by Matt King
Her eyes glanced down. “Your skin,” she said.
He examined the network of red lines coating his forearms. He let the power glow brightly one more time so Talus could see it before tucking it away again.
“Thank you.” She turned her attention to Talus. “Jus’vadem,” she said brusquely. “Sumanay.”
Talus walked off without answering. When he got to the rear doors leading back into the tower complex, he smacked his palm against the ornate metal, ripping it away from its hinges on his way out.
Amara kept her stare on the door after he was gone.
“I don’t see why you keep him around,” Michael said. “We don’t need him.”
“We?” she said, turning back to him. “Are you a part of this now?”
“Of course.” He felt himself shrink under her stare, gathering his mental defenses on reflex because he expected to feel her in his head.
She didn’t disappoint, but her mental fingers stopped short of probing through his thoughts. Instead, she left behind a wave of relief. An unwelcome calm. “Good,” she said. She looked down at the flash cards strewn across the floor. In an instant, they broke apart into a cloud of dust and disappeared into the air. “Talus has been an important asset for many years. He is an unmatched force in the eyes of our enemies.”
“Was,” Michael said.
Her gaze shifted to him.
“Aren’t I more powerful?”
“You are. But even the most powerful weapons need a steady hand to wield them.”
If she meant it as advice, it came out more like a jab. While he mulled it over, she set the pieces of the door back together and re-hung it on the hinges with barely a wave of her finger.
“It is time for you to meet with the envoy,” she said, turning back to him. She looked him up and down. “Where is the rest of your armor?”
He walked over to the bench where he had been sitting with Talus and grabbed the cape and gauntlets from beneath the seat. The gauntlets came down to a point in the middle of the back of his hand. They dug into his skin every time he cracked his knuckles. His cape was a nuisance, too. The red velvet lining made it feel like he wore a coat around all day, and the silver fabric on the other side collected the sun’s heat like a solar panel. He only wore them when Amara told him to, which was every time he might be seen by one of the survivors as he passed by a balcony, or walked along the open streets.
“There,” she said as he locked his second gauntlet into place. “My handsome champion.”
“I don’t see why they have to meet with me.”
“Because they have a desire to put a human face to our cause, and because they have the means to spread our message to the rest of the people of this planet.”
“I thought you could do that already.”
“Mm, but not everyone is as comfortable as you with another’s voice speaking in their head.”
Was she picking on him? Why else would she bring up his father’s voice? Her smile seemed to show how pleased she was with herself, like it was fun for her to make him remember his past and who it was who rescued him from it. He didn’t need a reminder, just like he didn’t need anyone rescuing him again.
He crossed his arms. “I don’t feel like talking to anyone right now.”
“They have traveled from a far distance to see you today,” she said, moving in front of him to block his path to the exit. “We have prepared for this. Entertain their questions for a while, my prince. They must know who protects them from their enemy.”
“Do I protect them?” he asked.
She slipped her arm through his and led him down to the first row of seats. “With a power that is unmatched,” she said, then leaned in to whisper in his ear, “By anyone.”
She left him on the bench while she walked to the end of the aisle. She motioned for the Pyrian guards at the top to open the doors.
Two women entered. The taller of the two was an Asian woman with long, straight dark hair. She wore it in a ponytail that hung down over her left shoulder. The woman behind her, a redhead, carried a camera and tripod. Her curly hair was uneven, like she’d cut it herself.
They approached the center of the courthouse cautiously, both of them afraid of making too much eye contact with Amara. For her part, Amara looked slightly less celestial than she usually did. Her skin was a flat pale white with barely any shimmer to it at all. The diamond highlights were still visible in her hair and eyes, though. Like all of the gods he’d met, she could only make herself look so human.
“Welcome,” Amara said as they ventured into the open floor of the arena.
“Thank you,” the dark-haired woman said. She chose to look at Michael over Amara. She nodded shyly to him.
Amara led them over to where he was seated. She glared at him until he rose to greet them.
“May I introduce my champion, Michael. Michael, this is Molly and Eve.”
“Hi,” he said.
The two women each gave a slight bow, hedging their bets as to how they were supposed to treat him.
“Have a seat,” he said, motioning to the bench.
Only Molly sat. She took out a small notebook from her leather shoulder bag. Eve set to work unfolding the tripod. She struggled with holding the camera steady while she extended the legs, eventually whispering to Molly that she needed help. “Sorry,” she said when she noticed Michael staring. “I’m not used to working with this yet.”
When everything was set up, Molly turned back to him and sat a small microphone between them on the bench. She flipped her spiral notebook to a page filled with scribbled notes. The veins on her skinny hands stood out. I could snap those wrists with a good sneeze.
“Eve is going to start recording now,” she said. “We can talk while she checks her levels.”
“Sure,” he replied. She dropped her stare as soon as he spoke to her. “What’s your last name?”
“Nguyen.”
“You look nervous, Ms. Nguyen.”
“I shouldn’t be. I interviewed Hillary Clinton once.”
