Startled by the killshot, the toddler begins wailing. Daniel takes no heed. Even in his delirium, the guilt of seeing his murdered wife spreads across his face. Tears fill his bloodshot eyes, and he begins to cry.
Before Hardwick, I might have been played by the crocodile tears of a fucking junkie. Before having to wrangle Creation back from a mad god, this scene may have moved me.
If I held a gun, and existed in this dream, I would kill him right now.
“We’re done,” a voice says, penetrating the closed system of my illusion. “You did very well.”
But has there ever been, something so great as love, quite so comfortable with sin?
I look up, but no longer see Daniel Knox in a gravel pit of my worst coping mechanisms, deprived the satisfaction seeing his suicide would have brought me.
“Your clothes will be returned to you, and the Arbiters will see you out,” Hannah says. “We will be keeping a close eye on your future development, Ramona.”
The door slams as disassociation fades, and the woman is gone. The lights are a small mercy, waiting for the Arbiters to release me from this Hell. My abdomen aches where the shadows did their work, tunneling through a part of me that may never feel the same.
But likewise, there’s never been a queen, quite so determined to win.
Alone, naked and bound on the plywood table, all I can do is cry.
CHAPTER THIRTY
In times of doubt, people often take solace in habit. The comforts of yore prove more durable than modern day medications or therapy — there is something about the ragged stuffed bear you find going through boxes in storage. It reminds you of a simpler time, when you only had to worry when the suited stranger would show up next.
Sometimes, he went so long without visiting, I questioned if I had just been crazy at the time. But the stuffed animal was persistent, a talisman of comfort used to shield myself in uncomfortable situations.
I have no access to those items in Atlas. My past, present and immediate future is here, allegedly impregnated with the Devil’s spawn. My oldest sentimental attachments are twenty-some years gone.
For that reason, I find myself back in the Gardens. I can’t go back and face what remains of the group I got killed. After limping out of Stone Mountain alone, I wasn’t ready to return to the Obelisk.
Not yet.
The flowers are less lively, infected with the same darkness poisoning the heart of Creation; the twisted force that has commandeered my womb for its sick ends. The hedge maze no longer invites me into its winding corridor and forks in the path. Its hedges are sullen, a reflection of my mood.
Pivotal conversations took place here — back when I thought Seraphina the smartest, most conniving woman in Atlas. Now, I am alone, sitting on a bench I shared with both Tim and a dying Maester at different points. There is little solace in the replaying scraps of past dialogue, but anything to keep the thing inside me from getting into my head as well is welcome.
Everything you have seen, Ramona...think of your life— the one you had back on Earth— as the beaker in which your personal formula was built. The Avatar told you that every soul comes with a unique code— an identification system, if you will. That code, were it to remain in a static, unchanging state, would indeed suggest predisposition when it comes to placement.
The Atlas sent an agent to eliminate some of the reincarnated individuals. Their deaths were undone by our choice, and she was tasked with seven names.
Tim and Siskett’s conversations endlessly weave together. My eyes don’t focus on the browning, winged leaves of the bushy wall; only the men who separately tried to console me then, but can’t now.
Trauma is the single greatest catalyst for transforming that genetic sequence. It can take the best men and turn them into monsters. It can take a young vagrant, transforming him to revolutionary. The code can change, Ramona. The code can change. But it is very, very difficult.
Hannah called Harper the Phoenix. The locket both seemed to protect her from the Behemoths, and draw a map toward the Cathedral district. The Avatar told me certain objects are imbued with Light, didn’t she?
The trinket around Harper’s neck may have a role to play in saving Atlas.
Somewhere around the twentieth time reaffirming this in my head, a bright light flies past me. As I think my mind is playing tricks, it zips by again. This time, my attention catches on its circling green body, dancing from left to right in my peripheral vision. The tiny being buzzes and squeals in wild acrobatics using threaded wings obscured in natural emerald glow.
Avalon’s insect — the one created from a puddle on the floor. It bounces and emits its high-pitched whine, almost colliding with a tree branch above. It drops sharply, hovering in front of my nose where I can see its bulbous shell. Its eyes are many like a spider, with a tiny flap below them folded upward in a smile.
It’s trying to tell me something.
“What is it?” I ask the squealing creature, holding out my hand. Bow-legged landing gear settles in my palm’s creases. It jumps, whines and paces back and forth inside my cupped fingers prior to launching its glowing body in the air.
“You want me to follow you?”
The bug bounces in the air, again narrowly missing the branch above, close to a nod as it will come.
“This had better be good,” I mutter. Avalon’s creation spurs as I step off the bench, darting toward the hedge maze’s opening. It disappears, and I hesitate before following it inside.
The first turn in the maze’s labyrinth cuts a sharp right, and leads to a fork. The insect doesn’t rush ahead, patiently waiting for me to catch up.
Several turns later, we reach an opening that contains a small fountain and twin benches like the one outside the maze. The hedge walls are adorned in roses whose beauty outweighs any amazement I ever saw in the Spire’s dark paintings. Their stalks twist from every corner of the three enclosing walls to the open entry into the labyrinth’s heart.
