Chapter 52 #2
The landscapes continued to glimmer and shift, but there was no change.
Amaya took a deep breath. She’d been through this enough times to know what to do.
She was the only one who could see the worlds beyond, and the only one who could activate the Skystone.
It was only natural that she’d be the only one who could operate Pearce’s mysterious machine.
She wrapped her hands around the wheel, and sure enough, the Skystone flared to life. Its energy wound down the pedestal and soaked into the floor, revealing carved channels. Aether flowed through the channels to the arch, and soon, the entire frame glowed blue.
The wheel clicked as Amaya rotated it, the images stabilizing to reveal complete pictures instead of fragmenting. The nodules lit up one at a time with each click, Aether illuminating the associated wire.
Amaya clicked through the locations, fascinated by them. But it wasn’t until she lingered on the gilded palace that the image hardened, becoming fully opaque. The others drew in sharp breaths.
“I can see it,” Serena said.
“Is that really . . . ?” Edmund asked.
Amaya turned the wheel another notch, lighting up the next node and letting the image stabilize on a bioluminescent jungle.
The next showed a land covered in volcanic ash, rivers of lava streaming through black stone.
There was a frozen wasteland, a tropical island teeming with animal life, and a city under the sea.
Each world was beautiful and unique, begging to be explored.
The console was a crude machine, Amaya realized. It was messy, scraped together from whatever Pearce had available when he became trapped. But it worked. The worlds faded when she released the helm, but not so fast that Pearce couldn’t have comfortably made it through.
But how had he made it back? Were there more arches like this one on the other side? More consoles? Something else entirely?
As she marveled at the different realities now open to them, Amaya almost sensed her ancestor’s presence.
When Pearce attempted to crystallize Aether in the form of the Skystone, the subsequent reaction tore a rip in space, triggered the Aether Storm, and saturated him in so much Aether it wove itself into his genetic code.
He’d spent three years trapped, seeking a way to reclaim his mistakes and make them serve him instead.
He’d used everything at his disposal, right down to his own mutation.
There was something beautiful about that—about turning accidents into opportunities. He could have given up. He could have died here, but he didn’t.
Amaya’s chest ached when she realized she was more connected to her great-grandparents in this moment than she’d ever thought possible.
She saw herself, her life, and her choices reflected in each of them in different ways.
Ronan and Lucretia may never have stood here together, but Amaya, the last living consequence of their love, had found it.
Sebastian whistled. “Well . . . who wants to go first? Not it.”
“We’re not using it. We’re destroying it,” Will said.
“Captain,” Edmund said, “I’m sure I don’t need to explain why this is an incredible discovery. If we could explore it a bit before—”
“Edmund!” Will went straight for the roar. Amaya flinched, thinking he was about to strangle the poor man. “Amaya is the only person who can operate this gateway. What do you think Graven will do about that? Let her go?”
Amaya had always understood Graven’s threat, but seeing the reality of it was something else entirely. He could make this her life. He could chain her to this console, put her in a cage just like in her dream.
Her body went numb, sweat beading across her brow as she released the console, letting the opaque landscape fade back into rippling watercolors.
“She doesn’t have to be the only one,” Edmund said. “I think I can figure out how to replicate the mutation that—”
“How does that help anything!?” Will turned on Edmund, and Amaya jumped back, her fingers curling around Deadeye’s leather strap. “Graven will tear every one of these worlds apart, including ours, if we don’t destroy it.”
“Not if you kill him with Ultima.”
“Ultima is the safety net, Ed. I thought you knew the plan!”
“Excuse me, sorry.” Grace pushed through the small gathering to stand between Amaya and Will, holding a clipboard stuffed with graphs and equations and the design sheet. “I’m not sure we can destroy it.” She presented her findings.
“This says here that the rift expands at a rate of two percent every week. That’s exponential growth.
It’s implied the frame contains it and keeps it from growing.
Based on these calculations, if we destroy the frame and fail to destroy the rift—which is a distinct possibility without extensive testing—it will expand enough to encompass the planet in about twenty-five years.
Graven won’t even need to get inside the storm to access it. No one will.”
“Not all of us speak genius, Hargreeves,” Sebastian said, but his face was ashen.
Although Amaya couldn’t pretend to comprehend Grace’s argument, she understood the gist: if they screwed up, they’d screw up the world.
Pearce hadn’t just designed the machine to control the destination. He’d also built it to contain the rift inside a storm of his making, where no one would accidentally stumble upon it.
“Yes, well, it seems like the storm is powering the rift somehow,” Grace stubbornly continued. “If that’s true, the safest way to destroy it would be to disperse the storm. Cut the power.”
“Oh, is that all?” Serena asked, folding her arms.
Edmund tore Grace’s clipboard from her hand, skimming through the pages with Lightword.
“Which came first, the rift or the storm?” he said sardonically.
“Or the Skystone,” Serena threw in.
Edmund, Grace, and Serena bickered over Pearce’s calculations and their meanings while Amaya stared back at the rift, a million thoughts and wishes and fears circulating in her mind.
It could take them days to figure out what to do. What if her father didn’t have that kind of time? What if Graven was waiting for them when they got out of the storm and he dragged her back in again?
With four walls closing in around her, the intrusive desire to step into the prettiest picture and vanish forever suddenly seemed extremely appealing. Would Will go with her, if they didn’t both have families and responsibilities tethering them to this world?
“Hey, Bluebird. You remember what I said?” Will turned her to face him, cupping her face with both of his hands. “I won’t let anything happen to you. We’ll sort this out.”
“A bold promise, William.” A deep, gravelly male voice boomed through the Skyvault, the sound alone paralyzing Amaya. “Especially considering you’ve already broken it.”