Pain coursed through Marissa’s body as she regained consciousness, almost bad enough to make her want to go back to sleep. Even the tiniest movements revealed new bruises and aches. The only thing that didn’t hurt was her left arm, which was worryingly numb.
She opened her eyes. The sky was on fire.
Orange-red flames and billowing black smoke hung high above her, swallowing up her field of vision. Tongues of flame lashed the air in every direction, and Marissa flinched as if they might reach down and incinerate her. Was this Hell?
She sat up, gritting her teeth through the pain. A stretch of blue sky and seemingly endless rocky terrain swam into sight beneath the inferno. Debris and more burning wrecks lay strewn across the horizon, evidence of the battle overhead. She was still on Norus II, so she had to conclude, based on size alone, that the giant fireball in the sky was the Superius. She was elated by the victory, which conflicted with her lingering state of confused dread.
Her Valk suit was in pieces all around her. Both wings had been torn off; one lay a few feet away, while the other was just gone. The armour itself had been scraped, dented, and outright crushed in many places, and the internal mechanisms weren’t responding. In a moment of clarity, she realized the helmet was still on her head, but the visor had been broken open, exposing her to Norus II’s thankfully breathable air. The armour on her left arm had been stripped away to the shoulder, and that was where Marissa saw another problem.
Her left arm had quite a number of cuts and dark bruises, but it was the shape that nearly made her cry out. It bent about halfway down her forearm in opposition to the turn of her elbow. She tried to move it, and for a brief eternity, the numbness gave way to mind-shattering pain. She dropped it immediately, breathing in short and sharp breaths. Broken, or maybe worse.
The skidding trail she’d taken to land here was gouged into the ground behind her, and she followed it with her eyes until it ended abruptly at the headless lump of the Hammerfist about twenty meters away. It had suffered even worse than her Valk suit, with both legs and most of its right arm sheared off from the impact. The main sphere of the body looked mostly intact, and Marissa wondered at the state of its pilot.
She tried to stand, but the Valk suit had become dead weight that made it hard to rise. She spread out her legs and tugged at the armour there with her good arm. It broke off rather easily after the beating it had taken. She did the same with the rest of her suit, shucking it off fragment by fragment until she could stand, dangling her helmet listlessly from her fingers.
She winced at every step she took towards the Hammerfist, but it had been the starting that had been difficult; the pain wasn’t too bad once she got moving. The ground was hard beneath her feet, with only a thin layer of dirt atop the stone surface of the plateau, so there was little give. She carried on about ten meters, then dropped to her knees to catch her breath.
A sound reached her ears, quiet as a whisper. It was a strange noise, with both highs and lows, and Marissa realized it was a voice. She lifted her helmet and it grew louder; the interference with the communicator must have stopped when the Hammer crashed. She listened closely, fiddling with the device inside the helmet to turn up the volume.
A hiss cut through the air—the sound of hydraulics, as metal slid away from metal. A panel atop the Hammerfist’s shoulders slid away, and a pair of long arms emerged from the opening. They gripped the edges, lifting Shodus out of the vehicle and setting his feet on top of it.
He was almost as much of a mess as Marissa. A gash slashed from his left temple all the way down to his jaw, violet blood dripping from his chin and onto his black uniform. Said uniform was torn and shredded in many places, the red serpent on his lapel beheaded by a tear. He stood unevenly, favouring his right leg, and the rips in his leggings revealed dark bruises on his left. His eyes were unfocused, but as Marissa took stock of him, he met her gaze and flushed purple with rage.
“It seems fate has contrived a chance for us to fight face-to-face, like true warriors,” he snarled, sliding down the back of the Hammerfist to reach the ground. “If you don’t see the hand of a higher power in our surviving that fall, then you truly are as thick as any common slave.”
Marissa shrugged off the insult, more urgent things on her mind. “Look up, asshole.”
Shodus grudgingly looked, staring up at the inferno above them. His face held a neutral expression as he took it all in, but his fists were clenched awfully tight.
“That’s going to come down on us, sooner or later,” Marissa said, raising her voice. “So why don’t we just call a truce and start running? I go my way, you go yours, and we never have to look at each other again.”
There was pity in Shodus’ eyes; a smug, self-satisfied pity. “You can’t run from destiny, coward. The only way out is to embrace it. Now fight me!” He drew his twin swords abruptly, crossing them before his face in challenge.
Marissa was caught in a whirlwind of conflicting feelings. She wondered whether she should run, or if she could even make it. But Shodus’ challenge pulled at her, the desire to fight ingrained in her. Hadn’t she come to this planet to beat this snob? It wasn’t like she could outrun him if he was set on killing her.
