{Enki | Pantheon}

Tameka hauled back as flames erupted around Remorse’s feet. Off the ground and into the sky, the Shadow soldiers surrounded him.

T.a.o. pointed and cried in delight, “Toasty toes!”

Across the way from Tameka and Xelan, Korac raised a brow at Andrew, who mouthed, “Toasty. Toes.” It was some inside thing Tameka wasn’t privy to.

The shouting Gargantuan Tritan danced away from the blistering injuries with her son in his hand. She ordered, “Lamassau, be careful of Pax!”

With Bones cheering him on, the Chef gave two thumbs up before spewing another round of fire at both Primaries.

While they dodged flailing blows, Xelan muttered something reassuring but also terrifying. “They won’t hurt Pax. They need him.”

Need her son?

That was enough.

Tameka opened the bottomless well inside her and drank deep of Imminent soldier nacre, Bol’s nacre, and Enki’s sun. Charged with vibrant electricity, she fed it to her people, to Rayne, and to Ishkur.

Lam’s flames flared, and Bol collapsed into them. In the same instant, Tumu decompressed to his Gargantuan size, facing off with an agitated Remorse, untouched with Pax in his hand. Every one of Imminent’s troops toppled around them. With no one left to fight, the Shadow faced Primary Rem, and this was the time.

Tameka stopped basking in the power surge and said into her secret frequency, “Aya, Now.”

Kyle frowned at her without taking his eyes off Remorse. “Who’s Aya—”

“Look!”

Caedes nodded toward the Torrentus conduit, where hundreds of thousands of Remorse’s victims emerged. Those who could fly carried those who couldn’t. All of them were dressed in their dead, even the two leaders, who decompressed immediately upon arrival and raced into the fray to fight their father at full height—

Pehton’s startled cry pierced the battlefield. The two Gargantuan Lyriks with pitch black skin and blue feathers looked at their mother, who was small in the air. Caedes flew to her side with his quiet way of showing support, because this was a bizarre reunion.

“Aria. Torch.” Remorse dared speak their names. His children met his voids with their sapphire eyes. He held up Tameka’s son in his hand and said, “Join me. With him, we can rebuild a new race on Ishkur.”

Tumu, at sixty-five feet tall, looked between Gait’s children and Remorse. Bol remained down for the count and slightly charred. The rest of the Shadow backed away from the confrontation, preparing for the scale of whatever came next.

The smell of kerosene fumed from Torch before he said, “Give us Fury’s son, father.”

Aria was less civil. “We’ll see you in pieces, tyrant—”

Her cry thundered through the Pantheon as she fell to the side. Bol stood and lifted Aria by the leg he’d gripped and flung her Gargantuan body over his head, slamming her into the battlefield on the other side, flattening Vast Collective troops by the hundreds.

Torch, with full Siren’s Gale, jumped on Bol’s already charred back. With Remorse distracted, Tumu punched him in the throat.

Razor hijacked their earpiece frequencies to say, “Get Pax away from Primary Rem, and I’ll deliver the coup de grâce.” Screens of the Primaries’ fight appeared in the Pantheon’s sky. That soundtrack of his blared louder from everywhere, building to a crescendo.

Tameka turned to ask Xelan about evacuations—

He was ghastly white and staring at the Gargantuan Lyriks, a tear streaming down his cheek. Frozen in shock. So much so that when Bol picked Tumu off the ground and threw him, he aimed for Xelan.

“No!” Tameka darted at him, knocking them both out of the air in time to escape Tumu’s fall. “Xelan!” She cried in his face, climbing off of him. “Talk to me.”

When Xelan spoke, what he said crushed Tameka. “They were dead. They told me I killed them. They were—”

“Shh. No. They’re not.” Tameka sat him up with a hug, holding him. “I know you didn’t know. It’s okay. We need to get our son. Are you… Will you be all right until then?”

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He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed. “That depends on what other surprises you’re hiding.”

Tameka laughed—in the middle of all this—she laughed. “Uhm. I think just Aya, but that’s a surprise for Korac. Can you stand?” She pulled from their embrace and held out her hand for him to clasp.

When he did, they stood together. Xelan brushed pale dirt from his wings. “You’re a marvel, Tameka Phillips. Let’s save our son.”

They flew back into the sky in time to avoid Remorse taking a step backward on them as Aria uppercut her father. Tameka bet that felt great. She was actually jealous she couldn’t join the fight properly, but hey, at least she’d take credit for bringing the lost children some resolution—

“Silence!” Kyle shouted her name across the battlefield.

Tameka followed his line of sight to see Silence, Smith, and Lucas soaring for the Torrentus Conduit.

Sagan Seamswalked beside Tameka in thin air before she yelled to Kyle, “We’ve got her!” Sagan took her best friend through a conduit and cut-off the fugitives’ mid-flight.

In their wake, Tumu grappled with Remorse, cautious of Pax. Both of them were careful not to harm him. Xelan was right. The Tritans wanted Pax.

