Chapter 9

Chapter

Nine

T he Viathan beacon room doesn't shock me as much as I thought it would. Maybe if it was the first thing I experienced here, I would think differently, but it seems tame, sensible as this part of the capital building is all Viathan technology and metal.

99 speaks with a small man seated at a boundless control station, housing panels and screens in front of it. Three other workers sit at stations with flashing buttons and strange listening devices. They pause for brief moments, touching the little black shells on their ears as if they whisper to them, and then press buttons that are no more than bright, perfectly round pebbles.

"This is Lee, Viathan's lead transmitter to the beacon." 99 invites me to come closer, pulling out a chair for me to sit next to the man at his control panel.

"Hello, Priestess Ferren." He awkwardly stands to bow his head.

"Blessed afternoon." I smile and gesture for him to sit with me.

However, my greeting earns me a nervous laugh from him. The words are still a leftover habit from Cosima. 99 is the only person to say it back naturally. Most Viathans grant me a strange expression and then their faces tend to fall when they realize where I came from.

99 hovers as close as possible behind us, a watchful presence that feels calm and secure. It has the opposite effect on Lee as he fumbles to remove his ear shells.

"Forgive me, I—" He glances over his shoulder at 99 standing with his arms crossed.

"You are scaring this poor man who is trying to help us," I whisper into 99's mind, hoping he realizes how intimidating he is being, intentional or not.

He drops his crossed arms and goes for a more casual stance, leaning against the doorframe. When I smile, I can see a tiny shake of his head, like he had no idea of his effect on the air pressure in the room.

"Thank you for accommodating me." I lean in to get Lee's attention.

His nervousness is a welcome distraction from my own and enough to make me want to focus on reassuring him, praying it works on me as well.

"Happy to! Where would you like to start? The official requests or—" He points to a black circle with little holes forming a mesh-like surface.

There were several messages before we even arrived on Viathan, likely sent hoping the Viathan government would make August turn around.

But those did not work. 99 made sure to send word immediately of what happened and requested my stay for sanctuary. Which was made official after a meeting with the emperors and council, a law so binding not even the temple could order me to return. However, it has not stopped the guilt-fueled messages from the priestess order.

"Cosima's response . . . please," I finally answer.

Lee sighs and clicks a button, then flicks another, and the last on some circular hand device he uses which is lit from within. He glances over his spectacles at me, knowing how intently I am watching him work, and smiles empathetically.

"Ah, here we are." He presses another button, as if it is the most important one on the giant panel.

A masculine voice cracks out into the room, crisp and sudden. "Emperor Matthias, he who rules over the planet Cosima and the Estate within, has received the order of sanctuary for the individual Priestess Ferren on the bases of the threat of religious prosecution, torture, and death. Regardless of these false and unfounded threats, the order stands and will be upheld by Cosima and the Temple of the Priestess Order. May First Mother have mercy on you."

The response to Viathan's submission for my sanctuary neutralized any previous threats spoken or received by Cosima. There are not many three-worlds laws, but they are respected. We may have opposing beliefs on many things, but this standard sets us apart from First Son, and none of the worlds would dare break it.

Fortunately, the crimes committed by me and the others on our departure do not matter here. They will not be forgotten on Cosima, but they were done in an act to free me, and with the sanctuary order, 99 and the others are absolved of retaliation.

"Thank you, Lee."

"Of course." He clears his throat and adjusts his perfectly circular glasses.

"Could we also listen to the temple messages?" I say suddenly.

99 comes to stand next to my side, his amber light cushioning my nerves. He can sense my anxiety but also my need to continue as the first message did not help as well as I thought it would.

Lee flicks a switch like the act is nothing, like that tiny movement doesn't summon messages that can elicit the most vast and complicated emotions imaginable. As if he isn't giving the person on the other side permission to speak into my present reality and affect me as if they were standing in this very room.

I don't realize I am gripping the table until Lee's eyes glance down at my white knuckles. I could stop him, tell him I no longer need to hear the message that I know is coming next. Lee would think nothing of it, if anything, relieved that we are leaving and he can go back to his work.

99's heavy hand on my shoulder grounds my racing thoughts. He would never tell me to stop listening or that this is causing more harm than good for me. I have caught tiny fragments of that sentiment when I have asked him to recite the messages before, but it always comes back to understanding.

