âI suppose in the end, we donât have to agree.â
âI donât believe you.â The statement was given flatly, starkly, with utter certainty. Nobody could be loved like that and not be affected at all. If there was any force in this world that could change anything, it was that. But it didnât matter, in the end. Whether he was right or lying, he was standing in front of her, wielding this power on behalf of Solla, and that meant she needed to get through him to get to that girl. This was her burden. She had to do this No one else, just her. And deep down, she knew what that would mean, and she accepted it.
Because she, too, had been changed by that one thing.
When the rifle was pointed in her direction, Stella did not move. This was to become about their wills. If she was strong enough to do what she wanted, to free this world from its prisons, then she had to be strong enough to overcome this. No fleeing, no second chances. It was this or nothing, now or never. And she was resolved to do it. Even if it cost her everything she was.
The heat of the blast was almost unimaginable, the sheer amount of energy in it overwhelming. But Stella stood her ground, reaching out towards it. The concentration of it distorted space and time in strange ways, and she could see the edges of her fingers dissolving, breaking apart as they joined that burst. Her molecular structure was falling apart beneath the pressure, and yet she remained. She could still feel herself. Oh, could she feel.
There was no word for it. Pain was as inadequate to describe it as water was to describe rain or the oceans sheâd never seen. This was the power of the domes, contained in too small a space, and she reached for it, stepped towards it. She willingly gave herself to it, because to do otherwise would be to admit that it was somehow different from her. But it wasnâtâshe understood that now. It wasnât different from her at all. The energy disappeared, leaving the area around it undamaged, exactly as it had been in the seconds before the blast was fired.
When the light faded, nothing remained where Stella had once stood.
The blast had gone off close enough that in all likelihood, if it had detonated in the way it was expected, it would have killed everyone else in the area, and of course that included Cass and Helena, who had come to a stop when it had been fired. When the light was gone and Stella was too, Cass fell to his knees.
âStel?â The word was half-choked. âStella?â His eyes swept the entire area, but there was no sign of her. It was almost as though sheâd never been there at all. She was just gone, perhaps disintegrated by the shot from the gun, perhaps killed by some other means, but the important part was that she was simply gone.
He had failed her.
Regardless of whether any of these people believed he was supposed to be her knight or whatever the hell they talked about, he had taken it upon himself to keep her safe, and it was evident now that he had failed in that. Darcia was down and possibly dead, Stella was vanished and most likely dead, and he had no idea what was happening to Uno right now, either. His friends were falling, and the withered hope that had only started to green again in his soul lost that luster and fell with them.
And that was when the sky seemed to split open.
A massive bolt of lightning struck Central, plunging the entire building into utter darkness. The outage spread as the power systems in all of Vie were overwhelmed by the surge. Though the climate control remained in place, everything else shut down, and torrents of rain began to pour forth from the sky, drenching everything.
A soft hand came to rest on his head, and he wasnât concerned enough with it to shove her away. Helena sighed softly. This was his breaking pointâthe thing that would push him even further than he had already come. It was far from a gentle awakening, but it was needed. He was needed. When most people saw the flow of these events, they saw only the obvious players, and dismissed the importance of those on the sidelines. That was to some degree justified, but not for a master strategist like her. She understood the way in which each of them was vital and necessaryâshe would not have guided them all together if it were not needed.
âAll is not lost.â
He turned his head and glared up at her, his eyes a burning red. Yes, he would become someone very mighty indeed, one day. Mightier than any of them had been. But not yet. âIsnât it?â
When the environment around them burst into flames, Dietrichâs eyes slid to the fight on the other side of the hallway. The flames that had been travelling for Uno warped and bent, twisting around him instead of burning him, but the scientist had other things to be concerned with right now. Like what, exactly, he was going to do about Ilyana.
She wouldnât kill him, she said. Well, he was glad of that. He could not kill her either, even though logic dictated that it would be a much more expedient option than trying to figure out how to deal with her. The truth was, he believed that her refusal to kill him here had already marked her as a traitor, and Helena had probably known that would be the outcome when she sent her here. He knew quite well what happened to traitors in this society.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, Dietrich Engels was afraid. Not for himselfâhe had accepted the consequences of his actions when he undertook them, because there were other things that mattered more to him. But the idea of Ilyana meeting the same fate as he was terrifying in a way he didnât expect.
Fortunately, there were tools at his disposal for dealing with this problem. How convenient. He would not have put even planning down to this detail beyond her. She did her job so well, after all. âForgive me, Illy,â he said softly, using the nickname from their childhood. A look of confusion crossed her face before he activated his power, and she vanished, moved to the one place he knew she would be safe.
