The Last Winter (The Circle War Book 2)

by Matt King

  She smiled. “You must be looking forward to going home.”

  “You have no idea.” For the second time in the conversation, he wished he’d thought his answer through. “I mean, I know you know what it’s like—”

  “It’s alright. I understand your meaning. You are lucky to have the opportunity.”

  “Yeah, well, it’ll be good to see the place again.”

  “Is there much water on your world?”

  “Water? Oh yeah. Tons. Rivers, lakes, oceans…”

  “It sounds beautiful,” she replied. “We had only one ocean on Vontanu, though it was very large. My father used to take me there as a child.”

  “The scene you were watching,” he said, pointing to the now-white walls.

  “Yes.”

  “You looked happy.”

  “I was. My father’s duties kept him away most of the time. When he could, he would take my mother and me to see the ocean. It was a rare sight to see my father smile, but when he was with us, by the water, I think he could forget the pressures of his position, at least for a little while. Those were my favorite days. To see him unburdened and happy.”

  “And who takes you to the ocean?”

  She shook her head. “There is no use dwelling on something that cannot come true.”

  “Maybe when we get to Earth we can take a detour. I know a lot of places on the coast where you couldn’t feel responsibility if it smacked you in the face.”

  “Our responsibility will not be so easily shed,” she replied. Her tone snapped back to a business-like distance, like she’d woken up from a dream. She stood. “It is time I gathered the others.”

  “We could give them a little while more. They just finished fighting one war. No need to rush off until the old man makes us.”

  “There are only a few.”

  “A few?” He looked to the door. “We need more than a few. How many are you talking about?”

  “My plan was to take five.”

  “Thousand?”

  “Five, only. To take more would risk revealing ourselves to the other side, not to mention the attention it would attract from a planet that has never seen an outsider. Once we know where Amara’s armies are hiding, we will gather the rest of Paralos’s army and call forth Velawrath.”

  Five. It sounded like a bad joke. “I hope this Velawrath is everything you’re making him out to be.”

  “Velawrath will do his job.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  She dimmed the lights in the room, leaving only the floor’s circuitry and her skin to light their way. “Only that when Amara’s champions face him, they will not likely live through the fight.” She stopped at the door. “Are you coming?”

  He followed her through the halls until they reached the exit ramp, where they found Dondannarin waiting for them along with four other Vontani, each of them wearing a compact metal backpack between their shoulders. Their faces were stoic. He thought they looked happier before they fought the Garoult. Standing behind them was Colliere.

  Aeris gave them a small nod before walking past to speak with the brooding matriarch. She led her away as they talked.

  “So you got tricked into coming, too, huh?” he asked Dondannarin.

  “I volunteered.”

  “Thought you’d be eager to stay.”

  “My place is by her side,” she said, turning to watch Aeris and Colliere.

  He nodded toward them. “What’s that all about?”

  “Aeris is giving her final orders before releasing her title to Colliere.”

  “Releasing it? What do you mean she’s releasing it?”

  “The Vontani need a Revenent. Colliere is strong. She will keep them safe.”

  The conversation ended with a long embrace between the two women he’d thought of as rivals. Yet another thing I don’t understand about these people.

  When she came back to the group, Aeris caught the eyes of each of them. “I trust you have all said your goodbyes. When we leave here there is no turning back. Do any of you wish to reconsider your choice?”

  August was the only one to move as he looked around at the stone faces of the women.

  “Then we leave to meet the old god,” she said. “Together.”

  “Together,” the group repeated.

  All for one and one for all. August fell in line behind them as they set off toward the forest.

  The group was silent from the moment they left the Vontani camp. They trudged into the dense brush following a path Aeris cleared with chakrams to get them through. At last, she stopped their march when they reached a clearing in the forest. Fingers of light cut through the trees as the sun started to rise over the island. One of the suns, anyway. Now that they were on Garoult, both of the stars orbited by the Sisters were visible in the sky. Vontanu’s star was a dull shade of blue. When its light mixed with the intense yellow of Garoult’s parent star, it created a sea of green overhead.

  Looking around at the Vontani’s packs, August realized he’d left camp without grabbing his own bag. No problem. I can replace it with actual clothes in a few minutes. As soon as he finished the thought, a rush of adrenaline fanned out from his stomach. He was going home. With everything going on, he’d forgotten that he was so close to getting back.

  “You are smiling,” Dondannarin said.

  “I was just thinking about how nice it’ll be to see home again.”

  She tried, but couldn’t match his smile, and he immediately wished he could take back the words. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I keep doing that.”

  “Do not apologize,” she replied. “I certainly understand how you feel.”

  “I feel like an asshole.”

  “A what?”

  “Nothing.”

  He left her to walk over to Aeris, who stood by herself in the center of the clearing, looking up at a gap between the trees. She held a hand to a spot near the top of her breastplate. A small light glowed beneath her fingers. Her eyes were closed.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  The light faded beneath her touch. She dropped her hand away and turned to him. Her purple eyes gleamed in the sunlight. “I was calling to Paralos.”