Any moment, the first message sent from the temple will play and I will hear a voice that has held power over me for so long.

The room fills with my own dread, seeming to darken the lights. Maybe it's because we are all made to wait for the person to begin or the way that even static seems to obey, going silent right before the first word.

There is a brief pause before a deeply feminine voice cuts through me in a sharp note.

"Ferren . . . I hope you reconsider." Crixa's voice strikes me in a cold slap. The highest priestess, speaking directly to me across worlds.

The way she says my name reminds me of that day we left Cosima for good. When she spoke just as my light exploded out into the room, engulfing everyone in it.

Everyone but her.

Her gifts are mysterious but unchallenged, coming to her aid to protect without any effort. The pushback of her peppery orb I felt in the very last second should have told me she was not affected like the guards were.

I suffered at the thought of hurting her before we received word that she survived, but I cannot help and wish she had succumbed to the emerald explosion like the rest of them.

Now, her words haunt me, the way she said my name, the simplicity of the sentence. I cannot escape the tone, the strangeness of it.

99 would never quote it directly, only tell me a generalization. He must have known there was a real threat in her simple words and how they can reach out and command.

"Again," I say.

Lee plays the message again.

There's an intimate inflection only present in the voice of someone who deeply knows you. She says it like she would forgive my transgressions if I would just come back. But I know it's not that simple, if true at all.

"Please play the most recent from the temple," I request, knowing the next one is another guilt-driven attempt at just that.

Lee nods and hits another button.

The voice of an elder priestess cuts into the painful silence in the room. "To the member of the priestess order, Ferren, to whom sanctuary has been granted by Viathan and upheld by the planet Cosima, hear the words of your temple. The highest priestess in her merciful wisdom has offered a cleansing ritual of your transgressions against the temple, your vows, and your priestess sisters. Return to the temple and you will be clean in the eyes of it. You will be given the opportunity to atone for your blasphemy against First Mother, and with the help of your priestess sisters, may she find herself as merciful as your highest. Failure to do so will strip you of your title, the vows you took, and your body's final rest with First Mother in death?—"

"Turn it off."

The message continues to play until Lee realizes what I have asked.

"Off! Please."

He jumps into action and flips a switch with shocking speed.

The feelings that come up with that offer are no longer fresh. The words sting but they do not penetrate my bones like they have before when 99 read them back to me.

We play every message Cosima, the Estate, and the temple has sent. I listen carefully to each one, trying to find a reason to ever listen to it again but falling short.

They have no power over me here, and soon they will have none over my mind. Crixa has etched herself inside me; her spell lingers and spills out into the cracks of my daily life. I will snuff her out until every emotion, thought, and deed I do is because I am doing it on my own, not because of her lingering so deeply rooted inside my mind.

"Lee, will you play the last one from the temple again please?" I ask, more determined to not let the message affect me at all.

"Happily, Priestess Ferren."

I move a piece of my hair back from my ear as if to hear it more clearly when the familiar message cuts into the room. I brush against the fern pin nestled there, right where 99 placed it. My fingertips run over the texture, and my eyes close as I remember what it looks like, what it means.

99 shifts behind me, likely picking up on my train of thought. I have felt him completely in tune to my emotions since we entered the room, so solidly tethered.

"Failure to do so will strip you of your title, the vows you took, and your body's final rest with First Mother in death." The message continues, but the words that were so recently like the cold whips across my knuckles feel like . . . nothing at all.

Stripped of my title. The one that was so looked down upon by my peers? And my vows . . . ones I took with the knowledge I knew then? I've made new vows to First Mother and myself.

The perfectly formatted threat only proves that life will go on without me on Cosima; I am not needed.

My life is here now.

"Ferren?" 99's voice is close, and when I turn, he is squatting next to my seat, my eyes level with his shiny visor.

I touch the side of his helmet where his cheek would be, and he automatically leans in like he's being sucked into my orbit.

"I heard what I needed to." I nod.

He lets out a large sigh and then grasps my chin, stroking his thumb down my lower lip like he wants to kiss me but can't. Before I can kiss the gloved pad, he stands to his full height and holds out a hand for me to come with him.

A wave of relief falls over me, and I know once I leave this room, the strange feeling of needing this closure will fade. My life here will truly start the moment I walk through the archway of this beacon room, a glow of amber light calling me to pass through.

