He was just wondering when Naos was going to show herself when Horace popped into view in front of him and blinked at him before he frowned. “Of course I ran into you before anyone else.”
“How are you blinking around like that?” Dillon asked, ignoring the scorn.
“I just reach for the nearest mind.”
“You have your powers?” Now that was interesting.
Horace frowned. “You’re much more talkative than you were in the real world. I guess being in here freed you from Patricia’s thumb.”
Dillon sighed, not really caring anymore about who knew what. “I wasn’t in my own body out there, jackass. Patricia hollowed out my old body and made herself a sex puppet she named Jonah. She made the mistake of keeping my personality in her head, and I bugged her until she put me in the mayor’s body.”
“The mayor’s…Liam? You were controlling Liam the entire time?”
“Surprise,” Dillon said flatly. “How did you keep your powers?”
Horace backed up a step. “Is Liam here, too?”
Dillon cracked his neck and tried not to lose his patience. They were all going to be here for a while, so he didn’t want to pick a fight, especially with someone who still had power. “Patricia killed him. I had nothing to do with it. I just went where she put me.”
Horace sneered. “Oh yes, I’m sure you wept at the loss of life.” He shook his head. “You Atlas people are unbelievable.”
“Yeah, we’re a terrible lot. So, your powers?”
Horace glared at him, at their surroundings. “If it wasn’t for all the innocent people caught in here, I’d leave you all to rot except for Simon.”
“Like he’s so innocent.” But Horace would find out one day just how nasty Simon could be. Dillon remembered the feel of the knife going in his neck as Simon had looked him in the eye.
“Shut up,” Horace said. “I need to heal Naos and Patricia back together. When she’s sane again, she should release you.”
So, there was a way out. Dillon licked his lips and tried not to appear too eager. “Need some help?”
“Oh, so you’re more interested in getting out than in reclaiming your power?”
Dillon’s teeth clenched together. “Yeah, I want out, and not just for the reasons you think. Two of the mothers of my children are in here, too.” He’d avoided them like the plague, but still. “And I’d like to make sure my kids grow up safe. I’m the one who asked you about them, remember?”
Well, Horace had reminded him first, but he wasn’t going to point that out.
Horace frowned but seemed as if he might be listening. “Naos and Patricia don’t want to go back together, that’s the trouble. And with the amount of power they have, I’m not sure it would work anyway. Natalya didn’t seem to be doing good on her own without Naos.”
Dillon nodded as he thought about it. “They evened each other out. You need a third person willing to be part of the crazy.” When Horace stared, Dillon put up his hands. “Not me. A telepath would be best, someone who needs a stabilizer of their own.”
As Horace asked who that might be, Dillon’s mind raced through the people he’d seen in here, one in particular: Lieutenant Marlowe, otherwise known as the Moon. She’d been without her Sun, shouting and stalking the halls like a lunatic. When her worshipers tried to follow in her footsteps, she’d screamed at them to go away, and he’d heard one of them call her a widow. At least in Naos’s mind, they could all understand one another.
A widow to them meant a partner had died, and the Moon only had one of importance.
“The Sun’s dead,” he said quietly. When Horace looked at him, he added, “I knew the Moon as Lieutenant Meredith Marlowe. The Sun was Lieutenant Charles Christian. They were telepathically tied together ever since the accident. I’m surprised she survived his death. It’s probably just rage keeping her going.”
“The Sun-Moon,” Horace said, brow furrowed as if thinking. “I wonder…”
* * *
Horace reached telepathically for the Moon, and she seized him like a drowning person would clutch a life raft.
“Charles?” she asked.
“No,” he said sadly. He’d been coaxing the telepathic signals of Naos and Patricia together, trying to knit them as he’d sew a wound, but they were resisting, one half stubbornly holding on to all of the others. “But I’ve got a new partner if you’re willing.”
