My stomach lurched as we passed through the anomaly. It was like driving over a hump in the road at full speed, then slamming the brakes the moment your tires hit the ground again.

  Queasy and disoriented, I looked up to take in my surroundings. We’d landed in a hall of cold, gray stone where a dozen captured soldiers sat bound to wooden benches.

  Their hollow eyes barely registered our arrival, and the small surge of hope I experienced died as swiftly as it came. They were utterly defeated, and after what I’d just witnessed, I couldn’t blame them.

  As I hung from my captors grip, as helpless as a newborn pup and with no idea where we were, or why, I knew I couldn’t just give up.

  I definitely didn’t want to go any further away from this portal, so ever so slowly, I brought my legs up to my chest and waited until my captor moved again.

  The moment he stepped forward, I kicked out at his trailing leg like a coiled spring. It struck just above his ankle, a perfect blow that would stagger a stampeding horse. If it worked, I could dart back through the portal, duck and weave past the thirty super-powered, invulnerable aliens on the other side, run the mile to the second perimeter, and get help.

  Not a great plan, but it hardly mattered. For a start, kicking the bastard’s ankle was like kicking a concrete curb. He must have felt something, because the next second, I was hauled up, swung around, and slammed into the side the portal dais, like I was a dirty rug in need of a good beating.

  No dust came out of me, but my nose and almost certainly my cheek bone smashed from the impact. My captor barked out a few words in his harsh language at the guards around the hall who’d moved to intercept. They stopped at whatever he said, and cleared the way for him to walk down the center of the hall.

  I expected to be thrown onto one of the benches, and braced for another impact. It would have offered some meager comfort to know I wasn’t alone. With the other soldiers, we might have found a way to fight back and escape.

  That didn’t happen. Dangling like a bag of groceries, limp and dripping blood from my face at an alarming rate, those traumatized faces didn’t change. No judgment or even sympathy in their eyes at my predicament. Nothing to fire my resolve. Just a soul-crushing helplessness that sapped my already severely diminished will.

  From the hall of shame, we passed into a wide stone corridor lined with portraits of these creatures. Through the one bleary eye I could still open, I saw that they were fully armored, but with their helmets removed to show proud, stern faces.

  The corridor twisted and turned like a labyrinth, and the faces of those captive soldiers danced in my mind. The longer we walked, the more my resolve to escape returned. There was always a way, I had to believe that, and I had already counted out kicking at the armor.

  My eye darted about, looking for opportunities. I eyed banners draping from the ceiling, I scanned for nooks and crannies to hide in if I needed to. Nothing was singing to me until I spotted the knife in a compartment on my captor’s thigh.

  That was my ticket. One of their own weapons would surely work against them. A hard thrust at that point just under their helmets was definitely a weak spot.

  I allowed myself a small, bloody grimace, then winced from the pain in my cheek. When the moment came, I swore I would go for it. If I died, I’d go down fighting.

  Lost in my own thoughts, I barely noticed that we’d stopped until my captor gave three heavy knocks on the thick, wooden door in front of us.

  They were answered by a voice inside, and the door creaked slowly open. My heart was in my mouth over what to expect next. There was no way to predict where this journey would end, but I doubted it would end well.

  Beyond the door was a large room filled with a sweet, cloying smoke that swirled in the air and filled my lungs. My vision swam, and I couldn’t focus on anything in the room.

  Voices spoke in harsh syllables that cut through the smoky air, and I was hoisted higher to be displayed. That movement seemed to clear my head a little, and I could finally make out the others in the room.

  Four of the light, gray-skinned aliens lounged on deep, padded couches. Two were lean, fit, and young-looking warriors. Another, the biggest of the group by some way, had broad shoulders and a distended gut that spoke of power and comfort.

  The last of the four was a corpulent figure. There was no visible muscle to speak of despite being the same race as the others. He was seated in the center, wrapped in the finest robes of emerald green and deep ebony. There was little doubt that he was the leader of the group. His eyes bored into me, predatory and expectant, his next words were clearly directed at me.

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  When I didn’t reply, a twitch of irritation crossed his features. It vanished a second later as some understanding crossed his bulbous features. Instead of pursuing a conversation, he turned to the side of the room and barked out a few short words.

  I couldn’t see who he was talking to, and worried there was something seriously wrong with my eyesight from all the knocks I’d taken. It was little relief when a door set discreetly in the wall opened, and another of their kind appeared. This one was lean with gaunt, sharp features. Despite the malnourished appearance, he carried himself with an air of authority. After a brief exchange with the leader, he turned his attention to me, gliding over with an irritated look in his eyes.

  I didn’t flinch when he raised his hands. Nor when he moved them toward my head. It was when the fuckers started to glow with an eerie, green light that the panic flared.