And in the center awaits a sight I thought was forever lost to me. The short woman with a bob cut of gray hair and gaunt cheeks hasn’t lost a streak of age in her strands, yet looks far healthier than on her deathbed as Tim claimed her soul to my reactionary protests.
“Maya?”
My eyes well at the sight of the aunt who raised me. Her final years of agony and helplessness, hooked up to oxygen machines are erased from her present form, and my heart uplifts to see the woman I remember.
“Ro.”
Forgetting how cold our relationship once was, her aversion to affection and my own cold exterior she fostered, I embrace her. Maya does not withdraw, returning with arms that have to reach up to wrap around my neck. A torrent escapes me, shuddering against my childhood protector. When I am done, and we separate, I am speechless.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
Her voice is no longer raspy and withered, but full as the surrounding roses. Her white house gown is clean, rather than yellowed, and she smells of lavender, not cigarette smoke.
“I have been waiting for you, my dear,” she says, motioning to one of the benches under the rose vines. We take our seats. Maya crosses one leg over another, hunching over her lap like she always did. There is no hand lifted to her mouth, cigarette drifting upward as she mulled the misery of her life.
She seems happy.
“You have?”
Maya nods.
“Your friend kept me safe. To be honest, Ro, I had no idea. All these years, it felt like I hadn’t given you enough — I was so bitter about my sister leaving me her mess, I didn’t appreciate just how special you were.”
A chuckle escapes me, alongside withheld sobs.
“I’m not special, Auntie. Thank you for saying that, but I’m just someone who lucked into something extraordinarily fucked up.”
“That may be so,” Maya replies. “But if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be my niece. You were always brilliant, Ro. It did not surprise me to learn that you might be the only ch
ance that Atlas has.”
“See,” I say, “all this time, I’ve tried to figure out why the Council picked me. They had angels to protect them. They had more qualified beings than some mortal. They put their faith in me, and I failed them.”
Maya smiles, placing her pruned hand on my knee.
“I love you, Ramona — you are too hard on yourself.”
“Am I? I’m beginning to believe I’m not hard enough—”
“Don’t interrupt, child. It’s rude.” Her familiar chastisement eases my soul, and I fall silent. “You don’t have time for self-pity, Ro. All of Creation is on your shoulders. Lord knows, it is a terrible burden to carry. But that does not change the fact that every living thing this city governs is counting on you.”
I scoff.
“No pressure, right?”
“You were not chosen by some fluke, my dear. The Council obviously saw righteousness that was sorely missing among their inner circle. I hate to think how much worse it would have been without you.” At the look of awe I cast her newfound omnipotence, Maya reveals that Tim has kept her updated on my investigation.
Which leads me to the most horrible puzzle piece, the one I have struggled with since leaving Stone Mountain.
“They did something to me, Auntie.”
“Did what?”
Looking down at the womb they desecrated, the panic of knowing something lives there now, growing inside me, overrides the urgency of stopping Hannah.
“I don’t know. But I feel different now. Sapped of my confidence, or something.”
Maya’s eyes search my own, intuitively aware I’m omitting something.
“Talk to me, Ro.”
I sigh, equally aware how ridiculous it sounds.
“In Stone Mountain...well, for lack of a better term, I was raped. But not by a man. It was...horrible. And when it was over, they told me I was carrying Ziz’s child.”
Exhaling as the final tense syllables leave my bitten tongue, and finally venture into the open, Maya takes my hand in hers, silent for a moment before speaking.
“I have a confession, Ramona. In any other circumstance, it might warrant anger. And if you are angry with me, so be it. But it may be a blessing now.”
I frown, asking Maya what she means.
“When you were about six, you fell in that ravine behind our building. Do you remember that? The one with —
“The trees overtop,” I finish. It was the second time I met the man who calls himself Death. Running in the field with my childhood friend Alison, I slipped, tumbling over the side of a sharp drop, breaking my leg. Alison screamed, and I implored her to fetch Maya.
After she disappeared, Tim’s voice rattled through the sunken corridor of twigs and root, leaves and Darkness, as I looked up at the sky above.
You don’t need to be afraid, Ramona.
“I remember.”
“Well,” Maya says, “when I took you to the hospital, the doctors ran bloodwork, and you had a separate cyst on one of your developing ovaries.”
Maya says I shouldn’t talk to strangers.
“I remember that, too. They had to do that surgery.”
“What I didn’t tell you about that operation was the damage that overgrown cyst did. The doctors weren’t sure you would ever be able to conceive. I’m so sorry, child. I grappled with telling you for years. I was scared to put that on a six-year-old. For a long time, I knew it was a disservice to you, bless your heart, and I’d have to tell you someday.”
Maya is right — in any other situation, the revelation might leave me angry. I never took to men for longer than a night or two, and might have never known at all.
“It’s alright, Auntie,” I reply. “If that’s true — and by some small chance, applies here — then we finally have a win. It’s a small one, but denying Ziz rebirth has pretty big ramifications.”
Maya smiles.
“I pray it does, child.”
