Solera was growing larger and larger by the second.
“Brace for impact,” Memory said calmly from the speakers as fire engulfed the exterior of the ship, so at odds with the icy world they were quickly approaching.
Andi gripped the edges of her seat and watched helplessly as Dex white-knuckled the wheel, trying to keep the ship steady.
She took back what she’d said about the Godstars liking her.
They really must hate her guts.
DEX
There had been plenty of times in Dex’s life when he’d thought he was dead.
When he was a child, he’d been told stories by traveling missionaries of what the afterlife was like. If you were good, and had no sin, you’d go to the Godstars’ palace in the sky. But if you were bad, you would be sent elsewhere, to be tortured for all eternity.
Of course he’d thought about the afterlife, and what lay beyond this existence, but he always thought when he experienced it for himself, it would be unlike anything his mind could’ve conjured up. Now, as his eyes cracked open, he was almost blinded by whiteness. It was the purest color he’d ever seen.
If those missionaries were right, and there was a palace in the sky where the righteous went after death, then he had not a damned clue why he was there. He wasn’t trying to say he deserved to be tortured, but hey, there were far better people than him in this galaxy.
That was how Dex knew he must be alive.
That, and the searing pain that pulsed within his head.
Dex could feel his heart beating inside his skull, like a hatchet against stone, chipping away bit by bit. The acidic smell of burned metal wafted into his nose, and something sharp jabbed his side.
“You with me, Dex?” a voice said from what seemed like a mile away. Then a hand connected with his cheek with a sharp sting, jarring him out of his haze.
The world of white came into focus, and at its center was a pair of stormy gray eyes.
“I’m with you,” he croaked, rubbing his sore cheek. “You didn’t have to smack me, though.”
“It got your attention,” Andi said, looking unabashed as she stood.
“That it did.”
He was still buckled into his chair. The reason everything looked white when he’d awoken was now obvious. Through the viewport of the Marauder, as far as he could see, was an endless expanse of snow, filling the entire front window as it stretched into the distance.
Everything came flooding back to him at once.
The ship shutting down, leaving the nebula behind. The frantic jump to hyperspace. The jarring screech of metal hitting the planet’s frozen surface.
They had survived the crash, but he wasn’t sure how long they’d last now. Solera was an unforgiving planet, and with Nor’s soldiers having swept across the galaxy... He wasn’t sure if anywhere was safe.
“Any idea where we are?” Dex asked, blinking stars from his eyes. His head throbbed angrily.
Andi stared out the viewport. “Not a clue.”
Dex grimaced. Nothing but frozen terrain out there, as far as he could tell. The ship rocked in the howling winds, and giant shards of ice jutted up from the white plain, towering hundreds of feet in the air. One of them, half a click away, was broken in two, a great gouge in the ice revealing where the Marauder had crashed into it before sliding to a stop here.
He unbuckled himself and slowly rose to his feet. “Memory, how bad is the damage?”
“Catastrophic,” Andi answered from the dash, which was flashing erratically with glitching blueprints and radar screens.
Memory’s absence echoed Andi’s point.
Across from them, Lon groaned in his seat, straps still secure across his chest. “I’m fine, guys. Thank you for your concern.”
“We’re a little busy, Sentinel,” Dex said, just as the ship groaned a final time and silence rushed through the bridge.
The lights on the console blinked out entirely. The only noise came from their hitched breaths and the freezing winds outside.
And Havoc, screeching wildly as it ran circles around the bridge, horns protruding from its fur. Apparently the creature had enjoyed the ride. Lon scooped him up, and the beast instantly fell as silent as the ship.
Well, hell, Dex thought as he looked around. This wasn’t good.
“Did the ship just...?” Andi started.
“Completely shut down, leaving us to the mercy of the elements? Yes, yes it did,” Dex said. “Godstars, I hate Solera. I managed to deploy the backup shields so our landing wouldn’t damage the ship too badly, but I guess it didn’t help much.”
That explained why the air smelled like burned metal. He didn’t want to imagine what the exterior of the ship looked like. Varillium was supposedly impenetrable, but how many times could they crash-land the ship and have it remain so?
“Thank you,” Andi said suddenly.
Dex stared at her in shock, his eyes widening. “Did you just...thank me?”
Maybe he was dead after all.
“Don’t get too cocky.”
Still dazed, he said, “I should crash the ship more often.”
Andi glared at him. “Don’t push your luck, Dextro.”
He laughed, then winced at the ache in his head.
Lon gasped from across the bridge. They turned to see him glued to the small window on the starboard side of the ship.
“What’s wrong?” Andi asked.
The window fogged up as Lon spoke. “It’s so beautiful,” he said in a daze, making Dex wonder if he was okay. “I’ve never seen snow before.”
It took a moment for his statement to register. “Never?” Dex asked, stunned.
“Never,” Lon confirmed, wiping at the clouded window. “It doesn’t snow back on Adhira, and until we went to Arcardius, I’d never once left home. My job was to protect Adhira, not leave it. All the Sentinels made vows to my aunt Alara, to protect the Mountain of Rhymore.”
“A soldier’s vow,” Andi aknowledged with a curt nod. “Something I broke long ago.”
“Looks like we’re all deserters,” Dex said, thinking of how he’d lost his Guardian status years before, too. General Cortas had promised to reinstate him after he and Andi had retrieved Valen from Lunamere, but the general’s manipulations and untimely death had prevented him from fulfilling his end of the bargain to Dex.
Lon looked down at his boots. “How far we’ve fallen.”
“You didn’t break your vow to Alara,” Andi told him. “You served her and Adhira faithfully, until her death. Now you can serve whomever you wish.”
Dex nodded in agreement. He’d been just a few months old when he left Tenebris for the first time. Although he didn’t remember the journey, he knew it must’ve been the first time he’d bonded with the stars. Ever since, he’d longed to be among them, traveling to the deepest corners of the galaxy. That bond was what had initially connected him to Andi. They both saw an opportunity out there, in the spaces between the stars—a place where they could live out the wildest parts of their dreams.
“We need