“Yes, but what are your abilities? Your eyes and fangs remind me of a serpent,” Rose said, narrowing her eyes at Kallisto, who gave her a half-smile in return.
“We all have a serpent gene. Ta’Zan chose the most poisonous specimens and combined them to create the gland that produces our venom,” she explained. “You know, the toxin that nearly killed you. It’s unique to us Faulties. But yes, I have more serpent in me than most. I have five different species of reptile in me, to be precise. And fish. I fare well both on dry land and in water,” she added, then lifted her hair to show us the gills on the back of her head.
“Oh, wow,” Dmitri breathed. “You’re what we call an amphibian.”
Kallisto smirked. “And a deadly one, too,” she replied.
“What about the blue serum you gave us? Where did you get that?” I asked, well aware of the fact that we had to get our own, and fast, so as not to go through that toxic inferno again. My stomach still burned a little.
“I made it myself,” she said. “It’s based on my venom and combined with certain plant and fruit extracts. The ingredients are not easy to come across, but they’re the only ones I’ve seen that do the job.”
“Why did you need to make an antivenom?” Rose asked. “If you’re all poisonous, wouldn’t you be immune?”
“Not really.” Kallisto sighed. “Some of us have stronger toxins. Not all of us developed an immunity. When the infighting started, right after we got out of the cave pods, I had to do something to stop us from poisoning each other like this.”
“I’m guessing that’s why Ta’Zan calls you all Faulties?” Hunter cut in, frowning. “Because not all of you took to the serpent genes properly?”
Kallisto shook her head slowly. “It’s not just that. To Ta’Zan, perfection means looking like him but having all these animal abilities. We don’t look like him. We carry the features of the animals he used to create us. The genes didn’t properly blend in with the Draenir base,” she said.
“So let me get this straight,” I replied. “Your father collects genetic materials from all over the place and uses them to make you.”
“Yes,” Kallisto murmured, staring ahead. More of the colosseum could be seen between the trees. It was a lot bigger from up close.
“It sounds unnatural,” I said. “Were you carried by surrogate mothers, or—”
“Artificial wombs,” Kallisto corrected me.
“So you were never given any motherly affection?” Rose asked, wearing a sad expression as she looked at Kallisto. She seemed like she pitied the Faulty girl.
“We have a father who made us. Isn’t that enough?” Kallisto replied, looking somewhat confused.
“Sometimes, yes,” Nevis interjected. “But most of the time, it takes a mother and a father to raise and nurture a creature who’s healthy, both physically and emotionally. It’s the natural way of the world. However, given your origins, I doubt you would understand that.”
I was genuinely freaked out by this idea of making people from scratch and developing them in artificial wombs. It sounded so clinical and cold. I was positive it didn’t create emotionally healthy specimens, as Nevis had just said. Looking at Kallisto, in fact, nothing seemed natural or sane, from a biological point of view.
She and her siblings were basically anomalies. Five hundred of them.
I kept it to myself, though. I had no intention of offending Kallisto. We needed her, and, most importantly, I needed to know what ingredients she used for that antivenom. Whatever came next, we had to tread carefully. Kallisto could prove to be a valuable ally in our fight for survival and our search for Derek and the others.
My True Sight didn’t detect any movement ahead, though my range had shrunk. I needed to syphon some energy soon. The Faulty venom had definitely taken its toll on me.
We all stilled once we reached the colosseum and looked up at it.
“It’s unbelievable,” I whispered, then caught Nevis stealing another glance at me.
“I’ve seen better,” he muttered.
“Mount Athelathan is famous for its icy architecture,” Rose replied, acknowledging his Dhaxanian heritage. He seemed to respond well to compliments, and yet, he stayed close to me—the only one in the group who was comfortable poking, prodding, and snapping at him like it was nothing.
The colosseum was superb. Its outer wall was made of pure diamond, with ample arches and elegant decorative details, most of them impossible to see from afar. Gazing upon this colosseum was a feat of discovery. The closer you got, the more you could see.
The sun bathed the entire structure in a warm, golden light, which split into trillions of fractal colors as it hit the diamond surfaces. It looked ethereal. I was breathless. But somewhere, in the back of my head, a warning voice reminded me that we were not safe. That our people were missing.
That we desperately needed answers.
It took some of the colosseum’s beauty away, as I suddenly started looking at it as if it were a giant clue.
Kailani
(Granddaughter of Corrine and Ibrahim)
There was an entrance straight ahead, twenty feet from where we’d stopped. Elonora’s True Sight didn’t reveal any hostiles on a two-hundred-yard radius, which made it easier for us to just go in and explore the place.
“Kallisto, you’ve never seen this kind of building before, right?” I asked her, watching as she stared at it, awe imprinted on her beautiful face.
She shook her head slowly.
“I don’t think so,” she murmured.
“It wasn’t here before,” Rose replied. “Whoever built it, they moved ridiculously fast. Within days.”
“We don’t build. Not like this, anyway,” Kallisto said. “This… I don’t even know how it was made. Diamond is not easy to cut through. I didn’t even know we had so much of this resource on the planet.”
