Chapter 14 – The Unlucky One

  Bdain Araan Desert – Drift: 9

  He lied.

  Again.

  It was a clean, sharp lie. Just one sentence.

  “Just wait here,” David said, tugging the edge of his coat like it might make him look older. “I want to check one more thing.”

  Remulus raised an eyebrow. “And why do you need to be by yourself?”

  “I’m just going to ask one more person,” he insisted. “Iliana is singed, and you’re scary-looking.”

  Technically, it wasn’t a lie.

  It just wasn’t the entire truth.

  Iliana said nothing. She stood in the ship’s shadow, army suit sitting on her like a guard he wanted to avoid. The sun was already teasing the edges of her sleeves. Her face was unreadable, and that was true enough.

  He turned before they could press him. One hand on his satchel, one lie shoved down his throat.

  He paused at the door to the sanctuary, the one Dice always pretended not to notice him using. Quietly, he stepped inside.

  It was cool there. Alive in a way the rest of the ship wasn’t. Moss and root systems hummed in low silence. Somewhere behind the vines, the fox stirred. The sandbird crouched low on her perch, one wing prosthetic, the other tucked tight.

  He keyed the mirrored code without thinking. The seal sighed open. Cool, leaf-wet air kissed his face.

  He approached slowly and, from his coat, pulled out a sprig of bitterroot. Sharp-edged, violet-gray. He’d lifted it from Holland’s stall the night before, by accident, if anyone asked.

  Now, he laid it carefully in the sandbird’s dish.

  Dice’s voice hummed behind him, soft, observant. “High moisture retention. Toxic to humans. Potentially useful in ecosystem stabilization. If the bird doesn’t eat it first.”

  He didn’t answer. But smiled.

  Then he turned, quietly, and left. Dice pretended not to notice.

  He didn’t go back to the herbalist girl. Didn’t circle the spice row.

  He went three blocks west and rented the cheapest desert runner they had.

  It was half-charged, dented, and kind of barked when he kicked it. The solar spine was spider-cracked with old heat stress. The man behind the counter asked if he had permission to travel.

  And he lied.

  Again.

  “Got my uncle waiting at the ridge,” he said, even smiling a little. “Just want to do a loop.”

  He paid in physical value Holland had slipped him: paper and metal, the kind of receipt you can’t query. No wrist ping. No gate log. No guidance AI to rat him out to Dice.

  The runner sputtered to life. It had four electric legs, worn solar cells, and a steering yoke with too much give.

  “Perfect,” he thought.

  He mounted the thing easily enough. Like he’d done it a thousand times before. Like he wasn’t about to drive straight into the deadliest stretch of sand for a cure that probably didn’t exist.

  He’d bought a map he believed he could read from Holland, a little food and water, and a corrupted set of coordinates. And a pair of boots that looked worse than the runner.

  And left.

  No note. No Dice.

  Because sometimes, if you didn’t think too hard about it, it was almost brave.

  Though right now, it was only stupid.

  He was stupid.

  Stupid and ashamed and out of time.

  Emma was probably locked away in a dark room with the Vow-Lock around her throat, slowly going insane, and he was wasting time.

  Why?

  Because it was dangerous?

  That rusted bucket of a ship, Eurydice, was dangerous, and he still flew in it.

  He was ranting.

  Distracting himself from the stupid plan he’d made.

  But he couldn’t see another way.

  They didn’t understand.

  When they passed the marker last night, they’d walked right by it. The monastery. Immense and dark. Cold and terrifying. He’d never want to go inside, not if he could help it.

  But Emma had.

  Alone and in his place.

  Because he was too young.

  He should have told them. But he knew, deep inside, his plan was stupid, and they wouldn’t let him go. He was too important. A Librarian heir. But he didn’t feel important. He felt useless. More than that. He felt misunderstood. He wasn’t doing it to reclaim his title. He only wanted to save his sister. Right?

  So he stayed up all night thinking and came up with this amazing plan:

  Run the desert. Just a few drifts. He had a cloak to protect him from the sun.

  Slip through the canyons. The runner could fit. He’d asked.

  He’d find the compound somehow and race back to a herbalist to stabilize his Variant. Maybe even to the girl. She seemed capable, if unwilling.

  He could do it. He could stay awake.

  The map didn’t mention drifts or distance, just the route.

  He knew it wasn’t reliable. But he needed to believe it was enough.

  And how far could it be?

