Chapter 1
Lord Killoran smiled down at the ship like a proud father contemplating his firstborn. “She’s glorious, isn’t she, Lex?”
Lex didn’t give a damn about the ship. He was out of breath, still panting from the long climb that had brought them here. He just wanted to lie down and let his quivering legs rest. Unlike Killoran, who’d remained unnaturally young and fit from his long exposure to the City of Light’s once-mighty energy core, Lex’s body was just as old as his advancing age would suggest. “Of course, my Lord, an engineering marvel.”
Once, a long time ago, where Lex stood had been an observation tower of some sort. But like the rest of the facility that they’d unearthed when they arrived here, the real purpose was lost to history. Nothing here had been touched in two centuries. It was like a museum to the before times.
Killoran scoffed. “More than that, Lex! So much more than that.”
Lex wiped snot from his runny nose. It was a cool morning, but like all the mornings since the Inversion had been reversed, it was clear. They were at the top of a giant hangar; or at least, it looked like a hangar in concept. It had clearly been hastily built, the rocky walls ragged where explosives had been used to carve out a giant depression in the side of the mountain.
Yet for such an enormous space, even more care had been put into making it disappear. The surrounding landscape had been carefully groomed to make it next to impossible for a traveler to blunder onto it by accident. It was made to be found only by those looking for it.
Only Lord Killoran had known exactly where the hangar was and, more importantly, what was stored in it. But even he had admitted that he didn’t know what condition it would be in after two centuries. As the Inversion had spread and Nar had gone dark, it had become impossible for even mighty Lord Killoran to visit here.
But now they could see the massive spaceship at the heart of the hangar was in pristine condition. Redeemr. Its size was difficult to comprehend. Lex could see men in the distance, crawling over old rotting scaffolding like ants on a picnic lunch. The scaffolding clung to one small section of the ship.
“Of course, sir, it certainly is…” His voice trailed off, distrustful of the engineering marvel before him and what it seemed to mean to Killoran.
A handful of men with sweaty brows looked expectantly to Lex. They knew better than to address Killoran. It was best for them if they remained invisible. They had helped to cut through the wild growths on the hillside to allow them to enjoy this elevated perch. Two of the men, Lex knew, had been among the men who had helped in the raid to liberate Killoran from captivity.
“Bellamy was a pompous ass,” Killoran said, “but his team was one of the most advanced that ever lived.” He paused. “Our team. You should have seen what we came up with.” He seemed almost wistful.
It had taken six long months of traveling across treacherous terrain, surrounded by wild lesser beasts, to get here, and now they had to hurry. Others would arrive soon. As the Inversion lifted around the globe, the people of Nar were like settlers on a wild frontier, rushing to claim land that had only a short time ago been lifeless.
“We had to dispose of a dozen men who arrived yesterday,” Lex said, glancing around nervously from their exposed location. “This might seem remote, but with things as in flux as they are, people are traveling to places they never would have gone before.”
Killoran waved away the concerns. “That won’t matter soon.”
Lex worried that his Lord was still operating like he ruled the world. A man like Killoran never doubted that the world wanted to be ruled by him.
Lex wished that he were right. He desperately wanted to bring back all the luxuries of life he had grown accustomed to. Maybe those things were gone forever. Certainly the golden hallways of the City of Light would never be his to roam again.
He also knew that if anyone could bend the world to do his bidding a second time, it was Killoran. But he wasn’t infallible.
“Lord, about the boy.” Lex didn’t need to explain who he meant.
Killoran grunted. “Do you have your men in position?”
“Of course,” he said. “But Lord, the risk is very high.”
“He is a child,” Killoran answered. “How high can the risk be?”
“He is protected by powerful people.”
Killoran spun around, and Lex felt himself wince involuntary. But Killoran surprised him with a smile on his face. “The truth, Lex,” he said. “The truth is going to set him free. We’re only releasing his physical bonds. His mind is still shackled to a lie. You’ll see. When the scales fall from his eyes, all will be clear. When the scales fall from all their eyes.”
“Very well,” Lex said, knowing there was little point in arguing.
“Go,” Killoran commanded.
Lex spun around, and the men fell in behind him. He didn’t know if he felt the same conviction as Killoran, but he’d learned not to question his orders. They were going to get the boy. That was the only truth Lex needed to worry himself with.
Chapter 2
Noah was dreaming.