But that had to wait.

Tameka gave the ancient woman her best withering glare. “Silence, that’s your great grandchild. You broke a Primary’s knee like it was a matchstick. Get in there and save Pax.”

The same azure light which was under Rayne’s skin pulsed under Silence’s deep gray complexion. Once. Twice. Many times and quickly.

While Silence stared wordlessly at Tameka, Lucas entreated Tameka with golden eyes and a reaching hand. “Please, Fury. She’ll die if we don’t reach Ishkur.”

Silence turned sharply to glare at him, light pulsing ever faster.

Sagan shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s really hard for us to imagine trusting anyone from Imminent.”

Tameka’s feathers rustled. “Exactly. Don’t give me the same sweet eyes you gave Andrew before you crushed him—”

Lucas winced, and Smith patted his shoulder.

“—And you, Silence, you’ll wish you were dead if you survive and Pax doesn’t. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Even though Tameka meant every word, some innate portion of her brain distressed at the thought of hurting Silence. She created their species, she was Xelan’s grandmother, and Kyle…

There he was. Behind them, fighting Remorse. All the memory Progeny—Ross, Kyle, Devis, and possibly Bethany, judging by the look of concentration on her ‘too young to be fighting a war’ face—They exposed the Tritan to his and their worst memories or overloaded his nacre banks to the point of malfunction and repair. Very useful distractions—

Remorse shook his Gargantuan head, stunned by Bethany’s ability. Nasty blisters erupted along his blue skin. He snarled, but was too distracted to block Tumu’s next blow while Xelan made an attempt at the enemy Primary’s compression orb.

Please don’t let them accidentally hurt Pax.

Frustrated, Tameka turned back to Silence. “Please. I know you can save him. It’s what Elden would want.” While she waited for the answer, she drank from the star to feed Rayne and Ishkur.

The stadium lights lining the Pantheon’s artificial space dimmed, casting them into darkness. Only for a moment, but when they returned, Silence was nearly to the conduit.

“Shit,” Sagan said, before grabbing Tameka’s hand. “Hang on.”

They flew through one conduit, slammed into Silence midair, and rolled into a second conduit to—

“Where the fuck are we?” Tameka shuffled herself upright in yellow sulfuric silt. It stank. She called, “Sagan?”

Her best friend was on all fours, concentrating on her breathing. Little drips of red blood splattered on the shifting yellow dirt beneath Sagan. She muttered, “Gimme a minute.”

“You intend to kill me.” Silence stood there, majestic and unaffected, sounding more intrigued than angry. “The Shadow would see me dead?”

Tameka shook her head. How was this getting so messed up? “I want your help to save my son. Then we’ll take you to Ishkur.”

The warrior waved a hand down her body, indicating the pulsing light. “How much time do you suppose I have to waste around—” She sniffed the air. “Monarch 1?”

Monarch 1?

Sagan gulped before asking, “This is Monarch 1? I always called it ‘Hell.’”

Tameka’s eyes widened. “Hell—”

A howl resonated through the columns of yellow rock, followed by the thunder of many feet on the ground.

“Sagan?” Tameka was proud that her voice was steady despite the concern.

The Seamswalker finally stood, a little shaky. “The Petrified.”

Silence studied Sagan and smiled at the last.

Tameka understood. “Agree to help us, and we’ll return you to the Pantheon.”

More howls and baying announced the creatures Sagan once told Tameka about.

“Remember the day everything went wrong on Cinder? Korac made me abandon Rayne so he could take her to Nox, and then I found you weeks later. Well before I figured out my ability, I spent my twentieth birthday with the Petrified in Hell. I was trapped there for days.”

“What are the Petrified?”

“Monsters made of calcified bone. Rock solid and starving.”

As described, the two-headed behemoths charged toward them on taloned feet with weapons in all three of their arms. Their fists were the size of tires, and they towered over all three women—

Nacres.

Tameka could feel nacres inside them. What a relief. She wasn’t sure Sagan was capable of a speedy escape just yet. Still, she asked, “What will you do, Silence?”

But she wasn’t paying Tameka any mind. Silence was staring at the monsters with… sorrow in her eyes. The strange and ancient woman walked into their path, went to her knees, and kowtowed before them.

So weird.

But even more bizarre, they stopped, staring at…

The Mother.

Silence straightened, walked over to the closest Petrified, and pet its goblin head. Tameka had never heard such profound sadness in another’s voice until Silence said, “My fourth batch. The Petrified, as you call them, saw more success in some Probabilities than others. Remorse told me he’d incinerated them from the surface of Monarch 1, but…”

Like the Icari.

That monster answered any of his problems with burning an entire race off the face of their planet.

The azure light strobed under Silence’s skin now, another of Remorse’s victims. Tameka tried, but she couldn’t keep the tears out of her voice. “Silence…”

“Take me back, Fury. Seamswalker. Take me to Remorse.”