“I thought you uploaded years ago,” Darean said in an icy tone, his face a neutral mask.
Lily bared her teeth. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? You always feared me.”
Jack glanced between Darean and Lily, mind racing.
“Jack,” Sarathen hissed.
He lifted his eyes, looking back to her, and realized he was muttering to himself again. Lily tossed her head back and laughed. “He’s crazy already,” she said. “Pathetic.” She glared at Darean. “I don’t care about your Nost Accords. I’m here for Jode.” The last came out in a snarl and she gripped Ann’s hair fiercely, wrenching her head back. Ann’s eyelids opened, but Jack could see she wasn’t conscious.
“You were never one of us,” Darean said.
“I don’t know what I am. Maybe I’ll end up in Haven, or maybe I’ll be damned like you and the other Shu.”
“Jack!” Sarathen said. He turned to stare at her outstretched hand. A maelstrom of blood engulfed her red irises. She was terrifying and amazing. He felt sorrow at the thought of letting her down again. But it might be better to end his life now and deny everyone access to the Isle of Song. Maybe Sarathen could get Ann and the rest of them out safely. He tried to remember the instant his motorcycle connected with the tree. How long ago had that been? It felt like a lifetime.
“Saeb!” Sarathen said, taking a step toward him, clasping his hand tightly. The room tilted, and the flames slowed in the fireplace as a figure tumbled out, then another. Was that Bobby? Darean shouted something, but his voice took on a deep tone and slowed to an incomprehensible growl. Lily’s rose-colored eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to scream, but Jack couldn’t make out what she said before she froze in place. He blinked and the room full of frozen figures disappeared, replaced with an endless white landscape.
“What happened?”
“We’re in a flash,” Sarathen said, still holding his hand. Jack swung his head around and stumbled backward. She released her grip.
“There’s no horizon.” His stomach lurched, and he swallowed hard, stumbling again.
“Look at me, Jack.”
He met her gaze, and his stomach settled. “Where—”
“It’s a VR. We used them in the hard fights when we needed an extra moment. And this is going to be a hard fight. It’s disorienting because we don’t have time to fill in the details like up, down, or horizons. But we can plan here and attack quickly when we shut down the VR.”
“Is that why Darean and Lily panicked?” Jack asked.
Sarathen nodded, her short blue hair swaying with the motion. “You came up with the flash during the Origin war,” she said, her upper lip tilting into a smile. “We were cornered more than once, but our enemies knew hell was coming when they saw us flash.”
“They see a flash between us?”
“You remember,” she said with an encouraging nod.
“Like a shadow of someone else’s memory,” he said.
Her features softened, but her tone remained firm. “The flash is like a dream. Like when you live an entire life but wake up to find only a few moments have passed. Our brains process so much faster than time moves, but we still have to be quick, we don’t have moments, we have a split second.”
“What do we do?” Jack asked.
“We’ve been in worse spots,” she said.
“And died,” he said.
She laughed. It was like music compared to Lily’s cackle. “We only died once,” she said.
He couldn’t help smiling back at her. “The Order just came through the fire, Lily has Ann, and the Shen Council is gathered above us,” Jack said.
“And the Shu lords are in front of us,” she said. “I don’t know if the Shen Council will attack us, but I know they won’t help us.”
“It seems like we’re on everyone’s hit list,” Jack said.
“But all you have to do is touch Ann and open the gateway to the Isle of Song. You’ll travel there and end this.”
“Why do we keep doing this, Sarathen? Why do you?”
“Just visualize the Isle of Song.” She lowered her eyes to his chest. “You saw it in the In-between with Millae and you remember it from before.”
“Why keep fighting? Why no—”
“We don’t have time, Saeb!” She looked into his eyes again. “Jack, I mean Jack. We’ve never been this close, and we don’t have time to discuss any of the why. Just get to Ann, I’ll handle the rest.”
