{Enki | Bridge}

Sagan came to, confused. Why was she lying on the glass gangway with a raging migraine? How was her head hurting with a nacre? What happened—

In the dark, white eyes with twin crescent pupils stared centimeters from her face, set in Korac’s face with a finger pressed to his lips.

Razor.

Free.

A scream crawled up Sagan’s spine, but she swallowed it when she saw the lack of menace in Razor’s eyes. He nodded and left her on the floor, crossing the room to check on Pehton. Then Iuo who’d fallen beside the terminal. Tumu—

Sagan startled with a gasp.

Without lights, she made out the Primary hanging halfway off the gangplank, arms reaching for the endless swirl of Cascading Light.

Razor shocked her by dragging Tumu’s significant heft onto the main floor with ease. He went to Xelan last, who lay face down on the floor. Tenderly, Razor brushed aside all that black hair until none covered his face. He gazed a second longer at the Icarus before returning to the main terminal with a spring in his step.

With his back to her, Sagan reached for her axe—

Gone.

Sagan peered over to find both of them and the whip holstered on Korac’s belt. Under her breath, she muttered, “Fuck me.” And instantly regretted it.

Razor spun and pegged her with a stare, one eyebrow raised. “I’m feeling magnanimous, so I’ll leave that one untouched. Clearly, you’re under the influence of this ensemble.” He gave a sweeping gesture over Korac’s belted robe and leather pants. Specifically, lingering his fingers along the open front. “Did my baby brother leave all this exposed for you or for our fiery Peh Peh?” He smirked before gazing back at Xelan. “Or perhaps an admirer with more history?”

Through gritted teeth, Sagan confessed, “I wouldn’t mind either way.”

That brought Razor’s eyes back to hers. He smiled. “You are perfection.” When he turned back to the terminals, he instructed, “Get on your feet. We have work to do, Seamswalker.”

“I’m not doing a damned thing until you tell me what’s happening.” Her voice carried through the dark in three pitches.

With his back to her, Razor raised a hand to run through his hair in frustration, stopped like he remembered it wasn’t his hair, and chuckled at the novelty of it. In response to her demand, he said, “There’s not enough time for detailed schematics. The blackout is Sphere-wide, and your family is in danger.” He said ‘family’ like it was a dirty word. After pressing a few more projected keys on Korac’s arm, he faced her. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

Sagan stood and shook her head. “No fucking way.”

Razor pointed at Korac’s face, pointed at himself. “You won’t hurt me while I’m in this inferior body, and I’m intrigued enough by something your lover said to summon Ishkur as promised. I still want in the Hall of Dead Kings, or did you forget about our bargain?”

Summon Ishkur? Ishkur was a person?

Shaking her head, Sagan focused on her immediate dilemma. Somehow Razor had shut down power to Enki and laid her team out, including Korac. He was steering a precious vessel, all while claiming it in the name of good.

What choice did she have? “What do you want from me?”

Razor sighed from Korac’s lips in relief. “Good. First—”

“Sagan, this is War King. What’s happening out there? Everything’s dark. Over.”

Razor’s eyes widened in Korac’s face. To Sagan, he said, “You found her.”

Sagan wet her lips, itching to answer Rayne but not wanting to draw more attention to her best friend. “Yes.” Some part of Sagan worried Rayne would kill Razor in Korac’s body simply to end his existence. They couldn’t have that.

To her surprise, Razor nodded as if that was well and good without contributing a scathing remark before saying, “Answer her, then take me to Triss.”

Eager to see Echo herself, Sagan said over her mic, “Just some difficulties. We’ll figure it out. Over and Out.” She opened the conduit to the Medical Bay. Korac’s hand lightly touched her bicep, and she jerked away like it burned.

Shrinking from her lover’s touch was a step backward.

No.

Sagan returned to his proximity and glared at Razor.

He searched her eyes before confessing, “I only wanted to say that I’m afraid.”

She recoiled. “Of what?”

“If Triss yet lives, she’ll insist I hold the child.”

Still not following, Sagan frowned her confusion. “And?”

The twin crescent pupils in his eyes shifted, staring at her like the situation was obvious. Razor clarified, “Once. Only once will I get to do this. What if once isn’t enough? What will my existence be like after knowing I can never do it again?”

Oh.

Without waiting for her reply, Razor stepped through the conduit.

By the time Sagan followed through, Pablo, Lynn, and Dr. Qas all stood on red alert. Beyond them, Bethany stared upside Korac’s head with hungry eyes. Emergency glow orbs illuminated the bay, scattered all around.

