Hades blinked, blindsided by the subject change. He eyed my regulator, the stone glowing a brilliant electric blue, and I sensed his mind shuffling through potential responses despite the effort I was putting into staying out of his head . . . for the moment.
“I want the truth,” I told him. “The whole truth. In your logs, you referenced some prior history between the Tsakali and our people—before the war. You hinted that we helped them, that we gave them advanced technology. That we created them.” I shook my head. “But that's not what I was taught. I was raised to believe the Tsakali are tech-hungry monsters. They have no conscience and no control. They conquer and consume and destroy.” I narrowed my eyes. “But there's more to it, isn't there?”
I raised my eyebrows and set my jaw, crossing my arms over my chest, letting Hades see that I meant business. This was all or nothing. How he answered me now would determine what happened next—for us and for the mission.
Hades sighed, his neck bending under the weight of my questions. He combed his fingers through his loose hair and turned to the railing, staring out at the city. “The Tsakali were a gentle, nomadic race living on a dying planet,” he began. “Their star was unstable, and their world was at risk.” His fingers curled around the railing. “We transported them to a new world and set them up with the tech they would need to survive—a few chaos stones to power their new cities and some other things—and continued to trade with them for over a century.” He bowed his head and closed his eyes, a single, bitter laugh shaking his chest. “We never thought they would become what they did.”
Sensing the truth in his words, I moved closer, leaning my hip on the railing as I listened.
“Those gentle people changed,” he went on, raising his head to stare out at the energy barrier. “That new place—their new situation—it changed them. We had opened their eyes to the universe, and they adapted, became hungry for more—more power, more tech, more time. Always more.” He was quiet for a moment, battling his inner shame. “Seeking immortality, they developed advanced robotics tech and transferred their consciousnesses into synthetic host bodies. They were stronger and smarter than ever before. But when they moved into their new bodies, they lost something of themselves, some inner spark—what the people of this planet would call a soul.”
I tilted my head to the side, eager for more.
“These new Tsakali frightened us,” Hades admitted, “and when they came to us demanding we show them how to create chaos stones—and when we refused—they attacked. They infected our people with a nanotech biological weapon that rendered us infertile, claiming they could reverse the effect but would only do so after we shared the secret of how to create chaos stones. We refused.”
He didn’t need to go on. I could see the rest plainly in his mind. In that moment, he was an open book, inviting me to view his deepest, darkest secrets.
“And they declared war,” I said, not as a question but as a statement of fact.
Hades nodded once. “If we wouldn't help them, we were no use to them, so they vowed to destroy us.” Again, he was quiet for a moment. “And they've been hunting us ever since.”
I didn’t respond right away, giving both of us the time we needed to process what he had shared. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me—not bad, but potentially game-changing, at least, for the people of this planet. “So, if the Olympians aren't here when the Tsakali arrive,” I said, “there's a chance the humans could resolve this peacefully, isn’t there?”
Hades laughed bitterly. “Oh yes,” he spat, “there's a very good chance. In fact, I could tell them exactly what they would need to do to survive—at least, for a time.” He glanced at me, but only for a moment. “Tell the Tsakali how to create chaos stones.”
In his mind, I could see what Hades’ believed would happen next, and based on what I now knew, I had to agree it seemed like the most likely outcome. If the humans of Earth handed over the secret to creating chaos stones, the Tsakali would use their now abundant supply of chaos stones to reproduce endlessly. Like a cancer, they would spread across the universe, consuming and destroying everything in their path in their endless quest for more.
I gulped, horrified by that possibility. More than the people of this planet were at stake. “We can’t let that happen,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt.
“No,” Hades agreed, “we can’t.” Finally, he looked at me with more than just a passing glance. “Peri—Cora,” he corrected immediately. “I understand why you're angry with me. You should be. I deceived you, and I’m sorry, but you made your stance on evacuation clear, and I did what I believed was in the best interest of our people.”
