“Calm him down?” He rotated the child out of her reach. “You did this to him! Look at him, Jin! You did this!”
“That’s not fair!” Jin cried.
“You always do this! You always, always do this! Hurting the people around you, being selfish and greedy and…so you! So pathetic,” he snarled. “Toxic! That’s what you are! You’re right. You’re not the Jin I or Zion needs. The Jin we know would do anything for her family. She would do anything for the people she loved.”
“Aiden!” Jin said, shocked and hurt as his words slammed into her.
“Weak,” he hissed. “You are weak.”
Jin flinched. She knew the truth and Aiden, goddamn him, knew the truth and this was not the truth. “What did you just say to me?”
“I said you are weak! You always make the worst decisions! And every time you do, I have to get you out of trouble. You always needed me to get you out of trouble, to pull you from danger! You think you’re going to be able to survive here without me?”
Zion continued to cry in his father’s arms and his sorrow and his father’s words were just enough…
Jin’s face hardened. “Understand something. I love you, Aiden. I love you so much. I don’t even care that you’re not my Aiden. I don’t care if you’re only a shade of my Aiden, the one who is compassionate and empathetic and beautiful and sweet, even in the toughest of times, unlike you, with your mean spirit and mean words. It may be coming from a place of hurt but I don’t care. I want you, in every marvelous way you were created, even if it spans over universes I’ll never see.” Her eyes glanced at Zion. “I would love for you two to be my future. I want you, Aiden, more than anything. But I don’t need you to be strong. I am already strong.”
Aiden’s gaze narrowed but he didn’t say anything. Zion’s cries had quieted to sniffles. Jin wasn’t sure what happened to his mother, this other Jin, but if she was the last vision of her he would ever see, she wanted it to be a good memory. “Zion. Mommy loves you sooo much. Mommy loves Daddy, too. Things happen in life that you can’t control, sweetheart. Your father shouldn’t have come looking for me because I am always looking over you, protecting you, and loving you. Don’t cry anymore, baby.”
“Daddy,” Zion said, sniffling, “told me that big boys are allowed to cry if they are sad.”
Jin smiled “Your Daddy is a very smart man.”
Jin fingered the medallion in her pants. “I have to go. I’m…I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice breaking. She turned for the bridge and began the process to try and clear her mind which was difficult with Zion’s sniffling behind her and the weight of Aiden’s stare on her back.
“What are we supposed to do without you,” Aiden asked. The anger had left his voice and all that remained was a vulnerable, heart heavy tone.
She turned back towards him and tried to smile. “Survive, Aiden. Bad things happen. In the face of abandonment or even death, those who can live must live. You’ve survived without me before. You may not know it, but you have. You’re strong, too, you know.”
Aiden stared at her for a long moment before he begun to smile. “Pass.”
Jin frowned. “What?”
“I said you passed.”
Jin jumped when Onyu appeared in front of her where Aiden and Zion once stood. She was back on the other side of the bridge, staring at it, as if she were just preparing to take her first step. Her head jerked from side to side and she spun around, bewildered. “How in the hell did I get back over here?”
“You never left from that spot,” Benja’in-su informed, giggling.
“Uh, yes I did. I made it all the way across. I even picked up this token medallion thing!” Jin fished the token out of her pocket and held it up. “See!”
“Right.” AJ snapped her fingers and the medallion began to rust, then crumble, blowing away in the wind.
“Why did you do that?” she screamed, watching the particles float away. “Do you know who I had to turn away for that damn thing?”
“They weren’t real, Jin.”
Jin’s frown deepened. “Yes, they were.” She looked back across the bridge where Aiden and Zion had stood. They weren’t there anymore, but that didn’t mean they weren’t real. “I held my son in my arms. He was real.”
“You’re not a mother,” Onyu interjected, her tone level. “You don’t have a son. Aiden cannot visit you here. No one can visit you here. This isn’t a hotel.”
