by Tenaya Jayne
"Please," Rahaxeris whispered.
"Please what?"
"She's my child."
"And what am I? You never explained anything to me."
"An experiment. You should have been destroyed."
He growled and slapped Rahaxeris across the face.
Rahaxeris staggered but didn't move to strike back. He smoothed the front of his robe. "What do you want? How do I get you to let Forest go?"
"Why do you care so much about her?!" he shouted. "Why does she have your love, and all I have is your contempt?"
"What do you want from me?" Rahaxeris asked again.
"Everything!" he roared. Then, he took a deep breath and schooled his face and voice. "You will submit to my control. You are going to stand behind me in an unwavering show of support of my claim to the throne. Regia fears you. I will use that. No one will dare even think about standing against me with you at my side."
"That's all? I support you, and you'll let Forest go?"
"That's all."
"Well, I'm here. I agree. So let her go."
Copernicus smiled broadly. "I will. Come… Come see her."
Rahaxeris followed Copernicus through the door in the deck down a short flight of stairs. There was a hallway with four doors; three were shut, one stood slightly ajar. Copernicus stood aside and gestured for Rahaxeris to enter the room ahead of him. Desperate to see what had befallen Forest, Rahaxeris ignored his better judgment and went through the door.
She was laid out on the floor, her skin mottled in bruises. Cuts covered her face and arms. The whole room was splattered with blood, even the ceiling. Panicked, he rushed to her, only to be jerked backward by the throat. Rahaxeris gagged against the metal cuff now locked around his neck.
"Shhh…Shhh… Hold still, it won't hurt so much if you hold still," Copernicus crooned in his ear. "Don’t fight it."
A bright flash of heat surged up his neck. The heat pushed up into the top of his head before sliding back down through his whole body. All of his power drained away, not just his magic, but everything down to his ability to hold himself upright.
Rahaxeris crashed to the floor, weak like a dying old man. His power along with his rage was there inside him, but he couldn’t access them, as though they were shut inside a vault. He had rage, but rage took energy to manifest, and he had no energy at all. The cuff absorbed it all.
Copernicus looked down at him, a satisfied smile on his broad face. "Surprised, aren’t you? How does it feel to have everything taken away? I brought that little trinket back with me from the wizards. Now you're mine, and you can do nothing to double cross me, as I know you would have."
Copernicus reached down and lifted Rahaxeris under the arms. He maneuvered him into a sitting position against the wall, where he could see Forest. Copernicus sat down cross-legged next to him. He smiled as he looked at her.
"She's so beautiful. You must be proud of her, all she's accomplished."
"Yes," Rahaxeris said faintly. He saw no point in lying now.
"I'm not going to let her go. You know that, don't you?"
"I knew it before I came."
"Then why did you come?" Copernicus demanded.
"I had to try. Please don't hurt her anymore. I can hear her heart. You put her on a dangerous edge. She still might not make it if you don’t do something to heal her… Let me."
"No. I'm not taking that off your neck. Not ever."
"But she's—"
"She needs something all right," Copernicus cut him off. "It's too bad about the child."
"What do you mean?"
Copernicus put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the wall, lazily. "I learned a lot about myself when Maxcarion sent me to the wizards. Wizards have a great capacity for cruelty. And they are more skilled at science than the Rune-dy. Their skill set is rather different, I'll admit. But they are incapable of letting something they do not understand lay still. They cannot leave a puzzle alone. I was one such puzzle when I got there. They continued the work you began, adding to the races already meshed together inside me. I can say with pride, I am unique."
Rahaxeris said nothing.
Copernicus sighed and continued. "They deconstructed me… Come to find out, there was a key element inside me I couldn't live without. Malachi Serum. That's what Forest needs now."
Rahaxeris blanched. "No!"
"Come now, think about it." Copernicus got to his feet. "She has a child of three races in her belly. The baby needs the serum to survive. Shreve, bring me that vial!" he yelled toward the door.
