Calibrated.

Optimized.

Stabilizing…

Unable to stabilize.

Warning: Sixty-eight hours and fifteen minutes until maximum destabilization.

Rayne woke up to the snoring of her loved ones and Tumu. Thrusting fingers in her hair, she rested her head in her hands. She required testing, soon. Every second she remained with her family, she endangered them. Neither she nor Xelan figured out the fuel for the fuse, but he warned her of a few unpleasant options.

The air smelled of a crowded cabin at 6:00AM in the mountains. Lynn and Pablo found their way back inside late evening. They snuggled together in the corner. Rayne smiled for them. Finally.

Tumu laid on his stomach, head lolled off the cot like a cat. Pehton, Six, and Bones guarded the perimeter. Tameka and Sagan held each other on their combined cots. Compromise to combat the loneliness they hid from the rest.

The Weapon stared at her flexing fists. Two hours drained from the fuse because of something she would gladly give anything to do again. Touch so far beyond her. The very notion set her skin ablaze. Celindria’s words resonated in her mind, “You’ll let Nox take everything from you still?” Her ancestor understood nothing. And Rayne planned to weaponize her ignorance in their favor, just like—

A groan from the kitchen broke her introspection. She made the cot before checking on the sound. They fashioned the cooking space into a cell for Kyle. Tumu chained the Progeny boy in nacre glass cuffs. Unbreakable. Wrists and ankles. The wayward Progeny was next on her list.

Quietly, Rayne glided into the room wearing black pajama shorts and a spaghetti strap top over her Lyrik armor. The others gaped at the blue leather and left her self-conscious. In bare feet, she padded to Kyle’s side.

He lolled his head and looked up at her. She measured his vitals. Dehydrated and low blood pressure. When she punched him yesterday, she broke his jaw even with her full restraint. It afforded her an additional fifteen minutes, though. Aside from that, his nacre healed and maintained him well enough. A smile crossed his lips as he croaked, “Rayne…”

She fetched him a glass of water and held it to his lips. “Drink.”

Like a man lost in the desert. Four glasses later, he rested his head back against the wall. “Thanks.”

She sat on the floor, facing him. “Don’t mention it.”

“You want to know about Celindria’s memories, don’t you?” He tried to sit comfortably with the restraints behind his back.

“I want to know how you discovered your ability, first.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard against a dry throat. “In the beginning, it was just really coherent flashbacks. Or so I thought. And I remembered answers to homework perfectly. Almost impossible to fail on purpose with total recall.”

Rayne quirked a brow at him.

“Anyway, Devis’ memories flowed through me at random. Perfect. Unaltered. Eventually, I remembered his entire life. Including what Celindria did to him and to the rest of the Progeny. At least as much as he knew.”

Rayne smelled Sagan enter the room before she spoke, “What did she do to them?”

Both turned to her. Same clothes as Rayne, but in mauve. Her blond bob sporting some bedhead. Behind her, Tameka shuffled in wearing blue pajamas. Venom dripped from the redhead’s words, “And why didn’t you tell us?” They leaned against the counter furthest from him. Sagan crossed her arms over her chest, and Tameka balled her fists at her side.

Kyle shifted again in discomfort. “Because you would make me tell Xelan, and Devis didn’t trust him. He thought ol’ Wingmaster compromised himself to appease Celindria. Risked the group for her happiness.” He locked his forest green eyes on Rayne’s blue ones for too long.

Sagan shrugged. “How can we trust you or believe anything you say after—”

“You got Xelan killed?!” Tameka did not hold back.

Kyle nodded as he gazed at them. “Okay. All right. Take the cuffs off.” Before they argued, he promised Rayne, “I can show you.”

Sagan threw her hands up in disbelief.

Tameka snarled, “No way.”

Rayne reached over and released him. “I want Celindria’s memories, too.”

The girls scoffed at their leader as Kyle rotated his shoulders with tears in his eyes. He said, “I’ll give you what I can. It’s sorta jumbled in my head. She’s old, but I also think she hijacked the ability from Devis.”

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“Show me.”

Tameka rushed over without making to touch her. Rayne appreciated her friend’s efforts. “Wait! Don’t. Rayne, he’ll be inside your head.”

Rayne spared her a sad smile. “If I seem distressed, kill him. And if I come back wrong or stupid, torture him until he fixes me.”

Kyle’s brows popped high.

The General peered over at her Lt. General. Sagan shrugged. “You’ll do it no matter what I say.”

“I love you both.” Rayne turned to Kyle and stared into his eyes as he knelt before her.

Hovering his hands at her temples, he promised, “I don’t have to touch you. But I have to do this much.”

The sincerity in his words and his gaze moved her. Every cell in her Progeny blood said to salvage him. When she smiled at him, he recoiled. His face closed off and drew tight. So sad and so lost. Salvage him.

His voice trembled, “Okay, here goes.” He closed his eyes. She followed his lead.

Images flashed. Words spoken. It took a while before a full scene formed.

Devis showed the Pretiosum Cruor to Celindria. She faked a weakness to fill it with her blood. The man suspected her. Stalked her. Discovered her affair with Nox. When he consulted their maker, Xelan excused her behavior as spying. Andrius consoled him with platitudes. Devis watched as Celindria mourned Merit. Despised her strengthening relationship with The Afflicted One.