He expected her to recoil, but she seemed reluctant to let go of his signal, clinging to a remnant of power she still had that no one could take from her, her ability to telepathically connect to just one person. She’d depended on that connection, he saw. She thrived on it, so different from Patricia and Naos. Of course, the Sun-Moon were two become one, and Naos and Patricia were one split into two. Strange that the latter pair resisted the most.
He showed the telepathic signal he was trying to create to the Moon, and she grabbed it as she’d latched on to him, further drawing Patricia’s two halves together. A mind scream echoed through the halls of the Atlas, and Horace knew that if he opened his real eyes on the mountainside, Naos’s body would be screaming, too. He couldn’t hold them together and reached out, searching for more power, anything.
“Horace?” Simon’s voice, though Horace couldn’t see him.
“Simon!” Horace grunted as he tried to hold on to the three telepathic threads. The Moon was helping, but the other two fought like thrashing geavers. “I’m trying to get Naos and Patricia back together.” One thread pulled hard, and Horace ached as if it tried to yank part of him away with it. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Breathe,” Simon said, his mind radiating love and confidence. “I never thought it was possible, but if anyone can do it, it’s you.”
Horace pulled himself back together under the strain, wondering if his mind could be torn apart like his body. Simon murmured to him, words of encouragement and hope.
“I love you, Simon,” Horace muttered. “I’m so sorry I was such an ass.”
“I should have tried to understand you better. I’m sorry, too. I love you, and you can do this. Bring me back to you.”
Pain gripped Horace, but he kept pushing, even though he could hear Patricia and Naos yelling that they’d never go back, never be subsumed, but neither was going anywhere, just blending into the whole. He kept pushing, tying their signals together, bolstered by the Moon until the two voices finally became one.
* * *
Shiv awoke to screaming coming from the top of the crater. She had been gathering drushka for Shi’a’na and searching for Horace when Lyshus began to writhe in her arms, his breathing growing frantic. She had cast about for a cause, had called for help, but her mother had no answers, nor did Simon or Sa or anyone in the world. Shiv had screamed for Naos to let them go, that killing Lyshus was unacceptable if that was all the “help” she offered.
Then her eyes had snapped open, and she heard screaming along the crater’s edge.
She sat up and saw drushka sitting up all around her. The humans stayed down. Her tree stood nearby, and someone knelt at its base, but the screaming was not coming from there.
By the light of the human ship, she saw a tiny hand sticking out from beyond the kneeling figure. Lyshus. He had fallen from the tree.
Shiv leapt to her feet and ran over, expecting to see a shawness helping him, but Enka bent over his body, one hand holding his mouth shut while the other pinched his nose. Rage blinded Shiv, and she charged. Enka stumbled as Shiv grappled with her, but she got a foot under Shiv’s body and heaved, throwing Shiv to the side.
“Liar!” Shiv spat. “Eater of words. You said you would protect us.”
“I said I would protect you, queen,” Enka said. “He had trapped you.”
“Naos trapped us!” Shiv dashed forward, striking with a claw, but Enka batted her hand away. She had not drawn her spear, but she would not simply let herself be killed, either.
“He lives, queen.” Reach’s voice. Shiv wanted to hug h
er, but she would deal with this deceiver first.
Enka drew her spear at last, and Shiv snarled at the thought that Enka would harm another queen, but Shi’a’na’s drushka had gathered around, advancing upon her.
“Come away, daughter,” Shi’a’na said. “And let the warriors do warrior business.”
Shiv listened to her mother’s wisdom and stepped away as the warriors closed over Enka like a fist.
The humans were stirring, and Reach was singing over Lyshus. Shiv tried not to give in to despair as she knelt at his side. He lived, but he was still a queen, and they would never have a tribe, and all hope was lost. She tried to take comfort in the fact that she would at least see Naos’s defeat.
She heard arguing. Sa and Simon were kneeling over three people, two of them bound. Her Liam who was not Liam had been made to strip his armor, and the one Shiv knew to be the Storm Lord was bound next to him. Simon leaned over a woman who still lay on the ground.
“She’s dead,” Simon said before he closed the woman’s mismatched eyes.
