Silent Lucidity

by Tiffany Roberts

  “No,” she said, pressing back against the wall. She eased along it, slowly, her arm outstretched, continuing her search for a means of escape.

  “Tell me about your relationship with Tenthil.”

  Abella glared up at him and pressed her lips together. She’d given so much of herself to Cullion, had caved to so many of his demands, but she refused to give in now. She would never betray Tenthil. She would never betray their love.

  Though the Master stood unmoving, his presence in Abella’s mind strengthened; it felt like his hands, with their cold, spindly fingers, had plunged into her head to sort through her memories like he was browsing a collection of books in search of something interesting.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth, straining against the invasion. A dull throbbing resonated inside her skull. Despite her struggles, despite her expenditure of willpower, her thoughts drifted toward Tenthil. Her memories of their time together played in her mind as though she were watching a movie. Their first dance, their conversations, their caresses, their kisses, and every detail of their lovemaking—it was all there, laid bare.

  I feel it inside. I recognize it in your scent. You are my mate.

  “His mate?” the Master asked. “I knew you were important to my misguided disciple, but I underestimated his connection to you. Two animals maddened by one another’s scent. It almost makes me regret what I must do.”

  “What the fuck are you?” Abella gritted. The pain in her head sharpened with each second of his continued intrusion. She lifted her hands, pressing them over her temples. “Get out of my head!”

  “I thought you were a symptom of his behavioral issues,” the Master said.

  The pressure increased, threatening to split her skull open. She dropped to her knees with an agonized cry.

  “I thought I had forced those bestial instincts out of him, that I had created a being above the control of such primal urges,” he continued, “but they were lying dormant all along. He may have hidden them for a time, but nothing remains hidden to me forever.”

  “Leave him alone,” Abella rasped, glaring up at the being before her. Another wave of pain doubled her over. She dropped her hands, catching herself before she struck the floor face first.

  The Master’s icy touch receded slightly from her mind. “A spirited creature. I wonder—”

  Abella leapt to her feet and swung her arm, slamming her fist against his mask.

  His head snapped to the side, and the mask clattered to the stone floor. Before she could recover from her attack, he backhanded her across the face, sending her reeling. Fire crackled across her cheek, and her back slammed against the wall. A coppery taste spread over her tongue. But she kept on her feet. She’d suffered worse in Cullion’s discipline room.

  Abella tilted her chin up and looked into the bared face of the being who wanted to kill her and her mate. She inhaled sharply.

  The Master’s skin was white, and strands of straight, black hair hung over his angular cheekbones. His lips, nearly as dark as his hair, were pressed into a tight line, and his hairless brows were angled downward. He almost looked human, almost looked handsome—were it not for his eyes.

  His sclerae were jet black, his irises blood red, and three extra pairs of eyes, each a little smaller than the last, stared at her from his forehead—the eyes of a hungry spider.

  “It has been a long while since anyone saw my face,” he said, his cold expression unchanging, “and longer still since anyone has surprised me. You are a fascinating creature. I will have to look more closely at your kind after you are gone. You might have made a talented acolyte.”

  Moving with a casualness that belied the situation, he walked to his mask, he bent forward, and plucked it off the floor.

  Abella remained still, chest heaving with anxious, terrified breaths. She was terrified, but she wouldn’t show it—she’d spent the last four years afraid, and it had never stopped her from seeking freedom. She understood this situation, understood her circumstances.

  To Cullion, she’d been an animal in need of discipline. A wing-clipped canary in a gilded cage. Favored by her owner but not exempt from his preference for beatings. But here…here, she wasn’t even an animal. She was the bait meant to lure an animal into a trap. She was meant to lead the man she loved to his death.

  The Master straightened and held the mask aloft on his palm, regarding it. “Perhaps I will gift him with this final secret when he comes. Let him know the face of the one who made him.”

  “He’s going to kill you,” Abella said.

