CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

VESPER

A cross the cavern, the sounds of weapons crashing together rang out, and the echoes of magic reverberated through the air. As much as I wanted to turn around and see how Kyrion and Zane were doing against Pollux, I had my own battle to fight.

By this point, Esmina had killed most of the mercenaries on this side of the chasm. Only one man was left, and he raised his shock baton high and charged straight at her. Idiot. He was already dead. He just didn't know it yet.

Esmina flicked her fingers, using her telekinesis to send the merc flying through the air. He dropped into the chasm, his screams becoming fainter and more frantic the farther he fell. I scrambled away from the edge of the chasm, still clutching my stormsword. She wasn't going to kill me that easily.

I looked around, but there was nothing useful on this side of the cavern, just dead mercenaries, piles of rubble, and the permaglass bridge that ran by the waterfall. Despite Pollux cracking open the cavern floor, the water was still tumbling down the rocks in a steady, frothy stream.

Esmina advanced on me, and I ran across the bridge. I sprinted into the next chamber, but it was more of the same, and another permaglass bridge ran past this side of the waterfall before ending in a circular balcony.

I bit back a curse and whirled around. I had to make a stand, and I had to figure out how to kill Esmina—or I was dead.

Footsteps scraped across the stone, and Esmina stepped into the chamber. She walked toward me, her pace steady and unhurried, as though she had all the time in the galaxy. Given her precog abilities, she probably already knew exactly how long it would take to kill me.

She stepped onto the bridge and trailed her fingers across the glass. Her short, dark purple nails scraped out a shrill, screeching tone.

Esmina stopped and gestured over at the waterfall. "Do you know why I bought this place? Why I decided to use Stardrop Falls as my base? Because of all the memories it holds."

"What memories?" I asked in a wary voice.

"This is where Micah and I formed our truebond the day I fell exploring the waterfall. Later on, he proposed to me in this very spot." Esmina's fingers stroked the railing, almost as if she was petting the permaglass. "And this is where I took control of my own future and pushed him over the side."

A chill swept down my spine. I knew she'd killed Micah in the cavern, close to the waterfall, but I hadn't realized she'd done it in this very chamber.

My magic surged to life, and suddenly, I could see it all playing out. Micah dropping to one knee, a ring in his hand, looking at Esmina with such love, hope, and devotion. Her letting him slide the ring onto her finger, then rise to his feet. Esmina planting her hands against Micah's chest and shoving him back, making him flip up and over the side of the bridge. His screams ringing out, followed by the loud crack of his body hitting the rocks below. Then Esmina quickly descending a rope to the bottom of the cavern, her dagger in one hand. The lunarium blade glowing as she leaned over, cut Micah's throat, and took his power for her own . . .

"Do you believe in destiny, Vesper?" Esmina asked.

Her voice broke the spell of my magic, and the images vanished. She took a few more steps toward me, and I backed away, matching her move for move, as though we were doing an elaborate Regal dance.

"No, I didn't believe in destiny—until I met Kyrion."

Her eyebrows shot up, and she let out a mocking laugh. "You think he's your destiny? How very quaint."

"Then what would you call it? Kyrion and me finding each other out of all the billions of people in the galaxy? Us forming a connection, a truebond?"

"Random chance? Luck of the draw? An unfortunate accident? Anything but destiny ." A fierce light flared in Esmina's eyes. "No matter how strong or weak they are, people make their own destinies, whether they realize it or not. After all, what is choice if not a part of destiny?"

Maybe it was strange, but in a way, she was right. I wouldn't be here right now without choices. All the grim choices Beatrice had made to exile Nerezza from Corios. All the easy choices Nerezza had made to abandon me to climb the Regal ladder. All the complicated choices Kyrion and I had made about our truebond.

Grim, easy, complicated. Some of them were mine, and some of them belonged to others, but all those choices, all those actions, had led me here, to this moment, and I still couldn't help but feel like some of them were destiny too.

