“I wonder what Ta’Zan is doing,” Derek said. “I mean, I know this didn’t kill him. I’m just curious as to what his mindset is, right now.”
“That aside, I sure hope he’s got Bogdana in a safe place,” Taeral grumbled, his brow furrowed and his arms crossed. “It’s bad enough we practically sacrificed her to him.”
“He won’t kill her,” Draven replied. “Relax, young prince. I’m sure she’s okay. Once we’re in a safe place, maybe our swamp witches can help us find out how she’s doing through some kind of magic.”
Bijarki chuckled softly. “Still, I find it endearing how attached you are to Bogdana,” he said, then gave Taeral a friendly slap on the back.
Rose checked her earpiece again. “Douma! Amane! Herakles! Araquiel! Anyone there?”
The comms line crackled, but Harper’s voice came through.
“Rose, it’s Harper. Come in!”
I was glad to hear her, but I was also a little bit disappointed. I wasn’t comfortable not knowing what our friends were doing—whether they were okay, whether they’d survived their parts of the mission.
As if sensing my distress, Nevis discreetly took my hand and squeezed it tight, as if eager to absorb some of my emotions. Strangely enough, it did feel better.
“Harper!” Rose replied. “Do you have eyes on Nathaniel and the others, maybe?”
“No. The telescope tracker stopped above the general area of the colosseum,” Harper said. “Listen, we’re watching this live. When do you think is a good time to get the fae shuttle in? They’re about to miss their entry point to land in the winter-summer cluster. If they miss it, they’ll have to complete the orbit before they can come in, so as not to risk Perfects attacking it.”
“That won’t be good, since the full moon is tomorrow night, and we need time to get to them, to secure them.” Rose sighed, rubbing the back of her neck in frustration.
“Whoa… Check that out.” Dmitri pointed at the sky.
As the sirens continued to wail around the island, incandescent arrows shot through the sky from multiple neighboring colosseums. Perfects. Thousands of them.
“Arched trajectory. They’re headed for the disaster site,” Ben murmured, staring at the flashes of light.
The sonic booms and the sirens screeching made it difficult for me to focus. I took several deep breaths, trying to keep my head in the game. We couldn’t be out here for much longer. We needed to put a few more miles between us and Ta’Zan, before they figured out that the people inside the diamond dome weren’t us.
Looking at it now, we saw that Ta’Zan’s great palace was in shambles. Laboratories destroyed. Fuel tanks ruptured and ignited. Arches and hundreds of chambers collapsed. All his work. His research. His Creation Labs and spaceships. His creepy orchards of artificial wombs, and the learning rooms. Most of it blown to bits.
Large chunks of diamond remained, but everything else was mostly torched. They’d rebuild, I knew that, but Ta’Zan no longer had our genetic material or Amal by his side to help him. Besides, all this destruction was, in fact, a distraction. I wondered if his four Draenir specimens had survived the blast. Unfortunately, we’d not had the time or the resources to bust them out, too.
Judging by the thousands of Perfects converging on the colosseum now, our plan was definitely working. My resolve was stronger than ever.
“Harper, let the fae come in,” Rose said. “It’s now or never.”
As if automatically ignited, my True Sight took hold as I looked to the western skies. Soon, a light spark would pierce it, and I’d have to track it. It was our duty to get to the shuttle before any of the Perfects spotted it. Hopefully, they would all be too busy with Ta’Zan’s crumbling capital to notice a measly ball of light with seven hundred and forty-two fae in it.
If we succeeded with this, we had the equivalent of nuclear weapons against this enemy. We had a real shot at saving ourselves, our families, our friends, and, most importantly, the entire universe.
Dmitri
“We can’t stay here,” Jovi said.
For good reason, too. The thousands of light flashes coming toward the colosseum faded, revealing a troubling number of Perfects descending upon the island. Swarms upon swarms of angry warriors with wings and abilities superior to ours, desperate to rescue their maker and to exact revenge on those responsible for the explosions.
I pressed the comms button on my earpiece. “Douma… Douma, are you there? Are you okay? Talk to me!”
Still, no reply came through. We didn’t know what had happened to them. We had no idea whether they’d made it, whether Amal, Amane, Herakles, or Isda had survived. We didn’t know how many rogue Faulties and Draenir had escaped the Perfects’ claws earlier by the southwest entrance of the colosseum. There was no sign from Araquiel or Nathaniel and his crew. Douma wasn’t picking up, either.
The worst-case scenarios began to sneak through my mind, planting seeds of poison that festered and infected my heart. I was worried sick about her. I was ready to do anything to get back to her, but, at the same time, I couldn’t leave my people behind.
Jovi was right. We couldn’t stay here much longer. Within the next hour or so, someone, if not Ta’Zan himself, would figure out what we’d left in the diamond dome pretending to be us. Search parties were going to scour the woods and the entire damn ocean to find us. This was our golden opportunity to get our people to safety, to meet with the incoming fae, and to put the next stage of our plan in motion.
All this needed to stop.
“Look…” Lumi breathed, pointing at the sky, somewhere to the west.
The glimmer was quick and flashy, but it faded away to a tiny point of light, barely noticeable against the burning sunset sky. That had to be the shuttle.
“They’re in!” Harper said through the general comms line. “Headed for Merinos, more or less.”
Just in time, too. The sky darkened above our island as the Perfects began their descent. Taeral waved his hands, forcing the trees back up, their lush crowns stretching and covering the clearing. He’d virtually redesigned this entire patch of land, making it difficult for anyone headed toward the island to spot us.
“Time to go,” he said.
Rose looked at Vesta, then Ben, Taeral, and the other fae. “We need another tunnel back to base camp. It’s the safest and fastest way, since there are too many of us for Corrine, Ibrahim, Taeral, and Kailani to teleport there. On top of that, only Taeral and Kale know the location. It would be too dangerous for Corrine and Ibrahim to go blind.”
“We can pull it off,” Ben replied. “If we all work together, like we did on our way out of the dome. Right?”
He glanced around, pleased to see the fae nodding, neither doubtful nor unwilling. They all stepped forward and gathered around Ben, Vesta, and Taeral. Lucas and Kailyn joined them, motioning for the rest of us to step back.
“We need about ten feet of space around us,” Kailyn said. “We’ll all drop into the tunnel. Half of us will go ahead below with Vesta to build the tunnel as we go. The other half will stay at the end of the line to keep it up for everyone to pass through.”
Lucas nodded slowly. “We’ll let it collapse behind us, to preserve our energy, I suppose.”
