by Essa Hansen
The Casthen megastructure swept past below, light-studded, colors shifting through the pleochroic surfaces. Ahead, the structure shell around Çydanza’s universe blistered out from the facility. Half of it was still wrecked open from when Caiden had crashed the rind through before.
Finally, the temporary communications module found a connection to Threi.
“I’m inbound,” Caiden said, “and the Azura’s rind works. I can see Çydanza’s universe from here.”
Threi’s tight voice blared through the speakers. “She’s not there.”
“What?” Caiden twisted his wrist in the drive guides to stall the ship.
“We disabled the defenses and coerced the guards away, but Çydanza isn’t inside. She sensed something or we slipped up— she’s not in there. She could be anywhere and anyone.”
Caiden swore on the void and the worlds and every ounce of trust he’d put in Threi.
“Silye caught footage,” Threi said. “ Çydanza escaped twenty arcminutes ago, no vehicular activity since then, and she can only run so far. I locked down a perimeter of the facility: she’s inside it, disguised. Winn, come to the audience plateau, the big twilit plate by the northern pole. I’m going to try something.”
“Nine crimes, Threi, will you tell me the plan straight for once?”
“I’m making it up as I go.”
The comm cut out.
Caiden ground his molars together. He veered the ship north and curled his fingers into a fist, powering forward. The Azura cut the winds sideways and sang with speed. The perimeter of megastructure that Threi had locked down was visible from the sky: every light was on and blazing. Within the perimeter, the audience plateau glistened gold on the horizon, slicked by rays from the light side of the planet.
A broadcast piped in, sent to everyone and every speaker within the perimeter.
“Beloved people of Casthen …” Threi’s voice was different: silver-smooth and brilliant, thickened by need and sonorous with Graven intent. Caiden’s heart palpitated. The ship pitched as his focus drifted, and he yanked the guides up to keep steady.
“What,” Caiden murmured, slowing the ship.
Threi’s voice had never had this effect on him before.
The man continued, “Come to me, at the audience plateau. Come swift, my Casthen, I wish everyone to gather.”
Caiden fought chills, his will melting, knees weak with the desire to please. How could Threi suddenly be so much more Graven than before, even over broadcast where the effect dimmed?
The result of Threi’s wish was immediate: below, tiny forms streamed on foot and in vehicles from the facility and small universes, toward the plateau, forming rivers of movement.
Caiden’s pulse clogged in his throat. Like my people streaming to the Flat Docks.
The Azura stalled as Caiden jolted still. One command, over broadcast, and everyone mobilized? He would have thought it a trick if the yearning weren’t palpable in his heart too.
“Winn.” A whisper through Caiden’s comms only, Threi’s voice was still heady with Graven appeal. Sickening euphoria swelled in Caiden for a moment.
“What have you done?”
Caiden meant this impossible Graven effect, but Threi answered, “Vishkant are less susceptible to coercion than humans, but even if Çydanza is not compelled to come, she’ll want to blend in. Silye is safe outside the perimeter and has set the surveillance intelligence to flag anyone not obeying, or running the opposite way.”
Caiden jetted ahead of the masses of people converging on the plateau. Threi stood alone on the burnished plate, dressed in a dark flight suit with copper straps and belts. The twilight glittered off broken vials littering the ground.
Caiden fishtailed the Azura around and set her down, then reached up to activate the florescer. The Azura’s universe swelled out, encompassing the ship. The rind may as well have been a drawn blade: all they needed to do was throw Çydanza into it, and rogue physics would annihilate her physiology.
He opened the bay doors— now unfolding more like a liquid iris, less flower— and stepped out.
“Th-Threi.” He approached the man’s back. Bronze sunlight haloed Threi’s figure. Graven allure pulled Caiden in while an austerity kept him at bay. Something had definitely changed, and he was wary of what proximity would do.
Threi fidgeted with two vials of pearly liquid in his gloved fist, clacking them together. Snick, snick. Echoing across the plateau. He was counting. Abruptly, he thumbed the cap off one and drank it before throwing the vial to smash on the ground among the others. His cringe turned to shivering and a whole-spine flex of his body before he squared his shoulders and called out, “Stand before me, in rows, so I can see you all.” The arriving crowd vibrated at his every word, rapt and energized. Several hundred settled into an orderly grid across the plateau deck, all of them in either Casthen armor or lab uniforms.
