Suddenly, the ship shook, and one of the jolts knocked him down. They were changing the course. Toggy looked up but the milky air saturated everything around. He could only see his hands, nothing else.
“Everyone!” he didn’t recognize the muffled and distorted voice that belonged to him.
From time to time the brig shook and shouts came from very far away, but that was all. Toggy had no idea how much time has passed when the mists receded; the air cleared completely. Silhouettes had morphed into people and he found the ship out in the sea with no land on the horizon.
“What happened?”
Mist stood on the forecastle deck. His chest puffed from exertion greedily sucking the air in. To his right lounged Riss. She grinned at Toggy and he looked away. Hot spots blooming on his cheeks. Commander stood on the quarter deck holding the steering wheel.
Another marine appeared; this one wore no officer’s coat. He had stubble on his head and prominent jaw. Toggy forgot his name.
“Commander,” he said. “The old man is losing it.”
“That’s why I hate this sea. People here are soft, uneducated, easily scared. Tell More to give him some of his concoctions to calm the geezer down, Ed.”
“Excuse me, but what now are we going to do without captain?” Toggy said. His mind must have been numbed by the mist or the shock still gripped him. Under no other circumstances, he would speak up like this. It had nothing to do with courage. Toggy knew he wasn’t strong, and so he avoided situations that could threaten his life. A simple survival instinct.
Everyone turned to him. Even Mist glanced his way, though briefly.
“I’m sorry… don’t mind me,” Toggy attempted to discharge the officers’ attention.
It didn’t work.
The moment of an awkward silence filled the deck. Riss squinted at him, commander Kinson remained stone-faced. Mist retreated into a corner.
“By now Blackport has been decimated by the activation of the High Threat Contamination Protocol. There was nothing in our power to change the destiny of this place. We have to focus on the task at hand, which is Karu.”
But what of captain, Pace, and Ines?
Riss with a sway of her hips passed him. “Sooner or later, you’ll get used to the things around here.” She whispered. Her eyes held a promise. It sent gooseflesh all over him.
The sea calmed down and the ship stopped rocking. Commander let go of the steering wheel and glanced back. Even Mist had shaken off the strange trans, picked his coat from the floor and headed beneath the deck.
Toggy remained on the deck and watched the sea. What the hell was going on?
Chapter 17
Ines
Cold iron shackles embraced her wrists with a mocking eagerness. A long chain connected them with a metal wall. Her cell was empty save for her. No bed or toilet. Only smooth, cool and hard surfaces. The chains clattered as she retreated into the corner of the room. The man who shackled her stood in the doorway; she saw only a dark silhouette from where she curled up.
Without a word of explanation, the door slammed shut, then the mechanism clicked, and she knew that the world outside ceased to exist for her.
The world outside.
A week ago, it’d mean Karu. Now, she comprehended how poor her imagination was. Karu was only a small island among thousands. Captain told her that some parts of the world weren’t yet discovered. Such an enormous, beautiful… and a horrible place.
And somewhere there was Pace.
Pace.
His kiss lingered on her lips like in indestructible layer. Her heart slammed in her chest and ringing in her ears intensified to a painful level. She’d thought that Pace resembled Marus, but she’s known Marus for her entire life. Their needed time to develop, while the thing with Pace just hit her out of nowhere.
And now she craved him more than anything. Ines relived the moment they had touched and then when they kissed. If that wasn’t love from the first sight, then what was it? She didn’t know.
Ines struggled with conflicting emotions. She couldn’t’ wait to Pace again and feared that their kiss was their last. It was so powerful that its effects spread through her vessels. What exactly existed between her and Pace? Ines couldn’t be sure, but a lone thought falling toward him brought an avalanche of fondness. When Marus had betrayed her, she was angry at him because he discarded her like trash, not because he no longer loved her.
It made no sense. Pace was handsome, but not even close to Marus whose face was, alongside hers, the cannon of the beauty in Karu. And that sensation when our bodies touched each other. As if the entire universe opened to us. Was this the virus or something else? Didn’t Pace and captain stay behind? It might be that they know what’s going on.
She possessed no answers. Whatever had happened between Ines and Pace, shifted her world. Ines has already been longing to feel his touch or even smell would do.
Suddenly, a memory popped in her head. Marus’ eighteenth birthday. She looked at him with an air of odd superiority, though she was still a virgin. It was the first time she went against the Inherited Codex and waited until he was eighteen to marry him and have children. She felt blessed that day. Karu cheered them and yelled their names. Her violation of the Inherited Codex was accepted only because of her face and body. Almost twenty Karu of her age strived for her hand. On his eighteenth birthday, Marus took her to the west, where beaches were washed by the warm azure sea. They’d had sex under stars on the white sand. That night she wished to live forever. Could this be the moment my life has been cursed? Did it make me barren?
Thoughts of Marus tumbled in her head, and they made her angry. She trusted him. What is happening to me? Why can’t I stop thinking about Pace and Marus? They were like two opposing poles.
She longed for Pace’s touch. She craved his presence so badly that she hadn’t noticed how much time has passed.
