told Kyrion that I loved him and wanted to be with him no matter what dangers the galaxy threw at us. But once again, all my old issues with Nerezza—and my new ones with the Zimmers—had held me back. Well, no more. I was going to save Kyrion, and then I was going to tell him exactly how I felt.
But first, I had to give Esmina what she wanted, so I turned to Zane. “Hand over the Techwave cannon.”
“You’ve only been my sister for a few weeks, and you’re already making demands of me? Typical for a Zimmer.” Zane let out a long, loud, dramatic sigh, but my brother’s lips quirked up into a smile as he slid the cannon off his back and passed it over to me.
Strangely enough, I was smiling too.
Mymindandespeciallymy heart were still churning with worry, dread, and fear about everything that could go wrong. The Colliers realizing what I was doing. Siya, Rigel, and the other Hammers storming into the workshop. Esmina growing impatient and killing Kyrion before I figured out how to fix the cannon.
But worries were as useless as wishes, as Liesl used to say, so I laid the weapon on a holoscreen. I also fished Kyrion’s stormsword out of my duffel bag and set it on another table. Then I got to work.
The first thing I did was set an alarm on my tablet, counting down the time until Esmina’s deadline. I had roughly three hours to fix the Techwave cannon and figure out how to defeat the mercenaries.
No pressure.
I pulled up all the 3D scans of the cannon I’d made over the past few weeks, along with the failed simulations Wendell and I had run earlier today. Asterin pulled up her own notes and experiments on another holoscreen, but no matter what calculations we tried, the simulations kept failing, and the cannon kept overheating.
