Yes, she understood.
As the smoke entered her lungs, choking her, carrying her away to some other place, she understood one thing without a doubt.
Uncle Manny had won.
CHAPTER 56
Hushed voices, talking in a room that smelled like cleaning solution. A machine beeped steadily nearby. Was she alive?
“…have to get to class. You can’t sit here all day.”
It was a familiar voice. Could it be… Milo?
Where was she?
“Do not tell me what to do,” said a voice that sounded like Barrel. “You’re the one who’s obsessed with—”
Yes, it was Milo and Barrel. They were arguing, but why?
Milo cut him off. “Oh, come on. Don’t use that against me. Emma will be okay. They’re taking care of her. We have to keep going.”
Emma tried to open her eyes, but they were sealed shut. At least, they felt that way. She used all her mental strength to move her arms. Hopeless. Her body was a dead thing, a vegetable. That meant her mind was trapped inside it.
“At least join us for dinner,” Milo was saying.
Barrel made a tsk sound. “I’ll eat here.”
“Like always.”
“Yes. Like always. If they’re going to feed her through a tube, then I’m lucky to eat hospital food.”
So it was true. Emma was a vegetable, probably lying on a bed in a ward for people who would never move a muscle again.
Barrel, go with Milo, she wanted to tell him. You can’t save me. Not after what I’ve seen.
“Wait.” It was Barrel’s voice. “Did you see that?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Milo said. “I’m blind, you dummy.”
“It’s Emma. She flinched.”
“What? Seriously?”
Fabric scraped nearby, the bed gently rocking as, presumably, the two shifted positions. Warm breath poured over her face. Someone was bending over her.
At that moment, Emma’s eyes chose to snap open.
Barrel jumped back. “She’s awake. Call a nurse!”
She tried to make out details through the gumminess in her eyes. One of the faces had two black circles covering the eyes. Sunglasses.
Uncle Manny.
She blinked again. Her vision cleared. It wasn’t her uncle, just Milo, wearing Uncle Manny’s glasses. The two looked so much alike it was uncanny.
Next to him, Barrel stood grinning at Emma. He had gained weight and looked healthy. His blond hair had grown out to chin length, which was new. How long had she been asleep?
“Emma, you’re back.” Milo hugged her, almost falling on top of her. “It’s so good to have you back.”
“All right,” Barrel said, “my turn.”
He nudged Milo aside and lowered himself to kiss Emma’s forehead. The affection made her heart swell pleasantly. She inhaled, suddenly in command of her body, and lifted a hand. Her fingers were as cold as ice. Barrel gave them a gentle squeeze.
“Barr…” she tried to say. “Mi-lull…”
He shushed her gently. “You’ve been asleep for a long time. That’s why you feel weak. But you’re alive, Emma, and you’re okay. You made it.”
His grin warmed her a bit. She was alive, and everything seemed okay now. But if that was true, why did her body feel so—incomplete?
No…
The feeling was of a mattress pressed against her back, which meant something was missing between her and the bed.
They’re gone. They can’t be!
“Hold still,” Barrel said as her chest began to convulse. “Calm yourself, Emma.”
“Wnnngsss…” she tried to say. “Wingggsss…”
Her wings were gone, stems and all. A feeling of loss gripped her stomach, strong enough to almost make her puke. Bile rose in the back of her throat.
“Nurse,” Milo called out. “We need your help. Someone!”
An Acolyte nurse rushed in, shoved Barrel and Milo aside, and bent over Emma to check her pulse. Looking grim, she reached up and pressed a button on a machine Emma couldn’t see.
Cool liquid filled her veins. The drug eased her mind into a comforting darkness.
WHEN EMMA OPENED her eyes again, the room was full of people.
Everyone was there. Milo, Barrel, Lily, Pris, and the others. Everyone she loved in this realm except her mother and father, and Ascher and Coral, of course. Almost everyone.
A man shushed her when she tried to speak. He stood by her bed, a gray-haired Acolyte dressed in a white suit—a doctor, by the looks of him. Two nurses stood behind his folded wings. He extended one arm as a signal for everyone to stay back.
