The Unfinished World (The Armor of God Book 2) (38 page)

—
blood pours from her mouth and she collapses to the grassy land. Someone else’s scream is the last thing she hears
—

Thoughts and images flashed chaotically in her mind: things that had happened and things that hadn’t happened yet: her childhood, her first day in the army, the day she met Ezra Blanchard, a large forest, a goddess, and then her own sudden death.

—
what he does now will determine all of humanity’s future and there will be no way to know if the choice taken was the right choice to take until it’s too late but it may not be too late create a fork another fork a third fork
—

She felt everything shift for a moment before the world slammed itself against her.

Vivian opened her eyes and there was only darkness. Finally, after two terrifying failed attempts, she managed to draw some air into her lungs. Her eyes begin to focus, quickly recognizing the white dot of light that told her she was no longer in control of Rose Xibalba.

The capsule’s lid slid open and she rose to the cold and windy world outside of the Creux’s Apse. It had to be something very powerful to send both Rose and Seraphim flying back. It had forced desynchronization—something she had never experienced before.

Seraphim was worryingly still, flat on its back, just a few body lengths away from her. She held her breath until she saw its Apse open, and Felix climbed out.

He yelled something at her, but he couldn’t hear him through the noise of the wind traveling across the wasteland. He raised both his arms in a V, and she knew he was all right.

She looked for the distortion, but it was gone.

Beginning to remember some of the things she had seen in that watery mirror, she was running short of breath again. It had been so quick it hadn’t given her time to be scared, but now it felt as though it had taken a piece of her away.

Just interference in the T-Core
, she told herself.
What you saw wasn’t real
.

Blind hope was all that kept those thoughts together. She could only hope she was right.

No one should have to see a vision of their own sudden, violent death.

ф

Time had become an even more abstract idea.

Ezra had seen people come and go, walk by, ask him how he was feeling. He had seen the sun rise and then fall. He had taken food from a plate and eaten it. Had seen Jena’s face looking down at him as though she pitied him.

He knew time had passed, but he couldn’t know how much.

“I really wished you were here,” he whispered.

“I am, if you want me to be,” replied Elena.

Elena hadn’t left. Even after realizing that the girl of the shifting features, who always knew what he was thinking and what he wanted to hear, was merely a symptom of his own madness, she lingered.

At least, the visions of her had become less and less common as his communion with the energy that had cursed him with madness. He considered the possibility of never approaching Nandi again—not if it meant he would have to question everything and everyone he saw.

That would be a demon he could never learn to live with, not unlike Elena.

“Can you see her?” Jena asked.

He hadn’t even seen her arrive. Ezra had found a place near Lazarus’ cradle where he could be alone. It had been the same spot where Garros and Jena had built a fire. Where he had heard her singing voice.

“No,” he replied after looking around. Elena wasn’t there.

“What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” said Ezra, and stretched his hand to touch Jena’s.

“I’m here,” she said, and squeezed his hand. “I’m right here. See? I’m here, and I’m worried about you.”

“I’m worried about me too,” he said, and chuckled.

“We’ve come so far. You can’t give up now,” she said, taking a seat on the moist grass in front of him. “You understand that, right?”

“I’m not giving up,” Ezra said. “I didn’t say I was going to give up. I just need time to recover. Something happened to me, right, and I’m not okay right now. It’s hard for me to trust anything I see or hear. The cure should never be worse than the illness.”

“If you’re blind I’ll be your eyes, Ezra,” Jena said. “I can help you if you need help; I just need to know you’re here, and that you’re not done. I don’t want to scare you, but I’m worried. I’m worried that Garros, Erin, and Akiva aren’t here.”

“How long has it been?”

“Five days.”

“That’s too long,” he replied, and saw Elena standing among the trees behind Jena. He ignored her; it was a habit he would have to practice, at least for a while. “I don’t want to pilot Nandi, Jena—I’m not ready yet.”

“I know,” she replied. “But you should get ready to get ready. Pretty soon you’re gonna have to make a choice, and it won’t be easy, but you’ll have to make it either way.”

Behind her, the ghost of Elena mimicked Jena’s words as she spoke them.

“I believe in you,” said Jena and put her warm hand on his cheek.

“And I need you to believe in me when I say that the end is very close now,” Elena finished in Jena’s voice.

Chapter 19

Into The Blue

The people had begun to speak
of a strange phenomenon happening around the still unnamed island, and the small peace they had found in there had already begun to disappear. There was a collective fear, a mass hysteria; too many people were convinced that they were all going mad, and that the promise of physical and mental safety they were given when leaving Clairvert had been a lie.

It was difficult to explain, and even more difficult to understand—no one, not even Jena or Ezra himself, knew what exactly was happening.

The general feeling was about a disruption in perception: in short spurts, people were perceiving time in uneven and ruptured ways. Thoughts that they hadn’t yet had, or images they had already seen, were flashing before their eyes as if time itself was beginning to fracture.

Ezra had had one such experience, and though it was scary and confusing, it seemed otherwise harmless. He was sure it wasn’t Hormesis, too; it had begun too suddenly and everyone shared it, not only himself.

He was still dealing with it, Hormesis, still seeing Elena appear in moments of silence, like the ghost of a loved one coming back to make contact. But Elena wasn’t that; she was just a mirage, and nothing more.

But the worst part: it was taking a toll on the two pilots.

