by T. A. White
The fastest thing in the air, she thought smugly before her gaze locked on her enemy where he tangled with her mate.
She was going to tear him limb from limb and then roll in the stench of his death. It was going to be glorious, she thought gleefully.
Her paws opened and shut in anticipation.
No, listen to Jax. Force him through the portal.
Ilith ignored Tate's whisper. I see no portal. Don't have to listen.
It was the only exchange they had time for as Nathan grew in their vision. Bigger and bigger. Ilith's wings spread, her speed barely checked as her legs extended. She grabbed him by the arm and whipped him into the air, throwing him into the chasm and diving after him to the accompaniment of Ryu's protest. The wind rushing past stole the meaning behind his words, turning them into an inarticulate mess.
Nathan hit the ground on his back, Ilith landing on top of him, her claws spearing down as she stomped on him. Flat bug, she thought with satisfaction.
Not quite, Tate warned.
It was the only warning she got as a force punched up from below sending her flying backwards. Ilith landed with a crash, noticing for the first time the lack of pain.
She peered at her scales, surprised to find they were lined with a thin metallic substance.
The armor transferred to you, Tate said in wonder.
Ilith snorted at it. She disliked the way it hid the majesty of her scales.
Vain, Tate scolded.
Yes, and Ilith didn't see anything wrong with that.
Nathan rose, finding his feet with trouble. Blood streamed from a cut on his head, his eyes were murderous and his face a mask of fury. His armor wasn't so pretty now, dented and broken, wounds visible beneath.
Ilith whipped her tail in satisfaction at the damage she'd done to him.
Careful, wounded animals are often the most dangerous, Tate cautioned.
Ilith knew that. She'd been along on all of Tate's hunts when they had first woken, even if her other half had never felt her presence.
Ilith didn't waste time on a growl or hiss. Those were for warnings. When you meant to deal death, you did so silently.
She circled to the right of Nathan as she waited for her moment to strike.
He sneered at her. "Is that all you've got, lizard? Tatum isn't the only one weakened in this age."
Ilith chuckled silently to herself. Of the two of them, he had blood dripping from him, announcing his status as prey to all who were near.
Don't get hit by that black blast from his sword, Tate warned.
Won't.
Ilith's gaze remained fixed on her prize as he drew himself up. He struck with the speed of a serpent, black shooting past as she ducked. He followed it up with two more strikes.
Ilith pulled on the between, glowing golden glyphs appearing in midair as it hit an invisible shield.
You can do magic, Tate thought with awe.
Not magic. The between.
Then she didn't have time to speak, concentrating on her battle with the Creator.
He was powerful, relying on his sword to channel what he couldn't naturally. He might have been modified with her kind in mind, but he wasn't born of the between, didn't have an intrinsic knowledge of its working.
And he didn't have Tate whispering instructions in his ear.
The rock around them melted, a result of the extreme amounts of power they were throwing around. Steam rose, obscuring their surroundings.
A small black portal appeared behind Nathan, distracting Ilith for one crucial second.
His blast ripped across her right foreleg. She managed to avoid the worst, but she took damage, pain radiating out from the appendage. The armor around the wound glowed white hot, the particles it was made of dying faster than it could be repaired.
We need to finish this now, Tate said.
Ilith knew her other sensed Ilith's pain and exhaustion and was concerned. This wasn't Ilith's first battle. She hadn't become a queen without shedding a few scales. She would not falter.
Still, Tate was right. This battle couldn't go on much longer without Ilith risking their safety.
She crouched, her claws digging into dirt as she prepared to pounce. The steam shifted as a small black and blue dragon pierced it, hitting Nathan in the chest.
Ryu's deep voice shouted a third level command, fire pouring out of the fog, splitting to flow around Ilith, before twining around itself and arrowing toward Nathan.
Distracted by the dragon, he almost didn't throw up his black shield.
Ilith used the opportunity, channeling the last of her reserves into another strike, inhaling before exhaling a purple flame.
Ryu's dragon dove out of the way as Nathan's eyes widened. He stumbled back with a loud cry, the purple flame eating away at his right side as he fell through the portal seconds before it slammed shut.
Ilith's power winked out and her form folded back as she lost her grip on this world. Tate stumbled forward as the dragon retreated.
She sagged to her knees and Ryu raced out of the steam.
He swept her up into a tight hug, burying his face in her hair. He rocked her back and forth as his shoulders heaved. "You’re very hard on the people you love.”
She let him, needing the comfort of his touch and knowing he needed the same. "At least this time I didn't get stabbed in the chest," she said as her arms lifted to wrap around him and she turned her face into his shoulder.
"Not funny, Allegra," he said into her hair. "You're going to turn me into a mad man."
She didn't respond, her lips tilting up in a weary smile. Somehow, they'd won. It was enough for now.
The two became conscious of another watching them. Tate started to draw back as Ryu's arms tightened before loosening. He knew as well as she did, this wasn't over.
The look he sent Jaxon wasn't exactly friendly, but nor was it hostile. "I understand you need to do this Tate but no matter what, it doesn't change us."