“Give her space,” he said. “She’s too weak to handle all this stimulation.”
“What—happened,” Emma managed to say.
Her head was propped up on pillow. She had a full view of her friends, and what she saw surprised her in a not-entirely-good way. They were dressed differently. They looked different in a way she had trouble understanding. All she could do was take in one strange detail at a time.
Wearing light colors and a shirt tucked into his pants, Barrel was dressed like an academy professor, complete with sash and leather belt. He had often talked about being brilliant enough to teach classes rather than attend them. Had his dream finally come true?
He noticed her studying his outfit. “I’m a professor now,” he said, and winked at her. “Not a bad gig, right?”
“Does that mean you’re done fighting?”
He nodded. “You bet your butt I am. Dying twice is enough for me.”
“Good,” Emma said firmly, meaning it with all her heart. “You deserve it.”
“Thanks, Emma. If you ever need me, you’ll always know where to find me.”
Having traded smiles with Barrel, Emma continued to study her other friends. Pris looked radically different. Dressed in the simple outfit of a factory worker, she was covered in dirt smudges, as if she’d been working outside all day, doing manual labor in the mud.
She wasn’t the only dirty one, either. The other orphans wore cadet uniforms covered in dirt and grime. Emma’s biggest surprise came when she noticed Oscar and Calista wearing uniforms, which meant they had both been accepted into the academy. Under normal circumstances, her heart would have swelled at such happy news, but there was something wrong with her friends today. Not only were their uniforms soiled, but they stood in varying postures of unease and discomfort, as if they were both happy Emma had recovered, and sad that she had done so now of all times.
Milo was the only cadet not wearing a uniform. He, too, was covered in dirt and grime, his featureless gray pants and shirt made of cheap cotton. He was wearing Uncle Manny’s sunglasses. Again, Emma was struck by how much he resembled the man.
Lily stepped toward her, looking oddly grown-up and formal in her uniform, with her hair pulled back in a tight bun and her dangly, colorful earrings missing from her outfit.
“Sis,” she said, tears rising in her pretty green eyes. “I’m glad you’re back.” She looked desperately at the doctor. “Can I hug her?”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Sevarin said, standing at the foot of the bed and looking unusually concerned for her.
“Soon,” the doctor said. “Just give her some time.”
Emma smiled reassuringly at her friend. Her smile quickly fell away when she noticed the fear in Lily’s eyes.
It didn’t make sense. What could possibly be wrong? Her uncle had defeated Xelios, and that psycho sorcerer, Iolus, was trapped in the Nether for the rest of time. Shouldn’t they all be exhausted from celebrating?
“Why are you all… so dirty?” Emma said.
They all glanced at each other, silent. Then Pris spoke.
“There was an explosion at a temple not far from here. We were all helping with the wounded.”
Emma’s frown deepened. “We were attacked?”
Pris shook her head. “Terrorist attack. A religious extremist group. But we can talk about this later.”
The doctor gently nudged Sevarin away from the bed and took his spot at the foot. “She’s right,” he said. “Emma, nectar, do you feel any pain?”
“No,” Emma said with a confident shake of her head. “I feel fine.”
But her wings! The memory rushed back to her. They were gone, which explained why she felt so comfortable lying on her back; there were no stems to be bent or smothered by her weight. “But my—my wuh…”
It was too much to bear. She wanted to cry.
“Shh… It’ll be all right. Your wings saved your life, but in the end, I had to remove them. I’m sorry, Emma.”
“Why?” she said in a weak whisper.
“Your body and mind drew healing energy from them during your recovery. It’s why you’re still with us today. Otherwise, the coma would have killed you. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much left of your wings after the fact. What I removed in the end were but shadows of what they had once been.”
“They were beautiful,” one of the nurses said.
Her comment only served to depress Emma even more.
Pris approached the doctor, looking deathly serious. “Can we have some time alone with her, Doctor Senet? We all need to talk.”