Caiden gaped at the sight, and felt his knees bend to carry him to the rows, too, before he course-corrected.
Over his shoulder, Threi said, “She’s here somewhere. We need only draw her out.” He glanced farther over and scoffed. “I see you did what you pleased with my Glasliq. You’re lucky now’s not the time for punishment.”
Caiden stopped next to him and looked over. Proximity, scent, and sight slammed him with Graven force. Unbidden willpower brimmed in his body, aching to be of service, drawing him a step closer even as he realized the reaction. Fighting it curdled the warm sensations into nausea. Inexplicable shame infested him at the thought that he’d taken Threi’s Glasliq or done anything to displease.
All damned, what has he done?
The thick dust of bleached freckles sparkled now in Threi’s pallid skin. His features hadn’t changed, but were alluring in a new way, the flaws more perfect than before. His expression was meditative, pupils tiny points of void in his pale eyes, which filled up with light.
Caiden glanced down at the broken glass and the last vial still in the man’s grip. “You … enhanced your Graven resonance or body or … ? How?”
“I’ll get to test two things, this day.”
Internally, Caiden recoiled at how he hinged on Threi’s every word, wishing for a request, for a way to please. Enraptured by him; armorless and dressed in black, freckled and Graven, with that regal posture again, Threi looked more Dynast than Casthen.
Caiden quavered, “Test? Crimes’ sake, Threi, we’re here to kill Çydanza. What are you testing? What’s in those?”
He had pegged Threi as obsessed and delusional, consumed by scheming an impossibility. But this composed and calculated specimen of Graven arrogance was nowhere near delusional.
Threi turned to the adoring crowd, which stood tense with energy, awaiting his command. Face somber and hateful, he didn’t seem pleased by the loyalty of so many. He said to Caiden, “True love is built up through time and connection. We will never know what that’s like. We get the fake version. Welcome to a life of lies, Winn. This is what it means to be Graven.”
He strode forward before Caiden could respond, and Caiden was pulled along in the man’s gravitas. They walked through the lines of Casthen. Heads swiveled to track Threi as he passed, everyone’s movements eerily in sync. Their Casthen masks had been removed, but adoration masked each of them now, all the same.
Caiden scanned for abnormalities that might give the vishkant away: a dissident reaction, a glitching face, or a form not quite solidified. “Can’t you just command her to come to you? Why didn’t you try all this before?”
“I have tried this before. Even with my enhancement, Çydanza was almost completely immune to my Graven influence while inside her universe. The effect doesn’t quite pass through, and is dimmed by broadcast as well.”
The lines of Casthen they walked past grew monotonous, heads all swiveling, their awe identical.
Caiden asked, “Why didn’t you use this on me, in Emporia?”
“I didn’t lie about enjoying the challenge.”
“I can tell w
hen you’re avoiding an answer.”
Threi turned full attention to him, and Caiden unwittingly leaned in, heart skipping. Sick. Threi growled, “The enhancer is a work in progress.”
“What about Çydanza outside her universe?”
“I’m not sure how resistant she’ll be. If I call her to me now and she is resistant enough to not obey, she’ll stand still to make me think she’s not among this group. If I was touching her, I could control her completely, but touch means she uses her memory flood attack, and I— most likely— would kill myself in …” Threi trailed off, perfect features creasing as an idea dawned on him. “There is one guaranteed way to single her out from a distance.”
Appetite sharpened Threi’s silver voice raw.
He consumed the final vial and dropped it, shattering it.
Shivers scratched down Caiden’s spine, but as he opened his mouth to question, Threi straightened, wielding a wealth of natural charisma, shoulders broad and head haloed in twilight, eyes brightening, he called to the gathered:
“Casthen … if you love me … then die. Die as fast as you can.”
The crowd erupted in motion.
Soldiers unsheathed blades and fell on them. Others drew glaves and shot vitals. Arteries spewed. Bone sparkled in the air. The weaponless smashed their skulls on the ground. Some suffocated their brain of oxygen with their own hands.
