The Panagea Tales Box Set

by McKenzie Austin

  The man glanced away. He picked at his cuticles absentmindedly, forcing himself to nod. “Yeah, well ... that’s the quartermaster for you. Doesn’t leave us much time then.” He pushed himself off the rocks and stood up, holding a hand out to help Meera up. “It was good to see you again, love.”

  She accepted his offer after a mild hesitation and rose to her feet as well. “You are not staying?” she asked, a small hope lining her voice. “We can be sure that when she passes, she passes quietly. Peacefully.”

  Brack flashed a smirk that was both confident and miserable. “That doesn’t sound like anything she’d want.” With that, he turned away, heading in the direction of Bermuda’s makeshift bed.

  Meera watched him disappear, knowing she would not see him again. Her training made it easier to smother the dismay that grew in her chest. She turned away, walking in the opposite direction. The monk wished for no tortured goodbyes. She preferred, from then on, that when she thought of Brack Joney, she would remember one of the last things he said to her: that he couldn’t be any happier.

  After weaving his way through the series of tunnels, Brack entered Bermuda’s chamber. He saw from the distance that her eyes were open. She passed the time by counting the stalactites above her, though she had counted them a thousand times over.

  “’Ello, love.” Brack sat beside her, washing away his entire conversation with Meera. “How’s things?”

  Bermuda did not know which was slower: the recovery of her body, or her ego. She craned her neck toward Brack and made a face. “Having a lot of time to do nothing more than think is a ... a revolutionary thing, Rabbit.”

  A lighthearted laugh followed her observation. “That it is. In this place, especially.”

  “Look ...” The single word held a weight. The woman grunted as she placed her palms beneath her and coerced her body into a sitting position. “I ... know I’ve dragged all of you into my personal vendetta. I ... I usurped the heaviness of Kazuaki’s death. I took all that depression and anger for myself, and ... Brack, I feel like an ass.” She shook her head, resting her chin on the arm that laid over her bent knees. “I know you guys loved him too. I’m sorry.”

  “Pfft.” Brack waved his hand in front of his face. “Sounds like you’ve had way too much time to think.”

  She tried to share in his amusement, but her efforts fell short. “I’m no fool. I mean, I am—but ... at least I’m an observant one. I know nobody wants to be here. Nobody should have to be. Every time Rennington comes in here, I see the feckin’ misery in his face, Rabbit. The misery that I put there, dragging him on this gods-damned tirade.” Her eyes glossed over as she stared beyond him. “He should be in Southern, with Iani. I know that’s what he wants. Granite should have time to properly mourn the beast. To do whatever it is he needs to heal, to get beyond a loss of that magnitude ... and Penn.” Bermuda scrunched her lips up into her nostrils. “Well, that fecker will complain about anything, but he’d probably complain a lot less if he wasn’t thrust into peril at all hours of the day.”

  Brack snorted, finding himself unable to do anything other than agree. “Yeah, yeah, all true. What’s your point, mate?”

  “My point ...” Her breath exhaling out of her in one gust. “I know the rest of my path. I’m going to see this thing through. But the crew ... the rest of you ... you guys go. Find your own purpose. Like Bartholomew did, with Southern. Like ... like Elowyn had ... or Revi, with his damnable quest to find his daughter.”

  His laughter cut through the seriousness of her statement. It echoed off the walls around them, and Brack wiped an amused tear from the corner of his eye. “I tried to find purpose once. It ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, thank you very much.”

  Bermuda frowned. “I’m saying you’re free from my vendetta, Brack. You and the others. You can go.”

  “Yeah?” He arched a brow, leaning back on his palms. “And what are you gonna do?”

  The woman’s brows fell over her eyes, shadowing them. “I’m going to find Mimir. Whether it kills me or not.” Even then, Bermuda knew how ridiculous it sounded. It didn’t matter. Her inability to accept the cards that fate had dealt her was something she had lived with her entire life. And now, she’d likely die with it. “I have to,” she added. “I can’t explain it, but he is my demon to slay ... I’m just sorry I dragged you down with me.”

