Chapter 73
The three men leapt to their feet, startled, and surrounded the bed where Kyller was grunting and writhing.
“What’s happening?” Zion asked.
“Angel has already taken over the entire subconscious. Now she’s begun attacking your partner’s consciousness,” Julius replied as tears of blood streamed down his face, faster and faster.
“What should we do?” Serguei asked, distressed.
“Listen to her heart.” The Sonar pointed to Kyller’s chest. The two men listened: the beats were frantic. “She’s fighting, but she doesn’t have the strength to keep herself safe. We’ll listen until her heart starts to fail, and then you act.”
“We should wait until she’s almost dead?” Zion asked, making sure he’d understood the absurdity of what the seer was saying.
“Yes. If you try to attack too soon, Angel will notice and raise her defenses even higher. Let her get distracted trying to destroy the girl, and when she’s focused on that, you surprise her.
She’s a very powerful entity, even if she can only use a tiny fraction of her power for now. We need to be cautious.”
Lightning struck near the cabin, and the thunderclap echoed through every atom of the place.
“War is furious with me,” Julius whispered, his voice trembling with fear.
The three men continued monitoring each heartbeat.
Zion grabbed Kyller’s pale hand and squeezed, feeling her determination even now.
He knew his partner must be resisting Angel with everything she had and then some, but it wouldn’t be enough.
The entity held the power of thousands of siblings.
Even he didn’t know if he could face her.
As expected, the heart soon began to slow.
“Serguei, you must destroy the barrier with a single attack. Put everything you have into it, because that’s when Kyller’s barrier will be at its weakest. But when you bring it down, you cannot enter.
This war is happening in the subconscious, and if you go in there, you’ll end up killing the girl when you leave. ”
“Understood,” the psychic said with a nod.
“Zion, when the barrier falls, you go in. Because you’re partners, you’re an extension of Kyller’s soul, so you won’t cause problems for her mind.”
“And what should I do?” the general asked, his voice tight with worry.
“Keep your partner alive until the fusion completes. If that happens, Angel will be trapped inside her and won’t be able to cause any damage.”
“How?”
The heartbeat faded to a faint, struggling pulse. Zion didn’t know what he should do, but he’d been raised for war, just like that entity, and he would use every ounce of his knowledge to handle the situation.
“You will know, son of Darkness.”
The heart beat once more, then again. On the third beat, it faltered, as if unable to complete.
“Now,” Julius ordered.
Serguei launched himself against the barrier. The impact was terrifying—his claws struck with fists clenched, and the golden barrier shattered into millions of particles. Right behind him, a man of shadows entered the consciousness as all the fragments dispersed in the wind.
Zion followed the faint pulse; it was as if a cord existed between their consciousnesses, telling him where Kyller was: at the bottom of the subconscious, the most dangerous place in a mind.
He didn’t need to look for an entrance—his form was only a shadow shaped like a body, and the laws of physics didn’t apply there.
So he passed through the transparent layer on the floor that marked the boundary and was sucked downward.
The subconscious, which had once been a gentle sky full of clouds, now looked like the eye of a hurricane bathed in gold. He descended through the tornado, plunged like a black anchor amid the immeasurable power, and in the center of the chaos, he found two figures where the light was strongest.
“Who are you?” a deep, feminine voice asked.
Zion saw her golden form, the curvaceous body and immaterial wings spread wide. She stood beside Kyller’s body—made of red matter, lying unconscious on the ground. His partner was trapped by golden tendrils, as if fused to the environment, about to disappear.
“Me?” The general let the hungry shadows emerge and commanded them to surround him, to fill the entire place and cover everything in darkness. “You’re going to find out who I am.”
Then the darkness swept over the light, and Kyller’s glow was swallowed by the blackness of the shadows.
Only the golden entity gleamed in the heart of the night, seething with hatred upon realizing she’d lost the girl right before her eyes.
The simple truth was: if she couldn’t see them, she had no way to catch them.
And embracing his partner’s inert body, fusing his black essence to camouflage her light, the general promised with all his furious heart that Angel would not find them.
And she did not find them.
Δ
The Sonar watched the rain fall through the window and sipped his tea, his gaze fixed on the horizon.
