Kastori Revelations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 1) (21 page)

“Looks like a garden in my father’s fortress,” Cyrus said.

Crystil said nothing, seemingly in thought. Cyrus got as close as he could to the thicket of flowers, gazing at the thorns, colors and shapes. They looked even more beautiful up close, like analyzing a crystal under a microscope and seeing the number of sides and ways it shined at different angles.

He sighed but got a devious smirk as he backed up about ten feet. He looked to Crystil, who hadn’t moved since Cyrus’ comment about his father. He aimed the flamethrower, and ignited the garden of flowers.

“Buuuuurn, burn it all! No more poison!” he yelled, giving a laugh as he felt an adrenaline rush. “This is awesome!”

He kept the flamethrower burning for about five more seconds, casting a wide net.

“Bet that was hot to see.”

To his chagrin, though, Crystil didn’t respond and instead walked closer to the thicket. Cyrus watched her get close enough to potentially burn her skin. Suddenly, she threw her hands up in disbelief.

“It’s not burning,” she said. “It’s like it’s got some sort of field around it that’s repelling the fire.”

“What,” Cyrus said, convinced she was playing an elaborate joke. “You really have to work on your jokes, Crystil. Make some puns, or—”

“This is not a game, Cyrus,” she said coldly. “The only thing burning are some edges. We’ll have to cut through with our knives like last time. If you get cut, we turn around immediately. I don’t care how light it is. Understood?”

“I—yes, Crystil,” Cyrus said.

By the time they had finished their conversation, the fire had nearly vanished. Cyrus sighed as he cut through, feeling like a little boy, responsible for trimming the family garden. He’d asked as a child why they couldn’t just get someone else to do it, and silently wished he still had that option. The trim took an agonizing amount of time—Cyrus felt sure at least an hour or two passed—but by the time he finished, he could easily fit through his hole with a duck of the head. Crystil and Celeste, having smaller frames, would have no problem sliding through it either.

Cyrus let out a relieved sigh when he came to the other side, with Crystil already waiting.

“I apologize for the curt words earlier,” she said. “You can imagine this spot does not have good memories for me.”

“I get it,” Cyrus said. “Let’s just not kill each other until we’re certain that we can’t find water.”

Crystil cracked a smile and a short laugh and waved her hand forward. Cyrus admired how well she knew the terrain despite having only traversed it once before. The confidence with which she scaled the area pushed him. Even when his legs felt tired and he craved a break, he did not stop.

Finally, after what felt like an hour going up hills and scaling rocks, Crystil paused. Cyrus joined her at her side and looked down at a massive crater.

“That’s the spot?”

“Yup.”

He looked at the sky. With the sun setting soon, they wouldn’t have much in the way of natural light to guide them.
But that’s what your goggles are for, dummy.

“We’ll stop here for the evening,” Crystil said. “I’d rather us first climb down into the cave so that we don’t sleep out in the open.”

“Two steps ahead of you,” Cyrus said.

Crystil caught up quickly, assuming the lead. Cyrus had to crouch and guide himself down the stones. He even hopped in a couple of places, but after descending about a hundred feet, they set up shop.

“Ahh,” he said, lying down and stretching his legs. “These are going to be sore tomorrow.”

“Tonight, you mean,” Crystil said. “We’ll have to take turns on the watch.”

“Wait, wha—”

“Welcome to a soldier’s duty, Cyrus, you’ve been conscripted into the Anatolus Army,” she said with a sardonic smile. “But really, we don’t know what’s down here. Until we know for sure we’re alone, one of us needs to keep an eye out. Doesn’t really even have to be that active.”

Cyrus sighed, but he could accept relatively easy work if it meant a chance to sleep first. He gave a thumbs up and sat up. Crystil sat on the other side of the cave, about fifteen feet from him, and looked over her rifle. With her night vision goggles on, it gave her an odd look, like she had a human body with an alien head. Cyrus had seen soldiers with NVGs before, but never a friend.