“There are thousands of tons involved,” I said. “It can’t be a breeze to dig out such enormous slabs and craft them into walls, panels, support beams, pillars, arches. It boggles the mind.”
Dmitri scoffed. “Frankly, there’s a lot on Strava that boggles the mind right about now.”
“Let’s go in,” Ben said. “Have your weapons ready, just in case.”
Ben, Rose, and Kallisto took the lead, while we stayed close behind. We went in and followed a narrow corridor. It was incredibly weird—we could see through the walls, but it was all distorted, skewed by how each slab of diamond had been cut.
It was eerily quiet, but for the sound of the wind whistling through nearby hallways.
“We can go up there,” Kallisto suggested, pointing at a set of stairs leading up to the first floor. “We’ll start a search from the first floor and work our way around, then up again.”
“Makes sense,” Rose agreed, looking around.
We went up and reached the first floor, where a plethora of large chambers unraveled both ahead of us and behind us. They were separated by a wide hallway. We walked through, slowly and carefully. Elonora groaned softly, prompting us all to turn our heads and look at her.
“My True Sight isn’t working properly,” she muttered.
We stopped, and Nevis gripped her wrist and nodded.
“Time to syphon, Miss Goode,” he said, his tone firm.
She sighed and closed her eyes. I could almost see the energy flowing from the Dhaxanian prince into Elonora. Her skin lit up—a discreet, barely noticeable glow, in fact. She took several deep breaths, then gently pulled her wrist away. Nevis wasn’t aware that syphoning didn’t require touching, but Elonora didn’t seem to mind the physical contact. On the contrary…
She looked around again and frowned. “What the hell?” she croaked, clearly confused. “I still can’t see anything. I mean, not like I usually see things.”
“Don’t tell me your True Sight is glitching,” Dmitri replied.
Elonora shrugged. “I don’t know. I can see like everyone else in here, but I can’t… I don’t have my usual
clarity.”
“Maybe Nevis’s energy is no good,” Zeriel shot back, the shadow of a smile fluttering across his face. It quickly drew Nevis’s ire.
“I doubt that’s the problem,” Nevis retorted, crossing his arms.
“It might be the diamond walls,” I suggested, remembering earlier studies about crystals and how they could be used to clarify or distort a visual. “The way they’re cut, their fractal properties. They could be influencing your True Sight.”
“That would make a whole lot of sense, if I hadn’t used my True Sight on this place before,” Elonora replied. “I could see clearly last night. I saw someone in here, but I was too far away to get a better look. But I know for a fact that I could see differently. Even before we came in, I had no trouble using my True Sight on this place.”
“From the outside, looking in,” Ben said. Elonora nodded. “Maybe daylight affects one’s view, particularly from the inside. Maybe, as soon as you go out and use your True Sight, it’s back to normal.”
“Ugh, that is just so twisted,” Elonora complained.
“It could be just physics,” Dmitri said. “The way the diamond surfaces are placed and angled here, combined with the sunlight. It could be skewing your True Sight. I mean, this wouldn’t be the first time that Strava found a way to trump our otherwise flawless abilities, right?”
That particular remark brought back memories of our earlier scuffle with the Faulties. It had nearly killed me. Dmitri was right. There was something about this planet and its newly awakened people that messed with our training and abilities.
“We should assume that not everything on Strava will work well with what we are,” I said. “Nevis’s frost can be broken or melted. Faulty venom could possibly kill us. There are creatures here that are stronger and much faster than we are. So, yeah, Lenny, it just may be the case that this diamond place is skewing your True Sight.”
Elonora grumbled, pursing her lips. “Well, awesome,” she muttered. “That’s the last thing we need right about now.”
“We’ll have to make do with what we can see, that’s all,” Rose replied, giving her an encouraging half-smile.
Knowing Elonora, she felt at a disadvantage. As a vampire-sentry hybrid, she was one of our most powerful weapons, just like Harper. Learning to read emotions was something they had to figure out on their own, in order to hone the skill to perfection, by comparing situations, facial expressions, vital signs and vocal tones with the colors they saw. Other than that, however, both had been trained and educated to the highest of GASP standards. Being unable to do something she’d done flawlessly her entire life had to hurt. But she wasn’t alone here. We were a team, and where one of us faltered, the others came through and compensated.
We kept walking down the hallway, marveling at how incredible it all was. There were hundreds of rooms stacked around a wide, open-air circular arena in the middle. The diamond fractured the light in every direction, casting endless flickers of color all over the place.
It seemed otherworldly, and, I had to admit, it moved me to the point where tears were threatening to come up. The architecture itself was relatively simple, even with the ornate details around the archways.
“This is incredible,” Kallisto murmured, gazing around with fascination. “I didn’t think they’d be able to create something like this.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” Nevis asked.
Kallisto waited a couple of seconds before responding. “I don’t know. Whoever built this,” she replied. “This isn’t of natural origin.”
“Look at that. Even the doors are made of diamond.” Dmitri pointed at a set of double doors at the end of the hallway.
From what I’d seen so far, this corridor should’ve gone all the way around the arena. Seeing it stop at a closed hall didn’t fit what I’d learned about colosseum architecture. But, then again, this was Strava, not Earth. The Romans had built theirs differently, thousands of years ago. This thing was a couple of days old, at most.
