As Zaja stumbled wearily into the hall, she saw Chari through a crack in her bedroom door, sitting on her bed, cleaning her rifle. She gave no sign of notice and Zaja elected to leave her be. As she walked down the hall, her muscles waking up from their stiffness, she looked past Flynn and Shea—asleep on opposite ends of the couch—to Poe, who sat on the floor near the window, his head bowed and his eyes shut.
For a moment, it seemed she was the only other person awake in the house. When she went near the window to peek out the curtains and get a better look outside, Poe’s head jerked up. Zaja gave a small gasp of surprise; she hadn’t realized he was awake.
“Got bored?” she asked after she caught her breath.
“It’s been a quiet night,” he replied in a soft tone. “You should be resting.”
“You too,” she said with a yawn. “Big day.”
He shook his head. “I haven’t the need.”
“Too anxious?” she asked as she sat beside him. But the look on Poe’s face was not that of a man running on little sleep or suffering for a lack of it. He seemed as alert and awake as the night before. At seeing this, she gave a sheepish, “I guess not, huh?” and curled up where she sat.
Poe took a deep breath; even this action came off forced and unnecessary. “I’ve felt a sense of stasis ever since I emerged. I needn’t feed. Breathe. Nor drink, nor rest.” Poe brought his hand to his face, pressed his fingers against his skin. “I touch my flesh and it is still supple and pliant. If cut, I bleed, though the wound mends eagerly.”
She pondered this for a time. “Yetinau drank,” she pointed out.
“Extensively,” he agreed. She wasn’t sure if he was comforted or not. “I suspect I might still engage in mortal activity, at my choosing. But as a being whom humanity’s survival is tethered to, it seems my survival in turn is assured.”
In spite of the conversation, Zaja found herself leaning tiredly in Poe’s direction. Deification had done nothing to diminish his body heat, and she pressed close, soaking it in.
“You were already gonna outlive me,” she told him sleepily.
“By many decades,” he agreed as he rubbed her head. “Now centuries, at least.” She was content to lie there and soak in the silence, when Poe added a somber, “I’m sorry.”
Zaja rolled back enough to look him in the eyes and say, “Don’t be. I was teasing. I always knew this was how things would go.”
“Even so … more than any of us, you at least should be spared this den of horrors we prepare to face.” She didn’t voice a response, but found a soft spot in Poe’s pant leg and drove a fingernail into it. He shifted from the pain, but said nothing.
Don’t sideline me, she thought with contempt.
Poe opted to change the subject. “What has you awake so early?”
“Bad dream,” she replied.
In it, she’d woken up without the sounds of the crowd outside, on their way to the cathedral. It was later in the morning, but there was a gloom out there that made it less sunny than it should be.
Jean was already gone, her side of the bed grown cold. Still waking up, Zaja made her way into the hall, where Chari’s door creaked open, its bed equally unoccupied. The kitchen and living room were no different, but the attic door was wide open. Before approaching the stairs, she noticed the curtains had been left open as well.
It had snowed in the night, and the streets were a brilliant white.
When Zaja climbed the stairs, she came to an empty room with portraits of Einré Maraius painted all across the walls. There was nothing else but a note on the floor, an apology for leaving without her.
At that point, Zaja had wanted to cry. Now, in the waking world, she laughed, and Poe asked her why.
“They left me a note,” she explained without any other context. “It’s funny ’cause no one here can write in Omati.”
Poe gave a small chuckle, though Zaja was unsure he found anything funny. The chuckle gave way to a small sigh.
“Even should I see another millennium, these next years to come will be the most important in my life,” he said.
“Talking like you’ve already won,” she said with a yawn.
Zaja expected Poe to make some bravado statement of his skill as a warrior, his role as an assassin, or just the fact that his opponent was still an old man who was tied down. What he said instead surprised her.
“I cannot afford to think as though I will not.” He gave another pause, then continued, “In the years to come, I must restore an upended circle of gods, dismantle Renivar’s worshippers, and return them to their worlds of origin … and I must make good with my comrades as well. They saw me this far, and their lives have become fleeting compared to mine.”
“It’s a lot to do,” she said. “Will you have the time?”
“I needn’t sleep, remember?” he replied with a smile. “All I have is time.”
She envied Poe, however much she didn’t want to. It wasn’t for the many decades he would see that she could not, but for his ability to use the time he had to the utmost. As weakness set into Zaja’s body, she would be able to do less and less, her contributions falling to nothing as others took care of her. She felt the early stages of that debilitation already coursing through her.
While Zaja would have preferred to show nothing of her vulnerabilities, a small whimper must have escaped, for Poe brushed her hair consolingly. His words came faintly to her as she sank back into much needed rest, “What we have to share seems such a small span of years. But come what may, Zaja DeSarah, I shall be with you at your end.”
* * *
Jean was unsure what time it was she’d awoken. It had been some hour or two earlier, and she’d spent the intervening time in bed staring at the contorted pattern of the ceiling
grain. At first, she thought it was just déjà vu that had her so preoccupied, but at some point, she realized it was the familiarity of the place.
“Normally runnin’…” she murmured to herself. “Never ended back at the same place twice.”