When lightning illuminated the forest, the view became incredible: trees with purple, red, and orange leaves overlapped, forming a breathtaking landscape.
If the psychic could see the world in color, he too would have found it beautiful.
But colors had abandoned him. His perception of the world was black and white.
“What now?” Serguei asked restlessly, drumming his fingers on the chair’s armrest.
The moment Zion entered Kyller’s subconscious, his body collapsed onto the bed beside hers, limp. The two men listened intently to both hearts racing. Serguei felt consumed by fear and anxiety—he wasn’t used to being out of control. Being adrift unsettled him, left him on edge.
The Sonar turned toward him, eyes closed, but Serguei knew he could see.
“We wait.”
He was someone sculpted with the permanence of earth itself. His gaze, the way he moved, that calm in his voice—they reminded the psychic of vast forests, ancient trees, and wind dancing through the leaves.
“How will we know if it worked?”
“Have patience, Serguei. You need to trust your boy more.” The seer opened his eyes and looked at him. “You’re afraid you haven’t taught him well, but look—” he pointed to the general, lying there holding Kyller’s hand, “—he’s so much like you.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” He laughed humorlessly. There was no reason to hide his concerns from the man in front of him. Not after he’d witnessed the entire scene between the two. “I’m not someone who should be imitated.”
“Don’t be afraid, old friend.” The Sonar smiled. “He’ll be as good as you, but he won’t make the same mistakes.”
“Are you saying that as a friend or as a Sonar?”
“Both.” Julius shrugged, a crooked half-smile on his face. “Young as he is, he’s already a good leader. When he ascends, you’ll be there to see with your own eyes how great your son has become.”
Serguei watched him suspiciously. Being there would be impossible, but the seer was never wrong. So he let the words sink in.
“It’s sad watching them grow up so fast. Pain is a cruel teacher.” The psychic looked at Zion’s hand. Even unconscious, his son still clung to Kyller. “They’re still children, but they already carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I, but at least they’ll have each other.”
“That’s more than any of us had.” He spun the golden ring on his finger once more and thought of all the people who had been part of his life but were gone long before the first gray hairs appeared.
“Did you know I have a son?” Julius asked, his eyes shining with affection.
“You do?” Serguei frowned, unsure whether that was good or bad. “I never knew that. Is he outside the walls?”
The seer sighed.
“Actually, I have two sons, but they don’t know me.
Unlike you, I didn’t have enough time to fix that mistake.
Maybe one day I will.” He stretched, settling into the chair and examining his cracked nails.
“They’re good boys, and their paths will be linked to Zion and Kyller.
One day, one of them will make a difference in this battle. ”
“Your sons and mine?” Serguei arched an eyebrow.
It was strange, seemingly random information, but he knew it was important. Julius wouldn’t share something unless it was useful.
“My sons and yours.” A shadow of doubt crossed his eyes.
“There are at least five different paths in the future where this happens. But before it becomes real, they’ll face difficult situations, and their journeys begin tonight.
One of them might die along the way. Predicting the future is hard precisely because other people are connected to it.
The more people, the more choices—and choices make the future unstable. ”
“Can’t you do anything to change what you see?” Serguei would move mountains for the children in front of him—would do anything to protect them.
“No,” Julius replied with a sigh. “What I could do to help them, I’ve already done. And the price was high. The guilt over the life I sacrificed trying to protect them keeps me awake at night. In fact, I lied about their levels: one of the boys became special, and I hid him from Elitium.”
Serguei shifted in his chair, deeply intrigued. Without even noticing, his gift reached out toward the Sonar, but found the mind blocked, as it always had been. If there was one thing that frustrated the psychic, it was Julius’s mind.
“It’s rude when you do that. Four hundred years, and you’re still ill-mannered.” The Sonar drummed his fingers on the armrest.
“Some things never change, do they?” The other shrugged, not at all ashamed of his attempt.
“Not at all, especially bad habits. They tend to die with us.” The seer smiled at the psychic, who clicked his tongue in annoyance.
“You’ll find this improper of a father, but that’s the way of life, Serguei.
Bad things need to happen for good things to come about.
There are no victories without sacrifices. ”