Chapter 21

After a few hours, Luke was finished with his upgrades, if one could call them that.

And ready to climb the walls.

Literally.

That gal had activated so many systems in him, he felt more like a machine than ever, and capable of anything. He still wore that thin material over his arm and leg that she’d been experimenting with. Supposedly it would block any kind of transmission that might try to override his new, shiny programming.

He wanted to believe her.

Mori trusted her. He had to, too.

And now, he was ready.

For what, he wasn’t quite sure. But he was damn certain he could handle whatever was about to go down.

And it was coming. Though part of him thought to wait for Dumol to find them seemed, well...

“Stupid,” he muttered, and yanked some stems from the harvested field out of the ground.

“It is not foolish,” Mori said. “She will find us. I have no doubt.”

He hadn’t agreed with Mori’s plan, but it had made the most sense.

This had to end. But whether or not the plan would work...

“What if—”

“I told you. It will work.” She touched his hand. For a second. He guessed to reassure him.

Didn’t help.

“And then what?”

She sighed. “Then we hope that Ula’s modifications work.”

He wasn’t sure he liked that idea. He ran his hand down his cybernetic arm, feeling the fabric under his shirt.

“You trust her?” he asked.

Morrigan nodded. “I trust her.” She met his gaze. “And I trust you too.”

He glanced up at the ceiling—the glass dome that covered the farming zone. They were in the temperate zone, in a field that had been harvested a few days prior. Partially broken strands of wheat lay toppled over where the wheels of the harvesters had stomped them down rather than cut them. They mingled with the cut stems, making a mix of textures underneath them like a lumpy mattress.

But it was also the most open place Luke knew.

If Morrigan was uncomfortable, she didn’t act it. She kept looking up and smiling.

“What?” he finally asked her as he followed her gaze, trying to figure out what was making her smile.

Because it wasn’t him, that’s for sure.

“Admiring the view. The sunshine is so warm and revitalizing. There’s never much sun during war.” She gestured to the dome ceilings that let in the planet’s natural sunlight.

Making the fields ten to twenty degrees hotter than The Colony in general.

He was used to it. He worked in it every day. Or damn near. The novelty had worn off. Already, the heat was starting to creep up on him.

“I prefer rain,” he said, though he wasn’t sure why he said anything.

She glanced at him. “Rain washes the world clean,” she said, and turned away.

“That it does.”

He glanced across the field, part of him wanting to run. Jump. Fight. But he didn’t move. Instead, he watched for a sign of Dumol. Surely, she could find them on her little Transdot tracking device.

They probably didn’t have a lot of time. It had been a few hours since they’d left the tunnels. Her friend, Ula, had said she had put some kind of shielding on her apartment to prevent scanning, but he didn’t trust that. He knew Dumol had all her little contraband toys. Who knew what kind of goodies she’d geared up with?

He tapped his foot, his adrenalin pumping, and he wanted to burn some energy.

Though looking at Mori, he had some ideas of how he could burn more energy.

If she was game.

He opened his mouth to ask, but stopped himself. He’d quite enjoyed himself with her before, but there was a particular aspect of the sex he didn’t understand.

He’d never been with a Novian. Was the mind thing normal? He figured he’d better get this over with.

“So are we going to talk about it?”

“About what?” Mori asked.

He gestured between them. “This. What is it?”

She glanced at him. At his hand, and then met his gaze. “What are you looking for, Luke?”

He paused, surprised she’d used his name. Why he didn’t know, but it felt both strange and right, that she called him by his first name.

Like it was an honor.

Or a privilege.

Or a controlling technique that a Novian—

He shook off the thought. Learning to trust Novians was going to be hard. He had to remind himself that Mori hadn’t shown him any ill will. She wouldn’t hurt him. He trusted her.

She may be the first Novian he could say that about.

But he did. He trusted her. And even sort of that Novian who’d fixed him before. Her friend. Ula.

Wrapped in trust, though, also was the need to know... “Answers,” he replied. “You never answered me before.”

She blinked. Nodded. Sighed.

The pause made him wonder if he really wanted to hear this.

“Why did we share thoughts before?” he asked. “Because that’s what it was, right? Sharing our thoughts?”

“Yes.”

“Do you do that with everyone?”

She shook her head.

“Why me? Am I special?” He snorted as he said it, because that was the last thing he’d ever expected anyone to think of him—that he was special in any way.

“You could have been,” she said.

He could have responded. Asked more questions. But he’d learned a long time ago, if you just shut up, you’re more likely going to hear whatever it is you needed to hear.

Patience.

“I told you that I’m a Novian. A wingless Novian.”

“Yes.”

“And I told you that I made a choice.”

Recognition came to him. “Was I that choice?” he asked, remembering what they’d said before, back in his apartment. Before Dumol had shown up, ready to kill her.

“You were,” she answered.

He nodded. He had been at the mercy of an angel of war, and never knew it. That he was supposed to die that day. Truly.

It rocked him to his core.

“As a Novian, I have the ability to cross over a human to Nova, to live out their existence in service of Krevik. Krevik accepts the energy of the wounded, fallen warrior into his eternal army, and he continues his warring against those who wish to harm him.”

“Krevik is a god.”

She nodded. “A god among men.”