He was running through a field. It was lush with greenery. There were vines reaching out for him. But he turned a corner, and the field was gone. He was inside something steel now. Something built. Something manmade.
It was Elixr.
The ship’s corridors were rusting out, like it had been sitting for a very long time. Whatever was after him wouldn’t stop chasing him. Noah felt it closing in. It reached out and grabbed him.
He spun around and found that he was facing a man in a command jacket. It was Captain Bellamy.
His father.
No. Not his father, exactly, but something more.
The man who already was.
Noah screamed, terrified for some reason. The captain was trying to tell Noah something, but he wouldn’t listen. Bellamy kept grabbing his arm, and he kept pulling away, pushing and shoving Bellamy away.
Finally, Noah turned and screamed in his face.
Bellamy’s image broke into a thousand pieces and fell away in front of him, leaving nothing but darkness.
Noah opened his eyes and found himself looking up at Will. The sheets of the bed were tangled around him. He took a moment to figure out where he was; then he remembered.
“You were dreaming again,” Will said. “Or I hope so. Because nobody should scream that much in their sleep without dreaming.”
Noah sat up. “Did I pass out?”
Will shook his head. “No, you’re just a slob who falls asleep in his clothes.” Noah looked down dumbly and saw that Will was right. His shirt was tangled around his torso, putting him in a tight grip that reminded him for a flash of Bellamy grabbing his arm in the dream.
“It was Bellamy again.”
Will nodded, unsurprised.
“We’re going to be late,” said Tai, leaning in the doorway of the bedroom. “Oh,” she said, coming to a stop, appraising Noah. “I guess we are late.”
“He had the dream again.”
Noah gave Will a look that he hoped sent the message that he didn’t need to be an over-sharer.
“The one about your father?” Tai asked.
“It’s not his father,” said Will. “It’s the person he was cloned from.”
“Same thing,” Tai asserted. “Or close enough.”
“No—” Will began.
“No,” said Noah, interrupting his brother as he got out of bed, remembering now what today was. “It’s more than that. You’re like your parents. Will and I are exactly like ours. We are literally the same DNA.”
Will looked like he was going to protest, but the pair of kids screaming past the bedroom door interrupted him. Just two of Tai’s eight brothers and sisters. Since the Healing had occurred, as Father Seelah and the other elders had called it, Noah, Will, and Tai had become celebrities of a sort.
Everybody on Nar had offered to give them a home. They, the most celebrated orphans on the planet.
Of course, it was a huge honor to host them—especially Noah, who six months after the Healing was still being worshipped in strange ways that he couldn’t get people to give up on. But it was the “huge honor” part that had surely guided where the three of them had actually ended up—under Father Seelah’s roof, in his school of assassins.
“Hey, bring that back!” said a red-headed teen running after the children. “Tai, can you do something about them?”
“You’re captain of the guard, Caleb,” Tai teased back. “If the little girls can defeat you, what does that say about the city?”
Caleb was Father Seelah’s son. At seventeen, he was definitely not captain of the guard, but he liked to think he was. If his father had a knack for making himself seem important, Caleb was a full-blown self-important prodigy.
“It’s not my job to control your brood!”
From a security standpoint, it made perfect since to keep the three of them inside the walls of Father Seelah’s academy of assassins. The Healers, as Noah and Will were known—but not Tai, despite Noah all but ordering people to include her—had to be safe, and what better place to put them than among the proud warriors who had first helped the prophecy come to pass? And of course, the academy had grown tremendously in stature as a result. Father Seelah had to turn away far more than he could train. The ranks were swelling, and Father Seelah had become a celebrity in his own right.
Noah could do without Seelah. He was too hard on Tai, for one. That grated on him. He did it in the name of being a father figure, which Tai surely saw him as, but it still annoyed Noah.
Tai turned back to Noah as if the interruption hadn’t happened. “I wish I was more like my mother. Maybe then I could deal with this horde,” she said. “Hurry up. We’re going to be late.”
“You said that already,” Noah said absently. “You said we already were late.”
“Did I?” Tai said. “Let me restate that. We’re going to be even later thanks to you, sleeping beauty.”
She turned and left the room without another word.
“She likes you,” Will said.
Noah jeered. “Yeah, it shows.”
“What are we going to do about the dreams?”
