Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

J essa set her popcorn bowl on Lio's coffee table the moment the credits started rolling on the true crime show. She stood up and stretched. Lio had found her alluring the day they'd met, even though he preferred men, but the more he knew her, the more immune he grew to her lustful influence. He wondered if it was because she wasn't trying anymore or because he reserved all lustful thoughts for Bel.

"I'd better be going," she said. "See you at work tomorrow. Don't forget to practice meditation. Goodnight, honey."

Lio turned off the TV and walked her all five paces to the door. He wasn't tired yet, so he sat on the floor in the cross-legged pose Jessa had taught him and tried to clear his mind. However, his thoughts kept straying to the picnic.

No. The awareness he could gain from meditation was too important. He'd indulge in sweet memories later. Instead, he closed his eyes and focused on what he knew of Domus, like the purple mist, the twin suns, and the art a talented traveler had painted of the world he couldn't remember.

Rolling waves. The sound of the sea. The scent of the ocean. A heaviness in his chest. Loneliness.

This was no good. The memories—if he even had any—just wouldn't come. Lio expelled a heavy sigh. Despite Jessa's ringing endorsement, meditation simply wasn't helping.

He took a hot shower, climbed into bed, and turned off the light, the isolation from his meditation still weighing on him. Something formed a lump under his shoulder.

What the fuck? Light!

The lamp on the bedside table came on at his thought. He grabbed the offending thing from beneath his shoulder. Albert? The stuffed dog, in all his purple glory, hung from Lio's fingers. How did he get here? Was it because of Lio's loneliness, or had Bel somehow sent the creature? Albert hadn't been there when Lio got into bed.

It didn't matter. Lio lay back down, holding the toy close like he wanted to hold Bel, imagining he smelled Bel's scent. The unwanted solitude eased.

His parents had given him a toy of a creature found only in Domus, and he'd taken it with him every night as he suspended himself from the ceiling to sleep.

Lio shot upright. Was that an honest-to-goodness memory from before or simply his imagination, desperately trying to conjure a past? He laid back down, clutching Albert, and willed himself to remember his parents, what they'd looked like, the sound of their voices. Anything.

Nothing. He fell asleep, still trying.

"No!" Lio screamed as the Princeps tore him from his parents' arms and dragged him away. He dropped his toy, but was too terrified to make it come back to him.

His parents cried and begged, "Please don't take Cassus!"

Cassus. His name was Cassus.

The scene changed. Lio stood by the sea, surrounded by chanting Princeps. Though he couldn't make out the words, he still felt growing despair. His prison rose into the distant sky, a citadel, one of many in Domus, said to have once been used for education, but now it was bastardized into something evil. The great hall where eager students once attended lectures now housed a Princeps who'd insisted on being called the high priest and the priest's multitude of followers.

Monks, they'd called themselves.

The scene shifted until Lio found himself in that hall.

The priest cried from the lectern, "We must cleanse our world. The great Set has declared it so." His followers kneeled before him.

"Power be to Set!" the monks chanted.

The voices grew louder and higher in pitch. The high priest wouldn't let Lio chant, not that Lio believed in their fanaticism. He wasn't a Princeps, and he was considered below these people in the hierarchy. The only reason they included him was because of his Tenebris nature.

The scene changed once again. Lio stood in an office with a single, powerful Princeps, and his name wasn't Lio. Here, he was called Perditor or Destroyer. But even here, he considered himself Lio and male, as he did in Terra.

"You have an important role to play in our destiny, Perditor. Though you weren't born to greatness, you will be instrumental in carrying out Set's plans," the priest said, with dangerous flashes of color in his aura.

"What must I do?" Lio wouldn't like the answer. He never liked any answers from the priest.

"You know about the disappearances, correct?"

"Yes." Though not allowed contact with the outside world, Lio couldn't help overhearing the servants talking or reading more than anyone realized from the monks' conversations.

Sometimes, when Lio couldn't sleep at night, he heard screams from multiple Domusians. He never saw them, but he'd heard them pleading for their lives.

"Domus is dying, but citizens of our world are escaping to Terra. Great Set commanded that we all perish so that our world can be reborn. Princeps would be watched, but not you. You will go to Terra, and when the time is right, you'll set in motion the destruction there like in Domus."

Lio didn't know what the priest meant by that, but he didn't dare ask. Asking too many questions led to punishment.

"You are darkness. You are a threat simply by existing. When the time is right, you'll recall this conversation. You won't be alone. Others will be there to help. But in the end, we must destroy Terra and all our citizens. It is why the council allowed you to live. It is what you've been raised to do. It is your destiny, Perditor."

