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This is the monster that destroyed my home…and he is even more horrible than I imagined.
Woven into the fabric of the creature beneath us, like an enormous cephalopod with thousands of wriggling, writhing tendrils, his mouth opens and closes in horror. His eyes are open—staring, glazed, like he’s seeing the whole universe at once. I wonder if that is in fact what’s going on here—if he watched when millions of lives were snuffed out on Rath, if he was in that crowd as we mourned on the beaches of Logos.
How can we alone—just Frankie and I—destroy something this vast?
Because this is not just one man. He is connected to an enormous network of lifeforms, pulsing beneath his silver scales. I stare across the room at Frankie, realizing with a gut punch of roiling horror that the vines grow on each of the walls.
He probably already knows we’re here—Qiloka, or whatever he’s become. He’s probably known since we arrived.
He may have encouraged us to come here, and I’ve been wrong all this time.
But we seem safe now, in our tucked away little ridge along the perimeter of the ceiling. I stay low and shuffle forward, trying to get a better vantage point as I keep to the shadows. Frankie follows me, both of us moving toward a central point where the ledge opens up into a small tunnel.
We’ll need reinforcements for this. I’m angry and I want revenge, but I’m not a fool. What’s happening here is beyond our understanding, and certainly beyond our capabilities. What is one warrior when our enemy has an army at his fingertips?
Who knows what’s lurking in the walls of this fortress?
I match Frankie’s pace, watching as she crawls along the wall. She’s smaller than me, making it easier for her to navigate the narrow ledge, though I can see her cringe when she’s forced to touch the living vines creeping over the stone. She must be thinking the same thing I am—that Qiloka can feel it, like we’re sneaking through his veins. I recoil at the idea of it, blanching as the thought crosses my mind.
Panic consumes me. I want to escape from this place. We should have gone with Taraven.
And though panic is unlike me, it swallows me whole…and it makes me reckless.
My foot slips.
It’s little more than a pinprick of a pebble that falls from the ledge, but it’s enough. Time slows as I realize my error, and Frankie’s eyes go wide.
The rock falls what must amount to a hundred feet.
It clatters in the silence of the atrium.
I watch Frankie load a bolt into the crossbow at her wrist, and I know I can't let her be caught.
So I draw their attention.
I pull out my rifle and meet the eyes of one of the guards just as he looks up at me. He draws his weapon, but I’m already firing, and my energy bolt finds the place between his eyes. I duck against the wall, moving toward the tunnel, hoping that I can escape with Frankie even though it seems like I’ve already made a fatal error.
Something behind my back writhes.
I snap my head back just in time to see the vines on the wall reach out like arms, bending my wrists painfully until my gun falls out of my hands. I don’t know what happens to Frankie; I’m swallowed in dry husks of leaves. I try to scream, but no sound comes out as the vines gag me, wrapping around the corners of my mouth.
I think I’m dying for a moment. My breath comes in short gasps, my chest constricting. I lose all knowledge of gravity, feeling the sensation of falling without any of the associated velocity.
I think about what an idiot I was to go on when a “freaky sex wall” told me where to go and what to do.
I remember the feeling of Taraven’s turquoise scales under my fingertips, his tail around my hips, Frankie’s red lips on mine.
A voice invades my senses, my memories.
It’s in my head.
I fight back. I’m alive, but I’m a captive, and there is no stopping the relentless assault this sentience has on my psyche. It sees all my innermost thoughts, my desires, my plans. It sees Jaya’s interior, knows where the crew is, what they are doing.
It knows everything I know.
“The soldier is Fifth House,” a voice—a person’s voice, not this strange consciousness—says. “Keep him alive and contact Dalphox. He could be useful.”
There goes the plan.
