“Liam?”
“Alex.”
“Told you. Are you gonna stay?”
“Of course I am. Goddamnit, fuck. I’m not leaving your side, ever.”
***
Cora gasps, her lungs raw and aching. Her eyelids pry open. Crusts of dried blood break off, falling to the floor. She’s on her knees, doubled over, arms stretched behind her back, wearing cuffs linked to chains that connect to rings bolted to the floor. A metal collar is wrapped around her neck, and a similar chain trails to the ground. She can move, but just a little, before the chains go taut.
Several layers of shields surround her. The air warps under their concentrated energies, thick enough that beyond her little bubble, she can’t make out any sharp details. But the location is clear enough.
A vast, circular metal platform is rooted inside a warehouse-like structure. Off to the side, the crane stands silent, extending its tri-pronged arm into the sky. Above her head is a floating metal circle, and mirroring it at the opposite end of the platform is another floating circle, though the layers of shields blur its outline into a gray haze.
She clenches her teeth, heart hammering, stomach twisting. The slow, crawling tendrils of dread creep up her spine and leave her tense. “What is this?”
“The answer to your problem,” the governor says. A blurry figure steps closer. The details sharpen. It is him, wearing that piece of fabric like a scarf, tied into a knot at the base of his neck. “It didn’t have to be this way.”
“Let me go!”
Cora shakes. What are they going to do to her? She strains against her restraints. The metal bites into her wrists and neck.
“You’re too dangerous, Cora.” The governor’s scarf flutters around his torso. He leans in and waves several tendrils mid-air, beady eyes fixated on the rhythmic movements. “I hope you find it in your heart to forgive us. We have no choice but to purge the entity before it controls you.”
“It won’t control me!” Gasping, teary-eyed, she shrieks and yanks against her restraints. She slips into her metaphysical body, but it’s ruined, and there’s no way she’ll dare push herself further.
“Are the preparations made?”
“Yes, sir,” a worker says. The governor’s tendrils retract into his arm and he straightens.
“The asset?”
“Secure.”
“Wait.” All eyes turn toward Cora. She hangs her head and lets her hair hide her face. “What if we worked out a deal?”
“You’re too dangerous to assume we can negotiate safely,” the governor responds. His piece of fluttering fabric rests on his shoulders, a makeshift cape that flutters as he paces the circumference of the shields enclosing her. “Truly, I am sorry things had to end this way. You should understand more than anybody else why we chose this route.”
“You’re all monsters,” Cora wheezes, voice cracking. She can barely breathe through the tightness in her throat. Wrapped around her throat. It can’t end like this, not here, not now, not when she has so much to do.
The governor turns back to his workers. “Is the box secured?”
“Secure.”
“You don’t have the box.” Cora raises her chin defiantly and stares at the face of the man responsible for everything. “Only I know.” That was a precaution Callista decided was necessary. The fewer people that knew its whereabouts, the better. At the end, they decided even Callista shouldn’t know, and Cora alone hid it. “And I will never, ever tell you.”
“You already did.”
She doesn’t remember telling them anything. Briefly, she wonders why her lungs hurt so much, every gasp of air setting her insides on fire, and why it hurts to talk. “What?”
“Enough. Begin the process.”
Suddenly, she becomes aware of the heavy weight jabbing into her head. A crown of sharpened metal sits on her head, with several wires stretching outside the spherical barrier and feeding into alien machinery that resembles a blend of an exposed car engine and computer circuitry.
Coils of metal crackle with electricity. That’s all the warning she gets before a current shoots straight into her body and brain.
Cora screams. Her muscles seize and writhe at the electrons pelting her neurons. Her breath is stolen away. Every inch of her body tingles and burns. The current burns deep inside her, driving spikes of agony through her insides, skewering vital organs, tearing apart her body.
She screams and screams until the electricity cuts off and the governor looms over her convulsing body.
A few pulses of healing magic correct her heartbeat and heals damaged nerves. She groans and slumps forward, hands limp, eyes fluttering closed.