The key rattled in the hole, the mechanism clicked, and the door parted with a hiss. The bright light that slashed through the gloom of the cell blinded her; she didn’t see who entered.
Hands took a grip of her and brought her up.
“You’ll come with us,” a man’s voice was rough.
At first, a spark of hope appeared when she thought the man’s skin touched hers, but he wore thick leather gloves. Instinctively, she aimed at his face but failed. The man evaded her touch with startling ease.
“Careful with this one. That test subject is infected with the Ouroboros virus. It kills anyone who turned twenty-one.”
“I understand. Should we sedate her, sir?”
“No,” a third voice from the corridor answered. ‘I want the test subject sharp and clear. Extra care is advisable, though. Now bring the subject to the interrogation quarter.” Quarter? She just realized that the entire room swayed gently. She was on a ship?
Ines risked opening her eyes. The brightness still stung her eyes, but it allowed her to narrow them. She saw another man enter the cell and take her right arm in his strong grip. She hissed in pain. The third man from the corridor was gone. She glanced at the first one. Skin of the color of ash, slightly elongated head with circular eyes. He was clad in a black tunic, well-fitted and seemingly seamless. The other man had a dour face and looked like an average Karu.
“Where do you take me?” Ines asked. She wished to struggle, but their hands as well could be iron shackles. After the display of strength showed by Asaif, the Government agent and captain, she understood that she lived in a world full of monsters. Fighting seemed pointless. Though, she decided to not make their lives any easier. They had to drag her to the interrogation quarter. Unfortunately, the corridors were spacious, and her rebellious attitude didn’t cause them much trouble.
Ines had no expectation, but what she found there, made the blood in her veins cold. The floor where the two mountings for the chains were placed was a sharp grill that would make her feet bleed. She tried to break away, but their strength was daunting. Perhaps, they didn’t e
ven notice her struggle. In the other half of the room stood the table, the chair and a small commode with a key in the hole.
They threw her on the grilled floor. It caused a staggering amount of pain. Ines hissed, but before she could even react the men locked manacles over her wrists.
“Do you really fear me so much?” she asked defiantly, but no one answered her.
The men left the room.
The grill cut in her skin and she cried out, but the empty place was deaf to her pleas. When her mind began losing integrity, sounds and breeze of fresh lavender and pungent spices wafted inside. She cracked one eye open and saw a man in a cylinder on his head and a well-fitted black suit. He wore circular sunglasses and was clean shaved. He glanced her way then approached the table and put a dressing-case on the top. The stranger stood straight for a couple of minutes in the same position making absolutely no sounds. Then he pulled the chair and sat slowly down. Once more the man fell into a kind of stasis, which lasted about a minute, then he opened his dressing-case and picked a pile of papers.
He gently rummaged through them, which drove Ines crazy.
“Just ask me questions and let me go.”
The interrogator frowned at her outburst. He pulled a pen out of his suit’s pocket and noted something.
“Do you hear me?” Ines asked furiously.
Finally, his attention shifted to her. Despite the sunglasses, his stare sent gooseflesh to her arms and neck.
“Test subject was intercepted in the company of certain individuals. State each name and description of every person that was in the subject’s presence for more than one minute.”
“I don’t know their names!” she lied, though she couldn’t remember the names of these two young fishermen who tended her in the boat.
The interrogator noted something then asked, “Agent X reported that he experienced the outburst of energy called the Soul Entanglement. He was confident that it bore your energy signature. Who was the second part of the entanglement?”
Ines frowned because she could only guess what the man was talking about. Did he mean the moment she and Pace touched?
“What’s the Soul Entanglement?” The question made her think about Pace. It was as if the thoughts of him clawed through her defenses with unimaginable fury. What did it mean? Did the Soul Entanglement mean that were they somehow connected?
The man stopped scribing on the paper and stared at her, then blinding light had exploded in her head and she fell on the floor unconscious.
*
Doctor Dukas
“Doctor Dukas, what did you learn from the test subject zero?”
Doctor Dukas fixed the cylinder on his head, then pressed the sunglasses harder against the bridge of his nose. Since the interrogation, bouts of nausea and powerful headache threatened to send him to his knees. He couldn’t remember a subject with such resistance apart from a handful; Horry the Sting, Thalass or much hated vice admiral Carbon. Doctor wished he could put his hands on Pembroke. That snot-nosed navy brat has been a pain in the neck of the Government for years. Despite Agent X’s report that captain Pembroke was a casualty of their encounter, doctor Dukas wasn’t convinced that they could get rid of this pest so easily. Shame that the Government didn’t want to press admiral harder to give up the pesky marine.
“The second subject of the Soul Entanglement is named – Pace, Lord Red.”
“Pace.”
“An ensign marine.”
“What’s his power level?”
“From what I could scrape out of the subject’s mind was that he possesses more than average strength. He withstood Agent X’s shove.”
“Where is that marine now?”
“Left in Blackport.”
“Agent X is becoming quite inconvenient to us. Does he think that possessing the Forbidden Gift makes him irreplaceable? He meant to bring Pembroke’s body here, so I can see, desecrate it. He failed in both instances. Wouldn’t be a punishment a good reminder to all other Forbidden Gift users that they serve us?”
