As she laughed with everyone in the cookhouse that night, Patricia began to relax. She didn’t need an army or thousands of worshipers. These people were enough. If a few more breachies were within shouting distance, maybe she’d invite them, too. For now, she had enough. She was content.
“Good for you, sweets,” Dillon said.
Patricia slammed a hand on the table. “Shut up!”
The room silenced. Jonah stared with concern, the rest with something like fear. She scowled. “What are you looking at?”
When one of them gestured, she glanced down to see her fist embedded in the wooden table, covered in blood. Long cracks radiated from where she’d struck, and as she lifted free, the table splintered and collapsed.
Everyone leapt up. Patricia pushed the remains of the table away with her mind, staring at her bloody hand instead. Easy to heal. She hadn’t even felt her bones break.
“Mistress?” Jonah asked. “Are you all right?”
In a snide voice, Dillon made fun of him, adding, “Did you have to turn me into such a douchebag?”
Patricia stood, her cheeks on fire. “I’m going for a walk. Alone.” She marched from the cookhouse, knowing no one would follow. She stalked through the darkness, past the guards on the partially constructed wall and into the plains, wrapping herself in a telepathic cloak so she couldn’t be seen.
“Why can’t you be quiet?” She ground her teeth. Her muscles felt like cables under her skin. “Just shut the fuck up and be happy!”
She let down some of her blocks, wanting to hear what he had to say. Of course, he seemed to make his way through no matter what she did. She couldn’t even touch Jonah without his pithy comments.
“How the fuck am I supposed to be happy trapped in your brain, Dué?” he asked. “You know what this feels like!”
“I can try eradicating you. Think that will help?”
“If you could do that, sweets, you’d have done it by now. You want me to stop fucking with you? Put me somewhere else.”
Would that work? She clearly couldn’t keep him quiet, and he didn’t seem to need or want rest. He’d keep trying to take her over, to make her a stranger in her own body, and she wouldn’t have that. Never again.
But where to put him? Jonah was the obvious choice, but she’d worked so hard to make him perfect. Besides, she didn’t know what erasing a mind then putting it back might entail. It could cause some kind of brain damage that she couldn’t fix. She didn’t even know if she could sort out Dillon’s memories from her own anymore.
And she wouldn’t take the chance of damaging Jonah. Even if their history was fake, he cared about her. “Jonah’s mine.”
Dillon chuckled, low and sexy, seemingly pleased with the idea that his body was irresistible. “I could get used to somewhere new, someone younger. As long as he’s fit. And reasonably good-looking.”
“You’d be up to your old tricks in no time, and then Simon Lazlo would just kill you again.”
A wave of his anger rushed through her. “Trust me,” he said. “I don’t want anything to do with him. Take one of your idiot followers, wipe him, and put me inside.”
“Does it have to be a man?” she asked snidely.
“I could get used to being a lesbian.”
She rolled her eyes. “Good to know you have your priorities. Would you go back to Gale?”
He didn’t respond, and she wondered if he even knew. Maybe Dillon didn’t have a plan. She focused a bit and sensed it was true. They were very closely connected. How could she ever make sure she got all of him? And how would she transfer one person to another? She’d taken his memories when he’d been near death but didn’t really know how to put them anywhere else. And she hadn’t used his power, but she had it tucked away in her head, too. Would she have to give that back? She thought of the Storm Lord walking Calamity again, younger, reborn. He’d find a way to get rid of Simon Lazlo eventually. Then he’d charge his paladins’ armor and roust her out of the mine. Or he’d ally with Lazlo or maybe the Sun-Moon and make a bid for the entire world.
She couldn’t allow that. Why was she even considering his feelings? Dillon wasn’t a telepath; he couldn’t beat her in her own brain. No matter how entrenched he’d become, she was in charge of her mind. She just needed one big push to shut him up for good. Patricia sat in the grass, closed her eyes, and focused. She would exorcise him, laser him out like a tumor. She just needed to focus!