A friend? Yeah. A friend.

“Whatcha thinking about, Crystil?” he asked.

Crystil looked up at him, but with the darkness, he couldn’t make out her expression.

“Honestly?”

“No, I want you to lie to me and tell me you’re fantasizing about me?”

“Wow,” Crystil said, followed by a short laugh. “No, no, no. I’m just thinking…”

Her voice trailed off. She cleared her throat. Cyrus couldn’t tell if she’d dropped the conversation or was still thinking.

“I had a bad night last night,” Crystil said after about a dozen seconds of silence. “I kept thinking about all of the people I failed to protect, and how your sister was almost one of them. And that doesn’t even include our loss of water. So I’m thinking about how I’m going to make sure neither of you die on my watch.”

“Oh,” Cyrus said, shocked at the level of honesty. “Well, you know Celeste is fine. And I’m Cyrus Orthran, so I won’t die.”

“You’re funny,” Crystil said warmly, but without a laugh. “But you better be truthful too. A soldier’s life, Cyrus, it’s not glorious. It’s not fun. If anything, it’s a terrible burden. I know sometimes I come across like a machine, cold and without feeling, but that’s because I’ve seen how much it hurts when you get close to someone and fail to protect them. The alternative isn’t great either, but at least then if you fail it’s a failure of duty and not a failure of friendship.”

She sighed.

“But you two just have a way of keeping things light-hearted that’s charming and, sometimes, not annoying,” she said with emphasis on “sometimes” for humorous effect. “That’s what I’m thinking about. And you?”

Cyrus smiled.

“How safe and in good hands I feel.”

“Shut up, charmer,” Crystil said with a laugh.

Cyrus also laughed and said nothing more. The conversation dropped. Crystil cocked her gun and stood, but only in preparation, not in anticipation. Cyrus slowly drifted off to sleep as he watched his leader protect him.

35

Crystil’s natural protective instincts didn’t let her sleep for more than a couple of hours on the tail end of Cyrus’ shift. When she woke up from the quick nap, she quickly stood and grabbed her equipment.

“You barely slept,” Cyrus said, surprised.

“I got plenty of beauty sleep while I got a foot upgrade,” she said.

“So by that logic, Celeste won’t need to sleep for a month when she wakes up?”

“Precisely. You ready?”

She wouldn’t leave him a choice if he said no but made the comment to make him feel like a teammate instead of her subordinate. He gave the OK, and she walked two steps ahead before a thought came to her she had to address.

“You sore?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Swear to it.”

Cyrus groaned.

“I swear to it, I promise.”

“Good,” Crystil said as she pulled up her rifle and cocked it, done a bit for dramatic effect. “Ready your flamethrower and throw on your NVGs. It’s going to get dark down here, and we don’t know what lies in wait.”

Cyrus came back with a dramatic toss of his flamethrower that almost led to him dropping it.

“Practice holding the flamethrower before throwing it, please,” she said in a jokingly condescending tone.

Once Cyrus had a grip on his weapon, they headed further into the cave, down a gentle slope. The air got cold and, to Crystil’s delight, felt a bit dewy.
Does this mean there is water nearby? Or just an extension of the massive ocean?

A few creatures scattered, but none larger than half of her foot. No one fired a single bullet or flame. Of greater interest was how seemingly perfectly constructed this cave was. In addition to the spiral pattern down to the base, the cave sloped at a constant, unchanging angle, as if created to let gravity carry water down. But they hadn’t seen anything with their goggles that looked wet.

“I’m all but settled on there being life here,” Cyrus said. “I’m sure of it. I just hope they can help us.”

“Probably,” Crystil admitted. “But withhold judgment, OK?”

He didn’t respond, concerning Crystil.