“I held him. Please don’t tell me he wasn’t real,” her voice rough. “Even if it’s in another universe, another life. Don’t tell me he wasn’t real.”
“Whether he exists or not is not important. What is important is that you’re more warrior than human now, Jin,” Onyu said, her voice proud. “You were able to turn away a son and a husband because you were determined, you were strong, and you understood your duty. You then threw away doubt and unsurety. That was your medallion.”
“Is this how you treated Aria?” she said, her anger crawling up her throat. “Like she didn’t have feelings? Like she was a weapon? Like she wasn’t human?”
“Aria was not human.” Silence followed that. “She knew that ugly things happen. That everything wasn’t a neat fairy tale where everyone lives happily ever after. If you want to leave here, if you want to survive, it would behoove you to understand that. This place will rip you into pieces in order to put you back together again. It’s not going to get easier. ”
Jin’s bottom lip trembled. She wanted to cry. She wanted to fall to the ground, curl up in a ball and cry over the loss of a son she’d only met mere moments ago. But she swallowed it. She swallowed it like it was a handful of razor blades. She ignored the pain. She ignored the blood flooding her throat, the feeling of not being able to breathe anymore.
She looked at Onyu and AJ, her eyes hard as stone. “What’s next?”
CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT
Rooke was never in a position to hate Titanomachy–The War. He didn’t have any purchase in the grief that it caused. Sure thousands were killed, a few friends foolish enough to enlist in the war before their MATE training was done, but he’d never lost anything or anyone that would make him hate the war or hate the rebels. When he was a very young boy, he lost his father to Later Ụwa’s Pyre Ceremony, a very illegal one, where a human is cast into the burning rock of Ụwa’s highest volcano, in celebration of Ecclesiastes 12:7:
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
His angelic mother, Hassa, had served under Penume in her Linguistics Program at MATE. She died of a rare condition for angels–heartbreak. Even the love of her young son couldn’t help her survive the grief of losing Ne.
After a few years living in the orphanage Aria Jinni created, Penume
came and told him that she would be his new mother. She was Ne’s cousin by marriage to Hassa and considered Rooke family.
Since she was technically his cousin and not his mother, it took years for Rooke to understand that. He remembered his mother’s face, her scent, and her loving grace. This woman did not have her face, her scent, or grace at all. Their relationship was complex. While Penume fostered the nurturing of a mother, her goal, always and forever, was to cultivate a sense of duality in him.
She taught him the art of duplicity. She taught him the code of espionage. She taught him how to lie.
And he never understood it.
He was good at it, a genius at it, but he never understood why she wanted him to do the things she requested. He didn’t understand why he had to spy on friends, colleagues, mentors, and peers or why he had to sneak into the places he snuck, collect the information he collected, lie to the people he lied to.
Why did he have to meet Jin Amaris?
He thought of Tahir and Key. What was he going to lose because he was a liar?
CHAPTER FORTY NINE
“What the hell is this?” Key said as he stared a three-dimensional file that was hundreds and hundreds of p
ages thick and filled line after line with absolute garbage gibberish. “This isn’t even a language I know and I know a lot of languages.”
“We… really don’t know what this is,” Hugo admitted.
Rooke’s brow pinched. “Then how did you know it would help us?”
“Ah,” Marcus said from his corner of the screen. “This, actually.”
The file on the screen disappeared for a moment only to be replaced by an image that Rooke never wanted to see again. He doubted Aiden wanted to see it either. Tahir must have been reading his mind, because she gently grabbed Aiden’s wrist and rotated him away from the screen, not fast enough
for Rooke to miss the horror on his face, though.
“Here, we see…Ahn…being Ahn. It looks like normal attempted homicide–”
“Asshole,” Ahn muttered under his breath.
“–but when we do this…” Marcus pressed another button on his keyboard screen and an infrared thermal image layered over it.