‘Lord, if I may. While I fully agree with your opinion, I also believe that we should exploit Agent X’s failure. It might be that Pembroke isn’t dead after all.”
“What?” Lord Red has never been known to keep his anger under wrap for long. Doctor Dukas knew he needed to tread carefully from now on.
“When Agent X had delivered the test subject zero, he looked intact. I can’t imagine him to be able to kill captain Pembroke without any injury. In the last two years, Pembroke has proved to be more than capable to beat Agent IX and Agent VIII.”
“So, he lied?”
“More like an error in his assessment. I personally think, he believed that he injured Pembroke enough to render him unable from leaving Blackport and die in the island’s destruction.”
“It’s all, is it?”
“No. Unfortunately, peaking into the Soul Entanglement is beyond my skill, but I’m quite sure that the test subject zero hasn’t sensed the death of the other subject. Therefore, I formulate the theory that both captain and his marine survived. If they are together, we can use the test subject to gauge location of them.”
“I don’t see the need for Agent X in this, doctor Dukas.”
“His ability to fly can be very useful. I ask only for a week, my lord.”
“Two weeks, if the second subject and Pembroke aren’t in the cells at King’s Valley, then I’ll extend the punishment to you as well, doctor. Now, you’re dismissed.”
Chapter 18
Pace
Death wasn’t yet arrived, but it crept closer with every second.
The distant explosions that shook the ground under his feet, and the columns of smoke and fire that filled the horizon, were almost upon him closer.
Pace considered to run into the water, but the mist, which appeared out of blue, smelled of magic. This could be the Government’s trick. Like the flying man. That sight tore through his mind with brutal strength. Being absurdly strong, even using the Soul Release was one thing, but this, this couldn’t be the Soul Release. That much Pace knew. So, magic existed. Too bad he has punched plenty of people who have mentioned it in Wild Peaks. A fleeting sensation at the periphery of his mind whispered that it was just the beginning of the awaiting wonders. This peculiar knowing comes from the moment I touched Ines. There was so much knowledge pouring into my body… but now it’s only shreds and echoes. Nothing substantial. Still, coupled with his instinct he felt there would some for that. But now the time was to decide. Staying on the land and dying in the bombardment or getting into the mist-coated water. The latter was a hundred percent magic, but the intent wasn’t obvious as if magic didn’t distinguish between good and evil.
While Pace struggled with a decision, new sounds reached him in-between the explosions.
The sound of falling rocks.
There was something different about it. He shook off the thoughtfulness and shot toward the source of the sound. The heap of rubble.
“Cap, are you alive?’ he asked carefully to not get his hopes high. After the Government agent had kidnapped Ines, he sort of forgot about captain. It wasn’t intentional. She just became his entire world and losing her… felt like dying. Whatever connected them, had never happened before.
The heap shook and it didn’t come from the explosions.
Pace’s had grabbed the closest bricks and began throwing them away. Somewhere there, beneath the heavy rocks lay captain. Pace grasped at the rough edge of a shattered piece of a wall. It was the heaviest thing he has lifted in his life. He gasped, grinding his teeth. His hands flared with pain. But he got it away from the rubbles. Beneath it, lay even larger one.
Shit. This is bad.
His muscles stung from exertion. I have no other choice but to move it as well.
As Pace approached it the wall moved on its own and Pace stepped back in time to avoid being squished by the falling rubble. From beneath it emerged the captain Pembroke. He was entirely covered in ash, and to Pa
ce’s shock didn’t seem to have any wounds except a couple of scrapes.
“Not bad,” Pembroke said with a smile. “I think, Agent X is far enough so he didn’t sense my Soul Release.”
“So, you remained beneath it on purpose?” Pace asked with a hint of anger.
“Yes. That man isn’t strong enough to beat me.”
“He kidnapped Ines,” Pace snapped. Never in his life, he had been prone to anger until now. A mere fact that captain could save Ines drove sizzling hot wedges into his stomach. “And you lay there and chilled?”
Captain dusted off his face. His coat and shirt were shredded. Something in the careless expression ticked Pace off and his fist shot into Pembroke’s face.
It had connected but didn’t do the slightest damage. Pembroke didn’t even twitch.
Pace didn’t care if he had crossed boundaries or had broken the Navy rules. Fuck them all. His… his girlfriend has been stolen from… is she my girlfriend now? And this piece of shit captain didn’t bother to help.
Bright as the sun, wrath exploded in Pace’s chest. It behaved like a coiled serpent, which decided to strike.
“I won’t—”
BOOOOOOOOM
The world went bonkers. Grit and stones flew in every direction. Some hit Pace. He wasn’t even sure if he still stood. A ringing in his ears and heat that touched his face told him that the explosion was very close.
It sucks that I’ll die three days after joining the Navy, Pace thought.
Rough hands grabbed him and pulled him.
“Get a grip,” Pembroke said. “You have more opportunities to throw tantrums.” He let go of Pace and strode toward the half-destroyed storm wall. Captain’s expression softened when he saw the sea covered by the magical mist.
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