Page 34 of Cage of Starlight
It’s Randall, wide-eyed and tensed to run. “They’re right. I—I don’t think you want to fight with them. They’re . . . I mean, and fighting in the facility is—”
“You go on. My winnings are yours if you want to keep playing.” Randall doesn’t deserve to get caught up in this. “I’m just gonna settle this first. This guy thought it was a good idea to start something.”
Another dart digs a furrow into the side of the table before breaking against the wall.
Randall careens from the room with a few others.
That wasn’t what Tory meant when he told Randall to go on, but it works. The twinge of regret—maybe he just lost the one ally he has in this place—lasts only as long as it takes Gavin to pick up a third dart.
Tory puts the day’s training to work. He gets it now: the dart’s velocity has two distinct flavors—that blunted kinetic heft and the skin-tingling energy he’s been breathing since he got here. He tears both of them away, stealing the combined force and throwing it at Gavin’s chest. The dart stops midair, falling with a faint clatter.
Gavin is blown back a couple steps as the stolen energy crashes into him. He curls around himself, retching, and Tory smiles. This whole shitshow has been worth it for teaching himthis.For the firsttime, he’s not under someone else’s boot. Holding a life in his hands is a potent thing. He couldhurtGavin. A small part of him—the part that worked so long as a Healer—balks at the harm he’s caused, but a bigger part, a growing part, wants to cause more.
The ever-present hum of voices dies all at once. One moment, the room brims with them. The next, it’s silent enough to hear the scuff of boots on the floor.
Then, “Arknett.”
Behind him.
He spins, vision still sharp, unspent anger like acid inside him, andthere’sthe person who put him here: there’s Sena Vantaras, the one he really wants to fight.
“Perfect timing.” Tory’s cheeks ache with the grin that stretches them.
Gavin stumbles upright. “I didn’t—”
“I’ll deal with you later.” Vantaras’ gaze flicks to Tory. “You, on the other hand . . .”
He grabs the neck of Tory’s shirt and jerks him off balance, taking advantage of the confusion to drag Tory out of the rec room. “Be grateful,” he hisses, “that your friend Randall came to me. Had the colonel been disturbed, you’d be well on your way to getting a NOVA.”
“Grateful!” Tory reaches to shove Vantaras’ hand away, but he retreats before Tory can make contact. “I don’t care—”
“If you don’t, you’re more of a fool than I gave you credit for, and I credit your intelligence hardly at all. Return to your room.” Vantaras walks away.
Oh, he’s had enough of this. Tory stalks after him, closing a hand around the sleeve of his dress uniform to grip a surprisinglythin wrist. “What gives? I get you’re a constipated rich kid with a stick up his ass, but what’swith this?”
“With what?”
Tory spins Vantaras around. “This. These gloves, the way you can’t stand some peasant touching you.”
“I assure you—” Vantaras tears the hand from his grasp, face flashing disgust.
Tory lunges.
Vantaras avoids it, and when Tory looks up, he’s a ways down the hall, spine straight as he stares down his nose. “You misunderstand,” he’s saying. “If you’d—”
Tory could break that nose.“I don’t care.” He does, he does, he does. “You did this.”
“Me? You’re doing this to yourself with your recklessness.”
Tory shakes his head, advancing. “Why me, you bastard? I was fine out there!”
“I was under orders. If you hadn’t been soobviouswith that display with the carriage, I could have pretended not to notice and reported the stellite resonance incident at the mines as an inexplicable phenomenon, but you made such a mess that my competence would have been in question if I didn’t apprehend you.”
“Competence?” Tory’s vision bleeds red. “It was mylife!”
The Seed energy in the rec room lights Tory up as it passes through him. The fight in the ring must have restarted. He bears the destructive force only long enough to sling it at Vantaras.
Then—nothing. He doesn’t even realize he was tracking the energy until it’s gone.