All Lio's life in the citadel, he'd heard about the great Set. Where was this powerful god? Why didn't Set make an appearance? How could the priest and monks be so callous about killing so many people?

Well, Perditor—what a hated name—would go to Terra as a champion of the people, not an executioner, and die before he caused anyone to suffer.

The priest continued, "Once you arrive, you must find a human to occupy."

"Mustn't it be a dead or dying body?" Hadn't Lio heard that somewhere?

The priest sneered. "What does it matter? They're all going to die anyway. They're human and far beneath us. Even you, a lowly Nutrix."

A Nutrix. Lio came from a Nutrix line, just like his Terran friends believed, born to heal, not hurt. And he refused to kill. He had a choice, be he Perditor or Lio. He'd make a choice.

The right one.

Maybe they should've kidnapped a child who hadn't been born with the compassion of a healer. Lio would pretend to agree, travel to Terra, and then do everything in his power to preserve that world.

"When do I leave?" The sooner he left, the sooner he could escape these elitist fanatics.

"When the suns rise tomorrow."

The scene changed again, and Lio stood before an open void created by the Princeps. Once more, they gathered around him with their inane chanting.

"Remember your mission," the priest said, waving a hand to urge Lio to step through the portal.

Lio opened himself to the atmosphere, drawing in all the essence he could. He would go, forget who he was, forget the mission, and save Terra.

With those thoughts in mind, he stepped into the portal.

Lio bolted upright in bed, memories flooding furiously through his mind. He clutched his head in an attempt to stop the world from spinning and gasped for breath, heart pounding a frantic beat.

His life raced through his mind: the Princeps arriving to take him for execution for being a Tenebris. His inconsolable parents. The deserted school isolated from Domus society except for the elite members of Set's cult.

Lio recalled the monastery and its worshippers. No one he knew had ever seen Set, but the priest said the god demanded the lives of every Domusian and even Domus itself.

The citadel, the monks… the lessons.

For days on end, Lio had heard how Domusians must appease the great Set and how to wield the power he'd gain by crossing into the human realm.

Or rather, not wield it but set it free to destroy.

They'd bound his wings so he couldn't fly. He'd watched the elite coming and going from a spot on the beach, dreaming of escape, of making the monks pay, but especially of making the priest pay. He'd confront Set, too, if he must.

But in his desperation to forget his mission, Lio had forgotten who or what he was in order to erase all the foul teachings. He would not be a weapon. He'd not be the destroyer.

He focused on Emilio and Dave and the thugs who'd killed them. Those horrid men were no different from the priest and monks, holding all life as valueless except their own and willing to kill countless victims without remorse.

Most of the murderers had been travelers who'd tainted their auras until they were little more than vicious beasts.

The priest had had a tainted aura from evil deeds and was well on the path of becoming an occisor. The goons from Vegas had crossed that line long ago.

Lio thought of twin suns and purple waves on the beach he'd lived near and had loved; it had been his only solace during his lonely life. He'd not known love since he'd been ripped away from his parents.

Well, he knew love now. Without a doubt, Bel loved him and put Lio's fate above his own, even if he'd never said the words. The day Bel lifted Lio from the burning sands, held him close, and protected him, their hearts began to beat in sync.

Someone to love him. Someone who cared. Someone Lio must leave behind. If allowed to live, Lio could harm Bel, Farren, Morrisey, Arianna, Jessa… and every single being in Terra.

Bitterness poured from him. Cassus had been an innocent child, untainted by the world, who'd never asked for his nature. He'd keep the name Lio for as long as he existed—which shouldn't be long at all.

If he ended his own life, the priest's programming might lead Lio to take over another human body—maybe even an unwilling one this time.

No. This couldn't happen. He'd not let it. This was the choice he'd been sent here to make. To save others, he'd sacrifice himself. He rose and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, hands trembling nearly too badly to zip the jeans.

"I am not a destroyer," he said aloud. "I will never be. I won't play their power games." The clock read two a.m., but he couldn't wait, not when the priest's plans could still come to pass.

Had Farren and Morrisey returned from their weekend away? Lio stalked down the hallway to their apartment, took a deep breath, and knocked. Please let Morrisey not be the one to answer. Lio spared thoughts for Bel, likely sleeping down the hall, and his heart ached. He could have loved Bel—perhaps he did already—but now must be the protector.

Farren opened the door, sleep-tousled and yawning. He snapped to attention when he saw Lio. "Did you remember something?"

Once the words left his mouth, Lio couldn't take them back. "Yeah." He steeled his resolve, pulling in a deep breath and closing his eyes against the horror he'd soon see on Farren's face. "I remember everything."

Lio said the words that would seal his fate and perhaps save everyone else: "You have to banish me."