Dunn reached for the closest shard—the tip. The point she’d used to spread the ribs of the Burner Progenitor. The unearthly sharp death singularity. The only bit of hardware or clothing that came back in time with the Progenitors.
“Promise me that you will outfit us better this time around,” she said absently.
In the next cycle of echoes, the Emperor Godhead damned well better do his job.
Trajan audibly inhaled. “I hereby swear upon the Fate blood of my mother and the Shifter blood of you, my dear ‘father,’ that I will do better by you and your team, Idunn, Mother of Shifters.”
He will, the Whispering One said. The cycles must break.
“Good.” Dunn handed the phone back to Hadrian.
Hadrian listened for a moment, then wrapped his hand around the tip of Janus’s talisman. He wouldn’t look at Dunn.
Daniel’s future-seer rang through the small room. “I don’t think—”
Hadrian stabbed the shard into Dunn’s belly.
She felt the blade slide into her flesh. No pain—she rarely felt pain from slashes anymore—but a sense of parting pressed open the wound.
Her body morphed around the slice. It danced with Janus’s midnight death blade, sliding first one way, then the other, to move her important parts out of the way.
But her body recognized the metal-ceramic hybrid of the shard. It reached out to the structure of the foreign object invading its space the way an astronaut reached for a docking port.
Hadrian’s face warped. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I truly am. But Trajan says this is the only way.” His face said the truth: I am correct. I am always correct.
Dunn’s body sucked the shard into her gut.
Yes, the Whispering One said. Connect to it.
The world moved sideways—or Dunn moved sideways to the world—and the truth revealed itself.
Daisy blazed like the sun itself.
Harold and Hadrian shimmered, two men with a little gleam rubbed onto their skin.
A cyclone of mostly Fate energy whipped around Daniel and Marcus, but mist also surrounded their heads and shoulders—her contribution to their power from an unknown ancestor.
For a second, Dunn wondered if Rysa Torres looked the same inside new-space.
“No,” the woman standing next to Dunn said. “The Draki Prime is considerably more chaotic.”
The woman stood slightly taller than Dunn by maybe an inch or two. Black, curly hair cascaded down her back, much like Dunn’s own. Or AnnaBelinda’s. Or Ladon’s, the few times he allowed his hair to grow long.
The woman’s silver metallic eyes shimmered. They caught the faded-yet-deep indigo of her uniform.
No patches remained. No indication of rank. Only a Praetorian Guard-colored flight suit and two scabbards on her back, one holding a sword and one empty. Two daggers were also strapped to her thigh.
“Hello, Cecilia,” Maria Romanova said. “Heed me. We don’t have much time.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Wyoming…
Drive to Cheyenne, Rysa’s seers all whispered.
Cheyenne’s where we need to be, her dark Fate agreed.
Some of Andreas’s enthralled-in pain had eased when she told him they needed to go east, to Cheyenne. He’d nodded and said “Thank you.”
He now stuffed Stab, George, and Ringo into a duffle he pulled out of the back of his SUV. The big gun with its big bullets he left in its holster, which he put in the trunk.
They made it down to the garage in record time, and she suspected that they’d make Rock Springs and the interstate too quickly as well.
“We can wait for Ladon and Dragon,” she said.
The pain remained. It now ate at his expression. Andreas looked as if he wanted to vomit. “They will catch up.”
Easily, especially if Anna drove.
Rysa pulled her mother’s winter jacket tight around her body before adjusting her mother’s obnoxious pink pom-pommed hat. Andreas may have been enthralled to take the damned blades to his mother, but he did make sure Rysa wouldn’t freeze to death before they left.
She held out her phone. “I’m calling.”
Andreas nodded. “Get in. We go.”
She’d stopped Derek and Andreas from getting into an all-out fight in the tunnel to the cave’s antechamber. She couldn’t stop Andreas from enthralling Ladon and Dragon to not interfere, but she could keep Derek safe.