Jack took a deep breath. It felt real. He felt real. For a moment he wondered if the physical world was the virtual one. “I sprint for Ann and you cover me,” he said.
Sarathen nodded.
“And I’ll disappear through my totem gateway.”
She nodded again.
“With Ann.”
“Right.”
“And that keeps the Nost from sealing the Accords at the Pool of Consciousness because I’m trapped there with the only door to it.”
“That’s the best we can do.”
“And then what?” Jack studied her porcelain skin under the short blue hair and imagined her in a different body. He pictured her standing next to him in a drop-ship. Olive skin under a dark battle cloak in dented armor with glowing blue power lines crisscrossing her breastplate. The same curved totem blade, the same fierce red eyes. We always have the same eyes.
“And then you find the Lab again.”
“Why?” he asked.
“You can keep Millae and Jode from coming back into the world. We talked about it before and I think it’s time. You can find your way back into the world from the Lab, you did it once so you can do it again.”
“Why do you still search for me? Fight with me?”
“We are the Army of Light,” she glared at him suddenly and her lips curled into a snarl. “We will never—” Her face blurred and the white landscape faded, revealing deep shadows in the room taking shape around him. Darean was still lunging for him and Lily was still screaming, holding the back of Ann’s head.
“Wait!” Jack cried, grabbing Sarathen’s hand. He fell into her, like the other night at his apartment with Janile. Except for this time, he did not resist.
***
Sarathen was picking her way slowly down a damp tunnel. With her OLU vision, she could easily see in the complete blackness. Braiden slipped along behind her, watching for enemies. There should be a grate coming up soon, she knew.
“Here we are,” she sent a mental message to Braiden.
“We must speak out loud from here onward,” Braiden whispered. “The risk of discovery is too great.”
She nodded and raised her emotional and mental blocks; the act was almost unconscious, a survival instinct. How long had they been hunting Shu? The years stretched behind her like a winding river with no source. Even the Burn seemed like a dream, a nightmare, from an age long past. And now Saeb captured, she thought with a shudder. After all this time, and all this fighting and hunting, none of them had ever been captured. What would she do without him, how would she—?
“Focus,” Braiden said, as he slipped past her to inspect the rust-covered lock.
After a moment, he pulled a small metal disk from the inside pocket of his battle cloak and pressed it over the keyhole. Another moment later and the lock fell open with a click. He waited for the nanobots to return to the host disk before replacing it in his cloak. Nostshen relics made easy work of primitive technology. What year did the humans call it? 1432? Ridiculous, Sarathen thought. Just because these people followed an old Nost around fourteen hundred years ago, who got himself killed, they created an entire religion based on him. She often wondered if the Nost had been a Shen or Shu, not that it mattered.
“Sarathen,” Braiden whispered, “we have to move,” he said, waving his black-gloved hand.
“I’m going,” she said.
“Stealth. No smashing. No chaos.”
“I can be stealthy,” she said, shaking her long black curls until they blurred, transforming into short blue strands that framed her olive face. Focus, she thought, as she adjusted her battle cloak and pulled her totem from a small pocket in her brown leather corset. She didn’t cause chaos. And Saeb smashed way more than she ever did. Braiden grunted something she didn’t catch as he pulled the grate open and slipped through. “I’m stealthy,” she whispered, crawling through behind him. They emerged into a smooth granite passageway with torches lining the walls. They paused for a moment, letting their eyes adjust to the light.
“Can you sense him?” Braiden asked. Sarathen could always sense Saeb, no matter where he was, even if he was shielding himself. She didn’t know why and neither did Saeb, but it annoyed him most of the time. But on operations, it had advantages. This wasn’t an operation though, this was a rescue. Her stomach clenched, and she pushed the thought away.
“He may be… maybe they’re shielding him. Water maybe.” It had to be. The alternative was unthinkable.
“Sarathen,” Braiden said, touching her arm. “We’ll get him back.”
