CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Excerpt from The Rise of Nine

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

About the Author

Back Ads

Other Books

Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

This is Lorien. It’s “perfect” here. That’s what they say, at least.

Maybe they’re right. Over the years, Lorien’s Office for Interplanetary Exploration has sent recon missions to pretty much every inhabitable planet out there, and they all sound terrible.

Take this place called Earth: it’s polluted, overcrowded, too hot and getting hotter every day. The way the scouts tell it, everyone there is miserable. The earthlings all spend a lot of time trying to kill each other over nothing; they spend the rest of their time trying not to get killed.

Scan through one of their history books—we’ve got a bunch of them available in the Great Lorien Information Depository—and you’ll see it’s all just one pointless war after another. It’s like, Earthlings, you idiots, get it together!

The thing is, other than Lorien, Earth’s about the best place there is out there. I’m not even going to bother mentioning Mogadore. Talk about a dump.

Here on Lorien there’s no war. Ever. The weather’s always perfect, and there’s enough variation in ecosystems that you can find a place with whatever your own version of perfect weather is. Most of the place is pristine forests, perfect beaches, mountains with views you wouldn’t believe. Even in the few cities we’ve got, there’s plenty of space to move around and no crime at all.

People don’t even argue all that much.

What is there to argue about? The place is perfect, so of course everyone’s happy. Like, always. You walk down the street in Capital City and you see everyone smiling like a bunch of happy zombies.

But there’s no such thing as perfect, is there? And even if there is, then I have to say: “perfect” is pretty boring.

I hate boring. I always do my best to find the imperfections. That’s where the fun usually is.

Although, come to think of it, as far as a lot of people are concerned—my parents chief among them—I’m the biggest imperfection of all.

It’s positively un-Loric.

The Chimæra was packed the night it all finally caught up with me. The music was blaring, the air was full of sweat, and—surprise!—everyone was happy and grinning as they bounced and spun and crashed into each other.

Tonight, I was happy too. I’d been dancing for hours, mostly on my own, but every now and then I’d bump into some girl and we’d end up dancing together for a few minutes, both of us smiling and laughing but not taking any of it too seriously until one of us got caught up in the music and danced away. It was no big deal.

Okay, it was turning out to be a pretty great night.

It was almost dawn before I was out of breath and ready for a break, and after hours of nonstop motion I finally let myself flop up against a bank of columns near the edge of the dance floor. When I looked up, I saw myself standing next to Paxton and Teev. I didn’t know them very well, but they were regulars at the Chimæra, and I’d come here enough that we’d been introduced a few times.

“Hey,” I said, nodding, not sure if they’d remember me.

“Sandor, my man,” Paxton said, thumping me on the shoulder. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

I should have been annoyed that he was making fun of me, but instead I just felt happy to be recognized. Paxton always thought it was funny that I always found my way into the place even though I was still technically too young.

I didn’t see what the big deal about being underage was—the Chimæra was just a place to dance and listen to music. But on Lorien, rules are rules.

Paxton was only a few years older than me and was a student at Lorien University. His girlfriend, Teev, worked at a fashion boutique in East Crescent. From what I could tell, they both had the kind of lives I wouldn’t mind having someday. Hanging out at cafes during the day, dancing at places like the Chimæra all night, and no one giving either of them a hard time about any of it.

I didn’t have that long to wait anymore. But it felt like I’d already been waiting forever. I was tired of being a teenager, tired of going to school and obeying my teachers and playing by my parents’ rules. Soon I wouldn’t have to pretend to be an adult. I would just be one, and I’d be able to live my life the way I wanted.

For now, the Chimæra was the one place I could actually be myself. Everyone here was a little like me, actually. They wore crazy clothes, had weird hair; they did their own thing. Even on a planet like Lorien, there are people who don’t quite fit in. Those people came here.

Sometimes—not often, but sometimes—you’d even catch someone cracking a frown. Not because they were unhappy or anything. Just for fun. Just to see how it felt, I guess.

Teev was looking at me with an amused expression, and Paxton pointed at the identity band on my wrist. “Aren’t those things supposed to be foolproof?” he asked with a smirk. “Every time I see you, you’ve figured out another way in that front door.”

The gates at the Chimæra scan all patrons upon entry, mostly to prevent underage Loriens like me from getting in. In the past, I’d sometimes snuck in a back entrance or shoved through the doors unnoticed with a big crowd. Tonight, though, I’d gone a step further, modifying my ID band’s age signature so the machines would think I’m older than I am. I was actually pretty proud of myself, but I wasn’t about to give up all my secrets. I just gave Paxton a sly shrug.

“That’s me. Sandor, Technological Wizard and Man of Mystery.”

“Forget about the door scan, Paxton,” Teev said. “What about the Truancy Register at his school? You do still go to school, right? You better hurry or you’re going to get busted. It’s getting late.”

“You mean early,” I corrected her. The sun would be coming up any minute. But she was right. Or, she would have been.

Teev had a mole above her lip and a scarlet-colored birthmark high on her cheek, fading back into her hairline. A thin-line tattoo encircled the mole and then curved up into an arrow, pointing at the birthmark. She was shortish and kind of cute and there was something offbeat about her. She was who she was, and she wasn’t going to hide it. I admired that about her.

I was tempted to tell her how I’d gotten around the problem of the Truancy Register. It had actually been an easier fix than the door-scan problem—or maybe I was just that good. All I did was borrow my friend Rax’s ID band and embed a copy of my own digital biosignature inside it. Now whenever I cut class, the class register scans me as “present” as long as Rax is there.

I’d figured the trick out after I’d gotten in trouble a few months ago and had been forced to do some time working in the school’s front office. There, I’d discovered the flaw in the Truancy Register’s system: it doesn’t catch redundancies. So when Rax and I both do show up, there are no red flags. It’s perfect.

“Can’t reveal my secrets,” I say, giving a little smirk.

“Cool kid,” said Paxton, his admiration curdling slightly into contempt. I flushed.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to act like I didn’t actually care. But before I could think of anything else to say, I froze. Over by the club’s entrance, I spotted someone I knew. And not someone I wanted to know.

It was Endym, my interplanetary cultures professor at Lorien Academy.

Okay, Endym was generally a pretty cool guy, probably the only teacher I had that I actually liked. But cool or not, if he saw me out at the club, underage and with no hope of making it to school in time, he’d have no choice but to report me.

I grinned at the couple I was talking to. “Teev, Paxton, it’s been a pleasure,” I said, easing myself out of Endym’s line of sight and into a mass of dancing people with a half wave. Under the cover of the crowd, I peered back towards the entrance and saw Endym as he was approached by one of the club’s vendors. He took one of the proffered ampules and popped it into his mouth, his eyes scanning the club, and then he stepped forward, onto the dance floor. I was pretty sure he hadn’t seen me—yet—but he was heading right in my direction.

Shit. I ducked behind a column to escape his sight.

The Chimæra’s a big place, but not big enough. If I stayed where I was, I was going to spend all my time trying to avoid him—and even then, I didn’t like my odds that he wouldn’t spot me.

I had to get out, and I had to take my opportunity now, while Endym was distracted. He’d just struck up a conversation with a woman in the middle of the dance floor and was flirting with her shamelessly as she danced. I rolled my eyes. The fact that my teacher was at the Chimæra was suddenly making it seem significantly less cool.

The only way out was to go deeper in. I’d never been in the dressing room below the stage, but the performers had to come from somewhere. The only problem was that Endym had somehow positioned himself in the worst possible spot for my purposes: I’d have to go past him to make it to the entrance, but he had a direct line of sight to the back stairwell, too.

I cast around the place, trying not to attract attention by seeming frantic, hoping I’d find a solution to my dilemma. Then I realized it as I spotted them, still standing a few paces away: Teev and Paxton. They would help me. At least, I hoped they would.

“What would you say,” I said, sidling back over to them with my conspiratorial smile plastered across my face, “if I told you the guy over there is a teacher of mine?”

The couple glanced over at Endym, then back at me.

“I guess I’d say this place is going significantly downhill,” Teev said. “They’re letting teachers in now?”

“Bad luck, dude.” Paxton laughed. “All that trouble to get in here and now you’re going to get busted.”

“Come on man. Don’t laugh. How about helping me out?” When they just looked at each other skeptically, I gave a sheepish shrug. “Please?”

Teev tossed her hair and rolled her eyes amiably. “Okay. You got it, little dude,” she said, patting my face. It was kind of humiliating, but what could I do? “We’ll take care of you,” she promised. “Get your ass out of here.”

I watched for a second as Teev and Paxton approached Endym and the woman he was dancing with and inserted themselves between the dancing pair. Teev danced off with Endym; Paxton danced off with Endym’s partner.

When I was sure they’d reeled Endym in, I took my chance. I slid through the crowd, keeping my head low to avoid being seen.

I was almost home free when someone shouted at me. “Hey!” I looked back, startled, to see an angry face and a guy shoving toward me. I had accidentally knocked the guy’s ampule to the floor as I’d pushed past him, and he wasn’t happy.

The last thing I needed was to be caught in a fight on the dance floor. I picked up speed and ran for the edge of the stage, where I groped the dark corner and found a small door.

Of course it was locked.

“Hey! You!” shouted the guy whose drink I’d spilled. He was getting closer. “You’re gonna replace that!”

I jiggled the handle furiously. When it didn’t budge, I gave up on trying to be cool and began throwing myself against the door, hoping that with enough force—and a little luck—it might give.

The dude was getting closer, still shouting. What a jerk—making this kind of scene over one spilled drink? All over the room, heads were turning toward me. I’d be caught any minute.

One last try. With all of my force I threw myself against the small door.

This time, it gave.

CHAPTER 2

The force of my weight sent me tumbling blindly into the room on the other side of the door. I tripped across the floor, crashing through layers and layers of fabric. I tripped and fell, my head hitting the ground with a snap.

Then I heard a voice. A girl’s voice. “Now that’s funny.”

As I lay there, I realized that what I’d crashed into was a rack of clothes. Women’s clothes. Now I was lying in a heap of them on the floor. I looked like I’d gotten caught in an explosion of rhinestones and sequins.

Standing above me, a guy in black metallic pants and a collarless shirt was struggling to lock the door I’d just busted through.

“Yeah, funny,” he was saying sarcastically. “I love it when underage pipsqueaks come barging into the dressing room.”

I stood up sheepishly and tried to gather up the pile of dresses I had knocked loose. This really was not how I’d imagined my night going.

“So. So. Funny.” I spun around to see a girl with electric-white hair sitting on a low stool in the corner of the room. She was wearing a tiny pair of shorts and was in a crouching position. She was drawing on herself with some kind of makeup pen, marking her bare calves with an elaborate pattern of swirls and curlicues.

“No,” I said.

I probably should have apologized. Or at least explained myself. But I couldn’t. I was too starstruck. All I could say was no.

“Oh, yes,” she said, still drawing on her leg. She leaned down closer to the serpentine markings, pursed her lips, and blew up and down her calf, drying the ink.

It couldn’t be. But it was.

It was Devektra.

Most people on Lorien probably would have had no idea who she was. But I’m not most people, and I’d been listening to Devektra’s music for months. For people in the know, she was the most buzzed about Garde performer on Lorien. With her striking beauty, her wise-beyond-her-years lyrics—because she was practically a kid herself, only a little bit older than me—and her unusual Garde legacy of creating dazzling, hypnotic light displays during her performances, it was all but certain she was going to be a huge star before long. She was already well on her way.

“What, you’ve never seen a girl putting makeup on her legs before?” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

I tried to regain my composure. “You must be the top-secret performer,” I finally managed to say, stumbling over practically every word. “I’m, um, a big fan.” I cringed as I said it. I sounded like a total loser.

Devektra appraised her legs, then stood up and looked at me like she didn’t know whether to be angry or to laugh. In the end, she split the difference. “Thanks,” she said. “But you know, they lock those doors for a reason—to keep big fans out.”

Stepping forward, she threw her arms theatrically around my shoulders and pulled my ear right up next to her mouth. “You gonna tell me what you’re doing in my dressing room?” she whispered. “I don’t need to call security, do I?”

“Um,” I stuttered. “Well, see, it’s like this . . .” I searched my brain for an explanation and couldn’t think of one. I guess I’m a lot better at hacking software than I am at talking to girls. Especially hot, famous ones.

Devektra stepped back and looked me up and down with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “You know what I think, Mirkl?” she asked.

“What?” the guy I’d practically forgotten about asked in a bored voice. Honestly, he sounded like he was kind of sick of Devektra.

“I think,” she said slowly, “that this little fellow’s way too young to be here. It looks to me like he was about to get kicked out for being underage and snuck in here looking for a place to hide. We’ve got a lawbreaker on our hands. And you know how I feel about lawbreakers . . .”

I looked at the floor. Now I was definitely busted. This wouldn’t be the first time I was in trouble for something like this. Or the second. This time, though, the consequences would definitely be serious.

But Devektra surprised me.

A grin spread across her face and she began to giggle. This girl was sort of crazy, I was starting to suspect. “I love it!” she said. She narrowed her eyes and wagged a scolding finger at me. Her nails were glittering in every color of the rainbow. “Such a naughty little Cêpan.”

For the second time in just a few seconds, she’d caught me by surprise. “How do you know I’m a Cêpan?” I asked.

Like the majority of public figures on Lorien—athletes, performers, soldiers—Devektra was a Garde. I was a Cêpan. An elect group of Cêpans were mentor Cêpans, educators of the Garde, but most of us were bureaucrats, teachers, businesspeople, shopkeepers, farmers. I wasn’t sure which kind I’d turn out to be after school was finished, but I didn’t think any of my choices seemed too great. Why couldn’t I have been born a Garde and get to do something actually fun with my time?

Devektra smirked. “My third Legacy. The dull one I don’t like to mention. I can always tell the difference between Garde and Cêpan.”

Like all Garde, Devektra had the power of telekinesis. She also had the ability to bend and manipulate light and sound waves, skills she used in her performances and which had made her the rising star she was. That was a pretty rare power already, but the third Legacy that she’d just mentioned, to be able to sense the difference between Garde and Cêpans, was one I’d never heard of at all.

For some reason, I felt self-conscious. I don’t really know why—there’s nothing wrong with being a Cêpan, and although I’d often thought it seemed like a lot more fun to be a Garde, I’d never felt insecure about who I was before.

For one thing, I’m not usually a very insecure person. For another thing, that’s just not how it works around here. Though Garde are revered as a collective—a “treasured gift” to our planet—there was a widespread conviction, shared by Garde and Cêpan alike, that the Garde’s amazing abilities belonged not to them alone, but to all of us.

But standing there, faced with the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, a girl who was about to go onstage and demonstrate her amazing talents for everyone at the Chimæra, I suddenly felt so ordinary. And she could see it. She was Devektra, the Devektra, and I was just some stupid, underage Cêpan with nothing going for him. I didn’t even know why she was bothering with me.

I turned to go. This was pointless. But Devektra caught me by the elbow.

“Oh, cheer up,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re a Cêpan. Anyway, I’m just kidding, thank the Elders. What a boring third Legacy that would be. My real third Legacy is much more exciting.”

“What is it?” I asked suspiciously. I was starting to feel like Devektra was messing with my head.

Her eyes glittered. “Isn’t it obvious? I make men fall in love with me.”

This time, I knew she was pulling my leg. I blushed, suddenly realizing the truth. “You read minds,” I said.

Devektra smiled, impressed, as she leaned back against Mirkl, who looked less than amused. “Mirkl,” she said. “I think he’s starting to get it.”

A half hour later, I stood on the second-floor balcony overlooking the club, watching Devektra perform. She was better than I could have imagined. It took my breath away.

She sang passionately, and melodically, but even though Devektra was known for her lyrics, I barely even heard the words she was singing. She was dancing, too, and dancing well, but that wasn’t the main attraction either. And even though she was pretty much the most amazing-looking girl I’d ever laid eyes on, that wasn’t it either.

All that paled in comparison to what she was doing with her Legacies.

She would wave her hands, modulating the texture of her voice, pitch-shifting it eerily. She could flick her wrist and boost her voice’s volume dramatically; she could even target and shape the volume such that listeners in the back of the club would get walloped with sound while the front of the crowd was merely tickled. With her other hand, she manipulated the club’s already sophisticated lighting system, bending its multicolored beams in skillful, dazzling counterpoint to the sounds coming out of her mouth.

I was transfixed. I’d heard about her performances, but nothing could have described what she was doing. Some things you just need to see with your own two eyes.

Now it was almost over. I had been so absorbed in watching Devektra from my exclusive spot in the VIP balcony that the past hour had flown by like minutes, and as the music began to slow, taking on a baleful tone, and the lights shifted from bursts of pink and orange to long, undulating waves of purple and green, I knew it was coming to a close.

She held the song’s final notes at a delicate volume. Her left hand twirled gently, caressing the air and twirling the sound out into the crowd.

Then her voice rose to a roar. The sound pummeled my chest, so hard I felt like the noise could hollow me out. Then, suddenly, she slammed her fists together and the club’s lights surged into an overwhelming blast just as the noise disappeared, as if sucked out of the room by a vacuum.

I staggered against the railing, blinded.

As my vision slowly came back, I could see the people in the audience below me rocking dizzily on their heels. Like me, they were dazed but satisfied.

“That was incredible,” I said, finally capable of speech. But when I turned around, Mirkl, who had been watching the show with me, not saying a word, was already gone.

Turning back to the stage and dance floor, I saw Devektra already halfway to the front door, with Mirkl and the rest of her entourage silent behind her. They were leaving.

She’d mentioned they’d all be going to another club called Kora for an after-performance party. At the time the mention had felt like an invitation, but it looked like Devektra was on her way out without giving me a second thought.

I bolted down the stairs, down the hall, and through the crowd, desperate not to lose her. I forced my way through, squeezing between people. I heard a few people snap at me as I knocked into them, but I no longer cared about anything except finding Devektra.

