by Matt King
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Dasai.
For some reason, August felt a need to familiarize himself with Cerenus’s home world as soon as they’d arrived. It wasn’t often they saw civilization anymore. He used to ignore planet and city names during their travels. Today, though, he committed it to memory. These people are the reason. Everything I’ve done—or about to do—it’s been to protect people like this.
Learning the name didn’t make up for the fact that it still wasn’t home. Earth was always heavy on his thoughts, but recent events had brought it rushing forward again. Every mistake he’d made in the lead-up to its demise felt like a dagger as he replayed them in his head.
He fiddled with the suit Cerenus had left out for him for the celebration as he walked down a bustling street. The suit was a deep metallic blue, like his armor, and looked like something he’d seen in a Bollywood movie once. Being in public, he absently touched his skin around his eyes, aware that he didn’t have the protection of his helmet to cover himself so others couldn’t stare. His swords were gone too. He felt naked, despite the constricting fabric.
The godclone’s only direction was for August to meet his assistant at the “pathway” to his chambers at sundown. The pathway, as it turned out, looked more like a ride at a state fair. It sat on a walk-up stage in the center of the public square, adorned in the same gold metal that covered most of the city. In the center of the stage were two glowing blue rings. One by one, groups entered the rings and then disappeared as the machine rotated faster around them. Any other time, he would’ve thought it futuristic. After traveling through a thousand synapses, though, it felt like riding in a car you had to crank.
“August Dillon?”
The woman’s voice sounded close to Aeris’s semi-French accent. He hoped his face didn’t show his disappointment when he turned and saw it wasn’t her. The woman stood with a strict posture, dressed smartly in a suit similar to his, only covered in intricate raised decorations. She greeted him with a practiced, sterile smile.
“You must be my escort,” he said.
“I am.” She tapped the screen of a tablet she held in the crook of her arm. “If you’ll follow me, they are ready for you at the Hall.”
“Are we waiting on anyone else?”
I’m sorry, but she’s not coming, her eyes seemed to say. “The others have had their introductions already.”
“Introductions. Great. Lead the way.”
The crowd mingling around the pathway watched with curious stares. They parted as she led him up to the top of the platform, murmuring as he walked by. An older couple smiled at him, but only briefly. It was almost like they were disappointed once they saw him. Doubt crept into their faces. This is the man defending our lives?
I’ll do my best, he wanted to say.
“Make way for a guest of Cerenus,” she said. The last few people in their path scattered. August followed her into the center of the rings, keeping his back to the crowd as the machine started to spin faster around them.
“The sensation of travel may be odd,” she warned.
“Don’t worry. I’m used to it.”
He held his breath while the nausea came and went. Unlike a synapse, he couldn’t see where they were headed. The air around them flashed a brilliant white before the rings slowed, revealing a short hallway on the other side. Two soldiers wearing a golden replica of his armor stood guard at a door. On the other side, the sounds of the party were a constant murmur.
The woman pressed some buttons on the screen of her tablet. “Just a moment. I will let them know you are here.”
A few seconds later, a burst of fanfare rose from inside as music swelled.
“They are ready for you now,” she said, raising her arm toward the door.
He paused and tried to calm his sudden nerves. “Any advice?”
“Only that you never keep a good audience waiting.”
“Right.”
He walked through the doorway to a crescendo of applause. The room was cavernous, filled from the mural wall on one side to the perimeter of windows on the other with a thousand applauding guests, all adorned with jewels and elaborate clothes, and all with eyes turned on him. There were long tables of food and drinks on both sides. He made his way down the center of the crowd, not sure whether he should wave or not.
“There he is!” Cerenus said. The godclone had a deep mug of drink in one hand. There was a hollowness to his cheery expression, though, almost like he was doing an impression of the man his people expected. He worked his way through the crowd to August.
“This is a little more elaborate than I thought it would be,” August said.
“It’s our last night of being champions. Might as well go out with a little fanfare. And beverages.” He took a deep gulp and put his arm around August’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s put a drink in that hand.”
August surveyed the room, looking for familiar faces. He saw the Horsemen first, gathered by themselves in the far corner of the room. If Cerenus had clothes for them too, they’d left them behind. They wore the same long black coats over their armor and kept their face masks on. As people continued to stare at his eyes, he was jealous they had the option to hide.
He found Ion above the crowd, hovering among the lights. If he was trying to blend in, he was doing a bad job of it. He looked like a sun against a sea of stars. The crowd didn’t seem to notice, though. All eyes were on Cerenus and August as they walked toward the back of the room.
August leaned in to be heard above the cheers. “Do these people know about your…loss?”
“No,” Cerenus answered.
“Don’t you think you should tell them?”
“Look at them, August. They’re happy. What’s the point of ruining that? After tomorrow, none of it will matter.”
“Good you see you’re so confident.”
“The only thing I’m confident in is the end of the Circle. One way or another. Here,” he said, handing August a tankard of thick brown liquid. “Drink this. All of it. Quickly.”
