Juno’s subconscious wandered aimlessly through a dark, forbidding plain. Tall, sere grass surrounded her, the ground below dry and dusty. Overhead, roiling clouds ran from horizon to horizon, while to her left and right, golden eyes gleamed in the darkness. Juno looked fearfully to one side, glanced to the other. She knew she was dreaming, but her heart pounded nonetheless. The surrounding world was so real, so terrifying. She heard each rustle of grass, each menacing growl. A musky animal odor mixed with the scent of dry leaves and arid dirt. They were closing in on her, surrounding her.
The first shadow crept from the reeds behind. Another followed. And a third. Juno didn’t need the dim light to know what they were; her thoughts had summoned them, conjured them from fear and guilt. The first lion lifted its head, its roar shattering the silence like a bugler’s trumpet. Was it a signal or a warning? Juno didn’t know, and as her mind wrestled with the question, the pride separated to form a path. A huge, glowing shape strode through the gap between them, tall, magnificent, and rare. White fur covered its feline body, from its great flowing mane to the end of its tufted tail. Wise eyes the color of Bermuda sand regarded her without fear.
She scrabbled back, knowing it was useless. Where would she go? Where could she hide? Hunger burned in the lion’s imperious eyes; it would have her. She swallowed, retreated a few paces. The lion came forward, more measuring than attacking. Waiting for the inevitable. It didn’t wait long. Unable to contain her fear, Juno turned and ran blindly into the grass. She felt the big cat bound after her, imagined its breath on her neck, its claws raking her back. Sobs warred with panting, each inhalation growing shorter. More painful.
Swerving right, she veered onto a dirt road. Deep ruts cut through it, but she didn’t slow. If she hit one and twisted her ankle, the end would just come sooner. Sooner than what? Her legs already burned. She couldn’t go much farther. Maybe she could reach the hilltop ahead. How far was it? How tall? Frantically, she traced a line from the base to the summit, climbing over downtrodden grass and beaten earth. There, standing tall and comforting at the summit, she saw a familiar figure staring down at her.
He looked exactly as he had the last time she’d seen him. Short dark hair perfectly cut and brushed back from his boyish face, square jaw, dark eyes, and broad shoulders. His varsity jacket rippled in the air before shifting into army fatigues. His face, John McDermitt’s happy face, grew serious. He lifted his arm, offered it to her. His fist held a long-barreled rifle, cool and glinting in the moonlight. Adrenaline surged through her. She raced forward, hope building. The distance lessened, then grew. She reached for the gun, then fell back toward the darkness. For each inch she gained, she seemed to lose three. Then, incredibly, she was close. Her hand came up, grasping and flexing like a beggar’s. Fingers spread, she reached for it, reached for sanctuary and damnation, only to have a blinding light tear it away.
She squinted and blinked. Her eyes fluttered open. She saw steep cliffs dropping into a stormy sea. Above them, walls climbed into ramparts beyond which a city seemingly carved from stone climbed out of the earth.
Higo. She was back on Higo. Groaning, she pushed herself into a sitting position and looked up. Oily clouds smeared the shining cobalt sky in a dying arc that began at the closing Portal and stretched toward her like a grasping hand. Juno followed the path from its origin, down the billowing trail, and on to the fiery head directly above her. The disintegrating Go-Rheeyo sputtered like a dying comet, the hull breaking apart halfway between the tapered nose and the towering bridge. Flames sprouted from either end, trailing smoke and showering the sea with burning debris.
The shape grew in the sky, huge and ominous and heading straight for her. The starboard wing and the bottom third of the bridge tower disappeared as new explosions ripped through both. Juno flinched at the shrapnel sizzling toward her. A large section of hull smashed into the smaller pieces, igniting the fragments and blowing them away like discarded petals.
Juno was exposed, vulnerable. She tried to hide in the mah-kai’s sheltering hand, but she knew the fingers towering over her offered minimal protection. Kaidan screamed something at her – a question. An accusation. She strained to hear him, but the Go-Rheeyo’s death throes were too loud.
He probably blamed her for this, just as he had before they entered the Portal. Do I really care what he’s saying? This wasn’t her fault; it was his. He was the aggressor; he started the war. And for what? Personal justice? That wasn’t a reason to sacrifice so many lives. She glanced up at the wreckage. A part of her hoped it would slam into Kaidan’s armor and take Haven’s leader and his war with it. That turned out to be wishful thinking; the mah-kai banked away long before Juno felt the heat from the first flaming pieces. Not that the change increased her survival chances.
