The Gardens of Nibiru (The Ember War Saga Book 5) by Richard Fox Read Free Book Online Page A

Her trips back and forth from Bastion to the Crucible orbiting Earth were little different, though spending hours waiting in an infinite white void compared to the abyss she was in now felt like splitting hairs. Both purgatories were long, dull affairs.
    Getting an audience with the Qa’Resh hadn’t been easy. The enigmatic hosts of the Alliance preferred to remain at arm’s length from the ambassadors for all but official business. But when she asked to question the entity recovered from Anthalas, she’d been granted permission almost immediately.
    Naturally, like all things with the Qa’Resh, the security measures felt like an unnecessary chore. She’d get to the entity, but she’d have to go alone and she wouldn’t know where its holding cell really was. The Qa’Resh lived within the upper atmosphere of a gas giant on a giant floating city…if the entity wasn’t kept there, the planet had plenty of space for a cell.
    Stacey paced two steps along the sled, spun in place, and took two steps to the other end. She hadn’t tried to count the hours since she’d boarded the sled and her entire universe shrank to little more than what she could reach beyond her fingertips.
    A bag slung over her shoulder flapped against her hip. Inside was the only physical object ever recovered from the Xaros, aside from the Crucible near Earth. The object gave her chills just thinking about it, even if it was just a re-creation.
    According to Pa’lon, the long-serving Dotok ambassador who’d become her mentor, security hadn’t been this strong when he first joined the Alliance. But after the Toth betrayed the Alliance and killed a Qa’Resh during a kidnapping attempt, things had changed radically.
    At least I don’t have to use the restroom, she thought.
    “I mean, do they even have bathrooms in this prison? Could you imagine how complicated that would be? Having to accommodate hundreds of other races—I’m talking to myself.” Stacey patted her fingers against her cheeks and stretched her arms out behind her back. She closed her eyes and swung her arms in front of her chest—and hit something hard and rough.
    She opened her eyes and saw a dark rock wall in front of her, the surface black and pitted like it was made from solidified lava. She turned around and found she was in a small cavern, her on one end and a giant orb of shifting bronze metal on the other.
    Intricate patterns played out across the orb’s surface: shifting fractal swirls dancing between blooms of dark checkerboards. The orb glowed from within, the only source of light in the cave.
    Stacey swallowed hard and felt a tinge of fear spread through her chest.
    “It can’t perceive you,” a voice said.
    Stacey seized up and snapped her head around to look for the source of the words.
    A disembodied head of a middle-aged woman with long braided hair hung in the air next to Stacey, looking at the orb. The Qa’Resh never appeared in their true form—crystalline entities the size of a two-story house—but always in the form Stacey saw now. There were at least three distinct humanlike guises, the braided woman being the one Stacey had the most contact with.
    “It can’t perceive you, yet,” the Qa’Resh said. “Are you ready?”
    “Shouldn’t there be some sort of…barrier? This thing isn’t exactly friendly,” Stacey said. She ran her hands over her simple tunic and pants, smoothing out what few wrinkles had crept into the white fabric.
    “You are safe. You have our word.”
    “Fair enough. Let’s start.” Stacey walked to the orb, her back straight and shoulders square. Her posture likely meant nothing to the orb, but it made her feel better.
    A wave of static spread across the orb to the edge of the cave.
    Stacey pressed her lips into a thin line, then glanced from side to side.
    “Can it hear me?” She flopped her hands against her side.
    “Where are you?” boomed from the orb, the voice low and masculine. 
    Stacey took a step back,