Nemesis: Box Set: Books 1 - 3 (9 page)

But he hadn’t been. Even the sorry sounded mechanical, a process supposed to be followed, but not one he meant. Not one he even understood.

She looked at her phone, still half expecting Bryan to call her back. No call came though.

B
riten was beautiful
.

More than anything else, that’s why Morena glanced at him that first time. Her mother hadn’t approved, of course—what Var would have? Morena was not to wed a Lorn; it was unheard of. The classic forbidden love, and Morena knew the issues as well as anyone. Still she had stared at him, from across the room—her a privileged guest in these proceedings and he in training. His lineage to bring him to the height of his society, and this meeting a crucial part in his education.

Morena had looked over at her mother, who wasn’t enraptured by Briten, but was watching Morena. Had she known then, at that very moment? Of course she had, a Var would necessarily know those things, even when Morena didn’t. It must have been a shock for her mother to see that, to understand in that moment the life her daughter would lead; there would be no Bynum mate. There would be no pure blooded Var for the next generation.

Morena often thought about that when she looked at Briten as she was now—thought about her mother, the Var of the last generation, seeing into the future, seeing how all the rules would be rewritten. She saw it and didn’t even blink as she looked at Morena, all those years ago. She didn’t smile, didn’t give any kind of approval, but just looked with a calm that still shocked Morena. Could she do the same, if her daughter decided something as drastic as Morena had? Could she look on, already knowing there wasn’t anything to be done, that The Makers had decided such things long ago? Or would she fret and thrash, trying to force her will onto things she’d couldn’t control? Morena thought the latter; she was not her mother, no matter how much she wished it so. Her mother may have been the greatest Var to ever live, a million and a half years of progress under her rule and adored by all. Morena wasn’t jealous of such a thing, how could she be? She recognized the greatness in her mother and felt proud, even if her own path would be much different.

As it already had been.

Briten sat at his work, his red aura reminding Morena of his strength, as it always did. Others might see a Lorn with such an aura and feel fear at something so aggressive, but not Morena. That red aura had been the beauty she saw all those years ago, and it hadn’t faded yet—hadn’t even begun to fade.

Is this our prime?
Morena thought, studying him.
When we both fade, what then?

It was a silly question and one that she didn’t need to answer, one brought on by Morena’s own thirst for more. That’s what possessed her that didn’t possess her mother. Morena wanted more, although she hadn’t clearly defined what more meant. And in this context, it was asinine at best. When they faded, as all creatures did, she would love Briten—nothing more and nothing less. She would love him as she did now.

She stood and walked across the room to him, placing her hand on his. He looked up at her, his pupils full of the same fire that warmed their planet. If she could transfer that fire to the planet’s core, this whole problem would be over quickly. There was enough heat inside him to keep her people alive for another billion years. She couldn’t do that, though. She couldn’t set his fire free, and would she if it were possible? Would she kill him so that her people might live?

Stop,
she thought. It was another pointless thought, this one because of the current situation surrounding her. She would never need choose between Briten or her people, Briten or Bynimian. It was a ridiculous notion. He would find a way out of this, and maybe that’s why her mother accepted what she saw two thousand years ago, when Morena gazed across the room at her future husband—that he would find a way out of the problem their world was creating.

Morena didn’t know for sure, and she wouldn’t be able to ask her mother. The greatest Var to ever live no longer lived, and Morena was left here to rule by herself. Herself and Briten.

She leaned down and kissed the top of his head, holding the kiss for a few seconds.

Without him Bynimian was lost. Without him, Morena was lost.

T
he woman was petty
, a relic of the past. Chilras Hindran. She had been a part of The Council when Morena’s mother was Var. It was amazing that she hadn’t died yet, though it was clear that her green aura was not as bright as it had been even a hundred years ago. She was fading, and Morena didn’t think she would need to deal with this Hindran long.