"What choice are you going to make now?" I asked. "Nerezza betrayed you and Pollux, your own mercs turned against you, and it's only a matter of time before the House Collier Hammers show up."

Esmina shrugged. "Nerezza betraying us was always a strong possibility. You were right about one thing, Vesper. Your mother doesn't like to get her hands dirty. Nerezza fled from the cavern as soon as the fighting started. I'm sure she's already on her way to a spaceport, planning to get off-planet as fast as possible. I'm counting on it."

A chill swept down my spine. "What did you do?"

"Pollux and I planted bombs on Nerezza's ship," Esmina replied. "It will explode a minute after takeoff."

My heart squeezed at her words. Nerezza might deserve such a vicious death, but I couldn't say the same about other passengers on her ship, and people on the ground might get hurt by the falling debris. And even though Nerezza had never been my mother in any way that truly mattered, I still couldn't stop mourning the loss of something I'd never had.

"You were counting on Nerezza betraying you? Why?" But as soon as I asked the question, the answer came to me. "You were always planning to double-cross Nerezza. You and Pollux were going to kill her and keep the Techwave cannon for yourselves."

"Of course we were. We were also going to turn you and Kyrion over to Callus Holloway to collect the bounty. I could see it all playing out so clearly, but things haven't happened the way I expected." Esmina's lips puckered in thought. "I'm not quite sure when or how things went wrong. You've done something no one has in a long time, Vesper. You managed to surprise me. Perhaps you're not as weak as I thought."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

Esmina shrugged again. "I don't care what you think it is. All that matters is you're still not as strong as me ."

She twirled the dagger around in her hand. The hilt gleamed a wicked gold, while the blood of all the mercenaries she'd killed dripped off the blade. Esmina tightened her grip on the dagger, and the lunarium blade sparked with bright gold flecks.

"What about the bounty?" I asked, trying to buy myself some more time to come up with a plan—any plan—to defeat her. "I thought you wanted to turn me in for all those sweet, sweet credits."

"As you said, the Hammers are probably on their way here right now, so that's no longer an option." Esmina gestured back toward the other chamber filled with dead mercenaries. "I never leave enemies alive behind me. It's your unlucky day, Vesper. If only you had managed to be on the other side of the chasm, you might have lived a few minutes longer."

She tilted her head to the side. In the distance, several loud yells rang out, along with the sharp bang-bang-bang of weapons. "At least until Pollux finishes killing your friends."

Kyrion's anger, frustration, and worry surged through the bond. I could feel how hard he was fighting, and my heart iced over at the thought of him being killed. Zane too, but I couldn't help them right now, and something about Esmina's words nagged at me.

"If you're so strong, then why are you hiding in this cavern instead of toppling House Collier? Leland disabled the estate's defensive shield, so why didn't you go ahead and wipe out the Colliers? When your men were attacking the estate earlier today, why didn't you go after Aldrich and Verona?"

"All in good time," Esmina replied, but her voice wasn't quite as confident as before.

I eyed her. What did Aldrich and Verona have that Esmina didn't? But as soon as I asked the question, the answer came to me. "It's because the Colliers are a truebonded pair. Together they're still stronger than you, aren't they?" My eyes narrowed. "Which means I'm still stronger than you are too."

Esmina scoffed. "Please. Your bond hasn't even solidified yet. Even if it had, you're still flailing around in the dark, trying to figure out what you can do with your own seer power." She gestured around at the empty chamber. "Kyrion isn't here to thwart my plans like he did in the junkyard. Face it, Vesper. Your magic is weak, and no one is coming to save you."

Her mocking words stung, but I lifted my sword a little higher. "You're right. I don't know all the ins and outs of my magic yet, and no one is coming to help me—but I don't need anyone to rescue me. I was on my own a long time before I met Kyrion, and I managed to survive."

"Surviving is not winning ," Esmina snarled.

"Is that what you've been doing all these years? Just surviving?"

