by Frankie Rose
“Perhaps you’re not ready to have this conversation after all,” Darius says softly. There’s a whisper of heavy material and a slight grunting sound, and when I open my eyes, he has collected his staff from the floor and has propped it over his shoulder again. “When you’d like to learn the terms of the bargain I’m prepared to strike with you, you can come back and find me here whenever you like.” Then he does something unexpected; he reaches out and he places his hand on my shoulder. He’s a foot taller than me, which isn’t a factor I usually allow to bother me, but Darius’ looming stature suddenly makes me feel out of sorts.
“I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” he tells me. “In the meantime, perhaps you could consider the question I posed to you a moment ago. And perhaps you should get some proper sleep. Weaving such intricate landscapes in your dreams can’t provide much valuable rest.”
I jerk back, away from his touch. Darius seems to waiver a little, and then…
Huh…
The Reckoning Hall is melting. My mouth feels like it’s filling up with water. My knees give out from beneath me; I throw a hand out, trying to grapple hold of Darius’ staff again, but my fingers grasp at thin air. Suddenly, everything is darkness. The cavern is gone. Darius is gone. I’m alone in the blackness, and I can’t move…
I jolt awake with a start, my heart hammering like a piston inside my ribcage. Sitting bolt upright, I claw at my throat, trying to free myself of the ligature that’s pulling tight around it. Only, there’s no ligature. There’s nothing at all. I’m in my cot, in my small, drafty room, and I’m alone.
“Hells…” I wipe the sweat from my brow with the already soaked sheet that covers me. I thought… I believed I’d climbed out of my bed and gone to Darius. I believed I’d been awake. The bastard did exactly to me what I do to Reza, and I didn’t even realize. How could he be that strong? How could he sneak past my defenses without me even suspecting? It makes no sense. The anger that rises up and storms inside me is unparalleled. I sag back onto the thin mattress and I allow myself the pleasure of picturing Darius’ death, over and over again, playing on an endless loop. I behead him. I eviscerate him. I plunge a blade deep into his chest. I shove him out of a shuttle, three thousand feet up. I watch him freeze in the emptiness of space, his blood pouring out of his ears, his nose and his mouth. I watch him disintegrate as a phase rifle hits him square in the face. And then…
I picture him healing me.
That’s what he offered me. He offered to take away my addiction to the Light altogether. To heal me of my need for it. A solution to the problem, instead of a temporary bandage to conceal it. Is that what I want? The Light’s been a leash around my neck for as long as I can recall. Regis has used it to control me for so long that there are stretches of time—weeks, months, cycles even—when the situation doesn’t even strike me as fucked up anymore. It’s just been normal.
Without the Light, I would no longer be vulnerable, dependent, or weak. Even now, Regis is probably counting down the hours and until I come crawling back to The Nexus with my tail between my legs, begging and pleading for one more measly dose. Can I swallow my pride and return to Darius after he duped me, though? And will I be able to comply with the terms of his bargain? Who knows what he’ll want in return for his help?
I shake violently as I close my eyes. The room’s still cold, I know it is, but my skin’s on fire, scalding to the touch and drenched in sweat. When I wake up in the morning, I’m going to want to die. I’m going to pray for death, if only for the simple fact that I won’t be in so much pain any more.
“In the meantime, Jass, perhaps you could consider the question I posed to you a moment ago.” Darius’ voice replays inside my head like an echo as I allow the darkness to swallow me whole again.
However, my last thought before I drift into unconsciousness, is a different question he posed to me. He asked why I haven’t tired of this charade. I told myself that I didn’t know the answer to that question, but that was a lie. I could easily take Reza before she has time to bite down on that capsule of poison. I could lock her out of her own body, make sure she can’t move a muscle, an inch, can’t even blink her damned eyes. All of that is within my power.
I know all too well why I haven’t done it.
I haven’t done it, because Reza wouldn’t like it.