You’re being unfair
, she thought as she stood on the balcony, looking at Chilras floating up. Morena knew she was coming, was prepared to talk. That was the thing, Morena supposed, the reason why she didn’t like Chilras Hindran. Morena had to prepare before they spoke. She had to make sure that she thoroughly investigated every possible area of discussion, because if not, somehow this Council member would make Morena feel like a child. It was never done in a way that could be brought against Chilras, but it was done none-the-less. And it stemmed from Briten. Everything stemmed from Briten with the damned Council. Relics. Her choice to wed another species shouldn’t have been tolerated, according to them. Morena’s mother, Helos, should have stopped it before it even started. But Helos was gone now and The Council left to deal with her mishaps—that’s what Chilras thought, even if she would never voice it.

“Good morning, Var,” Chilras said as she finally crossed through the balcony barrier—the transparent screen shifting to allow her in before closing behind her.

“Hindran,” Morena said. She didn’t turn to look at the Council-member, but continued to stare out at the world beneath her. “What can I do for you?”

“Your husband, will he be ready to speak tomorrow?”

“When did we schedule him to speak, Hindran?” Morena asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“Then I’m sure he will be ready.”

They stood in silence for a few moments, Chilras looking at Morena and Morena looking at the colors floating around the city beneath.

“Have you seen his proposal?” Chilras asked.

“No, I have not. I will hear it as you do tomorrow.”

“Forgive me, Var, if I speak out of turn, but is it wise to allow a Lorn to decide the fate of a Bynum? Is it wise to put such a grave undertaking into his hands alone?” Despite her apology, Chilras’ voice sounded like a stone speaking. The apology was only formality; this was her rebuttal to what Morena had done—probably hours of talk inside The Council finally summed up and put into a one sentence package for Morena to hear. This was The Council stating their distaste at Morena’s actions.

“Who would you like to work with him, Hindran? If you give me a name, Briten will invite him or her over today.” The steel in Morena’s voice echoed across the balcony, as if she had taken a hammer to the screen blocking the elements. There was no hammer though, only Morena, and her indignation at being questioned.

“Var, again, my apologies. I do not mean to anger you, but only thought that his interests…might not align with those of someone with Bynimian heritage.”

“His interests align with mine,” Morena said, turning from the screen to look at Chilras. “And I assure you, there is no one on Bynimian whose heritage matches mine.”

The two looked at each other for seconds, neither saying anything. Morena saw the cold in the woman’s eyes—a cold that spoke only of her disgust with Morena. No one else, perhaps on the entire planet, would look at Morena like this Hindran did. They either feared or respected her too much, but Chilras felt neither. She felt contempt and perhaps nothing else.

Finally, the Hindran dropped her eyes to the floor. “Of course, Var. Your wisdom knows no bounds.”

“Is there anything else, Hindran?”

“No. We shall see you both tomorrow.”

“Good day, then,” Morena said.

H
ow many times
had Morena seen the core? Hundreds? And when was the first? She had a vague memory of her mother taking her out here when she was a child, not even a hundred years old. Her mother told her,
This is our life. This is all of Bynimian’s life.
And they had stared out at it as if they both were children, amazed at what was below them.

Even now, a thousand years later, that sense of awe hadn’t left Morena.

Briten stood next to her at the precipice of the core. Their world ending, and the molten lava beneath them dying. Morena looked down where the ground dropped off into a cliff that fell hundreds of thousands of feet. Her eyes saw the red, churning heat below, and she followed it out, for ten thousand feet, until the other side of the hole shot up, another cliff—completing a piece of the circle.

“It’s beautiful,” Briten said.

He had seen it before, of course, but Lornarus had no core like this. Their world was warmed by a star, not by the core of their world. And even if they were warmed from inside their planet, it would still have been beautiful. Morena didn’t look over to him, but she appreciated his words.

