Chapter V: Ghosts of Yesterday

Ship: The Reaper’s Envy

Star System: Unclaimed

THE DREAM WAS ALWAYS THE SAME. AN UNCHANGED, RELIVED MEMORY.

Linares was back in the Blood Pits, a gothic nightmare of tall, barbed stone walls hanging over the reddened sand and rock. The barracks were built in a massive crater, so the elevation was below the endless haze of smog and soot that strangled the sky, below the dry, splintering air from the pillars of fire erupting from the Inferni energy refineries. All things considered, the air down there was probably the most hospitable on all of Cindreth.

It was the occupants that made it less than savory.

She fell face-first into a puddle of brackish water in the muck, the cold water shocking her out of the pain. She pushed up to her hands and knees as the water settled, reflecting her face.

She was seven years old again.

Blood dripped from her broken nose, chipped teeth and lacerated face. As the mixture of her blood and tears hit the water and expanded like slow motion smoke clouds, the world around her slowed as well. Every movement was like pushing through tar, every sound muffled like she was underwater.

She heard the oncoming footsteps drag into long, exaggerated thumps as her tormenter drew closer. Linares recalled every moment, but couldn’t will her muscles to move, to change what was happening. Even in her dream, she was helpless to relive her pain. Her face tightened and her limbs pulled in, desperately and futilely clawing into the dirt to crawl away from her tormentor. She barely moved a few feet at a time as the slow march drew nearer.

Her heart curdled. It took a certain kind of bridge between fear and helplessness to curl up like this, to crawl in a prone, fetal position while your attacker walked at normal pace. A rational mind would know it to be pointless, there was no logistical or tactical value to it. But when a mind is so whittled down, a person’s will to resist breaks even if their self-preservation still gasps for breath. There was no fight left in her, but she didn’t lie still and accept the pain, instead her fledgling muscles did what they could.

If anything, she learned, that was worse than rolling over in submission. They told her it was tantamount to giving her cowardice control of her body. Her will was broken and her body failing, but her childish fear spurred her on despite the inevitable.

But she was a child, damn it. What else was she supposed to do?

The Maiden’s boots came into focus. The sharp kick to her side hit like she remembered, cracking her young ribs like withered roots. Pain rocked up her body and air expelled from her lungs, along with blood and spittle as she cried out. The boot then rolled her onto her back, and her fear won once more, as she raised her hands in front of her face. Not like a fighter preparing to defend, however; her palms faced out and she waved them side to side, pleading. Begging for the pain to stop. She cursed her younger self. Begging just made the Maiden smile bigger.

Mar’Vanna said something to her before raising her baton.

The words never mattered.

IN HER QUARTERS ABOARD ATROCITA’S DREADNAUGHT, LINARES TOSSED restlessly in her bed, twisted in her sheets, tearing them multiple times. Her face tensed and winced as her eyes darted around chaotically behind her closed lids. Sweat gleamed off her olive skin, raised in a chill from the mix of stress and fear. Her grunts and uneasy breaths bounced off the stark, angular walls, only decorated by sporadic dents and lacerations. She finally surged awake with a sharp inhale and whipped an arm forward, hurling a knife into the opposite wall. It stuck into the stone material and wobbled, surrounded similar pierces from the same blade.

She took in unsteady breaths as she reeled back into consciousness. She looked around at her quarters, then buried her face in her hands. It is over, she forced herself to think, You’re not there anymore, it’s okay. She slowly looked back up and clocked her room once again, within the stolen Cindreth dreadnaught, with the daughter of the Maladact never far away.

Maybe not ‘okay,’ she corrected her thoughts, but it was once much worse.

After catching her breath and wiping her brow, she threw off the sheets and hopped out of bed. She cringed as she felt her tank top and sack pants drag irritably on her skin, drenched from her sweat. Stupid girl jumping at shadows again, she admonished. She was to be better than that. Captain Valkor’Alinares the Iron Storm was to be a woman without fear. The Captain of Mar’Vanna’s Garden would never be so weak as to quiver with at something prosaic as memories. The Dreadlord’s elite guard could not suffer such frailty at its head.

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Another reason she was glad to have fled. She hated herself for being afraid well enough, she didn’t need the rest of the Entrophs to pile on.

She padded over to the other side of her quarters and pulled the blade from the wall. Tucking her Sleep Knife back into her pants, her hand lingered on the cold wall. Her fight or flight was so strong that it felt like her skin had broken into a fever — or at least what she imagined a fever might feel like, Astrals and Entrophs being immune to most forms of sickness. She laid her palm flat on the rock, the cool surface running up her arm like a stream. She allowed herself a slow exhale, then gently pressed her forehead on the wall. A shaky exhale spilled out of Linares, her shoulders hitched as she quietly trembled with shame.

Right as her skin was beginning to cool, a sudden voice made her blood run frigid.

“It never got easier, did it?” Atrocita asked. The care in her voice was apparent, but she once again made every hair on Linares’ body stand up. Not only her sudden intrusion, but that Linares again had no sense of her coming.

