{Enki | Cinder’s Shrine}
Torrentus wasn’t just moving. It was disseminating into separate cells of gentler storms. The kind perfect for terraforming.
The signal.
Xelan turned—and yes, maybe there was a happy flare to his coat—as he addressed his Generals. “Let’s find the helm of this ship and commandeer it.”
Korac pinched between his eyes and groaned into his hand. “Why are you still like this?”
Kyle and Andrew exchanged a glance before looking away, fighting a snicker.
Sagan smoothed her hand over Korac’s shoulders, the highest she could reach. “I know, baby.”
“No, you don’t understand. He’s always like this, amos.”
There was that involuntary twitch in Xelan’s eye again.
Lamassau barked out a laugh as if he’d caught it, making Xelan’s face burn.
Pehton swatted the green Tritan, who stood four feet over her head.
“Ow. Yes, ma’am. I’ll behave.”
Tumu met Xelan’s eyes and lifted his lipless mouth with a barely visible nod.
Iuo recorded every moment while Legir, X, and Kombuchi signaled their return to the Pantheon, laughing.
F8 glided back to the conduits, shaking her head like she was impressed. “The Shadow.” Before stepping through a conduit to the Pantheon, the Monarch Queen smiled all those sharp teeth in a genuine beam, her multifaceted eyes sparkled. “Go retrieve our Empress, your majesty.”
Xelan blanched.
Empress.
Sagan and Kyle whirled on Xelan, who held his hands up in surrender. As they fired at him like a duck in a carnival game, he started pacing and biting his thumbnail. Over their heads, Korac smirked, enjoying this punishment.
Kyle bit out, “So that’s what Tameka doesn’t know?”
At the same time, Sagan sounded so concerned. “What will they expect her to do?”
Andrew gently touched their biceps, shaking his head. “It’s okay. It’ll turn out all right for everyone.”
Sagan’s anxiety visibly calmed, but Kyle still looked tense.
Tumu asked an important question filled with warmth and confidence. “Ask yourselves, do you think Peaches would decline such a station?”
That was the question Xelan had asked himself a million times while he brokered their allies for troops. He stopped pacing. It was time to confess. “I was meant to ascend to Emperor over the Vast Collective once we defeated Nox.”
All three Progenies’ eyes widened. Even Iuo’s black and blues doubled in size.
Only Pehton looked unaffected, standing with the mask of a professional. Of course, she already knew as one of those allies.
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Korac’s mouth gaped open.
How unrefined of the Silver General. It was almost enough to make Xelan laugh, but the subject at hand wore him down. He said, “Before Imminent amplified its exposure, the greatest threat to the Vast Collective was Nox and the Icarean armies. F8, Kombuchi, Legir—All the planetary allies I’ve made over my travels—my journey to defeat my brother—backed me under one condition.”
Sagan said, “You would unite the Twelve Worlds.”
When Xelan smiled, the bitterness reduced it to only half his mouth. “With the Progeny behind me, I never imagined I wouldn’t survive it.”
Watching the implications wash over them twisted Xelan’s stomach. He wet his lips before saying, “My motives in training you were never ulterior, I swear. I didn’t want the title or the responsibility that came with it. I wanted to live on Earth and watch the Progeny progress. A small life—That’s not what I was granted.”
Lamassau glanced at Tumu. “Is that why you had a commission for his arrest?”
Tumu nodded.
Korac finally closed his mouth to say, incredulous, “An empire?”
Xelan cursed and looked away.
Kyle surprised them all by saying, “Let’s leave it to Tameka to decide how to go forward.” That brought Xelan back around, staring at the young man, who continued. “You’re her partner, and she is damned capable of handling anything, including how to even approach this topic. Right now, we need to focus on if we’re to defeat Imminent in the next few hours. Like Rayne said, Enki doesn’t have long.”
Andrew patted Kyle on the back. “Hell yes. Let’s go find Tameka.”
Sagan opened a conduit, and they all stared at it. Xelan noted a flinch in her eyes, and she touched a delicate hand to her temple. The strain was costing her.
She said, “This is about where Razor’s map leads us. The bridge. Who’s coming with?”
Lamassau took Tumu’s hand as he turned to him to say, “I’ll play General. You go be the first Tritan on Enki’s bridge.” They kissed before he stepped over to the Pantheon conduits.
Pehton stepped up, still professional. “I’m with you, your imperial majesty.”
Despite how awful he felt, Xelan smiled at Pehton’s wink.
Xelan wasn’t surprised when Iuo followed in line with all his stenography equipment. “As if I’d miss seeing the bridge.”
Kyle ran a hand through his curly hair, clearly frustrated still, but matured enough to do his part. “Me and Andrew will go to the Pantheon. Once you reach the bridge, we imagine that’s when the fighting will start. Maybe I can crash the memories on those Weapon clones.”
Xelan was very proud of the man Kyle had become. The most recent strife was too fresh between them, but soon he’d tell him.
“I’ll see how much suggestion I can influence over them.” Andrew sounded confident, and he walked away, waving with his coin. “We’re on the right track, people. Good luck, all.”
Sagan waved to her unrelated brothers with teary eyes, holding Korac’s hand.
Lam waved with his Pil gauntlets as the three of them stepped through the conduit to the Pantheon.
“Is there anything else before we meet Peaches?” For the first time since Xelan could remember, Tumu sounded overwhelmed.
Xelan could relate. Weapons weighed down his belt, and he was surprised his pants could stay up. The sickles on his hips, Tameka’s chain dart—gold tipped, of all things—on his front, and the whip at his back.
Oh.
Sheepishly, Xelan held up a finger. “Uhm. One more thing.” He retrieved the whip from beneath his coat and, even though Korac had relished in Xelan’s misery, he still handed it over. The bigger Icarus.
Korac stared down at it in his hands with some emotion behind his facade. It was there in his eyes. The Icarean General swallowed before asking, “Where did you find it?”
“Celindria’s lab. She’d kept some trophies, apparently.”
Xelan didn’t understand the significance of the whip until reading Korac’s Verse. A gift from Nox. The same whip the General used to punish Celindria some millennia ago. Once upon a time, Xelan would’ve left it in her lab, but lately, he’d begun to value that people, places, and even Weapons were made of more than one side of their stories.
Sagan sidled up beside Korac and squeezed his arm. The smile he gave her was familiar, and it was private, so Xelan glanced away as Korac retrieved his brother’s gift.
With one dramatic flick, Korac popped it, and the crack reverberated in their ears throughout the shrine.
So dramatic.
“Thank you.”
That startled Xelan back to meeting Korac’s eyes. Love. That was the emotion. It was familiar and long-missed. But it was also too much right now, and so Xelan said the only thing he thought appropriate for the moment. With a grin, he assured, “I got you.”
Korac groaned and pinched his eyes again. “Seriously?!”
Xelan laughed all the way through the conduit, flare in his coat and all.