Briten stepped forward, looking like he would fall off the cliff and plummet down to the inner sanctum of Bynimian, where the lava would burn his aura to nothing but a memory. He didn’t fall, of course, as the bridge started building underneath his feet the moment one lifted to take a further step. Morena followed him, the bridge falling away as her foot left the last piece of the transparent platform. She looked down, seeing directly through the material as if it were glass, instead of a design that would protect them from the heat reaching this high up. The bridge, both falling away and building out as they moved forward, created a capsule around them—much like the balcony on which Morena met Chilras—that kept all harm from touching anyone over the core. The bridge could go further down, if needed, so that engineers could tinker with the construction below.

They stood thirty feet out from the cliff, both looking down. Morena could tell he wanted to go down further, that he wanted to watch as the liquid earth bubbled up around him, splashing the capsule.

“It’s dying,” he said, not moving.

Morena didn’t say anything back.

“And there’s no way to save it,” he said. “I’ve worked out every calculation I can possibly think of. Transferring another star’s energy to the core, rebooting it, even allowing Bynums to power it like batteries. Every theory which starts promising, ends up disastrous. The math won’t work. Sometimes it ends with the world exploding, sometimes it ends up with the world floating into a cold, dead, silence. It never ends with Bynimian surviving, though.”

Morena said nothing. She had thought that would be the case. The Knowledge that Vars carried wasn’t as strong with her as it had been with her mother—but then again, no Var possessed the level of Knowledge that her mother had. Morena had her own strengths that helped make up for her lack of Knowledge—but some of it had shown through here. Briten worked on figuring out the problem, but Morena always knew that the solution wouldn’t lie on Bynimian.

“Is it hopeless?” She asked.

“No, but it will be hard,” he answered.

Morena wanted to know the plan, but two things stopped her. She would not lie to The Council, and if she found out now, then her earlier statement to the Hindran would be a lie. She also didn’t want to come in as a team with Briten tomorrow. She wanted to be there as the Var, measuring a decision as the leader of Bynimian. She wouldn’t be his wife tomorrow and if she knew about the plan now, then that would be difficult to accomplish.

“Are you ready?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“Let’s go back,” Morena said. She suddenly felt sad, looking down at the world which birthed her and all the other Bynums she was charged with protecting. This world which had mothered them all, took such care of her people. It was dying and she couldn’t save it. She didn’t know exactly what Briten would say tomorrow, but she knew that, which was enough. She couldn’t save that which had given so much to her.

“Okay,” he said, looking up to her. “I’m sorry.”

She leaned forward, placing her forehead on his. They stood there like that for sometime, the world burning beneath them, slowly shutting down.

S
even people sat
in a semicircle around Briten, with Morena in the middle. Three to her left and three to her right, The Council, ready to hear her husband’s plan.

“Bynimian can no longer sustain its heat generating properties, as I’m sure you’re all aware. Even now, in the past thousand years, the inner temperature has cooled, and we can see the effects of this throughout the world. Large blighted areas. Ice beginning to grow across areas of the planet that have never known such temperatures.”

“We know, Briten, please continue on to your solution,” Chilras said. Morena didn’t look over to the old Bynum but she could have tossed her into the core for such disrespect. Morena couldn’t show any emotion though, couldn’t show one way or the other how she felt.

“Yes, of course, Hindran,” Briten said, not showing any signs that it bothered him. “Allow me just a second more, as I want to make sure we all understand what will happen when our core dies.”

Morena leaned back so that she could see Chilras from her peripheral. The woman practically grimaced at Briten’s use of the word
our
.

“Already, the world is contracting, much like a star when it dies. Not a lot, not something that is noticeable without instruments to measure, but it is contracting. The colder the core gets, the more it shrinks, thus pulling in the outer world around it. When it finally cools completely, Bynimian will crack, and fold in on itself, growing smaller and smaller until a final reaction explodes the shrinking planet outward. All life on Bynimian will cease to exist.”

He paused, allowing The Council members to speak if they wished. No one said anything, only waited for him to continue.

“As far as I can tell, there are no options to save Bynimian. I’ve worked out every possible formula I can, and they all fail. As you can see in front of you, I’ve given you detailed notes on my process.”

“We’ve read it,” Chilras said, staring directly at him, not bothering to look down at the images he supplied to walk them through the other options.