{Enki}

“Has anyone ever said you’re about as funny as you are sane?”

It took everything in Chris’ power to ground out that little quip. All up in his head, sweat dripped from his lip and doused his taupe skin across his naked body.

Celindria liked to keep him that way. “I appreciate the aesthetic your fit physique brings to the chore of piloting your volition.” She had confessed on the third day of this nightmare.

Chris only hoped Remorse let the Valkyrie keep their clothes, but highly doubted it. Karter was gorgeous, tall, and built like a warrior with ample curves in all the right places. The woman rocked a rainbow mohawk. ’Nuff said. Para was tiny for a Valkyrie but tall for a human woman. Short blue hair and a cute penchant for cut-off shorts and leather harnesses. The pair of them spent the last several million years together and generously welcomed Chris into the relationship within the last three years.

There was no way in Hell Primary Rem wasn’t using them to torment each other.

And god dammit, Chris couldn’t do shit about it. So he needled his jailer to rail against his impotence.

“Remorse is a demanding lover. I think he often considered himself generous when his actions came across more as pitying his partners.” Celindria turned away from the visual outside of Chris to glare at those bright blue eyes in his direction. “I’m sure the anatomical barb gave the old Tritan a complex. Us Vast Collective women weren’t constructed to tolerate the painful extension.

“Demanding.”

Venom. Poison. This bitch loved nothing and hated everything.

On all fours, Chris spat the sweat and Celindria’s taste from his mouth. She forced his body to service her every three hours—although, he honestly lost track of how long he spent in this mental inferno.

Rape.

Chris recognized this as rape.

One refuge he found in this firestorm was that Silence kept Para and Karter too busy for Remorse or Abresson to make similar physical time with the Valkyrie. Knowing how the Shadow gossiped about Kyle’s feelings for Silence, Chris prayed the young man saw some decency in Silence that granted charity onto the enslaved women.

One other consolation was that Chris never, ever doubted their people would rescue them. It was a matter of leverage and opportunity. In the meantime, he endured Celindria.

Chris peered through the screen of his eyes. T.a.o. returned them to the continent in Enki. Wearing yet another Mad Max dominatrix ensemble, the small Seamswalker idled off to the side of Celindria’s lab. With every surface covered in nacre glass, the sterile space held a floral fragrance carried in from the connecting tunnels. Purple-leaved, orange-blossomed flowers lined the black cave system that surrounded them.

They called the continent New Cinder.

The room boasted several slabs, cold storage, and some odd machinery Chris didn’t recognize. A cage lined the south wall. Inside, Celindria imprisoned a young man with dark skin that matched hers. He kept his hair in short twists. But it was the prisoner’s teal eyes that shocked Chris.

The man could only be Andrius, Andrew’s ancestor, and Celindria’s brother. She was so family-oriented.

When the ancient male Progeny first laid eyes on Chris, tears spilled from them. Choking from the emotion, Andrius said, “In my deepest regrets, I beg forgiveness from a stranger for all you’ll endure because I was weak. I am so sorry.”

The last two months tested that proclamation.

Unwillingly, Chris and the girls staged terrorist attacks and planted evidence implicating the Shadow across the Vast Collective. Remorse forced Karter in her role as Eminent to vote in favor of outlawing the Progeny, convicting them of charges without them coming before the Tribunal for trial.

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Despicable.

The proceedings divided the people of the Twelve Worlds. For them, the Progeny extended Elden’s legacy. They fought for good, and the Tribunal were infamous for their cruelty.

In that vein…

With everything in Chris, he lifted his head and gave Celindria the full force of his gaze. “You will never achieve your aims, woman. We will stop you. Give it up, and maybe we’ll consider mercy for you.”

Celindria returned her gaze to the view, disregarding him. Her actual body stood across the room at a lab table comprised of several Enki projection screens. Along that wall, the evil mastermind covered every square inch of glass with her notes and formulas.