“Holy shit, what is that?” Jon barked in surprise.
Rooke narrowed his eyes at the screen. Right where Ahn’s sword made contact with Jin’s chest was a heat signature he’d never seen before. It was a symbol–four triangles attached at the corners to form a square. In the middle of the square was a circle and inside of that circle was the drawing of an eye. Beams of light shot out from different angles of the eye’s iris, creating a sun-like image.
“I don’t recognize any of this,” Key said.
“Yeah, it’s a mystery to us as well but we do know where it leads us to–an answer. Or maybe another clue but it is the only lead we have in this entire forsaken library. We’ve been through thousands of books, scrolls, edicts, laws…nothing else even comes close. You would think that the subject is taboo,” Spencer muttered.
“Not taboo. Unexplored. This has never happened before, remember?” Jerome supplied.
“And Rooke,” Ahn said as he eyed the young angel, “a friend of yours was the only person who knew how to track this clue down.” When Rooke raised a brow. Ahn smiled. “Christian. He’s figured out the coordinates using some method he isn’t all that willing to share with me. Every time I asked, he just smirks and giggles.”
Rooke grinned.
“Christian? The troublemaker from Hawk? He’s in on this, too?” Tahir said, her voice pitched high. “For the love of the holy days, Ahn, just how many people have you made complicit in your bullshit?”
Ahn shrugged. “Enough to win. He didn’t end up on sentry duty away from the prying eyes of the library scholars and transmission monitors for nothing. He’s got too much shit stored away in his brain. It always gets him in trouble. Might as well have made him useful. Marcus,” Ahn said as he leaned against the back of Jerome’s chair. “Patch Christian through. Channel 212, nobody monitors that frequency, not since Reem decided to use it as his own form of national public radio.”
Marcus did as he was told and an image slowly replaced his. Christian’s knowing grin framed by his infamously chiseled chin came into focus. “Thank God! I was getting bored out here all by my lonesome. The other sentry guard won’t talk to me, which I suppose is a good thing but you know what they say! Communication keeps you sane?”
“Nobody says that,” Jerome tried to say under his breath.
“Anyways,” Christian said, shooting a glare at Jerome, “I was brought here to explain a couple of things pertaining to this file.”
“You know what language this is?” Key asked.
“It’s not a language of the tongue, my dear General. It’s a language of computers, a form of tertiary coding. You may be familiar with binary coding, which uses zeros and ones, however, this was comprised using an unbalanced tertiary system, adding negative one into the fray. Which honestly doesn’t make a lot of sense other than this code lives. It uses fuzzy logic, it breathes, and it can manipulate itself. It’s practically alive.”
Jon groaned. “Why,” he said, pointing hard at Rooke,” does he sound so much more confusing that you sound?”
Rooke grinned. “Because instead of following the curriculum, Christian was delving into the world of science fiction.” He eyed the Hawk member. “Unbalanced tertiary systems are useless. That’s why I ignored it.”
“Yes, with computers. This isn’t for a computer. It just uses it. Trust me, I know a tertiary system when I see one and I recognize the handiwork. The coding itself is specifically designed to hide the information from everyone but one person. The person who designed it.”
Tahir raised a brow. “And who is that?”
“A friend.” Christian smiled. “For what it’s worth, she’s nearby.”
Jon threw his hands up.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Port de Empyrean
Elysian, Caelian Territory
The Port de Empyrean was the largest port in Caeli. At least that’s what Aria was reading on the plaque.
This morning her cousin, now freed from the Timnath-Heres dungeons, decided that he would take her around Elysian. Days before, she’d been in such a rush to get out of Elysian that she hadn’t looked around much. Today she was taking it all in. Slowly, because there was a lot to take it.
Elysian had grown. It had always been advanced–a trip to Earth would tell you how more advanced the realm was than the realm. When Aria was alive…the first time, she thought they’d reached the peak of technology. Yet looking around now, she knew that the technology she was used to paled in comparison.