  For a long while, Brack was silent. He lifted a single hand to stroke his chin, tightening his lips together as he did. When he considered everything she had said, he asked, “Is that really what you want to do? Truly?”

  Bermuda raised her shoulders to her ears and let them fall. “It’s what I have to do.”

  Brack tapped his finger against the side of his jaw. With a sudden burst of energy, he clapped his hands together. “All right. That’s it then. Let’s go do it.” He stood to his feet and offered her his hand.

  Finding his sudden jolt of energy to be rather questionable, Bermuda arched a brow. “Now?”

  He smirked. “No time like the present. We’re with you to the end, love, whether you like it or not.”

  She stared at his hand, grinding her teeth together. Bermuda found no glory in dragging them through any more nightmares. But who was she to snub the honor of her crew? Her comrades? It was the same ridiculous honor that was dragging her back to Northwestern. Though it pained her shoulder, she lifted her arm and grasped Brack’s hand.

  He pulled her to her feet and clapped her on the back. “Penn’s already at the airship. I’ll gather the others. You okay to walk, or do you need an assist?”

  Having spent far too long in the confines of the mountain, Bermuda was ready to get some blood flowing back into her limbs. She reached down, panting heavily as she grasped the katar and returned it to its sheath. The quartermaster pulled it tightly against her chest and smirked. “I’ll meet you there.”

  He watched her body slowly lumber out of the chamber. Her steps were measured and shaky, as if they struggled to support the weight of her deteriorating form. Brack found himself frowning, something which he was unaccustomed to.

  A flawed woman walked out of the cave. A good, flawed woman marched toward death. She’d never make it to Umbriel, even if the Earth Mother still dwelled in the Southeastern town of Nenada. Knowing Bermuda had only a week at most left in her, Brack found no reason to fight with her about her wishes. She would die with her flaws, having never recovered from them. But he would not deprive her of the opportunity to die with her dignity intact.

  It would sting, to watch her perish. It would gut him completely. The others, too, he was sure. But he loved her too much to take away her final opportunity for redemption.

  It likely wouldn’t be the redemption she wanted. Brack knew Bermuda would not find Mimir at the end of her katar. She would not find revenge for Kazuaki Hidataka. But she’d find something more than she would have if he had let her die quietly on the floor of a mountain cave. And that would have to be enough.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  It was a long journey. A long time to spend chastising herself for leaving all of her progress behind. Elowyn’s cheeks burned from the shame that rose inside her.

  Her shoulders hunched, tired from the walk. The border sat only strides away now. The chasm at Panagea’s center came into view. She saw it slice through, bleeding from the Western division and into Northeastern, far beyond her line of sight.

  Entry into Southern awaited her there.

  She had seized the first available steam car she found back in Eastern. As soon as she absorbed the weight behind Wulfgang’s admission, she clawed her way through every obstacle. It was not difficult to commandeer a vehicle when one was donned in a terrifying full suit of armor. People yielded without a fight.

  When the steam car emptied of water, she abandoned it where it died. Her feet carried her to the nearest steam train. She rode the metal beast as close as she could to Panagea’s center.

  Now, here she stood. Her own feet had to carry her the
rest of the way.

  The limited hours of sleep she managed to convince her body to take, did nothing for her spinning head. She did not stop to eat. Elowyn had no appetite to speak of. The steam train attendant offered sips of water to sustain her until she reached her destination, but the station remained miles still from Panagea’s center.

  Woodlands from Northwestern bled into Eastern’s borders. Elowyn jerked her head when she caught movement beside her. A lumbering creature stared at her, covered in heaps of brown fur. It’s large, dewy eyes blinked once. It eyed her with nothing more than curiosity. Even in her armor, the beast failed to see her as a threat. Only a stranger.

  Elowyn turned away from it, panting heavily as she pushed her way through the sparse trees. Twigs snapped beneath her metal greaves. Rustling met her ears on all sides. The closer she drew toward the center, the harder it became to see beyond the thickness of the trees.

  Wulfgang’s words leaped into her mind again. Kazuaki Hidataka could not be dead. He was the immortal legend of Panagea.

  She tasted salt on her tongue. A rogue tear had slipped down her cheek and into the corner of her mouth.