So much suspicion. So much anguish.

Then came the day she confronted him. Catching him tampering with the device, she snarled, “You dare defy me?”

“I’m protecting my people.”

“Know your place. You amount to nothing in the Cascade.”

“Then the universe will pay no heed if I carry on with my work.”

“We were in love once, were we not, Devis?”

“I cannot recall. Perhaps you should ask Nox?”

Then nothing. Like the lights went out, and the memory died.

The next chunk of data filled Rayne’s veins with ice. Corrupted, wrong, black. Her skin wanted to crawl off her skeleton, far away from the memories uploaded into her brain.

Birth.

Xelan. Father.

“How am I made?”

“With my blood…”

“And what else? I am different.”

He held up a chain. “It was a gift from my brother. It belonged to our grandfather. It was a shard of his nacre.”

“Is there more?”

Xelan recoiled. “No.”

“To make more like me, we need special blood.”

And so they requested samples from all the surviving descendants of the Coalition, Elden’s closest brood. After thorough research of their ancestry, she discarded all but four. “These. I want these.”

Celindria guided their maker to develop Andrius, Devis, Merit, and The Afflicted One.

Father pleaded with her to assist him in reviving the Vittle. But she served another purpose.

The memories hazed in and out of perception. Every new memory boiled like acid. Broken images and mixed conversations.

Celindria and Nox.

He reasoned with her, “We can lead together.”

“What kind of father would you make?”

Another flash.

She visited an unfamiliar planet selling an orb. “Developed from memory technology, one can store pain and another can retrieve it for the experience. A luxury.”

She spoke to a Tritan on Cinder, “This capsule allows the recipient to Seamswalk a limited distance for twenty-four hours.”

More.

Andrius slept on a strange slab. She drew his blood and took tissue samples. She shook her head as she loaded it into a tranquilizer gun. She growled, “Not enough.”

Still more.

She addressed the people seeking refuge under her on Cinder. “We will free more from Nox’s grasp. The Vittle is our greatest victory. Appreciate its triumph as you work with me to lift our people. Elden’s directive must be met.”

A jolt.

Xelan confronted her on a strange world. “Where did I go wrong with you?”

“You cannot see the worlds as they could be. Everything I do cascades into reality. We must break events and people to find where we are meant to be.”

“If you do this… you will never recover your humanity. Your sanity.”

“I will be imminent.”

Everything went black. Inky. Until…

Celindria watched from a crowd as Nox violated Rayne on the viewing platform. An ugly toxicity permeated the memory. In her thoughts, the First Progeny sneered, “How could that girl captivate him so?”

Rayne returned to the world on a gasp with tears burning her cheeks. She inhaled until her lungs wanted to pop and released it on a shudder. Ash. Venom. Everywhere. All over her.

Kyle, too, chafed his arms and heaved gulps of air. Grief drowned his gaze. “I—”

“What the fuck happened?” Tameka held a knife in her hand.

Sagan peered hard at Rayne. “What can you tell us?”

“It’s like Andrew suspected. She weaponized the Progeny. It’s why she tried to take you. She sold the inventions to Tritans and other people I didn’t recognize. Other things.’’ Rayne shook her head and sucked in a shuddering lung full of air. “Things I didn’t want to know.”

Celindria… Rayne. Made from Xelan. Of his blood. She closed her eyes tight until another hot tear squeezed out. What did that make her? To him? To Cinder? Why didn’t he say anything about the shard of Elden’s nacre when he gave her the tattoo? Another tear escaped. More than anything she wanted to hear his voice in that moment.

“The First Wave Progeny are alive. At least Andrius is,” Kyle offered. “We saw him. In a lab or something.”

A painful noise invaded Rayne’s head. She winced and thrust her fingers in her hair. She backed away into the cabinets.

Familiar hearts that beat too fast. Four. Close by. Vitals tanked and one blacked out. Caedes shrieked in agony. She groaned as her blood set on fire.

“Rayne!” Sagan called her back from the fit.

She hated when Atramentous overtook her around the Shadow. When she opened her eyes, they gawked at her and backed away. The extremes of the pitches in her voice frightened them. “How many days have passed since you warned Nox about Iona-29?”

Sagan tilted her head. She hesitated to say, “Three, why?”

“I like to be on schedule.”

The blond’s eyes grew wide. She peered back at Tameka. “Rayne, are you going alone?”

“Yes.” Ignoring their protests, Rayne removed Kyle’s ankle shackle and stood. “Celindria has something to do with Imminent. I’m sure of it.” Her friends gaped as she held out a hand to him.

Kyle took it and gazed at her as he stood.

“I don’t care about your motivations. If you betray us again, I will shatter every bone in your body without touching you. I’ll make sure your nacre never heals it. Then I will keep you alive as you heal human-slow. Repeat as necessary.” She looked at the girls and their angry frowns. “We’re the Shadow Progeny. Family. We must be whole to fight Imminent, Enki, the Icarean army, and everyone else out to kill us. Testing each other, preparing. It’s what we have to do now. Also,” she glanced at Kyle, “I need a weapon.”

“On my ancestor’s anvil, it will be the most magnificent weapon I’ll ever forge.” He glanced at the fridge and licked his lips. “But first, can I make a sandwich?”