“And you bring him the soldiers.”

“I do. I did. I walked the battlefields. I saw the wars, how they would begin, and end, and I, like many other Novians, helped see to it that they ended appropriately.”

“How so?”

She smiled. “I do the math.”

He blinked. “Pardon?”

“I do not know how else to explain it. It is more than mathematic calculations. It is more than being a seer, because I am that as well, and this is not the same. As a Warrior Priestess, we can see every possibility of a battle, and we can direct it as needed.”

“You control the outcomes of war?”

“Not always. We don’t exactly bend free will. Merely influence.”

“In a particular direction.”

She nodded.

And bring the fallen to their god , he thought to himself. To be eternally at war. Sounded like hell to him. “What if you don’t?”

“We are punished.”

He glanced at her back. “Why were you punished?”

“Because when I touched you, I saw me.”

He blinked. “Pardon?”

“That day, before. The battle where you lost your arm and leg. You were nearly dead.” A strand of her hair tumbled down, curling around her face.

Something about that shape...

He nodded, remembering only moments of that horrible battle. Even his dreams were fragmented, torn pieces, mixed with—

“Wait. You.” Nightmares flashed behind his eyes, nightmares mixed with golden light. And the girl. The woman who’d been there, like an angel.

She nodded.

“The woman in my dreams.” He touched that strand of hair on her cheek and wrapped it around his finger. Even though he’d been around her, he only just put the pieces together. Her voice, the memory, the dreams. They merged, making a coherent memory, one that didn’t make him feel like he was trapped on the battlefield. “You. You were there.”

She nodded again. Put her hand against his on her face.

“I was there to take you to Nova. To Krevik.”

Which meant he was supposed to have died.

He hadn’t.

He didn’t understand. “Why didn’t you?”

Her shoulders slumped, and for a moment, she looked away. But when she met his gaze again, there was honesty there.

Trust.

Trust and honesty.

Something he rarely ever saw anymore.

She spoke, her words hit him hard. “Because I saw me. Through your eyes.” She squeezed his hand. “And I couldn’t claim you.”

Slowly, like a blurry picture coming into focus, he saw her, over him, smiling, in rapture, as she had an orgasm.

She was beauty personified. It was only a few hours ago, from below, in the bowels of The Colony.

It was his memory.

But it was her, bringing it up. Like he was watching it through a piece of scratched glass.

“That is what I saw,” she whispered.

“You were real. That day.” His nightmares, alive behind his eyes, but filtered—like he was watching them through the same piece of scratched glass as before. Raw, but, well, unconnected.

Everything coming together around him. Like pieces snapped into place.

“I was real. And I was supposed to take you to Krevik,” she whispered.

All the nightmares, all the shocks he had whenever he fell asleep—they weren’t just some sort of way to make his brain make sense of the war and his unrealized grief about losing his limbs, like all the doctors had said.

It was real.

A million questions danced in his mind, but really, only one thing mattered. “You didn’t.”

“You still had a future. I couldn’t take that from you. No one I had ever retrieved before still had a future. When I arrived, they were always done. Finished. Ready. You weren’t.” She choked on a sob, and her voice cracked.

Tears poured out of her, and she pulled away.

He didn’t like that.

“You did what you thought was right,” he said.

She turned and looked at him. “And how many beings did you kill from that day until today? A hundred? A thousand? The Butcher of Nova Wars’s crimes are legendary. Did you know there are horror stories about you on the Novian planets? Parents scare their children with stories of The Butcher coming.”

He knew.

He’d always known.

He’d been able, for so long, to disconnect himself from what he was in the war—it was his cyborg programming. It wasn’t him.

He hadn’t done it. He had been following orders. His body, acting out the program he’d been loaded up with.

But would there be a Butcher of Nova Wars if she had taken him?

He felt sick.

She clenched her stomach as well, like she was going to throw up again.

Were they sharing feelings as well? Sensations? What kind of connection did they have? He moved toward her, wanting to soothe her, but he wasn’t sure if he could, his own emotions at war inside him.

All he could do was force himself still. Solid and immobile, so that the emotions could pass through him.

He knew no other way to do it.

Morrigan, however, looked like she was about to rip something apart.

“Do you not understand?” she cried out. “That it is my fault! All of it. I created you.”

“You didn’t create me. You didn’t make me fight.”

“If I had done what I was supposed to, you wouldn’t have had to. And maybe Nova Wars would not have waged on for so long.”

“Was there any way your vision would have come true, had you taken me?”

She shook her head.

“Then maybe I was destined to be The Butcher.” Was that what this meant? That he was born to be The Butcher? Was that his destiny?

“Cadell,” Morrigan said.

He met her gaze.

“I—”

He held out his hand. “So, what’s our future hold?”

She accepted his hand, closed her eyes for a second, and opened them. “It’s bright and pretty.” The smile on her face didn’t meet her eyes.

He didn’t have to read her mind to feel the lie. They didn’t have a future past this.

He knew that. He knew when he’d walked into The Colony, he’d never survive it.

But he didn’t think he’d be fighting for a Novian when he died.

A noise drew Cadell’s attention to the sky.

He turned.

There was a flyer coming toward them. Several, in fact.

Dumol had brought friends.

Maybe he wasn’t done following his destiny just yet.