Cassiel Winters 1: Sky's End (20 page)

I drink in his morning face. His navy-blue eyes and sculpted cheekbones. His round mouth.

“I think so,” I answer, laying down on my side, nestling into his broad chest, letting happiness blanket me.

“Don’t worry,” he says, caressing my arm, and then my cheek.

“You feel exquisite.” He says this as though he’s surprised.

My cheeks warm, as they do every time he compliments me, thinking I’ve never heard him use the word ‘exquisite’ before. I have the distinct sense of missing him throughout the night, terribly, and of being grateful for his presence. Leaning forward, I lightly brush his lips with mine.

“I love you more than words can ever say.”

He smiles like he can’t help it. He closes his eyes as though he’s listening for something. “I can feel it,” he says, leaning forward kissing my mouth greedily.

I enjoy the kisses, which turn frantic suddenly. This unsettles me though I’m not sure why.

Wait.
I’m surprised he would risk staying the night.

“King,” I say, pushing him away gently. “You better leave before ESE Eyes spot you in the women’s quarters.”

He slams back, angry.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, surprised and concerned that I’ve upset him.

“Nothing.” He clears his throat. “Nothing. I . . .” He hesitates, which is so unlike him. “I just get frustrated by ESE at times.”

I sit up alongside him.

“What do you mean?” He’s never complained before. “Is it the negotiations with the Thell’eons?”

“Yes,” he says, glancing away.

I wait for him to explain. I’m thrown. This is so out of character. He has never shared any of his fears or Command information before.

“Are the Thell’eons refusing to work together to fight the Aeons?”

“CASSIEL!” A man’s voice booms loudly in my head, causing me to jump right out of the downcore.

I back up into Jordanna’s downcore, which is empty. Why is it empty?

“What’s wrong?” demands King, startled by my movement. He gets up wearing only his shorts, and I’m embarrassed to see so much of his impressive lean, sculpted, hard body.

Then it hits me, a horrible sense of dread. I’ve never seen King this naked before.

Have I lost my memory?
Confusion washes over me.

KILL IT!
the man’s voice screams in my head, jolting me on the spot.

“Wha. . .? Did you hear that?” I ask.

“Hear what?” asks King, looking around and then back at me, with concern and something else written on his face. Calculation.

“I . . . nothing,” I say. “Nothing, really,” I add, trying to smile. “It must just be the . . . bad dream. After shock.”

He smiles again, but his eyes, they seem empty. Am I imagining this? He glances down at my bare legs and at my chest, on display in my tank top. He sucks in his breath, and embraces both my arms in his, tugging me into him, bringing his lips down on my own. He lingers, and I’m surprised to feel nothing.

Something’s horribly wrong.

“To answer your question,” he continues after spinning away from me, looking more like himself and very concerned again. “No, we can’t negotiate with them. The Thell’eon are an arrogant, foolish species.”

I’ve never seen him so upset before. So worried. I want to help.

“But surely we can convince the Thell’eons of our strengths.”

He doesn’t answer but waits for me to continue. Normally I can read him better than this. I go on, hoping to alleviate his problem.

“Humans are so much smarter, more creative. With Thell’eon might and human innovation, we can conquer the Aeons. Surely the Thell’eon can see this? I mean, we’ve got Hathaway’s shield!”

King stares at me with the coldest eyes I have ever seen. Why’s he looking at me that way?
Wait, I have seen eyes colder than that . . .

I turn away in order to hide my shock. I know that voice that screamed in my head. A name,
Or’ic
, pops in my mind.
Or’ic. Or’ic. Or’ic.
Dark Eyes!

No!
He would have to be at ESE to be in my head, and that is impossible!

Kill it!
His words echo in my head.

Oh. No. No. No. No.
I lose the ability to breathe. This thing here, that just touched me, is not King.

Like darkness turned to light, I’m back on the floor on Or’ic’s warship. The Aeon above me is pressing down on my lower half. A burning sensation courses through me as it heaves up and away. Somehow, it’s melded right into me.

