Halfblood Legacy

by Rheaume, Laura

  Unfortunately, he proved that he could read her mind by getting very serious. His mouth tightened into a thin line before he said, “No, Mercy. I won’t allow that, either. I told you, I want to live, and I will do what I have to. I should probably make the changes to you right now...”

  “Don’t,” she protested in a panic, but something made her wonder why he hadn’t already. It seemed like the logical thing to do, so either he didn’t want to or he couldn’t. Maybe he didn’t have the energy to do it right now, no matter what he said about being so much stronger than she was. Or maybe... “Do...do you really love me?”

  That surprised him, “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because, you are all I can think about.”

  “That could be a crush. They are obsessive, but they wear off after a while.”

  “I don’t think so. That’s not what happened with him.”

  She held on to that for later. “So, if you love me, how can you bear the thought of hurting me?”

  “What? I haven’t hurt you. I would never…”

  “Killing him would break my heart, you know that. So, if you truly love me, you would want to spare me that pain. When you love someone, they become more important to you than your own desires.”

  “That seems true…” he said hesitantly. He thought about it for a moment, but then said, “I could just erase your memory of it, and then it wouldn’t hurt you anymore.”

  “But, that’s not right. You don’t tamper with people you love. Scythe never did that to me, not even when my memories were very painful, did he?”

  “No.”

  “Because it is wrong. That’s how you can tell.”

  “That he loves you? No. That’s not it at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I know why he loves you, and it doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

  She just stared at him, because she was unsure of how to respond, and because she was distracted by three little words. He loves you.

  He frowned again, this time not at her. He stared forward, beyond her, and concentrated. “I think it’s time to wrap things up, my Mercy.”

  “What is it?”

  “Less than nothing,” he said, but she could feel the tension build around him. “I will see you soon, my Heart.”

  She had waited, had wanted to hear those words, had dreamt about those lips and that warm voice touching her with them. Now, she shook inside to hear him use them so causally, so confidently, as if it were already done, as if she were his wife. Sensing that time was running out, she screamed at herself, Do something, Mercy!

  The world around her started to fade, and she said urgently, “Wait…”

  The last thing she saw was a pair of green eyes widening.

  Chapter 44

  Two stars circled each other in the empty everything. The music that had always accompanied them had drifted away, the last notes ringing out and then wandering off. There was nothing to tie them to that place, now that their purpose was fulfilled and the end was near.

  For the first time, the quiet stood between father and son and it made one of them uneasy.

  “It would have been easier for you to stay asleep. As you were, you would have merely drifted away at the end. Now you’ll feel the separation and it will cause you to suffer, I’m afraid. I didn’t want that for you, father.”

  Scythe didn’t answer. He was busy. And, he wasn’t feeling chatty.

  “It’s futile. You are depleted. Even when you were at your strongest, you were no match for me. I’ve already taken just about everything you had, and now it’s time to finish it.”

  Scythe had gathered as much of his strength as he could and then concentrated on finding the boy. He knew Ed was attached to him, but it must have been a very light, very delicate bond because it was hard to find; either that, or the boy was suppressing Scythe’s ability to detect the damaging connection. He didn’t know if it was even possible, in his condition, to locate it, but since the alternative was giving up, Scythe put everything into searching for it.

  “Although, I’m very impressed. To pull yourself out of the sleep...that’s a real trick. Another time, I’d explore how you did it. Unfortunately, my Mercy is in a bit of a mood, and I’m getting concerned that she might just be able to interfere...I can feel your fear for her, so let me reassure you. I will take good care of her, be everything to her that you would expect from your son. You have given me so much: your life and your love. I am very honored and will treasure them both all of my days. Good-bye, father.”

  Then, the boy moved from wherever he had been hiding to the heart of Scythe’s power, tightened his grip and pulled on it. In that second, he revealed himself, and Scythe could sense the boy’s touch at last.

  Reaching out with everything that he had, Scythe wrapped his power around his life and held tight. The world around him disappeared, and his awareness of himself evaporated. The only thing that existed for him was one bright, tingling light and the force that tried to take it from him. He fastened himself to it, enveloping it with a thin membrane that thickened and surrounded the cord that pulled on it; he started moving up the line that bound him. His power couldn’t shear it off, but it was strong enough to shred a little off it. One, two, ten tiny bites made hardly any difference, but he had halted the separation, at least, and it was better than doing nothing. He forged onward: twenty, thirty...slowly the tie corroded. At the same time, a sliver of himself, a thin, ghostlike tendril, wound its way up the connection toward the boy.

  He ignored the fact that he was already very weak when he had begun, and the corrosion took energy. He didn’t care that he could already tell he wouldn’t have enough power to finish the job. He had shut off the exhaustion and the pain, even the distracting anxiety he had felt just moments before, and fought.

  “Father, I know you have to resist...” Edillian trailed off. His voice was strained now and tired. He had taken his time, peeling Scythe’s life open slowly, savoring every minute. It had taken a toll on the boy’s energy levels. That’s why he had funneled so much from Scythe: to maintain the connection and have enough power to keep Scythe subdued. Now there wasn’t any more coming to him from that source, and he didn’t have any to spare of his own.