She felt him shift in her mind, fleeing from her, hiding as she sometimes had from Naos. Patricia imagined her mindscape as a dark thicket, and Dillon’s ghostly presence flitted through the trees. She stalked him like a hunter, but every time she thought him cornered, he disappeared. She snarled and willed the trees away, imagining her mind as an open plain. Dillon appeared before her, wearing the face he’d had in life, sneering.
“Got you,” Patricia said.
He laughed. “This is my house now, sweets, and I’ve been exploring it a hell of a lot more than you have.” A wall shot up between them, blocking her view. Patricia backed away, marveling at what he could do. She bumped into another wall and turned to run her hands over its smooth surface, trying to dispel it, but it wouldn’t budge. Another wall sprang up under her feet and she jumped out of the way, turning in circles as a steel maze rose up around her.
“Find me now!” his voice called.
She tried to dismiss the wall, tried to return to her waking state in the plains, but her mind felt as stuck as if held by glue.
“It’s your mind, Dué. Can’t you find your way out? Maybe you’d have sensed me sooner if you did a little introspection once in a while.”
“You wouldn’t be much for self-analysis if you’d lived with Naos for centuries,” she shouted. He laughed, but it was the truth. Introspection lost its appeal when it sent you spiraling into a mad state that took forever to escape. And Dillon knew nothing of being caught. Naos had pressed Patricia down so far, she could barely see and hear through her own body, let alone act.
Maybe that was the key. How had Naos trapped her so completely? Even in this mindscape, Patricia could still call out with her power. And Naos hated Dillon. Maybe there was some way to turn them on each other.
“What are you doing, Dué?” Dillon called. “Just going to lounge in here until some animal eats us on the plains?”
“Oh, I’m looking farther than the plains for something to eat you. You want another home? I’ll give you one.” She reached farther than before, pushing her power to the limit to find her old body, her old self, still in orbit where she’d left it on the Atlas. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel Naos’s presence turn her way.
“What do you want, traitor?” It was her old voice, but it belonged to Naos now.
Patricia couldn’t help a shudder. “I’ve got something for you. A new playmate.”
“No!” Dillon yelled. The walls tumbled, leaving Patricia and Dillon standing together against a field of stars. “Motherfucker, I’ll make you kill me first!” He lunged at her, but she blinked out of the way. He was still too used to the physical world.
Patricia felt Naos look closer, drawn to Dillon’s emotions like a bear to raw meat. “Aha.”
“Take him,” Patricia said. “He’s all yours.”
Dillon swore and turned in circles. Patricia held her own power ready to fight if Naos tried to collect them both. Naos couldn’t possess anyone on the ground ever again, but Patricia had sent out a telepathic signal, and Naos had locked on.
Patricia smiled as Naos’s presence drifted closer still, surrounding Dillon like a fog. All her problems were about to be over.
“Is that so?” Naos’s presence turned to her. “Is that what you want?” The presence began a slow withdrawal. “I don’t think so.”
“What?” Patricia asked, breathless.
“I won’t do it because you obviously want it, you little sneak.”
Dillon laughed like a maniac. “Oh, this is too good!”
“I s
pite you,” Naos said, her smugness drifting over Patricia, stinging her. “But now that you’ve got my attention, I’ll be watching.” Her telepathic grip settled over Patricia’s mind like fingers boring into her skull. “The two of you can either get along, or so help me, I’ll turn this space station around!” Her hideous laughter bounced around Patricia’s mindscape, making both her and Dillon cringe. “Next time you call me, darlin’, I’ll take you both.” Her power tossed them away with a shove.
Patricia gasped as she opened her eyes, surrounded by the real night. Her mouth filled with the taste of burnt metal, and her eyes felt gritty as pain beat behind her forehead. She spat and used her power to soothe her aching head before she stood. Some curious animal had come near her in the dark, and she shooed it away with power. From the mine, she could feel Jonah peering into the dark, worrying for her.
“Fucking asshole,” Dillon muttered.
