My consciousness slips for a moment.
I suppose that wouldn’t be too bad—to be knocked out and miss the death part. But I can’t die. Once the crowd is finished with me, Luc is taking them to the wheat field. To Castle Ithebego. The children will let their parents through, drawn in by the desire to be reunited. But when those parents enter, Luc and his tirones will too.
I force myself to sit up and yank my right hand against the spike in the ground. It gives a little, and that’s all I need for adrenaline to kick in. If it’s able to give at all, it’s able to give the rest of the way. I pull, ignoring the flying stones, except for when I need to duck one.
Finally my arms are free.
Luc still watches me with an amused expression. He holds up a single hand. It takes a few seconds, but the crowd gets the message and stops throwing.
Warmth trickles down my body in so many areas I’m not sure if it’s blood or torn muscles or if my body will still obey me once I get my feet free. I’m nearly numb from pain.
If I get my feet free.
Luc shakes his head. “This is what I liked about you, Cain. I liked the fight in you. How you never give up. You could have been such an asset to our city.”
“I don’t want to be an asset to just one city, Luc.” My words are slurred with pain, and I have to deliberately form each syllable through the swelling of my face. “Not when it’s a prison. There’s a whole world out there that you’re keeping from your citizens, all in the name of fearing and hunting Spores.”
He stabs his spatha into the sand. “You’ve been infected. Every word you speak is a deception.” He lifts his hands to the sky, and the gray blanket above swirls in obedience, sending down a black lightning bolt that crackles with promised pain.
He grips it in the middle. The hairs on my arms straighten.
I get a foot free and force myself upright, pivoting around my anchored foot. Searching my belt for a weapon. I’ve never fought a lightning bolt before.
Luc surveys me and seems genuinely sad. “No roots. No nightmist. We don’t even recognize our Icarus anymore.”
“Good,” I retort with effort. “That was the problem from the beginning.”
He looks past me at the tirones. Gives a small nod. They leave their posts against the walls and approach me. I try to dodge them, but that’s hard to do when I’m chained at the ankle like a dog. They grab my arms and tunic and hold me in place.
“Really, Luc?” I croak. “You’re not even going to fight me man-to-man?”
“Why endanger myself in the name of pride?”
A tiro grips me from behind, yanking my head back. The crowd hoots its approval. I can see only the top of Luc’s head. His lightning bolt raised to the gray lifeless sky.
I hear the swoosh and static of the weapon. It pierces my gut. I make a sound of agony foreign to my ears. Jolts of electricity pound my body like waves.
The tiro releases me. Luc yanks out the lightning bolt. Warmth spreads across my middle. He lifts the weapon again.
This time, in the last moments before he lunges, my body relaxes of its own accord. Submission. Fear flees. When he splits my chest open, all I can think is, I’m going home. To light. To Nole.
Heaven smells like dust and grandmother quilts.
My eyes hurt like a headache has been pounding behind them for days. I try to open them, but it’s too bright. I’m gasping for breath. My body hurts. But my chest and stomach are still intact. I manage to reach up and rub my sternum, expecting blood. Burns. Shocks of electric nightmare.
Everything feels too real. Too physical.
I’m not in heaven—I know this before I manage to keep my eyes open. I force myself into a sitting position.
I’m in the cabin with the two LifeSuPods. Galilei’s body and Crixus’s body. I’m awake.
With a jolt I realize what this means.
I’m a Spore. An Adelphoi.
I leap to my feet, but my body reminds me what it’s been through. I lurch sideways and brace myself on the bed. I suppose I rolled off in the Real World at some point during Luc’s attack in Tenebra.
The strange feeling of spiked fear and resigned peace still thrums in my veins. I still feel the cut of the lightning bolt and the severing of my consciousness. As I feel it, I notice all my swelling and inner pain is healed. So when an Adelphoi dies, the wounds from the Nightmare disappear.
Amazing.
I get my balance and take a few steps, but the greatest need that hits me is a parched throat. Water. I need water. Food.
My muscles quiver as I toddle toward the sink and turn the tap. I guzzle as much as my belly will hold before I stop. Afterward I grab the bag of pancake mix from the cabinet. Feeling weirdly normal, I slap a pan on the stove and combine the pancake powder with water and get one giant pancake browning on low heat in the skillet. I’m tempted to eat a mouthful of raw batter, but I refrain.
I watch in a tangle of wonder and disbelief. Here I am, alive. Gutted mere moments ago, and now cooking pancakes while my murderer’s father lies helpless in a LifeSuPod a few feet away.
At that thought, my hand on the pan stills, and my surroundings seem to fade, leaving only the LifeSuPod directly across from me.
Galilei. I cross the space and look down at the weathered face with the bald head.
He’s not as pasty as when I saw him last. In fact, he looks ready to rise out of his LifeSuPod like a vampire waking to feed.
Because I rejuvenated him by saving his LifeSuPod and plugging it in.
I sigh and turn away, feeling like I’m letting down the Adelphoi. The children. I’m not defending or protecting them like I promised.