The doctor made a scissoring motion with his arms. “No way. Absolutely not. She isn’t ready for it.”
“I’m not ready for what?” Emma said. “How long have I been asleep? And what’s going on with everyone? Why do you all look so… unhappy?”
Doctor Senet gave a sigh of defeat. “You weren’t technically asleep. You were in a coma.”
“For how long?”
“You could still fall back into one if you’re not careful.”
“How long, Doctor?” Emma pressed.
“Eight months… and a few weeks on top of that. A lot has changed since then.”
“Tell me.” Emma glared at her friends. “And stop worrying about me. I’m fine.”
“You need to eat,” the doctor said. “Food and rest first. Doctor’s orders.”
“She’s ready,” Pris said. “She has to be. I won’t let her step outside without knowing what to expect. The stress of that alone could be more dangerous.”
“You could be right,” Doctor Senet said. “But if she shows any signs of passing out…”
“I understand.” Pris assured him. “Trust me, I do.”
“I agree with Pris,” Milo said. “We should explain it first.”
An anxious fluttering filled Emma’s chest as Milo turned his blind gaze toward her. She could sense the urgency in him, his need to prepare her for something so horrible she couldn’t even begin to imagine it.
“I’m ready,” Emma said.
Pris gave an abrupt nod. She crossed the room, stopping at the shuttered window, then slid a finger against a side panel. The shades rotated and became parallel with the ground, allowing weak, gray sunlight to filter through. Emma sat up to get a better look. One of the nurses assisted her.
Outside, she saw a sprawling courtyard enclosed by the hospital’s various buildings. Patients milled about as one might have expected, afflicted by maladies that caused them to limp across the pathways or slump on the wooden benches, each wearing the casts, bandages, and slings typical of the wounded.
The patients were not out of the ordinary. It was the courtyard itself that looked wrong.
The neatly trimmed bushes and trees were varying shades of gray and brown. They sagged as if a cancer had eaten away at their branches and made holes in the leaves themselves. Certain patches were the color of granite; others were the color of animal dung. Silvery, blade-like objects stuck up in clusters around a central fountain. Looking more closely at them, Emma realized they were flowers drained of healthy colors, the stems as thin as weeds. The sky above the hospital wasn’t much better. The clouds were the pale gray of a dead, bloated fish.
“I think… I think I know something about this,” Emma said. “Tell me what happened. Everything. Don’t sugarcoat anything.”
“I’ll tell her,” Milo said.
He took Pris’s place at the window. His fingers grazed the bottom shutter as he spoke.
“About eight months ago, a few weeks after you slipped into your coma, some sort of rift opened above the ocean, between all the continents. It couldn’t have picked a better place. We still don’t understand what caused it, but we know it wasn’t any man or woman of Astros that opened it. We know it wasn’t a spell. You see, things came out of it. Terrible things unlike any we’ve ever seen, even in the history books. Creatures, afflictions, plagues. One of those things was some sort of infection.”
“What kind of infection?” Emma said.
“No one really understands how it works, but it did this to the plant life on Astros. It spread everywhere in a matter of months, sucking the life out of every tree, flower, blade of grass, you name it.
“And that’s not the worst of it. A bunch of…” he paused, searching for the right word, “…nightmare creatures came through. Monsters I can’t even describe. The worst were the Cebrons. One day, they were extinct. The next, hundreds of thousands of them were suddenly among us. They attacked everything in sight—ships, coastal villages, and then they worked their way inland and destroyed entire cities.
“Our armies weren’t prepared for it, but we learned quickly. We managed to kill off a respectable number of them, but the survivors—they found places to hide, ways to burrow into the mountains and beneath ruined cities. We think they’re breeding. Growing their numbers in secret.”
He sighed. “Then there was the plague—”
“Please!”
The interruption came from one of the nurses. Embarrassed at her sudden outcry, she backed away, cheeks flushing. “I’m sorry, it’s just that it’s too much. She shouldn’t have to hear all this at once.”
“It’s okay, Rachel,” Doctor Senet said. “She’s alert and fine. Look at her.”