“Shut up,” Patricia said.
“Happy now? Your former roommate wouldn’t take me. Oh wait! She might take us both. Good work there.”
“You started it. Stop attacking me. And stop talking so damn much.”
“Fuck you! I never suggested involving Copilot Crazy in our little talks.”
“Talks?” Patricia marched around in a circle. “You admitted you’re trying to take over my body.”
“You deserve it. You stole my mind. You’re using my body. You’re a fucking rapist!”
Patricia’s mouth dropped open. “I am not! I would never!”
“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”
“You were dead.” She tried to lower her voice, but his accusation hit like a wrecking ball. “I saved your body. You couldn’t go on as you were before. Simon Lazlo would only have killed you again. Jonah was…the best option.” But that story didn’t hold up in the face of his anger.
“You only resurrected me to be your love slave. Seems to me there were a million other things you could have done to save me. But you didn’t try any of them, just saw what you wanted and took it. Rap—”
“Don’t you dare say that again!” She would use her power to bury him, to bury the shame he’d fostered inside her. She wasn’t like that. She couldn’t be. All she’d wanted was a new fucking life. Was that too much to ask for?
“Oh, boo hoo,” Dillon said. “And I’m not the only one you fucked over. You haven’t actually tried to convince anyone to go along with your plans. You fall back on your powers every single time and mind-fuck people until you get what you want.”
She sputtered for a response. “That’s better than telling them to do what you want or else. That’s what you used to do.”
“At least that gives them a choice.”
She held her chin up, trying to summon any self-assuredness she had left. “My way, no one gets hurt.”
“Yeah, baby,” he said snidely, “fuck free will as long as no one gets hurt. If you mind-fuck someone into giving something to you, you’re as guilty as if you beat them up and took it.”
That wasn’t true, couldn’t be true! It was for their own good. She wasn’t changing them that much. Some of them wanted to believe in…
She had a sudden flash of what she could have done on Earth if she’d had these powers. She could have made every boss give her a promotion, made every teacher see her worth. She could have made every man who’d ever rejected her want her more than anyone else. And to her horror, the idea appealed more than a little, sating some unrecognized need.
Patricia clapped a hand to her mouth, feeling the bile rise. “Oh God. I didn’t want to be like her, like Naos.”
He barked a laugh. “Don’t you get it, yet? You are Naos, sweets.” He sighed, sounding as emotionally drained as she felt. “I know you like to think she took you over, like an outside force possessing you, but it was just you split into different parts. Hell, even I could spot that.”
Patricia had to sit, her mind reeling. She looked up at the blanket of stars overhead. Part of her was still up there. It was easy to see now. During the accident, her personality had split, and that part of her that had always wanted to be Naos had come tumbling out. Even the name was one she’d thought of before. Naos was a Greek word; some said it meant temple or spirit. Some used it as another term for god. Patricia had loved studying the classics in college, such a break from physics and engineering. One of her professors had said the word during class one day, and she’d thought it beautiful.
“I didn’t want…” She wiped her eyes, torn between the desire to weep and throw up. “I don’t want…please.”
“At least we’re saying please.”
“I’m sorry.” Sadness rose within her, a feeling all her own, and she sobbed, her whole body shaking until she couldn’t speak, so she repeated the words in her mind, again and again. “I should have just brought you back. I’m so sorry.”
He was quiet as she wept, and she wondered what that meant, what would happen when she went back to the mine and faced Jonah again. She had started something here, and she couldn’t leave it half done, couldn’t just create a mess that someone else would have to deal with. She dimly wondered if Dillon would let her sleep and felt his grudging assent before she headed back home, where Jonah waited.
* * *
Cordelia floated back to her body and found the eighth queen bending over her, shaking her gently. Cordelia settled inside herself and opened her eyes, making the eighth lean back. Two drushka flanked her, frowning, hands on their weapons.
Cordelia tried a reassuring smile, but she felt too tired to be cheerful. “Hey. How’s everyone doing?”