  He’d finished the repairs on the old console. Tightened the bolts on David’s creaking chair. Polished the mess hall. Fed the sanctuary creatures. Even brushed the fox.

  And still—no David.

  He wasn’t worried.

  Not really.

  But the ship had gone quiet. Too quiet.

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  Dice wasn’t speaking unless prompted, which was unusual. The AI never sulked, not really, but its silences could feel a lot like judgment.

  He leaned on the galley frame, arms crossed, staring down the boarding ramp like it might blink first.

  The sun outside was shifting again. Low and hot. Split shadows shortening in the dust.

  He probably went back to the stall. Or the spice vendor. Or the godsdamned girl.

  “Dice,” he said. “Scan for David’s wrist comm.”

  The AI responded, flat and instant: “No signal. He disabled tracking before leaving the dock.”

  “Of course he did,” he muttered. “Smart. Stupid. Both.”

  But it wasn’t just dumb. It was deliberate.

  For a kid raised in a system that monitored everything, from wrist-comm vitals to memory usage, choosing to disappear meant something. It meant he didn’t want to be found.

  Or maybe he did.

  But only after he’d earned it.

  He pushed off the wall and walked to the edge of the ramp.

  He stared at the horizon like maybe the kid would appear out of nowhere, waving and out of breath, grinning like a dumbass.

  The suns burned high in the sky, and sweat pooled at the base of his spine, just under the collar. A familiar dread settled in his gut, the kind he felt before an ambush or a failed negotiation.

  That same feeling.

  Dull. Stubborn. Terrifyingly familiar. The kid was probably gone. But he had to check one more time before giving up.

  His job was done. He’d brought the boy to Devon Five.

  Mission accomplished. Siren debt repaid.

  Right?

  Right?

  Damn it. “Dice!” he snapped, “check the UV index.”

  A pause. Then Dice’s voice dropped, just slightly. “Blue-sun Zenith expected mid-drift. Surface exposure will exceed safe levels shortly after. No shade between ridgelines.”

  His jaw tightened.

  “Iliana?” he barked over comms.

  No answer.

  “Damn it.”

  Nero was climbing fast… And David had probably never heard of the Hollow hour, or the Blue-sun Zenith, as the locals called it.

  He clicked his tongue. Stared at the horizon another moment, then muttered:

  “Damn it all to hell.” He headed for the market.

  The market buzzed with the low heat and higher tension of midmorning. Traders bickered. Shade nets fluttered. No David.

  Ahead, the girl from last night was crouched over a bundle of rags, whispering to it. He’d headed to her stall first. He approached. “Have you seen the boy? From last night?”

  She stilled, much too quickly. Alarms went off in his gut. Quiet ones. Ones he ignored.

  “I have, actually,” she said, stepping in front of the bundle. “He was talking to a tradesman. Holland. A few hours ago.”

  Then she added, with a smirk that shouldn’t have irritated him as much as it did: “Lost your Librarian Heir already?”

  “God damn it,” he muttered.

  Holland was a good friend and an even better supplier, but his mouth could lead you to hell and back if you had the nerve to follow.

  And David did. Or maybe he just lacked the sense not to.

  He didn’t question the concern in her tone, just shook his head. “He’s too stubborn for his own good.”

  “He left, didn’t he?” she asked. Her eyes were searching his.

  “It seems so. Do you happen to know the route?”

  She hesitated. Arms folded. Then: “I might. But it’s not good. This place, the desert, it eats people who aren’t prepared. And he didn’t seem prepared.”

  He pulled up the sat-link.

  “It cooks you first…” he muttered. “Just tell me. Send the coordinates. I’ll find him.”

  “I can show you,” she said, reaching down. “But I need a medical bay.”

  “Why?”

  She lifted the bundle. Fur. Blood. Pale skin and oversized mismatched eyes.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “A Mirrora,” she said. “One of the fighting-pit hatchlings. Found it this morning. It’s not aggressive.”

  He stared at the creature, barely breathing. Then at the girl, arms full of trouble. And sighed. “Of course it’s not.” Blood and sun-bleached fur smelled sour in the rising heat, a reminder of how fast flesh cooks under two unforgiving suns.

  He tapped his comm. “Dice. Prep the med bay.”

  “One injured?” Dice asked.

  He gave the Mirrora a look. Then the girl. Then sighed again.

  “You slow me down, and I drop you.”

  The girl, Serendipity if he’d heard right, glanced behind her, grabbed a light pack from the floor, and slung it over one shoulder. Behind her, a shimmer flickered across the stall; high-grade UV barrier.

