Chapter 28

She did it.

Jewel did it. She shot the starship out of the sky. She never would’ve turned the long-range weapon on the Sky Tribe jets otherwise. She never would’ve come out of the tower. My woman. Our woman. Our champion.

Fadai falls beside me. Struck down by a mountain of a man in Sky Tribe colors. I see blood red as I lunge at him, but he swings his armored arm out and smacks into me with the strength of a loose cannon.

I end up on my back, every bone in my body aching. I’m sure a few are broken. The pain has become too much to bear.

“Fadai,” I manage between crackling, wheezing breaths.

“What is she doing?” my brother manages as he looks somewhere beyond the mercenaries about to descend upon us with all their wrath and violence.

“STOP!” Jewel’s voice booms across the military compound’s roof. “It’s done!”

“What is she…” I can’t even speak anymore, but whatever Jewel is doing, it’s got their attention. One by one, the soldiers stop in their tracks and turn around.

I follow their confused gazes all the way to where we left Shaytan and Blaze’s bodies. Finally, I see her. Jewel, scratched and bloodied, her breathing ragged and her legs shaking, very much alive and eager to remain so.

She holds up a massive medallion made of gold.

“Shaytan’s badge,” Fadai sighs, slowly pulling himself into a sitting position.

“It’s done! Shaytan Hull is dead! Blaze Pyrin is dead!” Jewel shouts, pointing to her left. “Your planes are down! The last of your starships were destroyed! There is nothing to fight for anymore.”

“Kill her!” one of the enemy troops snarls.

But there is no enthusiasm for that endeavor. Not anymore. And Jewel is quick to capitalize on it.

“There’s no reason to kill me or anyone anymore,” she says, half-smiling. “We have a cure for the plague. We’ve tested it. We have it in Sapphire City. By now, the word will have reached our forces there, too. They know what I’ve done, and they have every reason to hold on to the barricades until your people have no choice but to pull back!”

The violent streak slowly subsides. Many of these men were fighting on instinct and not much else. It’s obvious from the speed with which they start lowering their weapons as Jewel continues her speech in a desperate attempt to stop the war from claiming more lives.

“It’s over. I know it’s not the conclusion you were trained for and promised,” she says, badge high up in the air. “But it’s over. No one truly won, not the Fire Tribe, not the Sky Tribe. Today, Sunna prevailed! Only Sunna. Your future children and grandchildren won. You all deserve better than what you’ve dealt with over the past few decades, but we had to make you see it. We had to.

“For too long, you have been fighting a war that no one except the brass at the top truly wanted to fight. Most of you were born into this conflict. You didn’t ask for any of this, and neither did we, the handful of human women Umok dragged halfway across the galaxy to satisfy a wild and terrible dream. Solomon Daron fooled your fathers and those before them.”

She goes on to briefly explain the origin of the plague virus and how we came upon Opal City to begin with. By the time she’s done, the rooftop is covered in weapons, and the soldiers’ hearts are broken and drained.

Their resolve is gone, and there is silence. Even the ones below on the ground level have stopped fighting. They’re all listening as Jewel tells them about Solomon’s sick ambitions, about how all the game pieces fell on the board after he sealed himself with his people behind the black walls of Opal City.

“Please. Just stop,” Jewel pleads with them, her voice breaking as she swallows tears. “I said goodbye to Earth for this. I will never see my friends and family again. I will live the rest of my days in a world that isn’t really mine. I’ve spilled blood for this planet. And it’s done. The cure will stop the plague from spreading. The vaccine has been proven effective. And the women of Opal City are many and kind. It will take time, but we can push through. You can survive and thrive once again. Our medical expert, Cynthia, was already working on developing artificial wombs to help speed things up, to help replenish your population. I only hope she’s still alive as I say these words, but please, enough is enough.”

I don’t know where it comes from, but I do find a sliver of strength left to get back on my feet, holding on to my brother for balance as I take over. “We never wanted this war, either,” I say, loud enough for everyone to hear me. “We fought it, much like our fathers before us. We were taught that you were the enemy, and you were taught that we were the enemy. At the end of the day, brothers of Sunna fought brothers of Sunna while their sisters died in horrible pain. We dragged human women into this mess, too, and look at her; look at them now! Holding your dear leader’s badge in her hand! We owe the women of Earth a debt of gratitude, but we must put an end to the fighting!”

“A truce is in order,” Fadai adds, nodding in agreement. “Let us keep a measure of peace and organize talks. Let us put everything on the table and figure out a way forward. Forget the tribe colors and creeds. We were united before; we can be united again. But the human woman is right. It’s over. The war we’ve fought for so long is over.”

Every muscle in my body twitches with pain. I’m bleeding out of places I can’t even pinpoint. My breath feels shallow. My bones are broken. But for some reason, fate decided to keep me alive.

Fadai is just as surprised, just as thankful for every lungful of air. Most importantly, we’re both beyond grateful to see Jewel standing before us, shaking like a leaf, a sea of Sky Tribe men between us.

I’m afraid to do anything. I’m afraid to move, even though all I want right now is to hold my woman, to hug my brother, to give my gratitude to the twin suns for having brought us this far. Alas, any sudden movement might trigger an unexpected and unwanted response from these people. We may have hit the pause button on the fighting, but it could restart at any given moment.

Slowly, Jewel puts Shaytan’s badge in her back pocket and looks at the warriors around her. “Which of you is the highest in rank up here?” she asks. Smart girl.

Fadai can’t help but smile when a tall Sunnaite with a shaved head and golden tresses on his uniform steps forth. “I am,” the bald man says. “Second Commander Garza of theFifth Platoon,” he adds.

“Commander Garza, do you accept our request for a truce and peace talks? Your leaders are dead. Out here on the battlefield, the men are now under your command,” Jewel replies.

“I accept,” he says, then turns to his men with a stern look in his eyes. “The weapons stay on the ground. We will gather back inside Opal City and start organizing peace talks,” he shouts. “I’ll liaise with the Sapphire City operation and stop their advances.”

“Thank you,” Fadai says. “Commander Garza, you are finally on the right side of history.”

“We’ll see about that, Kreek scum,” he retorts.

Granted, we’ve killed many of his men prior to this conversation. The grudge he’s holding is the size of Kaos Volcano. If I were him, I’d think twice before leaving this roof without chopping some Kreek heads off, and he’s got two of them within his reach.

So I bow politely, quietly admitting my own role in the war, and Fadai does the same. It’s enough to keep everybody’s spirits calm as the crowd parts in the middle for Jewel.

She comes toward us, trying so hard not to breathe that sigh of relief we’re all so desperate to breathe, taking cautious steps and keeping her eyes peeled for any possible transgression. But nothing happens. The Sky Tribe soldiers simply back off, letting her move freely.

“It’s really over, isn’t it?” she whispers.

I’d like nothing more than to wrap my arms around her, but it’s too soon. All I can do is nod slowly.

“It is,” Fadai replies.

Whether it’s over for good or only over for a few more days remains to be seen. But the siege of Opal City has ended. In a few minutes, the siege of Sapphire City will also stop. The world has come to a violent and bloody halt, and tomorrow will see the suns rising again.

Hope draws lines of its own along the scarlet horizon as the summer heat sizzles from the battered ground.

I wonder how many of us will be left standing by the time the peace treaty is signed.

I wonder how many lives will be spared with the stroke of a pen.

Wonder no more, I tell myself. Only look around and thank the universe for giving us another chance to save ourselves.