Page 122 of Cage of Starlight
It’s nothing like his actual presence. Even with every prototype they’ve made—the Null and the neutralizing vests and the targets and whatever else waits in those boxes stacked at the back of the room—the energy is negligible. Ifthiswere the extent of Sena’s energy, Tory could have crushed it to a pinprick and healed him, easy—soothed his fever, sealed broken bones. He could have saved him. This isweakin comparison. He could lift and move it, could expand it.
The next attack, he tries. The energy jumps to do his bidding as readily as it ever has. Tory spreads it until it’s riddled with holes, nothing like Sena’s energy that unfurled over miles of forest. He wonders, with a pang, how far he’d have needed to expand it before it showed holes like this. Which one of them would reach their limit first?
It’s a silly question, and not one he’ll ever be allowed to find the answer to. He was so stupid. He should have stayed, should’velooked.
The more he thinks about it, the more his insides knot up and his flimsy self-justifications flood away. They seem so childish, a transparently thin veneer over his own cowardice. Why didn’t he scour the woods, reach out for that beacon-like energy? Why, when he wasn’t too late to save him?
He’ll free every Seed with what he’s going to do today—every Seed except the one they had most thoroughly under their thumb. It doesn’t fill him with the same glowing purpose it did when he talked about it with Riese. He expands the energy farther, then directs the kinetic attacks at the back of the room.
The target—and the wall behind it—burst where the energy stretches thin. The wall craters, spilling stone. The boxes explode with the force Tory throws at them. Vests shred. Vials burst. Slivers of stone and wood and whatever the target is made from slice at him as they fly past with the force of the explosion.
Blood drips from at least four fine cuts on Tory’s face and arms as silence settles over the room, and it’s not enough. It’s not satisfying, but it’s something.
Sena asked him, after all. If he saw any of the weapons they’d made from Sena’s blood, he was supposed to ruin them.
It’s Tory’s turn to smile, a hollow thing. Next time, he’ll turn every last item they’ve made from Sena’s stolen blood to dust. He won’t stop with STAR-7. Everything here, and then everything from here to Maran. The Grand General thinks he’s so clever, cutting Sena open to torture him, bleeding him to subdue other Seeds. Tory will track every sliver of that lightning-storm energy that calls to himlike a song. None of these people deserve to have any part of Sena. “Keep it coming.”
The officer glances, mute, between Tory and the shredded target and blown-open boxes. A clear fluid that must be Null spreads out along the ground at the back, mixing with stone-dust. After a moment of gaping, the officer bursts into a flurry of motion. “I—that—there’s clearly been a mistake. This is—this shouldn’tbe—”
The Kineticists scatter as chunks of concrete crash down.
Tory executes the most mocking bow in his arsenal, loose as a sated predator. He pastes on a concerned expression, too sweet. “I think they might be broken. Maybe you should run back to Vantaras and tell him he’ll need to try harder next time.”
The pen slips from the officer’s lax fingers. He doesn’t bend to retrieve it.
Helner clucks her tongue and scurries over to Tory. “Oh dear!” she says, playing it up. “You’re bleeding! I should take you to the infirmary, can’t let the General’s best weapon bleed out on the floor . . .”
The officer’s mouth opens again, but Helner has already seized Tory’s elbow and begun to pull him from the room. “Stars!” she muses, performatively loud. “No idea what went wrong. That was horrible, wow!”
But when she gets him a ways down the hall, she rounds on him, eyes glittering. “Fuck yes.Absolutely stellar. You’ll have to tell me what you did after we get Jeffra to clean up your pretty face. What have you beeneatingsince I saw you last?” She ushers away her own question with a wave of her hand as she stops him in front of the infirmary door. “Tell me later. I’d better get back and smooth things over in there.”
Then she’s gone, heels ticking down the hallway.
The thrill he got from destroying everything in that room lasts only as long as it takes Jeffra to notice him standing in front of the door and open it.
The silence presses between them, suffocating. Last time he was here, Niela was sprawled on a chair in the corner, avoiding work. And right over there was where Sena—
Tory retreats. “Sorry, I’ll just—”
She drags him inside by the wrist. “You’re bleeding on my clean floor.”
He could be bleeding on someoneelse’sclean floor if she’d let him.
She gestures to one of the treatment beds. “You know the drill.”
“They’re superficial. They’ll scab up in a minute. I’ll just go.”
Jeffra pushes him down onto the nearest bed. “I insist. We need to catch up, don’t we?”
Tory isn’t so sure. What is there to say?
She heals him to the tune of cheerful birdsong, closing cuts and flinging splinters into the trash as she urges his flesh to give them up. A small cage hangs in the corner of the room, close to the west-facing window. A vibrant yellow bird twitters and swings as the warmth of healing spreads through Tory.
“Glad to see you safe,” Jeffra says, quiet. Her hands linger too long. Twice, she opens her mouth like she wants to speak. Tory’s eyes keep finding the bird.
He doesn’t mean to say it. “Sena’s?”
Jeffra follows his eyes. “Sweet, isn’t he? I think he’s a good addition. Music can be as healing as anything. His name is Kierney.”