I finally spotted her as I reached the entrance. She was standing outside the Chimæra with her entourage, and she turned back to the club and saw me, giving me a mysterious smile. I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew I had to find out.

“Excuse me,” I said, pushing past a couple, making my last dodge for the door.

“Sandor?” My heart sank as I felt someone grab my arm. I knew that voice. There was no point trying to run. It was Endym.

“I thought I saw you earlier,” he said.

“Some show, right?” I said, praying Endym would let this slide. After all, he was here too—and he sounded like he’d had more than a few ampules since I’d last seen him.

“Incredible,” said Endym. “Best I’ve ever seen her.”

“So,” I said, hopefully. “Any chance we could just forget you saw me here today?”

Endym smiled back at me. “None at all.”

CHAPTER 3

“If I weren’t so disappointed, I’d be impressed.” Principal Osaria was flipping through papers on her desk outlining my misdeeds, reading out charges as she went. “Charge: Tampering with the Truancy Register. Suggested punishment: expulsion. Charge: absences more than ten per semester. Suggested punishment: expulsion.”

She looked up at me. “Ten’s just a provisional figure of course. We’ve yet to sort through the Register’s data logs to get a precise estimate for how many classes you skipped.”

“Ten’s about right,” I admitted.

“That better not be sarcasm,” my dad said in a tired voice from the monitor on the wall of Osaria’s office, where his face crackled in by remote feed. My mother sat silently beside him. They were at their vacation home on the beaches of Deloon and couldn’t be bothered to make the two-hour trip to the capital to witness my expulsion in person.

“What does this mean, exactly?” my mother asked. As if she didn’t know. I’d been warned before. Cutting school and sneaking into the Chimæra was one thing—but this went way beyond that.

Osaria swiveled her chair to face the screen. “It means that my hands are tied. If it were just one or the other of these charges, I’d be able to exercise my discretion in meting out punishment.” She frowned deeply. “But in addition to the rules he broke at school, he also tampered with the ID scans at the Chimæra. I have no choice.”

“Oh no,” said my mom. She looked like she was about to cry.

“This is a surprise to you?!” My dad was turning red, nearly as mad at my mother as he was at me. “He’s always been like this.”

It was true. I’d always been a rule breaker, I’d always had a way of getting myself into trouble. I wasn’t ashamed of that; I liked that about myself. But it tended to flummox the people around me. Lorien was a happy, prosperous and law-abiding planet. The fact that I was always getting into trouble made me practically a freak of nature.

Principal Osario shifted uncomfortably in her seat, put off by my parents’ bickering, and quickly broke in before they could continue. “I must say I’ll be sorry to lose Sandor.” She turned back to me. “Attendance issues aside, you are one of our very best students—and I have to admit that your tampering with the security systems, while illegal and dangerous, shows a certain amount of”—she paused—“ingenuity. Now, as I see it, there are two options available to him. If he elects to stay in the capital—”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m not leaving the city.”

“—then we can arrange to have him placed as an apprentice with the Munis.”

My heart sank. The Munis? The Munis were the custodial corps of the city’s workforce. Maintenance work. Most citizens of the capital were conscripted for Munis service by lottery, for year-long terms no more than twice in their lifetimes. There was no shame attached to performing Munis service in Lorien culture, but it was far from my idea of a good time. And entering the Munis as an apprentice was basically signing up to haul trash for the rest of my life. To me, that was a fate worse than death.

I felt myself beginning to panic. “There’s got to be something else in the city. Can’t I get some kind of job at Kora, or the Chimæra?” I knew it was a reach to ask for a work assignment in one of the very places I’d just gotten in trouble for sneaking into, but I was open to taking any job in them, no matter how menial. I’d scrub floors if that’s what it came to.

“Yes, surely there are some better options?” my mother spoke up. I was surprised to hear her coming to my defense.

Osaria shook her head with regret. “Unfortunately, all urban job assignments other than apprenticeships are reserved for adults. It’s either Munis, or a Kabarak relocation.”

I thought my heart had already reached the bottom of my chest, but I felt it plunge deeper, right into the pit of my stomach. A Kabarak? Doing time outside of the city on one of Lorien’s communal Kabaraks was an important part of Lorien’s culture, not to mention essential for keeping the planet running smoothly, but it was definitely not a glamorous experience: loralite mining, Chimæra husbandry, farming. And all of it way out in the country, miles from any excitement. Unless pulling up weeds and digging through dirt all day is your idea of a good time.

I had a bad feeling about this. On the screen, my father was nodding, looking almost satisfied, and I knew that my fate was as good as decided. Having done time on a Kabarak was considered a noble credential, and was a prerequisite for working in government or the Lorien Defense Council, helping to protect Lorien from an attack by one of our nonexistent enemies.

Among a bunch of equally terrible options, the Kabarak looked like it had managed to win my parents’ approval.

“Osaria, I think a few years on a Kabarak is just what my son needs.” My dad was smiling as he said it, actually pleased with the outcome of the conversation. I looked up at the screen, but he avoided my gaze—he had to know exactly how awful it sounded to my ears.

Even my mother wasn’t going to bail me out this time. “I agree,” she said, giving me a furtive, apologetic glance. “It really is the best option.”

“Well then it’s settled,” said Osaria.

Right then, I wished again that I’d been born a Garde—one with the Legacy to go back in time and undo all my mistakes of the previous night.

Of course, if I undid the night, it would mean I would have never met Devektra. Which might have almost been worth it. Well, almost.

I left the academy, beginning the long walk back home to my parents’ empty apartment. The school’s shuttles to the city center didn’t start running for hours, so I had to walk by myself, on desolate streets. My parents weren’t due back from Deloon for weeks, and they’d made no mention of coming back to the capital to see me off. I’d likely spend my last days in the city alone in the apartment, waiting for my Kabarak assignment and transportation details. The transpo details would probably come first, and would offer some clue about my fate: if the state arranged for a terrestrial craft, it meant I’d been assigned a nearby Kabarak colony, like Malka. If they ponied up for air transport, it meant I was being shipped far, far away, to a Kabarak in the Outer Territories, the other side of the planet.

Not that it made any difference. Exile was exile. And even after I did, my future would be forever changed. While I’d always imagined myself going on to a job that was easy and low-key, like Teev and Paxton’s, or even working at a place like the Chimæra, most people on Kabaraks ended up going on to a position in Lorien government.

I shuddered at the thought of finding myself spending the rest of my days pushing paper as a bureaucrat at a dull-as-dirt office like the Lorien Defense Council, wasting my life trying to stave off an invasion from an extraplanetary attack that everyone knew was never coming while I tried to cheer myself up by pretending I was actually doing something important.

It was hopeless. For now, all I could do was try not to think about it. And keep walking.

My school disappeared behind me as the Spires of Elkin loomed ahead, beckoning me towards the city center.

I’d considered hanging around, waiting for the shuttle. It would’ve given me a chance to say good-bye to my friends when they got out of class. But the thought depressed me too much to bother. I couldn’t stand the thought of them finding out how badly I’d messed up.

Anyhow, I liked Adar and Rax and a few of the other kids at the academy well enough, but I didn’t consider them my real people. I’d always been different, even from them. Everyone else on Lorien seemed to be content with exactly what they had. They were happy to live on the most perfect little planet in the whole damn universe. Why couldn’t I be more like that?

I was still wallowing in my un-Loric pool of self-pity when I heard my name.

“Sandor?” I stopped in my tracks and turned around to see that an unfamiliar man, a few years older than me, was standing next to a parked Muni hovercraft a few paces behind me. “Are you Sandor?”

He wore the distinctive blue tunic of a Mentor Cêpan, the special class of Cêpans who work for the LDC and are charged with training the Garde and monitoring their Legacies as they develop. I had no idea how he knew my name, and I didn’t really want to find out. I’d had enough trouble today, and for all I knew, this guy was about to tell me I’d committed some new infraction without even realizing it.

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s my name all right.” Without waiting for a response, I turned again and resumed my walk.

Without asking permission, he kept pace beside me.

“My apologies. I’d meant to catch you at your meeting with Osaria but I got there too late.”

I was silent.

“I’m Brandon. I’m a Mentor Cêpan at the Lorien Defense Academy—”

“Sorry, dude,” I said. “I’m not a Garde. Just your typical, boring Cêpan—no need for a mentor. And I flunked the LDA aptitude test years ago.”

“Yeah,” said Brandon. “I’ve seen your scores.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, like he knew I had tanked the exam on purpose to avoid being sent off to the prestigious academy.

Of course compared to a Kabarak, mentorship training sounded pretty good at this point. If I’d known what was in store for me, maybe I would have thought twice about bombing that test all those years ago.

“We got word of your little hijinks over at the academy,” Brandon said. I looked at him in surprise. How in the world would they have heard about one underage Cêpan’s misadventures at the Chimæra?

But Brandon was talking like that was the most normal thing in the world. “We were impressed,” he said. “That kind of technological work is quite unusual for someone your age—especially someone without academy training. If you put your talents to work in a more serious way, you could really make a difference in the Lorien security efforts.”

I was reminded why I didn’t care for LDA types. They took themselves way too seriously. Lorien had never had a war. We had never been attacked. And yet these people acted like we were living under constant threat. It was like they just told themselves that so they could feel important.

I waved Brandon off. “Yeah, well,” I said. “I’m off to a Kabarak. Hopefully they’ll appreciate my skills there.”

“They won’t,” he replied with a shrug. “Listen. The LDA could use some fresh blood and some new hands. We have some decent engineers and techs, but no one with your gift for problem solving.”

I rolled my eyes. An engineer at the LDA? That was almost as bad as joining Munis.

“Sorry, man. Not interested.” I kept walking.

“Our reputation is not what it used to be, I see.” Brandon gave me a wry smile. I could tell he was amused by my snottiness. “And it’s true that many Loric question the need for a defense at all during such a time of peace. Their mistake. But we have resources, Sandor. You’d have full access to our engineering and computer laboratories. Plus after six months you’d have weekend privileges. And I’ve been given authority to invite you to join the academy despite your, ah, uncharacteristically poor performance on the aptitude exam.”

I stopped in my tracks.

“You’d be close to the city,” he added. “Who knows? Maybe eventually, when you’re a little older, you’d be able to get some time off to visit the Chimæra.”

Clearly Brandon had more information on me than could be gleaned from security bulletins about my stunt at the Chimæra. He was pushing my buttons a little too precisely.

“You got a psych profile on me, Brandon?”

He only smiled. “Just decide if you’d rather spend the last few years of your adolescence playing with defense tech near the city, using your actual skills, or out in the Outer Terrritories shoveling Chimæra shit.”

“Outer Territories?” I felt my mouth go dry. Why had he said that? Had he heard something about my likely assignment?

“What do you know?” I asked.

“It’s not what I know, Sandor. It’s what I can make happen.”

And with that, he turned around and walked away.

CHAPTER 4

Exiting the transport van a few weeks later, I approached the front entrance of the Lorien Defense Academy warily, my bags over my shoulder. The school was a windowless gray cube plopped on a grassy stretch of land at the edge of Capital City. Somehow, for such a prestigious place, I was expecting something a little more lavish. Instead, the only thing that set it apart from any other Loric government building was a single statue of the Elder Pittacus.

Near the entrance, a few feet away from the statue, a few young Mentor Cêpans in shapeless blue tunics and loose black pants were talking in low tones with a Lorien councilmember, who I identified immediately from his tan robe. They had as little style or flair as the building itself. As I passed, the councilmember and the Cêpans looked up in neutral acknowledgment. I waved at them and then felt stupid.

It was practically a relief when I entered the building. The lobby was as sparsely decorated as the building’s outside, but at least it was busy. Young Mentor trainees, about my age, single-file marching off to class. There were a few adult Mentor Cêpans, and even a couple of Garde kids laughing and chasing after each other in their tiny blue suits.

“Kloutus!” a Mentor shouted. With a sheepish look on his face, one of the young Garde slowed down.

Recognizing the Mentor as Brandon, I walked up to him. He’d been nice to me when he’d recruited me on the street, and the sight of a familiar face was suddenly welcome.

But if I was expecting him to be a new friend, I shouldn’t have. Brandon gave me a cursory up-and-down look like he barely knew me, and then was all business.

“What are these?” Without a word of greeting, Brandon plucked the bags off my shoulders.

“They’re my things from home,” I said, struggling to hold on to them.

“We’re going to have to confiscate them,” he said. “You’ll be issued everything you need in processing.”

“Those are my clothes!” I don’t know why I cared—of course I’d have to wear the LDA uniform now, so I don’t know what good my clothes would do me. Still, the thought of having them confiscated depressed me. My clothes were part of what made me me. Now I’d just look like everyone else.

Brandon shook his head at my foolishness. “You can arrange to have those shipped back to your parents’ place. They’ll be waiting for you when you graduate.” With a curt nod, he pointed towards the processing office and disappeared down a hallway.

Feeling worse than ever, I trudged to processing, where an LDA administrator curtly issued me three identical green tunics, wrapped in paper. After handing them to me, he stood there expectantly, and I realized I was expected to change right in front of him so that he could collect the clothes I was already wearing. Probably so he could take them off to whatever storage locker or incinerator the rest of my clothes were destined for.

“A little privacy?” I asked.

He turned around. I seized the opportunity to undress quickly, throw on the tunic, and hide my favorite Kalvaka T-shirt inside the folds of my scratchy new garment. One piece of real clothing was better than none.

“All done,” I said, shoving the rest of my clothes in the administrator’s hands, hoping that if I bunched them all up in a wad the guy wouldn’t notice he’d been shorted.

It worked. He gave me my dormitory assignment and told me to go there and await instructions for the rest of my orientation.

After being stripped of nearly all my worldly possessions, I made my way deeper into the building, trying to get a feel for the place. I walked past open seminar rooms, administrative offices, gymnasiums, labs, even a glass-walled Chimæra observatory where a clutch of Lorien’s legendary beasts chased after each other in circles, growling and snorting as they changed from one form to another, the shapes of their bodies shifting with liquid ease.

At least they were allowed to look how they wanted. I stood and watched them for a few minutes before moving on.

Finally I reached the long corridor of the dormitory section and arrived at my dorm, 219. This was my room.

I hadn’t been issued a key, so I took a deep breath, knocked, and waited.

A moment later the door opened and a guy with small, nervous eyes, a wide mouth and a bulbous nose greeted me. His green tunic was identical to mine, and I stupidly wondered how we were going to remember whose was whose.

“You must be Sandor,” the guy said stiffly. “I’m Rapp. Come in.”

I entered the room, doing my best to conceal my horror as I appraised the spartan bunk beds, the bare stone floors, the curtainless window staring out onto a sparse and underlit courtyard.

“How minimalist,” I said.

“Yeah,” Rapp said. “The LDA keeps it pretty simple. We’re here to defend Lorien, not to sleep comfortably, I guess.” At least he didn’t sound any happier about it than I was.

I flopped on the bottom bunk. The mattress was thin and hard.

“So we’re roommates, huh?” I asked. “Are you training for the tech department too?”

“Yep. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other, I guess. Between the two of us, you’re looking at the whole program.”

“What?”

“We’re it. There’s a corps of about twenty active engineers and fifteen active techs on the whole planet, but only two trainees at a time.”

Oh, man. This guy seemed nice enough, I guess, but if it was just us, he could be the coolest guy on all of Lorien and we’d still get sick of each other.

“It’s not so bad, though,” he went on, not registering my disappointment. “Even though we’re just trainees, the corps is so short staffed lately that they send us out on grid surveys, repair work on the electronic perimeters, stuff like that.”

“Exciting.” I didn’t mean to sound so sarcastic, but I couldn’t help it. This would be my new life for at least the next two years, and it was already a total bore.

Fortunately, Rapp was immune to irony. “It is. To know that I’m playing a small but significant role in keeping Lorien safe . . . I feel really blessed.”

I couldn’t take it. I lurched up from the bed.

“Safe from what?” I asked.

Rapp stared at me, dumbly. “What do you mean?”

“Keeping Lorien safe from what? There hasn’t been an attack on this planet for aeons. For all our explorations and recon missions, we haven’t even had direct communication of any kind with another planet for hundreds of years. What are we afraid of? A civil war? Loriens are all pacifists, even in the sketchiest part of City Center or the most backward parts of the Outer Territories, nothing bad ever happens. I mean, I’m considered a hardened criminal around here. And all I did was get caught at a Devektra show!”

Rapp looked taken aback, but I didn’t care. “Do you really think you’re making a difference?” I spat. “Please. All this stuff about ancient prophecies and attacks that will probably never come—it’s superstition.”

Rapp didn’t take my bait. Instead of answering, he solemnly walked to the door.

“I’ll come back in a little while to give you a tour of the grounds. But I gotta say if this is your attitude on day one, you’re going to have a pretty miserable time here.”

Yeah, I thought. No shit.

CHAPTER 5

It would’ve been nice if I could say my first week at the LDA passed by in a blur. Actually, it dragged on even more endlessly than I’d anticipated.

Rapp, it turned out, was still learning things in class that I had taught myself ages ago, so I couldn’t even count on my schoolwork to keep me interested. Sure, I could have told Professor Orkun that I already knew all this stuff, but I kept it to myself. Instead, I just kept my head down in three-person seminars, nodding along with the lesson and trying to pretend like it was all new to me.

I knew I was being stupid. If I had to be here, I might as well have tried to learn something. But, in a weird way, it felt like that would be letting them win. If I wasted my time, I was still getting away with something, right?

Things weren’t much more interesting in the commissary than they were in class. I kept pretty much to myself and so did all the other students at the academy. As for the Mentor Cêpans who’d been assigned their own Garde to train, they were pretty scarce around campus, and the ones who did eat in the commissary usually had their hands too full with their young Garde charges to mix with engineering trainees like me and Rapp.