I groaned, my shoulders slumping and my head drooping. I wasn't angry with Hades. Not really. I was angry at the situation more than anything, and I was taking it out on Hades because he had made himself an easy target. But the situation was bigger than us and our complicated past. It was bigger even than the survival of our people. So, I had to be bigger, too.
I blew out a breath and straightened, pushing my shoulders back and holding my head high. My eyes locked with Hades’ ice-blue stare. “I'm not mad at you,” I told him, “and I understand why you lied. Maybe if you had explained your reasoning, I would have come around.” I nodded my head to the side. “Or not.” I laughed under my breath. “But now I agree, evacuation is our best option—maybe our only option.”
My thoughts drifted back to my earlier tirade, and I felt the urge to explain why I had lashed out. “And I really am glad to be alive,” I told him as I turned my attention to the city below, to the place where I have lived out the majority of my lifetimes, and carefully picked out the right words. “As Cora, I've been able to experience something I never had before.” I shot Hades a sideways glance. “A family,” I told him, flashing him a watery smile.
A crease formed between Hades’ eyebrows as he listened quietly, attentively, his gaze skimming over the lines of my face.
“I have a mother who loves me more than anything else in the world,” I continued, “and experiencing what that’s like has shown me what a mockery Demeter made of the role.” I scoffed, shaking my head as I recalled how highly I had revered the leader of the Order of Amazons—Mother, as we had been taught to call her—once upon a time. Before her betrayal had nearly doomed us all. “I have a home and people who I would do anything for and despite my sheltered upbringing, I've had a good life so far. I feel like Pinocchio, like I'm finally a real girl, which I know you won't understand because you've never heard of Pinocchio. I—I'm glad everything got screwed up and I was able to live this semi-normal life for a while. I'm just . . .”
Letting out a long, drawn-out sigh, I turned back to the railing, once again staring out at the city. “I'm adjusting. I'm confused. I'm still trying to figure out who I am when I'm Cora and Peri and what I want from life.” My eyes stung with tears, but I didn’t try to hide them this time. “I get that you spent literal millennia trying to bring me back, but you can't expect me to be ready or able to pick up where we left off before I died. I'm not the same person, and—and I need to get to know myself, and to get to know you and Raiden and everyone else. I just—” Tears crept over the brims of my eyelids and streaked down my cheeks. I bowed my head. “I wish people would stop expecting me to be someone I'm not so I can stop disappointing everyone.”
Hades turned to me, reaching out to gently wipe a tear from my cheek with the pad of his thumb. “You don’t disappoint me, Cora,” he said softly.
I looked at him. This was the first time he had called me “Cora” without stumbling over the name. It felt right, and some of the tension within me eased.
“You surprise me,” he said, the corner of his mouth rising with a secretive smile. The way he was gazing at me sent a tingle of anticipation zinging through me. “Truth be told,” Hades confessed, “I'm quite enjoying it.”
A breathy laugh escaped from my lips. In that moment, I wanted him to lean in, to kiss me. Regardless of what I
had told him, I craved the rush elicited by his forbidden touch. But I could see in his mind that he was committed to respecting my wishes, to giving me the time I needed to figure myself out. If I wanted something to happen between us, I would have to make the first move, and I wasn’t ready to take that leap. A willingness to be kissed and a willingness to kiss were two entirely different things.
I activated my regulator, wanting to give Hades his privacy, and turned to face him. Reaching out, I captured his hand, noting how different it was from Raiden’s. How could these two men who I loved so deeply be so different? They were day and night, rough and smooth, human and other. But I loved them, both of them, with all my heart.
Acting on impulse, I leaned in toward Hades and rose to my toes to gently press my lips to his cheek. He became statue-still, as though he was afraid the movement would shatter the moment. I dropped my heels back down and studied his haunting beauty, reading his emotions the old-fashioned way.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Hades’ expression turned quizzical, but I didn’t elaborate. I couldn’t. Not right now. I offered him a tight-lipped smile, then turned and walked away.
