Crixus startles. Actually fumbles his sword. That’s new.
Have I surprised him? Interesting. He’s known the location of his body this entire time, and he’s also known I’ve been trying to get to that same LifeSuPod since entering Tenebra. Yet he never said anything. What did he think would happen when I got Luc’s father to the cabin?
Unless he thought I’d never succeed.
“Enough of this.” He sheaths his gladius. “He’s right. He has served the Emperor at great cost. I’ll take him to the Emperor myself.”
The tirones don’t immediately lower their weapons.
“Are you sure, sir?” one asks. “You’ve seen what he can create.”
“Do you think I can’t handle it, Marcus?” Crixus strides into the center of the circle of swords. The tirones hurriedly sheathe their weapons.
“Of course not, sir,” Marcus mumbles, lowering his eyes in deference.
“Back to your regular posts,” Crixus commands. Then he takes my arm, and we’re out of the strange white building before I can blink.
We head toward the training area, not Luc’s fire tower or the dungeons. Crixus isn’t taking me to the Emperor: he’d be a fool to do so. I just threatened to reveal his secrets and betray him.
He’s desperate. He’s scared. And desperate, scared people do desperate, scared things: like murder their problems.
I’m Crixus’s problem.
His grip on my arm grows tighter with each stalking step.
“How did you get out of that medical ward?” He grinds out the question like shoving it through a mouthful of rocks.
My body stops moving of its own accord. Crixus gives a tug, then stops.
“You locked me in the high-rise with Luc’s father?” This doesn’t make sense. Crixus is in Tenebra. He’s been trapped here for likely months. How could he wake up in the Real World?
“You clearly got out.” He doesn’t sound pleased that I saved his precious Emperor’s father. This means Crixus knew I was in the high-rise and somehow managed to travel to the cabin and connected himself to my LifeSuPod within the span of an hour. He expected me to die. He tried to keep me out of that LifeSuPod so he could steal it.
I yank my kris dagger from my belt as furious emotions build like a swirling hurricane. Crixus looks almost bored as he pulls out his own gladius.
“Really, Cain?”
A dagger against a gladius is like a spoon versus a carving knife. But it takes a mere second of reliving how I felt when I found Crixus in my LifeSuPod to ignite my rage. I let the memory crash over me. Crash out of me.
Nightmist spills from my fingers like a tipped cauldron and pools on the dirt, taking form.
Crixus pays no attention, only asks, “So you saved him then? Galilei?”
“Obviously.” It’s too much. Crixus has been at Luc’s side this whole time. It’s so cliché, the right-hand man betraying his leader. Crixus probably wants the throne or something equally predictable. “You’re clearly not loyal to him, yet you do his bidding.”
He levels me with a direct stare. “The Emperor can’t know.”
“That you’re in my LifeSuPod? That I saved his dad? That you can wake up?” My eyes widen. “You’re a Spore.”
Of course. I was working for Luc, which means I was Crixus’s enemy.
“You know nothing.”
My nightmist solidifies into a lumbering troll, club and loincloth and all. There is no color to its form: it’s black with swirling shadows and sections of its body are still transparent. I grin, equally surprised and pleased by my unintentional creation. My nerd self is coming out. It’s about time.
“You can’t blame me for ignorance when you and everyone else continue to keep knowledge from me.” Ironically, the only person who’s consistently given me answers since I arrived in Tenebra is Luc.
Sensing my irritation, the troll looks dumbly around for a moment, then stomps toward Crixus in an attack. I cringe as the oaf tries to locate Crixus beneath his huge, awkward body. Maybe my nerd should have stayed hidden. Crixus actually has time to roll his eyes before he thrusts his mistblade gladius upward beneath the troll’s ribs and into his heart.
A single groan and the creature is felled like a tree, shaking the earth beneath our feet upon impact.
So much for that.
“You’re really going to fight me, Cain?”
“‘Fight for yourself, first and foremost,’” I say, quoting him. “Someone told me that’s the only way to stay alive.”
“You took it to the extreme.” This time he doesn’t wait for me to create a nightmist creature. He leaps at me, gladius raised. I throw up my dagger but dodge at the last moment. I don’t want to try to stop a strike like that with a dagger. I’m likely to lose a hand.
Nightmist bursts out of me in desperation, putting a broadsword in my hand and forming a giant Minotaur with an axe. The Minotaur towers several feet above both of us and looks far more aware and fierce than my troll. It turns its eyes on Crixus and snorts, scuffing its hooves in the dirt.
But I don’t want to kill Crixus. Not yet.
No, I tell myself, not at all. I want enough of a breather to get answers. If he is an Adelphoi, shouldn’t we be on the same side?
The Minotaur doesn’t seem to understand the complexity of my desires. It lunges with a decapitating swipe at Crixus’s head.
“Slow down!” I holler. It doesn’t listen—doesn’t even seem to hear me.
