Chapter 47

FORTY-SEVEN

The portal spat him out inside a large cave.

Dragek didn't have time to be disoriented. He scanned his surroundings, taking stock of everything in a single psychic glance.

His soul thrummed with the power of Jade's presence. Even though there were several sectors of distance between them, he felt her as acutely as he had when she'd been in his arms.

And yet, right now, he had to close himself to her because this was not the time nor the place for becoming vulnerable. Goddess, how she made him want to open up—how effortlessly she did it.

But he couldn't afford to do that now.

He had to become the killer again—the cold, emotionless assassin. The usurpers had escaped into the past, creating an alternate timeline. He knew what would happen if he allowed them to reach Tarak.

He wouldn't even exist right now.

He would never have had the opportunity to find Jade. To know what he knew now.

To have a direct hand in something so monumental.

To travel through a portal, back in time, spanning revolutions and immense distances.

He knew he was back on Kythia. He could feel it in his bones. He felt the aura of the planet itself, both familiar and crushing.

Where was he, exactly? Near the capital? Or on the other side of the planet—the colder side, amidst the ruins and the vast mountain ranges?

He saw the fools in the distance, heading for the mouth of the cave.

With the ease of drawing a breath, he pulled his ka'qui around himself and embraced the state of qim.

He held Jade's precious presence in the back of his mind, placing a barrier between them—between his violence and her sweetness.

He could tell she resented it, but it was necessary.

He didn't want her to be tainted by what he was about to do.

He surged forward, quickly catching up to his enemies.

They didn't know what hit them. He killed two in quick succession, beheading one and impaling the other in his chest, Tarak's sword cutting through Callidum armor as if it were nothing.

The third one raised his gun and fired at Dragek—or at least, at where he thought Dragek might be. He was invisible to them, after all. One of the advantages of qim was that a marksman, no matter how skilled, would find it almost impossible to deliver a fatal shot.

He ran forward, dancing across the rocky floor, over a well-worn path in the stone. He swung his sword in a fluid arc and found the side of the shooter's neck, cleaving through his armor.

Three down, one left.

He sensed movement behind him, but he ignored it, focusing on the Kordolian in front of him.

This one had drawn his sword.

This one was a higher class of warrior than the others—he actually managed to parry Dragek's first attack, momentarily pushing him back. He wore a dark helm that completely concealed his features, so Dragek had no sense of his appearance, but he could tell he was a skilled, experienced fighter.

But it didn't matter.

They all fell the same in the end. When one couldn't even see their opponent, let alone the blade Dragek wielded, the odds were almost impossible.

In his current state, only another Silent One or a First Division warrior could give him a decent fight.

For anyone else… The ability gap was too vast.

That was the difference between his ilk and them.

That's why their side would always win.

The Empire had created them and made them into the deadliest monsters imaginable. But they hadn't reckoned with the possibility that their weapons might turn against them.

Dragek simply ducked under the warrior's vicious blade thrust and stabbed him twice in quick succession. Once, in his belly. Then, in the center of his chest.

The warrior screamed, but his voice quickly faded, becoming a hoarse last gasp.

He kicked him hard, pushing back the near-dead weight of his body from where it was skewered on Dragek's blade.

The warrior fell to the ground.

And once again, all was silent.

Surrounded by the dead, blood splattered all over him, Dragek released his ka'qui , emerging from the qim.

It had all happened very fast.

He wasn't even breathing heavily.

His sanity threatened to spiral out of control: filled with the euphoria and bleakness of violence, with the rippling, cracking chaos of the Mating Fever, and the sudden fear of realizing he was in another dimension—the past— where his actions could change everything, even her existence.

But she was here.

With him.

It was a feat that defied all the known physical and psychic laws.

She was with him, and she asked for nothing in return, even when he concealed part of himself from her.

Is this it?

Is this all I need to do?

It was probably best that he went back now.

Without touching anything else, without casting so much as a ripple in this otherworld.

He would leave the bodies of the intruders to freeze and eventually desiccate. With time, they would become shriveled and husk-like, with only their armor and weapons leaving any trace as to their identities.

My work here is done. Time to go back.

Urgency prickled inside his chest. The portal was so close. He couldn't afford to let anything get between him and the way back…

To her.

Killing them had been so easy— too easy—but maybe that was the way it was meant to be.

So when he turned and found Tarak standing there, in front of the ancient, alien structure that had brought them back through time—an exact replica of the one on Duxuth—he nearly lost his mind.

"What in the Nine Hells are you doing here?" he whispered.

He didn't even have the presence of mind to flick the blood from his sword. Normally, it would be an automatic habit, but right now…

He couldn't move.

"Go." Tarak gestured toward the portal. "Return to your rightful existence, where everything will be the same up until this point and thereafter."

"What are you going to do? You can't be here."

