Page 92 of Gate of Chaos


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“Telling even Dekka the truth sounds questionable.” Keon agreed. “You didn’t tell A’ka anything, did you, Helena?”

I paused in trying to pick up the fractured pieces of my existence and managed to form a word. “No.”

I’d taken K’Dol at face value, like anidiot, without fact-checking? Without going back out and asking the guyshey, this thing says it’s a grimoire, I’m gonna forge it, thoughts?

And in the old-tearstains-and-fingerprints-and-perfume knowledge now tangled in with the rest ofmyachieved-at-great-expense knowledge, I knew that there’d been no way to re-encrypt the grimoire into a physical form and remove it from the portal. But did Iknowthat, or was that what the entity was telling me?

Because the old knowledge also didn’t have a ready answer for how the grimoire had been unencrypted, un-compressed, and strapped to the portal at all.

Immoalen had defied death. Had the Queen “survived” in the firmament bubble for thousands of years too? And now she was lurking around in my brain, piloting me like a parasite I couldn’t even be aware of?

My consorts were still whispering between each other about what lie they could fabricate to get past the Wyrms about why I’d been fucking around in the portal and “accidentally” destroyed it.

I went to the couch and tucked myself against the farthest arm, drew my knees up, and stared at the empty, dead fireplace.

#PangeaPandora, #howmanytimesnow?

They brokefrom their huddle with a plan. Keon sat down on the coffee table across from me. Auryn perched on the arm of the couch, and Akoni loomed, still angry.

“We have a plan,” Keon said in a very low voice.

“I don’t want to lie. Especially not to Dekka,” I whispered.

Keon kept talking like I hadn’t said anything. “You went into the portal to study it. You knew the portal was fragile and unstable, and potentially haunted with the same sort of echoes that you’ve experienced before, but you were hopeful that by comparing the differences between K’Dol and Atlantis you’d be able to put together some theories. I agreed with your math. We did not tell Auryn and Akoni anything for fear of speculation. Things didn’t go well. You do not have the words to explain what happened. The portal collapsed, you were trapped, you found your way out.”

“We’re incorporating the memories you can see as part of the lie in case we have to explain anything in the future,” Auryn said.

I turned to Keon. “And you’re going to take the fall for agreeing with my theory?”

He shrugged. “So what? Lemuria doesn’t think anything of me anyway.”

“No, I can’t do that to you.”

“You already did,” Auryn said while Akoni ground his jaw.

I flinched.

Auryn sighed. “I didn’t mean to sound harsh. I mean what’s been done is done, and this version of eventsisbased on truth, which should get it past Lemuel.”

“And Keon does not have far to fall.” Akoni’s tone succeeded in being seethingandbrittle at the same time.

“But how are we going to explain when I… know things?” I asked tentatively. “I think if I go to the Gate, I’ll be able to access the knowledge that—”

“Are you notlistening?” Akoni shouted. “Have you not been payingattention?”

I flinched and tucked myself into a ball.

Akoni shook off Auryn’s hand and turned his back again while resting his hands on his head.

Keon said, “Helena, there’s no Gate. It’s over.”

“But—”

“We don’t know the source of your knowledge. We can’t…”

“Trust,” Auryn said softly.

“…trust you,” Keon said, voice full of sadness and regret.

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