Chapter 42 Kit
KIT
SFS POLARIS
He’s gone when she wakes again, tangled in his covers, his scent enveloping her.
The pang of missing him comes so sharply she wants to cry, even though he can’t have been gone for more than two hours.
She knew everything would change for her once they did this, but she’d still done it anyway, and now her heart is in it.
She’d stopped him earlier this morning, when she thought he was going to say something that would trap her forever, that would bind her to him in a way there would be no coming back from, at least not for her.
She wanted to hear it, but she also didn’t — wasn’t ready for what it meant, what it would mean to her coming from him.
And it was the heat of the moment; the first time they’d been close to each other in that way.
Still, she worries for him, especially knowing what she does about what Draven asks of him.
She senses there is something he’s not telling her, but she hasn’t pushed him.
He’s complicated, a tangled knot of contradictions once past his hard facade.
She worries that she’ll push him away, that he’ll scare again, and that this time, she won’t be able to talk him off the ledge.
Her heart seizes at the thought, especially as she remembers how safe she felt lying in his arms last night, how warm.
Something about him calms her at the same time it makes her lose her breath.
She thinks about losing him, about what her life was like before she met him, and she can’t imagine it. Can’t fathom not having him in it.
She tries to banish Task from her mind. She swallows over the lump in her throat, hugging his covers around her as tears prick at the corners of her eyes. She has to pull it together so she can get to Remulus and administer the antidote made with her blood.
She sighs, flipping on the overhead light.
His room is suddenly illuminated, and she pauses a minute to take it in.
She didn’t pay much attention last night.
It was dark, and she was too caught up in her desire to look at anything that wasn’t him.
But now, now she drinks it in. A crumpled uniform strewn over the desk chair, a pile of bound books on his desk, a small leather journal left open, a pen lazily laid across it.
All traditional tools, things that they’d used five hundred years ago.
Before Prisms and Chronograms and digibooks.
She wouldn’t have taken him for an antiquarian, but he’s surprised her yet again.
Her eyes catch on a small plant in a pot on his desk, a photo pinned just above it — three men grinning, arms slung around each other.
She peers at it more closely and recognizes both Voss and Caelinus, Task smashed in the middle of them.
He looks younger, his face unlined, his hair longer, and carefree in a way she doesn’t think she’s ever seen him. There’s laughter behind his eyes.
Her heart wrenches in her chest, and she feels like she’s intruded on something she shouldn’t have. She backs away, grabbing her clothing from where it was scattered on the floor, discarded in their hurry to be as close as they could to each other last night.
She needs to leave, no matter how much she wants to stay wrapped in his blankets, in his scent, until he returns.
Kit’s hands tremble as she hovers over Ambassador Remulus, clutching the serum she’d prepared with Nevis and Oswald’s help earlier.
This was it. The antidote. It would eradicate the Fever once and for all.
She’d have cured one of the most important men on Nexarium, and surely that would count for something once they arrived.
She’d not thought much about what it would be like on Nexarium, how the Lumarians would assimilate.
But now, they’re getting closer — to the cure and to the planet, and she lets herself wonder.
What would happen with her and Task? How would any of it work?
She remembers the fight they’d had in the medical bay, how she’d told him she didn’t want easy.
And she didn’t. Maybe if it had been someone else, it wouldn’t have been worth it.
But she’s willing to do anything to keep him.
She fingers the bottle of serum, eyes trailing over Remulus.
He’s still under the influence of Siloslumber, sedated given the way the Fever had taken hold of him.
Over the weeks, it had progressed further, and the surface of his skin was almost all covered in the purple rash.
After curing Knox, they’d tried using the runes on the Ambassador, but it hadn’t worked.
The pagadium hadn’t been effective. The Fever was wrapped around him so deeply, she hoped this would be strong enough, that the antidote they’d concocted, that her blood, her intrinsic power, would stop it.
She knew now she had the capacity to do significant good or significant evil, and though it still terrified her, she wanted to be in control of it. To make the choice for herself.
She flips open the port on the Ambassador’s IV and injects the serum, holding her breath.
After she’s plunged in the full syringe, she eyes him again, waiting.
In a few minutes, she’ll do a scan to see whether anything is happening with the virus, but if the purple rash retreats even slightly, she’ll know it’s working.
That it’s powerful enough to stop even the most deep-seated Fever.
She turns around, busying herself with disposing of the syringe and changing her gloves.
Suddenly, the lights flicker overhead and a chill goes through the room — through her.
It feels like ice in her veins, and she sucks in a breath.
Her heart seizes in her throat. No, no, no.
She can’t have somehow drawn the Fever out again, can she?
She slowly turns back, almost knowing what she’ll see before she sees it.
The rash on Ambassador Remulus is retreating, but as the tendrils dislocate themselves from his arms, his neck, they weave into something far more sinister.
Something that sits atop him, yellow eyes glowing, a half-smile on its face.
It’s much larger than whatever had occupied Knox — easily twice the size.
And calm. Oh, so calm. It tilts it head, looking at Kit.
She takes an involuntary step back, but then forces herself to remain, remembering that she has the power to stop it. Her mind is racing, though. How did the antidote do this? Is the same thing happening down the hall, where Nevis is administering it to another Lumarian patient?
Katherine Hart.
She startles, hearing a voice in her head.
I know who you are.
Kit narrows her eyes, stepping forward to where the Fever crouches above the ambassador. It didn’t speak to her last time, but now, she thinks that’s what she’s hearing. Somehow, the Fever is talking to her.
She steels herself, though it doesn’t seem as angry as it did when they’d accidentally drawn it out of Knox. She doesn’t feel threatened in the way she did last time, watching it tremble over Remulus’ body as if struggling to hold on.
What are you? Kit tries asking. She doesn’t speak out loud, simply says the words in her head. How did you get out?
The Fever tilts its head again. I am Darkness embodied.
Darkness?
The Fever doesn’t answer her, and she can see that it is dissipating, tendrils evaporating into the air like smoke from a candle.
Kit feels frantic with unanswered questions, throwing them out as the Fever’s essence unravels slowly.
What do you mean, you’re Darkness? Where did you come from? Are you alive?
Tendrils of the Fever continue to unspool, the mass sitting atop the ambassador becoming less and less dense.
It doesn’t say anything more to her, but it watches her with those yellow eyes.
She thinks she can hear it gasping, fighting for breath, but also thinks she might be insane — she was just speaking to a virus, after all.
Then, when only a wisp of blackness and the yellow eyes remain, it says simply, You must equalize the Symmetry.
And then it’s gone. Kit stands, speechless, trying to make sense of it all.
She’d done it. She’d managed to find the cure.
The thing she’d been so furiously researching for the last several months, the thing that would save her planet.
Warmth blooms in her chest as she glances back at the ambassador, watching him open his eyes.
He sits up, and looks at her as if he hadn’t been on his deathbed for the past three and a half months.
He reaches over to grab his glasses, wiping them on the sheet and then putting them on his face. “Where’s my chief?”