Caiden’s entire body tensed with shock, and a horrific need tore through him, his hand started to draw the knife on his thigh.
Threi caught Caiden’s wrist. “Not you.”
Within ten seconds, the thunder of screams and glave fire stilled to nothing, and the crowd of hundreds lay dead and twitching on the ground.
Except one.
An armored soldier stood, spear glave sticking through their neck. Blood trickled from the stab wound and fizzed on the deck. Armor plates melted. Body lightened to an effervescent vapor.
A stab wouldn’t kill a vishkant.
Caiden fixated on the lone figure, his peripheral vision filled with quiet massacre. Blood perfumed the air. Heat wafted off the steaming bodies. He gagged. His weak knees gave out and he crumpled to the ground. Threi still held his wrist up.
He would have done it. Would have used the knife, lovingly.
The vishkant’s particles re-congealed into her blond female body. She staggered in place, bewildered and convulsing.
“Grab her— now!” Threi’s bellow was like a Graven whip. Caiden staggered up and exploded into a run. “I’ll get the ship!” Threi rushed in the other direction to the Azura.
Çydanza whirled around, gained her bearings, and launched into a sprint away. Her body reshaped: lean and athletic and picking up speed.
Caiden reeled in horror as he leapt over corpses, falling twice and vomiting even as he forced himself up and onward. Footfalls splattered puddles of blood and flesh. Adrenaline lashed him but he wasn’t gaining on Çydanza. She vaulted over the edge of the plateau into fallow white fields. Just beyond, universes of all sizes bubbled the area in a great foam a kilometer high, teeming with variety.
Çydanza dashed inside the first universe, disappearing beyond the rind. Caiden bolted after her. Foliage smacked him on the other side. Layers of it stacked in towers. He lost sight of her, but veered to the path of swinging vines and chased after.
Into the next biome. He crashed through a half meter of water bright with red schools of fish. Çydanza was so light she sprinted on the surface, hardly making a ripple.
“Crimes,” Caiden growled, “I’ll lose her at this rate.”
The Azura streaked by overhead, silver and blurry past the foam of universes. Threi wouldn’t be able to track Çydanza on the ground.
Caiden leapt from the water, through a rind, into a desert. Memories sputtered up but he raced confidently after her across the sand, the footing familiar. Tree-height cacti bristled in rows.
He was gaining on her.
The next universe corralled a herd of lanky grazers in purple pasture; Çydanza ran into the fencing, dissolving through its mesh and congealing on the other side. Caiden climbed over with one arm and aching legs.
The animals spooked and knotted up, tripping Çydanza among them, while Caiden dodged through the herd with practiced skill. He lunged and snatched at the vishkant’s arm. His fingers tingled through a mush of particles. She spun and changed direction, darting through a gate and out of the universe. Caiden raced on her heels.
He powered on but his legs felt brittle, each step cramping up his thighs. This rind slathered him in hot, queasy waves. Stars burst behind his eyes, and as he blinked, he realized some of them were real. They were out of the cluster of universes and beneath a starry twilight. The Azura torched overhead and spun around to face Çydanza. The ship rippled like a liquid sun.
There was nowhere ahead for Çydanza to hide or escape. She ran into a field of white lilies. Lightflies whirred up in disturbed clouds.
Caiden poured his hate and pain into speed.
He tackled her. Flower stems tangled in their limbs as they grappled, Çydanza screaming, her body slippery as her physique transformed.
“Give me your worst,” Caiden snarled, pinning her with his weight and one arm around her neck. “It won’t be enough.”
His nose burned with the scent of crushed green. Çydanza was cold as ice beneath him. Twisting around, she sobbed, “Winn!” Panca’s face streamed tears that boiled on the ground. “You’re hurting me, please …”
“No,” Caiden breathed. “Panca was crushed into a hellish box because of you. Like the others. Blinded. Ripped up. Wrung back in time. Tortured. Tortured.”
He hauled her upright. She wriggled free of his weak, sweaty grip, but he hooked her arm and folded her up against him. “It’s a game to you, isn’t it?”
