The Panagea Tales Box Set

by McKenzie Austin

  And for what? For Elowyn to prove something to herself by challenging patriarchal views? For Rennington to ease his guilty conscience, and fulfill that sense of patriotism he lost? So Granite could give the beast a more conducive living environment? For Revi to pacify his remorse at abandoning his family by giving them a less chaotic world to live in? So Brack could have bragging rights? So Kazuaki’s ego could walk where others told him he couldn’t?

  A misstep interrupted her anger. She tripped over something hidden beneath the dust. Bermuda stumbled but caught her balance and turned to cast an irritated glare on whatever caused her to stagger. At first glance, it looked like nothing more than an unnatural lump. But her boot scraped away a layer of ash covering the object. Clothing.

  The quartermaster’s eyes traveled down the form’s length. A torso. An arm. A head. Flesh still clung to the bones. The skin appeared withered, but she still made out the expression. A permanent look of horror and sadness lived on the nameless citizen’s face. Bermuda saw countless bodies in the life she made with Kazuaki. But the sunken, lifeless eyes of the corpse before her moved into her mind. She suspected it would live there a long time as she turned her back and continued onward.

  It was hard to walk through land that once bustled with people. Ghosts of their lives lingered here. So many suffered. Uprooted from their homes, either by natural disaster or order of their division leader, conditions forced them from everything they knew into unforgiving places. All those people in Southwestern, jailed for speaking their minds, for voicing their dissatisfaction—it gutted her. Bermuda reacquainted herself with why she despised Panagea. It was a cruel, merciless place.

  The quartermaster cast her eyes down to the pocket watch curled around her mechanical fingers. Such a small object and yet such a devastating impact. Sometimes it was the smallest things which had the biggest influence, she thought. Her attention shifted to the artificial hand Nicholai crafted. Also small. Also a vast impact.

  Despite herself, her heart softened. He wasn’t a bad guy. Bermuda did not get to experience Nicholai for as long as the others. Her affliction prevented any emotional development. But what little she knew of him, after Umbriel cleared the clouds away from her heart, she did not hate. The Time Father was eager to please. He worked hard. He let the kindness of his soul guide his actions, and though it blew up in his face, he held fast to his beliefs, no matter how naive. Bermuda ventured to think, that if they met under different circumstances, she might even like him.

  But he wasn’t her family. She would do anything for her family. And his presence, whether or not it was his fault, tore them apart.

  Abandoning Penn on the ship. Bartholomew’s takeover of Southern. Iani’s death. Those things should have infuriated Kazuaki as much as they infuriated her. The captain’s selfishness commanded Umbriel to erase the bargain Bermuda made with Mimir. Now his selfishness overshadowed the integrities she knew him to hold fast to. All this, because he was too egocentric to continue living a life at sea.

  He should have done better by them. He always did before.

  The quartermaster saw her goal up ahead. She took cover behind a tall mound of rubble, remnants of a once-proud apartment complex that lived in the Southern town bordering Southeastern. She stared ahead. Dozens of footmen patrolled the area. They did not appear attentive. Bermuda knew as soon as she made her presence known they would descend upon her without question, bound by duty and desperation for action. She needed to devise a plan if she were to get anywhere near the border, let alone inside it to restart time.

  It was a strange, empty feeling, looking into the land of Southeastern. It was almost as if an invisible wall stood between the two divisions. A soft wind blew more ash with it, creating movement in Southern. The footmen played simple dice games, gambled, exchanged conversation with one another, but their actions all lacked spirit. Autopilot dictated their activities. She remembered it well. Functioning without thought or heart. It was the only way she got through another day when Ty’s death was fresh. It must have been how they, too, powered through their existence. They severed their emotions from experiencing their grim reality.

  Despite how dead Southern looked at first glimpse, comparing it to Southeastern made it seem alive. There was no wind in Southeastern. Bermuda witnessed civilians along the edge, unmoving, statuesque in appearance. Everything sat suspended in time. It was inherently wrong. She feared she’d become ill if she looked at it long enough.