She sighed. “Fine. You can be god of the afterlife. Just remember I offered you mercy.”
Shodus charged her, his injured leg apparently not hindering him as much as he’d let on. Marissa dove to the side and immediately regretted it; she hit the ground hard and her body screamed. She gritted her teeth and pushed herself back to her feet, hobbling out of Shodus’ reach.
“You call me a coward?” she hollered over her shoulder. “You didn’t even let me get a weapon!” The fragments of her Valk suit were back the way she’d come, and they were her one chance to defend herself. She retraced her steps at double-speed, distantly aware of Shodus’ footfalls gaining on her. The right gauntlet, the one with the cool vibrating blade, stuck out immediately among the pieces, and she awkwardly picked it up and slipped it onto her good arm. Shodus was mere steps away before she’d got her bearings, his face contorted in a twisted kind of joy. He lifted his swords above his head, and Marissa squeezed her fist.
The blade didn’t come out.
She realized with a twist of her stomach that the blade compartment had been mangled and crushed, then she looked back up to find Shodus swinging at her.
Her reaction was quick, almost automatic. She ducked and sidestepped to the right, then seized Shodus’ arm with the gauntlet. The sword on her left swung through empty air, missing her shoulder by inches, and she brought the other to a stop with the strength of her grip.
Marissa twisted. Shodus snarled, trying to jerk free, but only succeeding in upsetting his own grip. The sword slipped from his grasp and landed flat on the ground. Caught in the heat of the moment, Marissa kicked it far out of his reach, then realized a moment later how stupid that had been: she could have used that!
Shodus tugged his arm again, and Marissa felt her feet leave the ground for a second. She let go, dodging as the other sword took a jab at her. She backpedalled, looking around for something else she could use as a weapon.
“You insolent ape!” Shodus snapped, his jaw making an unhealthy clicking sound. “These swords were forged for the shodi and no one else! If you dare to try and use one, you’ll pay for your disrespect with your blood!”
The sword had gone a long way; too far to grab with Shodus right in her face. Her fists, her feet: these were good weapons, but with a broken arm and everything else, her body wasn’t up for that kind of fight. She continued her retreat, avoiding Shodus’ remaining blade as she searched for one of her own. The sun glinted off something in the corner of her eye. She adjusted her course, backing towards the object so that Shodus wouldn’t guess what she was doing.
“Do you know what I’m going to do once you’re dead?” Shodus sneered, the gash on his face adding to an already ugly expression. “I’m going to take your head as a trophy—have it mounted on my wall back home, right above my mantelpiece. Then I’m going to find your precious Arc and I’m going to finish what I started. He’ll be a model slave, and every day he’ll serve me in my parlour, and every day he’ll get a chance to see you, to be reminded what his insolence cost him. Then I’ll whip him bloody every time he gets tears in my tea.”
Marissa fixed an icy glare on him, her mouth pressed into a hard line. She hated Shodus, she realized, more than anyone she’d ever met. Even more than the pirates that had kidnapped her and killed her mother. They were a vague memory from the past, just shadows now, while Shodus was here in the present, loud and violent. It wasn’t his threats towards her; she’d dealt with that kind of talk even before she’d been a gladiator. It was the threats against the people close to her, and the lives he’d already taken. Barnes, Samson, Orson, those two diplomats; no one deserved to die at the hands of this arrogant shithead.
She wasn’t looking where she was going, and her foot landed on a scrap of armour. Suddenly she was falling, and she landed on her rear, cringing at another jolt of pain. When she looked up, Shodus was already there, sneering down at her.
“So it ends,” he said. “Can’t say I’m not a tad disappointed with how easy it was to slay a renowned gladiator like Marissa Rhapsody. So many heartbroken fans…”
Marissa said nothing, locking eyes with Shodus as she closed her gauntlet around the object, now hidden from sight by her body. It was, as she’d suspected, a fragment of the Valk’s wing, broken down to a jagged piece of metal. Its tip was buried in the ground, so Marissa quietly wiggled it loose while Shodus readied his sword to strike.
“I’d ask if you had any last words, but who cares what a slave says?” Shodus moved in for the kill.
But Marissa was faster. With an effort that made her gasp in pain, she sprang at him and thrust the metal shard out. The tip caught in Shodus’ chest, and Marissa pushed it in the rest of the way until blood began to trickle onto her gauntlet. Shodus ground to a halt, eyes wide in astonishment. He bent his sword arm to strike her back, but a sudden shudder threw the blade from his grasp.