There have been many times in my life when I thought I was happy, when I received short-lived praise from Crixa, when I got a prayer just right, or when Mary looked pleased with my work.

But this does not compare. My actual heart feels warm and my stomach flutters at the sight of 99 reaching out, waiting for me to take his hand so we can go see August, Calliape, and his father.

"Oh! There is one more, appears to have come in early this morning."

I almost break my neck turning to Lee, having completely forgotten he was even in the room with us. His tone is a little more artificial than normal.

"Play it," I say without thinking. I can guess what it says, as the messages were almost all the same.

"I should listen first," 99 cuts in, his posture returning to the authoritative stance it had when we first entered.

"Just play it." I lean back in my chair, feeling confident it's another attempt from the temple to play at my guilt or maybe my faith this time.

Lee looks flustered and stammers a few times before glancing at 99 in a silent question if my request is something he can do.

99 nods once at him.

Lee flicks a switch and the speaker cuts on. There is a long pause, too long, like the person on the other end does not know the message has started recording.

The voice that finally speaks penetrates to my marrow and sends my spine upright in my seat. A shiver runs over my skin all the way up to my now watery eyes.

"Ferren, I pray this reaches you." Priestess Thea's voice is so small and hesitant. The silence is heavy before she continues, "I had to get this message to you. Ben had to pay another guard off to get me into the beacon tower. I could not sleep until I tried. It's about your sister."

The pause is so long and painful, I open my mouth to ask what happened, if it was cut short.

"Leema is here, in the Estate . . . She is asking about you. She is pregnant, Ferren."

Just like that, the tiny thread still attaching me to my old life becomes a thick pulling cord, beckoning me from across the three worlds.

Every emotion seems to race by in the time I realize there is no more to the message, just a static noise like Thea did not know to press another button when she was finished.

Did she truly sneak into the beacon room with Guardsmen Ben to send this to me? Is this just a clever trick by Crixa to lure me back when all other methods of guilt and threats have not worked?

My gut churns, acid rising upward.

The temple will say anything to make me come back, I remind myself again.

But that wasn't the temple, that was my oldest friend.

99 is silent next to me, and when I turn to him, another cold chill runs down my spine. He orders everyone but Lee from the beacon room, a sudden demand that is swiftly obeyed as the workers all but disappear.

My chest only allows small, insignificant breaths in at once, my mind assuming I am in danger and not wanting to draw attention.

"Analyze it." 99 looms over Lee's workstation, watching his every move.

His thoughts flash violently in his mind's eye, his regret for not stopping the last message and how he should have snapped Lee's neck for not checking if there were new ones before we began.

"There is no encryption, 99th Commander." Lee shakes his head like he is not sure what to do. "It came through just like the others."

"Do it! I want to know who sent it."

"I know who sent it," I confess.

Lee presses a button and waits, lights on his screen slowly filling a circle like in time it will be complete. The sounds it emits while it processes is a grating tick.

"The temple will do anything and use anyone to get you to come back," 99 says, still staring at the screen, so focused and determined the harshness in his voice speaking to Lee bleeds through in his words to me.

He thinks the temple sent the message, perhaps faked or even forced Thea to send it as a manipulation tactic.

If that is true, then Thea is participating in that deception. Thea would not lie to me. However, only a short time ago, I didn't think that Crixa would either.

I am not sure what I think.

"Nothing," Lee says when the ticking stops and a beep chimes its completion.

"Analyze the voice," 99 grits out, teetering on losing his temper fully.

I am lost, staring at them as they work, the beacon room that seemed safe before now scary and mysterious in all the things I do not understand.

Scratchy green lines come up on the screen as Thea's message plays again, appearing with each word she says, imprinting in a wave of information that means nothing to me.

But 99 runs his finger over certain sections, prompting Lee to bring them closer for inspection.

"What does that mean?" I implore someone to give me even a hint.

His answer is a series of thoughts through our tether on how he believes the message is in fact authentic because of the hesitant pauses of someone unfamiliar with the beacon and the cadence of her voice, how it doesn't seem she was forced.

"Thea didn't even say her own name. She knew I would know it was her." I walk to the middle of the room, putting my back to the harsh lines on the screen that dissect my friend's voice.

My head spins, no single thought or emotion has weight, only floating around in sickening flurries as I realize this was a mistake.