The eighth frowned. “I felt an alien mind in the Shi’s cavern. Yours?”
“Guilty,” Cordelia said as she scooted away. She was too tired to lie. Even with shaky legs, she managed to stand. “I wanted to see what was going on.”
The eighth eyed her carefully. “That was a fight between two queens, on their own, as it should be.”
“Definitely.” Cordelia didn’t know how much she should say, didn’t want to give away that she hadn’t simply been watching. “So, what now?”
The eighth sighed deeply and put a hand to her chest. “The Shi is dead.” Her long face seemed even longer as she frowned sadly, though Cordelia suspected this was the outcome she wanted. Drushka all around them seemed grief-stricken, some staring at nothing, others glaring at Cordelia. She kept her smile contained.
At a churning sound, Cordelia looked over the branches. The roots of the eighth lifted Pool and the dead Shi into the light. Cordelia turned to ask if she could go to Pool, but the branches were already reaching for her and the eighth, ready to lower them to the ground. Another queen joined them, probably the seventh, and all three queens put their heads back and trilled. Cordelia jumped at the sound.
All around them, other drushka followed suit, and the sound filled the valley from end to end. Cordelia resisted the urge to clap her hands over her ears as the trill reached a crescendo.
From the distant tree line, more queens passed into the valley, friend and former foe. Though they were enormous, the branches of the Shi were far over their heads, allowing all eight queens to gather near the Shi’s trunk, making them nine once more. It was beautiful, a whole circle. Cordelia knew she’d never see the like again and couldn’t help a jot of grief.
The eighth queen walked to the center of the circle where the body of the old Shi lay. Pool stepped back to Cordelia’s side, one hand on her chest as she inclined her head to the new Shi, the former eighth. Roots broke the ground around the living and dead queen and drew them both slowly under the soil.
“She will never see the sun again until she is ready to die,” Pool whispered.
“Good luck,” Cordelia muttered.
A young girl then marched into the circle. Her green hair had been tied, unbraided, atop her head. The drushka began to hum, swaying, and the girl tugged on the leather string that held her hair, dropping the locks around her shoulders. A queen-to-be, but whose tr
ee would she take? Cordelia nearly held her breath.
The queen-to-be looked to Pool, and Cordelia sensed Pool’s hesitation. A new tree would mean a new tribe, though Cordelia thought all of Pool’s drushka would follow her. But then who would be left for this new queen?
Pool’s eyes flicked toward the second tree, as if sending this new queen in that direction, saying she would not yield her tree. The young queen-to-be cocked her head but moved toward the second tree.
All the queens but Pool shifted to a new tree. Each put her forehead to the trunk as if communing. Jagged edges sprouted from the bark, and they ran their arms over them, cutting their flesh. Cordelia grimaced, but the queens didn’t seem to feel the pain as they smeared golden blood across their new trees.
The branches lifted each queen, and Cordelia supposed they’d finish this ritual above, each alone with her tree yet still connected to the whole. Maybe tonight there’d be a huge drushkan shift as each drushka selected who his or her queen would be.
But Pool would keep the same tribe. No one had come from her branches to mingle with the other tribes. Cordelia smiled, glad her people would stay intact. And no one else seemed intent on killing them at the moment; another plus.
Pool didn’t move, bloody but unbowed. Cordelia touched her arm. “Hold on, Pool. We’ll get you healed in no time.”
“The eighth has passed your armor to my tree,” she said, her eyes glazed. “And the kidnapped Galeans are aboard my branches. As are Reach and Nettle.”
Cordelia grinned. “What are we waiting for?”
Pool gave her a tired smile. As the Anushi branches lifted them, Cordelia hugged Pool from the side. “I’m glad you won, and I’m glad you stayed in your tree. I would have missed you like crazy if you’d become the Shi.”
“And I you, Sa. There are still decisions to be made, ahya, but we may rest awhile in the swamp and discuss them.”
Children of the Healer Page 23
