“Not yet,” he said. He got up, seemingly lost or confused. “No, not here. Not like this.”
I managed to say, “Gur … not.”
“Yes,” he said as he snatched me by the hair and dragged me toward the kitchen. I kicked and groaned but couldn’t scream. My throat had been crushed, and I could hardly take a breath. How could someone hurt a person so brutishly?
“I have been a Gurnot my whole life,” Torio said, dumping me on the floor by the stove. “I’ve been feeding my associates information ever since I became Head of Courtiers. I hate the establishment. And I hate you!”
There was a frying pan on the cooker. It was red hot. He picked it up, grabbed a hunk of my hair, and pressed the hot pan against the side of my face.
“Yeo-o-o-ow!”
It was like ice and fire all at once. It burned like nothing I had ever felt before, and I had to remember what the Crown of Crowns had said: Pain is temporary.
But it freaking hurt! Tears pooled in my eyes, the smell of singed flesh, burnt hair, and Torio’s maniacal laughter. He tossed aside the pan and let me drop to the floor, where I writhed in agony, my throat muscles crushed, half my face melted off. “E—” I tried. “End it.”
Torio laughed. “Gladly.”
He pulled a pistol from his waistband and shot me in the head.
Chapter 15
I didn’t want to hate Torio for what he had done, but it was hard not to hate someone who had just murdered me. I floated out of my body and lingered, ghostly, below the kitchen ceiling. There I lay, the back of my head busted open, with fragments of hair and brain splattered over the kitchen floor like broken eggs. And there was Torio, seething above my bloodied corpse.
Had he really wanted to kill me the whole time we had known each other? All the smiles, the good advice, the late-night talks of politics, and all the while, he had fantasized about murdering me. I was surprised when he put the gun to his temple and blew his brains out.
Torio’s body slumped over mine. It was very much a murder-suicide.
It was then I realized I was floating. But I wasn’t in a body. I didn’t even really have eyes. It was difficult to comprehend. I appeared to be a shapeless cloud the color of fire, like a fist-sized ember. I looked like the auras of the spirits I’d once seen in Shiol. I felt hollow, weightless. I drifted listlessly, wondering how I hadn’t realized Torio was a Gurnot. It seemed obvious now. Then some part of me, like a third, invisible arm, reached into Torio’s fading brain to find the truth.
I didn’t know how I did it, but I did. I had accessed a library of Torio’s memories, and they were cascading in front of me: him as a child playing in the river, him as a teenager sulking through the halls of his high school, him in a vast complex I had never seen, surrounded by men I didn’t know—Gurnots, perhaps—and his most recent memory, my own face seen through his eyes, ugly and frightened as he choked me.
“Bleak,” I said, and rid myself of the images. I didn’t want to watch my own death through the eyes of my murderer.
I figured memory snatching was my special gift. Roki had told me that every Min received one. I’d just seen Torio at different stages of his life too—his image, perceived character, height, and shape. That meant I might be able to witness some past events related to the memories I’d be viewing. Pretty cool, I thought. It’ll help me find the KS3 cure even faster.
And that was when the urge shocked me. I felt an inexplicable desire to slip into a human shell. It was like an extreme thirst. I wanted to wriggle into my headless body, even into Torio’s warm corpse, slither into it like it was a sleeping bag. I seriously considered it.
“It’s dead,” came a voice from behind me.
I whirled my fiery spirit cloud around and saw a thin woman standing, translucent, on the kitchen floor. She, too, had a small red cloud, only hers lived inside her chest. “What?” I asked her.
“I see you eyeing that dead body,” she said. “Trust me, it’s not nearly as fulfilling as a live human. Obviously, you’re new. It’s nice to see a baby Min!”
Oh no! It was my murderer! It was the Min sent to kill me. Yet … she didn’t strike me as evil. She seemed more aloof than anything. I asked her, “Why did you have to kill Torio too? He was innocent … kind of.”
“Oh,” she said, “I didn’t. I had already detached myself from him. The poor Gurnot shot himself out of guilt. I guess he didn’t hate you as much as he thought.”