As it retracts its form, I’m shaken with the sense of true violation. All at once I know I’ve been tricked. This alien invaded me, tapped into my inner most reality, my fantasy, and projected a future life into my mind. It was so real, beyond what I’d had with Or’ic in symbiosis that I would have gladly stayed there, if only it could have played the part.

Sour vomit rolls up into my mouth, choking me.

Or’ic’s words,
Kill it!
ring in my head. Somehow Or’ic must have reached into my mind using symbiosis, maybe to plant the warning, even though they all still appear to be frozen!
Come on! Snap out of it!

The Aeon’s occupied removing itself. I roll my head to the side, scared I’ll choke on the searing barf in my mouth, while searching desperately, stretching my hands out, groping for some kind of weapon. I can’t move my legs.

There! A shard, from a dish. I grasp it and instinctually swing it up.

Kill it, Cassiel!

The pointed shard slices through the side of the Aeon’s throat flesh with surprisingly little resistance. Like cutting a piece of meat.

I yank it out before the Aeon even realizes what has happened.

“Cass-i-e-l.” The Aeon works out my name, dragging it slowly somehow from my mind, oblivious to the stab wound I have just inflicted. A mild state of shock shifts over his face.
Recognition?

Thick, dark-brown fluid, maybe blood, oozes out of its neck. At first the flow is slow and I fear I missed the main artery. Of course it must have one, right?

Barf sputters out of my mouth. I have never felt so sick in my life.

Suddenly, the Aeon grabs my neck with one hand and its own with the other, maybe to staunch the sudden outpour of thick brown fluid spurting out of its neck onto my face and neck. I close my mouth. The acrid fumes of its blood threaten to overwhelm me. Will it die?
Please die!

Desperate, I squirm and notice movement in Onegin. He’s moving his arms, slowly! The Aeon’s grip weakens, too! Have I weakened it enough? The pain in my chest from lack of oxygen’s worse than in my throat from his tight grip and darkness begins to overtake me.

Then air enters my deprived lungs with a sharp pain followed by primal relief. The Aeon has released me! But why? It takes a long look at me. The rattling reverberating through the open wound on his neck’s cut short when a figure jumps over me, pushing the weakened Aeon off. I sit up, heaving for breath, coughing and sputtering.

I watch helplessly as Or’ic and the Aeon roll around fighting. The freezing effect must have worn off. The Aeon hits him hard, then pops up, heading for the rift I came through.
Why is it still open?

Oh no!
Or’ic, recovering quickly, chases it. While the other Thell’eons are still fighting off the freezing—why’s Or’ic free first?—the Aeon manages to scramble through the rift. Alive! Or’ic slams against the dimensional tear, unable to pass through.

No! No! No!

I think I scream this.

It knows! About humans! I’ve told it everything
, I scream in my head.

The urge to hurl once again overtakes me, and I vomit into a pool of dark, thick blood beside me on the floor. The acrid, sticky Aeon fluid’s all over me . . . my hair and my neck . . . I can’t swallow or breathe. I swipe at it, shaking violently all over, but that makes it worse.

Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!
I rub my hands and my dress, convulsing because I can’t catch my breath.

“Shhh!”

Big hands try to still mine.

“It is gone. It is over.”

I hear these words but they don’t compute. I struggle, frantic to get rid of the blood. I’m lifted out of the brown puddle, but that’s not enough. I squeeze my eyes in desperation.

“Shhhh,” I hear over and over. Warm fluid slowly soaks through my dress. “No!” I scream, thinking I’m being immersed in Aeon blood. But when I open my eyes, I realize I’m in a Thell’eon pool.

I push away and sink underwater, desperate to wash it all away and to swim away from the reddish hue it leaves in the pool. I emerge, rubbing at my hair and my neck and at the fabric on the dress.

It won’t come out!

I try to take off the dress, and soon someone helps me. I’m relieved to be free of sticky awful weight. I sink into the water naked, scrubbing myself harshly all over. It makes little difference.

I smell the fumes. It’s all over me!

“It is gone!” I hear from somewhere behind me. “Cassiel, you would listen! It is all gone.” Someone else is near, maybe to help wash my hair. I turn, hoping for soap. Someone pulls me to him, bends down, and places his forehead on mine.

