Starsight (The Skyward Series Book 2)

Being two people was an uncomfortable experience for Morriumur. On the left, one could argue that Morriumur had never known anything different. On the right, one could point out that one’s separate halves—and the memories they had inherited—knew precisely how odd the experience was.

Two minds thinking together, but blending memories and experiences from the past. Only some from each parent, a stew of personality and memory. Occasionally their instincts fought against one another. Earlier in the day, Morriumur had reached to scratch their head—but both hands had tried to do it at once. And before that, at the sound of a loud bang—just a dish being dropped—Morriumur had tried to both dodge for cover and jump up to help at the same time.

This disjunction was growing even worse as the two halves prepared to separate and recombine again. Morriumur stepped toward the drafting pod, passing through a double row of family members—lefts on one side, rights the other, with agendered choosing either side. They held out the appropriate hand, brushing Morriumur’s own extended hands as they passed through the dark room.

Morriumur was supposed to have two and a half months left, but after leaving the space force . . . well, the decision had been made to proceed early. This draft was not right. Morriumur’s parents and family agreed. Time to try again.

Everyone said it wasn’t supposed to feel like a farewell, and that Morriumur shouldn’t see it as a rejection. Redrafting was common, and they had been assured it wouldn’t hurt. Yet how could one take it as anything but a rejection?

Too aggressive, one grand had said. This will trouble them all their life.

They chose to investigate a career very unbecoming of a dione, one pibling had said. They could never be happy like this.

These same relatives gave Morriumur fond lip-draws, touching hands with them as if seeing them off on a journey. The drafting pod was much like a large bed, though with the center hollowed out. Shaped of the traditional wood with a slick polished interior, once Morriumur climbed into it, its lid would be affixed and a nutrient bath injected to help with the cocooning and redrafting process.

Their eldest grand, Numiga, took both of their hands as they stepped up to the pod. “You did well, Morriumur.”

“If that’s so . . . why have I failed to prove myself?”

“Your job wasn’t to prove yourself. It was merely to exist and let us see possibilities. Come, you yourself returned to us and agreed the process needed to continue.”

Morriumur’s left hand gave a curved gesture of affirmation, almost on its own. They had returned. Departed the docks while the others went to fight. Fled, because . . . because they’d been too upset to continue. Defending against delvers was one thing, but going to shoot down other pilots? The idea horrified Morriumur.

You’d have been too frightened to fight a delver anyway, a part of them—perhaps one of their parents—thought. Too aggressive for dione society. Too paranoid to fight. Redrafting is for the best.

For the best, another part of them thought.

Morriumur stumbled, feeling a disorientation caused by the two separating parts of their brain. Numiga helped them sit on the side of the drafting pod, their deep reddish-violet skin seeming to glow in the candlelight.

“It’s beginning,” Numiga said. “It is time.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“It will not hurt,” Numiga promised. “It will still be you who comes out, redrafted. Just a different you.”

“What if I want to be the same me?”

Numiga patted them on the hand. “Almost all of us went through a few drafts, Morriumur, and we all survived it. When you emerge again, you will wonder why you were so bothered.”

Morriumur nodded and put both feet into the pod. Then they paused. “When I come back out, will I remember these months?”

“Faintly,” Numiga said. “Like fragments of a dream.”

“And my friends? Will I know their faces?”

Numiga pushed them, gently, into the pod. It was time. Morriumur’s two halves were unraveling, the minds separating, and their personality . . . stretched thin. It was . . . hard . . . to . . . think . . .

The chamber rocked with a sudden extended tremble. Morriumur grabbed the side of the pod, hissing out in surprise. Around them, the others stumbled against one another, crying out or hissing. People fell as the trembling persisted, until finally it grew still.

What had that been? It felt like the platform had been hit by something—but what kind of impact could be so large that it would shake all of Starsight?

Outside, screams sounded in the streets. Morriumur’s relatives climbed to their feet in a mess, pushing aside the drapings in front of the doorway. They opened it and let light flood the small dark chamber.

Trembling, barely able to control their limbs, Morriumur crawled out of the pod. Everyone seemed to have forgotten them. What . . . what could be happening? Pulling themself up on the equipment near the pod, Morriumur got to their feet and stumbled to the door leading outside, where many of their relatives stood staring upward in a wide-eyed stupor.

A planet had somehow appeared beside Starsight. A dark, dust-shrouded thing, with terrible lines emerging from within its black center. Deep red lights played beneath the dust, like eruptions of magma. It loomed over Starsight, a spectacle so vast—so unexpected—that both of Morriumur’s minds reeled. How could that be there, interrupting the calming depths of space that had always been on the horizon?

It’s a delver! one mind trembled. Run!

Flee! the other mind screamed.

Around Morriumur, relatives scrambled away, running—though how did you run from something like this? Within moments, only Morriumur was standing there before the building, alone. Their minds continued to panic, but Morriumur didn’t let go, and slowly their minds relaxed and knit back together.

It wouldn’t last long. But for now, Morriumur looked up and exposed their teeth.

Cuna gripped the rail of their balcony, trying to take in the awesome sight of the delver.

“We’ve failed,” they whispered. “He’s destroyed Detritus. Now he brings it here to show off his power.”

The scent around them turned sharply angry, like that of wet soil. “This is a disaster,” Zezin said. “You said . . . I didn’t believe . . . Cuna, how could Winzik do this?”

Cuna gave a helpless gesture of their fingers, still staring up at the terrible sight. The awesome scale of the thing made it difficult to tell, but Cuna could feel the thing drawing closer, approaching the city.

“He’ll destroy us,” Cuna realized. “The high minister is still in attendance. Winzik will take out the Superiority’s government, leaving only himself.”

“No,” Zezin said, smelling of hot spices. “Even he is not so callous. This is a mistake, Cuna. He summoned it, but cannot control it as he assumed. It has come here of its own volition.”

Yes. Cuna realized the truth of it immediately. Winzik wanted to be known as a hero; he would not destroy Starsight. This wasn’t just a mistake—it was a disaster of the highest order. The same foolishness that had made the humans fall.

Ships began to stream away in a panic, and Cuna wished them speed. Maybe some would escape.

It was a dubious hope. Starsight was doomed, and Cuna couldn’t help feeling an awful responsibility. Would Winzik have ever decided upon this course if the two of them hadn’t brainstormed a potential defense force, years ago?

Embers began to launch from the delver, slamming into the shield around Starsight and bursting with incredible explosions. Soon the shield would fall.

The air turned a sour scent of rotting fruit—sorrow and anguish from Zezin.

“Go,” Cuna whispered. “You might be able to move quickly enough to escape.”

“We . . . we will stop this from going further, Cuna,” Zezin promised. “We’ll resist Winzik. Clean up his mess.”

“Go.”

Zezin left. Figments could move quickly through the air, or even the vacuum. They both knew that alone, Zezin could perhaps reach a private ship in time to fly out beyond the shield and hyperjump away.

An old dione, however . . . Was there anything Cuna could do to help? Send a last broadcast perhaps, exposing Winzik? Give courage to those fleeing? Was there even time for that?

Cuna gripped the banister, looking out at the delver. Shrouded in its veil—glowing from its own light—the thing had a terrifying beauty to it. Cuna almost felt like they were standing alone before a deity. A god of destruction.

Then, an incongruity finally ripped Cuna’s attention away. An impossibility amid the fear.

A small group of fighters, just outside the shield, had appeared and now flew straight toward the delver.