Page 26 of Veiled Vixen

“She woke up.”

“What? How?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Veila? But I don’t think so. I questioned her after I got the message and—”

“Wait. What message?”

“From Corla.”

“Explain that, Crux.” Alarm bells are going off in my head. Because didn’t Tray say something about a message from Corla to Brigit?

“I don’t really have an explanation. She just…” He sighs. “I thought I was dreaming. I really didn’t think it was real.”

“When? When did this start?”

“Like… less than a spin after you left. Right about the time the princesses went crazy.”

“Crazy how?”

“It was very confusing in those first few days after you guys left. Because we all knew—at least us, you know, me, and Jimmy, and Serpint, and Luck—we knew it was fake. We knew the fighting was just a distraction, but somehow…”

He looks up at me in the duskiness of the room. I catch his eyes crackling with light. And it makes me wonder when this light in our eyes became normal. Because we didn’t do this when we were younger. So when? When did the light appear? Was it when Lyra and Corla showed up?

“It became real, Valor.”

“What do you mean real?”

“He shot me.”

“Who?”

“Luck. And his plasma rifle was not on stun. He fucking…” Crux stares at me, shakes his head. “He fucking killed me, Valor.”

He waits for a reaction. But I don’t think I can quite process what he just said.

“But… you’re here.”

“I know. I don’t really understand that, to be honest. I know our medical center is top-notch and those pods we have can do amazing things. But he fucking blew a hole in me.”

“Bullshit,” I whisper. “Luck? Why would he do that?”

Crux gets to his feet and lifts up his shirt. And there is it. A huge, red scar almost the entire width of his chest.

I just stare at it, unable to believe my eyes. “But…”

“He shot me. He killed me. And from that moment on, nothing about what we were doing was fake.”

“But how did you—”

He drops his shirt. “I told you. I don’t know.” He walks over to his dining room, pours himself a drink, downs it, and then pours another before turning to face me. “Something happened to me while I was dead.”

“You couldn’t have been dead, Crux. That’s not possible.”

He downs the second drink and turns back to the bar. Leans his hands on the edges and drops his head. “Did you ever wonder how you guys did it?”

“Did what?”

He turns to face me, his mouth a grim, flat line, his expression nearly blank. “Survived out there. All those battles you and Luck have been in.”