{Earth}
Kyle railed when Celindria pushed Silence away. But volition bonds crippled him. He screamed and strained against the mental shackles.
Andrew! Silence! She plans to kill you all!
But the words never left his actual mouth. No matter how hard he cried. He made no further breakthroughs. Celindria used his lungs to smoke enough pot to subdue him. Nothing affected her, unfortunately. His physical metabolism, his hindrance. Her body occupied space elsewhere, uninhibited.
He hoped she left it on some tracks somewhere, and that a train would take her out soon.
The Shadow entered the cylindrical lift to the Arsenal’s entrance. Andrew whistled and muttered beside him, “This alone would deter me from fucking with this place.”
Celindria shrugged his shoulders and offered, “I guess some people are more determined than others.” She shot a sinister smirk over her shoulder at the host from which she infested.
He rolled his eyes and forced gagging sounds.
The crazy bitch threw her head back and cackled. Fuck, he hoped someone rescued him soon. She mused, “You’re so similar to Devis. Strange how certain personality traits pass through ancestral lines.”
“Rayne is nothing like you.”
She kept her eyes on the visual, never missing the details. In an icy tone, she offered, “I don’t know. She and I both enjoyed sex with Nox.”
The gagging sounds were no longer fake. Until the day Kyle died, he’d relive watching Nox’s conquest when Rayne’s eyes shifted from fear to… to… Elden, he wished he could vomit. Brain bleach, please.
The lift slowed. Lynn and Smith went ahead to the guard post. Next they headed down a corridor lit from beneath the mesh walkway.
“Not long now,” Celindria muttered with anticipation.
Kyle groaned into the floor until his voice went into a hoarse scream of powerlessness.
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“Quiet. You’ll miss the game.”
The group entered a hexagonal room glowing in red light. It reminded Kyle of the backup lights at J.A. Fair—
An invasion. A force. A will not Kyle’s own asked him to stay.
Celindria froze into an ethereal statue. The body, in fact, stayed in place as the group exited through the next set of doors. He looked closer at the walls through the visual. The ceiling. The floor… Holy shit.
“Nacre glass,” she hissed.
Kyle chuckled once. Twice. Gradually, it stretched into quiet laughter and then maniacal delirium. Relief unlike anything he felt before washed over him.
They figured it out.
Lynn’s voice came over the speakers. “This is a Faraday cage. When we built the Arsenal, Sagan tested it for us. No Seamswalking allowed.”
The manifestation of Celindria’s nacre-hacking invasion clenched her fists.
“We know that’s not Kyle.” Andrew’s proclamation injected Kyle with hopeful adrenaline. “Is he dead?”
Somewhat.
“No. He’s in here with me.” Celindria looked back at him with an evil gleam in her blue eyes. She forced his body to press his arm against the wall and used the other one to punch it. Bone cracked.
Kyle screamed. The only one of the two of them connected to the nervous system, he cried out, “Stop!”
“And I can do whatever I want with him unless you let me out.”
The door opened, and Silence stepped inside. She looked beautiful in those ridiculous scrubs. Her gray eyes held so much confidence and fearlessness.
Celindria bowed Kyle’s head in greeting. “I’m so honored to properly meet you. It’s not everyday one faces a legend.”
The powerful Icarus demanded, “Stop hurting him and answer their questions. If not, I’ll disable his nacre and send you back to where you come from.”
“You think that will work?” The First Progeny looked so smug.
“We shall find out. And if it doesn’t evict you, I will render him useless to you when I put him in a coma.”
Damn. That… was hot.
“He likes you, you know?” Celindria’s voice dripped with venom. “He noticed immediately how the cold of the room affected your breasts. The poor boy almost cried when they caught you fucking that prisoner. But then you don’t know how often women he loves have fucked other men over him.”
Silence surprised them both with that movie star smile. “Then please assure him for me he’ll get his chance to impress me once I beat you senseless.”
Kyle hoped he beamed as much on the outside as he was on the inside.
Tense quiet stretched on another moment. Two. And then Celindria went to Kyle’s knees and held out both hands, squeezed at the wrists. Hesitantly, Silence approached while retrieving nacre cuffs from Elden knew where. Applying them, she searched his eyes as if looking for signs of him in there.
He loved her then.
Celindria looked from him to her and shook her head, almost sadly. To Silence, she said, “How could I fight you, Mother of my people?”
What…
Silence’s eyes. A beautiful blue swallowed them, the pupils went thin and gray. Her Atramentous. Her skin pulsed the same cobalt before fading to gray.
And then she fainted, leaving Kyle on his knees in chains.