“Bad news. I can’t get you there. As of today, I wasn’t even sure I could get myself out. You can call me the Genesis or whatever, but I’m as stuck down here as you are.”
The words push at her barriers, her dreams. I can see the war inside her head before she growls back, “Even beggars will not give up their secrets easily. You’ll resist, but eventually you’ll teach me the ways of your people. You’ll take me where I want to go, Genesis.”
She turns away, busying herself with the ship’s front console. I take deep breaths, test the movement of my toes and fingers. I’m feeling slight improvements, one minute at a time. For a while we don’t say anything. I watch the stars pass overhead. Both moons glare down at me. One as ghostly as a faded pearl, the other marred by those angry red scars.
After a few minutes, I finally piece together the other thing that’s digging under my skin.
“You’re a woman.”
She turns back. “How observant of you.”
“But we—I thought there were only a few left. Babel’s never seen a woman outside of Sevenset. And the whole no-kids thing, I just kind of figured—”
Her eyes darken again. “More lies.”
I lean back, unsure what to think about that. Who’s lying? Babel or the Imago? Babel told us that was the whole point of us coming. A society without children. We were a temporary relief from the pain of that reality. Longwei said it more clearly than Babel ever did. All the reports and the facts pointed to there being no women. It’s not like the other Imago have contradicted it, either. We know their people agreed to host Babel as long as they sent the young and the innocent. Those same currents ran through their negotiations over the bases too. Kit was one of the three youngest marines in space. Babel’s been clear about this from jump: the Imago wanted us to come here.
I can’t put the puzzle together. Someone’s removed a piece on purpose, trying to keep us from seeing the whole picture. Smart money’s on Babel. I’m thinking through the clues when a loud ping echoes out from Jerricho’s radar. She hunches back over the console, muttering. It takes all my effort, but I push myself up into a sitting position, my back pressed against the hull.
My hands and feet are both bound. There’s still a nauseating wave of terror working through my stomach. Calm down, I think. Be calm. There’s enough slack in the ropes that I can draw my knees up to my chest. Jerricho notices, eyes me for a second before seeing I’m harmless, and turns back to the console. There’s a blue dot hovering on the outer reaches of the radar.
Someone is coming.
All my nyxia is gone. The ship’s engine sits up front, I realize. Jerricho’s wisely placed me against the back railing, centered between a pair of nyxian defense stations. My mind runs back through all the ways Bilal and Azima used them aboard the ship. Nets and shields and canvas, but weapons, too. Bilal’s favorite was the pulse cannon. Thinking about the bright streaks it used to launch across the Waterway, I get another idea.
My uncle always kept a flare gun inside his boat, just in case. We never had to use it, but I’ve held it in my hands before, felt the weight of it. If I could get my hands on the console, maybe I could manipulate the station into something like it. Send up a flare and jump overboard.
But Jerricho has made sure I’m safely out of reach of both consoles. I glance left and right. On one side, moonlight paints the riverways bright as snow. On the other is an empty plain that looks just like everything else in Grimgarden.
I shift my weight to one side and keep watching Jerricho. She’s focused now, increasing our speed, sliding us down a new stretch of river. She’s not watching as I dig my right heel down, searching. Old habits never die. It came in handy when Isadora and Roathy attacked, and now it might be the only thing that can save me.
I finally feel it between my heel and boot. It’s the size and shape of a coin. Small, but it’s always been there, waiting for a moment like this. I just have to keep her talking, distracted.
“They’re chasing us.”
Jerricho makes a thoughtful noise. “I doubt it’s any friend of yours.”
I answer without hesitation. “That’s my family back there. The second you took me, you guaranteed they’d be coming for you.”
“Family.” Jerricho chews on the word. “You could be right. More likely, though, it’s a member of my family. And we’re not above murdering one another for the right price. Others will want you for themselves. As I said, the Genesis are valuable.”