The only people at the academy who interested me at all were the Garde kids, who were just coming into their powers and gave the school what little sense of life it had. On Lorien, Garde children are raised by their grandparents until their eleventh year, when they’re sent away to a place like the LDA to train with their assigned Mentor Cêpan. There are training academies for them all over Lorien, but LDA is considered one of the best—the Garde who wind up here are the ones who are expected to have some serious power going on.

Some of these kids racing the halls of the LDA had only started to manifest the very beginnings of their gifts, while others were already onto their second and third Legacies, but almost all of them were lit up, charged by the excitement of coming into their powers, not to mention living away from home for the first time. They had their whole future to look forward to.

Pretty much the only exciting thing that happened in my entire first week was that one of the youngest Garde, a dark-haired, mischievous-looking kid named Samil, almost destroyed the whole school. That was actually kind of fun—I guess Samil’d been showing off his emerging pyrokinetic Legacy to some older kids in an empty classroom, when things had started to get out of control. Before long, the fire was raging. The halls of the school filled with smoke as sirens blared and Cêpan raced to evacuate the students and staff while the older, more experienced Garde headed toward the fire in an attempt to contain it.

The rest of us were gathered on the lawn, waiting for it all to get sorted out and, for a few minutes at least, as black smoke curled from the building into the sky, it looked like maybe my stay at the Lorien Defense Academy would be a short one.

“So if this place burns to the ground they’ll send me home, right?” I asked Rapp.

“Don’t sound too disappointed, or anything,” he said disdainfully. When I didn’t reply, he just snorted. “Dude. You think this doesn’t happen all the time? The walls here are fireproof. Not to mention everything-else-proof. This school’s built to withstand just about anything. It’s what’s inside that room that you should be worried about. Like the poor kid who just found out being able to generate giant fireballs might not be as cool as it sounds.”

I felt instantly guilty that I hadn’t even considered that. Every year on Lorien there were stories about young Garde perishing in grisly accidents, killed by powers that they didn’t know how to control or, in some cases, didn’t yet know they even had. There had been the girl with the ability to manipulate temperature who’d accidentally frozen herself to death in the bathtub, and a boy with sonic flight who’d overshot Lorien’s gravitational pull and found himself caught in the unbreathable atmosphere many miles above the ground. It was the purpose of Mentor Cêpans to prevent such incidents. But accidents still happened.

“Sorry,” I mumbled to Rapp. “I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

He shrugged, and his expression softened. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. Don’t worry about it.”

I glanced over at Vatan, the Cêpan of the kid who’d started the fire. His face was pale and anguished, and I knew that if anything had happened to his charge, he’d never be able to forgive himself. But a few minutes later, a tiny figure crept from the smoke and flame. It was Samil, completely unscathed. He had an expression on his face that was equal parts shame, terror and exhilarated pride.

Everyone whooped with joy and relief, and, in the first show of real emotion that I’d seen since I’d gotten to the academy, Vatan ran across the field and wrapped Samil in a huge hug. The boy’s skin—just as fireproof as the walls of the school, it turned out—was still burning with heat. Vatan didn’t let go even as it charred the fabric of his blue tunic.

I was relieved too. I mean, of course I was relieved. I didn’t want anyone to die, much less an eleven-year-old kid. But at least the fire had been something. Once it was over, everything was just back to normal. And by now, I’d had enough normal to last me the rest of my life.

The nights at LDA weren’t much different from the days. At least I had Rapp to keep me company. Yeah, he took himself way too seriously, but at least he was someone to talk to. And he wasn’t quite as lame as I’d thought he was at first. He had no idea who Devektra was, but ever since I’d told him my story about meeting her, he’d wanted to hear all about it. Not just about Devektra, but about the Chimæra, and about how I’d managed to sneak in, and had I really been a regular there?

Plus, he let me copy his homework, which was nice because even though it was mostly easy, there was a lot of it.

Maybe if I’d thought there was a point to doing it myself, I would have been more interested. Back at home, I’d taught myself to tinker with machinery and electronics as a means to an end. It was a way to get out of class, to get into places like the Chimæra. To be whoever I wanted to be. It was a way to trick the system.

Here, it was the system. And it was a system I didn’t have faith in.

According to legend—or history, depending on who you listened to—the original Nine Elders had brought forth the Great Loric Age aeons ago when they’d discovered the Phoenix Stones. It was this ancient event that had supposedly awakened the Legacies of the Garde and called the shape-changing Chimæra out of hiding, making Lorien a place of prosperity and peace that was unprecedented throughout the known universe.

From that time on, Lorien’s ecosystem flourished. Where food and resources had once been scarce, there was now more than enough for everyone. What the planet itself didn’t offer up in excess could easily be provided by the strange, amazing, and endlessly varied powers of the Garde. On other planets, this was the stuff people fought tooth and nail over. Not here. Here on Lorien, we could just live.

But the Elders had also set forth a prophecy: that one day, when we were least prepared for it, a threat would come to test us—and destroy us. We wouldn’t know when that threat was coming, but it would come, and when it did, we would have to be ready for it.

That was why the LDA existed. That’s why I was learning to create and maintain ever more elaborate systems of defense against an enemy that I was pretty sure was mostly fantasy. Just in case tomorrow was the day we all woke up and found ourselves under attack.

Back home, everyone knew the deal, but no one seemed to pay much attention to it. The discovery of the Phoenix Stones was just a story, something that had happened so long ago it barely seemed real. And the ancient Elders’ prophecy—well, even if it did come true someday, it sure didn’t seem like it was going to happen anytime soon. While most good Loric paid lip service to the good work that people were doing at places like the LDA, ensuring that Lorien “stayed safe for generations to come,” even the most Loric among them didn’t seem to take any of it too seriously.

Things were perfect, after all. Why worry about what might happen someday?

Here at the academy, it was a totally different story. Everyone walked around acting like the prophecy was about five minutes away from coming to pass—like we were going to be under attack at any minute. When I’d told Rapp I didn’t really think it much mattered whether the grid, the vast defense system that scanned Capital City’s airways for potential intruders, was perfectly maintained at all times, it was like I’d insulted him personally.

“Some of us actually care about what we do here,” he said. He spoke slowly and carefully as he said it, but his voice was shaking. I could tell I’d really gotten to him. “While everyone else on Lorien is living in their little utopia, congratulating themselves for how perfect the place is, it’s people like me who are busting our asses to keep it that way. Without the grid, we’d be sitting ducks. And people just laugh at us.”

“Calm down,” I said, taken aback by how angry he’d gotten. “You’re acting like I just said Pittacus Lore’s a big loser or something.”

He scowled. “Yeah, well,” he said. “You probably think that too, don’t you?”

I paused. “No,” I said. “I mean, not exactly.”

Actually, I had no idea what the famous Pittacus Lore was like at all. I’d never seen him—even the statue of Pittacus outside the school wasn’t of the current Pittacus, but of one of the old ones, probably from like a thousand years ago or something.

The current Elders had the same names as the original nine who had supposedly discovered the Phoenix Stones all those years ago, but they were otherwise many times removed from the Elders of legend. The names were passed along like titles, along with the Elders’ special abilities, to specially picked successors who took on their forebearers’ role of watching over Lorien, of safeguarding our environment, and of protecting our traditions and way of life. I knew that they made occasional trips to the LDA to consult with the Mentor Cêpan and the instructors, but I had never seen them.

Aside from these brief interactions with the world, the Elders had long ago removed themselves from the day-to-day activities of life on Lorien. Even their exact whereabouts were unknown: some Loric said they lived deep in the mountains of Feldsmore, while others claimed they lived in a giant glass fortress deep at the bottom of the Terrax Ocean. Those were just some of the more plausible theories.

The only thing I knew was that it didn’t seem like the Elders did very much at all, and that most people at the LDA, along with the rest of the Lorien defense operation, were telling themselves stories about prophecies that would never come true.

CHAPTER 6

On my eleventh day at the LDA, I was woken by Rapp tugging on My arm.

“Come on, Sandor,” he said. “We’re going to be late.”

“Your mom’s a chimæra’s butt,” I mumbled irritably, shoving him away and pulling my thin, scratchy sheet over my head.

This had become a morning ritual between us. He’d try to wake me up, reminding me that it was my Solemn Loric Duty to rise and shine, and I’d come up with more and more colorful ways to tell him to leave me the hell alone. We were both getting sick of the routine.

“Fine,” said Rapp, turning to go. “I’ll just go to City Center by myself.”

I opened my eyes and sat up in bed. “City Center?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I saw Orkun at the commissary, she said class was cancelled and that we’re supposed to report to transport immediately. She wants us to use the time to do grid maintenance.”

“Why didn’t you just say that?” I was already out of bed, hurriedly throwing on my tunic, excited by the chance to go into the city.

He just snorted as I checked myself out in the dull, tiny mirror over my dresser, trying in vain to flatten the irregular ridges of my cowlicked hair with spit.

“Dude,” he said. “You think a little primping’s gonna make any difference? All the girls in the city just stare right through us. Our tunics may as well be invisibility cloaks.”

I knew he was right, but I groaned anyway, turned from my reflection and headed out the door as he followed behind me. It was hard to be too upset. No, grid maintenance wasn’t all that exciting or anything, but still. We were going to the city.

We arrived at the transport hangar and got into the academy’s only available two-seater, a teardrop-shaped vehicle some of the other students referred to as the Egg. I watched from the passenger seat as Rapp spoke into a receiver on the dashboard, programming our journey into City Center according to the assignment that Orkun had given him. “Sector Three twenty-nine, Security nodule H, Patch Three.” He flipped through a binder, pulling up additional coordinates. “Sector Two ninety-seven, nodule J, Patch Seven.” He had a cocky little smile as he said it, like this stuff made him feel really important or something.

I didn’t get Rapp at all. How could anyone get excited about grid maintenance? It was like getting excited about brushing your teeth, except that brushing your teeth only takes two minutes, and that’s if you do a really good job.

At the same time, I felt sort of bad that I was always giving him a hard time. Rapp was like me, in his own weird way. I was in the LDA’s engineering program because I’d been forced to be here, but he actually wanted to be here. Considering there were only two of us in the whole class, that sort of made him an even bigger freak than me. And he didn’t care. Most of the time, he hardly even seemed to notice when I made fun of him. I almost had to admire the guy.

Obviously I would never tell him that, but at least, I figured, I could tell him I didn’t really think his mom looked like a chimæra’s butt, and that she was probably actually pretty hot.

But before I could even formulate my apology, he’d entered our last coordinate and the Egg took off, shooting us out of the hangar, past the cube of the academy building, and then through the pastures and mud huts and Chimæra pens of the Alwon Kabarak.

Alwon was the only Kabarak on Lorien within city limits, and thus would’ve been my first choice had I been assigned to one. I watched the early-rising Kabarakians, dressed in their red silks and ceremonial charms, busily tending to their land as our Egg whizzed past them and around them, unfazed by another routine intrusion of LDA speedcraft.

It was funny to think, only weeks ago I was in a depressed panic at the idea of working on a Kabarak. After my time at the academy, it no longer looked like such a bad way to live. Then again, maybe I was just jealous of their outfits—I looked better in red than in green.

The Egg crossed the western edge of Alwon and gained speed through the depopulated outer industrial zones of the city’s east side on its course to City Center, miles ahead. The Spires of Elkin glinted brightly from the morning suns. I realized I had never seen City Center from this particular distance and angle. Perhaps it was nostalgia, or homesickness, but it looked more beautiful than ever.

Then, beyond the spires, I saw something strange.

Off in the distance, sprouting between the spires on the horizon, was a massive column of violet light, stabbing upwards into the clouds. It was a bright morning, and yet the rays of the suns did nothing to diminish the hard-edged, almost tactile thickness of the light. It was astonishing.

“Quartermoon’s in three days,” said Rapp, barely even looking at the light.

According to our collective legend, a quartermoon hung in the sky the day the First Elders discovered the Phoenix Stones, and over the years a holiday had developed around the regular appearance of the quartermoon in the sky. In the city and out on the settlements and Kabaraks, people party into the wee hours, dancing, gathering around campfires and lighting fireworks, celebrating the miracle of our planet’s rebirth. Temporary monuments and light displays, called Heralds, were often arranged for by city government or by the Elder Council, to commemorate our history and to celebrate the quartermoon’s approach.

This was a much bigger and more elaborate Herald than I’d ever seen before, so tall and majestic it was probably visible far outside the city—if it was even coming from the city at all. It was a little weird, but I brushed it off. If there’s one thing we Loric, not to mention our Elders, are good at, it’s thinking up new ways to celebrate how great we are.

Personally, it seemed to me like the Elders could think of better ways to use their time and powers, but who was I to question their ancient wisdom?

When the Egg finally whirred to a stop at a corner on the edge of Eilon Park, I felt a pang of surprise.

“Wait a minute,” I said, turning slowly to Rapp. “This is where we’re doing our grid maintenance?”

Rapp looked at me like I was crazy. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “I told you we were going to City Center. Why?”

“Because,” I said. “This is Kora.” I pointed to a nondescript door on the side of a big nondescript building. “That’s the rear entrance.”

“That’s the club you’ve been talking about all this time?” Rapp pushed the door open and climbed out of the Egg, his feet hitting the pavement with a thud. “I have to say, man, I was picturing something—I don’t know—like, fancier or whatever. That just looks like a big, dirty warehouse.”

I frowned as I climbed out after him. “It’s the back door,” I said. “Anyway, it’s not supposed to look like anything on the outside. That makes it seem special when you see the inside.”

Rapp cocked his head curiously and gave me a shrug like, whatever you say, and headed to a pole towering above the bottom slope of Eilon’s Hill.

In the days before I’d learned how to manipulate my ID band, it was practically the only place in town where I could go to dance and hang out at night when my parents were out of town. It wasn’t anywhere near as cool as the Chimæra, and the music was actually pretty bad most of the time, plus it always sort of smelled. But because they didn’t serve ampules, there was no age restriction for getting in. I took what I could get.

Now, though, I would have given just about anything to be back at Kora, even with the bad music and the awful smell. Suddenly I missed that smell.

Now I was standing outside, in a wrinkled, ugly green tunic, and well, there was nothing I could do about it. I shuffled over to Rapp, who had already used a harness to elevate himself a third of the way up the pole towards the grid point’s control panel, and prepared to hoist myself up with him. At least up there, no one would recognize me in my tunic.

Before I could begin my ascent, Rapp called down at me. “This one’s actually not in such bad shape—looks like a one-man job. I told Orkun I’d be able to handle it on my own, but she still doesn’t trust me.”

I was annoyed. It wasn’t like I was that into the idea of hauling myself all the way up there just to fiddle with a bunch of wires for hours, but at least it was something to do. “So what? I’m just supposed to stand here and watch you work?”

Rapp, already engrossed in running diagnostics on the control panel, sighed and looked back at me. “If you want to help, go check on the next patch on our list. Sector Two ninety-seven’s walkable, but if you’re feeling lazy you can program the Egg and I can meet you there.” Rapp turned back to his work.

It was like Rapp was trying to get to me. He knew I had never done a maintenance run before and wouldn’t have a clue how to start. He was forcing me to ask for help. Maybe he knew me better than I’d figured—if there’s one thing I hate, it’s asking for help.

“Rapp. You know I’ve never done it before.”

“Orkun ran through every last step just two days ago in class.”

Had she? I honestly had no recollection of it. “Guess I missed that,” I said.

“It was on the homework too. Oh, wait . . . you never do the homework.”

For a second I thought he was actually mad, but then he started to chuckle, and tossed the key to the Egg down to me. “The spare kit’s behind the passenger seat. The equipment is mostly self-explanatory, and if you get confused you can always hit the Prompt button for an explanation.”

He turned back to his work. “Trust me, it’s not that hard. If you can trick the door scanners at the Chimæra, you’ll be able to figure it out in no time.”

I walked up Eilon’s Hill with my kit on my back and an info-mod in my hand—it was a small square device that could pinpoint my exact location in the city, and would also allow me to communicate with Rapp, or even with the other Cêpan back at the academy if necessary.

Even though I knew this area like the back of my hand, I’d never bothered to learn the city’s official coordinate system. As I crossed over the hill and entered the commercial district north of Eilon Park, the info-mod indicated I had entered Sector 302, which most people called the Crescent because of the way the main street curved in on itself like a sliver of a moon.

I watched the module with strange fascination as all my old favorite neighborhood haunts—the Pit, Arcadia—were converted to their Munis numbers on my tab. 282, 304, 299.

I finally arrived at 297. Looking up from the locator, I realized with a start that I was standing just outside the Chimæra. I sighed to myself, trying not to think too much about it. It didn’t matter what building I was outside. I wasn’t here to go inside—I couldn’t go inside.

I was here to climb a pole.

So I threw the harness on and made my way up. When I reached the top, I looked out onto the horizon. From up here, the column of light Rapp and I had seen earlier looked even more impressive. Well, maybe impressive is the wrong word. Actually, it was sort of creepy. It was vibrating and pulsing in a way that was almost otherworldly. And it was hard to tell where it was coming from—it could have been a few blocks away, or a hundred miles. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen for a Quartermoon celebration before.

It wasn’t my business though. I was here to work on the grid. So I unlocked the front of the control panel and flipped it open to find the keypad tucked within a dense nest of overlapping multicolored wires.

I sighed again, a longer, deeper sigh than before.

This was going to take a while.

It was still the tail end of the morning, pretty much the only time of day the club wasn’t hopping. The entrance to the Chimæra was still quiet. But I knew the crowd would pick up within a few hours. I wondered for a second what my old friends would think if any of them stumbled by. Then I realized that they probably wouldn’t even recognize me. To them, now, I was just another guy in a green tunic.