There’s an awful sense of pressure in my head. I fight for a minute before an incredible need to sleep blankets me. Just before I black out, the surge calms me enough to realize I’ve completely lost it.

Chapter 19

I inhale sharply, those last moments vividly replaying before my eyes. I sit up. I’m naked. I pull the sheet up to cover my chest. My hair’s wet. Puddles of water trail from the pool area to the downcore. A flash of Shadon carrying me naked (super!) from the pools into Or’ic’s room with Kirs following.

I’m in Or’ic’s downcore. Kirs are here, too. Standing, crouching against walls.

I don’t care.
Whatever
. As long as there are no rifts. No Aeons. Ever again.

I can’t believe how tired I am. I grimace when I swallow. It’s like I’ve eaten broken glass. In my dazed stupor, one gentle face comes to mind. Then, the bloody stump.

“Zeke,” I whisper.

An uncontrollable sob comes out.

A warm hand settles on my shoulder. I twist around. Or’ic. He’s naked but for a pair of loose dry pants, leaning forward on the edge of his downcore, staring at me. The sadness shadowing his dark eyes stops me. Zeke was his aide long before being mine.

I sniffle and tug the sheet snug around my rear, aware that my bare back and bum had been in his full view. A Cinarian’s drying off Or’ic’s weapons. He must have taken me into the pool.

A figure emerges from the dark with something in his hand. I expect a tissue, but Pers’eus passes me a glass of what smells like whiskey. Oh well. That’ll do. I notice that the other Kirs are here, too, except for Onegin. After a moment, I take the delicate cup and swallow the alcohol. The burn down my throat is welcome. I wipe my nose on my bare arm.

“Zeke and the others will be honored in a Pyre,” says Or’ic, quietly. I assume Pyre is some kind of Rite of Passage. “You would join us. Tomorrow.”

“How many others are there?” I ask, still in state of disbelief.

Lives lost. So quickly. My fault?

“Four.”

Only four? It seemed like so many more.

“Onegin?” I ask suddenly, shocked by how frightened I am to hear the answer.

“He’s recovering. I ordered him to accept treatment.”

I breathe out.

“You saved his life,” says Or’ic. I turn at his soft tone. “He is indebted to you.”

“I bet he’s really pleased about that.”

A smile curves his mouth. We’re sharing a moment. Surely he must see the error of his ways now.

“Let me go?”

His smile and his hand vanish. There’s that real side of him, the predator.
I don’t understand!

“You have to free me now,” I shout. “People have died!” I shake my head to stop the tears. What I don’t say, but all I can think about, is how I have to get away to warn ESE about Aeons. They know about humans. ESE can put together a SOSA team to rescue Daz.

I plead with him silently, pointlessly. His face is set hard.

“I would think after what you have just experienced,” he pronounces indignantly, “that you would be honored to fight with us.”

Of course.

I slipped right into that other dimension like it was another room. He crashed into it.

“I don’t just
see
across dimensional rifts, do I? I travel across them. I’m ‘the sift’, right?” I choke out.

Silence.

What a coward I am
. All this time, I wasn’t a pawn. I was the prize. Too scared to face the truth.

“Yes. You are a sift,” he says without apology. “And you belong here with us. In time, you will come to understand your place in the Order. The Truth Path is your destiny.”

“Destiny? True Path?” My stomach twists in painful knots.

“With a sifter, our Horde is complete,” he continues, mistaking my incredulity for a question. “Together, we would play a great role protecting the galaxy. You must see how important this is to everyone’s future. To your own people’s future—”

“So you were never going to help me get Daz! You lied to me!” I cut him off, focusing on the only thing that matters to me.

“No. I told you what we would do, and we would do so, still. We would find the other sift and trade him for your brother. It is the same outcome, only different means. It would be our gift to you as the sifter in our Horde.” I’m tense with fear and desperate anger, at myself, for being so stupid.

“But you never said I would have to stay here!”

“You never asked.”

I’m speechless. Shock doesn’t begin to cover it.

His words, what he has just admitted to me, sink in. He wants me to trade A PERSON for Daz.

The last thing Daz would want me to do.