Then, suddenly, the cavern opened up into a massive chamber. The cave still sloped downward, but the area had expanded. Up ahead was a wall, but below the wall, Crystil saw a hole in the ground. The dew of the cave was overwhelming by now, and Crystil almost felt like she could taste water.

“Man, can you imagine if we found the monster’s nesting grounds?”

Annoyed, Crystil turned.

“Really? Really? You went there?”

“Sorry,” Cyrus quickly said.

Realizing his sincerity, Crystil’s anger—which rose from a fear that he was right—slowly faded. She remained on guard, though, unable to shake the possibility.

Crystil crouched near the edge of the hole and looked down. The light on her goggles seemed absurdly bright, but what caught her attention was what she heard.

It sounded like the gentle flow of water.

“You hear that, Cyrus?”

“Oh yes, sounds like our salvation.”

She threw her legs down first, and had Cyrus grab her arms to gently drop her down. When he’d dropped her as far as he could go, Crystil gave the OK. Much to her relief, she barely fell a foot before softly landing on the ground.

“Come on, Cyrus, easy fall.”

He came shortly behind. His entry was not as graceful, as he needed to catch himself. Blinded by the night vision goggles, Crystil tried adjusting them, but the brightness of the light remained.

Then it hit her.

“Oh. Oh, boy.”

She removed her goggles and looked at a series of torches guiding them down a long, narrow hallway.

36

Celeste’s eyes jolted open, and her ears perked up to the sound of silence. The pod did not pump oxygen. The heart rate monitor did not beep, and no other medical devices measured her vitals. For a couple of seconds, before her mind caught up, she wondered if she’d died. When the pod opened and she sat up, though, she knew she had beaten the poison.

“Welcome back, Celeste,” Cortanus said. “You made a faster than expected recovery. In fact, you got out thirty hours earlier than originally scheduled.”

Celeste almost didn’t believe Cortanus. If she wasn’t naturally trusting, she would’ve thought someone had programmed the ship to say this to make her feel stronger.

“I… wow. Wow. Thank you. You saved me. And… Cyrus! Crystil!”

She jubilantly yelled for them, but didn’t hear even a toe tap. She didn’t put much thought into it as she felt joy, but when she swung her feet over the pod and stretched out, the giddiness ebbed and she developed a gnawing feeling.

“Are you sure it’s been thirty hours earlier than scheduled? What does that mean since I talked to Cyrus?”

“You spoke to him this morning. It is now almost the evening of the same day.”

They said they’d wait two days for me. They said they’d wait for me to wake up so we could all go exploring. And… they didn’t.

Why? Why did you leave early?

“Where are they, Cortanus?” Celeste said, concern palpable in her voice. “Where did they go? Did they leave without me?”

“Yes,” Cortanus said. “They left a few hours after you first awoke this morning.”

“What?!?” Celeste said, feeling rare anger toward her brother and friend. “How could they?? I… They said they’d wait for me. They’d wait!”

“The monster attacked the ship and drained nearly all of our water supplies. We are down to about two weeks.”

They did the right thing, then.

If it even matters at this point.

She sighed, saddened and upset, but chose to focus on what she had—her health.

“A complete recovery, Cortanus?”

“Yes.”

“How did I recover so fast?”

“Your body has an unusual ability to heal. This is the fastest known poison recovery relative to the mass of your body.”

The fastest? I can’t believe that. I guess Crystil was right.

She didn’t feel satisfied with that answer—surely, Cortanus must’ve used drugs and surgery to help her recover faster. But when she pulled up the patient files for herself on the commander’s tablet, none of them mentioned surgery. The only drugs used were to keep her body in a coma state.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “Wow. I…”

She remembered Crystil’s words about the funeral rites, and how it gave her the courage to fight without any fear. Celeste figured there were literal funeral rites for her. But whether Crystil and Cyrus did them or not mattered little now. She finally understood the main point. She’d fought through poison that tortuously brought her to the brink of death. If she could survive that, what was an instant death at the hands of the monster?