The last time she saw Michael’s face, he wasn’t this wistful boy, clutching withered blades of grass. He was a vision that she couldn’t imagine forgetting for eleven years, but somehow she had been separated from this moment for so long. Sometime between then and now, she had caught a glimpse…his somber mouth, forming urgent words, kissing her goodbye. His eyes had changed too. The bitterness was gone, and any pain that was present was too tethered to understanding to be recognized as suffering. What did he tell her then?
At first, Kayla could only hear him muttering as he knelt before her and dug through his pockets. “It makes sense. From the beginning, this was your world. It should be you.” He found the tiny box and thrust it into her hands. “You did well, little one. Take this and close your eyes. You’ll wake up somewhere peaceful.”
She didn’t obey. He was pressing a white, gnarled spike through his hand. “Will you be there too?” she whispered.
Michael circled his arms around her, and she felt heat rising between his hands, behind her back. He rested his forehead on her shoulder. “This will only be a dream. You’ll build a new reality, Kayla. I’ve done all I could. This was inevitable. This was why…everything…everything…” His eyes were shining when he raised his head, and he smiled now as words failed him.
“Will I be alone?”
There was a whirring sound coming from behind her, and she pressed her face to Michael’s neck to shield herself from the blinding light he was generating. His voice was her comfort, easing her fears with one of her mother’s favorite prayers. “ ‘If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn…’ ”
Kayla slowly stepped back, allowing herself to stand inside the fire between his hands as she recited the words with him. “ ‘…If I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me—’ ”
Kiera cried out somewhere in the distance, but Michael’s stare forbade her to turn her head. He raised his voice, “ ‘—your right hand will hold me fast…’ ”
His eyes broke from hers for just the span of one breath, and in the stiffness of his features, she recognized a glance meant just for Asher, even if she couldn’t read its content. Michael’s gaze grasped her again as they both mouthed the words. “ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” even the night shall be light about me; the night will shine like the day…’ ”
The fire erupted, and she could feel the light shooting straight through the crown of her head. Inside her, every stain was burned away, leaving only silence, and she opened her eyes to the night that fell on Velsmere. Her flames were cascading back to earth like a thousand white petals. Kayla could see the days ahead of her as infinite paths stretching out and over the mountains. They all led back up to the sky, to the moment when the sun would go dark. The earth below her was black, dormant, waiting to be awakened by her touch. She was the star that would light the world again.
44
Jeremy held his breath until he couldn’t help but gasp for air, and after a few shaky inhalations, he started the cycle again. This was the only way to keep from losing himself. He could feel his grip on reality slipping, now that he could no longer perceive it with his senses. Even his internal awareness was blunted. He couldn’t feel her at all. Was she still alive? He was certain that if she was destroyed by that fire, he would experience her loss as some prolonged and conscious evisceration, rather than this vague impression that he’d been gutted. Jeremy allowed his breath to return, so that his lips could form her name. His mouth trembled, not knowing where to begin.
“I believe the word you’re searching for is ‘Kayla.’ ”
He shuddered at the sound of Tregenne putting on his professor voice. Still, his fear subsided with the mention of her name.
“Should I not have uttered that combination of sounds? I was charged with dividing you two, after all. Ah, well, you won’t remember it long. Go ahead, Saros. Tell me who you’re yearning for.”
Jeremy’s mouth was tight. She had disappeared again so suddenly from his mind. Her name, her face, her voice…gone. There was nothing he had to hold on to, beyond his driving need to find her, to possess her, but without the knowledge of her identity or the comfort of her memory, he found no ground beneath him, no calm center in the rising panic that threatened to devour him.
“This is Hell, Saros,” Tregenne murmured. “Complete separation from the Divine.”
Jeremy swallowed a nauseating wave of despair before forcing his face into an expression that, despite his best efforts, was more grimace than grin. “I thought my punishment was listening to your shit. But you’ve fallen too. While some new world is being built, you’re stuck down here with me. You’re an Arch. Wasn’t there anyone else to—”
“No, Saros. They’re all…occupied. This duty was my humble request, of course.”