  “Huh,” August replied. He tapped the same spot on his chest. “I guess Meryn didn’t give us cosmic cell phones.”

  “You were not marked?”

  “Guess not.”

  “I imagine it must be freeing not to feel yourself at the end of a leash.”

  A swirling wind rustled the leaves on the trees. Above the clearing, a pinpoint of light formed, twisting and growing as it morphed into Paralos’s form. He opened his eyes as he hovered above them, beaming with white light. August looked over at the faces of the Vontani behind Dondannarin. They stepped back closer to the trees, their mouths agape. The bastard was probably eating it up.

  “Aeris, you have emerged victorious,” he said. His voice vibrated the air. “I trust August was of some aid in this matter.”

  “He was,” she said. Her voice quivered. “You failed to tell me that our bodies could come back from the dead.”

  Paralos looked at August with a frown. “In some cases, yes.”

  “What else are you hiding from me?”

  “You were not told for your own good,” he replied. “As should be evident by Mr. Dillon’s past, a false sense of immortality can lead to mistakes, mistakes that may end up taking the life you believed would go on forever.”

  “I wasn’t speaking of myself and you know it. Could you have saved him?” she asked. The muscles in her cheeks tensed.

  Flecks of red light ricocheted through Paralos’s body. He glared at her, silent and unresponsive.

  She barreled forward, relentless. “You came to me on the night he died. I held him in my arms while you stood there, and you did nothing.”

  “His light was already extinguished.”

  “A light you control,” she said.

  “I do control it, yes, and it is not something I wi
eld lightly.” He laughed to himself as he scanned the Vontani before returning his stare to Aeris. “You wanted me to save him?”

  “You know I did.”

  “Why? So that you could prolong his eventual death? Perhaps I should have given him the power I bestowed upon you. What would have happened then? You believe he would have succeeded in saving the Vontani as you did?”

  “He was a great leader. He deserved it more than I did.”

  “You did not know him as you think you do.”

  “Don’t you dare speak ill of him now.”

  “Enough!” Paralos boomed. His voice shook the leaves on the trees. “I will not have my actions questioned by the likes of you. I see beyond the flimsy skin that coats your bones. I know what lurks in your minds and I tell you that your father would have led your race to ruin. His pride and his hatred of your enemies would not have allowed him to live in peace with the Garoult.”

  Aeris fumed. “You don’t know that.”

  “All you know couldn’t pass for a blink in time. I am immortal.”

  “In a false sense,” she answered.

  The clearing felt like it was about to snap.

  “So,” August said, clapping his hands together. “Who’s ready to go to another planet?”

  Paralos glanced at him with a scowl. “You will be there shortly enough.”

  “What about Bear and the Horsemen?”

  “They are with Meryn now.”

  “Meryn?” It took him three more attempts before he could form the words to speak again. “What do you mean they’re with Meryn? She’s alive?”

  “Currently,” Paralos answered. “I managed to convince the Circle to spare her. As for Mr. Lawson and the brothers, she’s taken them on a fool’s mission, as fools will do. That creature has no more patience than a child.”

  “But she’s alive?”

  “Yes, she is alive.”

  There was a feeling in his chest like a giant weight had been lifted, one that he’d been too used to carrying. At long last, it seemed like things were getting back to normal again. He was headed home, Meryn was alive, and the Lord of Assholes wasn’t in charge of him anymore. He half wondered if it would be Christmas when he stepped through the synapse.

  The portal formed in front of them. It began as a swirling mist and then grew into the familiar arched opening he’d seen so many times before. He waited with his stomach in his chest as the image of Earth started to appear on the rippling surface. Aeris stared at the synapse in silence. As excited as he was, he tried to think of what it must be like to walk away from her people after only a few hours of gaining their new home.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said. “They’re going to love you on Earth.”

  She took a deep breath without returning his stare.

  Finally, the portal was complete. He found himself hesitating for some reason.

  “What is the matter?” Paralos asked.

  “Nothing,” August replied. “I’m fine.”

  Aeris walked through. Her body melted into the surface, coming through the other side looking like a warped version of herself. She stopped a few feet past the synapse.

  Dondannarin and her crew followed behind, each of them pausing before they stepped through as though they were about to take a step off a cliff.

  “Go,” Paralos said once August was alone. “You can’t very well save them from here.”

  August glanced at him. He raised his hand to trigger his mask, but stopped halfway there. This was Earth he was going to, not some alien world. This was a place where he wouldn’t need a mask.

  He stepped through, holding his breath until the motion sickness subsided. The first thing he noticed was the snow beneath his feet and the stinging cold wind on his bare skin. When he looked up, Aeris, Dondannarin, and the Vontani were looking back at him. They parted company to let him walk ahead. He tried to make sense of their pitying faces, and then he caught his first glimpse of home.

  No. I’m too late.

  The picture was a scene from his nightmares. What he saw was only fragments of his memories of Washington, buried in rubble and washed in charred blacks and grays. They were standing in the National Mall—or what was left of it. The water of the Reflecting Pool was gone, leaving behind a cracked and broken surface. Trees had been uprooted and strewn across the park. Those left standing were only husks, blackened by fire and coated with a skin of ash and snow.