Despair seizes me. I grab at the sheet, holding it tight to my chest. I can’t breathe. I can’t let them do this.

I stand up, outraged, trying to wrap the sheet behind me.

“Who do you think you are?” I shout at Or’ic. “You have no right to play with people’s lives like—”
Oh-oh
. I stood up too fast. The blood doesn’t make it my head and I stumble, dropping the sheet behind me, desperate to keep a hold on it over my front.

Or’ic catches me and helps me back onto to the downcore.

“Don’t touch me!” I shout, pushing him away the first chance I get.

He draws back, standing rigid. These high and mighty Kirs glance at each other, uncertain. Or’ic gives a few rapid orders to a Cinarian that don’t translate.

“I am having food brought,” he says, sitting back down on the downcore. “You need to eat. For your health. You would also try to stay calm,” he says sternly.

I ignore him.
Calm?
My head’s spinning. Thoughts reel around the big empty space. There must still be a way to save Daz, without sacrificing this other sifter.
It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Focus. Focus. Focus.
I could refuse to go through with the agreement, but where would that leave me? Stuck here. They won’t let me go. At least this way, they’ll take me to the planet. I can get to the other sift. After that, who knows? But it’s better than staying here with these barbarians and doing nothing but jumping through sifts battling evil Aeon.

Holy stars, I travel through rifts—into other universes! Oh, how did this happen? Why me?
Why, why didn’t I run away with King?

Be calm.

There’s still Plan B
. My escape. Tactically, maybe not so sound. But one step at a time. I concentrate on breathing, and not on the powerfulness of that Aeon, who’d taken over my mind, invaded my body.

“You fear your destiny,” says Or’ic, clearly reading my face. “But in time you would see we would protect you always. That is our sole purpose as a Horde,” he adds. The other Kirs nod quietly.

“You couldn’t even stop one Aeon!” I say, outraged. The Kirs bristle. “And now,” I add angrily, “it knows about humans.”

“Yes, but it would have found out about them eventually,” shouts Pers’eus, surprising me with his vehemence, all the more because it’s out of character for him.

“Well, I would have preferred later!” I shout back. “What did it do to me when we were on the floor?” I shudder. “Why couldn’t you stop it?” I whine, remembering how frightened I was to face it all alone.

Kell’an rubs his face frustrated. For the first time, Or’ic flushes. Flushes with anger.

Good! I blaze on
. “You should have warned me about them! I had a right to know!”

“You are right,” says Kell’an suddenly. He’s leaning against a wall, staring out of the window. Stars fly past, illuminating his profile.

He glances at Or’ic with his emerald eyes. They do their silent stare thing.

“She is young, but she must learn, my Prime,” he adds.

“Why do you keep saying that-that I’m a child?” I ask suddenly. “I’m 21 years old!”

Kell’an smiles at my outburst, still staring at the stars.

Or’ic answers. “Thell’eons live longer than humans. I am more than 80 human years. Kell’an is 75.”

I think I knew this, or suspected, but I’m still surprised.

“However we refer not to your physical age but to your ability. You are very young in that regard.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I wait for an explanation about the Aeon’s incredible power.

Or’ic rubs his hands over his shaved head. I watch his oblique muscles flex with the movement. His waist’s narrow and there are only a few tiny folds of skin where he bends forward.

“Some Aeons have the ability to slow down pockets of time,” he starts, speaking slowly, glancing at me to see if I’m listening.
Look at the floor!
“My Kirs were not frozen, as you say, but ‘stilled.’ By this I mean that our bodies were slowed down to a virtual standstill, although we could perceive everything around us in real time.” He adds the last bit with emotion. So they did watch me struggle alone with the Aeon.

“You have an advantage. You appear to be immune to Aeon time control.”

Oh
. I hope all humans are immune.

“Can all Aeons do that? Is that why they are so strong?” I think to ask out loud. If humans aren’t immune, maybe ESE could invent a counter defense in like a million years.

“Very few Aeons are able to do this, just as very few Thell’eon are also able to do symbiosis, I suppose,” he answers.

That’s somewhat comforting.