Agreement flashed across her face before she could hide it.

"What does winning look like to you?" I asked, genuinely curious.

Esmina's jaw clenched, and her eyes glimmered with unmistakable longing. "Tearing down House Collier. Establishing my own major House." She hesitated. "Finally coming home."

Once again, my seer magic stirred to life, and another image flickered in the air: Esmina relaxing in a comfortable chair, a mug of Frozon hot chocolate in her hand, flames crackling in a nearby fireplace.

I blinked, and the cozy image vanished, along with the peace and warmth it inspired. "You're homesick ? That's what this is really all about?"

Surprise flickered across her face, but it quickly boiled up into anger. "You're damn right I'm homesick. Thanks to Aldrich Collier and the other Houses putting a bounty on my head, I haven't spent more than a few days at a time on Sygnustern in years ."

I stabbed my sword at the spot on the bridge where she had pushed Micah over the side. "Because you murdered your friend!"

"Micah thought our truebond meant he got to stick to my side and suck off my power like a bloody leech for the rest of our lives. I never wanted that. I never wanted him ." Even more anger boiled up in her eyes, turning them more gold than green. "Micah made his choice, and I made mine—and I chose to set myself free ."

Part of me understood her desire to be free. When my truebond had first formed with Kyrion, I'd been horrified that I was connected to one of the most notorious killers in the galaxy, and I'd even thought about killing Kyrion to protect myself when he'd menaced me after the Techwave battle on Magma 3. But I hadn't taken that drastic action. Not because I was soft or weak, like Esmina claimed, but because I'd been strong and patient enough to explore other options, to consider other choices—and loving Kyrion was the best choice I'd ever made.

"You could have chosen something else, gone somewhere else. You didn't have to kill Micah."

"Why should I have to leave my home?" Esmina replied. "Why should I be shackled to someone and forced to endure all their thoughts and feelings? Why should I let someone else's weakness drag me down and potentially put my life in danger?"

"So you took Micah's life instead? And then took his magic?" I shook my head. "That's not power—that's fear."

Esmina jerked back as though I had slapped her. The anger in her eyes burned hotter still, morphing into crackling fury. She stabbed her dagger at me. "Surrender now, and I'll make your death relatively quick, Vesper. That's far more mercy than I showed Micah."

"Mercy? You don't know the meaning of the word."

Esmina shrugged. "Have it your way."

Without warning, she charged forward and slashed her dagger through the air, aiming at my chest.

O nce again, time slowed down, and I spotted one tiny detail after another. Esmina's hair streaming out behind her like a rippling red river. Her lips drawing back into a feral smile. And most of all, the lunarium dagger in her hand, the golden glow of her psion power burning away all the blood speckled on the sharp blade . . .

Time snapped back to its normal flow. I snarled and stabbed out with my sword, aiming the blade at Esmina's chest . . . and she smoothly stepped aside, spun past me, and lashed out with her dagger.

I didn't even see her cut me, although a hot line of pain zipped across my upper left arm. I hissed, whirled around, and snapped my sword up into a defensive position. Blood welled up out of the slice and trickled down my arm.

Esmina grinned and crooked her finger in a clear challenge. I rushed forward.

Thrust. Parry. Spin. Dodge.

My sword clashed with Esmina's dagger over and over, creating a quick, sharp chorus that echoed off the cavern walls. I fought as hard as I could, swinging my sword faster than I ever had before, but Esmina easily avoided my blows. Every time I attacked, she simply moved to the side and swiped her dagger across whatever part of me she could reach.

My right forearm. My right hip. My left thigh. My left calf.

Esmina moved up and down and glided back and forth as though her body was made of liquid instead of muscles and bones. I couldn't even nick her with my sword, and she was slowly but surely killing me.

I tried yet again, driving my sword toward her leg in an attempt to at least hobble and slow her down, but once again, Esmina avoided the blow. This time, she stepped in close and sliced her dagger across my stomach.