Keeping Derek safe meant limiting the draws on her father’s attention. Healing Derek now took significant time and energy. Her dad needed that time and energy for her mom.
The SUV pinged when she opened the door. A quick check with her present-seer told her who was outside and able to answer their phone.
Rysa dialed as Andreas pulled out onto the mountain road.
“Love!” Ladon’s warm voice flowed through her phone’s speaker. “We’re following.”
“We just left the garage,” she said. She glanced at Andreas. “We need to go east to Cheyenne. With the fog, that’s the best I can do right now, so we’re heading to Rock Springs and I-80.”
“Understood.” The wind hit Ladon’s phone. They must not be that far behind.
“How’s my mom?” Her seers told her that Anna had asked Derek to stay at the cave to guard her parents. Moving her mom right now could upset the anti-Parcae sickness healings her father continued to administer.
If her dad hadn’t been with her mom when Ismene died, her mom would have lost Rysa’s little sister. If Sister-Dragon hadn’t helped him with a detailed dragon-perceived diagnostic image, she also would have lost the baby.
The next twenty-four hours were critical.
With the loss of her one remaining triad mate, Mira Torres had been taken off the board, at least for the next day or two, and with her one of the world’s best healers.
“She waved us away. Said she would protect Sandro and Derek until we returned.” Ladon chuckled.
“Did you remember to lock the door when you left?” Her seers weren’t picking up hints of flashbacks or other issues, so Ladon must be handling her choice to protect Andreas well.
“I checked the oven and the iron, too,” he said.
“Good, good.” Maybe this little hiccup would stay just that—a hiccup. Maybe this once, she could use her Draki Prime abilities to keep a situation under control.
“Sister called the RV dealership. They will have the bus ready for us when we arrive,” Ladon said.
After the fight with the Children of the Burning World at the hotel, Dmitri left the damaged Praesagio touring bus in Cheyenne for repairs. He flew in technicians who had the bus up and running in just under two weeks. They moved it to Rock Springs after that, and the Dracae’s RV dealer fixed the exterior.
Sister-Dragon still wanted her RV, but they did have a rolling four-star hotel to use in the meantime.
“Tell Andreas to slow down,” Ladon said. “We will pick you up. You can ride in comfort to greet Dunn.” Menace colored his voice. Her husband was not taking the situation as well as she had hoped. Yet…
“Anna can drive us to Dunn in the Praesagio touring bus Dmitri left. It’s at the dealership in Rock Springs.” She unleashed her seers more for effect than to test the future waters. “Confronting your mother with the Dracae at your back would be better for everyone.”
Andreas slapped the steering wheel. “Do you think I want to do this?” he yelled.
“No,” Rysa said. “None of us do.”
The pained expression returned. “The SUV is fine.”
Perhaps an offer of speed would help. “The bus can drive from Rock Springs to Washington D.C. without stopping.”
“The SUV is fine!” he yelled.
“Rysa…” Ladon said.
“I’m okay,” she said into her phone. “Andreas will be okay. I’m here to help him get through this as quickly and as safely as possible.”
Andreas rubbed his face. “My mother will not harm the Draki Prime,” he said. But he swallow
ed. “I shouldn’t have brought you along.”
“Nothing bad is going to happen to me,” she said. “You both need to know that.”
“We will transfer to the bus in Rock Springs,” Ladon said. “Text me every fifteen minutes,” he said. “Please.”
“I will.” She would. “I love you.”
“We love you, too.” Ladon ended the call.
Rysa tucked her phone into her mother’s jacket pocket. The Wyoming snow glowed outside the SUV, and reflected the colors of the mountains in winter—subtle purples, mineral blue-greens, every possible shade of brown. Even hints of orange and yellow.
Blacks and grays surrounded her inside the SUV, except for her mother’s jacket and hat. The coat fit fine, but the pink hat was a bit much. She pulled it off her head.
Andreas watched her toss it into the back. “The next time you see your mother, ask her about the wolf’s head.”