“What is it?”
“Courage. You’re about to need it.”
Cerenus left him in the mob of partygoers and continued along his path through the crowd. He disappeared in the mix, only to reappear standing on a raised platform at the back of the room. The red and gold accents of his suit sparkled under the lights. Liberace would have been proud.
“Cherished guests,” he boomed, gathering the room’s attention. “Once again, I want to thank you all for coming tonight as we celebrate the greatest alliance of warriors this universe has ever known.”
The crowd applauded. A few cheered.
“As I’m sure you know, I’m usually all too eager to talk about myself, but it’s come to my attention that you’re all curious about some of my compatriots. Rather than waste time introducing them through the crowd when there’s drinking to be done, I thought, why not let them introduce themselves?”
Shit. August took a long swig of the drink.
Cerenus raised his mug to the smattering of applause. “My first victim is someone who has been at this longer than I have. He’s the man who fought in the earliest days of this Circle War—and won. He’s the only man who can claim to have faced off against Talus more than once and lived to tell about it, and tomorrow he’s going to finish Amara’s pet off for good. My good and gentle friends, I give you, August Dillon!”
August was still guzzling the last of the lukewarm brew when Cerenus pointed his way and the crowd turned toward him, clapping. Someone took the tankard out of his hand as he walked toward the stage. Eventually, the crowd guided him to steps leading up to the platform where Cerenus stood, egging his partygoers louder. The moment August stepped on stage, the clapping trailed away and Cerenus stepped back into the relative shadows of the back part of the dais, leaving August alone, center stage. There was no mic to hold onto for comfort, only the bright lights above and the sea of people staring up at him. His heart thudded aga
inst his ribs.
I’m fighting a killing machine tomorrow and this is what I’m scared of?
He cleared his throat. The sound echoed through the quiet chamber.
“I’ve spent my life being the person people can’t keep quiet,” he said. “Now I can’t think of anything to say.”
A chuckle rippled through the people. As they waited for him to go on, his nerves seemed to calm. Cerenus’s liquid courage was stronger than he thought, and since he didn’t think his healing factor would let him stay buzzed for long, he decided to take advantage of the temporary loosening of his lips.
“Like the man said, my name is August Dillon and…that’s about as far as my prepared speech goes.”
Someone up front called out, “Where are you from?”
“From? I come from a place called Earth.”
“What was it like?” someone else called out.
His thoughts immediately jumped to the Cape, the last place he could remember being happy. “It was beautiful. Not so different from this place, give or take a few gold buildings.” He half-smiled and tugged at the coat of his suit. “For the longest time, everyone at home thought Earth was the center of the universe. We thought we were alone—either that or we were so far away, no one could get to us. Then one of the Circle gods showed up, injected me with a few powers, and suddenly everything went from zero to sixty in about two seconds. You guys don’t get that reference, I bet. Anyway, it was quick. Before anyone knew it, we were the first battleground in the Circle War, and then—”
He stalled, finding that he couldn’t finish the sentence. He looked out at the crowd and instantly felt the weight of his silence. A few people traded nervous glances.
The guards at the door in the back of the room parted, and Aeris walked into the room without fanfare as everyone still faced the stage. She caught August’s eye as she settled in among the back rows of people. She looked stunning, wearing an ornate suit tailored to look like her Revenant armor. Her gold band shined as it held the loose braid of hair that cascaded over one shoulder. Her violet eyes watched him.
He caught himself staring. Finally, he scrambled to remember his train of thought.
“And then I didn’t have a home anymore. Not many of us in the Alliance do.” He glanced back at Aeris. “You know, before all this started, all I wanted was to be a hero. I’d spent so much of my life fighting for the bad guys, I wanted to do something good for once. Something that would help people. As this thing has gone on, it feels like that dream gets farther and farther out of reach. What I didn’t know way back when was the cost of what I wanted, or how little those we were fighting against cared about the people it affected.”
The crowd shuffled uncomfortably.
“I guess this probably isn’t the stuff you guys were expecting to hear. To be perfectly honest, I normally would’ve rattled off at least ten dick jokes by now, but that’s not exactly where my mind’s at.” He shuddered out a breath. “Any other questions?”
A woman raised her glass to him. “Will the Alliance be victorious?” She asked the question with a wide, drunk grin, as though she only expected one possible answer.
These people have never experienced pain. He could see it in their eyes, a look of privileged innocence holding back a growing wave of fear that maybe the terrible things that had always happened to others might soon happen to them. Maybe it was the drink in him, or maybe it was the fact that his bullshit reserves had run dry, but he wasn’t going to coddle them, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to lie.
“I’d love to tell you yes. I want to. The truth is, I don’t know if, or even how we’re going to win.”
The room took a collective quiet gasp.
