27

  When Edric descended to the main room of Simend's home the next morning, both Simend and Dalibor were staring at him from the dining table. He froze in the doorway. Both jackals' noses twitched in the still air of the Astral husk. Edric tried to say something normal. To wish them good morning. To ask how they'd slept. To apologize for coming down in just his swimming briefs. Instead, he panicked. "We didn't do anything, I swear."

  "We can smell that, yes," Dalibor said. His voice was calm and level, which did nothing to quell Edric's panic.

  "We'd have heard you anyway," Simend said. "These platinum walls don't block anything."

  Edric's stomach dropped. "Were you both here all night?" he squeaked.

  "He slept with me," Simend said, grinning.

  Dalibor shuddered. "Don't say it like that."

  "You what?" Edric asked. It was too early for this.

  "I shared a bed with him," Dalibor said. "I'm nowhere near your size, so we had plenty of space." He eyed Edric's briefs. "And both of us kept our clothes on."

  "It was terrible," Simend moaned. "I haven't slept so poorly in years."

  Dalibor turned his calm, level gaze on Simend, and it seemed to unnerve the dancer nearly as much as it had Edric. "Sim just needed to talk to somebody he could be honest with."

  Simend's ears folded back and his tail curled under the chair. "You promised," he whispered.

  "And you promised him," Dalibor said, pointing at Edric.

  Edric's stomach continued turning loops. "Did he tell you what was on that archive?"

  Dalibor frowned at the shark. "No," he said. "I'd figured it out myself over a month ago."

  Edric began to ask what he knew but was interrupted by a voice from behind him. "I thought I heard your voice, Dalya," Sara said through a yawn. She cuddled up beside Edric and wrapped his arm around her waist. He looked down and saw she was wrapped in the cover from his bed. It dragged loose along the floor behind her but somehow managed to still catch every important curve. Edric thought he could feel Dalibor's eyes burning into him, so he looked up and blurted, "It's not what it looks like."

  "I already told you we can smell you didn't have sex," Dalibor said, rubbing his eyes.

  "And what if we had?" Sara asked with a low growl. Edric couldn't tell if the threat was pointed at him or not. He really needed a swim.

  "Then I would instead have won the bet Sim and I made," Dalibor grumbled.

  Simend snickered, and his tail began to wag. "I told you Ed wouldn't do anything." He poked Dalibor in the ribs, and the warlord sighed. "And I'll be claiming that date this evening. I even have your outfit all picked out."

  Dalibor just shook his head and glared at Edric. "Can you at least put on a tunic?" he snapped.

  "Uh…" Edric stammered. "I ripped up the one I was wearing. Where'd you put my bags?" Both jackal's ears folded back, and they shared a long look. Simend whimpered, and Dalibor shook his head. Edric frowned. "Where are my bags?"

  That was how, an hour later and clad in nothing but his underwear, Edric ended up standing in front of the house he shared with Binta. The house he'd had built for Binta according to the plans and wishes she had laid out for him. The house she had made their home. The house she'd kept clean and sturdy. The house she'd filled with art she'd picked out and curios he'd brought back for her from his travels around the world. The house in which they'd spent three years of their shared lives. The house where he was no longer welcome.

  He knocked on the door, and Binta opened it for him quickly enough that he knew she'd been waiting just inside. They stared at each other across the doorstep, looking into and through each other's eyes in a way only possible for strangers who'd spent four years sleeping together. "I'm here to pick up my things," Edric said after all four years had passed again between them.

  Binta's expression didn't change. "You don't plan to stay?" she asked.

  "I do not," Edric told her, keeping his own expression stable. "I'm leaving with Sara and Dalibor. Probably for good this time."

  Some emotion that Edric couldn't place flickered around her eyes. "You're really following that girl?" she asked.

  Edric refused to allow her to provoke him or hurt him any more than she already had. "I am."

  "She's staying with you even after yesterday?"

  "She is."

  Binta let out a long, relieved sigh. "Good," she said.

  At that, Edric frowned. "What?" he asked. "Were you not trying to drive us apart?"

