A Matter of Forever (17 page)

Hold on here.

“In fact,” Bios continues, “if they wish, the two watching right now may come into the room and monitor your progress. I make this vow to them now: I will only hold you in my memories for a quarter of an hour. Will this be acceptable to you?”

The door opens, and unsurprisingly, Kellan is there saying, “Hell no.” And then he gives his brother a very pointed look.

“Ah!” Bios says, clapping his hands as Zthane also walks in. “I so rarely get to see the ... what did you call them? Twins? The twin Empaths together. This is most interesting. I see they communicate like we do. How oddly advanced of them despite being abnormalities.”

“You can hear them?” I ask in surprise.

He is offended. “Of course I can. They are fighting right now over whether or not I am to be trusted.”

Zthane says, “I agree with Kellan, Chloe. This is a terrible idea.”

Bios looks him up and down and sneers. He still harbors prejudice against Zthane for being an Elemental.

I’ve been down in this bunker for nearly two months now. Enlilkian is out there doing who knows what. This needs to end, and it needs to end soon. I go over to where Zthane is and tell him, “Any piece of information we have about how the Dingir work can only help us. Besides, do you really think he’d pull something, knowing you’re watching?”

The head of the Guard says, “While he has the Creator in a situation that simulates death? Absolutely.”

“If I’d wanted her dead,” Bios snaps, “she’d be so already. I could have unleashed any one of a million different viruses or bacteria I’ve cultivated over the ages. She would be writhing on the floor, bleeding from every orifice, and you’d be helpless to stop it. Are you all so inbred that you do not retain information? I have sworn repeatedly to keep her safe as long as we are down in this hiding space. She will be in no danger in my memories. And I have already conceded to allow the Empath in. I would invite you all, but I know the need you harbor to ensure their safety. So, sit and watch, child of Cailleache, and say no more unless it will aid your cause.”

Anger flares in Zthane’s eyes.

“Jonah,” Kellan warns, but apparently, Jonah has made up his mind to back me. So he turns to me and says, “Chloe. Don’t do this. Please. I’m begging you.”

“So interesting, these bonds,” Bios murmurs. “What a cruel trick Rudshivar has played upon you all. He was always a twisted bastard when it came to emotions.”

I ignore this, instead focusing on Kellan. “We need this. You know we do.”

“Then let me do it,” he says. “Or Jonah. But not you.”

“I can’t fight what I don’t know,” I whisper. “Don’t let me stay blind. I’m the only one who can take Enlilkian out. I need to find out everything I can to beat him, Kellan.”

He takes a deep breath. Since that night on the rooftop in which I told him I chose Jonah, Kellan’s been very careful not to expose his feelings for me much. Even after the accidents, when I knew him to be terrified and torn apart, he still managed to keep things under control, especially around others. To see him show this piece of worry in front of Zthane makes part of me want to acquiesce. But the other part, the one that remembers all of the threats my loved ones face, knows I need to accumulate as much ammunition against Enlilkian as possible. Because I could lay down good money that Bios, who has been hinting for some time his displeasure with his father, wants to do more than simply show me his former visage.

“Kel,” Jonah says quietly. “You will not lose us today.”

Zthane looks away, clearly uncomfortable with the rare display of all three of our tangled emotions, but Bios watches in utter fascination.

“Do not worry, Empath,” he says in the kindest tone I’ve heard from him so far, “I will deliver them back to you in the same state you see them in now. If not, then you may do your worst to me, and I will not struggle once. You have my word.”

Minutes later, I’ve extended his chains so he is sitting in front of us, forming a small circle of clasped hands. He tells us to close our eyes, reminds Zthane and Kellan not to be worried about our appearances, and then murmurs something in the language I’d heard Enlilkian use on the roof the day he murdered my father.

The next thing I know, Jonah and I are in an elaborate room decorated in precious metals. Only, this isn’t like any room I’ve ever seen before. The walls are made of bark.

“Do not worry. This is not Enlilkian’s tree,” says a voice from behind us.

