Zero Aculin's Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

The crystal gates closed behind Zero. Alurianne led him into a vast hall of shining crystal, its shelves stacked with books. Her saber-toothed cat padded beside her, calm and watchful. Four tall men in silver tunics waited by a work table. White hair, white beards, violet skin. They gathered around the wounded core the moment Zero set it down. One stepped forward from the others. His name was Aldrin Starweaver. He lifted the core to a lamp and turned it. The clay had split. Blue fluid crept along the crack. "The fracture runs deep," he said. "We can mend it. But not blind." Alurianne folded her arms. "You heard him. To fix a star-heart, we must know how it was harmed. Where did you find it, hunter? The truth. All of it." Zero looked at the core, then at the men circling it. If he named the crash site, these people could follow him back. His tribe had never met a stranger. They had no gates, no crystal wardens. He pictured armed men walking into his camp, past his mate Sythara, past the children. He said nothing. "Silence buys you a dead core," Aldrin said. He set his tools down. Zero weighed it. The core was already dying. Lie, and they would mend it wrong. Refuse, and they would not mend it at all. He chose. "There is a wrecked ship," he said. "Flooded inside. My people came down in it, long ago. We built our camp in its shadow. I pulled the core from the water." Alurianne's cat lifted its head. She studied Zero for a long moment. "A crash. That is why the fracture is old and stressed." She looked to Aldrin. "Water pressure, then a hard journey. Now we know the wound." Aldrin nodded and took up a fine crystal tool. He warmed the fluid, drew it back, then sealed the crack with a thread of molten crystal. The blue leak stopped. He set the core down. It gave off a low, steady hum for the first time. "It lives," Aldrin said. Zero reached for it. Alurianne raised a hand. "You gave me the truth," she said. "So I will give you one. A single core cannot lift your ship. That hull needs more than a mended heart. It needs a power source your camp does not have." She tapped a stone book on the shelf. "We hold that knowledge here." Zero's throat tightened. He had crossed the wild for this one repair. Now he learned it was not enough. "Then I need what is in your books," he said. Alurianne's mouth curved. "Knowledge has a price, like everything. You told me where. Next I will want to see it." She lifted the humming core and placed it in his hands. "Take your heart home, hunter. When you are ready to trade again, come back. And bring me to your ship."