“Keep going.” Emma threw aside her covers, vaguely aware of how skinny her legs had become. “I need to hear this. But first, I want to go outside. I—I need to be out of this room. Please.”
No one challenged her this time. The nurses brought over a wheelchair that had no wheels. It floated on a hoverpad that beamed bluish light onto the floor, some combination of magic and machine.
Sevarin and Pris helped Emma transition from bed to chair. The nurses placed thick blankets over her legs and slipped a jacket over her shoulders. Doctor Senet quickly showed her how to pilot the device using energy orbs embedded in the armrests. Emma wasted no time in floating herself out of the room, the others hurrying after her.
Doctor Senet led her through a side exit and onto a broad patio. It allowed for a panoramic view of the southernmost section of Theus. Because the hospital was on a hill, she could also see the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other. The wind smelled like rot and death, and she soon understood why.
The ocean was the color of slate. It was flat and still, the surface covered in pockmarks as if the water had solidified into a substance halfway between ice and sludge. Ships dotted the horizon, looking oddly long and spiky, unlike the merchant or passenger ships she had once admired.
“Battleships,” Sevarin said, as if he had read her mind. “They’re protecting us.”
He had come to stand beside her chair. Emma wanted to ask, Protecting us from what? but she knew the answers would come, probably faster than she could handle.
More depressing than the ocean was Theus itself. The city was a shadow of its former self. Skinny, miserable-looking people filled the streets, dressed in tattered clothing, begging for money, selling rides on wild-eyed levathons so thin you could count their ribs whenever they lifted their sheet-like wings. The streets were littered with trash. Children picked through it, probably in search of food. There were no Wingcabs in operation—none that Emma could see, anyway.
“What else came through the rift?” Emma said. “Why was the nurse so afraid?”
Emma turned to l
ook at the woman. A moment later, everyone was watching her, waiting for the answer.
“Rachel,” Doctor Senet said, reluctantly. “Show her, please,”
The nurse looked solemnly, almost apologetically, at Emma. She was a skinny brunette with collarbones that poked out of her shirt. Hugging herself, she shivered despite the thick jacket she had pulled on along the way.
“Rachel,” the doctor said again. “Please.”
Emma turned her hoverchair around for a better view. The nurse eyed everyone nervously, as if she had been ordered to undress herself. After a deep breath, she found the strength to lift the front of her shirt. A large bandage covered her belly.
Slowly, she peeled back the tape securing three sides. Then, as if opening a door into some dark and horrible place, she pulled the bandage aside to expose the black leeches slashed across her belly.
Emma closed her eyes and swallowed. Be strong, she told herself. You have to be. She opened her eyes to look once more at the woman’s belly—at the grisly, oily scabs she had mistaken for bloodsucking leeches.
“They’re Blightsores,” Milo said by way of explanation. “Scabbed over.”
Rachel broke in suddenly, flashing one of her hands in alarm. “Don’t worry, it isn’t contagious anymore.”
She looked to the doctor, who explained what had happened.
“Rachel caught it in Taradyn during an overseas mission to help those affected by the Riftplague, which is what we call the event that brought this… this hell upon us. She was lucky that she made it back in time to cure it.”
“Blightsores,” Emma said, searching her memories. “Like the ones you told us about, Milo. From Kovax’s experiments, and his towers…”
The reality of what Kovax had done struck her like a punch to the stomach. How could he? The low mage had protected her in the Nether. Yet this was his doing, his fault.
“I’m one of the lucky ones,” Rachel said as she went about replacing the bandage.
Milo continued his explanation. “The rift caused the Blightsore to spread across virtually all of Astros. This led to the collapse of most of the realm’s national economies. Forty percent of Astricans are sick or starving now, or both. Even more are without work. We’ve barely managed to hold on here in Theus, thanks to military manufacturing and selling weapons abroad. But food production is at an all-time low now that our farmland is useless.”
Savant & Feral (Digital Boxed Set): Books 1 and 2 of the Epic Luminether Fantasy Series Page 110