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“Turn me back! Release me! I am alive! Send me back!”
“No.”
“Do it… or I will scream.”
“Scream all you like, princess.”
“You don’t understand,” I say. “When I scream, the world tears.”
“I don’t…”
REEEEEEEE!
I scream at the top of my lungs, a clear, high pitched sound which rings out around the cave and makes the walls resonate, dirt falling down from the uneven roof. How stable is this place? Can it withstand the power of my voice? The faun-king covers his ears and squints his eyes and I have my doubts.
I wish I had known how much power I had when I was alive. I wish I had embraced all I was, rather than believed what I was told, that I had no value other than as a sacrifice. I scream my rage, my pure fury, I make a sound of agony and triumph and refutation of death, and I see it begin to tear the cave apart.
“STOP!”
Lykar throws himself at me, knocking me to the ground. As powerful as my voice might be, I am still vulnerable to physical attack. He pins me down and pushes a silken scarf between my teeth, holding it either side of my mouth in his fists, pinning my head against the rumbling rock.
“No more,” he says. “No more screaming.”
But I don’t have to scream, because the walls themselves have taken up my cry. The vibrations echo like ripples on the water, and I know that I have changed this world. I have power here. Goat legs or not, I have the voice, and the vibration.
“Let me go,” I mutter through the scarf.
“I cannot do that,” he says. "And you wouldn’t want me to. I could set you free, but there are more places to be lost in this realm than you can imagine, and screaming will not save you then. Stay with me. Learn about yourself. Discover what those legs mean.”
“I know what they mean. They mean you betrayed me. Disfigured me.”
“Or they mean you have power and place here. There are more like us, Tres. There are a myriad of fauns in the forest beyond this cave. They are your subjects. They answer to you…”
“I don’t want them to answer to me. I want my lover. I want Vulcan.”
He sits back and pulls the scarf from my face. “All the screaming in the universe will not bring him back to you. Accept what you have lost. Discover what you have found.”
Chapter Seven
Vulcan
I walk down the mountain, no longer concerned with hiding myself. The end is nigh. Everything of value has been lost. Tres is gone. A simple, stupid, freak accident has taken her from me, and all the power in the world will not bring her back.
I thought about throwing myself into the volcano, but that is not how a scythkin ends life. If I fall, it will be in battle against the same humans who killed a warboy. They must be out here with their spears, nothing more than sharp stone between myself and eternity. I will die a human death, and perhaps I will somehow find the human afterlife. If it is true place, and not merely a legend, I might find Tres then.
SCHLOOP!
Before I can reach the village and stride through it creating fear and chaos in the hearts of the humans, I am torn from the Earth, dragged through time into the future - all the more perverse for the fact that I know I do not have one.
“NO!” I cry out. “NO!”
“Stop yelling. I’ve just rescued you.”
I am on board a scythkin ship. Krave is before me, two more of my brood by his side. They all look pleased with themselves.
“PUT ME BACK DOWN THERE! I HAVE TO GET THE GIRL!”
“Stop. Yelling,” Krave says. “We tried to lock on to a female signature near you. We couldn’t see one.”
“It’s her blood on my hands,” I say. “She’s gone. She died. Because I’m not a fucking brain surgeon. Because you were a few minutes too late!”
He looks at me a little longer than usual, then shakes his head. “I’m sorry she didn’t make it.”
“So am I. Put me back. Put me back one day before you picked me up. I want to save her.”
“You can’t change time, Vulcan.”
“I can change whatever I want.” I know I sound petulant. I don’t care. I don’t care about anything anymore. This ship, I used to consider a vessel just like this my only home. I used to pilot it through countless stellar systems, battling for dominance, destroying worlds…
“I’m sorry your human passed away,” Krave says. “I truly am. Do you want some synth?”
“I want to go and get her,” I growl. “I know she’s not gone. She was too strong.”
Krave makes a gruff sound under his breath and grabs a bottle of synth. “There’s no shame in mourning a human’s passing, and there’s no weakness in accepting the past as the past.”
