Kastori Revelations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 1) by Stephen Allan

severe anger and trauma issues who begs for her husband back.”
    Celeste braced for the punch sure to come. She closed her eyes and waited for the groan from Cyrus. Instead, after a long pause, she only heard two words.
    “Get out.”
    They came weakly. Celeste saw Crystil’s eyes watering, and Cyrus refusing to back down. Finally, he stormed off, fuming en route to the airlock. Celeste looked at Crystil, who sniffled once, and motioned to her commander she’d be back. She ran at Cyrus and, just before the airlock opened, slapped him across the face. Cyrus stared in shock at Celeste, who gazed at him with a rage she didn’t know she had.
    “Crystil won’t hit you again as your commander, but I sure will as your sister,” she said. “Dad would be ashamed of you, Cyrus. I’m ashamed of you. I’m not going with someone who quits like you have and insults those he disagrees with. I’m staying with Crystil.”
    Cyrus rubbed his cheek, an angry look on his face, but one which masked his hurt.
    “Fine.”
    He stepped into the airlock door, and Celeste walked away. She went back into Cyrus’ room to find it empty. She made her way to the cockpit, where Crystil had her legs propped up.
    “I’m sorry, Crystil,” Celeste said, placing a hand on her commander’s shoulder. “I’ll fight with you until the end.”
    Crystil looked up, her eyes red with fresh tear streaks down her cheeks. Celeste prayed she would never have to see that pain again from anyone.
    “Thanks,” Crystil whispered as both turned their attention to the outside, watching Cyrus walk off without looking back.

 
     
     
     
    17
    Cyrus couldn’t turn around as he left Omega One. To do so would force him to confront the boiling emotions in him.
    Crystil provoked an extreme amount of anger. She could never adapt to him and would always be the caricature of a militant officer. She had almost appeared human on their walk to the ocean but switched back the instant their situation became dangerous.
    His situation also stirred anger at himself, for he knew he’d screwed up by mocking her deceased husband in a moment of petulance. He knew wouldn’t get the chance to fix it.
    He felt sorry for making a bad situation worse, but still felt Crystil had made it bad in the first place. We might die when our supplies run out, but we don’t have to make it awful.
    Cyrus didn’t see a point in apologizing, not when she would never accept it or learn.
    But Celeste…
    “Celeste,” he said as he kept walking, having done so for nearly half an hour, never once turning back. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
    I told you I’d never leave you. And now I’m leaving. I’m sorry I lied. I hope you come find me. If not, I hope Crystil treats you better than she ever did me.
    The slap she had given him felt like not just a rejection of his choice to leave. It felt like a rejection of him, and everything he’d done for her. Saying their father would be ashamed of him felt like the worst possible insult. From Crystil, that might have produced a fatal brawl. From Celeste, it invoked a series of incoherent swears, screams and sighs, all in an attempt to avoid breaking down.
    The sun soon set ominously. He looked up at the darkening sky and the trees. Only now did he realize how poorly he’d prepared for surviving in the wild, never mind in an entirely new world. He had no rifle, no water, and no food. Only a knife slid into his boot from the last trip, which he had forgotten to remove, gave him a fighting chance. He knew better than to expect it to give him a chance against any wildlife larger than a baby precora.
    But for one night, if he climbed high enough, he could give himself the illusion of surviving. As he reached for the first branch, he recognized his nihilistic viewpoints weren’t his true viewpoints, but rather, a defense mechanism. He didn’t like operating in the gray zones of chance—he liked the highly likely or the impossible. The two women were