A shriek of pain ripped out of my throat, and I lurched back and clapped my hand over the burning, stinging wound. Hot blood spurted out between my fingers and dripped down my skin. A chilling realization swept through my bones. If she'd wanted to, she could have gutted me—killed me—with that attack.

"You can't beat me, Vesper," Esmina crowed. "I can literally see every move you make before you make it."

Frustration shot through me. She was right. Her precog magic gave her a huge advantage, and the other seer was waltzing around me the same way she had done with the mercenaries earlier. Esmina was just playing with me the way a Tropics tiger would play with a mouse it had spied in the rain forest.

I always hated being the mouse, and I had never felt more like a toy in my entire life.

Even when Callus Holloway had siphoned off my magic, I had been able to fight back, or at least try to block his power, but that wasn't the case with Esmina. How did you defeat someone who always knew when and where and how you were going to attack?

"Come on, Vesper," Esmina said. "Isn't it time to admit I've been right all along?"

"Right about what?" I asked, keeping my sword up and tracking her movements as she circled around me, even as I tried to think of some way to kill her.

"That being part of a truebond isn't some great and glorious destiny. That it's nothing but a giant mistake . A pair of magical shackles that usually gets not one but two people killed."

Her lips curled back in disgust. "It's a shame a psion as powerful as Kyrion Caldaren is bound to someone who can't even access the full potential of her own seer magic. What a laughable failure you are." She shook her head. "And now Kyrion's going to die because of you. What a bloody waste of his potential."

My stomach clenched. I had been calling up all of Kyrion's sparring lessons, using everything he had taught me about being a warrior, and it still wasn't enough.

Esmina was right—I was a failure.

She must have sensed my thoughts, because another cruel smile curved her lips. "I was right about you all along, Vesper. You truly are nothing but a weak link, and I've already broken you." She tilted her head to the side, the gold flecks in her eyes flaring with magic. "I wonder how long it will take for your precious Kyrion to die. Perhaps he'll be so stricken with grief that his heart will just give out, and his death will happen quickly. Or perhaps he'll try to hang on because that's what you would want him to do."

Her smile widened. "I hope it's the latter. Perhaps I can collect on Holloway's bounty after all. It will be easy to capture Kyrion in his grief-stricken state, and he's worth more than you are anyway."

Dread flooded my heart like an icy river. The bitch was going to wait until I was dead, then take Kyrion back to Corios. Holloway would do his best to keep Kyrion alive as long as possible, which would be a fate worse than death.

I couldn't let that happen. I would not let that happen. Not to Kyrion. But how could I stop it? The other seer was well on her way to killing me, just like she said.

Esmina raised her dagger. I tensed and lifted my sword, even though I already knew it wouldn't do me any good against her vicious swipes.

Suddenly, Esmina stopped and blinked, and her magic flared even brighter in her eyes, as though she was seeing something else instead of me standing in front of her.

"Pollux," she whispered. "He's . . . dead ."

Esmina's eyes widened, and she reached up and clutched her chest with her free hand. I eyed her warily, but I didn't get the sense she was acting. She and Pollux might not have been bonded, but she was feeling . . . something .

But instead of going mad with grief, as Adria Byrne had when she had lost her brother Dargan, Esmina let out a small sigh. She shook her head and dropped her hand from her chest. Then her gaze cleared, and she was calm once again.

"Your friend is dead," I said.

"Yes."

And that was all she said. That one simple word. As though she had accepted the fact that Pollux was gone, and she had already returned to the problem at hand: how to amuse herself until she finally decided to kill me.

I'd known Esmina was ruthless, but for the first time, I realized how empty she truly was. The only thing Esmina had ever loved in the cold depths of her heart was herself. The other seer was remarkably similar to Nerezza in that regard.

"Pollux being dead might be for the best," Esmina said in a thoughtful voice. "He reached his full psion potential a long time ago, and he's been stagnant ever since. After I kill you, perhaps I'll kill Kyrion and see if I can take his power. Increasing my own psionic abilities would eliminate my need for someone like Pollux."