The work was surprisingly absorbing. I started running automated diagnostics on individual wires to determine if they were in need of replacement. The only tricky part was figuring out which wires were which. They were all numbered, and the degraded wires had to be removed and replaced within a correct sequence lest I damage this entire piece of the grid. But as Rapp had promised, the Prompt system that came with the kit provided pretty helpful instructions when I got confused or when I had trouble identifying one of the degraded wires by sight.

It had been weeks since I’d messed around with my ID band tech, and I had forgotten how much I missed this kind of tinkering. In my brief time at the LDA, I’d already forgotten that I was actually pretty good at it. I liked the way you could take it one step at a time, the way all the different pieces fit together like a puzzle. How even if you had no idea what you were doing, you could pretty much figure it out as long as you had a handle on the basic principles of it.

Before too long I’d stopped relying on the Prompt module at all. I was identifying the wire sequences with no trouble and was adjusting them easily, going mostly on instinct.

I had never really given much thought to the grid, or what a vital function it provided to the city. In addition to using sophisticated sensors to monitor and register the goings-on of Capital City, compiling information for Munis about the flow of people and goods—keeping everything running smoothly, perfectly—the grid’s lesser-known function was a protective one. The nondescript poles that were so omnipresent that I barely noticed them actually stretched an invisible latticework of defensive shields and counterattack systems above the skyline. The reasoning behind the installation of the grid some hundreds of years ago was that the city had by far the highest population density of any part of the planet and was home to most of the important members of the Lorien government, along with being the central hub for our most important information and communications systems. Any enemy planning an attack on Lorien would likely strike the city first.

I still didn’t believe that was going to happen, but I also had to grudgingly admit that the whole thing was pretty cool. Too bad it was also basically useless.

As I worked with almost unconscious ease, I contemplated the grid with new interest. One out of every four wires I ran diagnostics on needed replacement, which seemed strange. I reached back into my kit to check the date of this pole’s last maintenance check, and was surprised to discover it was only a couple weeks ago. These wires were burning out at a pretty fast clip.

Of all the wires I was servicing there were very few backups or redundancies—almost every wire served a unique function—and a bunch of them were messed up, which meant that this pole was probably pretty much broken. If I understood the nature of the grid’s defense shield well enough, that meant the entire area around here was vulnerable to attack. Why would that be, if it had just been repaired? I wondered if the control panel had a special glitch that was shorting out wires at a faster rate.

My curiosity stoked, I hurried through my work, eager to get back to Rapp and ask him if he’d seen anything similar in the poles he’d serviced. I wanted to know if this one was a fluke or if there was a bigger problem.

Not that I cared.

“What is it about a man in a dress?”

I had become so absorbed in my work that the unexpected voice sent my heart leaping into my throat. I knew exactly who it was without even looking down.

I looked down anyway.

The electric-white wig had been replaced by a brunette pageboy; she was now wearing a simple red dress with a short flared skirt. The dress, along with the hair, was covered in white, irregular polka dots.

I don’t even know how you get polka dots in your hair. Was that another of Devektra’s Legacies? Honestly, with her, nothing would surprise me.

“Hey,” I said, the word coming out of my throat in an awkward croak.

She looked up at me with a pursed-lip smile, shielding her eyes from the suns. “Never figured you for the Munis apprentice-type.”

“LDA, actually,” I said, determined to hide my embarrassment. “Engineering trainee.” Then, realizing what a dork I sounded like, I added, “I’m just in it for the tunic.”

She let out a lilting, genuine laugh. “You actually don’t look bad in it,” she said. “I just don’t see why you guys wear those dumb pajama pants underneath. What’s the point of wearing a dress unless it’s to show off your legs?”

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever seen my legs,” I said, and then turned back to my work. Today was not the day that I was in the mood to be made fun of by the world’s hottest girl.

To my surprise, though, Devektra didn’t leave. “What exactly are you doing up there anyway?” she asked. “I’ve always wondered what those poles were for.”

“It’s the grid.” I didn’t want to humor her ditzy act. Everyone knew what the grid was. Most of them chose not to care.

“The grid,” she said. “So I guess you’re one of those people who believes in all that stuff?”

“What do you mean by ‘that stuff’?”

“Great Elder Prophecy, threat to Lorien, eternal vigilance, blah blah blah. Aliens are going to land tomorrow and take us all back to their home planet to clean their toilets unless you fix that box up there right this second!”

I thought for a second. No, I wasn’t one of those people. Obviously. Considering that it was basically what I’d been saying to Rapp all week, I was surprised to find myself resisting her interpretation. Instead of laughing along with her, I bit my tongue, replaced the last of the faulty wires and closed the front of the control panel before gearing up to make my descent back to the ground.

Devektra made no motion to leave.

“Don’t you have a show to prepare for?” I asked.

“Nah,” she said, leaning against the entrance and staring at me with a tough, inscrutable smile. “I just came here for a fitting. I’m not playing again ‘til the Quartermoon.”

“Ah,” I said, throwing the kit over my shoulder.

“You should come,” she said.

I looked up, surprised by the offer and wondered if she was pulling my leg. She had been making fun of me this whole time, right?

Her smile widened. It was like she knew the effect she had on me.

Of course she knows, I remembered, kicking myself. She can read my mind.

She winked, turned, and walked away without another word. I just dangled there, hanging dumbly from my dumb pole.

Even if she’d been serious, which I wasn’t so sure about—being a mind reader must have its perks—there was no way I’d ever be able to take her up on the invitation. I wasn’t allowed to leave the LDA campus after dark, for one, and plus, I’d never be able to get into the Chimæra after the debacle of last time.

Of course, Devektra knew all those things. I’d almost let myself believe she was for real.

CHAPTER 7

When I reached the bottom of Eilon’s Hill, I found Rapp locked in serious-looking conversation with a Mentor Cêpan I’d never met before.

“This is Daxin.” Rapp introduced me as I approached. The guy didn’t seem all that interested in meeting me, but I waved a halfhearted greeting anyway. He ignored it.

“I need to commandeer your transport for the rest of the day,” said Daxin. “Something’s come up and I don’t have time to get back to LDA.”

“Sure,” I said, shrugging. “Take it. We’ll just finish our grid maintenance on foot and then walk back after.” I was annoyed by the prospect of the long walk back to the academy, but wasn’t going to let them see it.

“He can’t take the Egg without one of us,” explained Rapp. “We’re the ones programmed on today’s manifest; the ignition won’t start unless one of us is at the wheel.”

Apparently feeling the situation had been sufficiently explained, Daxin made his way to the Egg and hopped into the passenger seat. Rapp seemed to sense my confusion. “I volunteered you to accompany him.”

“Why me and not you?” I wouldn’t admit it to Rapp, but I was bummed. I had actually been starting to enjoy my grid repair work.

“Because we’ve still got five sectors and eight patches to cover, and my completion rate is faster than yours.”

I balked. “No, I did one and you did one—”

Rapp interrupted me. “I’ve done three. I just came back to retrieve the Egg and that’s when I saw Daxin.”

He’d finished three? Had I really been that slow? I was going to have to start actually paying attention in my classes if I didn’t want to look like an idiot.

“This way we may still stand a chance of getting through our list by day’s end.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling strangely disappointed.

“There’ll be other grid maintenance days,” said Rapp.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. Next time I’ll be faster.”

I left him and climbed into the Egg. I’d driven it around the LDA’s campus before, but this was my first time piloting it for real, and I felt a funny surge of excitement. I mean, it’s not the biggest thing to pilot it since it does most of the work on its own, but still. It’s a big flying egg, what’s not fun about that?

The doors closed behind me with a whoosh.

It was only once I took my seat that I became aware of the weird vibe Daxin was giving off. He was urgent and fidgety, and I was pretty sure I saw a line of sweat forming on his brow.

“Where to?” I asked.

“We’re going out west of the Malkan Kabarak,” he said. “You can just tell the Egg to stop there. We’ll cover the rest of the distance on foot.”

I spoke our coordinates into the receiver and the Egg took off, out of the city. It picked up speed once it breeched the city limits.

Unnerved by the way Daxin was drumming his leg and glancing around nervously, I stared straight ahead at the scenery whizzing by without speaking. The dusty plains ringing the city gave way to the increasingly lush vegetation of the rest of Lorien. I’d spent so little time outside the city it was a shock to be reminded how green the vast majority of our planet was.

The slab of violet light kept coming into view over the tops of the trees. “Elders went all out this year,” I said, idly trying to make conversation with Daxin.

He didn’t respond.

“The Herald?” I said, pointing out the window. “Must have taken them at least a month to cook that one up.”

Daxin shifted uneasily in his seat, avoiding my gaze.

“Yeah,” he said.

“What?” I asked. I didn’t like the vibe I was picking up from him. And I’d never even seen him before. But Rapp knew who he was, so I had no reason not to trust the guy.

“Nothing,” he said. “We just don’t know that it is a Herald.”

Mysteriousness and ominousness. Great.

“What are you saying?” I pressed.

“The Elders have been off-planet for a while, and they’ve been out of communication the past few days.”

I couldn’t figure out what he was getting at. “Yeah, but that’s nothing, right? I thought they were off-planet a lot. Don’t they spend a lot of time doing all kinds of Elder stuff that we could never understand?”

“Sure,” he said. But he sounded skeptical. Then something occurred to me.

“Does this have anything to do with why my engineering class was cancelled today?”

Daxin did a double take. I had clearly guessed right.

“Orkun and a few councilmembers made a trip to the column,” he admitted. “To scope it out, investigate. It’s probably nothing.”

“Why are you so concerned? If the light isn’t a Herald, what do you think it is?”

“Look, don’t worry about it, all right? I’ve just had a long day.”

I sunk back into my seat, slightly annoyed. Just days ago I hadn’t cared one way or another about the backstage goings-on among the council, the Mentor Cêpans and the other figures of the LDA, but now that I was actually showing some curiosity I was being told to mind my own business. It was frustrating.

The Egg cleared a few particularly dense acres of forest and came to a stop at the edge of the Malkan Kabarak. Daxin jumped out and immediately turned away from the perimeter fence, heading away from the settlement.

I jogged to keep up.

“Why are we walking? Why didn’t we just enter the coordinates in the first place, if you knew where we were going?”

Daxin answered without slowing down. “I’m here to meet a Garde. My Garde.”

Ah. If Daxin had only recently been promoted to a Mentor Cêpan, then maybe his testiness could be written off as mere nerves. A Mentor Cêpan’s first meeting with his Garde is a pretty big deal. The bond between a Mentor Cêpan and his Garde mentee is considered almost sacred—almost as strong as the bond between a parent and child. And it lasted for life, even after the Garde was grown up and no longer under the Cêpan’s direct tutelage. I could see how meeting someone you’re going to have that kind of relationship with could freak a person out.

Daxin kept talking as we made our way up the path. “Garde’s raised by his grandfather, and the grandfather lives this far out of the city for a reason. Hates technology, speedcraft. You know, still likes to do things the old way. I didn’t want to surprise him with the sound of the engine.”

Gradually, a small hut came into view up ahead, followed by a quickly approaching shape. It was racing right at us.

A Chimæra.

Before I knew what was happening, the Chimæra leapt off the ground and right into me, knocking me off my feet and onto my back.

The Chimæra had taken the form of some kind of grinning, oversized canine. Out came its huge dog tongue, scratchily enveloping my entire face. Within seconds, I was drenched.

Chimæra are pretty common on most of Lorien, but they mostly keep away from the city. I hadn’t been licked by one of the creatures since I was little, and I hadn’t enjoyed it even then.

“Byscoe! Byscoe! Down!” The animal immediately responded to the sound of its owner’s voice and obediently jumped off of me, then scooted down the road toward where the voice was coming from.

Daxin gave me a wry look as I stood and dusted myself off. A moment later, Byscoe had returned to us with his master, a grinning little boy dressed in a Garde’s distinctively fitted suit.

The boy’s skin and hair were messy, caked in red dust, the whites of his eyes and teeth blazing through the dirty mask of his face. He grabbed a tuft of Byscoe’s shag and swung himself up on top of the Chimæra with no fear at all. Lots of people out in the country were like this with the animals; they’d been raised with them. I still thought it was weird. Even when they took on cute, cuddly forms, it was hard to forget exactly how powerful they really were.

“Hi,” the kid said.

“Hi,” Daxin said awkwardly. I could tell he was unsure of what he was supposed to do next.

Just then, a burly man emerged from the hut down the road and walked towards us, in no hurry. Not quite as dirt-caked as the boy, he was roughly dressed in only loose canvas pants and a few strands of ceremonial necklaces. His skin was weathered, whipped dry and cracked by the outer winds.

“Hello,” he called out to us from a few paces away. “Is there something I can do for you?”

Daxin spoke. “Yes. We are from the Lorien Defense Council. I’ve been selected as your grandson’s Mentor.”

The man cocked his head. “A bit early. Boy’s got a few years left before LDA stewardship.”

“Grandpa?” asked the boy, still astride his Chimæra. His grandfather kept his eyes on Daxin, ignoring the boy.

Daxin seemed nervous, fumbling for something within the folds of his tunic.

“We need nothing from you at the present moment except your consent to give this to your boy.” He pulled out bracelet from within his tunic, pretty much the same as the government ID band I’d hacked a few weeks ago, but bigger. “A new security protocol, nothing more.”

I had no idea what he was talking about—the protocols for Garde and their Mentors weren’t something I’d studied at all—but I figured the LDC was doing some kind of tracking of young Garde.

The boy’s grandfather seemed reluctant, but the kid charged forward on Byscoe and snatched the band right from Daxin’s hand. He whooped triumphantly from the top of his Chimæra and slid the band up his wrist all the way to his elbow, then raced off down the road, kicking up a cloud of red dust in his wake.

“He’s a spirited child,” the boy’s grandfather said. There was something a little sad about the way he said it, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“He needs to keep the band on at all times.” Daxin seemed anxious about this point. I could read his worry. It was one thing for the boy to wear the band for fun, as part of a game, another thing altogether to ensure that he continue to wear it. Daxin needed the grandfather behind this. “It’s imperative.”

“I understand,” the man said. But it sort of sounded like he didn’t.

A few minutes later, we were back in the Egg, back in our seats. I waited for Daxin to give me our next set of coordinates. This whole day had been way too long already, not to mention way too weird. I found myself actually wanting to go back to the academy.

But for the moment, Daxin was quiet.

“Well?” I asked, finally. “Are we going home or what?”

Before he could answer, Daxin’s module beeped, and he looked down to read what it said. He grimaced and turned to me.

“Do me a favor,” he said, holding his wrist out. “Last step. I need to sync my band to the one we just gave the kid.”

I took Daxin’s wrist in his hand and looked down at the brass band encircling it. Most ID bands were just that—plain bands with all the circuitry inside, so they looked almost like regular jewelry. Daxin’s was different. It had a small digital interface and a couple of buttons on it. “Just hold the black button down while I start the sync.” As I held the button down, he started entering commands on his communication module, which were presumably being relayed to the ID band.

“Pretty unwieldy,” I said.

“Seriously,” said Daxin, still typing into his tab. “Since I got this upgraded ID band and locator I’ve had to take it off every night. It’s too big and heavy to sleep in.”

I stared down at the band on Daxin’s wrist, looking at it in a new light. It was no longer just an ID, or a locator.

It was a key.

That night I lay on my bunk before dinner, processing the events of the day. There was no denying that the place was starting to get under my skin. A month ago I wouldn’t have cared that the grid was in sorry shape. A month ago, I barely knew what the grid was, for that matter.

But this morning, when Devektra had come along and had called me one of “those people,” I hadn’t corrected her. I’d actually felt almost insulted. I guess this place was rubbing off on me.

I can’t say I liked it. I was supposed to be the kind of guy who did my own thing and had my own opinions. I wasn’t a joiner. Things weren’t supposed to just rub off on me.

“Good work today,” Rapp said, popping by the room to grab a couple of books from his desk just before dinner.

“I was slow,” I said. “Next time I’ll do better.”

Rapp shook his head like he couldn’t believe me. “Oh, whatever,” he said. “You act like you don’t care, and then you go and get all competitive. How’d things go with Daxin?”

“Fine,” I said. A part of me wanted to unload on Rapp, to talk about how weird the afternoon had been, but something made me hold back. “How was the rest of your grid maintenance?”

“One out of every three patches I serviced was broken. I’ve never seen it so bad before.”

I perked up at this. He had noticed the conspicuous failure rate too.

“You going to do anything about it?” I asked, trying to sound more neutral than I felt.

“Like what? I put it in my work report. The academy knows, the council knows. It’s the rest of the planet that’s determined to do nothing. The Kabarakians don’t see the value in a defense system that only covers the city and leaves them exposed. And half the city thinks we’re all just doing this to amuse ourselves. I seem to remember that you’re one of those people. Right?”

I brushed him off. “If we’re going to do it, we might as well do it right. Right? Otherwise the whole thing really is a waste.”

Rapp left the room for dinner but I stayed behind, thinking about the Quartermoon concert at the Chimæra, and about Daxin’s ID band on his bedside, poised and ripe for the taking.

I thought about Devektra. And I knew what I needed to get my head straight. A party.

CHAPTER 8

As Quartermoon drew closer, I was almost starting to enjoy myself at the academy. It still wouldn’t have been my first choice of a home, but at least I was settling in. Once I’d stopped playing stupid in my engineering classes, they were actually sort of fun. And although I wasn’t quite sure when it had happened, I was realizing that Rapp and I were something like friends.

I still hated the tunics, and I still hated how seriously everyone took themselves around here. But I understood it now. You’ve got to believe in something.

I still felt sort of trapped, but it didn’t feel quite as much like forever. That’s because I finally had something to look forward to: Devektra’s concert at the Chimæra. I was going to ditch my butt-ugly tunic, sneak off campus and sneak into the club.

Yes, I knew that if I got caught, none of my technical skills and no amount of groveling would save me from a fate worse than the Kabarak. I also knew that Devektra hadn’t really even invited me in the first place.