Shreve came in holding the accursed grey liquid and a syringe. Rahaxeris eyed it. That syringe came from the Rune-dy. It was Menjel's favorite style to work with. Oh, if he ever got out of this, he'd kill Menjel slowly on his own operating table for this.
"What's going on?" Shreve asked, looking suspiciously at Copernicus as he handed him the vial and syringe.
"Watch and learn," Copernicus said to Shreve.
"Don't do this! Please! You'll kill her!" Rahaxeris begged.
Copernicus drew the liquid into the syringe. "I'm trying to help the baby. It's too mixed, like me. I want it to live…and Forest is strong. It will probably do her good as well, seeing as she's a hybrid."
He moved toward her and knelt down, the needle catching the light.
"Stop! She doesn't need it because she is natural! She was born. Her baby doesn't need it because it is natural! You needed it to survive because you were grown in a tube."
Copernicus' face whipped to Rahaxeris, a crazed fury in his eyes. "Does that mean I don't have a soul?!"
"I don't know!"
"Forget to add that to my ingredient list? One soul."
He turned back to Forest and plunged the needle into her arm.
"No!" Rahaxeris clawed at the metal around his neck. "Stop! You're killing her!"
Chapter Five
Syrus left Ithiel and the masters with orders to stay in the Onyx Castle and assist Zeren. He took Merhl and five other ogres with him back to where he'd found Forest's sword on the ground. He stood back as the ogres combed the area, trying to catch the signature of a portal that might have been opened there by Forest's kidnapper.
He stretched his magic out through the area, trying to glean anything he could.
"My lord, Syrus," Merhl broke through his focus. "I found something. Not much. Nothing we can catch and re-open, I'm afraid. But I found the trace only because it has my signature on it."
"What?"
"The portal was created by Forest's own ring. I'm sorry. There is nothing else here."
Syrus turned away from Merhl and exhaled, breaking down into shards inside. The hope he'd been holding close to his chest turned to dust. What did he do now? He looked down at Forest's sword in his hand and thought again of where he'd found it, hidden on the ground. It had to have been Redge. It had to have been. Was Redge with her now? Was he with the enemy? How could he find him?
"What can I do?" Merhl asked desperately. "Let me help, please."
"Merhl, go to the Rune-dy and bring Rahaxeris back here."
"Yes, sir. Of course."
"And open a portal for me back to Halussis."
"Back to the Onyx Castle, sir?" Merhl asked.
"No." Syrus had a sudden premonition about where he might find Redge. "Open a portal to the rural outskirts of the city."
Merhl nodded quickly and struck the air with the flat of his hand. Syrus strapped Forest's sword around his waist and moved toward the portal when he abruptly fell onto his knees. The sound of Forest's heartbeat, coupled with the racing pulse of the baby thundered through him. Forest's steady rhythm skipped, spluttered, and screamed. His lungs refused to fill, his heart turned to stone. She was dying. Forest was dying.
He got back to his feet and ran into the black portal. Time set its hideous face against him. He didn't know how much longer she had.
Syrus only took a second to gain his bearings when his feet hit the ground. The area wa
s devoid of life except for the plants. He ran forward, unable to feel the ground under his feet. His heartbeat mixed in his ears along with Forest's and the baby's. His body moved faster and faster as his soul clung to the edge of a thin blade. Loss and pain ran like the devil behind him, just on his heels. He hacked at tree limbs and hanging vines as they grabbed at him, trying to slow him down.
"Redge!" he shouted. "Are you here?!"
A ruin of a house loomed ahead of him. The look of it struck a chord with his memory.
"Redge!" he shouted again.
For one second, the space of time between one heartbeat and the next, Syrus didn't breathe.
Redge appeared in the doorway. "Syrus, what are you—"
"Where is she?"
Redge opened his mouth and then shut it, shaking his head. "I can't tell you."
Syrus roared and ran at his oldest friend, lifting him off his feet, pushing him back into the house until his back crashed against the crumbling stone wall.