I shift my weight again and let my eyes drag over the river. I crane my neck, hoping to draw Jerricho’s attention away from the work of my boots. I can feel the piece of nyxia moving now. It’s not easy work, but I manage to get it to the inside of my ankle.
I can’t remember when I replaced the piece I used against Roathy and Isadora, but I know why: because there’s always a threat. A sliver of nyxia for desperate times. The rhythmic ping doesn’t sound. The other ship is falling behind.
“Try and keep up with me now,” Jerricho whispers.
She pulls up a map of the riverways, examining it, plotting a new course. It’s the distracted moment I’ve been waiting for. I have seconds at the most.
Quietly, I jam my left heel into my right. Pinching the boot down, I slide my left foot up as far as I can. It’s hard with the ropes tight over my ankles. A second later, though, it slips the heel. The boot tips over the wrong way. I glance up in panic, but she’s still tracing a route across the map. Carefully, I tilt the boot back with my foot. There’s a frightening second of nothing. Then the nyxian coin tumbles out, bouncing twice and spinning to a stop. I shift my body and snatch it up with bound hands. It’s a life jacket in the hands of a drowning man.
Jerricho starts to say something as I focus on my first manipulation. I’m amazed when it takes. The black coin expands, and the only image I can summon comes from those regular nights with Pops down at Snookers. I center the image of a pool cue in my mind. It stretches the substance until the opposite end smacks against the nyxian console. As soon as it makes contact, I feel the bigger connection pulse to life.
All that nyxia, all that power, all at my fingertips.
Jerricho whips around, curses flying, but I’m too fast. My second manipulation flings itself through the link: flare gun, flare gun, flare gun. The manipulation shivers from my brain, through the link, into the console. A familiar red-handled barrel takes form. Another thought points the thing skyward and pulls the trigger.
She lunges, but the shot is an explosion of sound and color. It cuts a path through the sky before bursting out, bright enough for anyone following us to see. Jerricho hesitates for just a second. I take the extended nyxia in both hands and pull myself to my feet. She starts forward again, but another tug brings the pool cue swinging around like a spear.
Jerricho dodges back, calling her own nyxia into its weapon form. She slips into a fighting stance before realizing she’s got it all wrong. I’m not looking for a fight.
I take a deep breath and leap.
The stars spin overhead. My hands almost fumble the nyxia. My entire body braces for impact as the water backhands the air from my lungs. The force of it crushes the entire left side of my body. I almost drown as my mouth opens in forced exhale.
Dark, cold, dark, cold…
I wonder if I’m about to die. But an anthem beats inside my chest. The same one that saved me from Isadora and Roathy. A bone-deep promise I make to myself every morning: today is not the day that I die. I come gasping out of the water. Overhead, the flare is falling. The boat’s momentum took it about five hundred meters down the river. I watch as it starts to wheel.
The nyxia pulses in my left hand, feeding off my urgency. I concentrate on the image of Pops’s army knife. I hold it there, front and center, before forcing the vision into the waiting substance. It shifts instantly, and the weight of his knife fills my palm
. I lean my body so that I’m floating on my back and start slashing through the ropes.
The first few coils slip from my wrists. Jerricho’s turned the boat around. It thunders, picking up speed again. I slip the rope from my ankles, then tuck the knife back in my belt. A spotlight skips across the water, searching, as I start swimming to shore. My world is reduced to one stroke after another after another. All of Babel’s training in the tank resurfaces.
I don’t pause to breathe. I am an arrow firing at the eastern bank.
A roar announces the boat’s approach, but my hands slap down on mud and branches. I gasp out of the water, framed by light, and pull myself onto land. I don’t risk looking back. Two stumbling steps bring me through the bank’s brush and onto the plain. The spotlight follows. I’m pumping my arms, thinking about all the creatures that hunt at night, when something hits me at hip level. It takes me spinning into the taller grass, and I realize Jerricho’s caught me.