Kell’an adds, “We were unlucky that you encountered such a rare, strong Aeon, Cassiel.” Is that the first time he has used my name?

“In fact, we have never encountered one so strong,” he adds, staring back out at the stars.

I watch Or’ic stand up to take a shot from Pers’eus.

“It was the same Aeon I saw yesterday,” I announce.

The Kirs freeze for a moment and glance at each other.

Or’ic breaks into a smile.

What the . . .?

Kell’an can’t contain his pleasure, the only time I have ever seen him not looking angry or stern, and slaps Or’ic on the back. All the Kirs seem delighted.

“What? What’s going on? Why are you happy?”

They’re practically beaming. Or’ic especially. “You sifted the future. That is especially rare among sifters,” he says, gloating.

“And that’s a good thing?”
What’s wrong with these idiots?
“Didn’t really help us today, did it?”

“In time, we would learn to use this better to our advantage,” says Kell’an.

I roll my eyes thinking how nothing could have stopped this Aeon.

Or’ic puts on his fierce face. “You would not tell another person about your ability to sift into the future. Do you understand? Do you understand?!” he insists when I don’t respond immediately.

I nod, focusing on my fear.

“At first, the Aeon, it was weak, but when it came through, it was very strong,” I murmur.

“Do they die?” I add suddenly. “Shouldn’t it have died when I stabbed it?”

“Oh, Aeons die,” pipes in Pers’eus. “They bleed, as you witnessed. They are biological organisms, just like us.”

I’m distracted, recalling how it chose not to kill me when it could have easily. “It wanted to take me with it,” I say quietly.

Or’ic and Kell’an share a glance that is too knowing for my liking.

There are no words to adequately describe my situation. Before I thought everyone was hunting a weapon. But Aeons hunt people, like me.
Uh, so do Thell’eons
.

“What about what it did to me?” I ask, shivering. “I thought it was someone else. I let it . . .” My voice trails off. My stomach churns just thinking about how it seemed to like kissing me.

Or’ic answers, his voice tinged with anger. “Some Aeon are also able to co-exist within another physical form for short periods of time. When they do this they occupy your subconscious with a false reality. Many hours passed while we watched you lay there. I imagine this
koratch!
tricked you into revealing your species.”

“And more!” I add, angry with myself. It was
in
me for hours? I have to stop myself from heaving again. “I boasted about humans,” I continue. “I told him how we’re smarter than Thell’eons. I even mentioned the Hathaway shield!”

When I quit ruminating, I notice silence. I suppose they don’t like that I think humans are smarter, like I care. It’s clear to me that, whether I want it or not, I’m somehow caught up in this war. Maybe I do have a role to play, but I have no plans of fighting along with these Thell’eon ‘gangs.’

No way.
I’ll play the part
I
decide, alongside ESE Command. Humans whom I can trust.

But for now, I’ll play along.

I mull over this ‘completed Horde’ concept. When Or’ic first told me about the sift, he said it was used to take both Thell’eon and Aeon across rifts into other dimensions.

“Tell me something, how in the universe are we supposed to cross over and find this other sift in an entire alternate reality the size of the universe?” I glare at them, not caring at the flash of offense. I probably should have asked them this in the beginning.

Pers’eus slams the bottle on a square table by the downcore. I note that he has no patience tonight, but I don’t care. I feel no obligation toward him. Not anymore. They are my captors. Nothing more.

“We are not going to cross the other dimension,” says Or’ic, motioning to Pers’eus to calm down. “As you have already ascertained, to go into another dimension unprotected would be foolish. I would wager all my offspring’s lives that the sifter is
in
the rift rather than on the other side in the universe.”

I don’t understand. “Hiding in the rift?”

“Yes,” says Kell’an. “As a sifter, you can cross over, or, not many know of this truth, you can also stay in the rift, the slip of space between this dimension and the next. Time is much slower there.”

I wonder how long a sifter could stay in a rift, safe from Thell’eons? But then again, clearly Aeons can hide in rifts, too.

“And then what? We’re supposed to convince this sifter to come back to the life he’s trying to hide from?”

“We would take care of that part, once you help us find him,” says Or’ic sternly.