  The Master turned his head toward her, his expression suddenly disinterested. “His name has already been whispered to the Void. His fate is sealed. But there are secrets in your mind that have not yet been offered, little human. Shall we search them out together? Shall I begin learning about your humans while we await your beloved?”

  Abella steeled herself, tried to block out his assault, but he broke through her barriers as though they were made of tissue paper. He clawed through her mind for what felt like an eternity, leaving nothing untouched. He took everything. She realized at some point that the sound in her ears was that of her own ragged screaming, but blackness claimed her a moment after, delivering her from the agony in her mind.

  Seventeen

  When he’d gone to take Abella from Cullion’s manor, Tenthil had known returning to the temple would mean death—his own death. But so much had happened in the time since. So much had changed. To Tenthil the individual, the temple was doom, a final plunge into oblivion, the cold embrace of the Void. Tenthil the individual would have fought, driven by his survival instinct, and he would have died with a weapon in hand, unsurprised by the flow of his own blood over the uncaring stone floor.

  But for Tenthil the mate of Abella, death was neither inevitable nor acceptable. His fight was not solely for survival. He wasn’t seeking justice for the wrongs done to him, wasn’t seeking payment for the choices stolen from him. Though bitterness, rebelliousness, and hatred fueled him as they always had, they were no longer his primary motivation. Not anymore. Even his anger, which burned with an intensity he’d never experienced, was not his main drive.

  For the first time in his life, he was motivated by love.

  Something he’d never been shown before Abella.

  He understood now its breadth and complexity. Love was not a single idea, a single emotion—it was any idea; it was all emotions; it was everything. In his love for Abella, Tenthil would face his own death.

  And he would defy death to have her at his side again.

  The Master had laid his trap, but his arrogance would undoubtedly lead him to an ultimately fatal mistake—he would wait at the center of his trap to spring it himself. To personally destroy his greatest disappointment.

  Tenthil eased the throttle, slowing the hoverbike. Its lights shed their glow on stained reinforced concrete, on graffiti and refuse, on the tunnel that served as a pathway to the temple of secrets—a temple buried deep in the filthy, stinking guts of a city a hundred thousand times too large for its own good. The shallow, murky runoff at the base of the tunnel rippled beneath the bike’s pulsing engines.

  He guided the hoverbike close to the tunnel wall and stopped, extending an arm to press the button concealed on a nearby support beam. The hidden door opened as smoothly and silently as ever. He planted a boot against the wall, manipulated the bike’s controls, and shoved off, swinging the bike’s rear out to angle its front end into the tunnel opening. He switched off the lights.

  Tenthil took a mental inventory of his gear as he piloted the vehicle along the tunnel; high-end combat armor, a pair of blasters on his hips, several knives and energy blades, explosives and stun charges secured in an armored belt case, and an auto-blaster slung over his shoulder. He’d obtained most of it in Nyssa Vye with Cullion’s ill-earned credits.

  It was more than he’d normally carry, but the Order was expecting him; stealth would avail him little, not against the
Master’s vigilance. Even if Tenthil hid himself from the surveillance equipment, the Master kept all possible points of entry monitored, and knew full well what to watch for—a door opening seemingly by itself was all the confirmation the Master would require of Tenthil’s arrival.

  The tunnel’s lights activated one section at a time ahead of Tenthil’ hoverbike. He clenched his jaw and forced most of his thoughts aside save the most important of them.

  For Abella. For my mate. I will hold her soon.

  Up ahead, the tunnel’s gentle curve afforded him his first glimpse of the garage door. He swung the auto-blaster’s grip into his right hand, planted its stock against his shoulder, and settled the barrel between the handlebars.

  He’d spent most of his life training with Order acolytes under the Master’s watch and tutelage. Despite the countless secrets the Master kept, Tenthil knew how his mysterious former leader thought. He knew how the Master utilized the Order’s resources—acolytes included. And he knew there was no such thing as a perfect trap.

  With his left thumb, Tenthil deactivated the energy field projected by the bike to block the wind. He cranked the throttle. The bike lurched forward with a sudden burst of speed.