  Yet, what if Wulfgang was right? If Kazuaki’s fate was true ...

  The woman pinched her eyes shut to force the other tears to fall. She hated that they collected on her lashes. They weighed her eyelids down with far less forgiveness than her armor ever did.

  Elowyn had a lot of time to think about the last year on her journey to the center. Too much time. In Brendale, she acted on instinct. On survival. She was surrounded by her own problems and the problems that plagued her entire division, to the point that they consumed her.

  She didn’t have time to think about the others.

  Now, after Wulfgang’s admission ... she chastised herself. How could she have remained both deaf and blind to the lives of her comrades? The wrath of the gods stretched far beyond her borders. She tried to remind herself that there was nothing she could have done ... that she was bound to Eastern ... bound to her plan to hide away from the gods, lest she became a victim like Vadim Canmore had.

  Still. Elowyn could not smother the guilt. Her companions had suffered. The people she willingly bled for over half of her life. Kazuaki Hidataka, Bermuda, the Platts brothers, Revi, Bartholomew, Brack, Granite, Penn, all of them—they had all made sacrifices for one another.

  And now, some were dead. How many? How many of her most trusted brethren had fallen while she struggled to piece Eastern back together?

  She felt less and less like a division leader with each day she dwelled amongst the Underground warriors. Now, staring into Southern territory, she also felt less like a friend. She kept the Underground warriors at an arm’s length. She’d forgotten her oldest, dearest comrades.

  Elowyn knew the moment the tip of her toe touched Eastern’s invisible border. She felt it in her chest. The moment she took up the title of Eastern’s Time Mother, an intangible connection to the land coursed through her.

  The small obstacles were cleared now. Only the biggest one remained. From the moment she first learned of Kazuaki’s fate in Brendale, she ran, drove, and blazed the trail. Elowyn wanted nothing more than to leap over the border and carry on to Southern. To Bartholomew Gray. To answers. To vast apologies and hopeful clemency.

  But she could not.

  Elowyn stood in Eastern’s borders, staring through the slits in her helmet. Her heart appreciated the pause. It had worked overtime the entire voyage and delighted in any rest it received.

  Seacaster was far. Almost half the distance she had traveled already. Tucked close to Southern’s coastal border, Elowyn knew she’d never make it there and back in twenty-four hours. To abandon Eastern was to abandon her people. Her progress.

  She’d made so much ...

  Dr. Evanston took her notes. Made adjustments to the pills. If she left now, all of those developments would almost certainly freeze.

  It was lonely, standing in the small forest. Before her, her friends. Behind her, her duty. In Southern, Elowyn Saveign. In Eastern, E.P. of the Underground warriors.

  Her gaze fell to her feet. One step. That was all it would take, and she wouldn’t look back.

  “I wish I knew what you would have done,” she uttered to herself. Kazuaki Hidataka filled her thoughts. He was the most capable leader she had the pleasure of meeting. She tried to model her decisions after what she’d learned from him in their many years at sea. Duty, or comrades? Which was it? What move would Kazuaki have made?

  It had been so long since she saw him, she didn’t remember.

  Elowyn heard footsteps behind her. She took them for another animal. If her mind had been less burdened by her current predicament, she would have stopped to admire the life surrounding her. The beauty of the forest was lost on her today.

  Her eyes narrowed when the footsteps started to sound less scattered. More focused. More human. She spun. Her stomach hollowed.

  Wulfgang forced smaller limbs out of his way, cursing as some of the more fragile ones snapped from the trunks of the trees and fell to the ground. He stomped his way over the little hills and toppled logs, marching without delay until he came up at her side. He panted heavily, his hands on his hips as he tried to catch his breath.

  Elowyn said nothing. She was too dumbfounded by his arrival. Had he trailed her the entire time? He must have. Was it possible she remained oblivious to him following her the whole way? The woman tried to think back, but her brain was too tired. Perhaps that was how Wulfgang managed to elude being seen. He capitalized on her distracted mind.

  The man said nothing. He was still too busy trying to regain his composure. It appeared as if he had run for miles. Swallowing to bring relief to his parched throat, he turned to Elowyn and sucked in one final, satisfying breath. When he blew it out of his cheeks, he said, “You’re not an Eastern footman ... are you?”