  "No, Ed!" she said. She put a hand to the side of her face and took a deep breath. "I was hurt. And angry. And sad, and… I was a lot of things yesterday. And right then, I'll admit I really just wanted to hurt you because I could tell you cared about her more than you cared about me. Even though I knew that we weren't…" She took another deep breath and looked him in the eyes. "We'd been done for a while, Ed." It hurt when she said it like that, but he didn't protest. "And even though I wanted to hurt you, I also wanted to make sure you couldn't lie to that girl the way you'd lied to me all these years."

  Edric blinked at her, and his heart dropped. "You knew?" he asked.

  She nodded and sniffed, staring at the floor between them. "I've known you enjoyed getting dicked down for a couple of years, yeah," she said. He winced. It still roiled his stomach to hear her say it. "That's when I tried to make sure you knew I was okay with you sleeping with Simend. And I kept waiting for you to tell me. To trust me. But you never did."

  "I couldn't," Edric told her. "I just couldn't. I'm sorry." He paused. He didn't want to know, but he had to know. "How'd you find out?"

  "Simend let it slip," she said. "That's what was on that archive Kamissa took from him. The recording of him telling me."

  It took him a moment to piece together what she was telling him, and he did not like the conclusions his brain was leading him to. "Why were you at Simend's house?" he asked. "Why were you alone with Simend? Why were you two recording yourselves talking about… that?"

  She didn't answer him. She just stared at him, her fur and tail bristled out in anger, but her eyes full of sadness. He didn't need her answer, though. He already knew, because Simend only used the archivists in his home for one reason. They'd been recording themselves having sex when the conversation happened. She'd been cheating on him with his best friend. His best friend, his brother, had been sleeping with his mate. For years, apparently. Or at least years ago. Even more questions stormed through his mind. How could they? How dare they? Had it just been the once? How long had they both been lying to him? How could she accuse him of lying to her? Why? But as the tears from yesterday began again to flow from his eyes, only one question reached his trembling lips. "Was I that bad?"

  At that, Binta looked away and tried to catch a trembling breath. "No, Ed," she said, wiping her eyes. "I just… I wish…" She turned back towards him but stared at his feet. She held her hand out to him, palm facing forward. A sob broke free from him at the gesture, but he returned it, putting his hand against hers. Their fingers twined together as they had so many times before. The gesture was familiar and intimate and painful and so dreadfully full of loss. "I wish we could meet each other again for the first time. Meet each other as the people we are now instead of who we were four years ago. But maybe we wouldn't be who we are now if we hadn't met then, and… It's just not fair. I don't know if we were ever good for each other, Ed. I really did love you, though."

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  "I loved you too, Bea," Edric told her. "Once."

  She nodded. "Once." They stood, hand in hand a moment longer before Binta blinked away her tears and stepped back, breaking their connection. "Well, I guess I need to clear my things out of your house."

  Edric gasped. "Bea! I just told you I'm leaving! Probably for good. I'm not going to kick you out of the house. I know I paid for it, but it's more your home than it ever—"

  His symbiote lurched in his arm, and the pain that lanced through him like lightning knocked the breath out of his lungs and forced him to his knees. He hugged his metallic arm to his chest. He could hear, somewhere far off in the distance, Binta shouting at him in alarm. Feel her patting some other shark's back. For himself, there was only the symbiote. And it was terrified.

  "Hide," he grunted, forcing the word out through clenched teeth as the symbiote's unchecked fear seared through him.

  "Ed?" Binta asked. "What's wrong?"

  "Hide," Edric repeated. "In the house. Hide. Don't come out."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Something's coming," he said. "Something big. Something angry."

  "Are you okay?" She knelt beside him, her face close to his. She had the most amazing eyes, green as emeralds that gleamed in the dark. He'd always loved her eyes. He did not care for the fear he saw in them, as if his symbiote had reached out and seized her as well.

  "Please, Bea," he said. He put a hand to her face, trying to comfort her and chase away that fear. "Keep yourself safe. I can't lose you twice."