She comes out on top, but my hand is tight on the grip of my knife. I jab upward and she spins away. My blade grazes her left shoulder. I hear the hiss of pain as she backs off, towering over me, her figure backlit by the boat’s light.
I try to get to my feet, but she steps forward and strikes again. It forces me onto my back. She circles, strikes, circles. My second attempt at a jab fails. She knocks the knife from my grasp and lands a dirty elbow against my nose. The blow stuns me; blood gushes. I hack a choking cough as she stands over me.
“You are a worthy opponent. You will take me to the stars.”
“Emmett!”
The voice has us both squinting back to the river. Jerricho’s boat has been joined by another. The distant figure doesn’t wait for the ship to make land. She leaps from the prow and rolls to her feet. Jerricho continues to squint, but it’s a voice I would recognize anywhere.
Morning.
Blood runs down my nose. The slightest movement has my vision spinning. I groan my way onto an elbow and watch Morning’s approach. Her eyes burn from me to Jerricho. The Imago takes a single step, setting herself between us, and Morning’s rage doubles.
“Give him back,” she says, “and I’ll let you live.”
Jerricho laughs. “Do you plan to fight me alone? I am Jerricho, once of the Seventh Ring. I have killed savoys, slayed eradakan. This mace knows its way through bone.”
Morning slides out her hatchets and tilts her head. It’s a familiar look. She always did it before duels, a moment of weighing her opponent, of finding them wanting.
“Last chance,” she says, raising her voice. “Leave now and live.”
Jerricho laughs again. “I’ll take you too. A second Genesis. More beginnings.”
Morning’s face steels. There’s a second where the wrongness of all this pulses through the air. I don’t want Morning to do what she’s about to do. I don’t want her to die because of me. Before I can say anything to stop her, she’s sliding forward.
Her body dips and she closes the gap between them. A false lunge. Jerricho lurches. She only gives herself away slightly, but I see Morning’s eyes snap like a camera lens. She sees where Jerricho’s foot would have stepped and how her mace would have swung. She takes all of that in and slides to the right. I watch her circle before flashing forward.
The metal sings. A few exchanged blows is enough to erase the smile from Jerricho’s face. I wasn’t a match for her, but Morning? She pushes Jerricho to the edge of her comfort. It’s clear that Morning is probing the fringes of who Jerricho is as a fighter, picking up her habits. After trading a few more strikes, she clears space between them. Jerricho is breathing hard.
Morning changes tactics. The nyxian jacket lifts from her shoulders like mist. Jerricho narrows her eyes at the manipulation, then smiles.
A current cuts through the air. Jerricho is wrestling for control of the nyxia. I think about the Imago on the ship—Erone—who took hold of Kaya’s necklace, how helpless we were.
But in the space of a breath, the sling’s expression goes from confident to confused to worried. The nyxia in the air forms four black doors that look like they’re made of smoke. One appears in front of Morning. The other three surround Jerricho. She considers Morning’s creation and gives up trying to take control. The grip on her mace tightens.
Morning walks through the first door and everything distorts. The sound of a whip cracks across the sky, and she appears behind Jerricho. Her first blow cuts across Jerricho’s right calf.
The sling cries out, wheeling, but Morning is faster. A step back and she reappears in the second door. Another lunge brings her hatchet raking across a shoulder. She steps back again.
I stare as the doors draw inward, closing around the fight like a noose. Jerricho tries to guess where Morning will appear, but each of her lunges misses. Morning dips beneath every strike and tags Jerricho again, and again, and again. Each blow draws blood until Jerricho is barely on her feet, limping and struggling.
Morning shows no mercy.
The nyxian doors close until there aren’t any more gaps. They narrow into a perfect cube of black nothing. I hear a final scream before silence thunders out.
“Morning? Morning!”
The darkness melts away. Morning comes out one side, disarmed. She’s circling. I start to rise, desperate to help her, when I see Jerricho. She stumbles to a knee and collapses sideways.