“We know you’re there,” the governor says. His voice is quiet, measured, and calm. His footsteps echo as he paces around her again. “You can’t hope to hide inside her forever. Above everything else, you prioritize your survival, do you not?”
Nobody responds. Cora is vaguely aware he might be talking to the parasite, but her embedded presence hasn’t reacted since she claimed Arcego’s powers were split.
“You guided her here to strike at us, did you not?” The governor’s footsteps pause. His piece of fabric flutters and rustles. “You were always so impatient.” He laughs, and the sound echoes forever and ever inside the warehouse. “We are not going to repeat the same mistake. Believe me when I say that we will give you a more dignified death. Let go. This is not your fight anymore.”
“Please…” Cora sobs. She shakes. She’s so hurt and bruised that she’s not sure she can take another jolt of electricity without losing her sanity. “Stop. She’s not there. Something happened to her.”
“Defending the entity now, aren’t you?”
“Shut the fuck up!” She winces at the pain spearing her throat. “Please, she’s not there. I–I’m not lying to you. I swear. I promise. She’s not there.”
The governor stands silently, letting his fabric wrap around his head like a balaclava. His tendrils stiffen. “Resume the process.”
“No!”
Cora screams again. The electricity tears through her perception of herself, through her perception of reality. It shreds any coherent thought she has left. She writhes and shrieks and spits and cries as the electricity damages her organs and the gifts of healing repair the damage just as fast.
The pain is worse than anything she’s ever experienced. Worse than the parasite’s temporal torture. Worse than the forest, worse than the heartbreak of losing Mari, worse than the homesickness.
She wants it to end. But it doesn’t. The chains cut into her skin. The skin on her neck is scraped raw and bloody as she writhes and contorts. Her eyes roll to the back of her head and blood gushes out of her ears, nose, and mouth. The wounds are healed and reopened, healed and reopened, in a vicious cycle of never-ending agonizing torture.
Stop!
Stop!
Stop!
I give you control!
The world pauses. Loops of electricity are suspended mid-air, traveling down the lengths of her chains and wires, headed straight toward her. The governor is turned away, fabric hiding sight of his face. The outlines of soldiers are hazy, though some of them are turned away too, tendrils limp at their sides.
Sparks of life blossom within the loops. Blue eyes materialize first. Soon, the rest of the parasite appears, though with a few changes. Her eyes are half-lidded, with heavy eye bags beneath. Her nose is crooked. Her lips are chapped, freckles dull, and manicured hair chopped haphazardly. Her shoulders are hunched forward, arms dangling at her sides.
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The parasite reminds Cora too much of herself the first few days after she escaped the forest.
Chapped lips part open to speak. It’s too late.
“What are you talking about?” Cora croaks out. Even suspended in time, her throat aches.
The rest of his gifts are split among five.
“Five?”
You, Liam, and Mari have the majority. The gift of unbinding rests with you, so you’re still the strongest. But there’s two more. It should’ve been impossible, but they did it.
“Stop with the cryptic bullshit and just tell me.” Cora is at the edge of her sanity. She wants to cry and break down until there’s nothing left to give. “Just fucking tell me.” Her voice quivers. “Please.”
I visited each person while the aftershocks of your power permitted me. Liam is fine. Mari is inside an impenetrable fortress orbiting Transia, the Empire’s homeworld. But the last two… do you remember the mine collapse?
Suddenly, her pain vanishes. “No, it can’t be, they–”
The creature that attacked you and your friends came from the box, but I don’t know what it was. It must’ve come from beyond any reality we know. Its existence destabilized local reality and opened a node that saved your friends before they were crushed.
“You’re lying.” Cora tears up again. Her lip quivers. “Stop that. That’s just cruel.”
Sally and Joe are in Magaram.
Magaram. The Allied world so many others think she and Liam came from. The world that Callista thought they came from. A world full of humans just like her, locked into a perpetual fight of desperation against an unstoppable force. The wounded soldiers told her stories. They spoke about how there was a stalemate on Uklut because it’s the only world that can access the Allied worlds.