  She put her hand over his for just a moment, then she rushed back inside the house, closing the door behind her. Edric slammed the ground with his metal hand, trying to shake some sense back into his symbiote. At least enough that he could move the rest of his body. The fear didn't abate, but it slackened its grip just enough that he felt in command of his own senses again. With a quick breath, he pushed himself to his feet and sprinted away. He needed to find Simend.

  He'd just begun the run to Simend's home when a locating pulse pinged within his arm. He nodded and kept sprinting. Simend was calling him through their symbiotes, and it felt like the jackal was in the harborside marketplace instead of at home. He adjusted his route in his head and kept running through the streets, shouting at everybody he passed to get inside and hide. Many did not need warnings since so many of the people of Meleko were themselves luminaries thanks to Kamissa. Even so, they were not fighters in the way Edric and Simend were. They were researchers and scholars who used their symbiotes to study Astral artifacts and maintain the relics around the city. At best they could hope for assistance from maybe the two or three guards who were augmented, and that would be it. Well, them and Kamissa, but he'd rather not involve her if it wasn't absolutely necessary.

  "Edric!" Simend called, waving to him as he approached the market. "We're over here!"

  Edric saw that Simend was together with both Dalibor and Sara, but as soon as he caught sight of his partner, a fiery rage replaced the fear still radiating from his symbiote. He ran faster at the sight of the jackal, sprinting across the distance between them to grab the bastard by the neck and lift him into the air.

  Dalibor and Sara gasped and stepped back, but Simend did not try to break loose, only grabbing onto Edric's arms to make sure he could still breathe. "You've been talking to Binta then," he gasped.

  "I have," Edric growled. "And I'm going to be talking to you after this nonsense is taken care of."

  "Well I'll certainly look forward to that," Simend wheezed. "Are you going to let me down now or do I need to get myself free?" Edric bared all his fangs, snarled, and dropped his betrayer. They couldn't do this right now. Simend landed as gracefully as if being held by the neck was just another part of his dances. "Thank you," he said. "Now what in all the names of all the gods is happening?"

  "I've no idea," Edric said. "I can't get any sort of useful answers out of my symbiote. I just know that it's terrified of something massive coming towards us from the east."

  "It must be another Enforcer. They've triggered your symbiotes the same way each time before," Dalibor said. "But the river is to the east and it's over five miles wide at this point. How is anything going to cross?"

  "Is it Navius again?" Sara asked.

  "It doesn't feel like Navius," Simend said.

  "It does not," Edric agreed. "It feels like there might be more than one of them."

  "No, it's singular," Simend said. He had his own augmented arm stretched out in front of him towards the river, fingers grasping at the air. "I have a lock on it now. Having you around calmed down the symbiote a bit. It's high, though. I think it might be flying."

  "Of course it is," Dalibor muttered.

  "Where are the guards?" Sara asked. "Shouldn't they be coming too? The entire town is panicking."

  "They're with me," Kamissa said as she and the three luminaries from the city watch jogged into the market. "They did exactly what I told them to do, which was find me first before engaging any large radiant threat. Clear the market, luminaries. Stalls and all. I want a clean plaza for this." The guards split away and began lifting stalls and awnings and tents into their air without touching them and sweeping them off to the sides of the plaza. Kamissa nodded at them before scowling at Edric. "Fisher, where are your clothes?"

  "I got distracted by the giant monster coming for us," Edric told her. "Which I was really hoping we'd be able to take care of without your help."

  She glared at him, her radiant eyepiece magnifying her right eye tenfold. "My city is under attack, and you expect me to hide with all the other cowards?" she hissed. "Worthless, the whole lot of them. What's the use of being a luminary if you're not going to use it to defend yourself? Now you two stay put. I need a better read on this horde than I could get back at my lab."

  "Horde?" Simend asked. "I only felt a single presence."

  "Then your symbiote is malfunctioning," Kamisaa told him. "There are six symbiotes out there alongside whatever massive monstrosity is setting everybody off. Now shut up and let me focus."

