Read Online Torn Sky (Rebel Wing Trilogy, Book 3) (Rebel Wing Series) by Tracy Banghart - Free Book Online

is insane.”
    “I know. But you’re Atalanta’s best flyers. You can handle it.” Aris strapped herself in, letting Santos run through warm-ups. They wouldn’t turn on the veiling tech until they were well away from point.
    Santos scoffed, but he took the wingjet up smoothly enough. Aris even thought she caught a smile as he banked and whisked them into the darkness.
    “You sure about this, Lieutenant?” Otto called from behind them.
    Aris swiveled in her seat. Both Otto and Renz were holding tightly to their harnesses. “Have I ever lied to you?”
    Otto shot her a look. “Well, there was that one time. You know, when you pretended to be a
dude
.”
    “Fair enough.” Aris turned back, hiding a grin.
    When she told the lieutenant to flip the veiling switch, he waited a long moment before completing her request. At night, the invisibility wasn’t nearly as dramatic as in full daylight. Still, Santos gasped when the wingjet’s nose shimmered and disappeared.
    Aris’s hands itched for the controls—she wasn’t used to flying as a passenger—but the tension in her shoulders eased anyway. This is what she loved: being so close to the stars. She hoped Dysis healed quickly. She wanted to see the look in her friend’s eyes when the wingjet vanished, leaving only sky.
    Lieutenant Santos guided the transport into a few experimental dips and whirls. His scowl shifted into a look of excited concentration.
    Aris settled back into her seat. This was going to be fun.

Chapter 11
    This time, when Galena visited the prison, no sirens wailed and no guards shuttled her into hiding. Inside Elom’s cell, she stood for a long time with her back to the secure door, two guards on either side of her. Her hands turned a thin cylindrical cannister end over end.
    Elom’s voice slid like oil into the silent room. “You won’t use that.”
    He sat on the edge of his bed, facing her, hands clasped casually in his lap. He was larger and more muscular than Pyralis and a good ten years younger, but his face showed the wear of a violent life. Crooked nose, hard eyes, deep ridges framing his mouth. Even now, his smugness belied the tension in his frame. He was spoiling for a fight. “Though you wish you had the strength to, don’t you? You want to hurt me. Your revenge.”
    Galena stiffened. The weapon in her hand—similar to the one Elom had used to destroy her face—paused in its rotation. “Do not presume to know anything about me or what I plan to do.”
    Elom stood, slowly enough that the guards did not restrain him. His bald head gleamed beneath the unforgivingly bright lights. “I know
everything
about you. I unmade you.”
    “Does Ward Balias know how much you enjoyed torturing me?” Galena asked, even as a sickness spread through her at his words. “Is that why he trusts you? Because you’ll do whatever evil he asks of you without a second thought?”
    A tiny muscle jumped at the edge of Elom’s eye. But he smiled. “Ward Balias trusts me to use my judgment. Your imprisonment was
my
idea.”
    Galena hid her thoughts behind her scars, let nothing else show.
This
was why she came. Elom thought he’d unmade her, and maybe he had, but she’d spent months in a small room with him. She knew more about
him
than he realized.
    He had an ego. He wasn’t a blind follower; he fancied himself part of the vision. In his mind, he was more than Ward Balias’s instrument. He was his own weapon.
    And she could use that.
    With a little flick of her finger, the cylinder in her hand spouted a tongue of blue flame. “It might have been a good idea, capturing me . . . if you’d succeeded in killing me. What did Balias say when I escaped? Did he pat you on the head with a ‘better luck next time’?”
    Another twitch at the corner of his eye.
    She held up the flame between them, keeping her gaze on him. “I don’t think so. I don’t think Balias rewarded you for your failure. I think he demoted you. Refused to tell you any more of