Neither of those things mattered. First off, I wasn’t going to get caught. Second, it didn’t matter whether Devektra had been totally sincere. She had invited me knowing there would be no way for me to actually go. I figured if I pulled off the impossible, she’d have to be impressed.

It was a big task, but I was up to it. Planning it had been my main source of entertainment ever since I’d come back from the trip with Daxin. It had even gotten my mind off the nagging worry that I was missing something around here—that something wasn’t quite right.

The first thing I’d done was to to scope out the nighttime security situation at the academy. That wasn’t so hard, because it turned out there basically wasn’t any. Students weren’t allowed to leave the grounds after dark, but all the other students here were so boring and committed that no one bothered actually enforcing it.

There were no security guards, no cameras, no sensors, no nothing. They didn’t exactly advertise it, but it was honor system all the way.

The more complicated part of my plan would be Daxin. I’d done a little spying on him, and had discovered that he had a single-occupancy bedroom down the hall from me, and a habit of going to bed early. I’d briefly worried that Daxin, as an active Mentor Cêpan, might have the privilege of a lock on his dorm room. But on the last night before Quartermoon, I snuck out of my room at midnight, crept down the hall, and quietly tried turning the knob. It opened without any resistance at all.

After listening carefully for the sound of his snoring, I crept into the room and approached Daxin’s bed. There it was: his ID band was lying right there next to his pillow, and he was curled up next to it, sawing logs, oblivious to my presence. This was going to be too easy. The following night, I would sneak in, snatch the ID band, commandeer the Egg from the transport hangar—I had already covertly preset the time and coordinates for my departure—and make my way to the Chimæra for Devektra’s performance. Then I’d sneak back, return the Egg to transport, return Daxin’s ID band to his pillow, and no one would be any the wiser for my absence. Sneaking around, conniving, scheming: it would be just like the good old days.

The Saturday of Quartermoon was my best day yet, a half day of classes followed by a quick workout in the gym and an early dinner in the commissary. A professor had authorized a screening during mealtime of an intercepted satellite transmission of a visual entertainment from the planet Earth.

It might have been an overall pretty crappy place to live, but they sure knew how to do their visual entertainment right. Although the transmission was video only, I had seen my share of Earth intercepts and had no problem following the story.

It wasn’t really that complicated. At all. A well-dressed man traveled the world, hung out with beautiful women, snuck around to retrieve valuable objects, chased and got chased by bad guys.

While watching the movie I thought, I want to be like him one day.

But then, taking another bite of my dessert and smiling up at the screen, I realized that I already was.

The Egg handled like a dream.

Despite its silly name, it was a sleek and sexy machine, especially from behind the steering wheel—not that different from the transports in the Earth movie I’d watched earlier that day. I had preprogrammed the journey so it would start at my command, but once I’d snuck into transport and slipped inside the vehicle, it occurred to me that would create a potentially incriminating log of my route, so once I’d started the engine, I deleted the preprogrammed route and began my trip to the capital manually. Whizzing out of the hangar and through the Alwon Kabarak, I felt grateful for that decision: driving the Egg was a lot more fun than sitting back and letting the car do all the work.

While the LDA campus was quiet and sleepy at that hour—just like at any other hour, really—the Kabarak was in full swing for the Quartermoon festivities as I passed over it. The Chimæra had been let out of their pens and were frolicking freely while the Kabarakians ringed around campfires in the dark, laughing and dancing and shooting off fireworks and waving sparklers. I knew that behind me, from Alwon to Tarakas, from deloon to the outer Territories, people would be celebrating until dawn.

But the sights and sounds of revelry diminished as I crossed the border into the city, where the Quartermoon holiday was observed with less enthusiasm.

One hand on the wheel, I removed my tunic and threw it on the passenger seat revealing the contraband Kalvaka T-shirt I was wearing underneath. I was still wearing what Devektra had called my pajama pants, but they really weren’t so bad without the tunic. Around my wrist, the bulk of Daxin’s ID band made a striking counterpoint to the rest of my ensemble.

All in all, I looked pretty good. Not that it even mattered that much how I looked. What mattered was that I’d gotten out.

My escape had gone so smoothly that I almost felt guilty. I’d made such quick fools of everyone at the LDA, none of whom had any reason to suspect that my changed attitude was due in large part to the planning and execution of this grand deception. But before I could succumb to guilt or regret, I was distracted by the Spires of Elkin on the horizon, which were lit up in pink by the mysterious column of light behind them. This time, I didn’t pay them any attention. I was almost there.

At the Chimæra, the ID band worked like a charm. No one even looked at me sideways as I glided in. I was almost offended. Had they forgotten me so quickly?

Maybe they just didn’t recognize me anymore. I felt more confident than ever, like a totally different person from the one who, at the first sign of trouble, had gone pushing through the crowd like a frightened little kid just a few weeks ago. It had hardly been any time at all, but I felt like I’d grown up so much since then.

The club was packed tonight, almost twice as busy as the last time I’d been here, which was saying something. Devektra’s appearance weeks ago had been a surprise, but this Quartermoon performance was well publicized, and it had attracted an even wider audience. I spotted homemade Devektra T-shirts on every fifth patron. The Chimæra was the largest club on Lorien by far, and she had filled it to capacity. I felt a surge of pride. I’d known that Devektra was a big deal and all, but I hadn’t known how big of a deal she was until now. And I knew her. You could almost even say we were friends.

“Well, well, well.” I turned to see Paxton and Teev, holding up half-finished ampules and staring at me with amused grins on their faces.

“Look who doesn’t give up,” Teev said, draping her arm around me in greeting. “After we saw you get busted last time, we figured we’d seen the last of you.”

I just shrugged and smiled my cagiest smile, and they looked at me, for the first time, as if they were actually sort of impressed.

I was just about to pat myself on the back for it when I heard a voice I recognized.

“Someone told me you might have found your way in here somehow.”

I turned around to see Mirkl, Devektra’s perpetually annoyed right-hand man, standing behind me with an ampule in each hand. He looked me up and down with predictably annoyed eyes.

“Hey, Mirkl,” I said, in the most casual tone I could muster. My heart was thumping in my chest, knowing that if Mirkl was talking to me I was one step closer to seeing Devektra again, but I played it cool for the benefit of Teev and Paxton. I wanted them to think it was no biggie for me to be on a first-name basis with a member of the headlining performer’s entourage. I snuck a glance in their direction, and saw that they were looking at me with stunned eyes. Mission accomplished.

“Devektra wants to see you,” he said.

As well as things had been going tonight, I still hadn’t expected it to be this easy. How had Devektra even known I was here?

Mirkl must have seen the surprise on my face. “Telepathy, remember? Neat little trick to have. I think you know where the dressing room is. Here—bring her these.” He pushed the ampules into my hands and began to walk away.

“You’re not coming in?” I asked after him, suddenly nervous about waltzing into Devektra’s dressing room unaccompanied. It seemed too good to be true. With Devektra you never knew what you were getting into.

He turned, looked over his shoulder and waved me off. “I’m on a break. Those ampules were my last errand for her until showtime.” He smiled wryly. “She’s all yours.” Then he disappeared into the crowd.

Devektra faced her reflection in the vanity mirror, her back to the door. She was wearing slim-fitting red metallic pants and a shimmering top made out of a liquid-like material that I’d never seen before. Her shirt flowed around the curves of her body in undulating cascades as she stood tall, stared straight ahead and gently massaged her temples with her fingers. She didn’t acknowledge me.

But she knew I was here—last time I’d been in this room, I’d had to bust through the entrance with all the strength I could muster. This time I hadn’t even had to knock. The door had just swung open for me as I’d approached it, clutching the ampules Mirkl had given me to deliver. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe Devektra had used her telekinesis to “help” me get through the locked door last time too.

It was ironic that I’d been more comfortable making my entrance breaking down a door and crashing through an entire rack of clothes than I was just walking right in. I just stood there, feeling a few steps beyond awkward as Devektra gazed at herself in the mirror and rubbed her forehead.

“Did you bring them?” she asked without turning.

“Yeah,” I said. I walked over and handed her an ampule. She took it, downed it in one gulp, then reached out for the second and downed that too. She still hadn’t bothered to look at me.

When she tossed the second spent vial aside and onto the floor, I understood what her deal was. I had to hold back a laugh. For once, I was the one who knew what she was thinking instead of the other way around. Or, at least, I knew what she was feeling. You didn’t need to be a telepath to figure it out.

“Wow. You’re actually nervous,” I said.

“So?” She finally turned her attention from the mirror and locked her gaze on mine. Her eyes were hard, but underneath the steel, I saw a hint of fear. Of vulnerability. “Who wouldn’t be?”

“You weren’t nervous last time,” I pointed out. “I didn’t know you got nervous. I kind of thought that was, like, your whole thing.”

“Last time was different.”

“Why?”

“It just was,” she said. “It was a smaller crowd. It wasn’t Quartermoon. It was just different. Plus, there’s just something about tonight. I don’t know. I sort of have a bad feeling I guess.”

“It’s just nerves,” I said.

“I know. I’ll be fine.”

Then it was like I wasn’t there anymore. Devektra’s attention was back on herself as she ran her fingers through her hair and gingerly began to pile it, one tendril at a time, on top of her head. Each carefully arranged lock somehow managed to stay perfectly in place. She looked more frightened than ever.

I didn’t know what to say, so I decided to try something else. I decided not to talk. Out loud, at least.

How does it work? I thought. Can you hear everything I think? What about the people outside? Can you hear them? What about the whole world? Can you hear them all?

Devektra’s lips didn’t move, but she answered me anyway, in a voice I heard inside my head that was both hers and not hers.

“It’s like standing waist-deep in a rushing river and trying to catch a million tiny floating leaves as they race past you. Some of them you catch. Most of them you don’t.”

You invited me here tonight, and summoned me back here. But why me? I wanted to know. Who am I to you? You’re Devektra. I’m a nobody in a green tunic.

“No. You’re like me. You’re different. Neither of us fit in on this world. I knew it as soon as I met you. Before I met you, I knew.

“I sensed you out there in the crowd that first night. All those people and their thoughts all zooming past me. Except yours. Yours just bubbled up, and I could reach down and pull up each one, like every fear and hope you had was meant for me. It sounded like you were singing.”

But what about tonight? I had to know. Why am I here now?

“I knew you would make me feel less alone. Especially tonight. I can feel that something terrible is about to happen.”

I looked over. Devektra was staring at my reflection in the mirror. She had the strangest look on her face, both peaceful and surprised. Something told me that she’d never done this before, had never used her Legacy to speak to someone wordlessly like this.

I knew then, without understanding why, that this might be the only chance I ever got. So I leaned over, closed my eyes and kissed her. Her lips were soft and she smelled like something I recognized but couldn’t describe, even to myself. Her lips tasted like something I’d tasted in a dream, one of those dreams you forget as soon as you wake up. When I opened my eyes she was gone.

CHAPTER 9

“Deloon this time of year is miserable,” said the guy. “You couldn’t pay me all the money in the world.”

“No argument there, bro,” I said, even though I’d never been to Deloon. I truly didn’t want to argue.

I was on the balcony above the stage waiting with Mirkl and the rest of the entourage for Devektra’s performance to start. She was behind schedule, but most of the people on the balcony were pretty buzzed and no one seemed impatient, least of all me.

Instead, I just felt strange. I was lightheaded and euphoric. I didn’t know where Devektra had gone after she’d left me, but, even after her warning—something terrible is about to happen—I wasn’t worried about her. My brain was still buzzing, turning loops and cartwheels on itself.

Our kiss had been incredible. But it was the telepathic rapport that we’d shared that I was still reeling from. Speaking only with our minds, we’d managed to communicate on a level more pure—more real—than anything I’d ever experienced. No kiss could ever compare to that.

The lights finally came down on the club, and as they did, a spotlight, positioned stage center, took shape, a blindingly white oval. Every single person in the place gazed into the brightness, our breaths all held together, in anticipation of what was coming next.

Then came a sound, a thin, heartbreakingly fragile warble. It seemed to be coming from inside that small pool of light. As the warble grew in volume and intensity—never losing any of its beautiful fragility—the disc of the spotlight began to bend and twist, as if willing itself to break.

Where was Devektra? It sounded like she was somewhere inside that orb of light.

The light kept rising off the stage floor, and the voice contained inside it rose in pitch. It stopped, hovering in the exact center of the club, only yards away from where I stood at the edge of the mezzanine. It was so bright it hurt to look at, but I couldn’t pull away.

The volume and pitch rose and rose. Some members of the crowd plugged their ears from Devektra’s sonic drill. But still no one dared to look away from the ball of light.

Then it exploded.

Suddenly light was everywhere. There wasn’t a single shadow left anywhere in the usually shadowy club. People spun around, dazed, staring at their fellow concertgoers with new eyes. Every pore on every face was exposed, illuminated. The sound of Devektra’s voice had shattered too, into tiny cascading tinkles, equal in volume at any point with the club’s space.

“There she is,” said a voice in the crowd.

Devektra stood above the crowd. Her crowd. Not on the stage but on top of the bar near the entrance. The tinkling sounds evaporated from the air like smoke.

She had been throwing her voice—and shaping it into that orb of light—the entire time. All the while, no one had noticed she’d been somewhere else.

It was amazing. And she was only getting started.

Devektra stepped forward off the bar and walked through the crowd towards the stage. Under normal circumstances, people would have been clamoring and elbowing each other, rushing forward to get closer to the performer. But they stepped back to let her through, still in awe of what they’d just seen.

She began to sing. No microphone, no amplification, no Legacy-assisted manipulation. She just sang. No one in the audience made a sound. Her voice came through as clear as a bell.

This wasn’t one of her usual dance numbers. It was a simple song, and a sad one. I barely understood the words, but I knew that it was a song of love and loss. She stepped onto the stage without missing a beat, and then turned back to her audience, her eyes sparkling with tears.

I was rapt. I wondered what she was singing about. I couldn’t help wondering if she was singing about me.

I didn’t have to wonder, really. I knew. It was about me but it wasn’t. She was singing for me. The sadness at the heart of this song was bigger than any one or any two Loric: it was as big as the planet itself. It was a song for Lorien.

As entranced as I was, I jumped when I felt something vibrating at my wrist. I looked down in surprise, forgetting that I still wore Daxin’s ID band. It was rattling, buzzing urgently. I silenced it and turned back to the stage.

Devektra was still singing, her eyes closed.

The band vibrated again.

I pulled the ID band off to inspect it, to figure out why it was rattling so insistently. As I held it in both hands, the vibrating band tickling the bones of my fingers, I inspected the digital interface. The small rectangular screen was blinking, as was the single word, “Alert.”

Panic began to rise in my chest. Maybe Daxin had woken up, seen his missing ID band and triggered some kind of alarm. Maybe I’d been caught.

No. I knew somehow that the alert signaled something far worse than that. I thought of the control panel outside the club just weeks before, about the sorry state of the grid. I thought of Daxin in the Egg, behaving as if something was seriously wrong. I thought of the unexplained column of light. And I thought of the Elder Prophecy I’d been ignoring my whole life.

One day, a great threat will come . . .

And I thought of Devektra: “Something terrible is about to happen.” My knees went weak. I looked up to hear her finishing her beautiful song.

Devektra closed her mouth. The song ended. The crowd held its applause, fearful of breaking the spell.

And then the roof came down.

CHAPTER 10

Returning to consciousness, I took inventory.

Blackness.

Silence.

And—there it was—pain.

I forced myself up through the blackness, clutching blindly forward with my hands. I felt smashed stone, the wetness of my own blood in my palms, the acrid tang of smoke against my still sightless eyes.

Sound returned faster than vision. It was a ringing in my ears, the exact opposite of the hypnotic, unfettered emotion of Devektra’s music. This was concussive, earsplitting.

In agony, I clutched my head to force it out but the pain kept rising.

The club had been bombed.

Then more sound emerged through the tinnitus-like buzz.

Moaning. Screaming. Crying.

I turned my head left and right, trying to find a source of light, anything to help me figure out what had just happened.

That’s when I saw the fire, rising up the entrance wall, small but getting bigger.

It wasn’t until I tried to stand that I realized I was on the ground floor of the club, not on the mezzanine. I turned around and saw that the entire balcony had been knocked from its struts, smashed like a dropped dinner plate on the floor of the club.

No, I thought. No.

Not just on the floor of the club. On top of a mass of crushed concertgoers. They were already dead.

The stage was intact, as was the other half of the dance floor that hadn’t gotten buried by the collapsing mezzanine. But the people there hadn’t been spared. The sheer force of the blast, in combination with the shrapnel from the shattered roof, had killed most of the audience members who hadn’t been crushed. Bodies littered the floor, while bloody and dazed survivors struggled to their feet from out of the sea of corpses.

My leg was stuck, wedged between two crushed stones. I feared it was broken, or worse. But I needed to get up.

Devektra, I thought. I needed to know she was okay.

I strained against the rubble, but it wouldn’t give. I looked around for something I could use to pull myself out.

That’s when I saw the guy I’d been talking to only minutes ago, the one who didn’t like Deloon this time of year. He was flat on the ground, the balcony a broken jigsaw beneath him. His eyes were wide open, his body eerily intact except for his jaw, which had been sheered clean off by shrapnel.

I turned away from the grisly sight, and felt a hand on my shoulder. Mirkl stood above me, a shocked look on his face and caked in dust but apparently unharmed by the explosion.

“Help?” he said.

In my confusion I froze, unable to decide if he was asking for help or offering it.

Mirkl didn’t wait for me to figure it out. He crouched down by my side and looked around, determining which rock to lift in order to free me. His slender arms looked weak, but when they found the chunk of rubble that trapped my leg, he pulled it away like it was nothing at all.

I stared down at my knee. It was bloody and bruised, but not broken. I was going to be okay.