Linares had honed her senses of hearing and touch to perceive the slightest vibrations within a close radius, she often didn’t need her eyes to alert her to danger. She knew the sound of weapons rising through the air, the shift of stealthy footsteps sliding on the ground, she could even pick up the faintest traces of heartbeats if she tried, but with Atrocita? Nothing. One second all was silent, the next, here she was. Linares lived with fear brought on by trauma, but only a handful of living beings in the universe could actually scare her anymore.

Atrocita was always one of them.

Hiding her start, Linares slowly pushed off the wall and turned to her door, where the Ascendant of Undeath leaned on the frame, arms folded, blood and tar eyes surprisingly open. Linares quickly collected herself and stood upright.

“Forgive me, Holy One. I, uh—”

“Oh, stop it,” Atrocita rebuffed warmly, “Please?”

Linares swallowed. She never thought she was much good at lying, but apparently she still had Atrocita fooled. She would never say ‘please’ otherwise. Subtly searching for tells that she might’ve been wrong, Linares relaxed and nodded for her to come in. Atrocita pushed off the doorjamb and drifted to a cushioned bench at the foot of Linares’ bed.

“I’m not an Ascendant in here with you. Come on,” she smiled, patting the spot beside her. Linares pushed her short hair back out of her face and sat by her. After a moment, Atrocita looked around like they were being watched and leaned in mischievously. “Do you still keep a stash in here?”

Linares smiled against her instincts and reached under the bench. She withdrew an ornately crafted bottle sloshing with thick, dark amber liquid.

Atrocita gave a playful gasp. “Is that the Gruvian stuff?”

Linares nodded, “Strongest swill in the universe.”

“You know they say that’s been known to kill lower lifeforms, right?”

Linares chuckled and pulled the cork out with her teeth, spitting it across the room. “Perks of being an Astral, right?” She said dryly, slugging back the bottle. The syrupy Gruvian Mead filled her mouth and burrowed into her tastebuds. It stung, then filled her palate with a sweet honey taste, then stung again. The alcohol eased down into her stomach and spread a cozy sensation through her; for a split second, it was a perfect medium between her overheating stress and icy fear. Fleeting, but satisfying.

She closed her eyes gave a little satisfied moan, then passed the bottle to Atrocita. Atrocita sipped more gracefully, then her flawless face immediately scrunched up. With barely half a mouthful, she pulled away and exhaled harshly. Linares let herself laugh, then it caught in her throat as Atrocita flicked her eyes over to hers. Atrocita let the tension hang for a second, then she laughed too. Against all odds, as much as Linares disdained Atrocita’s delusions of grandeur, hated being around her cult of personality and felt queasy at the unnatural aura she exuded, she was still one of the only people Linares ever laughed with. Laughing with her now, the anxiety spiking her pulse was slowly soothed as she took the bottle back. Linares threw back another gulp, while Atrocita pulled her lips in, almost nervous.

“How long have you had nightmares like that?”

The bottle halted in its trajectory, Linares’ muscles all seizing in a microsecond. She lowered the mead and swallowed joylessly, looking at the floor. “…Every night,” she finally managed.

“I thought you’d moved past them?”

“No, I…” she wiped her mouth, “I guess I got pretty good at just acting like it.”

“You know you don’t have to anymore, right?” Atrocita urged, gently laying a hand on Linares’ shoulder. Her skin was still icy to the touch, and it restarted all of Linares’ primal alarm bells all over again, but she held it in.

Linares hesitated, then smiled tightly and met Atrocita’s gaze. “Of course,” she whispered back.

Atrocita smiled, but Linares saw it slowly melting away. “Good…because I have no use for pretenders in my future,” she said, her tone dropping flat and deep. "Be as you are, and all that you can be…or be nothing at all.”

Silence hung for a long beat. Linares held Atrocita’s stare, almost grateful inside — when left alone with her thoughts and memories, she was paralyzed with fear. But a veiled threat like this? Child’s play. Literally, in fact — she fielded thousands of threats far worse than Atrocita’s throughout her early life on Cindreth. When faced with direct danger, Linares never froze, never flinched, never blinked. It brought her absolute focus and quelled her anxiety. Unity of action washed over her mind and she folded into perfect formation, ready to meet and overcome the identified, directed adversity.

She took in Atrocita’s obvious veiled threat, held her stare and gave back the most earnest smile of her life. She looked into the Ascendant of Undeath’s eyes, and shrugged.

“What you see is what you get,” she said coolly.

Atrocita quickly returned her smile. “Perfect,” she said as she rose, apparently satisfied.“Because I see a goddess. One of few who deserve the name. And fewer still who will remain.” With that, she playfully flicked Linares on the cheek and left.

Linares waited a few moments after her doors slid shut. The smile sloughed off her face and she rolled her right shoulder, as if Atrocita’s touch hurt her. Finally letting herself sigh with relief, she leaned forward, looking at nothing in particular. It wouldn’t be long now.

“You’d better be worth it, war dog…”

She drank deep.