  They were both at their limits, and both stubbornly, willfully fought to outlast the other.

  Scythe felt it when the boy’s grip weakened, and he took advantage of it as best he could, moving forward at a slightly greater pace. At the same time, he could see what the boy was doing with the energy he had reserved. He heard the call, although he didn’t recognize the name. He learned from being connected to the boy when he did it how to gather power and then shoot it outward, sending a mass of energy that would slowly shrink as it moved away because it wasn’t connected to the source.

  Scythe had never heard of such a technique. Energy was always connected to the user. When it was severed, it faded. He saw how the boy tuned it so that it would fade very slowly. He also saw that the boy had imprinted his will on it, so that it would continue to reach out for her until it dissolved…

  A face flashed across his mind through their tight connection of a woman that somehow seemed familiar...a face, or maybe just the profile was something he had seen long ago. It was gone in an instant. Help would be coming now, the boy was sure of it.

  “Father, don’t...don’t you want your son to live? If you succeed here...it will kill me. Already, your struggles have injured me. I know you...remember how you held me when you first came here?” He tried to form the memory in the black space around them, but all that appeared was a broken, wavering half image of two figures embracing. Then the image turned to smoke and floated away.

  Scythe didn’t respond. Through the cord that he inched along, Scythe could feel the effort it cost the boy just to hold on to him now. If Scythe had had more to draw on, he could have had a chance.

  Unfortunately, he had reached the end of his resources, and his pro
gress, which had slowed to a crawl, finally halted altogether. Stretched out, only a quarter of the distance to the boy, he looked down the long line he was sprawled on to the aging, orange sun in the distance. To go back was to give himself over to the boy, since he had no strength left to fight him with. To go forward...well, the only way to move forward now was to use the last of his energy, the energy the boy was trying to take for himself.

  The only way to move forward was into a silent garden where nothing grew. There, he would plant himself next to his parents, entangle his roots with theirs, reach up and brush against their brittle branches, and take one last breath before settling into the earth.

  He had never feared death, so it was not that which kept him hovering indecisively in space. It was just that, he didn’t fear life, either. At least, not anymore. Not since her. Not since she had sewn herself into the fabric of it, changing the whole design, making it burst with color and rich patterns that he hadn’t imagined were possible for him. Others, yes...but not him. She had run her hand over the bumpy knots, stained patches and ratty, tattered edges of his life and smiled. She had smiled at everything that he was.

  And...she had shone like a star in his love.

  He hovered and held onto that moment. He wasn’t willing to give his life just to get revenge on the boy, but neither would he retreat and let it be taken from him...not while he had something to hold as beautiful as that. He closed his eyes, blocking out the sun he had no way of reaching, held his position, and waited for the end to come. At least he wouldn’t be alone: his Mercy stayed with him, shining in the dark.

  Suddenly, as if he had called her up from his memory, he felt her gentle touch, and in the darkness the familiar melody that had captured him long ago rubbed against and then curled up around his soul: Scythe.

  My Mercy.

  -----------

  Morgan looked up from where he was programming in the last adjustments to Nivia’s unit. She had already connected to Faith, and was communing with her in the last moments of the woman’s life. Ian sat across from Morgan, holding his wife’s hand on the small bed next to Nivia’s cylinder. He was linked to them both and, if his face was an accurate gauge of his son’s mood, the man was at peace with what was transpiring between the two.

  Nivia was a gentle, kind spirited child, just the one to embrace Faith’s gift. At least, that is what Morgan had believed after he had spoken to Faith in person on the floor of the hospital room. The conference in which he had explained what he was asking for to the dying woman had been a heartbreaking experience for them all. In respect for his loss, Morgan had stayed connected to them and shared Ian’s pain; he had offered no words of consolation, but instead had thanked them both, and then left to quickly make the preparations needed to ensure that Faith’s decision to allow her energy to be used to heal one of his people’s children was not wasted.

  They had returned to the laboratory and found it unexpectedly empty. Morgan had raised Nivia’s protective column and wheeled her tank into one of the adjoining rooms that was furnished with emergency medical equipment. Faith was brought and laid out on one of the beds, and another was prepared for when Nivia was removed from her tank after the transfer. The young girl, Miriam, who had healed him after Jaelyn’s attack, had joined them along with her mother. The two talented Humans sat on either side of Faith and were able to slow the woman’s death, but not repair the extensive damage that Jaelyn had inflicted. That was beyond even his skills.

  Morgan had insisted that the rest of the patients remain in the hospital, and his daughter’s husband Smoke stayed back and took charge of calming them and attending to the wounded. Lena was among those injured few. She was one of the reasons why Morgan’s attention was divided. He was anxious to return there as soon as possible and tend to the wounded. He wanted to make sure that no other lives were lost.

  He shook his head while he punched in the last of the information. Over fifty years had passed since Jaelyn had managed to revive him, and he was just now waking up.