“Fucking with me is more entertaining than what’s going on out there? Yeah right. So what’s this really abou—”
“Suffer quietly!” Gabriel growled, the smooth layers finally torn from his voice.
Jeremy choked as a blow struck the cluster of bone that wrapped around his throat. His limbs jerked against these new fetters, but he was allowed little movement beyond the clenching of his fists. This was nothing like being trapped beneath the mountain. There, he was bound and consumed in fire, but those chains, those flames, they were hers. He was ready to accept both the certainty and finality of death; those qualities of his demise were a comfort beneath all his regrets.
But then Tregenne had come and his world went dark. The new fetters the Arch clamped around his head were different from the ones that crawled over his arms and kept him tied to her. These bones took his sight and left him without any recognizable foundations, severing his connection to what, for so long, had been his closest glimpse of purpose. It was hard to say what came next, but he had the sense that the hardened shell that covered much of his body devoured the flesh beneath. Even with that lack of sensation, he knew he was grasped by his armpits and dragged through the wet pebbles of the cave. The stale air lifted and he felt himself caught in a steep ascent, his lower back scraped by stones and prickly weeds. He had no strength with which to struggle, and his mind was too occupied to protest. He’d rather burn the last of his energy uselessly defying the Ruiners from within by not abandoning the search for the memory of her eyes.
The raw skin above the waist of his torn pants was suddenly pulled along a slick, cold floor. His back made contact with a wall, but instead of the fetters piercing and tearing that surface, he could feel them join with the barrier, fusing his body to the structure by his shoulders and spine. He didn’t know how long he sat there, sightless, moved by dreams and illusions, waiting for breaks in his transparent hallucinations. Those moments were opportunities to piece together what events led him to this place, but any clarity he reached was briefly held.
It was then that Tregenne’s voice broke through his fragile web of memories, just as Jeremy reached deeper into that tangle in search of her name. That sound pulled him from his feverish pursuit, and his mouth followed old patterns to keep his fear at bay. Tregenne’s responses were of the expected variety, and it was a small comfort that some things were unchanged, even as Jeremy now willed his bruised throat to complete the motion of swallowing. He knew Tregenne struck him because he probed too insistently, but if he remained still, if he waited, the old professor would win out over the savage. Gabriel was intolerant, vicious, but he liked to instruct before the slaughter.
Jeremy willed his breath to slow, his muscles to uncoil and go limp. He felt the effects of his exhaustion expressed as patience.
Just as he began to drift into an uneasy state of near detachment, Tregenne spoke again. “That’s better. Some work requires silence. Other tasks benefit from discussion, but even you must admit you have little to offer there.”
“Because you’re already sucking my memories with this thing?” Jeremy mutter
ed, weakly shaking his bound head.
“There is nothing you know, remembered or forgotten, that isn’t already old news for us.”
“Yeah, I got that. I’m not a threat,” he laughed bitterly. “But it’s more fun for you if I know why this is happening, what’s coming, what you’re going to do to me…”
“Correct. If there can be no stimulating exchange of ideas, I’ll take the consolation prize.” Tregenne’s voice faded and grew louder again as he moved through the room. His steps only sounded occasionally, but the rustling of papers and heavy, metallic clinks gave away the continuous movements of his hands. “Did you ever think you were a threat, Saros?” he chortled. “Hmm, that could be the Ruiners talking. You’ve been a tool, kid. Don’t try to make sense of it all. You were a curiosity, a possibility, and it was just a process of elimination that drew you into a larger plan. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it was woven around you.”
Jeremy could feel Tregenne’s fingers probing his chest below his collarbone. “But now…it depends on me.”
