Zero Aculin's Arc

Chapter 5 of 8

Zero left the crystal gates with the mended core in his arms. Its low hum warmed his chest. But the price stayed sharp in his mind. Alurianne would trade the ship's power secret only if he brought her across the wild to the wreck. That meant guiding a stranger over the shale-and-heat ground that had already cracked his core once. He had no safe path for her. Alurianne came the next dawn, without her cat. She wore no armor, only a purple robe and thin sandals. She looked at Zero's riding beast, a saurian mount with an armored snout, and did not flinch. "That ground burns and breaks," Zero said. "My core cracked crossing it. You wear sandals." "Then find better ground," she said. "You are the hunter." Zero studied the land beyond the gates. He knew the fast route across the open shale. Heat rose off it in waves. It had ruined his core. It would blister her feet and could kill her. He needed another way. He remembered a line of shade he had glimpsed on his ride in. A low ridge, cooler, where old stone stood. It was slower. But it kept them off the burning flats. "We go the long way," he said. "Along the ridge." They rode double. The beast picked its way over broken rock. By midday they reached the ridge. A weathered stone pillar stood there, taller than two men. Ancient faces were carved into it, stacked one above another. Moss filled the cracks. Zero had never seen its like. It was not his people's work. Alurianne slid down and touched the carved eyes. "Older than my city," she said. Her voice dropped. "Someone stood on this world before either of us." Zero raised his blaster. Below the pillar, a shape moved in a hollow of wet stone. A great translucent mass slid toward them. Eyes floated inside it. Mouths opened along its skin. Tentacles dragged its bulk over the rock. It blocked the shaded path. He would not waste a shot into that jelly. He pulled Alurianne back onto the beast. "Hold the pillar," he said. He drove the mount up and around the stone, off the trail, over a spine of dry rock. The thing's tentacles slapped the pillar behind them. It could not climb the bare ridge. They cleared it and rode on. By dusk the land dropped. Zero saw the wreck below. The star hull rose from the mud, its torn plates scorched and huge. Smoke from his camp curled beyond it. Sythara stood at the treeline, spear ready, feathers bright against the green. Her eyes moved from Zero to the lavender stranger behind him. Zero stopped the beast. He had done it. He had brought Alurianne to the ship. Now a crystal-city woman stood at the edge of his tribe's home, and every secret his people kept lay open before her.