The speaker takes my breath away. He is tall—taller than even Karl, even—and sculpted in the way that reminds me of statues found in museums. And then I’m averting my eyes, because these muscles are completely visible thanks to a single, tiny scrap (and I mean that literally, as it’s ridiculously tiny and gauzy) of white linen dipping across his pelvis. His skin is white—not peach that is called white, but a genuine
white
—that darkens gradually mid-torso to a rich brown. The brown then darkens into a genuine black at the upper thighs and continues all the way to his feet. As promised, his hair is every color: shades of red, blonde, brunette, and black all mingle together alongside sterling grays and whites. A step closer by Bios proves his eyes to be kaleidoscopes of colors swirling about. And, if these features weren’t enough to stun a person into silence, the faint glow emitting from his skin does the trick.

“This one was mine.” He wanders over to a paneless window. “It had a beautiful view, did it not?” Beyond him is a stunning, picturesque landscape that reaches as far as the eye can see. “But I did not bring you two here for idle, irrelevant chit-chat. I came here because there are things I am not physically allowed to say to you while housed in the body Enlilkian forced me in. No one, however, has forbidden a conversation here.”

He ushers us toward a pair of chairs before lounging in a throne-like chair made of branches studded with gemstone. “I thought we were going to see a memory,” I murmur.

“You are in a memory.” All the colors in his eyes turn melancholy. “This place only exists in memory nowadays. I tried visiting it once, but my tree no longer grows. Concrete has flattened the land.”

But ... “But we’re talking. People aren’t sentient in memories.”

“I said we would walk my memories,” he clarifies. “I never said you’d live them.”

“What is it you want to tell us?” Jonah asks.

Bios’ smile flees. “I have tried my best to tell you what the Dingir’s situation is like nowadays. The truth is, so much of my family is so grateful to be out of purgatory they are going along with Enlilkian’s plans, no questions asked. The few who have dared to voice their concerns have been consumed.” He tents his fingers in front of him. “I can see the wisdom of his logic, of using the Creator here to rebuild our corporeal selves. He is unable to do it himself, bound by Rudshivar’s lingering curse. This one,”—he points at me—“however, has no curses holding her back. It’s part of why Enlilkian wants her so much. Let us just say that Cailleache was not thrilled with the prospect of her becoming the savior of our kind. Probably less so when you were obliterating her.”

“This is ridiculous. He thinks I’m going to help him, what? Make you all whole? Have a bunch of babies with him?”

“I do not know his exact plans, little Creator. He could impregnate you, yes, but he could just as easily rip your essence out of you. Then he could be the mother and father of our kind all at once.”

“I will kill him.” My words are hot and loud in the serene tree house we sit in.

“Whether or not that is the case,” Bios says, “your acquiescence is what Enlilkian wishes and, until the war between father and son, what he wished for was reality. Now, he is bound and not in possession of his full arsenal of power, often needing to be recharged before he enacts his will. ”

“Recharged?” I ask, even though I fear I know the answer.

“The attacks over the years have nourished us,” Bios says bluntly. “In others’ deaths, we find survival and strength. Magic always has a price, even with your evolved kind.”

I’m instantly sent back a year and a half before, to the cave Kellan and I were trapped in, and how an overuse of his powers left him weak and in a coma.

I grip Jonah’s hand. “Doesn’t it bother you to kill people?”

Bios shrugs. “It is the way things are. But, I am not here to discuss morality. I want you to realize that when we get above ground, and,” he looks at Jonah, “yes, Empath, we must emerge sooner rather than later before Enlilkian’s fury is taken out on innocents, but I need to you realize that when the orders change, I will be forced to withdraw my protection and very well may be tasked with either abduction or death.”

I go still. I mean, I knew Bios wasn’t an entirely good guy, but ...

And then, his eyes turn impossibly sad. “I will not have a choice,” he says. “Resisting compulsion is futile. But I do offer you this consideration once the order is given. Obliterate me before I can carry through like a good soldier.”

Did I just hear that right? “Excuse me?”

“Chloe,” he says, using my name, not my craft, for the first time in the weeks I’ve known him, “I am tired. I have been ordered to do many things over the years, some I agree with, many I don’t. I would ask you to do me this small favor.”

“Having Chloe kill you is a favor?” Jonah asks skeptically.