We sit together a while, appreciating each other’s company when I thought I’d never experience hers again. I never had an inkling of my reproductive shortcomings, but in this case, it might be Ziz’s as well.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Dead air greets me as I enter the Barracks, where our best laid plans were formed. Every time I return to the Nephalim’s former center of operations, its buildings have taken on a new tone of hopelessness. From the moment I first interrogated Quorroc in the Obelisk, meeting Seraphina and Pol and Elion, I have never known what to expect each time I venture here.
The lobby is completely silent. Anticipating being the only soul still standing, my lackadaisical circadian rhythms burst into full gear, little black heart pounding as I reach the chamber doors on the third level.
Pushing them inward, all my fears prove completely unfounded. Waiting for me are Tim, Quorroc and three of the four Magi. Luca is bruised, but no worse for wear otherwise.
“Ramona!”
My name emerges from unscathed mouths. Tim is the first to say it, followed by just about everyone else present. That isn’t to say all our allies still stand. Elion’s absence gives me a bad feeling. Demetrius is gone, though some of his brethren remain.
Still, more than I hoped for.
The crowd around me parts, revealing the High Priestess waiting at the back of the room. Seraphina’s expression is blank; the former Nephalim leader is reduced by her time in Hannah’s inner circle.
“We thought the worst,” Luca says — the bruises have turned to welts, and I would see Mykul pay for ruining his beautiful face. He embraces me, and Tim does as well.
All my attention remains fixated on Seraphina.
“What’s her deal?” I ask. “Has she actually flipped?”
Tim and Luca share a look before the angel replies.
“The High Priestess has been humbled by recent events. She came here, at great risk to her safety, and wishes to speak with you, once you are settled.”
“There are other matters to address as well,” Tim advises. “We think there is a way to delay the trial, without provoking another confrontation like at the Arena. Again, when you’re settled.”
The thought of another futile stone throw at Ziz’s forces makes me ill. I won’t risk another confrontation unless certain we can win.
“I’ll speak with Seraphina. After that, Luca and I are going to the Cathedral, and seeing what’s under the wreckage.”
Tim frowns.
“Ramona, shouldn’t we be —”
“Look,” I tell them. “We already wasted a lot of manpower going at them head-on. We’re outmatched in every corner, guys. The Behemoths have us at a checkmate.
“Whatever lives under the Cathedral — that Harper’s locket pointed us to — has some role in this. I know it, Tim.”
Luca speaks.
“There may be a better way,” he says. “Tim and I have been talking. There’s a quicker way to both cripple the woman’s ambitions and access whatever is beneath the Cathedral. Speak with the Priestess, then we will reconfer.”
I agree, and make my way over to Quorroc and Seraphina. Nothing remains of the latter’s former fire, and the Maester speaks on her behalf.
“The High Priestess has come to forge an armistice. She wishes that I remain her counsel until these terms are settled. This is fine with me, as long as you have no issue, Nephalim.”
“None at all,” I reply. “Let’s get this over with.”
***
We migrate to the same part of the complex I interrogated Quorroc, along with Luca and Avalon. The Priestess wishes to speak with the old Maester in private, and the Magus opens a portal into the doorless room between rooms, closing it behind them.
“I’m assuming Elion didn’t survive the Arena,” I say, in the first words I’ve shared with him since returning. Avalon grimaces, shaking his head.
“He opened the portal that we escaped through, at the cost of his life. He was such a good boy, too. Brilliant portal master. Would have been a worthy successor.�
�
“I’m sorry. I wish I’d had more time to get to know him.”
Avalon smiles.
“Many thanks. Elion thought quite highly of you.” He closes his eyes, receiving some kind of mental signal from the wall’s other side. “They are ready.”
The portal Avalon opens is purple, rather than the original blue cast by Elion. The light-hued brick wall becomes a box with three chairs and a table, lit by solitary lamp overhead. Seraphina’s eyes still fall to the mercy of gravity, glued to the steel top table as I take my seat across from them.
“Ramona,” Quorroc says, but I stop the old man before he can begin.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Priestess. In peacetime, what you’ve done would be a punishable crime in my world. No idea the term for it in Atlas, but treason is the word I know. I don’t believe you had any part in the original plot to annihilate the Grand Council, but you did side with their killers. And given our prior relationship, Seraphina, you face an uphill battle in convincing me you can be redeemed.”
Compared to the firecracker she was before, the woman who towers over the Maester and I is a shell of herself.
“Seraphina is willing to provide a valuable service,” Quorroc says.
“Really? And what service is that, Maester?”
“Assassination.” Seeing interest piqued through my cold exterior, Quorroc continues. “The woman has been the cause of all these problems. Were the Priestess to administer justice where she least expects it, Ziz will be crippled.”
“Fair,” I say, skeptical that I can trust the sullen woman that Quorroc represents. “And what assurances do I have your client won’t turn on me, Maester? None. She could have been sent here to gather information on how many of us are left.”
Seraphina finally lifts her head. Crimson locks obscure the better part of her face.
“Do you not think she already knows? Hmm? She spared every one of you, even after you attempted such a foolish heist at the Arena. The Dark Lord is one with her, hmmm? Speaking to her. And the Dark Lord sees everything.” Her voice reverts to a whisper during the last sentence.
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