  The garage door began its smooth ascent.

  Clamping his thighs against the sides of the bike, Tenthil piloted the vehicle up the curved wall of the tunnel and tensed his muscles as the vehicle flipped upside down. Gravity pulled against him, but he clung to the bike, keeping his eyes on the garage.

  The opening door revealed the chamber beyond in small increments; the concrete entryway, painted with cautionary lines, the lower portions of the vehicles parked closest to the door, and finally, what Tenthil had anticipated—the feet and legs of at least half a dozen acolytes gathered in wait.

  The first ambush.

  Angling the blaster toward the acolytes, he depressed the trigger and swept the weapon from left to right. The blaster released a series of whining thumps as it spewed bolts of plasma in rapid succession, filling the air with their pale blue glow. Many of the shots missed their marks, leaving smoldering holes in the floor and the parked vehicles, but enough struck true to send most of the acolytes down to the floor. Tenthil swung the weapon back in the opposite direction, still holding the trigger, before any of the acolytes could so much as writhe in pain due to their wounds. Their armor didn’t long stand against the stream of super-heated plasma.

  Heaving with his legs, Tenthil swung the hoverbike right-side up just as the door opened wide enough for the remaining acolytes—positioned in the cover of the parked vehicles—to return fire. Tenthil cut the bike’s antigrav for an instant, dropping it back to the floor of the tunnel. The rear end struck the ground with a grating, metallic scrape before he flicked the antigrav back on. The vehicle bounced back up to its minimum cruising height of half a meter.

  The crackling white orbs the acolytes had fired from their shock staves struck the ceiling and dissipated.

  If they were using shock staves—weapons that could be adjusted to fire immobilizing projectiles or strike in melee range with the same paralyzing energy—they meant to take him alive.

  Perhaps they didn’t understand the stakes of this battle.

  He maxed the hoverbike’s throttle and fired another spray of bolts at the acolytes before they could unleash a second volley. They ducked behind their cover; whether he’d hit any of them or not didn’t matter, only that he was afforded a moment to breathe.

  As the hoverbike darted through the garage door, he angled it toward one of the hovercars sheltering an acolyte, braced himself, and leapt off the bike. The hoverbike smashed into the parked vehicle with a deafening crash. Bent metal and shattered parts burst outward from the point of impact, and the hovercar slammed into the next vehicle in line to produce another huge crash.

  For Abella.

  Tenthil hit the ground hard on his shoulder and rolled, his momentum stopping only when his body struck another stationary vehicle. He shook off the pain; his armor had absorbed the worst of the impact, and he could not allow himself to be slowed by anything. Not until he was holding Abella again. He shoved to his feet, letting the auto-blaster fall away and hang by its shoulder strap, and drew one of his blasters and an arc grenade.

  The footsteps of the advancing acolytes were almost silent—but almost was not enough to save them.

  He activated the arc grenade and tossed it toward the approaching acolytes before ducking around the backside of the vehicle he’d landed against. A frenzy of hurried movement preceded the detonation. The garage was lit up for a fraction of a second by an intense white flash accompanied by the sound of crackling, buzzing electricity.

  Tenthil drew a second blaster and stepped out from behind his cover to advance deeper into the garage.

  Two acolytes writhed on the floor beneath a thin cloud of smoke. Three of their comrades lay nearby, their contorted, unmoving bodies covered in electric burns from which curled fresh wisps of smoke. The sizzling of their flesh was audible. Tenthil swung his attention away from them, turning toward the movement at the edge of his vision. He fired before allowing himself conscious thought. His shots ricocheted off the armor-reinforced hood of one of the vehicles across the garage, catching the acolyte hiding behind it in the face, but his other shots were too high to strike his secondary target.

  Several shock-orbs darted toward Tenthil. He ducked under them—their electric thrum lifted his hair with static as they darted overhead—and hurried along the wall, directing his blasters toward the rows between the stationary vehicles.