Gabriel was still for only a moment. “You’ve been acquired. There are no more acts of obedience for you to perform. You even managed to return her in a more desirable condition than the one you found her in.” He paused, expelling another dry laugh. “Not familiar? I might have to adjust your Mods. You aren’t supposed to forget her completely, but just enough to make this interesting.”
Jeremy frowned. Memories were falling away, but his passion hadn’t waned. His captor had misread the tightening of his muscles. Did he really give her over to them? If he betrayed his brightest light, then wasn’t he to blame for being cast into this all-consuming darkness? His thoughts were interrupted by something cold and wet swiping circles across his skin, followed by a sudden, piercing stab in his chest. He struggled to inhale, but that only underscored the sensation of the needle penetrating his flesh.
“Don’t move!” Tregenne barked. “I’m not going to waste any Lidocaine on you, so you’ll just have to take it.” His voice dropped again into the almost pleasant drone of a lecture. “I’ve accepted that this might not go the way I imagined. I’m content to see the events unfold as they must. I’ll speak as if you still have the capacity to listen and understand, and I’ll sort out the effects of these Ruiners on the brain of a Saros child later.”
The pressure on the outside of Jeremy’s body remained still and constant, but he could feel a tiny wire moving deeper within him. He kept his breathing shallow, promising the shadow of her memory that his surrender would only be temporary.
“The coming storm won’t kill us all,” Tregenne continued, “in fact, some of us will adapt. But not without help. I’ve developed various Modifications for both humans and Nephilim, but even you’ve seen how some of those ended. Za’in has been slowly fortifying his body with sacred blood and Angelic script, and it was his method of grafting foreign Intercessor shards that inspired some of my projects, including my input on Core development, and the Ruiners, of course. But there were setbacks. I was disappointed to see most of my early experiments destabilize, mutate, and either destroy themselves or need to be put down. I had to start over. Start small. Tiny slivers of bone embedded beneath the skin were generally successful, but most subjects couldn’t take on any more than that. For instance, we both know what happened to Fiora.”
Jeremy’s body was moved by a quick spasm, and Tregenne briefly stilled his hands, chuckling. “You remember that one, do you? It’s funny what sticks. At any rate, your ‘fetters’ haven’t restrained you much. Yes, you were tied to Za’in, you were steered, but instead of being consumed by the power that clothed you, you were improved. Stronger, faster, impervious to injury…you required very little sustenance or sleep, and your means of perception were, for the most part, sharpened. You also were able to be a conduit for divine energy, which, for me, was the most exciting aspect of your transformation. Still, none of this was singularly unique. But every time I thought you’d join the others and burn out, you would find your equilibrium. Now this experiment wasn’t strictly scientific; you weren’t the only variable. The young Steelryn was our second wild card. You’ve been a fascinating pair to observe.”
A small, but deep, slice joined whatever punctured Jeremy’s flesh, and he felt something wider than the needle begin to burrow down into his chest. There was pain, but he felt strangely detached from these precise, violent sensations. Fluid ran down his ribs as Tregenne continued to force those instruments inside, pausing at times to press something soft against his skin, leaving sticky smears around his wound.
“However, now we’re in the end times and there is little room for pleasant diversions. Your actions in Azevin allowed Za’in to enter your Angel, and although that gave you the benefit of some deserved silence, you probably noticed some of your new strengths have weakened. Za’in may be as close to God as we have encountered, but his energy is not limitless and his attention can only be focused in so many directions. You won’t last long. But a part of you will.
“As you can see, Saros, Modifications do not an Angel make. You are strong enough to survive these devices, but you’re certainly no specimen of divinity. What Za’in is constructing won’t be without flaws, but you’ll be surprised what a little sacred bone and quartzite can do to a human body under the right circumstances. And your blood will ensure that our test subjects survive their rebirth.”
“Are you doing the same thing to her?” Jeremy breathed through stiff lips. Something was tugging at his skin, drawing the exposed end of the invading tube tight to his chest.