Uncertain what else to do, Sagan held up her hands, staving them. “It’s okay. We made a deal, remember—”

Did Bethany just lick her lips like a hungry kitten?

Whatever. Focus. Sagan opened her mouth to ask if Triss was alive—

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“Razor?” Beyond them, Triss let out a faint call again, “Razor?”

Korac’s face frowned, and Razor’s eyes glanced at Pablo. “Dr. Suarez?”

Pablo nodded, understanding and looking a little grateful. “She’s been calling for you since the lights went out.” He glanced Korac up and down before asking Razor, “You wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would you?”

But the body of Sagan’s lover had already stepped around Lynn and the doctors to kneel at Triss’ side. The others watched in horrified fascination. Sagan stayed put and, from her vantage point, watched Triss’ withered gray hand reach to caress Korac’s face.

Resist the urge to kill.

Sagan bit her tongue and eavesdropped on the moment.

“I knew you’d come for me.” Triss sounded like shit, all dry and breathy.

A tear—an actual tear—fell from Razor’s bizarre eyes. “Always.” The genuine emotion coming from Korac’s voice made Sagan clear her throat and lower her eyes.

The two gazed at one another for an eternity before Triss said, “She’s here. Our girl… Dr. Suarez?”

Pablo muttered to Sagan, “She’s in the next bay on this tier. Caedes and Miy are with her. You can bring her in.” His smile was full of a love only near-siblings shared, and Sagan would take it.

She found Caedes making faces into the medical bed. Miy watched Sagan enter with a hand on her hip and a brow curiously quirked. Sagan smiled at them both.

The gruff Icarus straightened and let his features fall into his grumpy resting face. “Ahem. She’s all yours.”

A tiny lilt of a musical note came from the bed as Sagan approached, nervous and excited and sad Korac wasn’t with her. Especially once she glimpsed inside.

Sagan cupped a hand over her mouth and stared down at the beautiful Aegis-featured, Lyriki-complected infant. “Hello, Echo.” She tried to exclaim softly, but the baby startled and turned to her, poised to cry.

What should Sagan do? Tickle her? Feed her? “Is she hungry? Does she need changing—No, that’s pre-nacre babies. What do I do?”

“Pick her up.” Miy sounded so bitchy, but also gentle. It was a complex way to communicate.

Sagan lifted baby Echo in her arms and blinked through her tears as the newborn calmed down. Did everyone’s voice change to the same pitch and softness when talking to babies? “Hi, there. Hello. I’m—” Sagan choked. Swallowed. Tried again. “I’m your mommy.”

Echo squeezed her finger in greeting, and Sagan got moving. One day in the future, when she and Korac recounted this day to their little girl, Sagan didn’t want to say she failed to get Echo to her birth parents in time. Rounding the corner, Pablo looked on the verge of a breakdown, spurring her to rush to Triss’ bed—

Oh.

Elden.

Triss was a nightmare Sagan would never forget, thinned to ruin and covered in yellow and orange gore. The once pitch-black skin, now gray, had shrunk into the angular bones of her face. Her yellow feathers fell out from her scalp.

Only her eyes, hard citrines, shone with their usual beauty.

And Razor gazed at her with nothing but adoration. The god turned acolyte. “She’s here, Triss. Hang on for me, please.”

In that weak, raspy voice, Triss begged, “Hold… her. Razor. Please.” All the melody had left her.

Razor reached out to Sagan and met her eyes for one crystalline breath. This was him at his most human. He was afraid. Afraid of losing Triss and afraid of falling in love with his daughter.

Sagan pitied Razor.

As if he had held a million babies in his lifetime, the Pain Curator expertly cradled Echo in Korac’s arms—an obscenity, given Korac had yet to do so.

But again—Sagan reminded herself—this was about Echo.

Razor gazed down at his daughter, who reached tiny hands to Korac’s face. He bent to let her cup Korac’s jaw and kissed her. “She looks exactly like her mother. She’s beautiful, Triss.”

Echo clucked and gasped on a whistle, the only sound in the room aside from Sagan’s heartbeat.

“Triss?”

Razor whirled in a gentle spin, remembering the baby in his arms and…

Sagan saw what he saw. So distracted was she by him holding her daughter that they’d both missed it.

Triss’ last breath was at least two minutes ago. She was white as a sheet, her lips lilted in a ghastly smile. Her fingers unfurled from where she’d clenched them in the blanket. A quiet passing, basking in the moment.

A heartbreaking sound brought Sagan back to Razor in Korac’s body.