Noah tore off the commoner shirt that he’d fallen asleep in. It was his usual uniform when he wasn’t at the grounds of the academy. He found his formal black robes and started to put them on. “What do you think of me in black? Is this my look?”
Will crossed his arms. “You’re ignoring my question.”
Noah rolled his eyes. Why did his brother have to worry about everything? “It’s fine. At least the episodes are going away.” He had begun getting regular treatments at a clinic in the City of Light. Although he hadn’t held out much hope when he started, he was pleasantly surprised. As the auric had returned to the world, it was changing the world in subtle ways. Now that technology and humanity were both enjoying the renewing power within, tech advancements were happening much faster, and they were only accelerating every day. “Anyway, what’s this amazing new trick you’ve been perfecting with Sark that you want to show me?”
Will laughed. “Oh, it’s super cool.”
“And?”
“And I’ll show you when we get there.”
“Why can’t you just show me now?”
Will raised his eyebrows seductively. “Because then the magic wears off.”
Noah rolled his eyes. He knew his brother was worried he wasn’t going to actually go this morning. But he was just excited enough about it that he wasn’t so sure. He might actually have something cool to show off.
And Noah didn’t want to miss that. Damn. His brother knew him.
“Fine,” Noah said, “let’s go. I’m tired of waiting on you.”
“Waiting on me!” Will exploded, just as Tai appeared at the door, wearing a formal dress robe as well.
“Seriously,” she said. “Let’s go.” She walked away without waiting for an answer.
“As you command,” Noah said to her back. She waved a dismissive hand toward them.
Will glanced back at Will. “I still think you should talk to someone about the dreams.”
“Yes, worry wart,” said Noah.
Will pursed his lips. Noah knew he hated that. It just slipped out. “Sorry,” he said, patting his brother on the shoulder. “Everything is going to be fine. I promise.”
Chapter 3
Will was sure that everything was not going to be fine, and he could do without his brother’s condescending tone. Today was going to be hard.
Everything on Nar was hard right now. The Healing had altered the world overnight, almost as suddenly as the Inversion had first changed it. Six months later, the world was still trying to come to terms with it. All the Tak in the world from the time before was suddenly working again, but even better. All the auric healing powers were returning for the people.
Will watched out the window of the truck they rode in—one of a dozen that the academy had from before the Inversion that were working now again, powered by their own auric—and saw a group of people together on the grass, doing a form of calisthenics that Will recognized as a precursor to cycling their energy cores.
Will and Noah had a head start on everyone else on Nar when it came to controlling their auric, but others were learning fast. Adults would probably never be able to control auric that had been dormant their whole lives, but children were already growing more adept every day.
The assassin next to Will shifted in his seat, and the menacing weapon he carried shifted as well.
It wasn’t just a world transitioning from horse and buggy to trucks. Swords and arrows were giving way to auric-powered pulse weapons. There had been a handful that Killoran’s men had used to shoot at Noah when he’d first seen the energy core at the heart of the City of Light, so it should have come as no real shock to Will that these weapons were still around, being kept for the day when they might just work again.
He’d just never imagined there would be so many that would appear the instant the Healing occurred.
People were people, Will thought.
Something was bothering him. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Things just seemed … off.
He glanced at the truck following them. He didn’t recognize the men in the truck, but that wasn’t surprising. Unlike Tai, he didn’t have an intimate knowledge of the men and women who served as Father Seelah’s pupils. Still, he usually recognized their faces.
“Anything seem odd to you?” Will asked the man sitting next to him.
The man raised an eyebrow. “Other than driving through the city in an armed caravan to visit a starship?”
“Yeah,” Noah said, too used to sarcasm from his brother to even register it from this man. “Other than that.”
He smiled. “No, Healer. I’d say it’s a gorgeous day, and everything is as good as it can be.” He slapped Will on the back.
Tai noticed the movement and gave Will a wink and a thumbs-up. He felt his heart skip a beat.
The truck rolled to a halt in front of a large park. The sky was blue, and the green grass was vivid.
“We have a beautiful day for this,” said the driver as he got out. Noah, Tai, and Father Seelah exited as well. Will nodded absently as he stared out the window of the truck.
“See, what’d I tell you?” said the assassin next to Will as he slapped him again on the way out of the truck.
Will tried to swallow his worries as he climbed down.
Elixr rose majestically from the open field. The ship was cordoned off. A part of her front bow had a large facility built under it, like the ship had grown a giant visitor’s center.
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