“Of course not. She has a more active part to play. This is your fate alone because this is all you can offer.”
Jeremy’s veins awakened with a cold rush, then immediately began to slowly thaw, his energy fading with the returning warmth. “Take what you want now,” he whispered. “You won’t keep me here long.”
“Don’t you think that sort of bravado is pathetic at this point? How do you propose to escape and rescue her?” Tregenne paused to regard Jeremy’s subdued silence before erupting into laughter. “It can’t be…you’re hoping that she saves you? Really, Saros, you could at least display the dignity of an Arch before death. Regardless, these Ruiners work both ways. You have disappeared from her thoughts, but she won’t experience the conflict you suffer because she has no reason to fight to regain her memories, to hold on to some ghost sensation of attachment. She doesn’t want to remember you.”
Jeremy felt his face relax into what was almost a smile. Even with these fetters, he didn’t forget that there was something that lifted the senselessness from what he endured, in penance or in sacrifice. There was darkness, but he wasn’t the only one standing between it and the end. She was what he needed to reach, but there was another that shared his torment, and the will to keep going… “You went through all this to keep her from me. This prison for my weakness — is it strong enough to hold her? You better be sure because I’m not the only one you have to erase.”
“Serafin?” Tregenne snorted. “He died in Azevin ten years ago.”
“Yeah. And that still didn’t stop him.”
The almost musical sound of glass vials softly colliding with one another was muffled by Gabriel’s hand as he rose from Jeremy’s side. “That sort of persistence you admire is exactly what led you into this position.”
Jeremy listened to Tregenne’s echoing steps disappear behind the heavy slam of a door. He was finally alone. He let his head hang, almost enjoying the sensation of gravity pulling the lower part of his face in the opposite direction of his Ruiners. He knew it was hopeless, that Serafin couldn’t win. Behind that great warrior was an army of four kids, armed with novelty Mods. Jeremy inhaled sharply, his head painfully snapping back. There was another. An intense energy, tightly contained, thinly shrouded…and so familiar. Why couldn’t he remember? He swallowed hard, clinging to the comfort that although his connection to anything higher was now severed, and the holiness he constantly condemned, but alwa
ys desired, was now forever out of his reach, some aspect of it was at Serafin’s right hand, and however it ended, it would end here.
45
Asher kept his back to the wall and his eyes craning up toward the window as he sat crouched in the ruins of Velsmere, waiting for night to fall. He had been too reckless. This was his last chance to atone for yesterday’s actions, and he needed to be patient and approach the monastery with stealth. He released the handle of his kukri to pull the wrinkled and bent card from beneath his poncho. The Seven of Swords. His thumb traced jagged circles over the card’s surface while his watchful gaze remained focused on his surroundings. Did she mean to leave this behind? Did she realize what she’d done?
He regretted his weakness. In those moments with her when he allowed his grip to loosen, he still didn’t experience the surrender he thought he desired. Instead, his isolation was even more apparent. She had turned her face towards him, searching for light, but found only the shadows of an unresolved past. He wasn’t a man. He was flesh, animated by some purpose that grew vaguer with every lonely year that passed. She woke the hope that slept deep within him, she sent energy rushing into his legs, but she also reminded him of everything he tried to drown beneath his single-minded goal. When she touched him, she saw the desperation he sought to conquer…and she saw Saros.
Asher returned the card to his pocket, his trembling fingers grasping his weapon again with an unyielding grip. He had no choice but to leave her then, to find his balance, but little time passed before he heard raised voices and smelled her fire charging the stale air of the winery. He beat down the door in time to see Saros fling his body into the heart of the flames, and although the force lifted Kayla from the ground, throwing her back, nothing human could stop her. They were gone. All that remained was the flashlight rolling to a stop, settling in a crack in the concrete, illuminating a card that lay face down.
Dominion of the Star (Descendants of the Fallen Book 1) Page 37