15
I sat on my knees beside Meg’s bedroll on the floor of the gephyra chamber. Meg lay stretched out on her back in the sleeping bag, her eyes closed, recovering from the hours upon hours of gene therapy. She was weak, her skin waxen and sweaty, and violent shivers wracked her body every now and again. Though she appeared to be asleep, I sensed her awareness through our bond, muddled by the shooting pains wreaking havoc on her nerve endings and cramping her muscles.
I dabbed a cool, damp cloth against Meg’s forehead, then wiped down her cheeks and neck, providing what little comfort I could. I hated seeing her in so much pain.
“It will be worth it”—she sucked in a shaky breath—“in the end.” She swallowed roughly, then coughed as the saliva caught in her throat. Her pain levels spiked at the sharp movement. “I just wish—”
“Shhh . . .” I rested the damp cloth across her forehead and grabbed her nearest hand, squeezing it gently. Talking was only increasing her pain, and there was no need between us, not when I could sense every turn of her mind, just as she could mine.
I knew Meg wished, desperately, that she could come with us as we journeyed through the gephyra to explore the lost colonies. Not only did she want to see the distant worlds for herself, but she wanted to protect me. She had pledged her life to mine in the sweltering rainforest, the day we had linked our regulators and formed our bond, and she had meant it.
“You'll be with me the whole time,” I told her. I tapped my temple with a fingertip. “You’ll be right up here, seeing everything I see. Next best thing to actually being there.” Or, at least, I hoped that would be the case. The only way to know for sure if our bond could span the lightyears between worlds was to travel across a gephyra bridge and find out.
Meg attempted to smile, but a tremor struck her body just then, and she groaned, her teeth clenched, and her eyes squeezed shut.
The way I understood it, Hades had essentially re-written her genetic code, and the cells throughout her body were being replaced at an unnatural rate. Once the cellular transformation was complete, she would be better than ever. Meg 2.0, the baddest of the baddasses. But until then, she was as weak and helpless as a sick baby, and it broke my heart to see her like this.
I curled my other hand around hers, giving her all the support I could while she suffered through the fit, until her body relaxed once more. “Don’t worry about me,” I told her, rubbing the back of her hand with my thumb. “Just worry about getting better, and the next time I travel off-world, I promise you'll be coming along.”
Meg’s eyes fluttered open, and a weak smile touched her lips.
“Get some rest,” I said as I placed her hand on her middle and sat back on my heels. Hands on the floor, I stood and retrieved my doru from where I had leaned it against the wall, then joined the others huddled around the gephyra’s freestanding control panel nearby.
Our packs were lined up in front of the control panel, and Hades stood on the opposite side with Emi, explaining to her how to operate the gephyra controls as he entered the coordinates of our first destination. Raiden, Fiona, and my mom stood off to either side of the control panel, watching the lesson. Both Fiona and my mom wore hoplon suits, which would provide them plenty of protection, even without being reinforced by a latent infusion of psychic energy. Since hoplon suits had only ever been made for female Olympians—as the sole bearers of the psychic gifts—Raiden and Hades had settled with wearing Gargarean armor. The bulkier suits that had been worn by the mundane, male Olympian warriors were still an upgrade from any human-made protective gear, but they were no hoplon suits.
The overall mood was somber, with an undercurrent of excitement about the coming interplanetary trip. Hades and I had explained the true mission—to find an Olympian ark ship and use it to evacuate the remains of the Olympians along with as many humans as possible—as well as the reason why. Coming to grips with the fact that, barring some miracle, Earth was beyond saving, wasn’t easy for any of them. I still struggled with denial, my mind constantly working to find another solution, and I was surprised by how quickly the others had jumped on board with the plan. None had accepted that Earth couldn’t be saved, but they understood why the evacuation had to be done. At least this way, some humans would be guaranteed survival.