Visions flooded Caiden’s mind, pieced together from ragged memories: first the nophek and everything she’d tried the first time, those memories bland and brittle from overuse. There was nowhere teeth hadn’t bitten Caiden before.
Çydanza shrieked and writhed. “Sweetie,” his mother groaned, mouth gargling blood as her face was ripped apart by invisible jaws.
“Cai,” Leta pleaded up at him, her eyes sparkling with tears. “Don’t let us die.”
Caiden’s heart skipped furiously. His muscles itched to smash, to rend, to save, to embrace, and every confusion stuck him in place for one moment. Pain exploded through him as years of injuries— physical and emotional— stacked upon one another. Blood slathered upon blood.
Çydanza slithered free. Caiden reeled after her. Flies kicked up, winking. Petals scattered in low gravity.
He tackled her to the ground again. Limbs rubbery, his body weight was his only advantage. She snarled, twisting between forms and faces. Her mental attack shifted, heaving up all the raw doubts and fears that had shattered him during the last murder attempt.
“Winn,” En cried, exposed heart pounding in rapid rhythm with Caiden’s. He whipped into a blur, replaced with faster and more erratic visions as Çydanza plied Caiden’s feelings. Shadowy horrors flashed over his retinas. Pheromones clobbered him, demanding he believe.
Reality twisted. Caiden was armor-clad, a murderous Casthen drone. Among the flowers lay his family’s corpses. Red blood, blue, and the whipkin flayed. The big nophek he’d tamed sprawled skull-smashed and oozing.
“Not me,” he choked. “I didn’t cause this misery.”
But you belong. A little voice in his soul whispered.
The jagged parts of him that didn’t fit in Laythan’s crew weren’t anything he could file down. They had been bred into him: violent fangs, sharp mind, a firebrand. The hate. The proclivity for hate.
A single sweet memory budded through savagery. Leta-vishkant proclaiming, You are spirited and kindhearted and self-sacrificing, and that is so much more powerful.
Visions blurred by tears, Caiden hung on with everything he had. “You’ve lived long enough at the cost of millions of lives. You’re
done.”
The Azura crash-landed at the edge of the field like a splashing wave. The universe rind was vibrant and ready. The bay iris opened and Threi hurtled out.
Çydanza thrashed and shrieked. Caiden’s nerves sawed him, muscles spasmed, but he crawled, clinging to her with his one arm while pushing them through the field with his legs, swimming through lily petals and lightflies.
The memories stopped. Flickers of emotion gnashed at him as the stimulus in his brain continued, but the visions ebbed. Çydanza’s ability was exhausted. Defanged, she couldn’t affect anyone else.
“Threi!” Caiden screamed.
The man rushed over in a blizzard of lilies.
Caiden’s strength whisked away. As his grip slipped, Çydanza crawled from his arms. Threi skidded to a stop. Caiden gasped, “She’s safe! She’s done! Grab her! To the rind—”
They couldn’t let her get away or recover her strength to attack again. Caiden couldn’t withstand a second round. They were only eleven paces from the Azura’s rind.
Threi grabbed hold of Çydanza. “My turn. My turn with you.” He twitched, burying his thumbs into her skull so she couldn’t run. Her screech grated Caiden’s ears like a sandstorm.
Threi grappled her onto her back and straddled her waist, pinning her shoulders with both hands as she bulged between densities and appearances, rifling through his memories but exhausted of the force she’d used on Caiden. Threi’s eyes suddenly widened, struck with a vision. His chest heaved and neck corded with tension.
Caiden stared as Çydanza congealed. Long brunette hair gathered to one side. Her pretty eyes dominated an otherwise ordinary face. Freckles thick as stardust in tawny skin.
The Dynast Prime. Abriss.
CHAPTER 44
MURDERER
Caiden watched in horror as Threi’s long fingers curled around Çydanza-Abriss’s neck. She bucked and clawed. Caiden shouted, “Get Çydanza to the rind! Destroy her!”
Eleven paces away. The Azura’s rind shimmered.
Between delirious breaths, Threi snarled, “I’ve waited. So. Long.”
“Threi!” she screamed, Abriss’s voice a beautiful, glorious bell. “It wasn—”