She nodded, one of her hands reaching up to squeeze his wrist. Despite the confidence in his words, she could read the uncertainty in his eyes. He wanted to swoop her out of here, far away from someone they both suspected had once been the center of her world.
She stepped forward only to have her heart reach for her throat as Ryu's dragon swept through the air and landed on her chest. His flapping wings nearly hit her in the face as he hooked his claws into her clothes.
She caught his weight, delighted surprise moving through her at his warmth and the buttery suppleness of his scales filling her arms.
"Hello, there," she said with a soft smile. "It's good to meet you again."
A sound suspiciously like a purr escaped him as he nuzzled every part of her he could reach.
No. Mine. My person. Not yours. Mine, Ilith squawked from the back of her mind.
A deeper voice joined Ilith's. Masculine and warm. Tate had heard it before in the dunes. Share.
Ilith bared her teeth.
Share, he said again.
A rumble filled Tate's head. Ilith evidently didn't like the idea of sharing.
Rude, he thought at her.
Mine, Ilith snarled back.
Tate smothered her amusement, the surrealness of being fought over by two pocket-sized dragons not lost on her.
“Is Nathan gone?” Tate asked, her expression sobering. Or was he back with the others creating havoc while Tate and Ryu were stuck here.
Jax appeared beside them, his attention focused on the spot where Nathan had disappeared. “For a time. The portal led to a place between the worlds but it won’t take him long before he finds his way back through.”
They’d won the battle but not the war. Eventually Nathan would be back and Tate would have to take care of him for good.
"You're different," Jax said, pulling her from her grim thoughts.
Both dragons quieted as they studied the avatar with a predator's interest.
"People change," she said.
He nodded, his
face sad. "Yes, they do."
"You aren't Jax," she said abruptly. He might look like him and talk like him, but he wasn't him. Jax was dead. As the rest of them should be dead.
"Yes, and no."
"A riddle." Tate couldn't hide her disgust.
"You used to be much better at them."
Tate absently petted the dragon in her arms.
"What is this place?" she asked.
He looked around. "A repository."
"For what?"
Ryu stepped forward, reaching for his dragon and carefully unlatching his claws before placing him on his shoulder. It was a silent reminder of his presence.
Jax watched him with a fascinated gaze. "I placed many keys and clues throughout this world. I didn't know where you might find them so I spread them far and wide, even hunting down the old bunkers of our enemies. Somehow, I'm not surprised this was the first one you found. The halflings always had a special place in your heart. You said they reminded you of yourself. The duel struggle between the viciousness of your soul and the empathy you embraced to keep yourself from falling to darkness."
Tate didn't speak, letting him ramble. Maybe he would reveal something that might explain all this.
He focused on her. "It's a repository of our mistakes."
"The message," she said.
He nodded. "My original left it in hope after going through it, you would find a way to forgive him. I hold his memories and thoughts, recorded at an earlier time in his life. His experiences form me, but after the memories were imprinted, our shared experiences diverged. I am who he might have become had he led my life, but we are no longer the same."
"Is that why he recorded the message rather than give it to you?" Tate asked.
Jax smiled, the expression achingly familiar. "Yes, he was afraid the divergent experiences might affect my perception and cast him in a better light than he deserved."
"Why leave a version of himself behind then?" Ryu asked.
"Because his work wasn't done and he feared if he wasn't there to watch over it, we would one day lose the war."
Tate jolted. "What war? I thought the Creators were gone."
"It has never been that simple," he said. He hesitated, glancing at Ryu, who didn’t budge.
"I trust him," she told this man who looked like the one she used to know, but wasn't.
He took a deep breath. "You've always had good instincts about people. Better than my own. Things might have been very different if I had listened to you from the beginning."
Tate felt a spurt of frustration. There was lots of innuendo but little in the way of answers.
"Tell me what happened. I need to know." The time for burying her head in the sand had passed. Whether she was the monster she feared or something else, she needed to know. Things were happening, things she wouldn't be able to control without all the information she could get her hands on.
He lifted a hand, and the scene shifted, the ominous chasm with the rock spires fading, to one Tate recognized from what the glass lake had shown her.
The vantage was different. Tate realized why, when it shifted to look down at a handheld device. They were seeing out of Jax's eyes, if her memory of where everyone was standing was correct. Which meant last time they hadn't been experiencing Tate's memory at all, she realized.
"We came from another world," he began. "Much different than this one. It had its own set of problems, a war that we inadvertently dragged here after we discovered something on this planet. Something I thought might change the fabric of the universe as we knew it."
"The magic particle," Tate said.
He nodded. "Yes, there was a rift and from it a whole new element formed. Stupidly, we thought we could mine it for our own use and ripped the rift wider."
Tate didn't understand.
"We weren't the first ones here," he said. "But we were the last."
Above, a thunder clap roared. Burning comets plunged into the upper atmosphere as they streaked across the clear sky, blazing a trail toward the planet.
Someone shouted, "The Aurelia's coming down."
"Head for the caves," Tate's voice shouted.