Once nodes are opened, they can never be closed. And so the Empire fights to wipe out any Allied presence on Uklut and control the node.
But the Magaramans deliver the most firepower, the soldiers said. Wherever their forces go, whatever Transient military bases or fortresses the Magaramans encroach upon, they destroy.
The soldiers said they’d started a counteroffensive in recent months. The Magaramans had invented new battle strategies, struck more strongly than ever, and stomped out Transient influences.
“Are they fighting for Magaram?”
The parasite is quiet. She threads her fingers behind her back and stares off into space, her eyes glazing over, their churning oceans stilling into a glimmer.
They are. And they learned what the Cenarians are doing to you. She flexes her hands and combs her tattered hair. They know you’re here.
The words chill Cora. "It doesn't matter. But I'm glad they're alive." She looks down at herself, chained and bleeding, locked beneath the tyranny of a governor who thinks what he’s doing is best. And what for? To use her as a weapon against the Transients?
“Why can’t I give you control?” She does her best to keep her voice steady. Still, the shivers are there, traveling down her limbs and ending at her hands and feet. She sags and feels the cold, timeless weight of her frozen shackles put pressure on her. She hates this. Hates everything. The parasite is a monster, coming in a different shape and form than the governor and the people he commands. “You tortured me for it before.”
I did it because I was jealous.
The parasite floats above Cora’s head. She rotates herself and hangs upside-down. Her hair stays up, somehow, hovering over her shoulders. Her eyes, though, glow just the tiniest bit.
Cora frowns. “There’s nothing special about me.”
Says every bullshit hero ever. I know you inside and out, and I know you want to save your friends and go back home. Before Cora can interject, the parasite presses a finger to her lips and rotates on her back. She crosses one leg over the other and throws her head back. And I hate you for it. I’m jealous because you’re alive, and I’m not. You have your friends, and mine died for something that only killed me in the end. You still have a chance, and I don’t.
The parasite huffs. Her airless breath pushes back stray locks of hair. She crosses her arms and turns away. The worst thing is watching you barrel toward the same mistakes I did. You’re indecisive. You let others push you around. You deluded yourself into thinking you’re your own independent person, that you make your choices, that you have the power to define yourself. Bullshit. You’ve had moments where you’ve proven me wrong, but you’ve had more moments proving me right. You need to do more. Stop being afraid. Stop wanting to go back home.
Cora tugs on her shackles. They hold firm, applying gentle pressure to her wrists and neck. “And what if I just want to go home with my friends?”
At the rate you’re headed, there won’t be any friends left. Blue crackles and haloes the parasite’s head. She still doesn’t turn around, though she hugs her knees to her chest. You can’t let the Empire exist as long as you live. Your friends can help you, but you need to find them and combine your powers if you want to destroy the Transients and kill Marpei. Otherwise, one day, she’ll breach reality and attack Earth.
Marpei. The other god, the goddess who controlled the Empire after Arcego died. She’s the reason for the wounded soldiers Cora talked to, the amputees and those wounded severely enough that gifts of healing alone can’t repair the damage.
“But I’m going to die.” Cora swallows. Her throat is tightening again. “Stop deflecting. I get it. We have to fight. I have to fight. All those people are counting on me to save them, but I can’t even save myself.” She drops her gaze to the floor and grits her teeth. “Why can’t I give you control?”
They wanted me to come out. And I did. And when we end this conversation, they’ll try to rip me out of you. The parasite rotates until she’s facing Cora. Her face is weary, sagging, tired. The face of a person who’s seen too many indescribable horrors to ever forget. The face of a person who once carried the responsibility of worlds on her shoulders and failed. Then they will torture you until you use one of your gifts. Then they’ll destroy parts of your brain until you’re reacting involuntarily and you provide them infinite power while your gift exists and you live.
