Yorika #2
"Forty-three hunters in the last century," she says, her voice skipping like a damaged recording. "All told the same story. Void Walker. Killer. Monster."
"Were any of them related to victims?" I ask.
"Most. The Collector chose carefully, people with motivation, skill, nothing left to lose."
Like me.
My hands curl into fists, nails digging into my palms until they ache. But I don't scream. Don't throw things. That's not how I process betrayal. I go quiet, deadly quiet, the kind that used to make my squad mates step back.
"Where is he now?" I ask.
"His gallery," Nezavek says. "Where he keeps them. Where Melara..."
He doesn't finish. Doesn't need to.
"Then that's where we go."
"We're in no condition."
"We're in the only condition we'll ever be in." I cut him off, soldier instincts taking over. "You're dissolving. Mikaere's down an arm. P?ivi's missing pieces. The realm is collapsing. We don't get stronger from here. We only get weaker."
"She's right," Mikaere rumbles. "If we're going to strike, it has to be soon."
"Can you fight?" I ask him directly.
"Three arms are sufficient for crushing crystal skulls."
"P?ivi?"
"I'm... functional. My memory of the gallery's layout is intact."
"Nezavek?"
He presses closer against my back, and I feel his smile against my neck. "As long as you're touching me, I can fight."
"Then we plan."
We gather in what's left of the library. Books fall upward into nothing. Shelves exist in seventeen dimensions simultaneously. One section is on fire with flames that freeze instead of burn. But P?ivi creates a bubble of stable reality, a small space where physics still functions.
She spreads maps made of starlight and shadow. "The gallery exists partially outside normal reality. Here, but also nowhere. The Soul-Still anchors it, and him."
"Destroy the anchor, destroy him?"
"Possibly. Or possibly destroy several dimensions. The artifact doesn't just preserve his victims, it holds multiple realities in stasis."
"Risk we'll have to take."
I study the maps, my tactical mind cataloging entry points, choke points, possible ambush sites. But this isn't a normal battlefield. The gallery operates on dream logic, nightmare rules.
"We'll need weapons that work there," I say.
"Shadow and void," Nezavek confirms. "Physical weapons will be less effective."
"Can you teach me to channel void energy?"
"Through the bond, yes. But it requires..."
"Physical contact. I figured." I turn to face him, our bodies aligning. "Show me," I tell him.
His hands cover mine, shadow flowing between us. The bond opens wider, and I feel it, the nothing that exists between something, the void that separates all things. It's cold and vast and hungry, and it wants to swallow everything.
"Don't fight it," he murmurs. "Let it flow through you, not into you."
I try. The void enters through our joined hands, courses up my arms, fills my chest with absence. For a moment, I don't exist. Then I do, and the void is mine to shape.
A blade forms in my hand, not steel but nothing given edge.
"Fast learner," Nezavek says, his breath warming my neck.
"Good teacher."
We're standing closer than necessary now, my back to his chest, his arms around me to guide the energy flow.
His form solidifies the longer we touch, becoming more real with each shared breath.
My body catalogs every point of contact, his chest against my spine, his arms bracketing mine, his chin nearly resting on my shoulder.
"When this is over."
I turn in his arms, the void blade dissolving. "We survive first. Then we talk about after."
"Practical."
"Always."
P?ivi clears her throat, or makes a sound like papers shuffling purposefully. "There's something else. Your contract expires at midnight."
I'd forgotten. The thirty-day clause. The bride market's guarantee that suffering has a time limit.
"After midnight, you can't leave," P?ivi continues. "Even if you wanted to. The bond incomplete or not, you'd be bound to the realm."
I look at Nezavek, shadow and starlight, dying by degrees but still trying to protect everyone. At Mikaere, loyal beyond reason, fighting with three arms when he had four. At P?ivi, brilliant and broken, holding reality together through will alone.
"I'm not going anywhere."
"You could be free," Nezavek says quietly.
"I am free. I'm choosing this. Choosing you. All of you."
Something shifts in the bond, a clicking into place, a door opening wider. Nezavek's form solidifies more, his eyes brightening from amber to gold.
"The bond," P?ivi whispers. "It's responding to commitment, not just contact."
We spend the remaining hours preparing. Weapons of shadow and void, shaped by will and necessity. Mikaere wants to come, must be convinced to stay, defend what is left of our home. P?ivi will hold our escape route, maintaining a portal back if we need to retreat.
The gallery exists partially outside reality, making it both the Collector's strength and his weakness. He's strongest there but also anchored, unable to flee if cornered.
"What happens after?" Mikaere asks while sharpening a blade that exists in three dimensions. "If we succeed?"
"The realm will need rebuilding," Nezavek says. "Without the Collector's interference destabilizing things, we might actually manage it."
"We will rebuild," I correct. "After."
The word hangs between us. We, future tense, partnership implied. Nezavek's hand finds mine, shadows twining with flesh.
"Together," he agrees.
The preparations are complete. Weapons forged from shadow and void rest ready. Mikaere has adapted to three arms, practicing strikes that compensate for his missing limb. P?ivi has drawn what she remembers of the gallery's layout on pages that hover between us. We know what we face tomorrow.
"Get some rest," I tell them. "We'll need everything we have."
Mikaere nods, lumbering toward his quarters. Each step leaves small cracks in the floor. The realm is barely holding under his weight. P?ivi disperses into the remaining books, her way of sleeping.
Nezavek stays pressed against my back, neither of us moving to separate. Without the contact, he'll start dissolving again. We both know it.
"Tomorrow," he says quietly.
"Tomorrow," I agree.
But tonight stretches ahead of us, and something coils in my stomach. Not fear exactly, but awareness. Tomorrow we might die. Tonight, things remain unfinished between us. The bond pulses incomplete, the claiming only half-done, a sentence stopped mid-word.
I won't be able to sleep. Not with what's coming. Not with his body solid against mine and the memory of shadow tendrils still burning in my dreams.