"Where is she? Where is she?" Syrus shouted in Redge's face. "Tell me, damn you! She's dying! I have to save her!"
Redge pushed back at Syrus. "I can't tell you! Don't you think I would if I could? I'm a slave."
Lightning cracked and snaked up Syrus' arms. Redge's eyes went wide one second before Syrus slammed his fist into his face. Redge fell to the ground, but Syrus lifted him up again. Redge swung back in defense, his knuckles cracking into Syrus' jaw. Redge may as well have punched the wall for all the effect it had.
"She's dying! Right now!"
"He made me take her. I had no choice. He made me kidnap her, he made me beat her…" The words slipped out.
The fire in Syrus' eyes flashed into an inferno. "You beat her?!"
"I'm sorry, Syrus. You have no idea how damn sorry!"
Nonsensical and unfair as it might have been, everything Syrus was feeling, he transferred to Redge. He pulled Forest's sword from its scabbard.
Redge's eyes bugged. "Shit!" He darted away, grabbing his own sword, and held it up in a block.
The obsidian glass blade sliced through Redge's sword, breaking it in two. He dropped the now pointless hilt and exhaled, waiting for his best friend to kill him. Redge's face and voice went calm and serious as Syrus thrust the blade beneath his chin.
"Do it," he said quietly. "Kill me. At least then I can't hurt anyone else."
The fire in Syrus' eyes stilled. He blinked.
"Do it," he said again. "I can't live as a slave anymore. As my friend, it would be a kindness to me."
Syrus' lip curled, and he pulled the sword back from his neck and sheathed it. He turned his back on Redge and walked away. He stopped in the doorway and looked over his shoulder. "We're not friends anymore."
Then Syrus was gone.
****
Copernicus left Rahaxeris against the wall in Forest's room. The ship bobbed on the waves as the night darkened the space. Unable to do anything else, Rahaxeris crawled on the floor toward Forest. He reached her, exhausted from the effort and placed his hand on her arm over the injection site. His fingers shook against her skin as he attempted to use his power to pull the poison back out of her. Nothing happened. He listened to her heartbeat. Her veins moved the serum through her whole body. She didn't have much time left. A few hours. She probably wouldn't last the night.
If only he could remove the collar around his neck, he could save her life. His long fingers picked slowly at the hinge and the clasp. He worked at the pin in the hinge with his feeble, almost useless fingers. He was getting nowhere with it, but it was the only thing he could do, so he kept at it. He wouldn't give up, so long as she still lived, he would try whatever he could.
A very dim light fell across him on the floor as the door creaked open. Rahaxeris turned and looked at the silhouette standing on the threshold. The figure hesitated a moment and then stepped into the room and shut the door behind him.
Shreve moved to Rahaxeris and knelt down next to him. He looked intently at Forest. "She's dying, isn't she?" he asked quietly.
"Yes," Rahaxeris whispered.
Shreve stared at her for a moment, a blank look on his face. He turned his full attention on to Rahaxeris. "Look at me closely, please."
Rahaxeris looked.
"What am I?" Shreve asked.
Rahaxeris felt his surprise weakly. He reached out and took a hold of Shreve's wrist, pressing down on his pulse. After a moment of analyzing, he let go.
"Why do you call Copernicus father?" Rahaxeris asked.
"It's what I've been led to believe my whole life. That he is my father. And yet I've always doubted it. It's not the truth, is it? He's not really my father, is he?"
"No, he's not your father. He's your original. You're a clone, Shreve."
Shreve sat down on the floor and laced his fingers together, looking intently at his own hands. "You didn't make me?"
"No, I didn't. The wizards must have."
"I'm not really sure about all of this. Copernicus's whole plan, I mean. I spent my childhood with the wizards. I don't think Copernicus can hold them back the way he thinks he can if he takes the throne. What do you think?"
"Are the wizards really coming to take over Regia?" Rahaxeris asked.