The once-flat palm tilted sickeningly, and she began an ominous slide toward one edge. Digging her rubber shoes into the metal barely slowed her skid. She slammed her hands down, felt them burn. Wide blue skies opened before her, drawing closer. How far was it? Juno swallowed and redoubled her efforts. Her first foot hit open sky just as Kaidan rolled again. This time, the mah-kai’s free hand came up to cover the one holding her.
Juno was grateful for the protection, but it didn’t stop her from tumbling back across the palm and slamming into one of the cupped fingers. Pain radiated from her left shoulder and again at her elbows. It was better than the alternative. Not that she had to worry about it. The mech had already leveled out. The air quieted, and the hand sheltering her withdrew.
Warm air assaulted her body. Smoke threaded through it, blistering heat intermittently spiking then falling. Juno knew both came from the Go-Rheeyo, even if she couldn’t still see it. Nothing else moved in the sky, not bird, or mah-kai, or cloud. The flagship was the only object she’d seen, and the black trail before her marked its descent better than any beacon. She wondered about that, wondered where the Riders had gone. They entered the Pathways before Kaidan but were nowhere to be seen. The Go-Rheeyo had been directly above and falling toward them. That it followed the mah-kai into the Portal wasn’t a surprise; the Riders’ absence however...
She held onto the mah-kai’s finger, hauled herself to her feet, and scanned the skies. Nothing above, ahead, or behind... Which only left down. She swallowed uncomfortably. The Go-Rheeyo was down there, and she didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to know what happened to the crew. If I don’t, who will? Kaidan? She couldn’t trust him to tell the story without alteration. The dead deserved better than that, their families too. Without her, they’d have no witnesses. Fear shackled her, and she fought it. Come on, Juno, she thought. You can do this. Her head dipped, her chin lowered. She looked to the horizon to steady her nerves and slowly inched her unwilling gaze toward the sea.
Red flickered inside the blackness like embers in charcoal, but the clouds were too thick for her to see more than the occasional flashes of metal. She heard them, though, heard every deathly rattle. Her voice joined the symphony in a long and piercing wail, a desperate aria, a eulogy. She cried for the future the crew would never have. The unfulfilled wishes and dashed dreams. At first, she couldn’t bring herself to look, and now she couldn’t look away – not when the Go-Rheeyo smashed into the seas, not when it broke apart.
To its left, a gigantic wall climbed out of the waves, and beyond that a large city sprawled inland, its graceful spires bright in the morning sunshine. A large crowd had gathered around the parapets. Men, women, and children stared out with ashen faces and tortured expressions. A few turned in her direction and pointed. More followed. Panic rippled through them, and before long, they backed away, slowly at first but gaining speed as they retreated like the tide below.
Kaidan ignored the scene, rolled away, and aimed for the sprawling cluster of buildings and towers at the rear wall. There, a giant keep dominated a large citadel. Brown stone climbed upward in the series of subtle ledges, hidden parapets, and discreet windows. Flying arches that might have been carved by the wind joined the towers to other turrets. The roof was cut at irregular angles that reminded Juno of the American southwest.
Like Haven, the city’s organic beauty took her breath away. She thought of Baiyren running from his home and going to hers. Did he feel the same wonder about Earth? She didn’t think so. For him, it was a sanctuary, a place to forget the past and start over. She couldn’t blame him for that. Higo’s war revolved around him, not because of anything he did, but because he existed. Would she have done the same in his place? She gnawed on her lip, uncertain. She’d never been in a position where people lived or died because of her decisions. The thought sobered her, explained the sadness she saw behind his eyes.
He’d been getting better too, but that was before Higo’s war caught up with him. Looking up, she stared at Kaidan’s mah-kai, and her anger died. Baiyren’s brother grieved too, he just dealt with it differently. When she first met Kaidan, she assumed he was emotionally stronger, but she didn’t think so now. He was the charging lion from her dream, a deeply wounded one. Had anyone tried to heal him?
She doubted it.
Sycophants and enablers surrounded rulers, something she’d experienced firsthand with her father. People who wanted or needed something, people afraid to confront or contradict. Miko could stand up to Kaidan, but the high priestess obviously chose not to. His rage fueled her revolution; she’d never defuse it.
Which left… Who? Who could reason with him? Who could make him pull back? Miko wouldn’t and Isshi hadn’t been able to. Kaidan shrugged off Juno’s attempts, both on the Go-Rheeyo and after. He didn’t listen to her then, and she doubted he would now. Her faith in diplomacy died with Isshi, her naivety along with it. Unfortunately for the people in the city, she was all they had.
