Page 133 of Cage of Starlight
It’s fitting that he should be here, now. It’s as good an end as any.
His legs tremble.
Niela warned him not to overdo it. He locks his knees and hopes they’ll hold him.
Tory stumbles into the crowd toward him, bloody face soot-streaked. “Sena,” he breathes.
“Go.Get them to safety. I’ll meet you outside.”
Tory can probably tell he’s bluffing. This feels like a good lie, though.
“I can’t just—”
Kirlov moves, a quick twitch of aborted motion. This stalemate won’t last long.
“Leave!” Sena barks, all the cool, emotionless authority of his rank behind it. It’s the hyper-competent mask Tory hates, the one Sena left behind what seems like ages ago.
Of all the responses he expects from Tory—the foremost beingactually going away—dry laughter is not among them.
“Fine! But I’ll be back as soon as they’re safe, and we’re going totalkabout you and your warped sense of self-preservation.”
Sena’s heart squeezes in his chest. He can’t spare more than a glance to Tory—red-lit, grinning and irreverent and warm—and maybe that’s the worst part of all of this, that he’s not allowed to linger.
“Fine,” he says. Then, quiet enough that Tory won’t hear, “Hurry.”
Tory goes. The survivors shuffle away behind him, and Sena breathes.
His gun must waver, or his attention, orsomething. Kirlov recognizes an opening. His hand goes for the dial on his wrist.
Adrenaline spears Sena, and he responds without thinking, lunging to touch the device before Kirlov can activate it.
In a split second, the metal ages, rusting and flaking away. Before Sena has time to draw a breath, it crumbles, and he jolts backward. Triumph burns through him.
In reaching for the dial, Kirlov exposed the holster at his side. With a quick swipe, Sena frees the weapon and flings it into the rubble and flames behind him. He draws back (too close, he needs more space between them) and levels his own gun, finger twitching on the trigger.
“Lieutenant Vantaras!”
It’s the voice that promises Kirlov will twist the dial until Sena can’t stand, can scarcely breathe. His body conjures an echo of pain and horror, draws back to obey as he’s done for years.
It takes maybe three seconds for Sena’s will to override his body’s reflexive response.
It’s three seconds too long.
Kirlov vaults forward, wrests the gun from Sena’s left hand, then twists it behind Sena’s back, spinning him until he crashes into what remains of the blackened wall. He gasps smoke and coughs helplessly, cheek pressed against the too-warm concrete. Flames blisterthe paint on the wall to his left. When the shock wears off, he registers the ugly irony of this moment: this is the first time Kirlov has gotten close enough to touch him. It’s a dubious victory, forcing the man’s hand like this.
The barrel of his own gun presses against his spine.
“Sena,” Kirlov says. “I’ll kill every one of those creatures in your name.”
“I won’t let you.”
A huff of breath raises the hair on his neck. “You think you have a choice?”
Sena wrenches his body and elbows the arm that holds the gun. Pain bursts in his lower back, hot then cold; the sound of the gun firing registers belatedly.
It’s the moment he needs, if only he could force his body tomove.
With his last shred of strength, he whips around, grabbing for any part of Kirlov he can reach. He finds Kirlov’s bare wrist and squeezes.