She nodded. “We need to move,” she said, pointing down the hallway. “I sense humans down there.”
“They’re in pain,” he said, pulling up his hood to shield his face. Sarathen did the same.
“We’re in a dungeon,” she said. “Everyone feels pain in a dungeon.”
“Remember, if we’re discovered, we’re Nostshi who serve Darean,” he said.
“We’re Nostshi,” she said with a shudder, “who serve Darean.”
They pulled the grate closed behind them and strode down the hallway, keeping their footfalls light. Sarathen focused on the humans in front of her, trying to detect Saeb. She almost stumbled when a figure stepped out from a doorway in front of them. He wore a filthy pale lace-up shirt with sleeves pushed up over his elbows. Blood saturated his arms up to the elbows and his gray eyes were clouded; a Nostshi. He looked at them and swept his head to the side, shifting a sandy blond strand of hair from his view.
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“Who are you?” he asked.
Sarathen heard a low moan behind the door.
“Um,” Sarathen said.
“Where did you come from?” The Shi’s eyes narrowed, peering into her hood.
“We’ve been scouting the human unrest to the north,” Braiden said.
“You’re not from the horde? Are you—”
In a flash of motion, blood erupted from the man’s throat as Sarathen slashed out with a short dagger. The motion was so quick that hardly a drop touched the blade. She stepped to the side, letting him stumble past. He clutched the wound at his throat and his eyes widened, unbelieving. She grabbed his long hair and slammed his face into the wall, holding him upright, pressed against the stone. The Shi’s arms fell limply to his sides.
“Stealthy,” Braiden said, shaking his head.
Arterial blood cascaded down, collecting in a pool on the floor.
“He surprised me,” she said. “We didn’t come up with backstories or names.” She pulled the Shi’s body away from the wall. Braiden winced as he glanced at the ruined face.
“We must get rid of the body,” Braiden said, turning to inspect the doors on either side of the hallway. “Here, this one is open.” They stepped into a dark room with no windows. Sarathen covered her mouth with one hand and dropped the dead Shi.
“Oh, what is that stench? That’s not a normal death smell,” Sarathen said.
Another corpse lay crumpled in the corner, manacles clasped around the wrists of its rotten flesh. The massive chains attached to the wall had stretched under the strain of the escape attempt.
“I can’t tell if it’s male or female,” Braiden said.
“An experiment gone wrong,” Sarathen said.
“Or right.” He turned to leave the room, and Sarathen followed with a shudder.
“We have to stop Darean,” she said, closing the door behind her.
“We will.”
“Wait, do you hear that?”
“What is it?”
“Running water,” Sarathen said, sprinting down the hallway.
“Wait!” Braiden said, running to catch up. Rounding a corner, they saw a thick wooden door. To the right, a stairwell wound up into the keep. Braiden peeked around the corner of the stairs to ensure no one was nearby. Sarathen peered through the small barred window at the top of the door and gasped. Saeb knelt in the middle of the room, his arms stretched over his head, held in place by thick chains attached to the ceiling. A wooden spout stretched out of the stone wall and a steady stream of water flowed over his head. Patches of wet hair clung to a few places on his bleeding scalp, but most of it lay sprawled about him on the floor as if ripped out. It clogged the iron grate in the corner, making the dirty water pool and swirl. Angry red veins ran along his bare torso, bulging in time with the beat of his heart. His muscles twitched and spasmed, and his shredded trousers clung to bare legs. Sarathen pounded her fist on the door.
“Sarathen,” Braiden said, “you’ll bring the whole keep down on us!”
Saeb raised his head a fraction and turned his bright brown eyes to her. Blood swirled around his glowing iris’ and puss oozed from threads holding his mouth shut. The stitch work started in his cheeks, piercing his lips every few centimeters. He moaned, straining against the threads, causing blood to run from the tiny puncture wounds. Sarathen took a step back from the door as her own eyes ignited with an angry red glow.