SEVENTEEN
REZA
THE TRUTH CAN BE UNPLEASANT
I wake to the sound of bells and the sensation of a thousand ton weight pressing down on my chest. It takes me a second to remember how to breathe, and then another second to remember where I am.
The moment I think Jass’ name, the dream comes flooding back to me. And then…many more dreams. Many, many more.
What…
…the…
…Fuck?
Oh…gods.
I’ve been to him before. I’ve moved the heavens aside in order to get to him. For…oh no. It’s been this way for cycles. Ever since the Invictus. A wall of horror slams into me when I remember our past exchanges. At first, I resisted him. I did everything I could to avoid the connection I could feel growing stronger and stronger every time we met. And then, my emotions became too much. I gave myself to him. I kissed him in a windswept field he’d created with his mind, and afterward he’d held me and stroked my hair while I cried. He brought me to a beach, and we fought. He held me. He kissed me. We tore each other’s clothes off, and he claimed me for the very first time. He took me to planets I’ve never been to before. When I entered a dream and I couldn’t remember the past we shared, he showed me his memories of us time and time again.
As each dream comes jolting back to me, I want to die. I hate myself for what I’ve allowed to take place. I want to hate Jass, too, for manipulating me and using me. But there’s a problem: he didn’t do either of those things. I know with an absolute certainty that he didn’t take advantage of me. Every time he’s reached out for me, he’s offered me an out. He’s offered me the option of backing away and leaving him. I’ve never once felt threatened or truly afraid of him in my dreams. I’ve felt an odd kinship, rooted deep inside me, and it’s overwritten any other emotion I might have had. When his lips have met mine, I’ve welcomed the taste of him. When he’s pushed himself inside me, his breath hot and heavy in my ear, I’ve felt complete. And when his arms have encircled me, I’ve felt…safe.
Gods. This is so fucked up.
I hid all of this from myself. I purposefully buried it, so I wouldn’t have to deal with it. It was the weakest thing I could have done. I can still feel the draw down the tether we share now, tugging at me, trying to pull me toward him. Jass told me he wasn’t responsible for the fact that I couldn’t remember our meetings, and, against all the odds, I believe him. So many miles separated us before, when he was on The Nexus, and the connection linking us together was weak. I could still feel it niggling at me, teasing me, taunting me, beckoning me out into space, but it was easy to press it to the back of my mind, and easy enough to ignore it. Now, with him only a few hundred feet away, that same connection feels capable of lifting me from my feet and hauling me to his side whether I like it or not. It’s strong and bright, burning a pathway through the synapses of my mind. Jass was right. Somehow, I did subconsciously manage to block out my own memories, either from shame or the simple fact that I did not want to deal with them, but now that the connection’s reinforcing itself so quickly, it won’t allow me the luxury of ignorance any more.
The sound of running boots and strained voices flood the hallway outside my room as a handful of people hurry by. The clamor of bells continues as I hurry to pull on my clothes and I leave my room. The urgency and panic that fills the air finally hits me when I step into the tunnel that leads to the communications center where I first met Erika. A hundred bodies are packed tightly together, where the sides of the tunnel form a bottleneck, and a wailing woman with a child in her arms collapses to the ground, disappearing beneath the crush.
“Wait! Wait!
” I struggle to push closer but more and more people are filling the tunnel, all desperately trying to jam their way forward through the bottleneck. “Stop!” I scream. “Someone fell! Someone went down!”
A tall man beside me grabs hold of my arm, tying to jerk me back. “Wait your turn. We’ll all get through if you just wait!” When he looks at me, his eyes glaze over and he releases me, though, shaking his hand out. His mouth hangs open, slack, and he falls still. A wave of people flow around him, and he’s lost in the crowd. I scoot down, trying to locate the woman and her child who fell, but whenever I bend, hands and legs and arms collide with me, threatening to shove me down. I reach the spot where the woman vanished, and I search the ground as best I can without falling myself, but there’s no one there, no one being crushed underfoot. She could have scrambled her way to safety? She must have gotten to her feet and already moved on. Someone else must have helped her up.