“You could have stopped him!”
She laughed. “Silly baby Min. I don’t have time for that. Don’t worry, you’ll shed your human feelings with time. Give it a few hundred years.”
If I’d had eyes, I would have glowered at the wicked Min. She came across as mindless, like a dopey spirit floating casually through existence. It wasn’t at all how Roki was, even though Roki was five hundred years old. I poked around in her memories, curious how long she had been alive. I found a barrage of images dating way back, machines and cities I didn’t even recognize.
“Hey,” she said, “I can feel you poking around in there.” Then she laughed. “What a cool talent.”
“Sorry.” I was embarrassed. I hadn’t thought she’d feel it.
“No worries,” she said. “You were just testing your new power. It was like a tickle in my brain. I didn’t even realize at first. But it’s cool. Actually, I’m kind of jealous.”
“Why? What’s your power?”
She shrugged. “It’s kind of lame. Basically, I can turn into a cat whenever I want. Sometimes I become a cat, and I just lounge around in the sun for weeks. I’ve become … very catlike.”
“Ah,” I said. It explained her weird attitude. “Why can’t I read your mind?” I asked. “I thought Min can read minds.”
“Only the minds of humans,” she told me. “Min are sheltered from being read by other Min. We can think all the naughty thoughts we want.”
I willed my cloud into the shape of a thumbs-up and said, “Good to know.” It meant Roki couldn’t read my thoughts anymore.
And that was when it hit me for the first time. Roki and I were both Min. He was already five hundred years old, which meant we could theoretically be together for … another five hundred years! That would be one heck of a relationship.
“Anyway,” the Min said, “I’ve got to go.”
“Wait!” I floated my burning cloud closer to her. “One more question. What am I? What is this cloud I am in?”
She giggled. “It’s your Valer. Only Min have a Valer. It’s how you’ll be able to tell the difference between Min and humans.”
“Wow,” I said. “Thanks. That’s incredible.”
She waved and floated out of the room, and I called after her, “Thank you for killing me.”
I slipped through an open window and took to the skies. I moved faster than the fastest rocket known to man. Yet I couldn’t concentrate. I had to stop in the middle of some fluffy white clouds and think about where I should go.
Emell’s house felt like the safest bet. It was still the middle of the night, which was convenient, because I hoped to float over her body and suck out her memories while she slept, though I didn’t understand how anyone could sleep while they deliberately killed thousands of people. I thought back to Lordin’s funeral, remembering the exact location of the place. Then I was zipping across the bruised sky at lightning speed. I arrived at Emell’s estate in less than a minute.
But now what? Could I float through the ceiling? Could I move through walls? I tried but it didn’t work. I had to squeeze my fluffy cloud through a cracked window on the upper floor and then float slowly through the house. I followed the echo of voices to the ground floor, where I found Emell and Lordin—residing in Hagan’s body—sitting in the study.
I knew it was Lordin, because I could see her red Valer suspended in Hagan’s chest. Hagan even had a faint resemblance to Lordin—petite, cute, pale skin, and electric eyes. I flattened myself against the ceiling in the hallway and eavesdropped on their co
nversation.
“The death toll has reached three hundred thousand,” Emell was saying. She looked very much like a supervillain in her smart black suit, her hands folded neatly on her mahogany desk. “Projections tell us it will have reached well over two million by the time we distribute the cure.”
“It’s a lot,” Lordin said. She crinkled her eyebrows. “Is there nothing we can do to lessen the casualties? Wouldn’t five hundred thousand, even six hundred thousand, be sufficient?”
Emell frowned at her. “You’re sounding a lot like my daughter again. That’s something Lordin would have said. She never did have the stomach for brutality. Lordin inherited too much of her father, his soft heart and his caring soul. Lordin did as she was told, but she did it with a corrupted conscience.”
“Genocide is a serious business,” Lordin said. “It would corrupt any person’s conscience.”