Although it pained him to admit it, Celindria worked her psychotic ass off with a passion that only the truly crazed indulged. Unfortunately for their team, she excelled at it. Strategy, weapon and defense design, politics—she possessed an arsenal of damaging intellect. And every day she dedicated it to destroying Chris’ adoptive family.

The woman in his head ceased abruptly, and her body across from him stood alert.

Primary Rem stormed into the glass cavern, looking awfully displeased. “The Shadow made their move, and I am sore to admit that I’m impressed with the extent.”

Celindria stepped away from her obsessions noted in the clenching of her fists to cease the work. “Damage report.”

“So far I only know of the diversion.” Remorse slammed a drive on the tabletop. “Load it.” He settled in on a stool, leaning an elbow on the table. His body language suggested it wasn’t casual, so much as frustrated.

Korac’s elegant tenor filled the lab with hope.

{“I am not the monster you once thought me to be. But I’m not sure I qualify as a man. I have always been lesser, and my gravest fear is that the ones I love most will one day see me for what I am.

“A slave without a people. A slave without a home.

“Rayne, your majesty, whereever you are, if you can hear this—I hope you recognize the unmistakable charm and magnificence in my voice.”}

Chris would bet a million credits that when the psychotic bitch played the drive, she never suspected how much it would reaffirm Chris’ faith in his people.

“A Verse?” Celindria hissed.

Remorse nodded, propped on his hand. His voice sounded tight as he elaborated, “That’s right, and Nox has one they released into the public as well.”

The woman’s brows shot up before she squeezed them back into a frown, which did nothing to hinder her ethereal and deceptive beauty. After a few seconds of consideration, Celindria murmured, “Did you acquire that as well?”

The Primary stopped leaning into his hand and stood to pace the room. “No. I staged a Shadow attack on Pil’s capital promenade.” He wandered over to T.a.o.’s idle body and gave her an assessing once over. “Send the Seamswalker out for a copy of Nox’s Verse. The public opinion claims it implicates me. I can only imagine what it says about you.”

Celindria said nothing. Just stared at her work.

“There’s a nasty revelation regarding Abresson in Korac’s Verse.” Remorse faced Celindria once more. “I haven’t decided how to proceed with this information, but I’m certain you’ll want him dead. Leave his punishment to me.”

“I will exist eternal once this is over. Why should I care about one imperfection?” She turned and gave the Tritan a stare devoid of light or feeling.

Ignoring her, Primary Rem went to the nacre-deterring cell along the south wall. “Andrius. How are you faring?”

“As much as I’m certain it concerns you, my mental health suffers immensely watching my sister manipulate my gifts to torture these innocent people.” The Progeny shimmered like Karter, implying he underwent Enki surgery at some point. They interwove nacre filament into her bones and skin after she nearly died in a cave-in. Andrius’ filaments wove along the opposite grain, leading Chris to assume he was sliced and diced in the past.

Was there no one Celindria wouldn’t torment?

“You’re too astute,” Celindria said.

Shit.

Inside Chris’ mind, he squared off with the version of her stored within. Alert of him once more. She always dressed like an angel, a seraph of pain, in all white, breezy ensembles. Celindria approached him with a smile he could only describe as violent.

“Remorse will leave. Then we will continue your lessons.”

Fucking. Awesome.

Celindria glanced back at Chris’ external vision and addressed the Tritan as herself. “I’ll listen to Korac’s Verse once I read Nox’s. It seems only right to experience them in order. Until you return with it, I wish to remain undisturbed in my work. I am close to a breakthrough with the Seamswalking capsule.”

As Celindria went back to her devices, Primary Rem stepped up behind her and clasped the table on either side of her, his front to her back. He was careful not to press contact even as he muttered into her ear, “You wouldn’t be dismissing me so you can play with your new favorite doll, would you?”

“What business is it of yours?”

Gross. Now the Tritan was purring. “You know how much I enjoy watching you work. Silence keeps the women too busy for me to find time with them. Indulge an old lover.”

When the Celindria in his mind grinned at Chris, he knew this was heading nowhere good, but at least the girls were spared.

Thank Elden for Silence.