  I thrashed like a fish on a hook as those hands landed and heat radiated from the touch. It seared my entire brain at first, before focusing into a lancing pain that speared through my skull and down my spine.

  I tried to wriggle free until my captor’s grip tightened so much that my pelvis cracked. Pain like nothing I’d ever experienced before dragged out a raw scream. Vocal cords ruptured as darkness swarmed me like a cold blanket on a hot night.

  Unconsciousness must have only had me for a moment, as those glowing hands were still gripped to either side of my head when the world flooded back.

  “Do you understand now, Earther?” a voice, impossibly clear, speared through the agony.

  “Thh...” I tried to speak, but the soundless words faltered in my throat.

  The leader growled, low and threatening, his patience clearly thinning. “Answer me this,” he demanded. “Did you or did you not manage to wrong-foot a Vyrn? Did you mount his back, and remove his helmet with the intention of delivering a killing blow?”

  The words summoned the memory of my desperate struggle through the haze. The image of that moment, the raw instinct to defy them.

  With all the anger and defiance I possessed, I managed to hiss out a near silent, “Yessss.” The words carried none of the venom they were supposed to.

  “Magnificent!” the fat creature exclaimed. He was laughing with genuine amusement as he spun. Gesturing toward the thin alien, he nodded to me. “Heal him. Then prepare him for the Ascension Capsule.”

  I understood the words but not the meaning as he spun next to one of the lean, younger aliens.

  “Contact the Prime of House Garazal. I pledged the next promising catch to him, and it’s long past time I delivered!”

  That seemed to trouble the largest of the aliens. “Shouldn’t we wait to see the results of his ascension first?”

  “Nonsense!” the leader snapped, waving off the suggestion with a flick of his pudgy hand. “Look at him! Completely broken, yet that fire in his eyes burns hotter than a Grunir forge. He’s a good catch—I can feel it.”

  Their words churned in my addled mind. I was so caught between the need to pass out again to escape the pain, and desperation to glean some understanding from their conversation, that I nearly missed the thin alien’s hands as they glowed once more.

  A flicker in my peripheral vision was the only warning before intense tingling erupted in my body. It coursed like electricity, from my chest through my limbs and into my head. At first, it found a consistent level across my body before it pooled in my face, my throat, my shoulder, and pelvis.

  To my pained astonishment, my dislocated shoulder started to shift. Muscles and tendons pulling the joint back into place of their own volition. The pain in my pelvis flared to a crescendo causing me to cry out again with functional vocal cords.

  My vision blurred again as I teetered on the edge of the void, when something changed. The bone began knitting itself back together, the raw edges of the break merging smoothly. When my captor finally set me down on all fours, I was whole again.

  I surged to my feet, full of a strange vitality. I was fast and strong! I was reborn! My eyes locked on to the knife on my captor’s leg. Almost without thought, I lunged to grab it.

  A huge, unarmored hand wrapped around my forearm. Not crushing, but so firm that there was no doubt another ill-fated escape plan had just failed.

  I turned to look into the black eyes of the largest alien in the room. How he had moved so fast? I couldn’t comprehend it. When I’d lunged for the dagger, he’d been at least five paces away.

  “You are brave, Earther,” he boomed loudly in my ear. “But let me count the ways in which you are a fool. You are unascended. Once you are ascended, you will still be vastly under-leveled to wield Vyrn Duas’ side-knife. As for fighting, your way out of here. Vyrn Duas is the weakest Unalaran in this room by some margin, and he has handled you like a babe since collecting you on your planet. Your fire is admirable. Your stupidity is worrying.”

  He let go of my wrist, and I staggered slightly. The illusion of speed and strength had been shattered.

  He placed a hand on my shoulder and smiled with genuine warmth. “Lucky for you, even if you are a fool, you are potentially valuable. So should you try to run again, we won’t kill you. We will break your legs and arms to keep you manageable. The Archons will be happy to heal your body while they break your spirit if you’re too much trouble.”

  A chill ran down my spine at his words. They were delivered without malice, which made them all the more unsettling. I swallowed down what little fight I had left and nodded. There would be a time, but it certainly wasn’t now.

  He took a step back. “It’s good you know how to show sense. Violence is not always the answer, no matter how talented you might be.”

  Despite my best efforts to never think about him again, the asshole I called a brother wriggled into my thoughts. He would strongly disagree with this creature’s assessment. He would absolutely try to escape, no matter the odds, and he’d take pleasure in everyone he hurt along the way. And if he died, he’d die fighting and laughing till the last.

  I shuddered at the thought, at the empty gleam in his eyes when he had lost it.

  The huge alien warrior gave me an odd look as my mind wandered, then beckoned me forward. “Follow me. We have work to do.”