Morning’s hatchet is buried in her forehead.
She kicks the mace away, and the two of us watch as Jerricho takes her last breaths. Morning’s chest heaves chaotically. I can tell it’s not the pump of adrenaline. She’s taken a life. Blood is on her hands. I start forward to help her, but she holds up a hand in warning.
“Give me space.”
I stand there, watching, as she leans over Jerricho. She closes the sling’s eyes and cleans the bloodied hatchet on the grass. After a second, she transforms her nyxia into a shovel and begins to dig. When I start to manipulate mine, she shoots me a look that’s made of iron.
“No,” she says. “You heard Speaker. Down here, you bury them yourself.”
The sun decides to rise. Light stretches across the riverway and paints the highest branches gold. I sit there in silence as Morning buries Jerricho. A stranger in a strange land. Only when she sets aside the shovel, sweating and exhausted, do I cross the distance. Morning doesn’t say a word. She lets me wrap my arms around her. I hold on until she stops crying. She rescued me. She saved me. But the cost of this will chain her to this place forever.
I file this one away for both of us. I put this one in the place where I’ve stored the darkest memories, piles upon piles of angry moments: I for Injustice. She didn’t deserve this.
I can see her steeling herself, pushing the pain down far enough that she doesn’t have to feel it. After a second she looks up, face carved like some beautiful ruin. She pulls me down by the collar and kisses me. I run one hand through her hair. Each following kiss softens until we’re a whisper away. “I thought I lost you,” she says.
“I knew it was you. The second that boat pinged on her radar, I knew it was you.”
She nods once, eyes trailing the fresh grave. For the first time, she notices the blood coating her sleeves. The sight makes her tremble. “I—I told her to let you go.”
“Hey, none of that. Jerricho kidnapped me, poisoned me. I have no idea what would have happened if you didn’t save me. Fathom?”
Her jaw tightens but she doesn’t resist. I take her by the hand and lead her back to the river. She stands there like a ghost as I sit her down and help rinse off the stains. She’s not the first one to wash blood away in Magnia’s rivers. She won’t be the last.
I grab my knapsack, and we get into the boat. Morning sits in the back as I direct us back through the riverway. It’s as easy as reversing her route and letting the boat handle the rest. I keep an eye out for c
reatures, other ships, but it’s like we’re driving through an abandoned world. I don’t push the conversation, so most of the journey rolls by in silence. Near the outskirts of Myriad, she stands up and joins me by the console. After a few seconds, she takes my hand.
“You learn to defend yourself,” she says. “You know?”
I nod at that. “Like a sixth sense.”
“I got bullied at school. Bigger girls. I was pretty small for my age, I guess. Started figuring out how to use everything to my advantage. Reading people. Changing the fight. Most days I really hate that this is what I’m good at. But today? I would go back there and do it all over again. If it meant saving you, I’d go back.”
“That makes you a good person. You know that, right?”
She sighs. “Why are you so nice to me?”
I look down at my feet to make sure her words haven’t transformed me into something else, into a bird or the wind or something. “It’s easy with you.”
Sunlight strays through the branches. It’s bright across her light-brown skin. She’s beautiful the way a mountain is tall. I almost tell her before stopping. You don’t need to tell a mountain it’s tall. It already knows that.
The conversation turns. The river breeze reminds us of what we left behind. We share little pieces of our hearts, our homes. She tells me her favorite dessert. I describe my boys.
The words grow wings as we talk our way back across the universe.
The sight of Myriad brings reality’s shoulder slamming back into us. Omar waits on the dock, his wide face full of worry. Morning guides the boat in and tosses him the ropes. He sets to the task of tying us up, but it’s not hard to see how angry he is.
“You should have waited,” he rumbles. “Why risk going alone?”
“I ran into Jaime and Longwei on the bridge,” she answers. “I saw the boat leaving with Emmett on it. I made a choice. It worked.”
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