  The quartermaster turned away and pressed her back against the decrepit wall. Her eyes closed. The expressions on the footmen’s faces. They were devoid. Lonely. She saw why, being surrounded by this place. Isolation lived here. They only patrolled Southeastern for several short months and all looked as though they wished themselves dead rather than gaze at the inertness that surrounded them for another second. She almost felt bad for them. No soul should live in a place like this. It was too ... inhuman.

  Her eyes slowly peeled open. It hit her then. Blind rage gave way to a deeper understanding. The quartermaster looked around. Countless lumps in the dust surrounded her. The same lumps she tripped over minutes ago. What her wrath labeled as garbage were bodies. Hundreds. It wasn’t the ash that made her taste death. It was the whole environment. This was the world the footmen lived in.

  This was the world that awaited Kazuaki if he did not save Panagea.

  She knew, then. His actions weren’t bred in selfishness. His actions were bred in fear. Fear that this would be his afterlife. Bermuda never saw fear in the captain. Not once. Perhaps that was why she overlooked it. Her stomach squeezed from a sudden feeling of regret. Bermuda could not condemn Kazuaki to this life. She couldn’t.

  She loved him too much.

  The quartermaster looked down at the Chronometer once again and sighed. She peered around the corner of the rubble to gaze at the footmen one last time. Her metal fingers lowered the device into her pocket for safekeeping. I’m so sorry, Kazuaki ... she thought to herself. With any luck, they were still in Southwestern. She had to go back.

  Her thoughts were interrupted as hands wrapped around her mouth and waist. They pulled her back behind the crumbled wall. Bermuda’s eyes widened at the surprise, but she summoned the mental wherewithal to fight back. Driving an elbow into the stomach of her assailant gathered a response; he released her and doubled over. She spun out of his grasp and faced him. Her metal hand found his throat and squeezed as the many shadows of her attacker’s companions came forth in her peripheral vision. They outnumbered her.

  “Belay that,” a familiar voice sounded from the darkness. Bermuda recognized it immediately.

  “Kazuaki?” She squinted her eyes to get a better view.

  “You’re killing Brack,” Kazuaki muttered as he gestured to the man she still held in her grasp.

  Bermuda whipped her head back to her captive. Brack’s face had turned a horrid shade of purple and she released him without delay. “Shit! Rabbit, I’m so sorry,” she dusted him off as if that would help his lungs from being deprived of oxygen.

  Brack coughed and reached into his pocket to find his injection. The warm feeling of relief as air filled his lungs and blood again soothed him. He rubbed the tender skin on his neck. “No worries, love,” he uttered through a hoarse voice, “nothing a great handful of women before you haven’t already done.”

  The others stepped forward from the shadows. Nicholai was last to showcase himself, his arms crossed over his chest. “I believe you have something that belongs to me.”

  Bermuda hesitated. She lacked the skill to admit she was wrong, but her hand pulled the Chronometer from her pocket. “Yes. I do.”

  Nicholai frowned. “What were you thinking? You wouldn’t even be able to cross the border, Bermuda. Southeastern will let nothing in I don’t bring in with me. A Chronometer is a tool, only bowing to the instruction of the Time Father whose blood runs through its gears.”

  She scowled. The woman understood his anger, but she was not accustomed to
being berated. “Take it.” Bermuda tossed it toward him.

  Nicholai caught it, confused. The intervention went much easier than he thought it would. He was so consumed with finding Bermuda. When the threat of her betrayal subsided, the proximity to Southeastern assaulted him. It was the first time he was this close since he left months ago.

  A large part of him still wasn’t ready to face what he’d done. It was easier to continue running, but he could not witness the horrors Panagea and her people endured, and continue to delude himself into thinking it was avoidable. The Time Father gazed out to the stillness of his division from behind the safety of the wreckage. All those people. He knew he had to restart it. But a paralysis gripped him at that moment, and he was helpless to its power.

  Kazuaki looked at Nicholai, observing the man for a moment before he walked over to Bermuda. He stood before her, his voice low. The man looked relieved and defeated at the same time. “I thought you left,” he confessed. “I thought you took me up on my offer to part when you realized this wasn’t your war.”