“Fuck.” Sa grabbed the shirt of Liam-who-was-not. “Don’t think you’re safe, asshole. We’re going to get you out of Liam however we can and put you back where you belong.”
“I’m afraid not,” a voice said, and Shiv recognized her as the woman who had laughed before everyone had fallen. Naos. She walked into the crater with shawness Horace and a few others by her side. “The mayor, Liam, he’s dead.”
Sa went completely still, and Shiv wanted to cry out, wanted to leap to Sa so they could all keen in mourning, but she could not move.
“That’s a load of shit,” Sa said, her voice quavering. “His body’s right there!”
“She…I destroyed his mind. I’m sorry.”
“She is.” A woman at Naos’s side linked hands with her. Shiv recognized her from the ship. The one they called the Moon. “Our minds are linked now.”
Cordelia raised her arms and lifted them. “What the… How did…”
Anger dimmed Shiv’s vision, but still she hoped, even with the news that Liam was dead. She stood. “Will you help me now? Or must I kill you?”
Naos’s one eye turned toward her. “She…I never really intended to help you, though she was curious to see if she could.”
Shiv stalked toward her, claws at the ready. The warriors had claimed vengeance over Enka, but Shiv would take her own vengeance now.
Horace stepped in front of her. “Wait, there might be something we can do if we work together.”
Shiv paused. She had been about to warn him to stay out of her way, but the promise of help stayed her lips. Would she always be chasing it? Would she always be swayed? “Do you speak the truth, shawness?” she whispered. “I am tired of human lies.”
Simon approached her other side and took Horace’s hand. “Let us try,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on them.” He nodded toward Naos and the Moon.
Shiv supposed she had to trust yet again. She led them to Lyshus’s side.
“You fail,” she said to Naos, “you die.”
The Moon frowned at Shiv, but Naos only sighed. “Seems fair.”
* * *
Cordelia was getting sick of not knowing what the fuck was going on. She’d been floundering in someone’s mind one minute and had come awake in the next, and now Patricia was dead, Liam was dead, the Storm Lord was maybe stuck in Liam’s old body—but they still had the Storm Lord’s body, too—and Naos and the Moon were acting like the Sun-Moon, and they’d joined forces with Simon and Horace to heal Shiv’s fucking kid.
And Fajir was here, too, and she wasn’t trying to kill anyone.
Cordelia went to Nettle. “Who am I supposed to punch here?”
“No one, Sa. It seemed the fight happened without punching, somehow.”
“Fucking mind shit.”
“Indeed.”
Cordelia turned in a circle. Liam was dead. If what Naos said was true, he’d been dead for a while. She’d been running around as if everything was normal—as normal as her life got—and he’d been dead.
Every drink they’d ever had, every time they’d cried on each other’s shoulders, every secret they’d shared. Dead like him. She’d never see his smile, hear his voice.
No, that wasn’t true. Those had been stolen.
She marched to Liam’s old body, the fucking Storm Lord’s body and punched him in the face so hard, he nearly did a backward somersault.
He sat up as quickly as someone could with their hands tied behind their back and sneered at her with bloody teeth. “Untie my hands and try that again.”
“I should fucking kill you,” Cordelia said as Nettle grabbed her shoulders. “Fucking asshole, let his body be as dead as the rest of him.” Her voice broke, and she let Nettle turn her away, not wanting to give that motherfucker the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
“Sa,” Nettle said as her arms went around Cordelia’s shoulders.
Cordelia leaned in for a moment, wanting so much to let go, but she pulled away. “No time for tears right now.” She cleared her throat harshly and nodded at Lyshus and tried to distract herself. “So, what’s happening here?”
Pool’s sigh answered them. Her mouth was open, sharp teeth showing as her lips turned down in grief. “What I knew would happen, Sa, the only thing that could.”
Cordelia looked back and forth, confused. “They’re killing him?”
