Epilogue #2
“You did so fucking good, Riley.” Cradling me close, he kisses me as he carries me upstairs to the bathroom. “You were such a good girl for me.”
Ten minutes later, we’re in the bath, lavender-scented foam covering most of the warm water’s surface. I’m curled against Aron’s chest, our arms and legs tangled.
“Just so you know.” His low voice pulls me out of my pleasant, boneless limbo. “When I said ‘be a brat’, leaking the data plate photo to your old Synechord contact wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“A shame you weren’t more specific then.”
A smile tugs at my lips. I keep my eyes closed.
“The town was full of it. Caused a shitstorm on that side of the continent. Protests against the technocracy,” he rumbles. “How did you still have the photo? Your old camera and laptop stayed at the caves.”
He tilts my chin, making me meet his gaze.
“A small memory card hidden in the hem of my trousers. Corrado’s idea.” My voice breaks, my friend’s face sharp in my memory.
“The trousers that nearly stayed in Krane’s car, you mean?”
He only scoffs when I confirm this.
“Do you think it will make a difference to our side?” I ask to distract myself from the weight of my grief. “The Dunnby Continuum side, I mean,” I correct quickly.
Aron shifts, holding me steady against himself. Since moving here, this is the first time we’ve mentioned our old home and the events that exiled us from it.
“Perhaps. It’ll have a ripple effect for sure,” he replies after a momentary hesitation, pressing a kiss to my temple.
“But other things might help, too. Rumour has it Tristan made it out alive when ...” He trails off, swallowing heavily—the slaughter of his Retrograde men still something he cannot bear to speak about.
“He’s a resourceful fucker. He said he wanted to tear the Continuum apart from within, and he may just be the man to manage that. Eventually.”
“There’s Phoenix, too,” I remind him in a cautious tone of voice, and he huffs.
“Daria fucking Volker.” He enunciates each word like they’re all insults. “I still can’t believe I had that bitch and didn’t put two and two together.”
“Who knows what she really wants?” I muse out loud. “But if she wants to topple the Consular Triad, then her father has a formidable enemy. I wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating her again.”
When Aron speaks, the cruel sneer is clear in his voice. “Well, her father married her off to Rafael Krane. Based on our brief encounter, I’d bet anything she’s regretting every choice she’s ever made that led her to him.”
“What?” I wiggle around to gape at him open-mouthed. “Why haven’t you told me before?” I demand, even though I know exactly why; I wasn’t ready to talk about any of it, and just hearing Daria’s name would have upset me.
“Because my love ...” With his hand at my nape, he pulls me in for a deep kiss that has me moaning into his mouth. He replies while we’re both still breathless, our foreheads touching, “It’s someone else’s fight now. Our whole world is right here.”
[REDACTED] YEARS LATER, ARON
The bare, colossal gash of the Radiation Rift lies in the valley below, unchanged throughout the years.
Wind howls as it chases dry leaves around the old, moss-covered castle ruins at my back, its wails fusing with the mortal cries of the man bound to a pillar in front of me.
My breath is hot underneath my new, full-face skull mask, and my hate burns even hotter at the sight of him.
“Do you remember my eyes, Volker?” I drag my knife across his bare chest without piercing the skin—for now. “I bet you do. I bet on some level you knew even then that death was staring you in the face.”
He doesn’t respond. His jaw is slack, spit dribbling down his chin, transparent and at odds with the dark red streaks oozing from his vacant eyeholes.
I’d removed his flat nose earlier, and with the nasal bone protruding from the swollen mess of his cheeks, his face is grotesque and skeletal.
I’ve got him pumped full of adrenaline to keep him just barely conscious.
The hours and hours of his desperate, pathetic begging are over.
Bones are jutting out from the stumps of his arms. Arms I’ve amputated to symbolise that he has no more power over these lands, soaked with poison and the blood of millions, all because of him.
I slice and peel the skin off his chest with surgical precision. He tries to struggle, but it’s pointless. His rapidly diminishing strength is no match for the chains holding him in place.
By the time I finish sawing through his sternum, he’s passed out, and the air is thick with blood.
Quickly and carefully, I reach between his lungs and pull out his heart, feeling its faint, final thump.
I fasten it to a metal rod that will hold it protruding from his chest, then cover it with melted tar.
The stench of sulphur is overpowering even through the mask. I can’t tell if it’s the fumes making me light-headed, or the rush of knowing that my final tableau, my masterpiece, is nearly complete.
My eyes stray to the camera I’ve kept in its protective sling bag a couple of yards away.
Two days ago, I cashed in a few long-overdue favours to be allowed to come here.
Riley tried to teach me some of her tricks, talking about aperture and shutter speed.
It all went right over my head. My photos won’t be nearly as good as hers would have been.
She said she needed to stay behind to look after our household, which has grown to resemble a small, happy zoo in recent years.
But I think she never wants to set foot again in the Rifterland—a world that used to be ours until I burnt it for her.
Or perhaps she knew, deep down, that I’d rather she stayed in the safety of our home.
The same way that I know she doesn’t need to see this. She only needs to know that it’s done.
I secure the rod, careful not to let the tar drip on me from the organ, shrivelling fast with the heat of the reeking substance.
Dozens of fully assembled skeletons already surround Volker. They’re his victims as well as mine. Knowing they’d rather retaliate than rest, I retrieved their bare, brittle bones from that long-abandoned village in the nearby valley—my men’s final hideout. They’re all that remains of Retrograde.
Soon, with the help of wire, they will all be reaching out their ghastly, accusing fingers towards him, as if pulling his spread-eagled rib cage further apart.
Exposing for all to see what I have always known was inside of him, the one thing I once believed we had in common.
A black, lifeless heart.