“Sarathen!” Braiden cried, but she didn’t hear him. Her foot flew, and the door exploded inward, sending shards of iron and wood into the room. She pulled her totem, a small figurine of a robed woman, from her corset pocket and her totem blade surged to life. She strode past Saeb’s pleading eyes to the wooden trough and sliced upward. Her blade severed the wood easily and the stream of water shot out from the wall, leaving Saeb uncovered. Behind her, he jumped to his feet, lunging against the thick chains that held him. A guttural growl escaped his throat, but no words could pass through his lips. The thread binding them was tight. Sarathen reached out with her mind and recoiled. They had to…
“I’m glad you could join us,” a woman said from the hallway. “We’ve been having so much fun!” Lily strode into the room and both Braiden and Sarathen moved in front of Saeb. Braiden pulled a small carving of a tree from his pocket and his quarterstaff surged into existence.
“I’ll hold her, you get Saeb,” Braiden said, leaning on his front foot, ready to fight.
Sarathen sensed more Shi on the way and wondered where Darean was. If he showed up, they were in real trouble. As if fighting Lily and the Shi, trapped in Darean’s dungeon with no way out, wasn’t impossible enough. She spun on her heel, releasing her blade back into the figurine, and tucked it into her pocket. Placing her hands on Saeb’s cheeks, she could sense him deep below the madness. A shroud of filth covered his soul. He was full of hate and rage, trembling with the need to lash out. Along with the injections, Lily was latching onto him through their bond once again, causing his mind to slip away. Through the years he managed to block her out through meditation and mindfulness, but it was a constant struggle, like an addict resisting the urge to use every day. But now the Shu poison was rushing through his veins, obliterating his self-control.
“Saeb,” she whispered, pressing her palms to his face. She tried to send him into sleep but his thoughts were incoherent and his emotions wildly fluctuating. Instead, she waded through his fury and anger, searching for an emotion she could use to bridge into his memory. Maybe she could bring him back or settle him enough to make him sleep. “Don’t leave me, Saeb,” she said. Freeing him now, as he was, would send him off on a killing spree and she doubted he would know, or care, who he attacked. Behind her, she heard steel clash and hoped Braiden could hold Lily off long enough. The last OLUs on the planet were fighting the last battle, she thought, before delving deeper into Saeb’s broken mind.
She blinked and found herself standing in the shadow of a ruined storefront, watching Saeb stride down a ruined street. Vehicles lay on their sides, burning and smashed. Rubble spilled down from tall buildings. He swung his blade continuously, slaughtering every living thing that came into his path. Humans, Shi, Shu, and the rampaging Mara fell to his gleaming silver totem. It was his totem from the Origin war, a cruel weapon formed out of a silver spike. One slice infected the victim with nanobots that continued attacking the body long after the wound was dealt. Only the strongest Nost could survive. What battle was this? Why wasn’t she fighting beside him?
“Saeb,” she said, stepping out from the shadows.
He stopped walking and stared at her with a blank expression.
“The war is over,” she said.
He glanced down at the bleeding corpse of a Shi warrior and back up to her.
“Sarathen?”
She nodded, and he looked up and down the street. The flames in the burning buildings around him flickered before freezing in place and the sounds of battle ceased, leaving silence.
“Lily and Darean have captured you, but we’re here to get you out.”
He closed his eyes and concentrated, pursing his lips. “The torture and stitch work was Lily,” he said, drawing the words out as if remembering as he said them. The scene around them fell away. “Darean is the mastermind, he knows what my totem can do.”
“We’ll get you out,” she said.
“I can only hold this for a moment.”
“That’s all we need. We’ll come out swinging.”
He shook his head sadly, and the scene shifted into a small house on the Isle of Song. Tan curtains swayed in a light breeze, and sliding doors made with paper-thin bamboo stood open. In the distance, waves crashed onto the beach; the smell of salt floated on the breeze.