  Bermuda looked up at him and parted her lips. “I was wrong, Kazuaki. I’m sorry. If this is a future I can save you from ...” She gestured to the wasteland that surrounded them. “ ... then it is my war.”

  An invisible hand squeezed his heart. Her words invaded him and ruptured him. He said nothing. He didn’t need to.

  Bermuda bowed her head and rested it in on Kazuaki’s chest as she stared at the ground. “I’m sorry I keep doing this. I didn’t want to lose anyone else,” she muttered. It disgusted her, how little control she held over her emotions. Weakness never infected her. Not before Ty. Since his death, she dug her nails into those precious few in her life and vowed with every ounce of her being to protect them from harm. But in her efforts to be everyone’s savior, Bermuda highlighted her fatal flaw: her crippling inability to let fate happen. The same fate Nicholai tried to control.

  Near his chest, Bermuda felt the captain’s heart quicken. Believing her close presence caused him discomfort, she withdrew. The quartermaster walked over to Nicholai and found his distant stare. She recognized the look. Raw conflict. Bermuda summoned everything inside her that pushed her through the shame of stealing his Chronometer. “You must restart it at some point, Nico. Panagea can’t take much more of this. Some things are just ... beyond our control,” she said as she followed his eyes to the lifeless land. “But I understand the desire to live in the illusion. I know you’ll do the right thing when you’re ready.”

  Nicholai looked down at his Chronometer. His lips pressed together as he closed his fingers around it. "I will,” he replied, his voice dim. “I promise.”

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” Her apology was awkward but sincere. “I just wanted my family safe.”

  Nicholai positioned the Chronometer back over his head, letting the piece fall to its familiar place at his chest. He returned his gaze toward his hometown. Toward Lilac. “I know exactly what you mean,” he replied without a grudge.

  Being here, back in this place, it only highlighted how much things had fallen. Southeastern looked just as it had when he left. While it was never perfect, seeing the stark contrast between his division and the Southern land that bordered it was moving. All the buildings in Southeastern within eyesight remained pristine, unburdened by the harsh hand the disasters brought. Meanwhile, in Southern, partial clumps of infrastructure surrounded, covered in sheets of colorless powder. The people inside Southeastern looked happy. Their frozen faces reflected contentment, a purpose, a sense of naivety to the state of the world around them. And yet the soldiers who loitered around the border showcased depression. Misery. They wore the knowledge of the dying earth on their faces.

  Panagea suffered so much. If ever a more obvious visual confronted him, he could not think of it. Nicholai clutched the Chronometer that dangled around his neck. He had the power to ease part of Panagea's burden in his hands right now. All he had to do was make it across the border and push a single button. But every time he felt a moral push to move forward, something weighed his legs down. Lilac.

  He couldn’t do it.

  “Come on, mate,” Revi’s hand fell onto Nicholai’s shoulder. “Brechita’s not far from here. Let’s go.”

  “Revi, you told me once that time rarely ever solves your problems, no matter how much of it you have,” Nicholai stood, unable to tear his eyes away from his home division. “Do you still believe that?”

  Revi shrugged. “I do.” He followed Nicholai’s eyes to Southeastern. “But as time goes on, it becomes less about waiting for the problem to solve itself ... and more about waiting for your head and your heart to accept the knowledge it won’t. Only then does it become clear what you have to do.”

  “How did you know when it was time?” he asked.

  Revi Houton inclined his chin. “Still don’t. Head’s accepted it, but the heart ...” He hitched a shoulder. “Some things just need more time than others.”

  Nicholai nodded in slow acknowledgment. It was clear the Time Father could not bring himself to restart Southeastern this day. Kazuaki cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. “Let’s move out,” he ordered, “before the footmen become keen to our presence. With any luck, Penn is waiting for us in Brechita.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  They saw the mast first. The low clinging mist on the ocean waters shrouded much from their initial vision. Kazuaki’s ship crept through the translucent clouds like a ghost, but what would be an ominous sight to most was a relief to the captain’s crew. Kazuaki delighted in seeing it most. It was like reuniting with a long-lost lover. The ship was much a part of him. He missed it.