“To kill me, no—that would be no favor. Enlilkian would simply reanimate me. I would be even more of a puppet to him. Obliterate me, as you did with Cailleache and Nuun and the others. Even Enlilkian cannot reanimate that which no longer exists at molecular form.”

So many thoughts swirl through my mind, and yet, all I can ask is, “Why?”

“I am a weapon to him, and little else.” Bios stares out of the window. “The things that I covet, the people who worshipped me ... they are gone. No Magic, not even yours, could bring what I crave back. I do not wish something new. Perhaps Rudshivar had the right idea.” He fixes his swirling eyes on Jonah, who, after a moment, nods. Just once. Small and tight.

“Do you mean Rudshivar and his revolution?” I prod.

Bios smiles, just a little. “There are others like me, who wish for the same thing. Know that they cannot tell you about it, unless you walk in their memories. You would do many a great favor if you simply did to them as you did our mother. I know of your tendency to show mercy, Chloe. You hesitated when I first appeared in your hiding space when you should have obliterated me quickly as Jonah here wished you to do. It’s what I would have done—any of the Dingir would have done. But what you think of as mercy is ultimately another form of torture.”

I don’t understand.

“There are family members once more trapped in darkness, crying out for salvation,” he says gently. “I would ask of you to obliterate them as well, if you are victorious against Enlilkian.”

Jonah says, “You’re talking about the Elders we have trapped under the streets of Annar.”

Bios nods, slinging a leg over the side of his chair.

“Are you really asking me to destroy your siblings,” I ask slowly. “Your
children?”

“Are you not ready to do this anyway?”

Enlilkian, oh yes. I am ready to take that asshole out, no questions asked. But, if Bios is telling the truth about the rest ...

“I did not bring you here to encourage you to try to save those who will, if ordered, strike at you in every way possible,” he says, like he’s digging in my thoughts. “I am selfish, Chloe. So are my siblings. We who secretly go against the grain want to use you, as well.”

I don’t even know what to say.

“I would ask this favor of you. Please consider it. And now, because your brother is ready to destroy me since I have taken five seconds longer than promised,” he says to Jonah, “we must return. There is no more time for uncensored talk.”

“Breathe, godsdammit,
breathe!”
comes a voice from above. Kellan’s fingers are fumbling against my neck, checking for a pulse. Air rushes into my lungs and I gasp loudly, my eyes flying open.

“Sjharn!” Zthane is shouting. “Karl! For gods’ sakes!
Somebody get their ass in here and help us!”

“No need,” Jonah wheezes nearby. And then, “Get off me, Zthane. I think you just cracked a rib.”

“Thank gods,” Kellan says, leaning his forehead down against mine. “I thought ...”

“I’m fine,” I say, even though exhaustion clings to my bones. “Remember? He said we’d look lifeless?”

Kellan pulls away, rocking back on his heels. “
Look
. He said
look.
He conveniently left out how you’d actually stop breathing and your heart would stop, too.”

To this, Bios says nothing. He’s wide awake, sitting in the chair we left him in, once more wearing my father’s face.

“Nor,” Zthane adds harshly, “did he add that he would stay cognizant the entire time and chat us up while you two dropped like dead weights to the ground.”

I turn to Bios, incredulous; he merely shrugs.

“We’re fine,” Jonah says, standing up. Kellan helps me up, his eyes filled with concern.

I study Bios as Kellan and Zthane bombard Jonah with questions. His eyes are on me, not them. No—not his eyes. Noel Lilywhite’s eyes. The same orbs I grew up with only to watch the life get squeezed out of them.

Now that I know what his real eyes look like, I cannot tolerate my father’s body being used like this anymore. I may not have been close to my father, but I owe him this at least. And even though I’ve never done something like this before, it feels right. I wish oh so much that I had the power of reanimation so I could bring Noel Lilywhite back to life, but I can’t. I simply have to let him finally be at peace.

“You can’t stay in my father’s body,” I tell Bios. “You, who once ruled life and death, know that the two shouldn’t mix.”

He says nothing. So I take a deep breath, ignoring the arguing going on behind me, and shove my hand against his chest as hard as possible, punching through the softening skin straight past the ribs. Black smoke splatters out of every pore.

“What are you doing, Chloe?” Zthane shouts. He attempts to grab me, but Jonah blocks him.