  “You drop me, you miss him. Rentals shove first-timers onto the ridge road, then into the Glass Canyons. I know the turn he’ll blow past.”

  No point arguing, he just moved on, already regretting what this day was turning into.

  Behind him, the Mirrora made a noise like a clogged vent. His gut tightened even more. He was gonna get ulcers at this rate.

  The world tilted, just slightly, and she closed her eyes to steady it.

  It wasn’t pain. Not quite. It was the feeling of her lungs trying too hard, dragging too little. A faint metallic taste pooled under her tongue; her fingertips tingled. The edges of the room fuzzed. She stayed in the dark, sitting low against the engine shaft, arms draped over her knees, forehead damp. Her fingers twitched once. Stilled.

  The implants would adjust. They always did. They were old, yes. Not top-grade. She’d had them tuned to too many atmospheres, too many gravity wells. They needed time to realign, to pick up on Devon Five’s magnetic field and recalibrate oxygen diffusion. She knew the drill: first came the fatigue, then the tightness in her chest, the prickling behind her eyes, the way every breath felt like chewing thin cotton. But beneath the mechanics lay a quiet fear, a whisper of what could happen if they failed.

  By next drift, she’d be fine. Better than fine. Her body would balance out and fall in line with this world as it did with the other places she’d visited. She just had to get through this part without anyone noticing.

  The console lights overhead flickered gently, and her head lolled back to rest against the cool panel. She didn’t move. Didn’t call for help. Didn’t even answer Remulus.

  Dice’s voice came in, soft as always. “You’re running a twelve-percent drop in oxygen absorption. Blood pressure destabilized. Recalibration in progress.”

  Iliana didn’t answer. Just breathed, shallow and slow.

  “You should remain in a low-energy state. Do not engage in manual activity. Drink water. Sleep. That sort of thing.”

  She exhaled, half a laugh. “Does it look like I’m doing anything else?” she huffed. “Besides, I don’t want them to see me like this.”

  A pause. Dice’s tone dropped half a degree. “There is no one left to see you.”

  She opened her eyes.

  From her corner of the ship, she could hear the med bay prepping, low mechanical whirrs, a tray slotting into place, the soft hiss of the pressure seals.

  Her spine tensed.

  “Who is it?” she asked, voice low.

  A pause. “Remulus has returned to the market. He is not alone.”

  She pushed herself upright, slow and reluctant. The shift made her vision blur. “He found the kid?”

  “Not yet.”

  She stilled. Her balance faltered for half a second, not enough to fall, just enough to feel it.

  “Then who’s with him?”

  “Serendipity,” Dice said.

  She paused. “The herbalist?”

  “Affirmative,” the AI chimed.

  She braced a hand on the console. Her lungs ached. “And David?”

  Another pause. “Still offline.”

  She steadied herself, fingers curling tight on the edge of the console. “Then what’s the med bay for?”

  “Serendipity is transporting an injured Mirrora,” Dice replied. “Remulus authorized treatment.”

  She exhaled slowly through her nose. “Of course he did.” She turned away from the panel, pacing a few slow, weighted steps toward the viewport. Her legs ached. Her chest burned cold. “And David?”

  “I repeat,” Dice said. “Still offline.”

  She swallowed hard. “Could he survive out there, without a suit?”

  A beat. Then: “Not past Blue-sun Zenith,” Dice said. “Nero at apex. UV index spikes. Shade becomes the only ally, hence the local saying Zen spa u - Zenith Spare you. Once it peaks, skin blisters in minutes. Lungs go next.”

  She turned. “Did he know?”

  “Unlikely.”

  Her breath caught, just for a moment. “Remulus?”

  “He knows now.”

  She closed her eyes. One hand drifted to her ribs, her implants humming faintly under the skin, still syncing with the planet. Her chest had turned to iron. “So where is David?” she asked the ship.

  A pause. Then Dice replied, level but not without edge: “The captain and the herbalist believe he followed an outdated route across the open desert, attempting to collect the Variant himself. An impossible task.”

  She didn’t move.

  Dice added, helpfully:

  “To answer your question: David is currently… on a trajectory to being cooked.”

  She cursed the suns and the sky, sealed her suit up to the neck, and grabbed her helmet.

  “You think this is funny?”

  “No. Just probable.”

  She didn’t flinch. Just slammed the helmet on. “Open the damn doors. I’m going after him.”