I scan the faces that surround me, hunting for the woman’s panicked features, but I don’t see her. Only a hundred urgent, frantic people, all desperate to reach their destination. I grab hold of the closest man, shouting into his ear. “What’s happened? Are we being attacked?” My head is full of images—unpleasant ones. Construct ships filling the air. Foot soldiers deploying on the surface of Pirius, using their hand scanners to detect the massive sub city beneath their feet. Gods, if that’s happened…there are too many people down here. There aren’t enough exits. I’ve witnessed how the Construct handles situations like this before. One canister of stem-gas tossed inside each entryway. That’s all it takes. They allow the tunnels to do their job for them, using the natural ventilation that flows through subterranean cities like this to distribute their poison. How long would it take for everyone to be dead? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? A carpet of bodies, eyes rolling, bodies twitching, all laid on top of one another as they slip from this life. I try to breathe cautiously—is there anything wrong with the air?—but all I can smell is sweat and fear.
The man I’ve grabbed hold of, a boy really, barely out of his apprenticeship, squints at me, attempting to wrestle himself free. “The chancellor…” he gasps. “We have to get to the Appointments Hall. Let me go, damn it. You’re hurting me.”
My grip is loose. There’s no way I’m hurting him with my hand. He’s referring to me; my presence is causing him discomfort. I’m never going to get used to the fact that I can cause such harm by merely being. It’s bewildering. I release him, letting him slip away from me, and he disappears, thrusting his way through the crowd with no thought for the people around him.
It takes an age to get through the bottleneck. It’s much easier to move once I’ve battled my way through the melee; the tunnel opens up into a broader walkway, and traffic flows much quicker. I follow the swarm of sweat-covered bodies, and soon I find myself being spat out inside what must be the Appointments Hall. Overhead, the roof of the enormous space is so dimly lit that just a suggestion of its vaulted coves are visible in the darkness. The air’s thick and warm. Cloying. Every available inch of space is occupied by groups of gathered friends and families sticking together. Neighbors, all whispering behind their hands, their dark eyes hazy and clouded as they converse. At the front of the Appointments Hall, a huge, raised dais sits above the uneven, rocky ground that stretches before me. On the dais, an explosion of color takes me by surprise.
Flowers.
So many flowers. Thousands of them.
My breath catches in my throat, my eyes unable to process the scene for a second. There are no flowers on Pirius. As far as I’ve seen, the only agricultural ground that remains left on the surface, fiercely protected from the planet’s storms, is used solely to grow crops. The seers could never give over fertile ground to something so frivolous as flowers. So where, then, have they come from? In a planet so stripped of color, the bright purples, reds, oranges, pinks and yellows are such a surprise to me that for a second I can’t see through my tears. They’re so beautiful. So unexpected and lovely. It’s as if everyone catches sight of the blooms at the same time, because a hushed, reverent silence slowly falls over the assembly, and all faces turn toward the dais. Just to left of the rusting platform, I notice Darius, standing with Chancellor Gain. Col’s there, too. It’s as if he feels my eyes on him; he looks up, scanning the crowd of people in the half-light until he finds me, standing at the back. His face is bloodless, paler than it was when he first arrived with Jass.
He raises a hand and gestures to me, signaling that I should come forward, but it’s impossible. The floor of the Appointments Hall is packed shoulder to shoulder. I only seem to cause people pain when I come into contact with them, and having to touch so many in order to get to Col? That would be unwelcome, but more importantly unkind. Col’s gaze hardens; at first I think he’s angry that I’m not doing as he’s told me, but then I feel the presence at my back and I know Col’s hard stare isn’t for me. It’s for Jass.
