But ... “But we’re talking. People aren’t sentient in memories.”
“I said we would walk my memories,” he clarifies. “I never said you’d live them.”
“What is it you want to tell us?” Jonah asks.
Bios’ smile flees. “I have tried my best to tell you what the Dingir’s situation is like nowadays. The truth is, so much of my family is so grateful to be out of purgatory they are going along with Enlilkian’s plans, no questions asked. The few who have dared to voice their concerns have been consumed.” He tents his fingers in front of him. “I can see the wisdom of his logic, of using the Creator here to rebuild our corporeal selves. He is unable to do it himself, bound by Rudshivar’s lingering curse. This one,”—he points at me—“however, has no curses holding her back. It’s part of why Enlilkian wants her so much. Let us just say that Cailleache was not thrilled with the prospect of her becoming the savior of our kind. Probably less so when you were obliterating her.”
“This is ridiculous. He thinks I’m going to help him, what? Make you all whole? Have a bunch of babies with him?”
“I do not know his exact plans, little Creator. He could impregnate you, yes, but he could just as easily rip your essence out of you. Then he could be the mother and father of our kind all at once.”
“I will kill him.” My words are hot and loud in the serene tree house we sit in.
“Whether or not that is the case,” Bios says, “your acquiescence is what Enlilkian wishes and, until the war between father and son, what he wished for was reality. Now, he is bound and not in possession of his full arsenal of power, often needing to be recharged before he enacts his will. ”
“Recharged?” I ask, even though I fear I know the answer.
“The attacks over the years have nourished us,” Bios says bluntly. “In others’ deaths, we find survival and strength. Magic always has a price, even with your evolved kind.”
I’m instantly sent back a year and a half before, to the cave Kellan and I were trapped in, and how an overuse of his powers left him weak and in a coma.
I grip Jonah’s hand. “Doesn’t it bother you to kill people?”
Bios shrugs. “It is the way things are. But, I am not here to discuss morality. I want you to realize that when we get above ground, and,” he looks at Jonah, “yes, Empath, we must emerge sooner rather than later before Enlilkian’s fury is taken out on innocents, but I need to you realize that when the orders change, I will be forced to withdraw my protection and very well may be tasked with either abduction or death.”
I go still. I mean, I knew Bios wasn’t an entirely good guy, but ...
And then, his eyes turn impossibly sad. “I will not have a choice,” he says. “Resisting compulsion is futile. But I do offer you this consideration once the order is given. Obliterate me before I can carry through like a good soldier.”
Did I just hear that right? “Excuse me?”
“Chloe,” he says, using my name, not my craft, for the first time in the weeks I’ve known him, “I am tired. I have been ordered to do many things over the years, some I agree with, many I don’t. I would ask you to do me this small favor.”
“Having Chloe kill you is a favor?” Jonah asks skeptically.
“To kill me, no—that would be no favor. Enlilkian would simply reanimate me. I would be even more of a puppet to him. Obliterate me, as you did with Cailleache and Nuun and the others. Even Enlilkian cannot reanimate that which no longer exists at molecular form.”
So many thoughts swirl through my mind, and yet, all I can ask is, “Why?”
“I am a weapon to him, and little else.” Bios stares out of the window. “The things that I covet, the people who worshipped me ... they are gone. No Magic, not even yours, could bring what I crave back. I do not wish something new. Perhaps Rudshivar had the right idea.” He fixes his swirling eyes on Jonah, who, after a moment, nods. Just once. Small and tight.
“Do you mean Rudshivar and his revolution?” I prod.
Bios smiles, just a little. “There are others like me, who wish for the same thing. Know that they cannot tell you about it, unless you walk in their memories. You would do many a great favor if you simply did to them as you did our mother. I know of your tendency to show mercy, Chloe. You hesitated when I first appeared in your hiding space when you should have obliterated me quickly as Jonah here wished you to do. It’s what I would have done—any of the Dingir would have done. But what you think of as mercy is ultimately another form of torture.”
I don’t understand.
“There are family members once more trapped in darkness, crying out for salvation,” he says gently. “I would ask of you to obliterate them as well, if you are victorious against Enlilkian.”
Jonah says, “You’re talking about the Elders we have trapped under the streets of Annar.”
Bios nods, slinging a leg over the side of his chair.