I didn’t know if it was my newly heightened senses as a Min, but in that moment, I had a clear vision of the relationship between mother and daughter. I could sense Emell’s untamed fury and Lordin’s apprehensive nature. Lordin wasn’t a heartless monster, but her mother sure was. I dreaded what I might find in either of their memory banks.
“It’s not genocide, anyway,” Emell said. “It’s just a bit of culling. We’re trimming the population, encouraging war, disrupting the seat of power, humiliating Kaelyn and Zawne. It’s everything we’ve been working for.”
Lordin nodded. She seemed unimpressed by the whole thing, as if it was beneath her. Then she said, “My informers have told me that Krug is considering siding with Nurlie against the islanders and the Surrvul rebels. If the fighting continues, Shondur will undoubtedly follow. They are still upset about the phosphorus situation. After Shondur, we can expect Lodden to send the elite Aska warriors into battle. The Gurnots will get involved. I predict a world war within two months. Every clan’s secret ambitions will explode into the open. It will be all-out chaos.”
“Excellent.” Emell interlocked her fingers and leaned over the table, giving Lordin a death stare. “We just need to rid ourselves of the underwater weapons system. We must leave Gaard totally vulnerable while allowing them the illusion of power. When the world marches on the capital, I want VondRust to burn for what they’ve done to me.”
Did she mean for what the King Emeritus had done to her? Was Emell really that petty? I had a hard time believing she would secretly organize global warfare over such a thing. However, she had been banished to the north of Gaard for over half her life. Perhaps her anger and disdain had evolved over time in that frozen place, mutated into something toxic.
Then I thought, What if Emell poisoned Lordin with her toxicity? Maybe Lordin isn’t inherently evil. Maybe she was just corrupted by her own mama!
Lordin said, “My technicians are working alongside some undercover Gurnots to disarm the underwater weapons system. Surrvul has provided funding. With all the money we’ve made from these mergers, we can now hire engineers to build our own weapons system. Gaard doesn’t stand a chance.”
Yes, they do, I thought. I’ll tell Zawne about your plan, and he’ll put an end to this madness!
“Excellent.” Emell reclined in her chair, looking pleased with herself. “What about the cure? Why won’t you tell me where you’ve hidden it, Hagan?”
“It’s better you don’t know,” Lordin said, her eyes darting around the room as if she thought someone might be listening.
She was smart. I had to give her that. Lordin must have known no Min could read her mind, so even if a Min intervened and tried to stop the rampant deaths, they’d never discover the secret location of the cure.
“I will make the cure available for mass production the moment you give the word.” Lordin hesitated, then said, “But the sooner the better.”
“Hush!” Emell roared, face wrinkled in anger. Her eyes radiated hatred. “Stop it with your cowardice. You and Lordin would have been the best of pals. I’ve had to babysit you these past months like I had to babysit my daughter her whole life.”
Lordin licked her lips and said nothing. Even I could see her anger mounting. It must have been hard to sit in front of her mama in a stranger’s body and listen to such vile slander. How could Lordin stand it? What was her angle? I cringed when she bowed and said, “My apologies, Mistress Emell.”
It was too wrenching to watch. Besides, I was wasting time. I needed to extract Lordin’s memories and discover the location of the cure. It would be pointless to probe Emell. She knew nothing, only malice. Entering her head would be like plugging in to the mind of a murderous psychopath. I considered possessing her body. I could order Lordin to release the cure right away. But then I would be stuck in Emell’s traitorous husk for the next forty or fifty years, and I didn’t want that. I also didn’t want VBione Corp to be labeled a hero for saving Geniverd from extinction. If anyone deserved to be labeled a hero, it was Raad or Zawne.
I let my new gift stretch away from me, like invisible tentacles, and reach into Lordin’s memory bank. I was slightly worried Lordin would notice, but within seconds I was lost in a world of images and remembrances.
Lordin was wrapped heavily in furs. She was young, beautiful, just a girl. Her visage was as smooth as porcelain under her fur hood, squinting against the bright sun as she carried her suitcase across the snow-covered yard to the awaiting flyrarc.