A whisper skates across my skin. A caress of words. “What do you sense inside this room?” Jass is standing so close to me that his lips move my hair as he speaks. His warm breath makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. My eyes slowly close, and for a second, one brief, unexpected second, the weariness that’s been weighting my limbs down since I woke eases. A blankness fills my head. A blissful void dampens the relentless chatter around us and for a moment I am calm. My muscles fall slack, and the anxiety that’s taken residence deep within my bones loosens its hold over me. I’m transported back through a multitude of dreams where Jass has taken care of me. Peppered my face with kisses. He’s soothed my soul, only to then set it on fire all over again. How could I not have remembered all of this? How could I have blotted out so much?
“I can’t sense a thing,” Jass whispers. “Not that I’m trying. It’s kinda fun to revel in this kind of mayhem, don’t you think?”
I’m far from reveling in it. Weirdly, it’s as though I’ve been set free from it and he knows this. He isn’t touching me, but he’s protecting me somehow, shielding me from the noise and the uplifted voices that continue to war for attention around us. My lungs expand inside my chest, and I can breathe. Feels amazing.
“How are you doing this?” I whisper. He’s here with me, inside this little bubble of quiet he’s created, so I know he can hear me. He sighs; there’s a sort of energy escaping from him, prickling at my skin.
“It’s the easiest thing in the world,” he muses. “I just have to think it and it happens. You could do it, too, but you already know that. You already know how similar we are, don’t you?”
“I know everything,” I whisper. “I know how long we’ve been…” Damn it, I can’t say the words. It’s far too difficult. I can’t admit that I’ve craved him without even realizing it. I can’t admit that I…that I care about him. These dreams we’ve shared…I don’t even know if they count as real. Our minds were there, but our bodies weren’t. I’d like to be able to say that none of it actually happened because of that fact, but how? I felt his hands on my body. I pressed my own mouth against his. I heard his heart beating wildly beneath the solid muscle of his chest. And my mind did fall apart as he made me come. I’d be lying to myself if I tried to convince myself it wasn’t true, and I’ve apparently been lying to myself enough of late.
Jass is quiet for a moment. He doesn’t say anything, but I can feel him thinking. A solid minute passes before he speaks. “Everything. You remember the times we’ve spent together, then.” Not a question. A statement. He shifts, and his chest brushes against my back for a second. My body feels like it’s about to burst into flames. “I was beginning to think we were going to have to start over, Reza. I didn’t want to have to do that.”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I hiss. “None of it. Just because we share a connection doesn’t mean we have to be together. Just because we’ve been together in our heads doesn’t mean we have to be together in reality.” Wouldn’t that just simply everything? It would be wonderful to just discount
everything that’s occurred and bury it all beneath the sand dunes. I’m never going to tell Col. I’m never going to tell Darius. I’m never going to tell anyone about the new found history I share with Jass. They’d never understand.
Jass hums deeply. “If you think walking away is so easy, then I admire you. You’re a hell of a lot stronger than me. I know I can’t do it.”
A tremor runs down the length of my body, sharp pins and needles settling in my hands and my feet. He’s undeniably a cold, hard, uncaring person most of the time. To hear him say he couldn’t walk away this—from me—causes a strange reaction in me. An admission like that is a weakness on his part. I don’t know how to process his show of vulnerability.
Jass’ control over the bubble he’s created around us contracts, and the din inside the Appointments Hall comes crashing down again, almost deafening me. Now, when I speak, I have to shout to be heard. “Ease has nothing to do with this,” I tell him. “I’m nothing like you, Jass. The only thing you and I have in common is that the Construct took us both. Beyond that, the similarities end. You have no moral compass. You have no conscience.” I shake my head, exasperated. Spinning around to face him, my resolve falters as I look up into his gold-flecked eyes. “We’re incompatible,” I say.
Jass’ eyes narrow, crinkling in the corners. Not with annoyance, though. With amusement. He towers over me, his presence sending out even more crackling energy that zips from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes. He’s pure electricity, and I’m a lightning rod. Dizziness sweeps over me. I have to swallow hard, pulling in a lungful of air in order to try and stop my head from spinning. A fine line forms between Jass’ almost black eyebrows—a look I wouldn’t expect to see him wearing. Concern? No. No, it couldn’t be that.