He slumped forward, long arms dragging across the ground and his weight resting against Marissa. He lifted his head, his face becoming a dull grey. “But my hudriss,” he gasped. “Is your destiny so much greater than mine?”
Marissa shrugged. “I don’t believe in destiny. Everything I have now I earned through hard work and a strong will, but you Imperials don’t get that.”
Shodus’ eyes began to flutter, more colour draining from his features. At the last moment, he bared his teeth and snarled at her. “I deserve more—so much more!”
Marissa let go of the wing fragment and pushed Shodus away from her. The Zulkar spared her one last incredulous look before he fell in a heap on the ground, dead as any other body she’d seen. So much for godhood.
She stumbled back to where she’d dropped her helmet, her vision warping and shaking around her, filling with bursts of colour. The pain was really getting to her now, and her limbs felt like lead. She dropped to her knees and picked up the helmet, sliding it over her head.
“Can anyone hear me?” she asked, praying the communicator could still send as well as receive. “This is Marissa Rhapsody—is anyone there?”
The burning wreckage of the Superius seemed to be growing larger above her, and the heat was making it hard to breathe. She spotted one of Corda’s battleships, bearing many scars of its own, moving away from the impact point.
A voice finally responded. “Rhapsody—this is Fredrichs. Where the hell are you? I’ve got Deltis and Black saying they couldn’t find you.”
“Where’s Arc?” she asked, not in the mood for explanations. “I want to speak with Arc.”
There was a pause on Fredrichs’ end. “Hold on a minute.”
Marissa waited, unsure if she would be hearing his voice or the news that he hadn’t made it. But a minute later, his voice was in her ear, full of concern. “Marissa, where are you? How are you doing?”
Dead. She was dead, or about to be. The Superius was at most minutes away from impact, and there was no time for a rescue mission.
“I’m fine—just a little shaken up,” she said, trying to sound calm. “I’m aboard one of Corda’s ships—not sure which. We can work that out once everything’s cleaned up. Did you find Dae Trem?”
“He’s safe and sound. We’ve taken care of the poison as well, but I don’t know what’s happened to Shodus.”
“He’s dead,” Marissa said with a finality that Arc wouldn’t argue with.
“I see,” Arc said, quietly. “Are you sure we can’t send the carrier over to pick you up? It’ll only take a few minutes.”
Marissa shook her head, then laughed when she remembered he couldn’t see her. “No, I’m fine.” She only had a few minutes left. “Look, there’s something I want to say and it can’t wait any longer.”
“What is it?” Arc asked.
Something rolled down Marissa’s cheek. “I love you, my soul.”
Arc was silent for an uncomfortably long time. “Are you sure you’re OK?”
“Perfectly fine,” she replied, nearly choking on those words. She could feel the sobs in her chest, trying to force their way out. She forced them down, refusing to let them be heard by anyone else.
“Well, then, I love you too, my soul,” Arc said, his voice becoming weak. “You’ve given me everything. I hope you know that.”
She couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Goodbye!” she blurted out, then ripped the helmet from her head and threw it in the dirt. She turned away, hugged herself, and began to weep.
That was it, the last time she would speak to Arc—the last time she would ever speak to anyone. How many people had she missed her chance to say goodbye to? Arlen, Matt, and Zurn back home. Papos, who’d funded this whole thing out of friendship. Cassandra, Fredrichs, Mela. Vis and Nue—had they made it? She should have asked, and the thought those kids might not have broke her just a little bit more. There was no time left though, to speak or be saved. She had to be content in knowing they’d succeeded in their mission, because when it came to her own survival, it was…
Hopeless. She’d stopped using that word years ago. It was how she’d kept going on Augerium, how she’d survived to make her escape to the Kinship. That word had no business in her life, and she would not let it in now. She stood, a new resolution sparked within her: she would not die without at least trying.
Sweat rolled down her neck. The blaze of the Superius radiated a wave of heat that had already hit the ground, enveloping Marissa in a sweltering haze. It was like the sun itself was coming down to say hello. She coughed, trying to get a grip. How could she get out of this if she couldn’t even think straight?
Something caught her eye in the distance, a glimmer hovering close to the ground, growing in intensity as she turned to face it. A hallucination, or some sort of mirage caused by the oppressive heat. There came a point where the light became too bright to look at directly, and she had to shield her eyes. A low hum filled the air, and when she looked back, a ship was hovering a few meters in front of her.
She knew this ship. It had been hiding in the corner of her eye throughout her journey, appearing and disappearing with a blink. It had a rounded oval shape, with multiple ridges curving along its sides. Its golden surface caught the flames above, reflecting the flickering light so that the ship shone. Marissa approached, wondering when she’d gone crazy.