“This port feeds most of Caeli, especially between Elysian and Later
Ụwa,” Ahn informed as he ran his hand over the plaque. “Aeon Terra’s resources are delivered through drones deployment and delivery. Otherrealm imports are still handled by Au Courant, to the merchants' chagrin.”
Aria hummed. “Can any of those systems be used against us?”
“I doubt it. The last defector was Clara Angelica Kobayashi who left before the import-export system was revamped. The train system would be key but Kano is very persistent on limited train availability between Elysian and Aeon Terra. He is still highly distrustful of them.”
“I should remind him that when, not if, we are attacked, it won’t be just Elysian that is attacked. It will be all of Caeli. Is he going to lift the ban to allow them to fight?”
“No,” Ahn replied. “Penume mentioned it once and he, in a rare show of idiocy, tried to extend the ban for another thousand years. Then Song called him stupid and Sariel laughed, and we all know when Sariel laughs, she laughs, so everyone was thrown out of the Grand Capitol room. Nobody else brought it up.”
“Uncle Yusuf told me about that meeting,” Elle said as she stepped a little closer. Ahn grinned at her and she winked back. “He said Uncle Kano should have been called the Bull instead of the Griffith.”
Aria laughed and beckoned Elle even closer. She’d stayed to her post, a few yards behind them, extra precautions and attentive. Aria didn’t know if it was because Reem wasn’t around to be extra precautions and attentive for the both of them, or if because Liam was there. He was her superior, and if going by the wide eye stare of surprise she gave when he showed up this morning, her crush.
“You don’t have to sit so far back, gal. I think I’ve proven that I’m not going to bite you.”
Elle ducked her head. “I just want to do a good job. You said I had to earn your trust. To be seen as an adult and a good guard.”
“You’re halfway there,” Aria said winking. “You got rid of those stupid reporters and their stupid cameras and their stupid schmoozey-doozey talking. You know, I think people are using every damn nickname I have just to grate my nerves. “Oh! There she goes! Sekhmet reborn, The Pedagogue, The Lioness, blah blah blah. My name is Aria. Just Aria. You thought quick on your feet to pull us into that coffee shop! They were chasing us like dogs!”
“My mom always said that I was smart,” Elle said with a blush.
She reached under Elle’s chin and raised her head. “You’re a good guard a
nd a damn good fighter,” she proclaimed softly.
“Yes, she is,” a gravelly voice hissed.
Aria’s blood ran cold. She knew that voice, she would never forget that voice for as long as she lived.
“Elle is a good guard and a good fighter. This Ose has told her many, many times.”
The masked figure inched closer to them, their moves slow and lumbered as if they enjoyed taking their time. Elle stiffened beside her and Ahn gave the SEKRÈ leader a cursory glance.
“I would ask how you found us but nothing gets past you,” Liam said from his spot beside Elle.
“Boy,” Ose greeted, saccharine sweet. Liam pinched features was his answering response.
Ose and Liam’s obvious dislike for each other was secondary. No, it didn’t even register to her other than white noise in the background. Aria continued to watch Ose approach, her pulse racing, mind spinning. Aria had always, always known who’d killed her. They’d told her so.
“This Ose wishes you death. This Ose brings you death.”
Aria laughed.
“She laughs.”
Dying prevents you from taking revenge. Dying prevents you from running to every person you know, screaming for them to see what was done to you. Prevents you from presenting evidence, proof. Dying prevents you from telling the truth.
Aria had none of that. She didn’t have proof, evidence or even a motive as to why Ose would want her dead. Aria posed no threat to them. Hell, she’d been one of SEKRÈ’s biggest supporters! She welcomed the idea of the organization with open arms!
She wanted to know why. She wanted to snatch that mask off and ask them ‘Why’ to their face. She wanted to take her blade to their neck and demand an answer. And she would. Her hand gripped her sword.
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