“I see you found my fragment,” he said.
“You mean the wooden chair that talked to me? Yes, I found it. It told me you did something stupid and were probably in trouble. How could you leave, we were—”
“I’m sorry. I was waiting for you at the Inn but saw Lily and had to follow her. She must have sensed me.”
Sarathen scowled at him. “We’ll burst out of this VR like a flash and—.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that; they injected me, but I’m not evolving.”
“You’ll turn into…” she closed her eyes, “Nostmara.”
“I think so. I think they meant to convert me. Lily thought she could do to me what Jode did to her.”
“And get her bonded back,” Sarathen said.
“Darean wants me to activate my totem and reach the Isle, but they couldn’t make me do it. I wouldn’t.” His eyes glowed brown, and he clenched his jaw.
“So they injected you.”
“Yes,” he growled.
“Do they know the Lab is under the Isle?”
“They do now. He still wants to free Jode and to control the Pool of Consciousness.”
“They would be unstoppable. They would shape the world into their vision of order.”
“Human camps and control,” he said. “The Origin War all over again, but we won’t be there to stop them this time.”
“We’ll stop them here, if we can just get you out of here, we can—”
“Lily can use my old totem somehow. She’s genetically matched it, maybe because we’re bonded.”
“We’ll fix this.”
“We can’t fix this,” he said. “It’s too late.”
“It’s not!”
“You know it is, Sarathen. I have to die. We can’t let them make me activate the gateway to the Isle.”
“But what if Lily already can, you said she can activate your old totem, maybe she can activate this one? You have to keep fighting. I will not let thousands of years slip through our hands, not like this—”
“We all die,” Saeb said, crossing the space between them. He took her hands. “I cannot undo the evil I have done, but we’ve done good together. You and I, and Braiden.”
Sarathen’s crimson eyes glistened with unshed tears.
“Don’t weep for me, you’ll find me in Haven, or I’ll find you again in the physical.” He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers, his dark hair mingling with her blue.
“We’ve worked so hard since the Burn.”
“Since I burned the world,” he said.
“We can get you out, we can—”
“I can’t hold this much longer.” Saeb pulled his head back. “It’s slipping. Get my new totem away from Lily and Darean. Embed it in my journal, I’ll find you.”
“I can’t do this alone, we—”
“Do it, get my totem and journal and run. I’ll download and find you in the physical once I get through Haven. We’ve heard the Shen stories, we know how it works.” Saeb fell to his knees and clutched his head with both hands, groaning. “It’s collapsing, Sarathen. I’ll finally see Haven… I didn’t deserve to before, but maybe now — I’ll download in Germania if I can.” He looked up and gave her a weak smile. “I’ll figure it out. Just find me.” His face contorted, and he fell to the floor. Sarathen knelt beside him, taking his hand.
“You must kill me, Sarathen.”
She shook her head, tears flowing freely now.
“I can’t,” she said.
“You have to; It’s the only way.”
“Saeb, I don’t think—”
“I’ll need someone to bond with when I get back or I’ll go mad,” he said with another weak smile. “Think you can help me out?” His voice sounded far away, and she knew his mind was failing.
“You and Braiden will make a good couple,” she said, choking back tears. Saeb chuckled.
“Find me, Sarathen.”
“We can’t find you, Saeb. Wait for us in Haven,” she said, hoping he understood, hoping he realized what she was telling him. His body faded to a dull gray color and his eyes stared into space. “We’re not going to make it out of here,” she whispered as the world spun and colors melted into each other. She conjured an image of the dungeon in her mind and willed herself out of the collapsing sanity. Any longer and she might never make it back to her own body. After a nervous breath, she found herself holding Saeb’s head in the dungeon. He twisted and writhed in her grasp. His wild eyes focused on her and he clenched his jaw over and over, snapping his head toward her as if to bite. That’s why Lily sowed his lips shut. He had been biting. The sounds of clashing steel filled the room. In moments, Braiden would fall if she didn’t do something. She pressed her totem to Saeb’s chest and grasped the back of his neck tightly. The small figurine of an old woman felt warm just before she called the blade into existence. The blue-tinted sword exploded out of the figure and through his body, spraying blood across her breasts, arms, and face. Lightning danced around her and through his wound. He grunted, eyes widening before falling forward, limp in her arms. She gripped his head, holding his face to her chest for a fraction of a moment.
