Chapter 52: The Dark Star Directive

The sound Cornelius made when he learned of Storm’s capture would haunt Kitara for eternity. She stood woodenly inside a conference room as the High Councilor crumpled to the floor and wept. With his robes crumpled beneath him and his files scattered around him, he was a man broken.

She’d never seen him like this before.

Tyrrell, despite his grievous injury, knelt beside him. The High Tracker and Phoebe stood deep in discussion with the High Guardian and High Warrior, who pulled what resources they couldspare in hopes of mounting a rescue. Robert, though no longer a functioning technopath, worked so fast across the various screens in front of him Kitara couldn’t imagine the breadth of his capabilities when fully-powered.

Itzal’s forces had targeted the guard stations aboveground, taking out the angels there before dismantling the shimmering field protecting headquarters. Robert did everything in his limited power to get it back online, but Itzal’s forces had done significant damage.

Their tech meant nothing when someone hacked it apart with a sword.

And against the Fallen formula, the Valëtyrians hadn’t stood a chance.

Alasdair and Declan looked like they wished the floor would swallow them whole. Zayne, like his mother, spoke on phone and video conferences nonstop.

And Kitara felt completely, utterly useless.

She barely dared move, lest she splinter into a thousand pieces. A hole gaped in her, and it took everything she had not to wrap her arms around her middle to hold herself together.

“…Kit…Kit, I love you. I love you—”

Kitara closed her eyes.

The High Tracker ducked out, and the High Guardian crossed the room to touch Tyrrell’s shoulder, speaking in low tones. With a nod, Tyrrell accepted his hand and pulled himself to his feet. Cornelius didn’t appear to notice.

Phoebe’s face looked haggard as she approached Kitara. “We have a lead—a slim one. We think we can track it with Tyrrell’s help.”

Kitara nodded blankly.

Phoebe’s eyes filled with concern. “We’re going to get him back, mija,” she murmured. “We’re going to find him.”

Kitara reached for Storm’s mind, as she’d done repeatedly since his disappearance, but still found nothing but blankness. Not emptiness, just blankness. That, at least, was a good sign. “I think he’s still unconscious,” she whispered.

Phoebe nodded, her mouth set in a grim line. “As long as you can sense something—”

Instinctively, Kitara knew if Itzal killed Storm, she’d know. Right now, she clung to the wisp of their bond like a lifeline.

“What should I do?” she rasped.

Phoebe shook her head. “Stay here. Coordinate with the others. You’re the only one with the connection to him. Zayne and Declan can’t reach him.”

Kitara’s gaze flickered to Storm’s friends. “We had sex,” she admitted, assuming the High Emissary suspected as much. “Could that be why? We’re drawn together so strongly…”

Phoebe nodded, unsurprised. “Perhaps. Everyone can see a strong connection exists between you. But we need you here in case anything changes.”

“Okay.”

The next day was worse.

The tracking attempt failed. Without Saoirse, they only had fleeting ideas where to start looking.

Then the demand came: a note pinned to a dead angel.

The Son of Ilythia for the Daughter of Cadfael

Blood-red words inscribed on black parchment.

To Kitara’s shock, not even Cornelius suggested the possibility of a trade. Phoebe took the note and tucked it away somewhere, her expression grim.

“The Dark Star Directive is in full effect,” Phoebe had said. “We won’t negotiate with terrorists. Not even for…”

Not even for him.

Sorrow burned in Kitara’s chest.

The Dark Star Directive…

What did that matter now?

Phoebe checked on Kitara sporadically, encouraging her to eat something, to take a break from monitoring the screens in the war room.

When Phoebe couldn’t convince her, the High Emissary pulled out the big guns, summoning Devika to the conference room. After a tearful conversation with her adopted sister, Kitara conceded to nibbling on a sandwich.

The continued blankness in her mind began to alarm her. What if it wasn’t unconsciousness she felt?

She needn’t have worried.

Halfway through the second day of Storm’s absence, pain exploded in Kitara’s mind so violently she couldn’t stifle her scream as she dropped to her knees in the middle of the room.