Still, things were different this time. Mack wasn’t by her side, and wouldn’t be found in the kitchen cooking up a tasty meal.
They had a mission. It was time to get up.
“Countin’ a head short,” she noted when they convened in the living area.
“Zella has taken her leave,” Poe replied, looking to Flynn. “Hasn’t she?”
Flynn nodded. “She and I spoke last night before she departed. Zella has chosen to recuse herself from what’s to come.”
“Uncommitted to the end.” Chari shook her head in disappointment.
“Danger that way, isn’t there?” Shea asked, as she fastened her scabbard to her belt. She had abandoned her old cutlass, taking the Searing Truth in its place. “Renivar’s lackeys on her tail?”
“Zella eluded them for years before she met me, and the head will be cut off the snake within days,” Flynn replied. “We’ll be drawing their attention in the meantime. She’ll be okay without us.”
Something about Zella’s departure nagged at Jean, who thought it odd that if Flynn had spoken to her, he wouldn’t have convinced her to stay. The topic did not quite die there, but Poe’s confirmation that she’d left the house in safety did not suggest foul play, and she let the worry leave her mind.
“So, we gonna get movin’?” she asked. “Day’s not gettin’ any younger.”
“Does anyone even know what time it is on Terrias?” Zaja followed.
“If we’re fortunate,” Poe said, reaching for the pouch with the key, “we shall have the cover of night to shield us.”
Without further ado, he approached the attic door and plugged the key into the keyhole. Curiously, Poe’s hand remained in place.
“Cold feet?” Jean teased.
“It’s stuck,” Poe replied.
“Oh!” Char
i leaned in and pointed at the lock. “You have to jiggle it a little.”
“Ah.” The door unlatched, creaking open. They climbed the stairs in single file. Jean, at the rear of the group, caught Chari by the shoulder before she followed.
“How was it, comin’ back? Miss yer old home at all?”
“Nope,” Chari replied, and followed their companions without another word.
“Okay, then,” Jean said, pulling the attic door shut behind them.
The stairway climbed a single story in a spiral, and let out into a cluttered room full of dusty crates and cobwebbed idols. The rift connecting to Terrias had already opened, and Jean reached the attic room just in time to see a crate that had occupied its space fall through, disappearing without a sound.
“Not important, hope,” Shea said.
Through a small window, Jean could see the locals going about their business, oblivious to what was about to transpire here, and on worlds beyond.
Flynn turned to face the group.
“The Reahv’li have no idea this pathway is open, or that this is where we’re approaching from.” He turned to Poe. “What we don’t know is whether Renivar will know when you arrive.”
“Should I sense him upon our arrival, I will inform you all right away,” Poe promised.
“A little luck, and we might make it through Yeribelt and to the front doors of Borudust Castle undetected,” Zaja said hopefully. “No one else has to get hurt. There are good people there.”
“Fuckers want us all dead, Zaj,” Jean replied.
“Everyone … has their flaws,” she countered sheepishly.
“We may not have that luxury,” Chari told Zaja. “Despite your hopes. Our prerogative should be an urgent advance before Renivar’s forces have a chance to regroup.”
“Last time we confronted Taryl Renivar, we were ambushed, separated and unprepared,” Flynn concluded. “This time, we’re bringing the fight to him. However this ends, nothing will be the same.”
With that, Flynn stepped aside, and Poe moved to the fore, the first to take the decisive steps. Zaja and Chari followed, then Shea, who gave him a fleeting glance before heading on through.
Jean lingered with Flynn for one final moment. They had come far together, and had but a little distance left to cover. She didn’t know how much longer they would have each other’s company, but she wanted this last, certain endeavor to be the one that wrote their names in the stars.
She cracked her knuckles and smirked as she told him, “Let’s fuck some shit up.”
And they stepped through to Terrias, together.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Hated and Feared
Terrias was a barren world, barely fit for human life, yet forced to support far more than it could handle as the masses gathered around the bastion of the Living God, praying for his unfettering and the glorious new paradise he promised. And so, Terrias bowed under their weight, not buckling but barely livable.
This was not the side of Terrias that greeted Flynn when at last he emerged through the rift. There was no mistaking the place—a trinity of moons cluttered the dusky green sky, the smallest of which was eclipsing the radiant blue sun.
“The fuck happened here?” Jean asked, awestruck.
“This is where they fought,” Flynn replied.
The valley beyond had been upturned, dragged across itself, and entirely rearranged. Fissures split through the ground, blue light bursting from their unknowable depths and making the whole valley glow.
“It must have been an incredible battle,” Poe observed.
“No kiddin’.” Jean sounded shaken, and she looked at her hands, wondering for the first time if her power could ever compare.
“This is the damage inflicted when just three quarrel?” Chari demanded. A crash of lightning came down in the distance; bands of electricity danced tirelessly in the sky.
“It was necessary,” Poe replied.
“It’s indefensible,” she countered. “Whole worlds may one day suffer for their whims! Why should we be subject to their volatility?” Remembering with whom she was now speaking, Chari corrected herself. “Why should we be subject to yours?”
Flynn intervened before things could escalate. “It doesn’t matter. We’re here to do a job.”
