‘You know a lot about human nature, Vance,’ I said, taking my time over each word, ‘but you made one, fatal error in your calculations.’
She looked at the core, then back to me.
‘You assumed,’ I said, ‘that I had any interest in leaving here alive.’
Vance stared into my eyes. And somewhere in their depths, deep in those pits of darkness, was a flicker, just the softest flicker, of something I hadn’t truly believed she was capable of feeling.
Doubt.
It was doubt.
I pulled the trigger.
When the bullet struck it, the sphere broke apart, releasing years of bridled energy, and gave up the vial of ectoplasm. It shattered at my feet. I hurled myself to the floor and scrambled away from Vance’s gunfire, my fingers slipping through Rephaite blood. Before I could get up, the spirit, freed from its prison, came flying towards me – and seized me by the throat.
A poltergeist. It was enraged, murderous. The Suzerain had commanded it to stay, to power the machine, and I had disturbed it. It slammed me between the wall and the floor. I choked on blood. The gun flew out of my hand.
Vance was a strategist. She knew when to retreat. As she backed towards the door, the spirit cast me aside and raced across the room to slam it shut. Vance stopped dead. She was blind to the ?ther, unaware of where the threat would go next. Pulling myself on to my hands and knees, I looked up at what was left of the sphere.
She had been right; Senshield was still active. Its light remained as bright as ever.
‘You belong to the Suzerain.’ Vance addressed the spirit, her voice full of authority. ‘I am also her servant.’
I crawled across the floor, towards the gun.
If I was going to die tonight, I would take the Grand Commander with me.
My movements distracted the fallen angel. It whipped away from Vance, pitched me on to my back, and brought its weight to bear against my body. A wall of unseen pressure descended on me like a shroud. Sparks erupted from the wreckage of the sphere and threw wild shadows on the walls as the spirit smothered me inside and out, flinging my aura into a frenzy. Sweat froze on my skin. I couldn’t breathe. All I could see was the light from the core.
I didn’t know how to fight back. I didn’t know how to stop fighting, either. Desperately, I tried to dreamwalk, but I was so weak. All around us, the corporeal world was straining at the seams.
Veins of colour glistened behind my eyelids. My dreamscape was on the verge of collapse. As the air was drained from my lungs, I saw Nick smiling at me in the courtyard, surrounded by blossoms, sunlight in his hair. My father, the last day I saw him alive. Eliza laughing at the market. I saw Warden, felt his hands framing my face and his lips seeking mine behind the red drapes. The amaranth in bloom. And I heard Jaxon’s voice:
Perhaps our game is only just beginning.
As my vision darkened, some small instinct made me hold out my left hand, as if I could push the spirit away. My arm was forced back, but I kept my palm turned outward. The scars there felt white-hot, scars I had received in a poppy field when I was a child.
And I felt something change. I was pushing it away.
The pain began as a tiny point, a needle pushing through the middle of my palm. As it grew, a wordless scream racked my body –and just for a moment, some of the pressure released. Just enough for me to gasp in one more breath. And with that breath, I whispered, ‘Go.’
What happened next was unclear. I remember watching the glass pyramid shatter. It must have exploded in a split second, but in my mind, it lasted for eternity. I was flung in one direction, Vance in the other.
Then came an arc of blinding white, and the world turned to oblivion.
24
The Crossing
1 January, 2060
New Year’s Day
I had woken like this once before, thinking I was dead.
The ?ther was calling me into his arms, telling me to abandon all my cares, to leave my tender bones behind. My eyelids parted, just enough to see a pale hand clad in shards of glass. The rest of my arm sparkled, armoured in diamond and glazed with molten ruby. Even my lashes were frosted with gemstones. I was a living jewel-box, a fallen star. No longer flesh, but crystalline.
Wind howled through the part of the roof where the angel had passed through. Splinters tinkled from my hair as I turned to see the ceiling. The white light had been extinguished. All that was left of Senshield was a cavernous hole in the ?ther, marking a place where a spirit had dwelled for many years. Over time, it would stitch itself back together.
There was one thing I wanted to know before I left. My hand shook as I rotated it. The fallen angel had carved a word into my skin, joining the fragmented pieces of the scars.
KIN
I lay back in my bed of glass. A friend had once told me that knowledge was dangerous. When I let go, I would have all the knowledge of the ?ther; this mystery would soon be solved. And I could find the others. Even if they didn’t know, I would stay with them. I would watch over them. I would help them win the next stage of the game, the war that had begun today.
Footsteps came through the glass, drawing me back. A moment later, my head and shoulders were lifted into the crook of an arm, and Rephaite eyes were smouldering in the gloom.
‘Dreamwalker.’
His features gradually sharpened.
‘Leave me,’ I murmured. ‘Leave me, Alsafi.’
He took hold of my left hand and pried my fingers open, revealing the marks on my palm.
‘I’m not worth it.’ I was so tired. ‘I’m done. Just go.’
‘Some would disagree with your assessment of your worth.’ He released my hand. When he scooped an arm under my knees and lifted me, I groaned. My skin bristled with broken glass. ‘This is not your time.’
He carried me through the ruins, pushing the pistol into my limp hand. The fight wasn’t over. As he opened the door, I caught sight of Hildred Vance in the corner. Her body was angled away from us, but I could see that she was as broken as I was. She bled just like the rest of us. I wanted to tell Alsafi to turn back, to make sure she was dead, but I blacked out before I could.
When I came round, Alsafi was almost at the bottom of the stairs, and my cheek was pressed against his doublet. When he entered the corridor with the black carpet, I lifted a hand to his shoulder.
‘Dreamscape,’ I whispered. My gift had been weakened, but I felt it. A Rephaite. ‘Nashira.’
Alsafi stopped in his tracks. There was no other way out of the corridor.
‘Stay quiet.’ He spoke quickly. ‘If anything happens to me, go to the Inquisitorial Office. There, you can access a tunnel that will take you out of the Archon. I have a contact – they are waiting for you there.’
‘Alsafi—’
‘And tell Arcturus—’ He paused. ‘Tell him I hope this . . . redeems me.’
I had so many questions, and no time to ask them. Nashira had already swept into view. The hilt of a sword gleamed over her shoulder.
When she saw me, her eyes turned to hot coals. She looked as if she had walked straight out of hell; as if she carried its flames inside her.