Releasing the mah-kai’s finger, she drew a deep breath and was about to speak when Kaidan hurled the mech’s free hand into the tower wall. Stone cracked and a large section opened behind it. A young man, no more than a boy, in a light brown robe fell from the tower. Terror played across his youthful face as he lost his balance and toppled over. An older woman with iron-gray hair pulled severely into a bun raced over, barely stopping before she reached the hole. She wore a charcoal dress that hung loosely on her pudgy frame. Her hands covered her mouth, her eyes tearing. Carefully, she slid forward one inch at a time. She was careful enough, or would have been if the floor above hadn’t come crashing down upon her.
Red spray joined the flying dust, sickening Juno. Her stomach heaved. She tried to scream, but shock paralyzed everything but her eyes and her mind. Those tortured her, revealing her helplessness.
“I know you’re in there!” Kaidan bellowed. He cocked the mah-kai’s arm and launched another strike at the keep. The stone beneath cracked and tore free. Large chunks slammed into a low building at the tower’s base; dust flumed, and dark liquid oozed from the rubble. “Show yourself! Come out and face me!” The mah-kai drew its arm back a third time, but instead of launching its fist into the turret, the armor paused.
Juno wrenched her eyes from the pooling liquid and stared into the darkened keep. Something moved inside, something important enough to earn a reprieve. Gradually, a gaunt, shambling man in white robes emerged from the shadows. His proud, regal face and sharp eyes seemed at odds with his shrunken frame, but when he spoke, his voice was surprisingly strong.
“That was unnecessary, Kaidan.” The man gestured, first at the ruined siding, then at the bloodstained rubble far below. “I can’t move quickly, thanks to the gift the church’s craftsman prepared for me.” He shook his head sadly. “I’ll admit… I’m surprised to see you. I didn’t think you wanted to do this yourself.”
The mah-kai’s arm whipped past Juno and slammed harmlessly into the wall to the man’s right. Startled, she lost her footing and would have fallen if not for the tight hold she had on the metal finger to her left.
“How dare you lecture me about morality? You took an innocent girl from the city and turned her into a prostitute. Everyone knows it.” Kaidan opened the armored breastplate and thrust his body forward. The restraints dug into his robes, pulling him back. “Were you relieved to hear she died, your majesty? Was it good to be rid of that particular problem?”
“We’ve all done things we’re ashamed of. Or should be.” Smiling sadly, the king hooked his fingers through the slender golden chain around his neck and pulled. A pendant similar to the Heartstone appeared from his robes. “You are better than this, my son.”
Kaidan’s expression darkened. “You can’t trace any of that to me,” he said defensively. “All you have is the word of a mercenary.”
“I have more than that.” King Tallaenaq lowered his head and shook it. Grief lined his thin face. He inhaled deeply, a raspy sound, more like a death rattle than a breath. “Fifty years ago, while working a mine in the Rake, a group of researchers from the church unearthed a vein of glowing metal. They’d never seen anything like it and were curious about its properties. Their leader took a small sample back to their labs for study.” The king’s head came up, his eyes bright, though pained. “The entire team died within a week, and the technicians working on the material followed days later. The high priest immediately ordered the researchers to return the metal, seal the mine, and destroy anything associated with it. No one was to know it existed. Not ever. Only one record remained. The one I keep in my library.”
Kaidan paled. Juno knew guilt when she saw it, and despite his best efforts, Kaidan looked like a boy who had hit a ball through his neighbor’s window. “How did you find out?”
The king pushed closer to the edge of the tower. A dizzy drop lay beneath him. “As fate would have it, Baiyren had a device that detected radiation. He knew as soon as he came to see me. I didn’t believe him; I didn’t want to believe him.” He let go of the torn brick, his eyes misting. “I knew what you were doing at Haven; I knew about your army and how you co-opted the Riders. Regan urged me to stop you, and against my better judgment, I left you alone. I know what it’s like to have blood on your hands; I didn’t want that for you. It’s why I let you get this close. I won’t let you kill me, Kaidan. I won’t let you live with that guilt.”
Juno’s chest seized. She cursed. Why didn’t she see it? A part of her wondered where the city’s defenders had been. And now she knew. Helplessly, she watched the king spread his arms and lean forward. He smiled through tears and nodded.
“I’m sorry, my son. Sorry for so many things. I’ll always regret what I did to your mother, what we all did. Understand, though, that I had you because of it, and I wouldn’t change that – not for anything. You’re my boy, my little Kaidan. I hope one day you’ll remember how much I loved you.”
It was over in seconds. One moment, the king floated in the air, the wind keeping his slight body aloft like an autumn leaf. Then, after what felt like an eternity, he dropped from sight and disappeared into the ruin below.