Solomon sat back, staring hard at his computer screen, reaching up to rake his fingers back through his hair. She was gone. Darcia had been wiped clean, just as the hostile program intended it. He could only wonder what would become of her now. Had he done the right thing, bringing her into a world that would never be kind to her?
The time approached when he would find out.
Because she, too, had been changed by that one thing.
When the rifle was pointed in her direction, Stella did not move. This was to become about their wills. If she was strong enough to do what she wanted, to free this world from its prisons, then she had to be strong enough to overcome this. No fleeing, no second chances. It was this or nothing, now or never. And she was resolved to do it. Even if it cost her everything she was.
The heat of the blast was almost unimaginable, the sheer amount of energy in it overwhelming. But Stella stood her ground, reaching out towards it. The concentration of it distorted space and time in strange ways, and she could see the edges of her fingers dissolving, breaking apart as they joined that burst. Her molecular structure was falling apart beneath the pressure, and yet she remained. She could still feel herself. Oh, could she feel.
There was no word for it. Pain was as inadequate to describe it as water was to describe rain or the oceans sheâd never seen. This was the power of the domes, contained in too small a space, and she reached for it, stepped towards it. She willingly gave herself to it, because to do otherwise would be to admit that it was somehow different from her. But it wasnâtâshe understood that now. It wasnât different from her at all. The energy disappeared, leaving the area around it undamaged, exactly as it had been in the seconds before the blast was fired.
When the light faded, nothing remained where Stella had once stood.
âIndeed, in this case, I can only hope you continue to think me wrong.â
The blast had gone off close enough that in all likelihood, if it had detonated in the way it was expected, it would have killed everyone else in the area, and of course that included Cass and Helena, who had come to a stop when it had been fired. When the light was gone and Stella was too, Cass fell to his knees.
âStel?â The word was half-choked. âStella?â His eyes swept the entire area, but there was no sign of her. It was almost as though sheâd never been there at all. She was just gone, perhaps disintegrated by the shot from the gun, perhaps killed by some other means, but the important part was that she was simply gone.
He had failed her.
Regardless of whether any of these people believed he was supposed to be her knight or whatever the hell they talked about, he had taken it upon himself to keep her safe, and it was evident now that he had failed in that. Darcia was down and possibly dead, Stella was vanished and most likely dead, and he had no idea what was happening to Uno right now, either. His friends were falling, and the withered hope that had only started to green again in his soul lost that luster and fell with them.
And that was when the sky seemed to split open.
A massive bolt of lightning struck Central, plunging the entire building into utter darkness. The outage spread as the power systems in all of Vie were overwhelmed by the surge. Though the climate control remained in place, everything else shut down, and torrents of rain began to pour forth from the sky, drenching everything.
A soft hand came to rest on his head, and he wasnât concerned enough with it to shove her away. Helena sighed softly. This was his breaking pointâthe thing that would push him even further than he had already come. It was far from a gentle awakening, but it was needed. He was needed. When most people saw the flow of these events, they saw only the obvious players, and dismissed the importance of those on the sidelines. That was to some degree justified, but not for a master strategist like her. She understood the way in which each of them was vital and necessaryâshe would not have guided them all together if it were not needed.
âAll is not lost.â
He turned his head and glared up at her, his eyes a burning red. Yes, he would become someone very mighty indeed, one day. Mightier than any of them had been. But not yet. âIsnât it?â
âDisagreement drives the pursuit of truth, and fear drives evolution. Both are necessary.â
When the environment around them burst into flames, Dietrichâs eyes slid to the fight on the other side of the hallway. The flames that had been travelling for Uno warped and bent, twisting around him instead of burning him, but the scientist had other things to be concerned with right now. Like what, exactly, he was going to do about Ilyana.
She wouldnât kill him, she said. Well, he was glad of that. He could not kill her either, even though logic dictated that it would be a much more expedient option than trying to figure out how to deal with her. The truth was, he believed that her refusal to kill him here had already marked her as a traitor, and Helena had probably known that would be the outcome when she sent her here. He knew quite well what happened to traitors in this society.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, Dietrich Engels was afraid. Not for himselfâhe had accepted the consequences of his actions when he undertook them, because there were other things that mattered more to him. But the idea of Ilyana meeting the same fate as he was terrifying in a way he didnât expect.
Fortunately, there were tools at his disposal for dealing with this problem. How convenient. He would not have put even planning down to this detail beyond her. She did her job so well, after all. âForgive me, Illy,â he said softly, using the nickname from their childhood. A look of confusion crossed her face before he activated his power, and she vanished, moved to the one place he knew she would be safe.
Solomon sat back, staring hard at his computer screen, reaching up to rake his fingers back through his hair. She was gone. Darcia had been wiped clean, just as the hostile program intended it. He could only wonder what would become of her now. Had he done the right thing, bringing her into a world that would never be kind to her?
The time approached when he would find out.