"If it comes down anywhere near us, it won't matter where we are," Jax's voice said.
Tate’s expression was pinched and severe as she met his eyes. "We do everything we can to survive as long as we can. Hope always comes in the darkest part before dawn."
The image froze on Tate, desperation and fierce resolve in her expression. She knew death was coming, but she hadn’t given up yet.
“We would have died, if not for the sacrifice by some in Aurelia’s crew.” The avatar said. “Aurelia would have impacted the planet with the force of a world-ending comet. We, along with everything in a radius several hundred miles wide, would have been incinerated. The resulting cloud of dust and ash would have blocked out the sun and likely thrown the planet into an ice age.”
“How did they prevent that fate?” Ryu asked.
Jax regarded him thoughtfully. “We’d been developing a new technology. The captain of the Aurelia got it working for a split-second. Instead of the Aurelia crashing, he phased out of this dimension long enough to pass through the planet’s surface and materialize beneath it. The action killed many of those who remained on board, but a few of the crew who didn’t have time to evacuate the ship survived.”
“The tunnels,” Tate said.
“Very good. That was their beginnings. We built from there. We thought it safer below ground, now that our enemy walked across its surface,” Jax said.
Tate studied the image of a younger her. That person seemed so different. Tate couldn't see herself in that person despite the resemblance.
"You were our strength and our conscience," he said. “Which is why it hit us so hard when we thought you fell to your madness."
The scene shifted to one where Tate stood on a battlefield wearing an armor the color of gold. Not a speck of dirt or grime was on her as she laid waste to everything around her without an ounce of mercy in her expression.
"You were a big part of why we won the war,” he said.
Tate reached for Ilith, needing the comfort of their connection as she sensed this didn't have a happy ending. Ilith didn't respond, tucking herself deep into Tate's conscious.
“However, you grew in power and paranoia. When asked, you refused to give up your dragon,” he said.
A scene flashed as Tate walked through wreckage, bodies blackened and misshapen all around her. The sick realization in her gaze reached into Tate's heart and squeezed. Her throat was tight with emotion.
Ilith?
Ilith remained silent, withdrawing until Tate could barely feel her presence.
“This was Haven, a key base of ours. You destroyed it.” Sadness filled his face. “We voted after that incident to force you to sleep and used trickery and betrayal to do it. It wasn’t until much later I realized you let us put you to sleep. You never fought us seriously.”
That was how she'd come to be in that place.
“I thought I could find a cure and separate you from the dragon—a way for you to exist without insanity stalking your every step.” He looked away as pain flickered in his expression. “My studies showed me the dragon wasn’t the parasite we assumed. I thought it fed off the magic particle, when in fact both came from the same place, a dimension removed from ours. I thought I could figure out a way for you both to survive.”
"You didn't find a cure," Tate said in realization.
Ryu stepped protectively close, his heat warming Tate's back.
"I did," Jax said. "A year and three months, two days, and four hours, after you went to sleep."
Shock stole Tate's breath.
"How could you leave her to sleep?" Ryu demanded.
Tate had mentally divorced herself from the situation, their words falling on numb ears. "You don't rearm a faulty weapon after it’s been discharged."
Jax's chin dipped once. "That is partially correct."
She nodded and wiped her hands on her pants. She didn’t think she wanted to hear anymore. "I'd like to go now. I assume you have a way to return us."
She’d had her fill of stories from her past. They’d brought nothing but heartbreak and pain.
He waited until she met his eyes, his gaze searching before the expression on his face fell and he nodded. He lifted a hand, the melody of before swelling. Tate felt the thump as the gate established itself.
"Before you go, there is something you must know."
Tate waited.
"The Harridan's madness."
"You caused it." It was a statement, not a guess, gleaned from the few memories she had and what she now understood of how this place worked. Something would be needed to fuel it and the Silva were stronger than most. Their life’s essence would last longer than the other races. A merciful choice for everyone except the Silva who would take the role of Harridan.
His nod was slow. "And all of her predecessors who lived long enough."
"How?" Ryu asked.
"The connection to this place is tenuous. It must be fed and maintained. Jax made a pact with the first Harridan. She would be the fuel and in exchange he gave her the means to protect her people in perpetuity."
"The stone statues," Tate said. The Harridan had called them forth to defend her people. "Do they know their sanity was the price?"
"The first did, as did the one after her. I imagine at some point, that knowledge has passed from them, given they no longer perform the proper rites for preserving their sanity. He gave them the option of sharing the burden with the clan leaders and spreading out the effects. None have taken advantage of the rites in several centuries."
"Why are you telling me this?" Tate asked.
He hesitated. "I suspect you would have figured it out soon enough. It would have given you an excuse to hate me more. I can cut the connection between this place and the place you left, but it will mean you won’t be able to return through that gate. You will have to find another way through."
"You believe I'm coming back here?" Tate couldn't help the slight bitterness in her voice.
The cube floated toward her. "I do. You are immortal. Time will ease the sting of these revelations, and when it does, you’ll realize you need this place. I will wait until then.”