Did Hillary Clinton kill two hundred million people in a single blast?
Amara narrowed her eyes at him from behind Molly on the bench.
He shifted until he couldn’t see her anymore. “What did you want to talk about?”
“I have a range of questions,” she said. “I’ll try to be brief. To be honest, I’m not sure how much battery life our camera has left.”
Eve flashed a thumbs up. “Okay, Mol. I’m all set.”
Molly pushed some stray hairs back over her ears. She flipped the switch on the mic and nodded to show she was ready. “Thank you for seeing me today,” she said.
“No problem.” He wasn’t sure if he should look at her or the camera. The lens of the camera made his stomach crawl. It was like every person on the planet was watching through its single black eye. He decided to focus on Molly instead.
“First, I want to say thank you—to both of you—on behalf of every living person on this planet. I’ve been asked not to turn the camera on the Lady, but I’m speaking to her here as well. We were on the verge of death. Not just the people on this continent, but worldwide. I only hope that the healing that has taken place in this part of the world will quickly spread to the rest of the nations hearing my voice tonight.”
Michael nodded. “Me too.”
“Will it?” she asked. Her question was for Amara, he thought, even though she was looking at him.
“The healing process takes time,” he answered, word for word as Amara had prepared him. “It is in everyone’s best interest, if they are able, to make their way to us if they are in danger. We can help them here.”
“But it seemed like you healed the area where this castle emerged almost instantaneously, and in the days that followed, that healing spread all the way to the Mississippi and the Rockies. Then it stopped. Why hasn’t it continued? Why is the rest of the world still suffering?”
He hadn’t prepared to be badgered. He found
himself stuttering as he searched for the canned answer Amara had provided. “It’s…hard,” he said.
“Hard?”
“I mean, it’s hard to put into words sometimes. That’s all.” He took a steadying breath. “It’s kind of like sprinters in the Olympics, you know? They can go faster than anyone for a while, but they have to rest in between spurts before they can do it again.” It wasn’t the answer they’d practiced, but he was happy with it.
“So, you’re saying that the Lady is weakened.”
“No,” he said sharply. He scratched his head and evened his voice when he saw Molly’s eyes widen. “I didn’t mean it that way. She’s just building up what she needs to start healing again. She wanted to do as much as she could when she first got here.”
“I see.”
Molly jotted something down in her notebook. While her eyes were down, he looked pleadingly at Amara to save him. Her voice entered his mind. Be calm. Remember what we practiced.
I’m trying.
“—all right?”
“What?” he asked, returning to see Molly staring at him.
“I asked if you were all right.”
“Yes. Fine.”
“Okay.” She crossed her legs. The cuffs of her jeans were stained with mud. “It’s strange, for some, to see a human here after what we witnessed when the Lady arrived. I don’t think any of us expected human involvement with her kind, as it were.” She seemed hesitant to ask the question, as though Amara might strike her down on the spot. “Can you tell us a little bit about where you’re from, and how you met her?”
“Sure.” His heart quickened, even though his answer was miles away from the truth he’d erased in his blast. “I’m from a little town in Texas. Lived there my whole life. Amara came to me after I’d lost my mother to cancer. I was an only child without a place to go and she was searching for someone to help protect her way of life.”
“Protect it from whom?”
“A rival. Someone who wants her power.”
Molly tapped her lip with her pen. “Why you?” she asked.
“She said I had the most potential.”
“But she could’ve chosen anyone.”
“I guess so.”
“So I’ll ask again—why you?”
“Because she said…” He realized how bad he sounded repeating the answer again, so he stopped. Nothing came to take its place, though. His eyes flitted between Molly and Amara. “It’s like…” Finally, an answer came rushing through his head. He had to speak quickly to get it out before he forgot it. “It’s like life in the universe. It thrives on a few planets, but most don’t have the capacity for it. For whatever reason, I was able to use the gifts she could give me. Others couldn’t.”
Molly gave a nod and checked something off with her pen. He exhaled, beaming at the fact that he’d come up with the answer on short notice.
“The Last Winter began over a year ago,” she started.
“The Last what?”
“Winter,” she said. “It’s what we called the time after the blast.” She cocked her head. “What do you know of what happened?”
“I don’t know anything. I wasn’t here.”
She began describing his burst of power and the effects that came after. He listened intently, soaking in every word. He had to physically keep his face emotionless even though he was humming inside. He’d never seen what his power looked like to other people. The way she described it, it began as a brilliant red light in the distance, just before the wave came and set everything to burn. As she went on, he tried to make himself look concerned. Judging by her reaction, he wasn’t doing a very good job.
“Over 90 percent of the U.S. population died that day,” she said. “What do you say to that?”
“I’m sorry,” he replied. “It sounds like the worst thing imaginable.”
“It was.” She blinked quickly as she adjusted herself on the bench. “Going back to that day, there was a white light seen in the southern U.S. before the blast. Was that part of a battle?”