“No!” Lily screamed.
“You have my heart,” Sarathen whispered into Saeb’s hair as his body stilled. “May the light shine upon you and the fortune of creation grant you strength.” The room fell into an uneasy silence as she gently released him and stood up. His body dangled from the dark iron chains.
“Braiden, we have to retrieve Saeb’s totem.” Her words were slow and calm as she stared into Lily’s rose-colored eyes. As she spoke, her own eyes filled with blood until there was nothing left but a swirling mass of crimson. Her blue-tinted blade flared until it burst into flame. Lily and Braiden both took a step back as blue-white strands of electricity flooded the room and poured into Sarathen’s body. “I will have that totem.”
***
Jack was screaming as he clutched his chest. He looked around with wide eyes until he found Sarathen’s gaze. There was anger there, but underneath, a sadness that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “You killed me,” he said.
“Never force a bridge, especially in a virtual realm.” Her tone was ice.
“But I saw you create a VR while you were inside Saeb’s memories, my memories, while I was chained…?”
“Saeb did that when he recognized me for what I was in the memory, not me. I’ve never seen anyone else who could do that. Nobody can navigate realities like you. This time, if I wasn’t strong enough to break the connection, you might have never come out. A living nightmare in my head.” She shuddered. “If you were at full strength, I don’t know if I could have broken the connection.”
“What happened next?”
“We don’t have time for this, the flash was already collapsing when you bridged, I don’t know why it hasn’t.” She looked at him and narrowed her eyes.
“I have to know,” he said. “I won’t see you until who knows when and—”
“We got your totem back and embedded it in your journal, as you’ve seen.”
“But you and Braiden are different, and you’re bonded.”
“I wounded Lily, and she fled, but she struck me through my battle cloak more than once with your old totem. Somehow she can use it.”
“And it killed you.”
She nodded. “The nanobots don’t stop.”
“And Darean thought Lily ran off and died.”
“It seems so,” she said.
“What happened to Braiden?”
“He was wounded but lived long enough to hide your journal with your totem embedded. He found me in Haven after he uploaded. We searched for you but couldn’t find you. It was ages before we learned about your curse.”
“My curse,” he said as if tasting the words.
“You can’t stay in Haven. You move through the In-between and upload when you die, but it’s like ONUS ejects you. Humans download randomly, but Shen can stay as long as they want. We can even shape Haven.”
“But not me,” he said. “My curse is to instantly download.”
“We have to fight now, and figure that out later. I’ll get your friends out, you get to Ann.” Did she flinch when she said Ann’s name? “When you touch her, I think you’ll finish the bond and be able to open the gateway. You need both sides of the ONUS source to activate your totem, thought, and emotion. You can’t hesitate, get to her and get through the gateway. I’ll do the rest.”
“Save Ann. Get through the gateway,” he said, dully, as he studied Sarathen’s face. Her smooth skin and shining red eyes. “So many years,” he whispered.
Shapes and figures faded into the white landscape as if pushing through a veil around them, and Jack could see that people had moved. How long had they been in the flash? Darean’s hand was inches from his shoulder, and Lily’s gleaming totem was almost formed. It was his old totem blade from the Origin War. She killed Sarathen with it in the dungeon. It was a weapon filled with rage and madness and cruelty. Sarathen squeezed his hand.
“Now!” Sarathen screamed, and the world exploded into action.