“That all this is?” Shea asked with some amusement.
He declined to respond. With their final mission at hand, emotion needed to be kept out of it. Worrying for his friends’ well-being could be dangerous enough, but fearing for Shea’s…
Flynn started walking, descending the path into the ravaged valley below. “We move,” he ordered without looking back. “Even if we have the element of surprise now, there’s no guarantee we’ll keep it.”
As they set out, Poe spoke. “I’ve felt a trace of something, since our arrival. It’s familiar—nameless, yet known.”
Flynn bowed his head in reply. “Taryl Renivar. I sense him too.” It was the same sensation he’d felt in the Living God’s presence before—not an apparition culled from memory, but the real thing. Distant, yet closer than the lies he’d communed with.
For Poe, the experience was likely not the same. That familiarity he described would grow as time went on, as he acclimated to what he had become; the only difference would be who bore the mantle Renivar would soon be relieved of.
As they traversed the uneven terrain, Flynn noted craters, of a size and shape that suggested a body had been smashed on them. Such abuse would have killed mortal combatants a hundred times over, and between Airia and Taryl, she’d have bested him beyond doubt. But from what Flynn could infer, Renivar endured, and that won him the day. Somewhere along the way, Airia and Kayra realized they would break before he did, and used the last of what they had to shackle him.
“Wonder how deep,” Shea mused as she peered into a fissure.
“To the center of the world?” Zaja asked. She stopped for a moment and spat into the rift, then waited to hear it land. “Nothing,” she shrugged.
It was a genial moment, but left Flynn with a sense of melancholy. The journey was ending. The group would fracture and go their separate ways. Perhaps it would be better if he went his own when all was done; no true goodbyes, just vanish as Zella had. It would at least dull the pain of impending separation, and allow for a clean, fresh start.
“Okay there, mate?” Shea asked some time later. Flynn hadn’t spoken since they’d begun negotiating the valley.
“Not right now.”
“What—?”
“Someone’s coming,” he interrupted.
Midway across an earthen bridge that arced the ominous blue void, Flynn heard the footsteps before the first heads came into sight. Falling back would allow them more space, but there was no doubt the enemy’s numbers were superior, and the narrow breadth of the bridge might better serve them.
“We meet again,” Crescen proclaimed. Nearly three dozen Reahv’li soldiers followed behind him as he surveyed the group with calm reflection. “Except you,” he said to Shea. “We’ve not had the pleasure. Crescen DuMear.”
“Charmed,” she replied dryly.
“I am dismayed to see you’re a head short,” he observed.
“We lost Zella back on Keltia.” Flynn adjusted his spectacles slightly. “We ran afoul of a conflict after fleeing Chot Vot. Stray bullet to the head. Died instantly.”
Crescen seemed crestfallen to hear it. He looked at Chari, but knew there were limits even to what she could do. “If true, that is unfortunate. The girl was meant for greater things. In our care, she would have realized a wondrous destiny. She was once so close to it.”
“You were askin’ her to die, asshole,” Jean snapped.
“To end the suffering of so many more. It’s a tired debate and I would not retread it, but to ask one question to avoid such unwelcome bloodshed on a much more local platform.”
/>
“My allegiances have not changed,” Poe returned. “Your god shall bleed like a stuck pig on this day.” He paused, then corrected. “Perhaps in a few days. I’m uncertain how far we are from Yeribelt.”
“You could be on the threshold and it would not matter,” Crescen said. “But Rousow’s Legacy is a fitting place for your lives to end.”
“Rousow’s Legacy?”
“Ah, yes.” He chuckled at the name. “I don’t know who christened it so, but this land would be pristine had Airia Rousow not instigated battle with our Lord.” Crescen cast his eyes toward the radiant abyss. “Hatred accompanies destruction.”
Shea spoke up. “’Nough posturing. You to let us through?”
Crescen shook his head. He didn’t seem confident. Even though his forces outnumbered theirs nearly six to one, both parties already knew it wouldn’t be enough. Guardian Poe stood against them, and he was not a force to be trifled with. Crescen needed a moment to find his courage.
“I can’t.” He pointed forward and ordered, “End them.”
As the Reahv’li fell upon the six, they overtook them like a rolling tide. Several passed Flynn entirely, the errant Guardian their true objective, but they did not neglect his companions. As Flynn’s claws emerged, he noted that the soldiers as a collective had not improved—they were still children playing at war. However visceral their strikes, their hearts weren’t in it, for they valued themselves as good people, and such people didn’t kill. Several died before Flynn found himself staring down Crescen himself.
“Give up and you’ll live,” Flynn warned.
His opponent’s expression spoke measures, and the attack that followed was more earnest than any of his subordinates had managed. Flynn dodged and brought his claws to bear, striking at Crescen’s throat. Instead, Flynn was caught by the wrist, his arm wrenched with inhuman force, until he could only cry out in pain as he was forced to kneel.
“You’ve helped restore balance for a time,” Crescen said as he looked down on Flynn. “That is a significant deed, and you shall be remembered for your role in the new world. History may speak more kindly of you than you truly deserve.”
Killers, Traitors, & Runaways Page 40