Another image shimmered in the air: Esmina cutting Kyrion's throat and watching him bleed out on the rocky ground.

My heart froze in my chest. Somehow I knew that would be even more painful than Holloway siphoning off our magic. Esmina would pull the magic, life, and energy out of Kyrion all at once, just as she had done to Micah so long ago, and she wouldn't care how much Kyrion suffered in the process.

I growled and rushed toward her, trying to take her by surprise, but Esmina just laughed and slid to the side the way she'd been doing all along.

"Haven't you learned anything yet?" she called out in a mocking voice. "You can't beat me, Vesper."

For the first time, I realized I wasn't trying to beat Esmina— Kyrion was. Or at least, the part of me that he had trained as a warrior was trying to beat her.

Kyrion's fighting skills clearly weren't working, and more and more blood oozed out of all the cuts on my body every time I tried to attack Esmina. It was time to change course and try something different.

It was time to use my own magic.

Esmina might have the power of a truebonded pair running through her veins, but in the end, she was still just a seer, just like me. No two seers were alike, and we all saw things differently, both with our eyes and our other senses and especially with our magic. All I had to do was see something she didn't, just like I'd been able to fix the Techwave cannon when no one else had.

I'd told Kyrion to believe in my ability to keep myself safe. Now I needed to do the same thing—to trust in myself and especially in my magic.

I kept my sword up, but I backed away from Esmina, moving farther across the permaglass bridge and closer to the waterfall.

Esmina shook her head. "Running away won't save you, Vesper. You don't have anywhere to go."

She was right—and wrong. I didn't have anywhere physically to go, since the balcony was the end of the line in this chamber. But I could go anywhere I wanted to with my magic.

I kept staring at Esmina, but in my mind's eye, I was in the round room of my mindscape. I ignored the memories and images flickering in the archways and sprinted straight into the Door filled with darkness. In an instant, I moved through the blackness, a silver light appeared, and I skidded to a stop beside my psionic nexus, the eye-shaped altar that was the heart of my magic.

Come on , I thought, staring down at the altar. Do something! Show me something! Anything to stop Esmina and save Kyrion!

The nexus remained still as always, although the lunarium eyes and arrows winked up at me from the sapphsidian table like silver stars. I was two minutes away from dying, maybe less, and I still couldn't figure out how the blasted nexus worked or what, if anything, it actually did .

Fury roared through me, and I slammed my fist onto the table. To my surprise, the lunarium eyes brightened in response, and sparks shot off them like fireworks, matching the heat raging through my body.

I frowned and pulled my hand back. Verona had said my magic was a white-hot star, while Kyrion's was a cold blue moon. Our powers ebbed and flowed, just like our emotions did, but our magic was always lurking inside us.

Maybe that was the purpose of my psionic nexus, to be a visual reminder that my magic was always a part of me, always steady and sturdy and waiting here in the dark depths of my mindscape. Maybe I didn't need more magic, more emotion, right now. Maybe I just needed to tap into what I already had, what I'd always had.

Instead of focusing on the lunarium eyes and arrows, I plunged my hands into the dark blue sapphsidian, as though I was trying to reach down and touch the very bottom of the table. A comforting coolness swept up my arms, and I pushed my hands even deeper into the table, letting more and more of that soothing sensation flood my body. For the first time, I recognized the sensation for what it was: calm, cold calculation.

In front of me, out in the real world, Esmina's eyes narrowed. "What are you doing, Vesper? Trying to call up even more of your seer magic to use against me?" She laughed, the mocking sound even louder than the gush of the waterfall. "How sad and desperate you are. I have far more power than you've ever dreamed of, even with your precious truebond."

I ignored her taunt and looked past her, still holding on to my psionic nexus in my mind's eye.