  Penn dropped the anchors as close to the coast as he could. When he arrived in the cockboat, he looked the part of a man who had not slept in days. His eyelids bobbed up and down like the waves as the cockboat slid into Brechita’s shores. The captain placed his boot on the small vessel’s edge as he leaned over. “Penn Elmbroke,” he grinned, “it’s feckin’ great to see you, mate.”

  The corner of the cook’s mouth tugged into a tired smile. “Captain,” he nodded, looking to the others. “Can’t speak for my counting skills, as one man manning an entire ship has wiped every bit of logic from my brain, but it seems we’re missing some bodies.”

  Kazuaki said nothing. Elowyn, Rennington, Revi, Nicholai, Bermuda, and Brack climbed into the cockboat and settled into the wooden benches. “At ease, Penn.” He took the oars from the ragged man’s arms. “You look like the dead. Get some rest. We’ll fill you in as we head to Northeastern.”

  Penn abided without argument. He collapsed into the bottom of the cockboat, sliding down into a sitting position to rest the back of his head on the vessel’s side. Sleep found him as Kazuaki rowed the little boat back to his ship. It was an incredible feat, being captain, quartermaster, navigator, cook, and every other title assigned to their crew. Penn outdid himself getting the ship to Brechita alone.

  Elowyn woke him when they returned to the ship, but only long enough to move him to his quarters, where he soon found rest again. Though they were short-handed, they found inspiration in Penn and readied the ship for departure. They secured the cockboat, prepared the canvas, and raised the anchor. Nicholai helped as much as he could, but as the ship carved through the waves toward Northeastern, he placed his hands on the thick wooden ledge and stared. They would pass through the entire coast of Southeastern on their way to Aggi Normandy’s division. He could not see much with the fog on the waters, but he imagined it was for the best. Not only would it spare him from having to confront his biggest mistake, but it would make things harder for the Southeastern soldiers to see them pass through.

  Nicholai pictured the ocean waves lapping up against the shores of his division. The liveliness of the water would be a blunt contrast to the stillness of the land. His jurisdiction did not stretch to the sea. No Time Fathers’ did. Only the land of Southeastern bent to his command. The ocean did not bow down to the rules of t
ime. He suspected that’s why Kazuaki loved it so much.

  The next few hours crept by. Everyone returned to their roles onboard the ship as if they’d never left. Nicholai was not as comfortable as the others aboard the vessel. This was their home, not his. He walked below deck to what used to be his room and sat on the side of the bed. His eyes jumped to the book he took from Darjal’s library. The Time Father reached over, grabbed it, and flipped to a random page.

  The object he once thought to be Lilac’s salvation, had only been pages and pages of information that dictated what he didn’t want to hear. There was no way to undo it. He could not manipulate the bullet. He could not manipulate Lilac. He could stop time, but could not go back in time. Nicholai approached every potential angle and arrived at the same conclusion each time: Lilac was helpless to her fate. Though it seemed there were no other options, it was not something he wished to accept.

  His thoughts drifted to Umbriel. He hoped she, Granite, and the mutt had success in their planting. She had accomplished amazing things so far. There was still a lot to do, but they gained the power of Southern and Southwestern. Aggi Normandy of Northeastern voiced his desire to help. And Edvard ...

  Nicholai thought back to his father’s appearance. It was strange how he appeared out of nowhere. Edvard Addihein never left Western. The most he ever ventured was on diplomatic convoys through Western’s various cities, and to Panagea’s center for the decennial gathering of the Time Fathers. So much time passed since he last saw him. He was haggard in his appearance, but the mass of his peoples’ concerns must have gutted him. Nicholai always remembered Edvard as being dedicated to his people.

  The Time Father reached over and set the book down. He drew in a deep breath. Perhaps he should prepare the meal for tonight, he thought. Penn needed the rest. He couldn’t claim the title of a chef, but he listened to Umbriel teach the citizens of Panagea how to cook. He should be able to pull something together.