Someone emerged from an opening on the ship’s back. He was tall, almost a matching height with a Zulkar, but his limbs were closer to human proportions. He was wearing armour nearly as spectacular as his ship, inlaid with intricate patterns that made it look more like a work of art than combat wear. His bald head was covered in charcoal-black skin, and Marissa thought she caught orange lines flickering across its smooth surface. The figure turned a pair of glowing eyes towards her, set in a face that looked almost human, but not quite. He bent over the side of the ship, holding out his hand.
“We must go, quickly!” His accent was neither Kinship nor Imperial, but still strikingly familiar.
“Who are you?” Marissa called out. Despite her apprehensions, she was already coming towards him.
The strange being shook his head and motioned her to hurry. “There is no time for this now. Come!”
Marissa stopped within arm’s reach of the stranger’s hand. It was as dark as his face, red lines flaring to life and fading across his palm. “Give me a name at least.”
The stranger slammed a fist against the ship’s hull. “Brother, forgive me—it’s Sorin!”
Marissa gasped. So this was Sorin—the real Sorin. He’d looked human the last time they’d met, but subconsciously she’d never thought of him as such. There had been an unusual air about him, and now she saw why. She took his hand and was hoisted into the ship.
* * *
Marissa plunked down against the nearest wall, in a daze. This was a dream, had to be. At any moment, Coach would come walking in to give her some pointers. She swept her eyes across the cockpit, amazed by the unfamiliar control consoles that curved around the pilot’s seat. She looked up through the transparent dome overhead and was greeted by the sight of the falling blaze.
Sorin was in his seat, hands working across the controls like an expert pianist with his instrument. The ship rose without so much as a shudder, and suddenly the outside world became a blur. Sorin gripped what Marissa assumed was a steering device, his jaw clenching and the veins on his face glowing brighter than ever. Marissa held her breath and kept her eye on the burning ship above them.
A sudden shape came falling towards them at high speed—some fragment of the Superius. Marissa let out a yelp of surprise, but Sorin smoothly swerved the ship out of the way. More debris rained down as the Superius came apart above them. The ship moved to avoid them, and Marissa breathed in sharp gasps. What would happen first; would they be hit by a chance piece of debris, or would gravity close the shrinking gap between them and the Superius? She watched helplessly, fully expecting to hear a crash at any moment and feel the scorching heat. But then the orange sky gave way to blue, and they began to rise. Marissa took a few deep breaths in relief. The twang of a stringed instrument reached her ears, and she turned her focus to the music filling the cockpit. Had that always been there? She looked to the tall being in the pilot’s seat, still tensed.
“This is beautiful. What is it?” she asked.
“Hidecan prayer music, from the second century of their modern period,” Sorin said in tense, clipped syllables. “Said to bring good luck. I don’t believe in superstitions, but it couldn’t hurt.”
The slow, deliberate strums of the instruments filled Marissa with a deep calm. Her confusion melted away into a peaceful clarity, her aches distant, as if her soul had been lifted from her body. She leaned her head back against the wall, gazing up into the blue sky. She didn’t understand how Sorin could look so tense while listening to this. They’d cleared the crash site, so why worry?
“Do you have a lot of music like that?” she asked.
Sorin turned slightly in his seat, fixing her with wary eyes while still steering. “I have music from across the galaxy, stretching back millennia. Some of these recordings are considered lost to history by their respective civilizations. I had a friend who was very fond of music, and he gave me this collection as a present.” He spoke with a wistful tone.
“Why did you save me?” she asked.
“I promised him I’d keep you safe.”
“You mean Fulmus?”
Sorin jumped a little in his seat, eyes widening. “He told you his name.” He put a hand to his temple. “Oh Brother, what would you say about all this? So many rules broken.”
Rules. Marissa remembered Coach talking about rules and laws as well. Rules were why he’d abandoned her pregnant mother; laws were why he’d hidden himself in her dreams instead of raising her. The fact this strange being was talking about rules as well set her mind on a strange path. If Sorin wasn’t human but could appear to be, what did that say about Coach?
“What are you, Sorin?” she asked. “Is Fulmus like you?”
Sorin looked away. “I cannot tell you anything—it is forbidden. I shouldn’t have even let you on this ship.”
Marissa forced herself to stand and stumbled over to him. She leaned against the pilot’s seat, meeting him eye to eye. “Tell me, please. I need to know, because if Fulmus is my father, but he isn’t human, then what the hell am I?”
Sorin avoided eye contact, looking up through the dome, where Corda’s ships could be seen hovering in the distance. “Don’t let it worry you. You’ll be with your friends soon.”