  She didn’t know what to say. Her shoulders drooped. The armor felt heavier now than it ever had before. The necessity of survival made it seem lighter than it truly was over the last year, but now ... she couldn’t believe he came all this way. She owed Wulfgang something.

  The truth seemed like a great place to start.

  “No,” Elowyn murmured. “I’m not.”

  Wulfgang lifted his hand and scrubbed at the side of his face. It seemed to take him a moment to rationalize her confession, though a part of him had suspected for some time. He turned out toward the other divisions, nodding. “I thought not.”

  A bird chirped somewhere overhead, emphasizing the silence that grew between the pair. Elowyn cleared her throat. Things in Eastern had smoothed over, to the best of her ability. Dr. Evanston would unlock the secrets to perfecting the pills. She knew it. His accolades were at the top of his field. Her division would be freed from the gods’ wrath soon. She would be freed from the fear. It was time to lay E.P. the Eastern soldier to rest. He was no longer needed. “For what it’s worth,” she started, “I’m sorry for the deception. I needed the Underground at the time. You all started as a means to an end, but ... you truly did become much more than that to me.”

  Wulfgang eyed her suspiciously. A brow curved over his face. “So ...” His tone gave away nothing of what he felt. “Are you going to tell me who you are?”

  A small sliver of fear still existed inside her. Elowyn’s appreciation for Wulfgang only grew over time. It made the dread of his impending rejection all the more concerning. She stalled, shuffling in her place. “A dear friend,” she started, “of Kazuaki Hidataka’s.”

  Despite everything, a small chuckle came from Wulfgang’s mouth. It was a short sound, lacking in joy, but lined with fragments of debauched amusement. “The running makes sense, then. Honestly, I never even knew he was a man. I only ever thought of him as a legend.”

  “Yes,” Elowyn nodded, turning her eyes back toward the direction of Southern. “That’s all he ever was to me too. If it’s true ... if he’s really gone ...” She exhaled a quick breath through her
nostrils. “Panagea will weep for him. Or at least, I will.”

  Wulfgang pressed his lips into a fine line. He adopted a rigid stance, unsure of what to do with his hands. “Well ... I’m sorry. For your loss. It’s never easy, to lose a friend.”

  It couldn’t have been easy for him to say. Elowyn knew that Wulfgang was a soldier through and through. There was no love lost over gods and religion—Wulfgang was a fearsome man who achieved his results through action and physical effort rather than hope and prayer. Elowyn recognized the toll it took on him to say it. She also realized the irony. He, too, was about to lose a friend. As soon as she unveiled herself to him, E.P. the soldier would die. “Thank you, Wulfgang. I appreciate that.”

  “Right.” He chewed on the inside of his lip, jutting his chin up toward the sky. “So ...” He paused, unable to make eye contact. “Are you coming back to the Underground?”

  By the tone in his voice, she suspected he already knew the answer. Elowyn shook her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I have ... very important obligations that require my full attention.”

  Wulfgang pointed ahead of himself, in the direction of Southern. “That?” he asked. “You need to verify if your comrade has died?”

  Elowyn’s eyes fell. “No.” She made a hard decision. Her heart carried her here, but it was the same organ that anchored her feet to Eastern ground. “Every part of me wants to, but ...”

  “But you have a division to run,” Wulfgang murmured as a small flicker of doubt coated his question. “Don’t you?”

  Elowyn peeled her eyes from the ground. She found his face, admittedly stunned. She wondered how long he had suspected. “Yes.” The single word fell as a tidal wave might and Elowyn reached up, removing her helmet. Her black hair had grown down to her jawline, spilling from her helm as she tucked the piece of armor under her arm. “I do.”

  He wasn’t certain until she had stopped at the border. The only person who would bow to an invisible line in the dirt was a Time Father. Or Time Mother, in Elowyn’s case. Wulfgang stared at her, convincing himself that, yes, it truly was Elowyn Saveign who stood before him. Elowyn Saveign, who he believed with his whole heart, had abandoned Eastern long ago.