  The two nearest acolytes, kneeling behind separate vehicles on opposite ends of one of the rows, seemed unprepared for Tenthil’s aggressiveness. He fired a torrent of bolts at them with both blasters, enough to overwhelm their armor and ensure they wouldn’t survive the resulting wounds.

  These assassins had been taught that planning and patience were the best means of achieving the cleanest possible kill, of reaching maximum efficiency, of guarding the Order’s secrets. Perhaps that was what they’d expected from Tenthil—clear-headedness and calm in the face of danger; a cold, methodical approach; an attempt at efficiency.

  They’d likely expected him to creep into the temple like a shadow.

  But he was no longer a shadow; he was a fiery harbinger of vengeance. He was the antithesis of the Void.

  He continued his advance, swaying aside to avoid another acolyte’s shot before squeezing off five plasma bolts in quick succession; three struck his target’s armor, dissipating harmlessly, while the final two hit the acolyte in the face.

  Tenthil swung his arms to his right, toward the movement in his peripheral vision. A pair of acolytes charged toward him along the wall; they fired their shock cannons just as he fired his blasters.

  He had only enough time to heave his weight away from the wall and release the blasters—if his body seized, he’d risk shooting himself—before the shock orbs struck him in the chest. Electricity arced through his body, locking his muscles. He hit the ground hard, fingers clenching, back arching, and head tilting back against the concrete.

  Growling, he forced his arms down, flattened his palms on the floor, and pushed himself up. Physical pain was meaningless to him; nothing they could do would compare to the anguish of losing Abella. Just the thought of never again seeing her, never again speaking with her, holding her, or touching her, was more than he could bear. He wouldn’t accept it.

  The first of the advancing acolytes rounded the vehicle behind which Tenthil had thrown himself, holding his shock staff as a melee weapon—a pulsing beam of energy ran along its shaft from one end to the other, several centimeters away from the grip.

  Tenthil slammed the heel of his boot into the side of the acolyte’s knee.

  The acolyte lost his balance, his upper body tipping in the opposite direction of his buckling knee, and planted the butt of his weapon on the floor in an attempt to right himself. Scrambling to his feet, Tenthil grasped a handful of hair at
the base of the acolyte’s skull. He kicked the bottom of the shock staff, avoiding its energy beam by a centimeter’s space.

  With his only support knocked away, the acolyte fell forward, and Tenthil shoved hard to help him along. The acolyte’s face smashed into the next hovercar hard enough to leave a large dent on the door.

  The second acolyte leapt over his collapsing companion and thrust his shock staff toward Tenthil, likely hoping to capitalize upon the relatively narrow space and catch his foe unable to maneuver away.

  Tenthil grunted and twisted aside. The shock staff zipped through the air a hair’s breadth from his face; he swung a hand up and wrapped his fingers around the shaft, ignoring the thrumming of the energy beam near his fingers and nose, and pulled.

  Off-balance after his attack, the acolyte stumbled forward. Tenthil thrust his free hand out and caught the acolyte by the throat, digging his claws into flesh. He squeezed.

  The acolyte released a gurgling choke, released the shock staff from his nerveless fingers, and crumpled to the floor. Tenthil tore his hand away and flicked his wrist, splattering blood and a few tattered chunks of flesh onto the concrete. He tossed the shock staff aside with his other hand.

  Without hesitation, Tenthil crouched and collected his discarded blasters. He dropped one into its holster and opened the other’s breach, dumping the partially depleted power cell and replacing it with another from his belt. Once the breach was closed, he continued along the wall toward the garage’s interior door. The remaining acolytes fired at him from the opposite side of the garage; they were clustered around one of the larger vehicles, using its bulk for cover.

  Tenthil extended his right arm and squeezed off a few shots, forcing the acolytes to duck behind the vehicle, while he dropped his left hand to his explosives case. He withdrew a fusion charge and threw it across the garage. It bounced once and slid to a stop under the large vehicle. He lowered the barrel of his blaster and fired one more bolt—this time at the charge.