  He thought about what was transpiring in the room next to them and of the person who was noticeably absent when they arrived to move Nivia. Jaelyn was supposed to have been training Mercy in the lab and didn’t want Morgan to interfere or distract the girl, so she had dismissed him for the day. It had given him the perfect opportunity to release his children, so he had not complained. However, he had been surprised that Mercy was not monitoring the children when they arrived after the fight. Jaelyn would not have left the room unattended, especially with Edillian expected to rise at any time. He had done a quick scan of the surrounding area with his power, but hadn’t found her. He didn’t know why the room was empty, and he did not have the time to go looking for his granddaughter.

  Since there wasn’t anything left for him to do until Faith passed away, he got up, left the room and crossed to the monitoring station. He broadened the area of his search, stretching his power out to cover twice the distance of the first, but still didn’t find Mercy. He frowned. There was no reason for her to be out farther than that. The rest of the city would be dark, since those sections were rarely used. There was no errand that would send her there, unless she had gone exploring for some reason when Jaelyn had left.

  After pulling back his senses, Morgan looked at the screens, two of which monitored Edillian’s progress and the last of which had one of the lab schematics displayed. Edillian looked like he was physically ready to be removed from the tank, although some of his stress readings were uncomfortably high. Morgan tried to sense the boy’s condition, but was still blocked by the boy’s own shield. The whole area was empty in his mind.

  There was a small red warning in the corner that was pulsing for attention, so Morgan opened the message and read it. There was a malfunction in the outer column, a jamb in the mechanism that raised and lowered the barrier. That was odd…

  As he was accessing the diagnostic program, he was jarred by the burst of energy that flew past him unexpectedly from the boy’s unit. As it went by, he felt the message that was imprinted on it.

  Morgan turned and ran, hoping that the sleep’s hold on Jaelyn was stronger than her son’s call, but doubting that it was.

  -----------

  Jaelyn was nothing, until she heard her name. She had diminished so much that she didn’t even have the strength to dream while she took the sleep of her people. In that state, she should have been trapped, at least until she recouped enough energy to find herself again. However, a name could sometimes transfigure people.

  It was not the name her parents had given her, which might or might not have had enough influence to wake her. Instead, it was the word that named what she was, not just which one she was, that wound its way into her space, grabbed onto nothing and made it into something.

  Mother!

  She stirred.

  Her son called for her.

  She hovered on the brink of consciousness. A tight thought made real by power bound her there. Her weak body, worn thin by recent hardship, fought her as well. She didn’t have the power to do much more than maintain her present condition. On top of that, she was tired.

  But.

  Her son called for her.

  She opened her eyes.

  Chapter 45

  She had only drifted in the dreamless, visionless nothing for a short while, maybe a minute at most, before she felt herself released. Her spirit was unhooked and cast back into her body, too much of a drain on Edillian’s already depleted energy levels to be kept in check.

  Mercy had felt the boy’s regret the moment he had let her go. His presence lingered on her skin for a few seconds like the light touch of a hopeful suitor, until, regaining her self-control, she shrugged it off. She swam into her body and opened her eyes, rolling onto her back and sucking in a loud breath.

  She turned her head and looked at the boy floating among the tubes and cables in the tank next to her, sustained by both the type of medical advancements her people only dreamed about and the lif
e of another, the stuff of her nightmares. She was right back where she had been before and still had no idea how she was going to stop the boy. Scouring her mind for ways to defeat him, her attention wandered again to the top of the cylinder, where the nourishing fluids were pumped in...and the monitoring devices…

  She blinked. Then she sat up. Several things rushed into the space at the front of her mind at the same time, crowding around her, frantically shouting at her and jostling each other aside to be the first one to be heard. They were so jumbled that she couldn’t get a clear picture of any one, until she brought up her hands to cover her eyes, pressing hard against the skin and gritting her teeth.

  “Stop!” she snapped at them, and they settled down to an impatient grumbling. Her hands parted and she looked through the widening triangular gap up at the wires again. That’s where the first thought was pointing, and whispering, Feeding. Tubes that carried things to the boy, sustaining him.

  The second thought circled around a memory of Jaelyn and said in a hushed voice, Listen.

  “Naturally. Now, it is unfortunate that your parents named such a technique a ‘shield,’ because, by the very use of that term, they have crippled your power. The word ‘shield’ limits your understanding of what you are doing. Because of that, it has never occurred to you to use your ability for another purpose.”

  Another purpose.

  The last thought reminded her of what she had learned at Chromatic Technologies. Her power, akin to her instincts, reached out and followed every little bit of power that strayed from someone else and found its way to her. It ran along that wisp to the source and there it hovered until they or she moved out of reach...Her power was just like her: it loved to be connected to people. She loved to coax a smile out of people, engage them, and it loved to pull on their power ever so lightly.

  Jaelyn had called it a funnel. Had she done that on purpose, to shape Mercy’s understanding, to keep it limited? Of course she did, Mercy chided herself.