Kallisto stopped, raising her arms to prevent Ben and Rose from going ahead, as well. “Hold on,” she said, then nodded at the double doors in front of us. “There’s someone in there.”
My instincts flared. She was right. There were four figures inside, tall and dressed in white, from what I could tell. The diamond walls and furniture pieces weren’t making it easy for us to recognize what sort of creatures we were dealing with.
“That’s odd,” Elonora muttered, gripping her sheathed sword. “But they do remind me of what I saw last night. I think.”
“Can you see them clearly?” Rose asked.
Elonora shook her head. “No, but I guess we can all tell they’re wearing white,” she replied.
Kallisto looked at us, the excitement in her eyes impossible to hide.
“Maybe they know where my father is,” she said, then smiled at Rose and Ben. “Maybe they know where your parents are, too!”
Rose hesitated. “Kallisto, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to—”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence, as Kallisto darted toward the double doors. She pushed them open, leaving us frozen, just ten feet away, as she rushed inside to greet the four stunning creatures now in full view.
No longer obscured or skewed by the diamond doors, they were clearly visible.
Two males and two females—beautiful, like nothing I’d ever seen before. They were tall and well-proportioned, with balanced muscle mass and sinuous curves. The males looked strong and dashing, with short platinum-blond hair. The females were like visuals of poetry in motion, with long, luscious black hair cascading down their backs in splendid and generous curls.
They were all dressed in tight silken robes, which were wrapped around their bodies and legs, making them look like strangely stylish mummies. I was unable to think of a better comparison at moment. The white silk covered most of their pale, iridescent skin, except their bare feet and hands. On top of that, they wore beautifully crafted gold plates on their chests, forearms, and calves. Large gold discs were mounted on thin chains around their waists.
They had their backs to us for long enough for me to notice the slits on their backs, long and narrow, revealing more iridescent skin. They’d gathered in front of an altar of sorts, a large diamond statue of a male deity, I presumed, its base adorned with exotic flowers and piles of fresh fruit.
As soon as they turned around, however, my heart stopped.
The males’ eyes were peculiar—one bright green, the other sky blue. The females, however, both had deep, Prussian blue eyes. And they all looked at us with furrowed brows. I found myself both fascinated and terrified by their presence, though I didn’t have an explanation for the latter just yet.
Kallisto ran toward them, crossing the hall and sounding way too excited for my comfort. The most shocking part was that… she knew their names. How could that be? A few days ago, we didn't even know they existed. I was horribly confused.
“Araquiel! Douma! Oriphiel! Elyon!” she called out. “I’m so glad you’re here!”
We all went in, driven by a sudden burst of consternation and befuddlement, but we stopped about twenty feet in. The vibe in there wasn’t all that pleasant.
“Whoa, you know them?” Ben gasped.
Looking at the rest of my team, I knew we were all shocked and didn’t understand what was going on. If Kallisto knew them, why hadn’t she told us? Then, a darker thought hit me. How much hadn’t she told us prior to our arrival in the colosseum?
The four ethereal creatures looked at her with a mixture of contempt and disgust. It didn’t match their visible golden auras, which gradually faded. I figured they could control it… They were so beautiful, I was sure to cry at some point. My heart sang and skipped beats at the same time. Even my body and instincts were confused.
“What are you doing here?” the taller male and apparent leader of the group muttered.
“Oh, they definitely know her,” I murmured.
Slowly, but surely, drea
d crept up my spine and spread out in chilly waves through my limbs and chest, as I tried to make sense of what was going on.
“What’s happening here?” Dmitri breathed.
Kallisto stopped in front of the four creatures, then pointed back at us. The smirk she wore as she looked at us confirmed what I’d been suspecting for the past couple of seconds. We weren’t here by accident.
“I brought new creatures for Father’s creations!” Kallisto said.
The creatures then stared at us for a while, measuring each member of our team from head to toe. The slightly shorter female cocked her head to the side.
“Where’d you find them?” she asked.
“In the jungle outside,” Kallisto replied. “They were trying to get closer to the building. I brought them here! So, you know…”
We were officially stunned and temporarily unable to respond as we watched the exchange. Nothing in our training had prepared us for this kind of twist. With so many unknowns and lives at risk, this was all new and undoubtedly scary, even for those more seasoned in our team.
“Know what?” the first male retorted, visibly displeased with her presence.
Kallisto shrugged. “Well, now you can help me get back to Father. He needs me! I brought him new samples, see?” she said, pointing at us again. “They’re a gift for Father!”
It didn’t take a scientist to figure out that Kallisto had been lying to us. She obviously knew what the colosseum was, and she knew who had built it, too. She was somehow familiar with the four creatures, and they clearly were well acquainted with her—though not that happy to see her.
Kallisto had brought us here on purpose.
The joke was on us.
Derek
It was hard to keep track of time inside these glass boxes, since we had no contact with the outside world, no sense of dawn and dusk. Our watches, bracelets, and other pieces of jewelry had been removed sometime during our blackout.
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