He hugged Echo to his face and muttered, “No.

“No.

“No, no, no.”

Meanwhile, Echo twirled a strand of Korac’s hair around her finger and played with it.

Sagan took a step toward the emotionally crazed man holding her infant daughter in her lover’s arms. “Razor. I’m sorry.” She actually meant it. As horrific as Razor and Triss were to Sagan and Korac—the entire Vast Collective—this was a nightmarish way for their relationship to end. Especially with Razor’s existence leaning toward the long-term.

So, Sagan took another step, reaching out.

Razor brushed Echo’s down-feathers and gazed at her, long and unblinking. Sagan knew he was afraid to look away, afraid to get another glimpse of his lover in this state. Understanding, Sagan gently took the blanket from Triss’ grip and, with as much sensitivity as possible, shrouded the dead woman from her lover’s eyes.

Emotionally keyed up, Sagan wasn’t sure, but she thought Razor croaked softly, “Thank you.”

Instead of asking for confirmation, she held out her arms for the baby. “Please, Razor. Please.”

He met her eyes then with his, full of tears and…

Fear.

“She looks just like her mother. Do you know how impossible that is? Aegis genes are dominant.”

Sagan swallowed and tried again, firmer this time. “Please. Give Echo to me.”

Razor looked from Sagan to Echo and grimaced in pain. The kind that affects the heart, deep and potent. Sagan was familiar with it because Razor and all of Imminent had put her and family through it repeatedly, but now her enemy stood here, utterly affected, and all Sagan wanted to do was cry with him.

“Please.”

Razor handed Echo to Sagan, staring at the young woman the entire time. He said, “You’ll make an exceptional mother, Seamswalker.”

She swallowed, unsure of what to say. At least Echo looked equally perplexed. Gently, Sagan insisted, “We should get moving before the others wake. They won’t be happy with you, and I doubt you’ll get this ‘work’ you spoke of done so easily, then.”

Razor stared nowhere—not seeing the room, the blanketed body in his periphery—miserable. “Yes. You’re right.”

Pablo met Sagan around the bed, equally miserable. He was crying, his eyes red from it. “I’ll take her. I could use the comfort.”

Sagan smiled pityingly for him and kissed Echo before letting the doctor have her. “Thank you, Pablo. For everything.”

“Yes.” Razor sounded scooped out and empty behind her. “Thank you for your excellent care, Dr. Suarez.”

It wasn’t unusual for Razor to be full of compliments. He was rather well known for being a fair, if interesting, employer, recruiting into his cult of vice brokers with sweet words and smooth deals. But something felt different here.

Sincerity.

Razor had hit rock bottom, and Sagan was the only thing keeping him upright. “C’mon.”

They stepped through the conduit, returning to the bridge. Everyone was still unconscious, much to Sagan’s disappointment—

The floor switched places with the ceiling, and Sagan fell into the terminal beside her.

Razor was there, present, but not touching her, scanning her with his bizarre eyes. “Seamswalker?”

The concern in Korac’s voice was comforting, and she craved his presence after Triss’ death. A tear fell from her eyes as she tried to wave him off. “I’m fine.”

“You’re over taxed.”

True, but their enemy didn’t need to know that. Distract. Change the subject. Sagan straightened and asked, “What’s your aim, Razor?”

Razor went back to the terminal and projected the Dyson’s Sphere into a three-dimensional rendering over the whirling nightmare below. More to himself, he said, “I told Korac vengeance was a hungry master. Of course, I was referring to Nox at the time, but we’re all guilty of it.”

Appeal to his ego. Sagan licked her dry lips and pressed, “Isn’t vengeance beneath you?”

He laughed, but said nothing further on the subject.

Get him talking. She asked, “What intrigued you?”

“Hmm?”

Sagan finally felt stable enough to stand while clutching the terminal. She tried again for a diverting subject, buying time for the others to wake. “You said, ‘I’m intrigued enough by something your lover said to summon Ishkur as promised.’ What did Korac say that intrigued you?”

Razor faced her as he said, “‘Remorse stole Pax.’ That was never in our plans. Celindria always raised him with Nox. However, Xelan’s resurrection inside Gait instead of Nox—a finer choice, in my opinion—and the only way Celindria would let Pax go would be over her dead body, so… It was an intriguing revelation.”

Sagan’s face scrunched with the frown. “But what does that have to do with your plans and vengeance—”

Lights.

Razor powered the lights back on.

“It means I get to be the hero for once.”

That wink frightened Sagan more because he’d meant to be reassuring.