My mom held out an arm as I approached, and I let her pull me into a side hug, her arm curling around my waist. “How’s Meg doing?” she asked.
I draped my arm around my mom’s shoulders. “She’s in a lot of pain, but she'll get better.” I sighed. “I just wish I didn't have to leave her like this.”
My mom gave my waist a squeeze. “Emi will take good care of her,” she said, and I knew she was right.
Emi would be staying behind with Meg while the rest of us ventured through the gephyra to the lost colonies—worlds colonized by my people long ago. Each colony had failed for its own reason. The last contact my people had had with any of the lost colonies had been over twelve thousand years ago when that ill-fated team of Amazon warriors had traveled off-world to search for a chaos stone. I would forever feel guilty for damning my spearsisters to such a brutal banishment. After all, they had only been following orders. But Hades and I had done what needed to be done, sacrificing a handful of lives to save an entire planet. Just as we would do again, sacrificing the planet to save the universe, because the Tsakali had to be stopped.
“Remember,” Hades told Emi, “the bridge between worlds must be active for the communication system to work, should you need to reach us for any reason.”
We all wore Olympian communication patches behind our ears since we weren’t sure if our two-way radios would work across the bridge created between gephyras.
Hades slid my mom’s journal across the smooth surface of the control panel, leaving it directly in front of Emi. “We'll leave the bridge active,” he continued, “but there is always a chance for disruption. We will not always be within sight of the gephyra on our end, so we may not know if the bridge has closed. I saved the coordinates of our destination as the default setting, should you need to reestablish the bridge yourself, and recorded the coordinates of each of the colonies we will be visiting in Diana’s book.” He tapped the leather cover of the journal.
“I understand,” Emi said with a nod, picking up the journal and hugging it to her chest. Her eyes skipped over to Raiden, just for a moment, and with my regulator activated, I could only imagine the fear she felt at thinking about her son—her only child—being on an entirely different planet from her. If the bridge collapsed, the coordinates within the journal were the only tether connecting her to Raiden.
“I will contact you before collapsing the active bridge when we are ready to travel to a new planet to alert you to the coordinates of our next destination and to remotely reset the home system's default setting,” Hades e
xplained to Emi. “Once we arrive at our new destination, I will establish a bridge between the new gephyra and this one.” He pointed to the dormant gephyra behind me with his chin.
Again, Emi nodded.
Hades pressed a small, golden button on the control panel. “This button initiates the activation sequence. Unless overridden, it will establish a bridge between this gephyra and the one at the default coordinates.”
A quiet humming started behind me, the volume amplifying by the second. I turned around to face the gephyra in time to see half of the innermost ring, about ten inches thick and eight feet in diameter, rising from the center of the golden platform as the other half sank into the portion of the machine buried in the floor. Ancient, Olympian glyphs representing the coordinates of our destination glowed silver on the ring’s surface, brightening as the ring spun.
The others were staring now, and I didn’t need to deactivate my regulator to sense their curiosity and awe. None of them had known what to expect, but this clearly wasn’t it.
That lone ring made a slow rotation around an invisible axis, eventually ending up flush with the rest of the platform once more. When the innermost ring rose again, a second joined it, just outside the first, spinning on an opposing axis. Just like with the first ring, glyphs glowed along its surface. The brief moment that both rings sat flush with the rest of the platform, a third ring joined them, fitting perfectly around the second, and yet again spinning on its own unique and invisible axis.
The process continued until a seventh ring joined the inner six, at least fourteen feet in diameter. All seven rings glowed with those ancient silver glyphs. The rotation of the rings picked up speed until they were moving too quickly for the naked eye to track. They seemed to disappear, giving way to a seven-foot-tall quicksilver orb standing in the dead center of the platform.
“That is . . .,” Raiden started but trailed off with a slow shake of his head.
Dreams of the Damned (Atlantis Legacy Book 3) Page 11