Rysa’s past-seer pulled up a fuzzy, long-ago image of her mother on the back of a feisty but lovely bay-colored pony. Curls of her blonde hair fell around her shoulders. Leather protected her waist and shins. Blue paint swirled on her cheeks.
All under the glare of a wolf’s head.
“My mother the barbarian!” Rysa was not surprised. Not at all.
Andreas chuckled. “You are the daughter of a goddess, Rysa Torres Drake.”
So they were all godlings. Rysa shook her head. “I’m a senior at the University of Minnesota, that’s what I am.” She held up her hand. “I’m a newlywed.” She sniffed and sat back in her seat. “And I’m the Draki Prime and the Healer of Dragons.”
Andreas chuckled again. “I am so sorry I dragged you into this. It’s your honeymoon.”
She pointed at his nose. “You owe me a big box of chocolates for this.”
For the first time since they left, he laughed. “You’ve been enthralled. You understand why I can’t stop.”
If you asked for an enthralling, if it was administered by someone like Andreas, someone with scruples and training and a good heart, it could save your life. How many times had she saved Ladon with the calling scents she made specifically for him?
But like any therapeutic drug, an enthralling could harm.
She wouldn’t say it to Andreas, but his mother had basically roofied him into compliance.
Rysa wiggled in her seat and re-adjusted her belt. “I understand,” she said.
“I can’t break it. She’s the only enthraller on Earth who can make a scent I can’t break.” He rubbed his face again. “She’s the only enthraller other than me who can pull back a scent. She can time how long hers run, which I cannot.”
“I’m sorry, Andreas. I’m sorry she did this to you.”
He glanced over. “So am I,” he said. “So am I.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The base…
For the first time in Dunn’s life, she saw the Whispering One.
“What’s your name?” she asked. Everyone had a name. Dunn had many. Everyone deserved to be recognized and she no longer wanted to call this woman the Whispering One.
“Maria,” the Whispering One said. “Do you remember rescuing me?”
Maria Nikolaevna Romanova. “Yes. I pulled you and your brother—a version of you and your brother—from that shack in Siberia.” Because the Whispering One—this version of Maria—told her to.
Then she’d set her hands upon the younger Maria, and that version of the woman became as forgotten as this version.
Maria glanced over her shoulder at Daniel. “I have memories of before we appeared under the tree, Cecilia. I know what needs to be done.” She returned her gaze to Dunn. “I remember the Draki Prime briefing us before our mission.”
“Daniel?” Dunn asked.
Maria’s brow knitted. “Rysa Torres Drake. She told you to make sure you listened to me. She said that no matter what, we were to stabilize the paradox that is me.”
Rysa Torres Drake had just as much of a hand in creating the paradox of Maria as Maria herself?
Maria grinned. “Daniel will do the job you gave him. He will deliver my father’s ring to my younger self.” She looked back to Dunn. “It will anchor me.” Then returned her gaze to Daniel. “Daniel’s presence has already changed the path into the future.”
“It certainly looks that way,” Dunn said.
Maria Romanova touched Dunn’s cheek, but she felt nothing. No soft whisper of a fingertip. No heat. Not even a ghostly hint of a touch.
“Your body will compensate soon and you will no longer see or hear me,” she said. “You probably will not remember this, either. No one remembers me.”
“But we know of you. The Whispering One.”
Maria Romanova nodded. “I think it has to do with the fog. It hinders the Fates, but helps me transcend the noise, so to speak, though I doubt you will remember specifics when this vision ends.” She leaned close to Dunn. “Try. Please. It is important.”
Energy swirled around the woman and around her versions of the midnight swords. It swirled around the shards on the table, too, and around the shard in Dunn’s gut.
“The universe iterates, Cecilia. I am an emergent property of the interaction between this cycle of events and the one previous.” She pointed at the shards on the table. “We do not have time for fuller explanations. Everything I say you need to repeat, understand? Tell Hadrian you see me.”
Dunn put her hand on the Emperor’s shoulder. “The Whispering One is Derek Nicholson’s sister, Maria Romanova. She’s right here. I can see and hear her.” She returned her attention to Maria. “She’s a Progenitor.”