“Then tell me now!” Marissa shouted, digging her fingers into the padded arm of the seat. “Shodus was convinced that we were both gods—that we were so strong because of some divine heritage. He was nuts, but he was right that I’m stronger than any human should be. Do you know what makes me so strong? Because I’ve never had an answer, and the only idea I have now is that I might not be human.”
“You are human,” Sorin said, facing her again. “Half-human, at least.”
She stared at Sorin in disbelief.
Sorin touched his temple again. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but then again, you are Fulmus’s daughter. Perhaps you’ve a right to know. Your father and I are of an ancient race called Deus. By some definitions, we could be considered gods.”
Marissa was at a loss for words for a moment. Gods? Had Shodus actually been right? “Exactly what definition are you using?”
Sorin smiled at that. “Think of everything you know—your friends, your cities, the stars across the galaxy. All of it started with us. What you call the universe was once solely our domain.”
Marissa tried to conceive of what he was suggesting, tried to picture Sorin and Coach creating the entire damn universe, but she just couldn’t. “That’s impossible.”
Sorin shrugged. “Believe what you will. Perhaps it is best if you dismiss my words as deluded ramblings. Go home, live your life, forget me. That seems like a wise choice.”
Marissa shook her head. “No, I mean, how can I only be half-human? That’s not how it works. You can’t just bump two species together and expect to get a baby out of it.”
“Deus are unique,” Sorin answered. “We might not even fit the definition of a ‘species’ by the standards of mortal science. My ancestors were born of primordial chaos, the very forces of existence, simply formed from the Aether. Not all of us are born through biological unions—my father wasn’t even born a Deus. The rules you believe the universe follows—genetics and the like—are our contrivances, an attempt to create order out of chaos.”
“I see,” Marissa muttered. She’d really only understood about half of that, but she got the point; gods don’t follow the same rules as normal people. “So, who was Shodus’ dad?”
Sorin lowered his head, pressing his chin against his breastplate. “I don’t know yet, but I will find out. You need not worry about it.”
“Thanks, I guess.” Marissa wasn’t entirely buying that she was some sort of demigod. It just wasn’t her. She’d been presented with all kinds of ridiculous explanations for her strength, but Sorin’s answer was the most extreme.
They flew in silence for a time while Sorin navigated the spaces between Corda’s battleships. There was no sign that Sorin’s vessel had been detected by the bigger ships; they might as well be invisible. As they began moving straight towards one ship, though, Sorin leaned forward and hit a button on the console.
“I need you to speak to them,” he said. “Tell them to open the hangar doors.”
Marissa nodded, a little confused. There was no visible microphone, but Sorin assured her she only needed to talk to be heard. “Hello? Marissa Rhapsody here. Could you open the hangar door, please?”
The voice on the other end responded in disbelief, but the hangar opened for them anyway. Sorin began preparing for docking.
“What were you looking for?” Marissa asked, hoping to get some last-minute answers.
“It is difficult to explain. Even I’m not entirely sure what it is,” said Sorin. “Something from beyond this galaxy. We had no part in its creation, and that alone is worth investigation.”
“Did you find it?”
Sorin looked unsure. “Yes and no. I found some fragment of it, but I have my eye on the source. I did find the coordinates, and I’ll be heading there next. We’ve landed.”
Marissa blinked in surprise; she hadn’t even felt them set down. She could see the inside of the hangar through the dome, and both mercs and pirates gathering around the ship.
“You should depart,” Sorin said. “I’d like to remain unseen, if you don’t mind.”
“I won’t blab about what you’ve told me.” No one would believe her anyway. “I’ll come up with some story to explain to them what happened. Will I ever see you again?”
Sorin chuckled lightly, eyes shimmering. “The proper answer should be ‘I hope not’, but you can never know. I don’t know where my journey will take me, but I wouldn’t mind seeing you and Fulmus again.”
Marissa smiled, feeling she should say something just in case the opportunity never came. “Thanks for everything, Sorin. I owe you so much.”
She departed the cockpit, walking down the short corridor through the centre of the ship, and climbed out through the hatch in the back. More people had gathered outside, but Marissa’s vantage on top of the ship allowed her to pick Arc out from the crowd. She slid down the side of the small ship, landed firmly on her feet, and ran into his arms, which closed tightly around her.
“Ah, careful! I broke an arm!” she gasped, her face pressed against his collarbone.
Arc adjusted his hold, but didn’t let go. “What happened? Whose ship is that?”
“It’s a long story.” She turned back around, hoping to give Sorin a wave goodbye, but the ship was already gone, as quietly as it had entered.