"Yes. Regia and many other worlds as well."
"Nothing Copernicus could do, king or not, will stop them."
"Could you stop them? Could the Rune-dy?"
"I don't know. But I will take your word that they truly are coming," Rahaxeris said. "I will think on it."
Shreve sighed and turned his attention back to Forest. "What's it worth to you, if I let you save her life?"
"Everything."
"I've watched her for a while now. Copernicus had me follow her for a long time. She's a good person and she's a good leader… In some twisted way, she is my sister. I don't want her to die."
Rahaxeris narrowed his eyes at Shreve. "You're not like your original. Same face, same DNA, different mind."
Shreve nodded. "The things he does… In almost every circumstance… He chooses differently than I would."
"If you take this collar off me for just a moment, I could reverse the poison in Forest's blood. You have my word I will do nothing else. Just please, let me save my daughter and her child."
Shreve's jaw tightened, and he reached for the clasp on the collar.
Chapter Six
Journey experienced a naked, desperate, raging hope and equal parts crippling fear. She hid in the shadows and watched. All these years apart, Journey held Redge frozen inside her heart. His face, trapped in youth, her love for him unmoving, silent, and waiting. She didn't know what this moment would do to her, but she'd had her doubts that what she had felt long ago, what she remembered feeling, would prove to be no more than a phantom now. As her eyes drank the image of him, here, alive, in front of her, it was the doubt that became the phantom. The ice she'd encased him in melted away, and her heart shocked to life in a burst of bright electric current.
Tears fell silently as she continued to hold still. Was she really still? She was burning, reaching, pulsing. Hungry life raced through her body, just under the skin. She clamped her hands over her mouth to keep from crying out. She wanted to run to him and dive into his arms; it was killing her to hold still.
Did he ever think of her, dream of her? Was it possible? Did she dare recognize the hope that he still loved her? Had he ever really loved her? Did she still have a place in his heart? She was the one who had run away after all, realizing her mistake one moment after it was too late to turn around.
She'd told herself the reason she came back after all these years was to warn him his world was about to be invaded by the wizards. That was the solid thought in her mind, and it was the incentive that forced her to jump over the edge. Journey had always wanted to come back to him but always felt that desire was foolish and selfish—not to mention illegal.
She’d been plagued for so long, not having the answers of what had really happened that night. The n
ight she ran away. She realized that she didn't understand what she saw and cursed herself for not allowing him to explain. Even now, the bloody memory of Redge taking a life right in front of her sent a roll of cold fear down her spine. She shook it off.
He'd changed. Matured into a man. His shoulders were broader than she remembered, his walk steady, purposeful. She looked intently at his hands. They were rough, scarred, and moved with determination. He was an impressive man. His face, now well past the youth she knew, was beyond her many fantasies of what he might look like now. When he turned her way and she got a clear, straight-on view of him, her mouth fell open. Oh, my, was all her brain could articulate at first.
She admired him slowly and meticulously, taking in every detail of his appearance and demeanor. He paced back and forth through the trees, stress and sorrow filling the air around him. His roughly beautiful face was pulled into a hard frown. She was too far away to read his heart, but even if she had been standing in front of him, she would have been too scared. As a Storyteller, she could reach inside him and answer every question she had. But would the answers crush her? She'd already risked so much, and gaining the knowledge of what was in his heart was the biggest risk of all.
He went back inside the crumbling structure and started to organize and shift the skeletons of furniture around. She could see him though the holes in the walls and the open windows and door. He cleaned the space as if trying to make it livable. Why had he banished himself to this graveyard of memories?
There was no noise, no one else around for miles. They were alone together, and yet, still apart.
Journey waited until the dark fell and shrouded the trees, until the shadows reached, expanded, and came together in full night. She moved without sound to the doorway of the ruin and paused. He was asleep on the bare, weathered frame of a bed. She shivered in response to his close proximity. It was unlike any shiver she'd ever experienced. It lingered and buzzed almost painfully.