“Yes. The first in this war, actually. I faced off against—”
She cut him off before he could finish his rehearsed response. “Why here? We weren’t a part of any cosmic quarrel. What made them come here instead of a world where no one would die because of another culture’s war?”
“I…”
“You were involved, were you not? Why did the aliens choose to put lives in danger, eventually leading to the death of millions of innocents?”
Innocents, he snarled inside. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s why I came here today,” she hit back. “To learn the answers.”
“This war was going to impact us whether we chose it or not. These are gods we’re dealing with here, not two piss-ant nations fighting over a few miles of land.”
“If they’re gods, why do they need you to fight for them?”
“They’re not allowed to fight themselves.”
“They can do anything they want. They’re gods.”
“Are you questioning me?”
“That’s what an interview is.”
The way she looked at him, cold and accusing, he wanted to reach out and snap her throat just to see her expression change to something more respectful.
Michael?
Leave me alone.
“Why are you acting this way?” he asked.
“In my experience, people that ask to be interviewed are either trying to sell something or trying to hide something. Maybe both.”
“I have nothing to hide,” he said. “I’m trying to tell you about what’s really dangerous in this world, not sell you some pretty picture.”
“You’re talking about Gemini.”
“Yes,” he said, maybe too proudly.
“Can you keep us safe from him?”
“I’m the only one stopping him from coming back to finish the job.”
Michael, stop this right now.
I can do this. I don’t need you.
Molly’s lips pursed. “We know firsthand what the Gemini can do,” she said. Did she seem scared? He hoped so. “How do you plan to stop him?”
“Does it matter?”
“If your plan today was to make us feel safe, then yes, it does matter.”
“I’m more powerful than he is.”
“Can you show us?”
His eyes flicked to Amara before returning to Molly. “I don’t think that would be safe.”
“Why not? What does your power do?”
“It’s unpredictable,” he said. He fished for the rehearsed answer and found it. “I don’t want to give away too many secrets to the enemy. It’s better if they don’t know what I can do.”
“So we’re just supposed to take your word for it, then,” she replied.
He stared at her, then laughed.
“Is something funny?”
“No. It’s just, I knew a lady like you back in Mansfield,” he said.
Her expression changed instantly, from back on her heels to leaning forward, hungry for more. “Mansfield, Ohio? I thought you said you were from Texas?”
“I am.” His eyes darted to Amara again, but this time Molly picked up on it. She turned to look at Amara and then back at him.
“The blast…” she said, almost dreamily like she wasn’t talking to him anymore. “I know someone in the military. They said the blast had an epicenter. It was located in Ohio, near Mansfield.”
Eve’s head peeked out from behind her viewfinder.
“I told you. I wasn’t there,” he replied. His voice was shaky.
“Who are you, really?”
Behind Molly, Amara stood slowly.
“Show us your power,” Molly ordered.
Her tone hit him like a slap in the face. “I think this interview is over.”
“You’ve been lying this whole time. Prove to me you’re not the one behind the blast. Show me what you can do.”
“What did you
say to me, bitch?”
“Stop,” Amara said.
He ignored her, focusing instead on the know-it-all smirk plastered across the reporter’s face. “You think you’re so smart. You’re nothing to me.”
“None of us are, are we, Gemini?”
He reached out and grabbed her by the throat.
“Molly!” Eve screamed.
“You want to see my power?” he whispered to her. Molly gasped for air in his grip. “Is this what you wanted to see?”
He let himself bloom, instantly turning his skin into cracked ash, streaked with red. His power glowed in the eye of the camera over her shoulder. Smoke began to drift from her skin bubbling beneath his fingers.
“Open your eyes and look at me!”
A painful jolt gripped his chest. His grip loosened, and he felt himself pushed back, his power fading with each step until he was standing at the foot of the aisle with his body plain and weakened once more.
Molly’s choked breaths quieted to a wheeze, and Eve’s screams faded to a whisper. Both women stood in place with matching looks of bewilderment. Molly’s eyes blinked as the raw, burned skin of her neck started to heal, washing away any evidence of his attack. Her hand drifted to her head as she looked around the room. Eve did the same.
Behind them, Amara’s eyes blazed.
“Mol, something happened,” Eve said weakly. “There’s nothing here, I…” She shook her head as though she was trying to shake something out. “I think the camera battery went dead before we started.”
“It’s okay,” Molly said. Like Eve, she seemed groggy and confused. When she looked at him, her eyes were pleading, like she wanted to regain her anger but couldn’t.
“Do you remember the answers he already gave?” Amara asked in an even tone, her eyes still locked on him.
Molly looked at her notebook. Her pages of scribbled notes were gone. Without looking back, she said, “Yes…Yes, I think so.”
“And are you satisfied with what you came here for today?”
“I am.”
Molly looked at Eve, who slowly began to disassemble the camera’s tripod. They worked in silence to gather everything they brought in.
Before they started up the aisle, Molly turned to him. “Thank you,” she said. “For keeping us safe.”