Page 60 of Phoenix's Last Heist
“Please,” he begs. “Please don’t make me regret this.”
“Do you want me to sign something in blood, or what?” I bark, more than a little stung that he’s so certain my honor is for sale.Isn’t it, though?The cruel thought comes reflexively, but I try to ignore it as Orion gears up to tell me something presumably world-shattering.
“The Dark Star isn’t some gemstone with magical powers,” he says. “It’s a weapon.”
The words hit like a physical blow. Cold rushes up my spine, my fingertips prickling numb. My mouth opens, but for a moment, no sound comes out. My eyebrows lift in shock. “What kind of a weapon?”
“The kind of weapon that can destroy a planet and doom millions with a thought,” he replies, his voice cracking.
“TheArkanium,” I whisper, understanding dawning. A slow, awful click of pieces I didn’t want to fit together—the crash, the salvage rumors, the way Brill’s tone changed when he mentioned the ship. Oh, stars. TheArkaniumwasn’t just a loss. It was a heist gone wrong. “But how? What is it?Whereis it? And how does no one else know?”
Orion rises, pacing in front of me. His movements are rough and jittery, and he looks like the words are being wrenched out of him when he finally answers.
“When I told you the legend of the Solar Mother idol, I didn’t tell you all of it,” he says. “As the story goes, when Father Darkness realized he’d murdered the Solar Mother, he didn’t just cease to exist. He tried thousands of different ways to end his agony, until finally, he fashioned himself a weapon of pure dark energy.”
“The Dark Star,” I fill in. My mouth goes dry. The old myths, the bedtime stories my father whispered before he left for expeditions—they were never just stories. My chest tightens with a mix of wonder and dread, because if he were here, he’d have chased this truth too. He’d have died for it.He did.
He nods, then returns to sit by my side on the bed.
“He instructed the Xylothians to recover the weapon after his dreadful act and to guard it for the rest of time. For eons, the Dark Star sat safely in the depths of a hidden temple guarded by the Xylothian Protectorate. It sat there so long, they started to forget about its true power and the terror of unmaking creation. The Protectorate started to falter, and with it, the decline of their ancient civilization began. The Solar Mother idol was one of the last great treasures they forged—all so someone would know what we were guarding, and where it hides,” he explains.
“The Solar Mother is a map!” I exclaim. “I knew it! My father knew it!”
The words tear out of me before I can stop them. For a second, the room tilts—his face, the bed, the steady hum of the station—and all I can see is my father’s study, the way he traced constellation lines with trembling hands. He’d been right, and it killed him. And now I’m standing on the edge of the same ruin.
Orion raises a brow at me, but nods, carrying on with his story.
“Over millennia, the Xylothians tried to harness the power of the Dark Star, and every time, it’s almost brought our civilization to its end. With the slow decline of things on our planet, people started to suspect justhavingthe weapon on our planet was causing our suffering. Some reasoned if we took it and hid it off-world, we might be able to restore balance,” he says, rubbing at his temples. “Stupid, in hindsight.”
“That’s what theArkaniumwas doing,” I say slowly. “Taking the Dark Star somewhere else. But what went wrong?”
“Truly, we still don’t know. Or at least, I don’t know. When we heard about the accident, teams went in to try to figure out what happened. All we found was the Dark Star, floating around in the wreckage,” he chokes out.
“We? Oh, Orion, I’m so sorry. You were there, weren’t you?”
The realization blooms sickly in my gut. I’ve seen that kind of haunted look before—in the mirror. The tiny tremor in his voice, the faraway glassiness in his eyes—it’s the look of someone who lost everything and survived anyway.
His synesfores flutter black, and I grasp his hand.
“My father wasn’tjusta historian. He was a guardian—one of the last descendants of the Protectorate. He didn’t agree that they should move the Dark Star off-world, but ultimately he was overruled. It was a compromise that he would be the one handling the transfer—a compromise that would cost him his life, and my mother’s,” he says with a shuddering breath. There’s a patina of bitterness beneath his pain, one I only recognize because I’ve felt the same thing about my father’s obsession with my mother’s death.
“Hold on. If it’s a world-ending weapon, why does everyone believe it’s some ancient gemstone that can bring people back from the dead?” I ask. It’s the only story I ever heard—the one I built my whole damn career around. Finding beauty in the bones of tragedy, selling hope to the highest bidder. Now that hope feels like poison on my tongue.I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“Wouldn’t everyoneknowit’s a weapon if it’s nearly destroyed your people more than once?”
Orion shakes his head, and his shimmering brown-green hair falls into his eyes.
“Xylothians have always been insular. The stories that reached other parts of the galaxy never quite had the full picture, but to some extent, they’re not wholly wrong. A relic that can bring people back from the dead? No. But a relic that has thepower to destroy everything, thus making way for creation’s next step? Sure. Life always follows the path of death.”
“Is it possible that anyone else knows about the true nature of the Dark Star?” I ask, dread gathering in my gut. Brill’s face flashes in my mind, all charm and cruelty wrapped in a silk suit. Of course he’d want something like this. He doesn’t just collect artifacts—he collects leverage. And if he ever guessed what the Dark Star really was…
When Orion meets my gaze, there’s an alarming fear in his eyes.
“That’s what I’m hoping you can tell me,” he says. “If you would’ve asked me a year ago, I would’ve said no. You must understand—so many of my people have died to protect the secret. But I’ve been worried about the increase in smugglers, grave robbers, and looters. Are they just looking for random artifacts to fence in the wake of theArkaniumdisaster? Or are they all connected? Are theylookingfor something specific?”
I chew on my lower lip, nearly missing the way Orion tracks the movement.
“Brill has always played his cards pretty close to his chest. He doesn’t trust me any more than I trust him—ironic, considering that’s meant to be the basis of our contract. He’s never said anything to me about the Dark Star and up until my run-in with Iathos, I didn’t have any reason to believe he would think it was anything other than a theft-worthy jewel to stick in his private vault,” I say.
