Fury should win an award for the best entrance ever.

Kyle felt the moment Celindria’s superior defenses failed, and he wasted no time opening her memory. The Progeny fell down the rabbit hole with him, each of them with no idea what to expect—

Sand.

Kyle, Tameka, Andrew, Rayne, and Sagan were crouched in a valley between two massive dunes. The blistering sun glared from a clear blue sky. The wind tasted dry and smelled arid.

Sagan observed, “I think we’re near the fortress.”

“But you didn’t Seamswalk us here. Kyle, aren’t we in Celindria’s memory?” Tameka frowned at him.

Rayne and Andrew both looked the same question at Kyle.

With a sweeping look around the place, Kyle said, “This is definitely it. I—”

Screens projected from all around them. Millions of them. They flashed through more moments than Kyle could track. Most of them depicted Celindria inflicting pain on someone, but here and there, Pax appeared. And occasionally, a beautiful woman with blue skin, blue eyes, and black hair. She looked a lot like Celindria.

During one instance of this woman, Kyle could tell it was recent by the clothes Celindria was wearing, the First Progeny called out, “Hope, I came to visit.”

“Mother!”

Kyle balked at the endearment and noted that Tameka had done the same. Rayne, Sagan, and Andrew openly gaped at the scene as the woman appeared from around a corner with a baby on her hip.

“Did you come to see Raisin?”

Rayne breathed, “These are Celindria’s memories. Every grain of sand…”

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“From every Probability,” Sagan finished.

While Kyle’s eyes were fixed on the screen, he patted at Andrew. “Are you getting anything? Can you work with this?”

Andrew’s voice was split into three. “I can.”

They all turned and looked to find his eyes were a solid teal. Andrew’s wings opened, so much vaster than the rest of the Progeny that they encompassed their small valley.

Black swallowed the teal in Andrew’s eyes as he ordered, “Kyle, give me more Hope, more Pax, and more Nox. Now!”

“You got it.” There was no way in hell Kyle was quoting Xelan as he gathered more material for Andrew to work with.

Rayne, Sagan, and Tameka peered at the sky as Kyle rifled through a memory scape so complex, he couldn’t fathom the order.

He muttered to himself, “How does she keep track of it all?”

“She doesn’t.” Rayne sounded so certain it drew Kyle’s attention. She said, “This is part of it. All these lives and all these experiences without a single emotion. This is why she’s insane.”

Tameka clicked her tongue. “It’s still no excuse.”

Sagan said, “Oh, absolutely not. But… I think it reinforces we’re doing the right thing. For everyone across Iona Pax.”

Each of them nodded—

“Oh, that’s it!” Kyle grabbed Sagan by the face and kissed her forehead. “Thank you!”

While they asked him questions about his epiphany, Kyle did the only sensible thing to do in a memoryscape made of sand. He thrust his hands into it and let it sift through his fingers.

The images played in mass and funneled away.

Into Kyle.

Every one of Pax’s hugs.

Gouging out Chris’s eyes.

Forcing T.a.o. to endure things worse than rape.

More sex with Nox than Kyle ever wanted to see.

So many people had died at Celindria’s hands in creative ways at the end of a blade, muzzle of a gun, or with her bare hands.

Probably seven thousands years of Celindria’s life was spent in a lab, researching a remedy for her emotional birth defect.

Everything downloaded into Kyle, and he reached out through the conduits Sagan had opened to find their match. The intentions of Celindria’s lovers, family, and victims all funneled through Kyle into their open Progeny connection.

Kyle’s voice sounded strange to him in three pitches as he asked, “Rayne, can you feel them?”

Tears spilled from Rayne’s eyes and evaporated from the fire in them. Her words were breathy as she said, “I can.”

Sagan took her girlfriend’s hand, supporting her through and maintaining this connection to Iona Pax.

Tameka sounded strained, as if Celindria was fighting back. “Andrew, if you can do this, now is the time—”

Andrew screamed and fell to his knees.

That wasn’t exactly part of the plan.