“Yes,” Maria said.
Dunn turned back to Hadrian. “She’s proof we traveled back in time.”
“Yes,” Maria said again.
The energy around Hadrian erupted. He said something, but Dunn didn’t catch it.
“Listen,” Maria said. “First, each time you wish to speak to me, you will need to push another piece of Janus’s talisman into your body. Do you understand? The shards facilitate communication between the real and the new but they need full contact with you. I can only override and connect the systems for so long before they compensate. I have been trying to get you to take one in for centuries but you would not. At least Trajan made the glass.”
Dunn frowned. “Vivicus put one in his gut.”
“Do you think I would speak to Vivicus?” She shook her head. “Tell Hadrian what I said!”
“She says I will be able to see and hear her for a short while, then I will need to put a new piece of the talisman in my belly.”
Hadrian nodded.
“Daisy will need to take in a shard.” She glanced over at Daisy.
Dunn snapped her mouth shut. This information she would not repeat. A stab in the gut would kill Daisy or her baby.
She’d done enough damage already. She would not murder her daughter.
“You talk to me,” she said.
Maria pointed at Daisy. “Talk? She needs to cross over.” She dropped her hand to the daggers on her thigh. “I almost pulled Daniel and Timothy across with my blades, but it did not quite work.”
Maria frowned. “The shards and the blades provide a bridge.”
The Whispering One wanted to draw Daisy into new-space?
The energy around her daughter pulsed outward as if trying to touch all the objects in the room—the table, the chair, the credenza, the shards, the Fates—but it recoiled and pulled back as if Daisy had felt something blisteringly hot.
“She must fully accept her new abilities,” Maria said. “The world needs her.”
“Obviously,” Dunn said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been whispering to me to activate her and bring her here.”
Daisy looked up from her chair next to the table.
Maria tilted up her chin. Like all royalty, she did not enjoy a show of authority from outside her hierarchy. “You and your daughter are the only two Shifters with alchemist abilities. Only you two can manipulate th
e self-replicating factors inside the blades into the required shape to build a Trinzi-Bower cage.”
Maria paused. “A T-B cage is unlike any machine humans are capable of building with our current level of technology. We haven’t even named the math, much less figured out how to control it.”
Maria spoke of mathematics as if it were a demon. Naming it was how you gained its power.
She pointed at Daisy. “She will control the machine from this side. You, from real-space. You have better control of your body. You must stay here. I will guide Daisy on this side.”
Dunn held out her hand to Hadrian. “She’s talking about a… Trinzi-Bower cage. Do you know what that means?” Perhaps Praesagio had advanced farther than Maria realized and all Maria’s words about crossing-over were for naught.
Hadrian shook his head no.
Damn it, Dunn thought. “Use words we understand,” she said.
Maria frowned but nodded. “One of you will reform the blades in real-space. The other will do so in new-space. You must synchronize and set up the resonance that will power the cannon. I have materials on this side.” She patted the midnight blade on her back. “And you have the materials on yours.” She pointed at the Janus’s talisman. “We need as many of the blades as we can get.”
“Andreas brings the other blades now.” Dunn leaned toward Hadrian. “Call my son and inform him of what is happening here.”
Hadrian nodded yes.
Maria lifted her blade off her back. “Listen to me. When the rip opens, there will be a surge of energy. Daisy needs to cross then. Understand? The base is the bore of the cannon. The cage is the chamber. The fire within the Burner Progenitor will be the ordnance. The Draki Prime—”
Who was Dunn talking to? She blinked. Hadrian looked confused. “What?” she asked.
Hadrian slammed his palm down onto the tabletop. The shards bounced, but all landed as they were, except for the point in Dunn’s belly. “You no longer see the Whispering One?”
“See?” Dunn said.
She looked over her shoulder at the Draki boys. Harold’s face showed no emotion. Marcus’s seer screamed through the room, as did Daniel’s.
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