Chaos erupted. Through the roaring in her ears, Phoebe shouted. “Kitara? Mija! What’s going on? What’s happening—”

“Oh, stars,” Kitara whimpered, tears streaming down her face. “Stars, they’re hurting him, they’re—” A shuddering groan wrenched past her lips. “We’re running out of time.”

She recognized Robert kneeling in front of her. “How?”

Kitara shook her head, fighting the temptation to withdraw from the bond and the pain, yet fearing what might happen if she did. The next wave caught her off guard and her agonized cry had the High Engineer fluttering his hands uselessly.

She retched. Cool hands touched her neck, her forehead. Phoebe.

“What is this?” Phoebe murmured to the High Engineer.

Robert’s voice was grim. “I have no idea.”

“It’s always been like this between us,” Kitara rasped. “Auras like the sun, like goddamn freight trains—” She choked on a scream.

“Is she—has she gone mad?”

“I don’t think so.” Kitara recognized Declan’s voice overhead. “They have an unusual bond. Storm mentioned it to me once. The closer they became, the stronger it got, until…” His words drowned in the darkness threatening to consume her.

The pain stopped, and Storm’s presence returned to blankness. Kitara exhaled shakily as perspiration trickled over her forehead. “I think he’s unconscious again.” She tasted blood. She’d bitten through her lip.

With gentle fingers, Phoebe smoothed her bottom lip, and the wound healed. “That’s a mercy,” she said, her voice calm despite her pallor. “They can’t—they won’t be able to hurt him while unconscious.”

A door slammed, and Kitara looked up through hazy eyes as the High Councilor exploded out of the room.

The third day, Kitara see-sawed between excruciating pain and rising panic. Phoebe tried to convince her to withdraw from the bond to give herself some relief, but Kitara refused. She began to sit rather than stand, choking back screams when she sensed Itzal torturing Storm.

If she could feel this, a ghost of his pain, she couldn’t imagine his true torment.

Phoebe commandeered Tyrrell’s help again, trying to pinpoint even a general vicinity of where to look next, between staving off increasingly concerned calls from the United States President and managing the High Council.

Cornelius ceased functioning even as a figurehead, staring blankly at the conference room table. Everyone had stopped asking for his input.

Declan lost his temper twice and was escorted out to collect himself. He blamed himself for Storm’s capture.

Not nearly as much as I do, Dec.

Even Zayne’s normally calm demeanor frayed as he shouted something during a video conference about someone being decidedly unhelpful.

Alasdair flitted between running the AIDO and assisting Robert. Under different circumstances, Kitara would have worried about the Engineer’s bloodshot eyes and the new tremor in his hands. But she could barely hold herself together; Alasdair would have to do the same.

The fourth day, everything changed.

Storm’s eventual unconsciousness that day left Kitara feeling empty. A pattern emerged; he had an hour, maybe two, before they woke him again and started anew. How much longer could he survive it?

They were running out of leads, out of options. She’d already seen it on some faces in the room: resignation. They didn’t think they’d find him. Not in time, anyway.

An agitated angel burst into the war room and beelined for the High Councilor. The room held its collective breath as the angel bent to murmur something in his ear.

Cornelius’s face drained of all color, and he grasped the angel’s forearm as if to steady himself.

A spark of hope blossomed in Kitara’s chest.

The High Councilor surged to his feet with a choked sound and sprinted from the room.

Phoebe pulled the messenger angel aside before he could leave too. “What is it? What’s happened?”

The angel glanced around at the anxious faces as if only now noticing the thick tension in the room. After a moment’s hesitation, he murmured something too low for anyone else to overhear.

Phoebe’s reaction mirrored Cornelius’, and she dropped his arm with a gasp. “What? How?”

The angel shook his head and excused himself in pursuit of the High Councilor.

The silence in the room stifled them all as they waited for an explanation.

“Ma?” Zayne finally ventured. “Is it Storm?”

Tears stood out in Phoebe’s eyes as she met Kitara’s gaze across the room. Then she shook her head.

Despair and disappointment swamped Kitara’s mind so violently she nearly lost consciousness.

“Then what the hell happened?” Zayne pressed as murmurs rose in the room.

Over the roaring in Kitara’s ears, she barely heard Phoebe’s reply.

“Ilythia Avensäel is awake.”