The dungeon smelled bad. Sour, dusty, old. Kyle’s legs stretched in front of him on the warm black stone. Scraps remained of his pants. His bare back pressed to the wall. He watched his palms as he flexed his hands. Not for the first time since the Icari stopped providing for him, he considered drinking his own blood to quench his parched throat. The nacre helped a lot, but nothing substituted decent hydration.

The day after tomorrow, everything ended for him. It would be nice to say goodbye to Andrew and Sagan. Maybe Tameka. He loved his friends. He loved Rayne. Cursed with a perfect memory, what Nox did to her made Kyle retch until his empty stomach forced him to pass out. It was his fault, and he would never forget it. How does one apologize for that?

With that looping in his head, he lost track of time. It meant little to him with no windows, and no way to see the stars beyond that. Cinder kinda sucked. It was not his problem anymore. Tilting his head back against the wall, he muttered to no one, “She’ll save me.” If only to kill him.

Further in the room, Kyle glimpsed movement. He watched in horror as someone unfolded from the shadows. Her deep complexion and arresting blue eyes startled him.

“Celindria.”

Long braids swayed with her as she took a few graceful steps toward his cell. “Devis.”

“You’ll just have to wait in line, lady.” He choked. “Plenty of people ready to kill me.”

“I’m here to rescue you from dying alone and afraid.” She bent the bars apart on his cell and stepped over to him.

He gaped before he caught himself. “I’m fine right here.”

She shook her head, and a strange smile spread slowly across her lips. The ravenous hunger in her gaze shrunk the skin from his bones. “You won’t have a choice.”

At the same time, she aimed one of those damned tranq guns at his head. He lunged from the floor and clasped her arm. A surge went through him, and he had her.

Celindria shrieked and fell to her knees as Kyle stood over her and downloaded every memory in her brain. Ten thousand years poured into his skull. Creation. Xelan. The Coalition. The Progeny. They swirled and mixed like cement. So much black fire. Too many. Too much. He couldn’t decipher them on intake. He never tried on someone this old until now. It fucking hurt.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Already weak, he doubled over in pain while she seemed to recover faster than expected. Almost finished. He reached out and gripped her by the throat. This bitch came to kidnap him, and he knew why.

Kyle remembered everything. Not just his life. He remembered Devis’ sad existence. Not unlike himself, his ancestor fell in love with their leader. She, like Rayne, occupied herself with the cause. That’s where the similarities ended. Rayne loved her people. Celindria manipulated hers. Devis learned the truth too late.

He suspected her after she filled the Pretiosum Cruor with her own blood without consulting The Brethren. Similar to Kyle, he didn’t completely trust Xelan. As their maker, he harbored a bias for his first child.

Devis investigated alone. What he found rattled his faith in the entire cause. Dabbling with Tritans, seducing Nox, and selling inventions as weapons, Celindria was a naughty Progeny.

The bitch deserved to die after framing Devis as a traitor. The older Progeny was forging a fail-safe into the vessel to oppose her when she captured him. The memories ended there.

Kyle felt sick. Not just from the exertion. His body felt wrong with anything of her inside him. Vile. Gross. He knew ending her now would save the Progeny from future heartache and pain. She wouldn’t stop until she took them all.

Celindria stared with all that malice into his eyes. A set of boots on the steps beyond interrupted them. She batted his arms away so hard a few bones broke. Still glaring at him like a horrible promise, she staggered into thin air. Like Sagan.

Kyle collapsed onto his face. So tired. A brief rest would do.

Korac whistled and called out, “How did you manage this?” The bars.

Blamed again for something that bitch did.

The whine and groan of the bars as the Icarean General corrected the problem broke Kyle. “I’ll have to keep you sedated until the execution.”

The younger man curled onto his side around his sick stomach. Celindria’s memories sat wrong in his head like the files were corrupted. He caught glimpses of people and places. Some he knew died at some point, and so many he never even heard mentioned. Someone needed to help him decrypt it. Hopefully, before Playboy here took his head. Or however—

“How will you execute me?” Kyle’s voice sounded rough, even to him.

“I punch my fist into your chest and tear out your nacre. You bleed to death from the open hole. Traditional Icarean execution.”

“That’s gonna suck.”

Korac shot him with a tranquilizer gun.

As Kyle writhed and groaned on the floor waiting on oblivion, Korac confessed, “You’ve been a mild source of irritation, but overall, I’ve appreciated your sense of humor. I’ll miss these talks.”

“Suck. My—”

Korac shot him again.