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Skylenna’s maniacal, stormy green eyes slide to a space over my shoulder for a couple seconds before she spears me with that cold stare.
The vicious, rabid energy in her expression has changed. No longer murderous, vengeful, and somewhat empty. She’s pinning me with a glare that says she’s never seen me before.
How is she still standing? Her balance should have her on her ass right now. I’ve never seen a prisoner fight this. I’ve never seen them stand so effortlessly for this long after it’s taken effect.
“You want to fight?” I taunt with a challenging smirk. “Let’s fight. I know you’ve been waiting to see if I can do it like my brother.”
My jibe falls short, not even coming close to affecting her stoic face.
“For all you’ve done, I should make you suffer with Masten.”
I can’t help but glance down at my mentor passed out on the floor, trembling slightly with his eyes rolled back in his head. What did she do to him? If I had been raised and trained to know fear, I might back away from her.
But she’s nothing.
My brother’s weakness.
An uninspiring distraction.
“But Sophia wants something different for you, Kaspias. And after all your mother sacrificed, I owe her this much,” she says with wet eyes and puffy cheeks.
The name Sophia used to get a rise out of me. It was used to trigger an emotional reaction, the need in a child to see their mother, to be loved by a parent. But every time I’d react, the beatings would get far more creative and eventually unbearable.
I had to stop thinking about her.
Had to stop imagining what she looked like. How she would take care of me. If the rumor of a mother’s love was fact or fiction.
The concept of a mother eventually infuriated me. Made my lip curl and my stomach ache. I developed an irrational hatred of all mothers over time. I’d watch my fellow students walk their mothers on a leash to get some fresh air on nice days, and I couldn’t stop the irrational fits of anger that I’d spiral into from seeing it.
I’m not stupid enough to not understand that it was a conditioned response. Of course, it is. But it doesn’t matter because that is the price of winning wars. That’s what Vexamen must do to stay on top. To dominate our enemies.
“Don’t say her name again,” I snarl.
I hate the sound of it. I hate the way it makes my heart stutter in my chest. The way I try to picture her face. It forms a ball of fire in my gut.
“For your sake, I hope this works.”
I can’t help but flinch and attempt to deflect as she slides a hand along the side of my face until she reaches my temple. Skylenna’s pupils stretch wide, appearing demonic and comatose as the whites turn bloodshot, filling with scattered blood vessels and black clouds of smoke.
And it’s like she’s strapped a collar around my soul, dragging it away from my eyes as I sink, sink, sink into the darkness of my body. Sounds of wind, of water whooshing, of stars and planets shifting in the universe. It feels like being injected with the most powerful of drugs, ones that send you on your ass and detach you from your body.
I go limp as I flounder through the empty space, traveling at an otherworldly speed. I don’t see her around me as we move, but I can feel her ethereal presence. Something about it makes me feel weak, like a little boy, like a prisoner unable to fight back.
I try to yell, to throw my arms around, to attack whatever force is controlling me like a doll soaring through this unearthly air. But I’m at her mercy, watching as pinholes of light break through the ongoing storm of endless night around us.
And suddenly I’m standing, shielding my eyes with my hand as a blinding stream of light burns my retinas, blanketing my whole body with warmth. I’m gasping for a single normal breath, fighting the light with watering eyes and quivering hands.
Where the fuck am I?
“Your brother showed me this place when I was a little girl. He taught me how to recreate it in my mind.” Skylenna’s voice travels to my ears from behind my shielding hand. “But I think it’s more than that. I think your brother taught me to reach my hand to the skies and cut a slice from heaven, an oasis just grand enough to help me in this war.”
I part two fingers to see her standing in the sunlight, surrounded by a meadow, tall grass, and swaying trees of purple flowers.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. What have you done to us?” I ask, finding my voice in a scratchy throat.
I was told her brain was different, just like my brother’s. But hers was far more complicated to understand. Female subjects don’t last long in this particular experiment that Crow Ivast created. The Mazonist Brothers were looking forward to studying her.
“Ambrose Oasis,” she says quietly. “I think this has always been the place where I can do what’s always needed to be done.”