Without knowing where I found the strength to do it, I stood up, first on my strong leg and then on my tingly weak one, wobbling on the uneven rubble beneath me. I turned to thank Mirkl. He had already disappeared into the mass of wailing, screaming and silent shell-shocked survivors.

I looked towards the entrance. There was no entrance anymore. The doors and entire front wall of the club were now nothing more than an orange, raging inferno. My forehead prickled with sweat.

The fire exit. It was the only way out. Or, it would have been. The fire exit had only been accessible from the balcony.

I felt all hope slip out of me like a vapor.

Then I saw a few survivors crowding at the base of the wall below the escape. Despite the balcony’s collapse, the struts, a few chunks of concrete and some girders remained at the base of the exit. It was enough. Barely. The survivors were hurriedly scrambling against the wall, grabbing on to whatever handholds they could manage and hoisting themselves out of the burning club.

I was torn. I knew I had to run, to save myself, and still I couldn’t. I wanted to find Devektra.

I was still trying to make a choice when I saw her shiny red pants sliding up the wall and out of the exit. After all that, she hadn’t thought twice about taking her first chance to safety. Had it even occurred to her to look for me?

There was nothing keeping me here now. I ran to the crowd at the base of the wall. I tried to resist casting one glance back at the smoky, bloody, ruined club. Don’t look back.

But I looked back and my eyes went straight to him.

It was Paxton. He was alive but he was just crouched on the ground in despair, rocking back and forth.

I knew I was being an idiot, but I didn’t care: without thinking twice, I gave up my place at the back of the line and rushed over to help him. As I got closer, I understood why he had given up. At his feet, crushed by concrete, was Teev.

I grabbed his hand and tried urging him on towards the exit, but he wouldn’t budge.

His eyes met mine. “She’s stuck,” he said. “Teev. We have to get her out.”

I didn’t need to look down to know that Teev was dead. Paxton didn’t get it, though.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But there’s no time. We have to go now.”

Slowly, he began to move away from the corpse of the girl I’d once had a crush on, the girl he had loved. I pushed him forward over the balcony’s rubble, trying not to imagine all the Loric bodies mangled and bloody beneath the stone.

We were the last two up the wall. As I pushed Paxton up and out of the exit, I spotted Daxin’s band poking out of the rubble a few yards away. I must’ve dropped it when the roof caved in and the balcony collapsed. The smoke was overwhelming, and the flames had nearly reached the exit but I took one last risk anyway.

I lunged for it.

I put the band back on my wrist, leapt up the wall, and crawled out into the night.

On the street, a bloody woman in tattered clothes milled among the survivors. “Devektra tried to kill us!” she screamed. “Devektra did it!”

She was clearly hysterical, and most of the people gathered around her were far too shocked by the explosion to pay her much heed. But a few people seemed to be nodding in agreement.

The shock was only just now hitting me. There was something about the stillness—the ordinariness—of the street outside the club that truly made me understand the horror of what I’d just escaped.

The band was vibrating on my wrist again. ALERT ALERT ALERT.

Devektra was nowhere to be seen among the survivors. She hadn’t hesitated for a second, or stopped to help anyone. She’d gotten her sparkly red ass out of there.

Still, despite the screaming woman and the hushed murmurs of the crowd, I knew Devektra hadn’t been the cause of the explosion. She had even tried to warn me about it, sort of. In her own way, she had tried to warn us all. With that song. She just hadn’t known she was doing it, I don’t think.

It hadn’t been her. They were right all along, I thought.

Everything I had learned at the LDA. The grid. The Prophecy. Our sacred duty to safeguard our perfect planet. It had all turned out to be true. There was some force willing and able to bring our entire planet down after all. This was the first strike.

A Munis vehicle had double-parked outside the club and its driver was rushing to attend the victims. I climbed up the side of the truck to get a better view of the city.

It was as I’d feared.

Everywhere I looked on the horizon I could make out the sight of yet another destroyed landmark. The North Arena. My former school. They were all burning.

I turned around. There was no smoke, but the Spires of Elkin, the largest structures on Lorien and home to almost a third of the city’s population, were gone too, leaving a soul-shattering void in the skyline. With no obstruction, I stared up at the column of violet light pulsing malevolently on the horizon.

That was no “Herald.”

In a burst of understanding, I saw it all clearly. If only I hadn’t been so convinced that everyone at the LDA was a self-important fool, I would’ve seen it so much sooner. It was obvious now: the column of light was responsible for the grid’s burnout. Whoever had just attacked us must have known about the weaknesses in the grid, and sent that light down to screw with our only mechanical form of defense. It had been draining our defenses this whole time.

I clutched my head, my heart thumping in my chest. The attackers had sent missiles through the holes in the grid, targeting high-density structures like the Chimæra and the spires. I had just replaced the wiring in this sector days ago, but the security patches were interdependent and I knew there were outages all over the city. We’d been unprotected.

It was as clear a night as I’d seen in a while. There were no clouds at all. Just smoke, flame, and the brilliant blue light of the Quartermoon.

I couldn’t take any more. I jumped down from the Munis vehicle and raced to the Egg, which I found still parked exactly where I’d left it. Amazingly, it was all in one piece.

I had to get back to the academy—or whatever was left of it. I had to explain my theory to whoever would listen. Surely the council and the academy faculty had been apprised of the attacks on the city, and Daxin would be awake, wondering where his ID Band was.

As I opened the door to the Egg, I heard a voice.

“Sandor.”

I turned around. Devektra and Mirkl stood in the shadows. I had never seen Devektra look so lost before, not even during her little panic attack before the show. All the anger and betrayal I’d felt toward her just minutes ago disappeared as soon as we collapsed into each other’s arms.

After just a moment she pushed me away and shook her head sadly.

“I just came to say good-bye. I know we won’t see each other again. Whatever this thing is, Sandor, it’s bad. It’s the thing they warned us about. I’m going to find some of my Garde friends and we’re going to do whatever we can to stop it.”

Mirkl had been standing there the whole time but he was staring straight ahead with a dead look in his eyes. Whatever fight he’d had in him looked like it was long gone now.

“Let me come with you,” I said. “I can help.”

Devektra shook her head. “No. We have to do it on our own.” She looked at the band on my wrist. “There are people who need you more than I do right now.”

She was right, but I wasn’t ready. Not yet. Tears were streaming down my face. I tried to fight them back. There was no time for crying.

“Why did you leave me in there?” I knew the answer. It didn’t matter. I had to ask anyway.

Devektra put a finger to my lips, as if to say listen carefully.

“I left because I was scared, Sandor,” she said. At least, I think she said it. “We were never perfect. There’s no such thing as perfect. But it’s not too late for us. We can still be good.”

CHAPTER 11

I programmed the Egg to return me to the LDA on autopilot. In the driver’s seat, I folded my arms across my chest and stared straight ahead. I didn’t want to see the devastation as I passed my charred school, or any of the other now ruined landmarks of my home city.

But even with this cultivated tunnel vision, I couldn’t help noticing the smoke coming from the Elder Gardens.

Hundreds must be dead, I thought.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to get back to the LDA, to do something.

I opened my eyes as the Egg passed through Alwon. Chimæra still frolicked by the light of the campfire, and the Kabarakians clustered together in merriment. They were unaware of the destruction to their west. It wouldn’t be long before they found out.

The first thing I had to do was make sure academy officials and councilmembers were even aware of the attack on the city. I was pretty sure they were, but even so, it was still possible I had firsthand information that would be important somehow. I would confess to having snuck out and brief them on my experience of the attack. I’d share my theory that the column was some kind of attack intended to disarm the grid in advance of the wave of missile attacks that had decimated our city.

Once that was accomplished, I would locate Daxin, apologize for taking his ID band, and return it to him.

Then there was Rapp. I had to make sure he was okay.

I smelled it before I saw it. A coppery, dusty tang in the air, somehow strong enough to reach me even through the Egg’s high-grade air filters.

The first thing I actually saw was an absence: the LDA building, the hangar, and the council chamber behind it were all usually bathed in security lights. But as the Egg approached the academy’s coordinates, I saw nothing but blackness.

The academy had been hit.

The Egg whirred to a halt in the darkness. JOURNEY COMPLETE, read the dashboard monitor. Dazed, I stepped out into the eerie blackness of the night.

As my eyes adjusted, I began to make out tiny shards of light on the ground.

It was all gone. Razed. The entire structure had been pummeled into the ground by a weapon the likes of which I had never even imagined. The entire campus had been crushed and melted simultaneously. The green-tinged shards of light I was looking at were the smoldering edges of this black, toxic pancake on Lorien’s surface.

Hundreds more, I thought, stumbling back and forth over the black crust, looking for some unruined piece of the campus and finding none. My professors. The tech students. The Mentor Cêpan trainees and the resident Mentor Cêpans. All those Garde children.

Orkun. Daxin.

Rapp.

I fell to my knees on the crust. It was warm, ash black, but surprisingly soft. This time, I allowed myself to cry.

How could I let this happen? I thought.

The fumes rising from the crust—probably chemicals from the bomb mixed with whatever debris the academy’s destruction had unleashed—burned my throat and my eyes. I didn’t budge.

Let them kill me, I thought.

I had no plan, no home to return to.

I could go to my parents. Deloon, a minor city on the other end of the planet, was probably safe. But for how long? And even if it remained untouched, the thought of programming the Egg to take me there, of spending the rest of my life with my parents in their two-bedroom chalet in bourgeois seclusion made me ill. The only things I had ever cared about were gone. The worst part was that I’d never even really known I’d cared.

With my head pressed against my knees, still fuzzy and throbbing from the rising vapors, my ears suddenly pricked. I heard something approaching. A vehicle.

The attackers, I thought. The ground invasion has begun.

I had no weapons, no means of defense. The attackers, whoever they were, were probably coming to make sure they’d left no survivors at their target. When they found me, they would kill me.

This had been my home—not just the school, but the whole planet. I had been too busy wanting it to be something it wasn’t that I had never realized all the ways in which it was mine.

Maybe there was nothing I could do. I was just one Cêpan with a busted leg, with no Legacies and not even a weapon. I stood up anyway, turned around to face whoever it was head-on and prepared to fight.

The footsteps approaching me were heavy and purposeful, and as they got louder, the melody from Devektra’s final song came back to me. I began to hum. But before I could see my enemy, I had collapsed.

CHAPTER 12

I felt myself lifted from the ground, and carried to a vehicle. I was thrown inside and landed with a thump on my back. I heard the sound of the door buzzing shut, and felt the transport lurch as it speedily resumed its course on autopilot, throwing me hard against the back.

The lights came on and the world around me began to blur back into focus. I tried to make out the shape of my captor.

Brandon stared back at me.

“You?” I said, shocked not to see some hideous alien face. Stunned to see Brandon alive.

Brandon fell to his knees.

“No,” he said. “It’s not possible.” He looked as bereft and lost as I felt. Then he lunged at me, yanking my wrist forward. He inspected the ID band in disbelief, then grabbed my shoulders and started shaking me so hard I thought I might throw up.

“How did you get this?! How did you get this?!”

I tried to answer but he wouldn’t let me. He just kept shaking me. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I finally tipped over and retched all over the corrugated steel of the vehicle’s floor.

Brandon crawled back, away from my heaving. But by the time it had stopped, he was looking at me apologetically. “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said. “I don’t think it was you anyway. The fumes from the explosion made me sick. Made me pass out, I guess.”

I moved to the other side of the still-moving vehicle, sat down, and explained how I’d come to be here. I told him how I’d stolen Daxin’s ID band to get into the Chimæra, and how I’d raced back to campus only to find the place a tarry smear on the ground.

Finished, I looked up at Brandon sheepishly. He was quiet for a minute, his expression impossible to read.

Finally, he spoke. “I never would have come back to the LDA if I’d known it was just you. It was a pointless risk.”

Ouch.

“I came for Daxin. I just wasted hours, exposed in the city, trying to locate Daxin, and all I find is you?”

I felt my insides twist with shame.

“He might’ve gotten out. If he’d had his ID band, he might’ve lived,” said Brandon, his anger rising. “When the first Mogadorian missile hit the grid, a warning was sent to us, the academy’s nine Mentor Cêpans. We were to immediately evacuate whatever structure we were in, to make our way to our assigned Garde using their locator bands, retrieve them and bring them back to the secret base. Eight of us succeeded, but Daxin must’ve slept right through the attack.”

The evacuation plan Daxin had cryptically alluded to. I’d assumed it was just Lorien defense paranoia, but he’d known this was coming.

“I’m sorry,” I croaked. The words sounded so pitiful, so puny, in light of the havoc and death I had created. All so I could go to a concert and mess around with Devektra. Now my city lay in ruins, and Daxin was dead. He would never complete the mission he’d spent his whole life preparing for.

“The Elder Pittacus designed the evacuation protocol many years ago, but we Mentor Cêpans were given very little information beyond the mere fact of our enrollment. Weeks ago the Elders went off on a secret diplomatic mission from which they’ve yet to return. They’d set the protocol to be activated preemptively if the council lost touch with them during the course of their absence.” Brandon clutched his head. “They were worried. From what little I’ve learned, a race of aliens called Mogadorians is coming. Has already come. The Elder Prophecy has come to pass. We knew of the Mogadorians’ existence—had even had some dealings with them long ago—but we never anticipated that they might prove hostile to us.”

I nodded along with him as he spoke, trying to absorb as much of what he was saying as I possibly could.

“Lorien as we knew it has already ceased to exist,” he said. “And,” he added, punctuating himself with a bitter laugh, “we’ve already botched the evacuation. Nine Mentor Cêpans, nine young Garde. Just as there are now nine Elders. The number must matter, it must’ve been for a reason. With Daxin dead . . .”

His voice trailed off. He turned towards the console at the front of the transport, and sighed. “We’re almost at the airstrip,” he said. “We’ll just have to make do with eight.”

The vehicle came to a stop and Brandon stepped out.

I followed him outside. We were parked fifty yards from a small airstrip, deep in the Outer Territories. A medium-sized aircraft was parked in the distance. I could make out people congregating near the craft. Without a word to me, Brandon was charging away from the vehicle towards them.

“Wait,” I called.

He turned around, an impatient look on his face.

“The kid,” I said. “What about the kid?”

I already bore some, possibly all, of the responsibility for Daxin’s death. But the boy had been earmarked for survival and he was still out there. As far as I knew, the Malkan Kabaraks hadn’t been hit yet.

“His Mentor Cêpan is already dead,” said Brandon. “And even if he weren’t, the trip there and back would take two hours. We need to be off this planet as soon as possible. It’s too big a risk, and it’s a risk that none of us, with Garde of our own to protect, can afford to take.”

So the kid was doomed?

“I can’t live with that,” I said.

“You won’t have to,” said Brandon. “Not for long, anyway.”

Fear gripped my heart and I suddenly realized—there was no place for me on the evacuation ship. I would perish along with the rest of the planet during the next wave of the attack.

“So me, the kid, and everybody else on this planet . . . we’re just fucked, huh?” I knew I sounded pathetic, but I couldn’t help myself. “Left to die as the invasion begins?”

Brandon didn’t skip a beat. “Yes,” he said. “This is no longer about saving individual lives, Sandor. This is about saving an entire race.”

So that was that.

“I’m sorry, Sandor,” said Brandon, softening a little. “I have no reason to believe the Mogadorians will leave a single Lorien soul alive when they come, but for your sake I hope—”

Brandon drifted off, unable to finish his sentence.

He didn’t need to. I understood perfectly. Death would be better than the alternative.

There was nothing left to say.

“Okay then,” I said, pitifully sarcastic. I gave Brandon a little wave good-bye. “Guess I’ll be seeing you!”

I was alone again.

I’d fallen to my knees in the dirt by Brandon’s vehicle.

The only illumination came from its interior lights. Brandon hadn’t bothered to close the door when he’d left it behind. I guessed there was no point when the entire planet was set for destruction.

I twisted Daxin’s ID band around the flesh of my wrist. It was amazing how much trouble this little device had caused, what a trivial and tragic mess I had made with it.

Disgusted with myself and my own predicament, I pulled the band off and raised it over my head, ready to toss it into the darkness.

I hesitated, thinking of Devektra. I wondered where she was, if she had found any other Garde to help her. I wondered if she was still alive, knowing that even if she was, her chances of survival, even with her Legacies, would be slim to none.

Really, death was probably the best thing that could happen to her. She wouldn’t give a shit about that. We were too alike that way. She didn’t believe in perfect. That would be her strength. I decided it would be mine too. If I was going down, I was going to make it as messy as I could.

“Nine young Garde,” Brandon had said. “That must’ve been for a reason.”

Yes, I thought, looking down at the ID band I was still clutching in my white-knuckled fist. Something had been set in motion a long time ago that had brought me to this point, on my knees in the Outer Territories, this ID band and locator in my hands.

It’s all for a reason. There had to be nine. Nine Cêpan, nine Garde. I had fucked up so badly. It wasn’t too late, though. I could still be good.

CHAPTER 13

The vehicle rumbled and buckled over the unpaved earth, its course set for the Malkan Kabarak. With the thing on autopilot, I was free to dig around in the back, trying to find a weapon. I had no idea if the Mogadorians’ second wave would be another round of missile hits or a ground invasion, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to arm myself. Unfortunately, all I managed to find was a long, sharp knife. Not especially powerful, but it was something. I also grabbed a spare info-mod, hoping that it might somehow come through with news of another attack.

I booted it up not expecting much, but it was still picking up scattered, patchy transmissions. The ones that were coming through were mostly dedicated to Munis communications about rescue efforts in the city.

They’d caught us off guard, just like the Elders had predicted. Even now, people didn’t seem to get it. Not a single one of the transmissions I was able to hear made any reference to the fact that we’d been attacked—or the fact that it wasn’t over yet.

Maybe the rest of Lorien was still mostly oblivious. I knew the truth, though. I knew what I had to do.