One by one, colors sparked in my field of vision. The frothy white blur of the waterfall. The dull gray shimmer of the rocks. Even the transparent sheen of the permaglass bridge. I saw all those colors and a dozen more. Not just color but strength and energy and substance.

Esmina clutched her dagger a little tighter. The other seer practically burned with color, and a miasma of green and gold swirled around her head like jeweled comets spinning around and around. The same shades shot off her lunarium dagger, which was glowing so brightly it hurt my eyes to look at it.

I squinted past the harsh glare, still holding on to my magic. I still wasn't quite sure what I was searching for, but I needed to stop overthinking and worrying and debating things to death. Trusting my own instincts and taking immediate action was the only way I was going to cancel out Esmina's precognition, and right now, my instincts were whispering that the answer to defeating the other seer was somewhere in this cavern. I knew it was, just like I knew I could always fix whatever broken appliance crossed my desk in the R&D lab.

The waterfall, the rocks, the bridge. I looked at them all again, but it wasn't just colors I saw—it was also the absence of them.

Like the clear, tiny tendrils that were slowly snaking through the permaglass bridge.

And just like that, the answer came to me. Of course. I should have realized it sooner. I was always so focused on fixing things—broken appliances in the lab, the overheating Techwave cannon, even my truebond with Kyrion—that I never considered the other side of my power.

As a seer, I could fix things—but I could also destroy them.

"You're right about one thing," I called out, still holding on to my psionic nexus in my mind's eye.

"What's that?" Esmina asked.

"People do make their own destinies."

She gave me an amused look. "If you're trying to lure me into a trap by agreeing with me, it won't work. You don't have anywhere else to go, Vesper."

She was wrong about that. I did have one more place to go. It was just the one place no one in their right mind would go, which was probably why she hadn't thought of it and why her magic hadn't whispered a warning about it yet.

I laughed, and the sound bounced off the cavern walls. Esmina frowned, but she slowly closed the distance between us. She was so focused on what I was doing that she never looked down, so she never saw more of those spiderweb cracks zigzagging through the bridge with every step we both took.

That's it , I thought. Keep coming this way. Just a few more feet. That's all I need . . .

Esmina stopped, wary of a trap. Her frown deepened, and she brandished her dagger at me. She knew I was up to something, but she still wasn't looking down, so she hadn't seen the real threat yet. I kept my sword up, even as I subtly rocked back and forth on my feet. The vibration caused even more spiderwebs to appear in the glass, although the rush of the waterfall masked the cracking sounds.

I rocked back and forth again, and one of the spiderwebs snaked into another, and they spiraled out, zipping faster and faster through the permaglass. I stopped moving. There. That should do it.

"Do you know what your problem is?"

"What?" Esmina snapped, still suspicious.

I grinned. "Even with all your magic, you can't fly any more than I can."

Confusion creased Esmina's face. Then magic sparked in her eyes, and she lunged toward me. "No! Don't!"

Her dagger arced straight toward my heart. She wasn't playing around anymore. She knew exactly what I was plotting, and she was determined to stop me.

But this time, I was ready. I sidestepped Esmina's attack, dropped to my knees, and slid across the slick glass. I made it back to the center of the bridge and stopped, right in the middle of all those clear, tiny cracks. Through the glass, below the bridge, I spotted a stone ledge sticking out from the side of the waterfall. Hope rose in my heart. Maybe I could actually survive this after all.

Esmina screamed with frustration, whirled around, and rushed toward me.

I ignored her frantic charge, wrapped both hands around my stormsword, and raised it up as high as my arms would go. In my mind's eye, I plunged my hands even deeper into the sapphsidian pool of my psionic nexus, gathering up as much of my magic as possible. Then I drove my stormsword down into the bridge.

Flames exploded out of the tip of the lunarium blade and rushed through all the cracks, and for a moment, the dark blue burn of my magic lit up the entire bridge.

Then, with a thunderous roar, the permaglass shattered, and the bridge collapsed.