Jena’s position of leadership had been earned and he was proud of her. Though she was his age—much younger than the eldest people of Clairvert—most of them had accepted her word almost immediately. That was precisely why he hated to see her struggle with the phenomenon.

“You said nothing would happen,” one woman yelled. “You said we’d be all right here, that we didn’t have to worry about the Asili any longer, and look at this! There’s already talk of exiles and imprisonment!”

Some of the craftiest men and women in Clairvert had already built very basic huts made from wood and mud, something they could use for shelter against the cold. Just outside one such hut, which Jena shared with two orphaned boys, four people had gathered around her.

“Whoever said
anything
about that nonsense can be quiet; I assure you no one is going to be imprisoned, much less exiled. I don’t know what’s happening but I promise it’s not the same as what was happening in Clairvert. We’ll figure it out and solve it. You’ll have to trust us and go back to your responsibilities; we can—”

“And what about the others!”

“My husband stayed behind! When will I get to see him?”

“You promised we’d all be safe!” yelled a bearded man with thick arms and a large gut, one of the people who had helped build the huts.

“You all need to shut the hell up!” Ezra yelled, standing between Jena and the man. “You all
chose
to come here with us. If you didn’t, you could’ve stayed back there to get slaughtered—”

He immediately regretted his choice of words, and he could feel Jena’s burning eyes on him.

“You chose to trust us back there and you should trust us now,” he said. “Jena said you should go back to work, and I agree; we need your help to keep us all alive.”

“And if we don’t, then
what
?” said the man again. He was half a foot taller than Ezra, probably twice as heavy and strong. “You don’t get to tell me what to do if I don’t trust that you know what’s best for me and my family.”

“But I do; I understand this place and its threats better than you, so if you want to keep your family, you should trust me and her.”

“You’re one wrong word away from a beating,
boy
,” the man said, coming even closer to him, making the threat clearer. Ezra’s stomach burned. “I don’t respond to children.”

“But you will respond to him,” Ezra growled and pointed at Nandi, who towered over the trees even when lying on its back. “And if you threaten me or Jena again, he’ll will burn you ’til you glow red.”

Once more he immediately regretted his words, and the guilt was amplified when he saw the others’ reaction. One child’s eyes were particularly heavy; Ezra could only hope he wasn’t the man’s son.

“No you won’t,” said Jena and grabbed his arm. She pulled him away from the group of people, many of whom quickly walked away as if to spread the news:

Ezra is insane and violent. Ezra threatened to kill someone for speaking out. Don’t trust Ezra. He’s worse than the monsters out there
.

“What in a perfect hell are you thinking?” Jena said, gritting her teeth.

“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to threaten him.”

“Do you have any idea how fragile our position here is? Many of them trust us, and we need to earn the others’ trust, not lose it. If we don’t take care of every last one of them, we’re going to lose them. How
dare you
say something like that to him! He lost his father in Clairvert less than a week ago—do you even know his name?”

“I’m really sorry,” Ezra said and felt a knot in his throat. What kind of monster was he becoming?

“Mordecai. That’s his name. His dead father’s name was also Mordecai. His son’s name is that, the same. His wife died in the Caduceus years ago.”

“Please stop.”

“Don’t think you’re safe from them because you have a Creux, either. If he says the right things to the right people he’s not going to care about your big brother Nandi—he’s going to kill us both while we sleep.”

“I know.” Ezra shook his head. “Jena, I’m sorry—I need to go. I can’t stay here much longer. I can’t take any of this anymore. I’m doing more harm in here than good.”

She hugged him, then put her hand on the back of his head. “I really want to hit you right now for saying what you said, but I know you’re not okay. I understand, but you can’t leave. You can’t give up. You have a responsibility here: we’re directly responsible for the lives of 171 men, women, and children. I need you to understand what that means.”

He sat down on the grass and leaned against a tree. “I’ll apologize to him—to Mordecai. To the entire place, if you want.”

“I do,” she said. “I’d like you to do that. We need them to trust us. I’ll find a way to explain those strange visions we’ve been getting. They come and go, but it scares me; nothing like that should be happening in this place—we’re not close to the Asili anymore, and Lazarus is gone.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask: since you’re the chief, have you thought of a name for it?” he asked. “For this place, I mean. If we’re going to be building a settlement here it should probably have a name, right? I’ve been thinking of it as
Lazarus’ cradle
.”

She smiled and sat down in front of him. “I don’t think we should include Lazarus’ name in it—he’s not one of the good guys as far as I know. But I do like the name Cradle. It seems fitting. Like: ‘hey, remember those kids who rebuilt civilization after Lys?’ ‘Yeah, it all started in that old town: Cradle.’”

Ezra joined her in a smile. “What about Wiege? It means Cradle.”

“I like it.
Wiege
. Welcome to Wiege. Welcome home.”

After his conversation with Jena, Ezra had retreated to the spot in the woods where he had spent most of his time in Wiege, but quickly found several people had invaded it.

He wanted to be alone, hoping not to be bothered while he thought of a convincing way to apologize for his words. If the news had already spread among the people, he would have to make a spectacular speech to make any of them see him as a human being again.

Though they had only brought a handful of people to Wiege, they had spread thin on the island, and it had become hard to find a place that was truly isolated.

In the end, the only spot in the entire island where he could be alone was in the small clearing in the forest where they had buried Captain Farren—the spot that would eventually become Wiege’s graveyard.

After all, even if they did everything right, in the end, everybody dies.