I was going to save the boy, or die trying.

The vehicle pulled up to the edge of Malka and I made my way up the dirt path in the dark. I couldn’t see much, but I let my memory guide me towards the hut the boy had shared with his grandfather. The closer I got, the more the locator band vibrated, signaling that I was heading in the right direction.

In the distance, I could hear the hubbub of the Malkans’ Quartermoon revels. They still didn’t know. For a brief moment, I considered running onto the Kabarak and warning them about the upcoming invasion, telling them to arm themselves. But I didn’t have time for that, and it wouldn’t make any difference anyway. I had to keep my focus. This was about the survival of our whole race. Brandon had said there had to be nine.

When I reached the hut, the boy, his grandfather and the frolicking chimæra were nowhere to be seen. But the band continued to vibrate in my hand. By moving forward in a couple different directions, testing the vibration’s frequency, I was able to get a bead on him. He was farther up the path.

I rounded a crest that gave out to a narrow field among other hills. A large campfire blazed nearby, and as I moved closer, I saw the boy’s grandfather crouched next to it. He looked up at me.

The boy and his chimæra were nowhere to be seen.

The man gestured at the seat beside him. Nervously, I stepped forward and took my place at the campfire. Whatever he was cooking, it smelled delicious. It was nearly dawn, and I hadn’t eaten since dessert the night before. Teased by the smell, my mouth began to water.

The man gestured at the pot. “Eat,” he said.

I did as I was told, using the stone ladle jutting out of the pot to fill a small earthenware bowl with the rich stew.

“It’s delicious,” I said, nodding with gratitude.

“You’ve come for my boy,” said the grandfather.

“Yes,” I said, realizing that he had known why I was there all along.

“He is all I have,” he said. “Anyone can see that there is something special about him. My gift allows me rare glimpses at the threads of destiny, and I have always known this day would come. The day I met you, I could see that it wouldn’t be long.”

Daxin’s ID band hadn’t stopped vibrating crazily since I’d sat down, and now my tab was going off like crazy. Here by the campfire, with this strong, simple man staring me down, I felt like a tech-addled slob.

“One second,” I said, feeling like a total idiot. “Excuse me.”

I stood, pulled the mod out of my pocket and looked down, reading the newest update. APPROACH OF SECOND WAVE CONFIRMED. MISSILE ATTACK FOLLOWED BY GROUND FORCES. Some surviving LDF warrior, or perhaps a Munis employee, had managed to make it onto the com-network and had finally managed to sound out the real alarm.

I was still wondering what it all meant when I felt my legs give out from under me. The mod went flying out of my hands and landed with a thud on the ground.

But it was only the boy, who’d lunged at my legs and knocked me onto the ground. He was stronger than he looked and he knew it. He threw himself onto his back in the grass and giggled with wild pride, the metal band on his wrist glinting under the firelight.

“Gotcha!” the boy exclaimed. I wondered if he would remember this night, and if he did, whether he would remember with sadness what he was about to lose or with happiness for what, for a few more moments at least, he still had.

I mustered up a smile in response. “Not yet, pal.” I retrieved my mod from where it had landed in the grass and picked myself up, kneeling in the dirt with the fire at my back. I opened my arms and the boy ran into them unquestioningly. I scooped him up and stood, and as I did, I looked over at his grandfather, just for a moment. He stared back at me with a great sadness.

I knew I had to leave. But I had to ask him one more thing. “You said your Legacy allows you to see people’s destinies,” I said. “Can you see anything now?”

“He will be important,” the man said sadly. “That’s all I know.”

“What about me?” I asked.

The man smiled sadly. “You will be important also,” he said. “But you will die.”

I knew he was right. It was okay, though. We were all going to die. At least I would do it making a difference.

As I walked away, back down the path to the van, the boy’s arms wrapped around my neck, I looked over my shoulder and took one last look at the man who had raised him. It was streaming with tears that ran in deep furrows through the caked dust on his cheeks and into his beard.

And then the second wave of missiles came down, booming in the distance.

CHAPTER 14

The ground on the trail was uneven under my feet as I raced down the path, the branches and brambles scratching my face in the dark. I cursed under my breath and stumbled at every third step. The kid in my arms had started to cry as soon as his grandfather had disappeared from view, but he was doing it quietly.

“It’s okay,” I said, rubbing his back. “It’s okay, little guy.”

It wasn’t okay. But maybe things would be better someday—for the kid in my arms, if not for me. First, though, I had to get him to the evacuation site without getting us both killed on the way.

That was going to be easier said than done: I gasped when I emerged from the trees into the clearing near the hut and saw the sky.

It was as bright as day, bright blue punctuated with quick-fire bursts of pastel pinks and purples all up and down the horizon. It was like the entire world was on fire. Maybe it was. The explosions were coming faster than I could count.

I couldn’t stop to think about it. Panic wasn’t going to do me any good, and there would be plenty of time for mourning later. Brandon and the evacuation ship would be leaving soon if it hadn’t already left. There had to be nine Garde. Brandon had said it and somehow I knew it in my gut. I had to get him to the ship before takeoff.

The vehicle was just up ahead. One step at a time.

When I strapped the kid in next to me and fired up the autopilot system, the screen on the console lit up in a sea of red. The system was still linked in to an LDF satellite that was reading conditions all over the planet, and the devastation already wrought across the surface of Lorien—rendered in blinking red patches on the screen—had most routes back to the evacuation airstrip looking risky at best. The route I’d taken to get here was completely obstructed.

With that no longer an option, it seemed like my best bet was to pass through Malka, and then rejoin the original route at its midpoint. I fired up the autopilot, cranked it up to the highest speed it could achieve, and took a deep breath. It would either work or it wouldn’t. The engine began to whir. The vehicle lurched forward and we went hurtling out into the burning night.

Then I turned to the still crying kid. I had no experience with children. I wasn’t even a Mentor Cêpan trainee. Once I dropped him off at the airstrip, he would go on to whatever his great destiny was and would cease to be my problem.

But I hated hearing him cry. I looked him in the eye and he gasped for breath a little bit as his wails became weaker. It was like he didn’t want me to see him like this. It was like he was trying to be brave.

“Listen, kid,” I said. When I spoke, his sobs got even quieter. “Things are going to be a little dicey for a little bit. You need to be brave. You’re a Garde, you know? Someday you’re going to have a lot of power. You’ll be able to be whoever you want to be. But first, you need to keep your chin up. After all, you’re the future of the whole damn Lorien race, right?”

The boy was looking at me intently now, no longer crying at all. He was hanging on my every word, his eyes wide and his small mouth formed into a tiny O. “You got it, buddy?” I asked. “We need you.”

He gave me a stern look and waved his fist in my face. “Kow kow,” he said.

“Yup,” I said, smiling. “Kow kow is right.”

SKWONNNNKKK. SKWONNNNNK.

Instinctively, my hands flew to cover my ears. The boy yelped. It was the sound of some kind of horn, deep and booming. It rumbled up through the wheels of the van, right up into my bones.

I had a feeling I knew what it was—the sound of a Mogadorian ship. There was nothing else it could be. This was not good. I checked the console. We were getting there, but we still had a ways to go.

The road ahead of us was littered with rubble, fallen trees and dead bodies every here and there. I tried not to look at them. To the right was a void in the sky where the Elkin Spires had once been. In the distance, the smoking ruins of Capital City were getting closer.

We had just reached Eilon Park, on the outskirts of the city, when we were hit.

I’m not sure what got us. It wasn’t a missile, or else we would be dead. It might have been flying debris from a bomb. It might have been something else. It really doesn’t matter. Whatever it was, a massive blast knocked against the van and sent us flying. Everything went dark.

I came to on my back. My head was bleeding and my vision was blurred. There was some horrible grinding squeak above my head. The boy was kneeling over me, looking down into my eyes with a concerned expression. “Kow kow?” he asked.

I looked up past him to see the bottom of the van—the seats, the center console—above me. I was lying with my back against the interior roof. We were upside down.

In pain, I moved my head and could see, through a freshly smashed window, the grass of the park.

I didn’t know what we were going to do. There was no way we were going to be able to get the van right side up again, much less running. I climbed through the shattered window, ignoring the glass that scratched my arms. When I was through, I turned around, reached out, and yanked the boy through with me. We rolled back into the grass together, out of breath.

SKKKWONNNK. SKKKWONKK. That noise again. Suddenly, next to me, the kid’s eyes widened. His jaw dropped. I flipped around and saw the monster standing right above us, so close I could smell the stink of his breath.

It was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen, probably a full two heads taller than me, with pale white skin and a mouth jammed full of tiny, crooked teeth that were pointier and sharper than knives. I know what his teeth looked like because he was smiling. At his side, a giant curved sword dangled.

This, I knew, was a Mogadorian.

He growled at us with narrowed eyes. The noise was low and menacing, throaty and guttural.

The beast raised its sword over its head.

I had tried. I had. We had almost made it. Now it was over.

There was no use pretending my body would make any real shield for the kid. We would both die from the same blow.

Then I heard the strangest thing. It was something like music. I recognized it. Before I could react, there was a giant flash of light, and the music got louder, so loud that it sounded like it was coming from inside my skull.

It was Devektra’s song. It was beautiful.

The Mogadorian reeled backward and dropped his sword. His face twisted into a horrified mask of pain. He let out another growl—really more of a roar—and fell to his knees.

I didn’t even think about it. I knew what I had to do. I sprang to my knees, grabbed the sword and, with dazzling white lights flashing all around me, swung it with every bit of strength that I had. A geyser of blood erupted into the air as his head went flying.

I never saw her. I don’t know how she found us, or why she didn’t reveal herself. There probably just wasn’t time. But it was her. Devektra had saved me. More important, she had saved the boy.

He stood up, looked up at me quizzically, seemingly unfazed by what had just happened, and pointed to something that was lying in the grass a few yards away.

“Motorcycle?” he asked.

CHAPTER 15

We arrived at the airstrip in time.

I parked the cycle and raced to the ship with the kid in my arms, searching for Brandon, pushing past a group of Kabarakians and LDF Garde who were chaotically arranging a perimeter around the airstrip.

The Mogadorians would be here soon. These Loric would be the only thing protecting the ship as it took off. Like me, they would remain behind. We were going to die. There was no way around it. But with a little luck, the nine children and their Mentors would live, and with them, the Lorien people would survive.

The eight Mentor Cêpans stood outside the ship, waiting to go, while eight young children—ranging in age from infancy to six years old—were arrayed in a circle on the ground. Another man was leaning over each of the children, touching their heads.

It was the Elder Loridas. It looked like he was blessing them or something. Well, if I was going to die, at least I could say I finally saw one of the Elders.

When Brandon saw me approach, a look of disgust began to creep into his face. Until he saw the boy.

“This is the ninth,” I said. I knew they’d be leaving any minute and, anxious to make my case, the words tumbled out in a rush. “It’s not too late. You have to . . .”

“Quiet,” said Brandon, taking the child. He rushed over to Loridas, who had just finished whatever he was doing with the children. I nervously watched them confer, wondering how Loridas had made it to the planet.

“He’s the last.” I turned to see a woman with long dark hair in her early thirties. She had read my look of confusion. “The other Elders are gone. They sacrificed themselves for us.”

“Pittacus too?” I asked, stunned. I had never really thought much about Pittacus Lore, never reacted to his name with the unreserved awe that so many other Loric had for him, but it was still a shock. Even with everything that had happened tonight, it had never occurred to me that he could be gone. It was almost unimaginable.

An uncertain frown crept across the woman’s face. “Pittacus is . . . missing,” she said. “He may still be alive. We don’t know.”

I didn’t respond. What was there to say?

“You look awfully young to be a Mentor Cêpan,” she said.

“I’m just a trainee,” I said, my eyes locked on Brandon, Loridas, and the boy. “Engineering. Not a Mentor.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” she said, glancing over at the boy. Loridas took him by the hand and laid him down in the sole remaining part of the circle. The other children all looked on as Loridas began to perform some kind of ritual.

“Why are they all so young?” I asked the woman. “They’re too young to have been trainees at the Academy.”

“These children were identified by the Elders as the most powerful of their generation,” she told me. She sounded wistful as she said it. “They have a long road ahead of them. They will have to learn to adapt to a new home, and a new way of life that’s unlike anything we know here. It will be better if they have as little memory of Lorien as possible. It will be easier for them.”

I nodded sadly and turned back to watch the ritual. I was eager to take the whole sight in, but Brandon pulled me out to the edge of the airstrip.

“He has been admitted. The Eight is now Nine,” he said. “Funny thing is, Elder Loridas wasn’t fazed at all. When I said the ninth had arrived, he turned to me and looked at me as if he’d known he was coming all along.”

I turned back to the collected Mentor Cêpans, to the Garde arrayed on the ground, to the ship that would take them off this planet. I feared what my own fate would be, but was determined not to let Brandon see my fear. I wanted to make a gracious and noble exit.

“Go,” I said. “I’ll join the perimeter guard.”

The suns were just starting to come up, the dusk colored by the flame and smoke of the planet’s destruction.

“Good luck up there,” I said.

“Stop,” said Brandon. I turned back. “You’re coming with us.”

“Me? There’s not room.” I felt my heart rise in my chest. But I couldn’t go along. “What about the rest of the people here? The ones who have been fighting all along? The ones who actually believed?”

“The boy needs a Mentor. You brought him here. He trusts you. And the bond has taken place—I can sense it. It has to be you.”

“But I haven’t been trained.”

“The only thing any of us really need to know is to always put our Garde’s survival ahead of our own.” Brandon cast a glance back at the boy. “And it looks like you’ve got that part down.”

Another explosion rumbled about a mile off, bringing our gaze across the sky to the approach of a massive Mogadorian ship. What looked like little wisps were parachuting out of the ship and landing gently, soundlessly on the ground.

But of course, that was a trick of distance and perspective. They weren’t wisps. They were Mogadorian ground troops. And there was nothing gentle about them.

My fate had been decided. We rushed to the rest of the group to board the ship and leave our beloved Lorien before it was too late.

CHAPTER 16

“Oof.” Barely awake, I was already in agony.

The boy had just stepped hard on my legs, and was now jumping up the rest of my body, crushing my stomach, then my ribs.

“Wake up,” he said, still jumping painfully all over me. It was a hell of a way to wake up in the morning, but I was starting to get used to it.

“Wake up,” repeated the boy, who we had all started to call “Nine.” He was bright-eyed, playful, and so full of energy that five minutes in his company was enough to make me pray for his bedtime.

Nine and the other young Garde had made a quick recovery from the horrors of that awful night, barely a month ago, when Lorien had fallen to the Mogadorians. The other Mentor Cêpans couldn’t believe the childrens’ resilience. We envied it. None of us would ever get over what we’d seen.

“I’m getting up,” I said, swinging my legs over the bed and swiping my Kalvaka T-shirt off the hook on the wall. All of the other Mentor Cêpans were stuck with their LDA tunics, but I had only my street clothes from my last night out in Lorien.

“You’re too slow,” said Nine, yanking my arm as I tried to finish dressing.

“Sorry, buddy,” I said. “Had a late one last night.”

“What else is new?”

I looked up to see Brandon, smiling at the edge of the partition separating my sleeping quarters from the rest of the ship. Brandon was always getting on my case for being a late riser, for always being the last Cêpan socializing into the wee hours in the ship’s canteen. If Brandon had gone to bed there was always Kentra, or one of the others.

“Today’s the first day of pre-combat training,” he said. “I’ll take Nine, it’s not a problem.”

“Pre-combat? Already?” I had a hard time understanding that they were already going to start conditioning some of the Garde as warriors. Brandon and Kentra had explained it was just simple calisthenics and drills at this point, but still. The kids were so young.

I saw Four, Brandon’s Garde, poking his head out from behind Brandon’s back. He shyly put his hand out for Nine to take, inviting him to walk to pre-combat together.

Seeing this, I hoped Nine would take Four’s hand. It was a sweet gesture.

“Prucawbat! Rawr!” squealed Nine, and jumped back onto the bed, either unaware of Four’s overture or too keyed up to notice.

I smiled, simultaneously exhausted by and proud of my Garde’s hyperactivity. I scooped Nine off the bed and put him on the floor.

“You go off with Brandon and Four, okay? I’ll see you at One-on-Ones after.” One-on-Ones were training and development sessions between Mentor Cêpans and their Garde. It had been decided that my One-on-Ones with Nine would be overseen by another Mentor Cêpan, owing to my inexperience and lack of training. But even with Brandon or Kater breathing down my neck, One-on-Ones were my favorite time of the day: just me and the kid.

The large ship had an open plan with no walls, but in the interest of our privacy and sanity, programmable holographic partitions separated areas of the cabin into “rooms.”

The canteen was one such space, located close to the ship’s cockpit. It was nearly empty when I finally got there, and the food options were slim: a packet of freeze-dried karo fruit; a plate of mushy, lukewarm flurrah grain.

Ah, I thought. The perils of oversleeping.

I settled for the Karo and took a seat next to Hessu, the only Cêpan there. Hessu was the oldest of the Cêpans, and shy to boot. I never knew what to say to her so I just nodded at her and ate my breakfast in silence.

As tended to happen when I had a moment to myself, my thoughts drifted to the events back on Lorien, both the things I had witnessed—the destruction of the capital; those heartbreakingly muddy tears on Nine’s grandfather’s cheeks—and those I had only imagined: my parents’ chalet in Deloon blasted by Mog missiles; Devektra, finally succumbing to the Mogadorian ground troops while valiantly defending her beloved city.

I also thought back to the ship’s takeoff, watching out the window as we pulled up and over the airstrip. The Elder Loridas, who had insisted not to be taken on board, faded to a dot on the ground as we breached the planet’s atmosphere, with the fighting Lorien Defense Forces and Kabarakians still down there, holding off the advancing Mog horde.