“Ahwa, no,” Nettle said. “They change his blood, his and the young queen’s. With the separation, perhaps the power will be different, too.” She took Cordelia’s hand, and her own head hung as she shared in everyone’s sorrow.
Cordelia put an arm around both of them. Everyone had some serious grief in their future.
“Shiv will no longer be my daughter,” Pool said softly. “And Lyshus will no longer be her tribe.”
“Won’t he still be a queen?” Cordelia asked.
“Only time will know.” Pool moved toward Shiv. If she was right, Shiv would be alone in the world after the “healing,” but maybe she’d be able to have a tribe of her own.
It would have made Cordelia happy if everything else wasn’t so fucked up. She looked to where the Sun-Moon worshipers were still milling around in one corner, then to where the two Storm Lords sat, body and mind. The world wouldn’t miss any of them, and her grief was giving way to anger again.
“I know that look,” Fajir called.
Cordelia pointed to her. “I don’t need any lip from you. What the fuck are you even doing here?”
“You want to hurt someone.”
“What did I just say?” Cordelia stepped closer.
Fajir shrugged and shook her head. “Don’t do it; do not start this fight again. You know that if I’m saying that, it must be true.”
That was a personality shift as dramatic as any Cordelia had seen that day. “What the fuck happened to you?”
Fajir smiled, and Lydia slipped an arm around her waist.
“Never mind,” Cordelia said as she turned away. “I guess love really does change everything.”
“Ahya,” Nettle whispered as she laid her head on Cordelia’s armored shoulder. “Did you ever think you would say so?”
“Not until I met you.” Cordelia watched the bizarre happenings around them and wondered at all the strange things that had swiftly become commonplace, love being the least strange among them.
They camped in the crater, everyone curious to crawl over the Atlas. Horace explained that he’d tied the two halves of Patricia back together along with the Moon, who seemed happy enough, smiling as she glided along at Patricia’s side.
Patricia had abandoned her new body for her old one. Horace insisted they bury that body on the hillside with a marker bearing the name “Kora,” what she’d been called before being pulled into a journey that had nothing to do with her.
It was one among many crimes to place at Naos’s feet, though she seemed contrite now, sane as long as she was tied to someone else. When the Moon had seen Fajir, she
’d snarled and threatened, but Cordelia pointed out that if they started swinging at one another for everyone who had been killed, it was never going to stop.
No one argued that she’d already gotten a hit in.
Fajir had smiled at Cordelia’s words, and it took everything in Cordelia’s willpower and Nettle’s restraining hand not to knock her teeth in.
Patricia, who winced anytime someone called her Naos, donned an eye patch and claimed she’d make up to the world for all the damage she’d caused, including giving up the Atlas for the humans to split among them. After that, she planned to return to Celeste with the Moon, who didn’t want to rob her people of two gods at once. When the now Moon worshipers had recovered from the death of one of their gods, Patricia said she and the Moon would travel around their area of the world, trying to fix some of the destruction that still lingered after the last battle.
Best of all, they were taking Dillon-fucking-Tracey with them, the man who used to be the Storm Lord and who now lived in Liam’s body. Cordelia was all for killing him, but as she’d said, once someone began down that road, they’d all end up dead. Instead, she watched in satisfaction as Patricia and the Moon bound him with a mental shackle that still let him complain and lament his fate while not letting him use his power or get too far away.
It seemed a fitting punishment. And with Patricia’s macro-psychokinetic powers healing him, Dillon would remain their prisoner for a long time. He didn’t grouse as much as Cordelia expected, but she didn’t think that was because he knew he deserved his fate. No doubt he’d try to escape as soon as possible.
Simon pledged to look after the Storm Lord’s children, and the Moon said she’d give back the captives she’d taken, the rebellious yafanai left in her camp. Even if they deserved to be punished, any unborn children among the mix only deserved a clean start.
Miriam and Victoria thought the Storm Lord’s punishment fitting, too, though they got in a few snarky barbs now and again that Dillon seemed to ignore, but Cordelia noted the angry flush creeping up his collar.
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