“Wait!” Emell came running out of the house. “I must say goodbye, my daughter. This is a big opportunity for us. Through hard work and determination, you’ve been accepted to train under the Grucken. We won’t see each other for a long time. Are you prepared?”
“Yes, Mama.” Lordin nodded obediently. “I remember all your teachings. I will advance up the ranks until I’ve gained a reputation among the nobility of Geniverd.”
“And you’ll do this by publicizing your ascension through social media,” Emell said. “Your story will rivet the masses. You’ll be an inspiration to everyone who aspires to be more than a simple commoner. But above all …”
“Keep my identity a secret,” Lordin said. “I know, Mama. I can’t let anyone know who I am. As far as the public is concerned, I am a nobody from Gaard. I am proficient in Decens-Lenitas, and through the Grucken’s teachings, I will become revered.”
“Exactly,” Emell said. “We are not like the other upper-class dolts. Remember our hatred for the king and queen, for the rulers of Gaard. We work to destroy them. We must use Decens-Lenitas to our advantage, disguise our intent, and rise until we’ve taken over the throne. I am trusting you, daughter. I entrust you with my vengeance.”
“I won’t let you down,” Lordin said. “I will mask my intent, cover the secret of my heart, and one day—”
“Topple the king and queen, and seize power!” Emell said, fist raised to the winter sky. She looked mad even then, bent on domination and ruin.
Lordin hugged her mama goodbye and boarded the flyrarc. She sat by the window and watched as they ascended above Gaard’s northern Gilfoil Mountains, looking down at the rural estate Emell had been banished to all those years ago, a small outpost amid the frozen wilderness. Lordin looked down at Emell and smiled to herself.
And then she was gone, soaring over the rolling hills of snow to meet the Grucken.
Lordin peeked through the stage curtain. It was a full house. The Grucken was onstage, giving his address to a batch of newly anointed Aska warriors. Jaken and Raad were among them, and in the front row of the crowd was Zawne.
“This is it,” Emell said. She rubbed her hands together. There was no one except her and Lordin backstage during the Grucken’s speech. “This is your chance to shine, daughter. All these years with the Grucken, and finally some face time in front of the nobility. And just at the right moment. I’ve begun acquiring small chemical companies and medicine manufacturers. I’m in negotiations with a lab technician and a gene specialist to begin preparation of the virus. No one has any clue what they’re participating in. They think it’s research.�
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“That’s nice,” Lordin said. “You’ve worked hard.”
Emell scoffed, “Harder than you know, child. Anyway, who do you see out there in the crowd?”
“A lot of people,” Lordin said. She was older than in the last memory, a beautiful young woman ripe in all the right places. “I see Prince Zawne, Heir Shirpo of Surrvul, Heir Raad of Gaard, Heir Zolo of Krug. There must be ten male heirs in the front row.”
“And each for your taking,” Emell said, still rubbing her palms deviously. “I suggest you focus on Zawne. He’s ambitious, like his pigheaded papa. With Zawne, you might have a chance at the top. Even Jaken is a good choice, yet he is an Aska and strong willed. Zawne will be easier to control. The truth is, daughter, either of the king’s children will do nicely. I want the former queen and the former king to feel pain beyond this world when we dispose of one of their sons. Then you will be on the throne with me by your side. They will grow sick from despair!”
“Yes, Mama.”
Lordin still peeked through the curtain, her eyes on Zawne. Anyone could have seen his potential, his positive energy. No one would have suspected a hardened Aska warrior would grow out of him, then later a king.
Lordin was at Lithern Shrine, Zawne propelling himself down to her in his modified flyrarc like an action hero.
“You came,” she said. “It’s six in the morning. I wasn’t sure you’d come this early.”
“I couldn’t resist,” said Zawne, a fish-eating grin on his face.
“Now that you’re here,” Lordin said, “let’s take a walk through the gardens and get to know each other.”
The date sped by in blips and flashes, scenes of tea drinking and subtle flirting. Then they were in the hidden room at the back of Lithern Shrine, Lordin caressing the smooth varnish of the Grucken’s piano. “Can you play?” she asked Zawne.
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