Shards

By M. A. Nilles

Before meeting Keeper Korali, I was Commander Rajeun Leksel, one of the best of the Shirat Empire’s elite soldiers, a Keeper killer. Korali changed me in her life and in her death, but in all that we shared, even she wasn’t aware of the dark secret lurking inside me. The time has come to confront that secret, even if it breaks me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prairie Star Publishing
• Release date: Oct 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781939412072

M. A. Nilles

M. A. Nilles is the darker side of Melanie Nilles. Her published works under the name Melanie Nilles are young adult and adult romantic science fiction and fantasy, including the Starfire Angels series, the Adronis series, The Luriel Cycle trilogy, and other romantic-leaning works. As M. A. Nilles, she writes dark fantasy and science fiction, including Tiger Born, Spirit Blade, and the Legend of the White Dragon epic. More can be found at www.melanienilles.com.

Book preview

Copyright Page

SHARDS

(Starfire Angels: Revelations 2.1)

by M. A. Nilles

Shards is a work of fiction. Characters, names, and incidences described in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons or situations is coincidence.

Shards

Copyright © 2013, 2023 by Melanie Nilles

All Rights Reserved

Cover by Melanie Nilles.

Cover images: ID 26495348 © Dima266f | Dreamstime.com

ID 14512009 | Shutterstock.com

Published by Prairie Star Publishing, North Dakota.

For more information, email [e-mail] or visit www.melanienilles.com.

Special Thanks

For all the readers out there who wanted more of Rajeun Leksel, the former elite soldier of the Shirat Empire who turned rebel and helped Raea return to Elis, here is the story you were waiting to read. Thank you for inspiring me to keep writing!

Table of Contents

________________________

Shards

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Other books by M.A. Nilles / Melanie Nilles

About the Author

Chapter 1

AT NO point in the past did I expect this in my life.

Across the room from where I stood at the door, Crystal Keeper Saffir sat before the wide window half-wall with her faded blue wings splayed out behind her. The strength of her communion with the Starfire reached me like a gentle reprieve from the questions harassing me.

Please sit, Captain.

Captain. It should have been an insult after being Commander Rajeun Leksel, when I outranked any captain in the Shirukan. It wasn't. Rather, I was honored. After a past I've regretted, she gave me the chance to atone by protecting the Keepers and guests at Starfire Tower as the head of security. Saffir had offered me the position after seeing my secrets from the mind scan a few turns of Lis past.

Having come to ask about a new development, I did as she requested and sat down facing her in the open room with just a few pillows near her. It had become our custom over the last few turns since my arrival at Starfire Tower. She had provided many healing sessions for the wing which had been burned to nothing while I defended Raea's escape back to Earth. For that, I owed her. I would give her a chance to explain what was happening to me.

She sat with her eyes closed, waiting for me to follow our normal meditation routine preceding the healing.

Not this time. Questions burned inside me and she was the only one who could answer them.

Captain Rajeun. She spoke as if to a child. I was no child.

I opened my hands—hands that had killed and caused injury and hands that had brought pleasure, but never before had revealed what they now did, what they had for some time but now was too obvious to deny—and found the resonance as I had been taught in Shirukan training. As a meistal, I had only enough of the mysterious energy in me to change my form, but that had changed through Saffir's healing. Small points of light glowed from the center of each palm, the start of Starburst marks.

As I stared at my palms, an aquamarine hand landed over one of mine.

The Starburst marks covered her entire hands and stretched up her arms past her elbows. They were a physical reminder of how much of the Starfire's energy she had absorbed in more than a hundred years of bearing a shard of the crystal.

I looked up to an approving smile on that face I had come to trust. She might have changed me unexpectedly, but I was less afraid than intrigued. She was as mysterious as my former superiors, but for the better.

Congratulations, Keeper Leksel.

A chill raced down my spine to hear those words. Keeper. I had become one of them.

"I have been aware for some time. Rarely has it happened, but in certain circumstances, it is possible. Your injuries were extensive and you were already meistal. I am a Crystal Keeper, and that direct energy from the shard may be absorbed. Unfortunately, I cannot undo this."

She removed her hand and sat up, searching my face with an inquiry.

You knew? I always felt that she knew more than she revealed but let others come to their own conclusions when the time was right for them. I had observed her with others. In this case, I wished she would have said something sooner.

You had to be ready to accept the fact. I could not push, least of all with you. Old lips with crooked up in a wry smile that eliminated the faint wrinkles. I could only... nudge.

The meditation.

She sat back with a look that confirmed it. Part of me wanted to pound her flat; but that part had been weakened physically and emotionally by her teachings and healing sessions. She was slowly defeating the Shirukan and empowering the Inari in me.

You are... an anomaly, and you are wise to hide this from others, for now. When the tear has been mended, this may be the patch that seals it. She released my hand and sat back, every movement deliberate and gentle as I had come to know of Saffir, an anomaly in her own right.

You are a brave man, Leksel, but are you ready to advance your training?

Was I? Without knowing what to expect, I couldn't say. Something in me had wanted to show her before anyone, perhaps because her approval meant I was truly worthy, or maybe I wanted her to reject me and have it done. Maybe that's why I had held back showing her. I was afraid.

Rajeun Leksel wasn't supposed to fear anything.

Everyone was wrong. Only Saffir understood my fears, but not even she had seen my deepest.

Saffir and I might not always agree on matters of security—she was far too trusting of the good intentions of others—but since that moment I gave up my privacy to prove my loyalty to protect Starfire Tower from Corsa the deceiver, I realized that Saffir would never abuse her power. With her, I felt safe, and I imagined most of our world did, which was the reason the empire had been limited in its attempts to scare our kind into submission to its beliefs, the reason Shirat Marin had ultimately failed.

Her opinion of me was what I feared most.

No. I feared failing her most, but I had learned in my Shirukan training that only by trying could we succeed and in not trying, we always failed.

In that, I knew my answer: I am.

Then let us begin with using the Starburst marks to heal.

I could not have felt greater purpose than that. Healing others would give me a way to repent for my mistakes.

Saffir taught me to release the energy from the marks into her. It wasn't easy and I would need to practice, but I had never felt more right about anything. For once in my life, I could use my hands to give something to others. For too long, I had only taken and destroyed.

The tickling flow of the healing energy poured through my hands on Saffir's arm, when an alert from the floor projector jumped into the air in the form of Medic Jadeen in her red uniform.

Startled, I released my hands and the resonance that triggered the power and sat back.

Crystal Keeper Saffir, the miniature figure said, her back to me. Forgive my interruption, but all readings indicate that Raea and Elis may be ready to awaken. You asked to be notified.

Saffir smiled, and the lines of worry on her face released from their prison of tension. The fear had lingered since my return after the destruction of Heffin's Gate, where gaining clearance from the soldiers that had descended upon Naviketan in the aftermath had delayed me. Saffir had assured me it was no easy task to convince them of my loyalty, particularly since I had been wearing the Shirukan uniform to aid Raea's entrance into the city to rescue Elis.

Hope shone from that aged face, erasing years from it in that instant.

I shared her optimism, having a fondness for Raea and a deep desire to see her well. Her mate, Elis, was another matter.

Thank you. We'll be right there.

Jadeen's holographic miniature bowed her head and reached forward a moment before winking out.

Captain? Saffir rose to her feet as smoothly as a woman a fraction of her age.

I was on my feet before she straightened and tucked her wings behind her. My new duties were to her specifically, but as her appointed head of security, that extended to all Keepers and guests at Starfire Tower.

Although the old Crystal Keeper normally exuded a