“What the fuck?” Cora squeaks out. She knew Eporsa’s sketches called for some sort of energy and battery source to power the c-nodes, but like that? She starts hyperventilating, straining against the restraints that will never break. “They wouldn’t, I’ve done nothing to them, nothing!”
I need you to stop being afraid. Do more. You have no idea how much is left, waiting to be tapped upon. You inherited the power of a god. Near-infinity divided by five is still almost infinity. Stop holding back.
Cora starts tearing up again. “I destroyed the hospital. I killed all those people for no reason. I already stopped holding back and it’s not enough.”
Listen to me. When we end this conversation, they’ll stop torturing you. They’ll deal with me. But while they’re trying to remove me, I’ll show you my story. And then you’ll understand.
“Understand what?” The parasite smiles. Cora shudders and strains against her bindings again. It’s useless, just like she’ll be the moment the agonizing current of electricity torches through her body.
Am I an angel or a devil? A hero or a destroyer of worlds? The parasite lands on her feet. Moments later, her features smoothen, and she’s every bit as cold and pretty as the first time Cora saw her. Being a monster depends on who’s telling the story.
Time unpauses, the parasite flickers away, and Cora is thrust into a world of agony.
She convulses for several seconds before the current dies. Gasping, she hangs her head, twitching while the healers repair the cellular damage. Her brain aches. Her thoughts are slow and foggy, coming at the edge of her awareness before dropping away entirely. Several pulses of well-timed healing magic soothe the brain damage and clear her head.
The embedded presence of the parasite is gone. It floats at the cusp of freedom, teetering at the edge of her mind, a tiny star against the vast backdrop of her subconsciousness.
Yet another presence transcends material reality to pluck the star out. A hand made of articulated metal reaches into her mind and pinches the star beneath two heavy, clumsy fingers. Far below, Cora is powerless, rooted to the ocean of her consciousness lapping against the hand snatching the only source of light guiding her ship.
The star twinkles and then turns into a supernova.
The hand is burned away, reduced to ashes that Cora absorbs and quickly forgets. Streaks of blazing energy rush across the vast chasm of her subconscious and burrows into the deepest machinery that makes her her.
A quick jolt of pain later, Cora slumps against her restraints as the parasite reaches what Cora would consider her soul and fuses. New memories form. Synapses fire and wire together, encoding another life into her own. Beyond the physical, her metaphysical self stirs, guided toward the distant beacon of shining light and its branching roots by a suggestion that is not her own.
She is here and now and she is everywhere. She is the energy in motion, the suggestion of potential, the harbinger of things to come. She is the champion of the people, an explorer and a fighter, the promise of a future brighter and better.
The warehouse and the alien machinery of the c-node drops away. The panicked soldiers and stern face of the governor melt into a new environment. No longer is Cora bound to her chains, but free, and changed.
The first thing she feels is the plummeting temperature. Crips white surrounds her.
Her nails are painted blue. Her skin is paler. Her arms and legs feel weaker and skinnier. She’s wearing a skirt and a crop top, both which bare her body to the cold, infernal winds lashing at her. Her long hair is wet and stuck to the nape of her neck and shoulders, quickly freezing in place. Her sandals do nothing to stop the snow from rushing over her feet and numbing them.
She’s cold, alone, and so, so afraid. Her tears freeze to her cheeks. Clutched to her chest is the box, dull and lifeless. Around her, wind howls and claws at her. Mounds of snow rise everywhere around her. Swirls of violet streak across the dark sky. Mountain caps rise like armored plates in the far horizon, jutting out of a spine of mountain ridges and scattering of spiny trees that fade behind a flurry of snowflakes.
Near some of those trees, however, pinpricks of light offer a glimpse of life. Warm. Safe.
Cora’s new home.
No, not Cora, her thoughts chide. Cora is another person. You’re Cora, but right now, you’re not Cora. Does that make sense? You’re me forty-eight years ago. You’re fifteen years old. You have another name here, my name.
Kena.