  The Capital Building was a hollow shell. The Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial…everything he knew had been flattened and scattered. He bent to his knees before he fell down.

  “August?”

  All this time, he’d thought the loss of Fairview was the worst of it, and it hadn’t been more than a drop of blood in the pool left by the blast. Part of him tried to reason that the U.S. had fought back, that they’d resorted to nukes to fight off Amara’s armies, but everything he saw told a different story. He’d seen the same aftermath when Gemini’s blast tore through Fairview.

  Gemini, the only person he’d ever hunted that got away.

  “August, are you all right?”

  He looked up at Aeris as she stepped to his side. He hadn’t prepared for this. He didn’t know how to deal with a million deaths on his ledger. It only felt right that he should give his life on the spot.

  “This is my fault,” he said. “All of this is because of me.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Michael watched the first group of survivors crossing through the gates as the sun rose over the eastern wall of mountains. Survivors. That was Amara’s name for them—Survivors of the Gemini attack. Not only had Dillon gotten credit for his display of power, but he’d gotten the name, too, and now everyone knew the legend, could spot his blue metal face mask from a mile away. He was the boogeyman parents told their kids about at night.

  He’s taken my job along with everything else.

  From the windows in the newly-built courthouse, he could just make out a family stepping into their new home at the base of the Arm. A hundred more lined the streets behind them, herded by one of the Ministers and Amara’s royal guard, which were nothing more than Pyrians covered in armor so that nobody would be scared of their appearance.

  I can show them something they can really be scared about.

  “Tun,” Talus said.

  Michael sighed. He left the window, walking back to his seat at the top row of the amphitheater. The seats overlooked the polished marble floor in the center of the circular hall. “It’s a sun,” he said. “Make the S sound.” He hissed a pronounced S and dragged it out while he pointed to the letter on his flash card. “S-un.”

  “Sun.” Talus snorted, looking full of pride when Michael didn’t correct him. He pointed to the Moon hanging low in the morning sky over the opposite side of the range. “Sun!” he said with confidence.

  “No. That’s the Moon.”

  The beast looked back and forth between the two before returning his eyes to Michael with a confused look on his face.

  “Never mind. Try this one.” He dug out the card with a picture of Talus threatening someone and used his finger to point to each word in the sentence as he read it. “Where…is…he?”

  Talus hesitated. “Where…izzy?”

  “Come on, you’re not even trying. Where is he? It’s three words.”

  The hulking champion tried again, but quit before he said the first syllable. With an irritated growl, he grabbed the card and crumpled it in his fist.

  “Look, I don’t like it any more than you do, but what else are we supposed to do? We’re stuck down here until they finish working on the tower.”

  Talus took the cards and fanned them out on the bench, seeming determined to find something. He took one out and pointed as he looked up.

  “Dillon,” Michael said. Dillon’s dark suit and mask were crudely drawn on the card. Michael had always been better at drawing landscapes.

  “Dillon,” Talus replied. He tapped his claw on the card. “Gemini.”


  “God damn it,” Michael said, yanking the card away. “I am the Gemini.”

  Talus laughed.

  “To hell with this.” Michael started to pick up the cards.

  Talus grabbed his forearm with a clawed hand, holding it over the bench with the stack of cards still in his grip. “No,” he said.

  Michael tried to free his arm. When it wouldn’t budge, he looked up and saw Talus smiling. His segmented eyes challenged him.

  “You sure you want to do that?”

  Michael let his skin turn, flipping the internal switch that kept his real skin from showing through. First came the cracks, spreading from underneath the clawed fingers of Talus’s grip. Once his red power started to bleed through the openings, his skin turned to ash and cinder.

  Talus ripped his hand away. The rocky skin on his palms glowed from the heat. When it died down, a white scar marked the brand of Michael’s fissures.

  “I warned you.”

  Talus started to come for him. Michael let the cracks of his skin cover both arms, stopping the oversized Pyrian in his tracks. Even showing a small part of his real self made him feel more powerful. He could tear the monster limb from limb before he ever knew he was dead.

  Talus reached for his sword.

  “Enough!”

  Both of them turned to see Amara standing in the middle of the double doors leading into the courthouse. Her silver eyes darted between them. She let loose with a flurry of Pyrian aimed at her aging pet. Talus eventually took his hand away from his sword’s grip. His eyes never left Michael’s.

  “Coward,” Michael said, staring back at him. “Next time I’ll add that card to the stack.”

  “Michael, I said that was enough.”

  “Why?” he asked, and for a moment, there was a pause as Amara seemed to process the idea that he had questioned one of her orders. He didn’t care. What was she going to do?

  She strode along the walkway circling the top row of seats. She didn’t look up until she was next to him. When she did, her eyes had softened, but not enough to lose the shine of her energy. “Please,” she said.

  In one word, she’d managed to quell his anger, despite how tightly he tried to hold it. He took a sideways glance at Talus before raising his hands in mock surrender. “Whatever you want.”