The first few days in space had been the worst. We Mentor Cêpans had all huddled in the canteen together, our impatient, traumatized charges in our laps, waiting for word from the ship’s pilot about the fate of Lorien. Brandon had explained that the vast majority of the council, the academy and the LDF had been killed in the first wave, but there were bound to be survivors, heroes like Devektra who would fight off the invading forces no matter how bad the odds. It had been decided by a vote that once we had reached a distance of relative safety, the ship would hang back, watch, and wait. If there were any sign that the defeat of Lorien was incomplete, that whatever resistance movement had formed stood even a meager chance of survival, we would turn back and aid however we could.

But after many sleepless days and nights, the pilot emerged into the canteen from the front of the ship and shook his head. “From the ship’s scans . . .” he said, fighting back tears. “There’s nothing. Nothing’s left.”

For every horror I had endured, that was the worst, the most devastating.

Slowly but surely, things improved. And as dark as my thoughts got, it was hard to stay down when we had nine rambunctious, energetic kids all around us, every second of the day.

“She’s sick,” announced Hessu. I almost did a double take: Hessu never spoke without first being spoken to.

It took me a second to realize she must be talking about her Garde, the girl we called “One.”

“I woke up in the middle of the night with a bad feeling, so I went to the children’s quarters to check, and sure enough when I touched her forehead it was hot. A bad fever.” Hessu’s aversion to eye contact was just part of her personality, but the intense way she avoided my look made me fear the worst.

“Where is she?” I asked. “Is she okay?”

“She’s in the Autodoc.” Because no one on board had any medical knowledge, the ship had been outfitted with a small climate-controlled area called an Autodoc. It monitored a patient’s vital signs and administered medicine as needed through the air vents. “Machine says she’ll be fine.”

“Well then,” I said, relieved. “That’s good.”

Hessu merely shrugged. Her mouth was pursed, bitter-looking, like she’d been sucking on something sour.

“She’s going to die,” she said.

I froze in my seat, speechless. It felt like Hessu’s words had sucked all of the oxygen out of the room.

“She will die. I’m certain of it.”

“Hessu, I’m sure she’ll be fine—”

She turned at me, a look of rage and contempt burning on her face. “I don’t mean now, you idiot!” She began to laugh bitterly. “Don’t you realize, we’re all going to die?”

My blood turned to ice. What was this woman getting at?

“Right. Right,” she said. “You haven’t been fully briefed yet, how would you know? This is a suicide mission. We are going to some distant planet to hide from the Mogadorians, to run from them, to make whatever pathetic efforts to survive we can make before they hunt us down and kill us. It’s useless. I don’t know why we’re even bothering.”

Her words seeped into my brain like a poison, but I tried to focus on the matter at hand: her hysteria. “You need to calm down,” I said.

“Easy for you to say. You’re last. You and your boy get blessed last out of sheer luck, because you were running late!” The bitter laughter came back. “While me and my girl . . . we’re first. First blessed, first to die.”

The laughter gave way to tears, and Hessu threw her face into her hands. I fought through my own horror and embraced her.

We stayed like that for a while. I rocked her in my arms while the terrifying truth of our situation bled into my heart.

Later, I made my way down the virtual corridor, towards the empty barrack in which my One-on-Ones with Nine were held. I felt like a fool. For allowing myself to be optimistic about the Elders’ plan for us all, for believing that the road ahead would be any brighter than the one behind us. To hear it from Hessu, it was only going to get grimmer once we reached our destination.

And I felt like a fool for not inquiring deeper into the nature of the ritual Loridas had performed on Nine. I had foolishly assumed it was just some meaningless pagan blessing. But according to Hessu it was much more than that. It was a protective spell that granted total immunity to the children. All except One.

Her blessing was just a link to the others. She was not invulnerable. Once she died, Two would be vulnerable. Once Two died, Three would be vulnerable. On and on up the chain of their precious young Garde.

Put in those terms, it no longer felt like any kind of blessing at all. It felt like a curse. And it made me sick just thinking about it.

I paused outside the barrack’s door and looked out the window of the ship. All I could see were stars. We still had many galaxies to travel before we reached our destination. We were heading to Earth. A planet that was far from perfect. It was nothing like Lorien had been.

But even with all the terrible stories I’d heard about Earth’s misery, about the war, the famine, the pollution, I was looking forward to it, at least a little bit. I still remembered that transmission I’d watched on the night of Quartermoon, before I’d made the fateful decision to take Daxin’s band and leave the academy, and I knew that Earth couldn’t possibly be all bad.

I entered the barrack to find Nine waiting on the floor, his back to the virtual door. Adel, Seven’s Mentor Cêpan, sat in a chair in the corner, having been assigned supervisor duty for the day.

“Hey, Adel,” I said, giving her a smile and a little wave. Adel waved back.

At the sound of my voice, Nine jumped up, whirled around and raced right at me, grabbing me by the knees.

Nine looked up at me, his eyes gleaming. “Sandor?” he asked, drawing my name out and wagging his head back and forth. “Are we going to play today?”

I looked down at him and smiled.

“Yeah, buddy,” I said. “We’re going to play.”

EXCERPT FROM THE RISE OF NINE

THE LEGACIES DEVELOP IN

CHAPTER 1

6A. Seriously? I look at the boarding pass in my hand, its large type announcing my seat assignment, and wonder if Crayton chose this seat on purpose. It could be a coincidence. The way things have gone recently, I am not a big believer in coincidences. I wouldn’t be surprised if Marina sat down behind me in row seven, and Ella made her way back to row ten. But, no, the two girls drop down beside me without saying a word, and join me in studying each person boarding the plane. Being hunted, you are constantly on guard. Who knows when the Mogadorians might appear?

Crayton will board last, after he’s watched to see who else gets on the plane, and only once he feels the flight is absolutely secure.

I raise the shade and watch the ground crew hustle back and forth under the plane; the city of Barcelona is a faint outline in the distance.

Marina’s knee bounces furiously up and down next to mine. The battle against an army of Mogadorians yesterday at the lake, the death of her Cêpan and finding her Chest—and now, it’s the first time in almost ten years that she’s left the town where she spent her childhood. She’s nervous.

“Everything okay?” I ask. My newly blond hair falls into my face and startles me. I forgot I dyed it this morning. It’s just one of many changes in the last forty-eight hours.

“Everyone looks okay,” Marina whispers, keeping her eyes on the crowded aisle. “We’re safe, as far as I can tell.”

“Good, but that’s not what I meant.” I gently set my foot on hers and she stops bouncing her knee. She offers me a quick apologetic smile before returning to her close watch of each boarding passenger. A few seconds later, her knee starts bouncing again.

I feel sorry for Marina. She was locked up in an isolated orphanage with a Cêpan who refused to train her; she was stuck with a Cêpan who had lost sight of why we are here on Earth in the first place. I’m doing my best to help her, to fill in the gaps. I can train her to control her strength and when to use her developing Legacies. But first I’m trying to show her that it’s okay to trust me. Not only did she just lose her best friend, Héctor, back at the lake, but, like me, she lost her Cêpan right in front of her. Both of us will carry that with us forever.

The Mogadorians will pay for what they’ve done. For taking so many who we’ve loved, here on Earth and on Lorien. It’s my personal mission to destroy every last one of them, and I’ll be sure Marina gets her revenge, too.

“How is it down there, Six?” Ella asks, leaning over Marina.

I turn back toward the window. The men below the plane begin to clear away their equipment, conducting a few last-minute checks. “So far, so good.”

My seat is directly over the wing, which is comforting to me. On more than one occasion I’ve had to use my Legacies to help a pilot out of a jam. Once, over southern Mexico, I used my telekinesis to push the plane a dozen degrees to the right, only seconds before crashing into the side of a mountain. Last year I got 124 passengers safely through a vicious thunderstorm in Kansas by surrounding the plane with an impervious cloud of cool air. We shot, unharmed, through the storm like a bullet through a balloon.

When the ground crew moves on to the next plane, I follow Ella’s gaze toward the front of the aisle. We’re both impatient for Crayton to board. That will mean everything is okay, at least for now. Every seat is full but the one behind Ella. Where is he? I glance out at the wing again, scanning the area for anything out of the ordinary.

“Six?” Marina asks. I hear her buckle and unbuckle her seat belt nervously.

I lean down and shove my backpack under my seat. It’s practically empty so it folds down easily. Crayton bought it for me at the airport. The three of us need to look like normal teenagers, he says, like high school students on a field trip. That’s why there’s an open biology textbook on my lap.

“Yeah?” I respond.

“You’ve flown before, right?”

Marina is only a year older than I am. But with her solemn, thoughtful eyes and her new, sophisticated haircut that falls just below her shoulders, she can easily pass for an adult. Right now, however, she bites her nails and pulls her knees up to her chest like a scared child.

“Yes,” I say. “It’s not so bad. In fact, once you relax, it’s kind of awesome.”

I’ve flown dozens of times, and everything has gone fine. However, this is the first time I’ve done it without using my invisibility Legacy to sneak on board. I know I’m much stronger now. And I’m getting stronger by the day. If a couple of Mog soldiers charged at me from the front of the plane, they wouldn’t be dealing with a meek young girl. I know what I’m capable of; I am a soldier now, a warrior. I am someone to fear, not hunt.

Marina lets go of her knees and sits up straight, releasing a long breath. In a barely audible voice, she says, “I’m scared. I just want to get in the air.”

“You’ll be fine,” I say in a low voice.

Finally, Crayton squeezes down the aisle, carrying a black briefcase. He’s wearing eyeglasses and a brown suit that looks too big for him. Under his strong chin is a blue bow tie. He’s supposed to be our teacher.

“Hello, girls,” he says, stopping next to us.

“Hi, Mr. Collins,” Ella responds.

“It’s a full flight,” Marina says. That’s code for everyone on board looks okay. To tell him everything on the ground appears normal, I say, “I’m going to try to sleep.”

He nods and takes his seat directly behind Ella. Leaning forward between Marina and Ella he says, “Use your time on the plane wisely, please. Study hard.”

That means, don’t let your guard down.

CHAPTER 2

I’ve been in and out of consciousness for the past two days, rolling back and forth in a hallucinating sickness. The effects from the blue force field outside the Mogadorians’ mountain have lingered far longer than Nine told me they would, both mentally and physically. Every few minutes, my muscles seize and sear with pain.

I try to distract myself from the agony by looking around the tiny bedroom of this decaying, abandoned house. Nine couldn’t have picked a more disgusting place for us to hide. I can’t trust my eyes. I watch the pattern on the yellow wallpaper come to life, the design marching over patches of mold like ants. The cracked ceiling appears to breathe, rising and falling at frightening speeds. There’s a large jagged hole in the wall that separates the bedroom and living room, as if someone tossed a sledgehammer through it. Smashed beer cans are strewn around the room, and the baseboards have been torn to shreds by animals. I’ve been hearing things rustling in the trees outside the house, but I’m too weak to be alarmed. Last night I woke to find a cockroach on my cheek. I barely had the energy to swat it off.

“Hey, Four?” I hear through the hole in the wall. “You awake or what? It’s time for lunch and your food’s getting cold.”

I heave myself to my feet. My head spins as I stumble through the doorway into the living room, and I collapse on the dingy gray carpet. I know Nine’s in here, but I can’t keep my eyes open long enough to find him. All I want is to lay my head in Sarah’s lap. Or in Six’s. Either one. I can’t think straight.

Something warm hits my shoulder. I roll over to see Nine sitting on the ceiling above me, his long black hair hanging down into the room. He’s gnawing on something and his hands are greasy.

“Where are we again?” I ask. The sunlight coming through the windows is too much and I close my eyes. I need more sleep. I need something, anything, to clear my head and regain my strength. My fingers fumble over my blue pendant, hoping to somehow gather energy through it, but it remains cold against my chest.

“The northern part of West Virginia,” Nine says between bites. “Ran out of gas, remember?”

“Barely,” I whisper. “Where’s Bernie Kosar?”

“Outside. That one is always on patrol. He is one cool animal. Tell me, Four, how did you of all the Garde end up with him?”

I crawl into the corner of the room and push my back up against a wall. “BK was with me on Lorien. His name was Hadley back then. I guess Henri thought it would be good to bring him along for the trip.”

Nine throws a tiny bone across the ceiling. “I had a couple of Chimæras as a kid, too. Don’t remember their names, but I can still see them running around our house tearing stuff up. They died in the war, protecting my family.” Nine is silent for a moment, clenching his jaw. This is the first time I’ve seen him act anything other than tough. It’s nice to see, even if it’s short lived. “At least, that’s what my Cêpan told me, anyway.”

I stare at my bare feet. I just noticed they’re black with grime. “What was your Cêpan’s name?”

“Sandor,” he says, standing up on the ceiling. He’s wearing my shoes. “It’s weird. I literally can’t remember the last time I said his name out loud. Some days, I can barely picture his face.” Nine’s voice hardens, and he closes his eyes. “But that’s how it goes, I guess. Whatever. They’re the expendable ones.”

His last sentence sends shock waves through me. “Henri was not expendable, and neither was Sandor! No Loric was ever expendable. And give me back my shoes!”

Nine kicks my shoes into the middle of the floor, then takes his time walking first along the ceiling and then down the back wall. “All right, all right. I know he wasn’t expendable, man. Sometimes, it’s just easier to think of him that way, you know? Truth is, Sandor was an amazing Cêpan.” Nine reaches the floor and towers over me. I forgot how tall he is. Intimidating. He shoves a handful of what he’s been eating in my face. “You want some of this or not? Because I’m about to finish it off.”

The sight of it makes my stomach churn. “What is it?”

“Barbecued rabbit. Nature’s finest.”

I don’t dare open my mouth to respond, afraid that I might get sick. Instead, I stumble back toward the bedroom, ignoring the laughter that follows me. The bedroom door is so warped it’s nearly impossible to close, but I wedge it into the door frame as tightly as I can. I lie down, using my sweatshirt as a pillow, and think about how I ended up here, ended up like this. Without Henri. Without Sam. Sam is my best friend, who I had been traveling and fighting alongside for the last several months. I miss him. I can’t believe we left him behind. As thoughtful and loyal and supportive as Sam is, Nine is so very not. He’s reckless, arrogant, selfish and just flat-out rude. I picture Sam, back in the Mog cave, a gun rocking against his shoulder as a dozen Mogadorian soldiers swarm him. I couldn’t get to him. I couldn’t save him. I should have fought harder, run faster. I should have ignored Nine and gone back to Sam. He would have done that for me. The immense amount of guilt I feel paralyzes me, until I finally fall asleep.

It’s dark. I’m no longer in a house in the mountains with Nine. I no longer feel the painful effects of the blue force field. My head is finally clear, although I don’t know where I am, or how I got here. When I shout for help, I can’t hear my voice even though I feel my lips moving. I shuffle ahead, hands out in front of me. My palms suddenly start to glow with my Lumen. The light is dim at first, but quickly grows into two powerful beams.

“John.” A hoarse whisper says my name.

I whip my hands around to see where I am, but the light reveals only empty darkness. I’m entering a vision. I angle my palms at the ground so my Lumen will light my way and start toward the voice. The hoarse whisper keeps repeating my name over and over. It sounds young and full of fear. Then comes another voice, gruff and staccato, barking orders.

The voices become clearer. It’s Sam, my lost friend, and Setrákus Ra, my worst enemy. I can tell I’m nearing the Mogadorian base. I can see the blue force field, the source of so much pain. For some reason, I know it won’t hurt me now, and I don’t hesitate to pass through it. When I do, it’s not my screams I hear, but Sam’s. His tortured voice fills my head as I enter the mountain and move through its mazelike tunnels. I see the charred remains of our recent battle, from when I tossed a ball of green lava at the gas tanks at the mountain’s bottom, sending a sea of fire raging upward. I move through the main cavernous hall and its spiraling ledges. I step onto the arched stone bridge Sam and I so recently crossed under the cloak of invisibility. I keep going, passing through tributaries and corridors, all while being forced to listen to my best friend’s crippling howls.

I know where I’m going before I get there. The steady incline of the floor lands me in the wide room lined with prison cells.

There they are. Setrákus Ra is standing in the middle of the room. He is huge and truly revolting looking. And there’s Sam. He’s suspended inside a small spherical cage next to him. His own private torture bubble.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

© HOWARD HUANG

PITTACUS LORE is Lorien’s ruling Elder. He has been on Earth preparing for the war that will decide Earth’s fate. His whereabouts are unknown.

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THE LORIEN LEGACIES BY PITTACUS LORE

NOVELS

I AM NUMBER FOUR

THE POWER OF SIX

THE RISE OF NINE

THE FALL OF FIVE

NOVELLAS

I AM NUMBER FOUR: THE LOST FILES #1: SIX’S LEGACY

I AM NUMBER FOUR: THE LOST FILES #2: NINE’S LEGACY

I AM NUMBER FOUR: THE LOST FILES #3: THE FALLEN LEGACIES

I AM NUMBER FOUR: THE LOST FILES #4: THE SEARCH FOR SAM

I AM NUMBER FOUR: THE LOST FILES #5: THE LAST DAYS OF LORIEN

I AM NUMBER FOUR: THE LOST FILES #6: THE FORGOTTEN ONES

NOVELLA COLLECTIONS

I AM NUMBER FOUR: THE LOST FILES: THE LEGACIES

(CONTAINS NOVELLAS #1–#3)

I AM NUMBER FOUR: THE LOST FILES: SECRET HISTORIES

(CONTAINS NOVELLAS #4–#6)

COPYRIGHT

I AM NUMBER FOUR: THE LOST FILES: THE LAST DAYS OF LORIEN. Copyright © 2013 by Pittacus Lore. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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ISBN 978-0-06-221878-0

EPUB Edition March 2013 ISBN 9780062218780

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Excerpt from The Rise of Nine

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

About the Author

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Copyright

About the Publisher