“Again, you probably don’t want to hear that. I don’t like saying it. I don’t really have it in me anymore to see this for anything other than what it really is, and what it is is an uphill climb. But that’s not what you really want to know, is it? You want to know if you’re going to be okay. You want to know if this war is going to affect you. Well I don’t know if you’re going to be okay, and if you’re worried about your life getting disrupted, think for a second about the people who don’t have that luxury anymore. Think of the worlds that are scarred forever—or gone forever—because these gods couldn’t figure out a way to live with each other. They can’t settle their own arguments so they get other people to do it for them, and then it’s everyone else who pays the price. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of running, because all running does is bring death and destruction to wherever we try to hide. We can’t hide anymore. I can’t hide anymore.”
He scanned the quiet room. Aeris was one of the few who would look at him.
“Tomorrow, I’m fighting Talus. Some of you might question my sanity. I don’t blame you. He’s stronger than me, he’s more powerful, and he’s fighting in front of a world who thinks I’m the villain. I’m still doing it. This isn’t about sacrificing myself so my friends won’t die. It’s not about me at all. It’s about trying to right a wrong. You want to know if I can win? I have no idea. I only know that I have to try.” He caught eyes with Aeris. “Even if it means I have to leave the ones I love.”
She lowered her head, then turned and walked out of the room, bypassing the objections of Cerenus’s assistant.
“Aeris, wait,” he said from the stage. He jumped down to force his way through the still-stunned crowd.
“Thank you, August,” Cerenus said behind him, “for one of the single worst inspirational speeches I’ve ever heard. Who’s ready for a drink?”
Aeris had already passed through the gateway to the city by the time he exited the spinning rings. She stormed down the bustling street ahead of him.
He had to break through packs of onlookers as he tried to catch her. Finally, he got close enough to step in front of her. She looked ready to vaporize him on the spot.
“Move,” she said.
“Just hear me out.”
“I listened to your speech. There is nothing else to say.”
“Don’t be like this. Listen, just come back with me and we’ll talk.”
“Talk? What would you like to talk about?”
“I don’t know, how about the fact that I just professed my love for you in front of a room full of strangers?”
She laughed and shook her head. “Out of my way.” She took off again, faster than before, nearly in a run
“Aeris!” he said as he tried to keep up.
She ran up the pearl steps of the building where Cerenus had assigned them all rooms, headed toward another set of spinning rings that would take her to her suite. An attendant stood next to it.
“I need to get to the top level,” she said to him.
“Hold that thought,” August said, out of breath. He came to a stop in between her and the rings.
“Will you…both…be going?” the young man said.
August nodded. “Yes.”
“No,” she replied. “Start the portal, please.”
“Touch that control, kiddo, and you and I can play hot potato with the arm I break off. Understand?”
The attendant stared back at him wide-eyed. He stepped away from the platform and walked off through the lobby.
Aeris crossed her arms. She glared at him, letting the wordless exchange between them stretch out until he couldn’t stand it anymore.
“I just want to talk,” he said. “Can we do that?”
“What more do you need to say?”
“Well, for starters…” He trailed off, not sure of where to go next. “I don’t know what I’m saying. Look, I just didn’t want things to be like this tonight.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What did you think it would be?”
“Not this. Not when it might be our last night.”
“Oh, I see now. You wanted me to fawn over you and tell you how brave you are for what you decided to do. How noble it is that you’re sacrificing yourself so we might live on to win the fight. Well if that was your desire, I am sor
ry to disappoint you, because you’ll get no such words from me. What you are doing serves two people: you and Amara.”
“Hey—”
“I wasn’t finished. You’ve had your chance to talk and now you will listen to me. When I agreed to take over this Alliance, I meant to lead. A decision that faces the group is one I want faced together. But no, not for the great August Dillon. That will not do, not if an opportunity arises to get yourself killed.”
“I’m not doing this because I want to die.”
“Yes, you are. That is exactly why you’re doing it. Just like you did on Garoult, and again with the Tria. You’ve had this wish for death ever since we left Earth, and no wish could be more selfish. You think that if you give your life, it will somehow make up for all the lives we’ve lost along the way. And it is we, August. You are not the only person to be involved with this war. My Vontani have died, Cerenus’s people have died, Soraste’s… all of us have lost lives. We’ve lost friends. What makes you so special that somehow the lives you fight for carry a greater burden?”
He stood flat-footed on the lobby floor. “I don’t understand why you’re being this way.”
“Because it’s the only way to get through to you, but even that I feel is beyond hope. There is no going back now. The decision is made. If you want to die alone, you will be alone.”
She brushed past him and hit the control on the transport. She waited with her back to him. In the silence, he heard something that sounded like tears.
“Aeris…”
“Go away, please.”
“I meant what I said back there. I do love you.”
She hesitated on her way into the portal, but wouldn’t turn around. “If that were true, we would face this fight together.”
He watched as the spinning rings swallowed her in light. In an instant she was gone.
Already, he replayed her words through his head. He looked over and saw his reflection in the mirrored wall, a man he barely recognized.
A man alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