  The four of them watched Kamissa stalk to the center of the rapidly clearing plaza and raise her metallic left fist into the air. "I didn't know she had combat training," Dalibor said.

  "She's Ingwe. They're all trained to fight," Simend grumbled, his tail rigid behind him.

  "That's not why she's dangerous, though," Edric said. "Do you remember when we passed through her workshop on our way to the examination room?"

  "I do, yes," Sara said. "It was so full of broken relics I could barely move."

  "Most of those aren't broken. She just has them turned off," Edric explained. "Also, they're almost all weapons, and she's probably the only person in the world who knows how to use them."

  "She could level the city if she felt like it," Simend said. "Maybe the entire country."

  Dalibor's fur bristled. "She what?"

  "She could," Edric said. "Whoever the Astrals were, it's a really good thing they're not around anymore. Because they could kill us all. As in everybody in the world. In hours if they'd felt like it."

  "So we're not actually in any danger then, right?" Dalibor asked. "She can just… annihilate anything that's coming?"

  "I don't know," Edric said. "This feels different."

  "The symbiotes still assume an Astral level of power," Simend said, arm still outstretched. "That they're this worked up about something is really weird."

  "And really kind of scary," Edric added.

  "Uhhh…" Simend drawled. His eyes grew wide, and his fur bristled as he lowered his arm.

  Edric turned to look across the river. Beyond Kamissa, a massive bank of fog rolled across the water. Looking out from the roiling cloud was the head of a massive snake. At least, Edric thought it was a snake. The color of its scales, a pearlescent teal so deep it bordered black, was not a color he expected of a snake, and most snakes he'd seen didn't have sharp, bony horns protruding from their heads. Nor did they come in a size where their heads, even with their mouths closed, were larger than Edric's entire body. Edric didn't remember them levitating off the ground instead of slithering about either. But the burned-out eye sockets and the sickly green light shining from deep within its skull? That he recognized as the hallmark of a radiant beast.

  "Is that a flying snake?" Dalibor asked.

  Then another, identical snake emerged from the depths of the fog. "There's more than one?" Sara yelped.

  "No," Edric whispered as snake after snake emerged from the fog. His symbiote was sending sensical information finally, even if the poor thing was still terrified almost beyond reason. "There's only one."

  "There's clearly six so far," Dalibor said.

  But then, at last, the body of the beast appeared. It might have been Draig—scaled and tailed with two arms and legs—except for its giant size, its blackened teal and indigo scales, the odd bestial bend in its legs, and the six, snake-like heads that undulated about its shoulders, as if they were themselves slithering through the air instead of being born about by the gargantuan beast from which they sprouted. It had no wings to bear it through the air, but it nevertheless cut through the clearing sky towards them as if it were gliding across ice.

  "Son of the Sun save us," Simend breathed. "It's a hydra!"

  "Sabina!" the hydra hissed. Its voice, emanating from multiple mouths, rolled through the radiance with a venom that seemed to stick inside Edric's skull. The shark covered his ears, but it did nothing to block the voice. The hydra paused in its advance, hanging impossibly in the sky over the ships at anchor, and continued to speak, its words passing unbroken from one head to the next. "I have come to bring you home, Princess!"

  "Gallius!" Sara whispered. Edric could barely hear her, but all six of the hydra's heads turned to lock the burning green of their gaze on the young woman. She stared back, hands to her mouth. "What has my father done to you?"

  "We have made him perfect," the hydra replied. "We have given him the full power of the Star Itself! We have given him the strength we need to deliver you unto the Star at last, and in so doing, to save this corrupted world from itself."

  "I will never go with you, Gallius," Sara shouted at the former Verdant warlord. "I know what it is my father wants, and I will cut it from my own breast and smash it before I let him have it."

  "Then you must be neutralized before you can do so," Gallius intoned. "Nothing may be allowed to jeopardize the fate of the Star."

  "Psst!" Simend hissed while the princess and the warlord were monologuing at each other. "Hey, Ed! I found something you can punch instead of me!"

  Edric cracked his knuckles. "Phenomenal," he growled.