Tarak stood in the faint glow, his helm down, revealing his face. His head was ever so slightly inclined, a cryptic expression gracing his hard features. "I won't interfere with this world. This is the past that must remain intact for everything to progress as it should. Even you, as you are now, would not have existed without the version of you that exists at this moment. Somewhere else on this planet, there's a past version of you, just as there is a past version of me. The one thing I need to do before I leave this place is to speak with my former self."

"You're messing with the timeline too much," Dragek accused. "You'll fuck things up for all of us."

"No, I won't. Because this has all played out once before."

"What do you mean?"

"I've seen you before, Dragek. At first, I thought it was merely a hallucination. After all, my memories of the past are still incomplete and fragmented—a result of their experiments. But why do you think I spared you back then when you came so close to killing one of my people? I could have destroyed you there and then, but I didn't, because I'd seen you before."

"Wh-what are you talking about?"

"In the past—where we are now— you appeared to me when I was imprisoned in the labs on Xar. This version of you came to me and told me what I must do. That no matter what they did to me or what I became, I would eventually become stronger than the masters that had created me, and I would destroy them. When I saw you for the very first time, your face struck a deep memory within me. And then I finally put a face to the voice that had been speaking inside my head for all these revolutions, reinforcing my deepest convictions."

Dragek's fingers loosened, and the inexplicable happened—his weapon dropped out of his hand. Such was the extent of his shock. "I… I don't understand."

Tarak was as cool and calm as ever. What would it take to actually shake this man? "Before he initiated Exogenesis , Zharek created a datacube containing all my memories. We checked it. I can confirm that you did indeed visit me before, and you appeared exactly as you do now—bloodstained skinsuit, in possession of my blade. That means we've been through this loop before. Only last time, for whatever reason, it was you who reached me. You gave me a warning. I won't alter things too much. I know what's at stake. I know exactly how dangerous it is to mess with the past too much. All I'll do is give myself the exact same warning—with one extra piece of information that will prevent this from happening again."

Dragek gaped. It was the only time he'd ever been caught so off-guard, his mind imploding at the magnitude of what Tarak was telling him.

How could Tarak be so unaffected? So implacable?

"S-so what was the point of sending me back, only for you to go in my stead? I should be the one to find you. I'll go to Xar. You cannot afford to be here."

Tarak held up a hand. "No. You've done what neither I or even Ashrael could. You killed them all before they could shoot or retaliate—faster than anyone else in the Universe could. I could have taken them down as well, but not as quickly or cleanly, not without risking collateral damage to the portal—on both sides. But you've done enough. This is my responsibility now. So go, Dragek. Back to the present timeline. Back to your sarien. And trust me. Everything will fall into place the way we intended because I'm here now." Tarak turned his hand so his palm was facing upwards. "Give it back to me."

"What?"

"My sword."

" Ah. " Dragek leaned over and picked up the Callidum blade. Slowly, almost reverently, he walked across to Tarak and handed him the blood-soaked hilt.

"It's been used well," Tarak said softly. "Don't feel like you have to go with me, to punish yourself by assuming some responsibility that's beyond anything you should ever have to burden yourself with. Believe me, you've done enough. And I know this present world better than you ever could. There's nothing here that can touch me or destroy me. No door that won't open for me. No weapon that could take me down. I will be fine. "

Dragek hesitated.

One corner of Tarak's mouth quirked upwards ever so slightly. "Even when we captured you—when you were caught in the thrall of the Mistress—I knew you'd turn out all right. Not all of us are as terrible as the Universe makes us out to be. Go, Dragek."

Still, he hesitated until he felt the gentle tug on his consciousness. No doubt, Jade was reacting to the disturbance in his ka'qui, for his soul was more unsettled than ever before. What if he turned back now, and something befell Tarak? What if everything were to collapse because he chose the easy way out?

The portal was intact: ancient and mysterious, beckoning him with its dark force. Almost pulling him toward it as if this were meant to be.

As if the Universe were about to be set right once and for all.

"Why do you think we gave you so much freedom? Why we entrusted you with Jade? Why I personally chose you to come on this mission? Our past does not define us, Dragek. You're a free man now. I release you from your forced servitude to me. From now on, everything you do will be of your own free will."

Still, Dragek hesitated. He couldn't just let things go so easily.

Until Tarak raised his bloodied sword. "Don't make me fight you, katach . Even with the Mating Fever coursing through your veins, you're tired now. Too tired to best me, and I'd rather have you awake as you walk through the tesseract. Otherwise, I'll toss your unconscious body through there. Jade would not be happy."

The pull on his soul became stronger, and Dragek realized Tarak's words were indeed true. He was tired, more so than he'd realized. "Why were you so adamant that she connect with me?"

Tarak shrugged. "Just like you, she has the ability to exist in the void beyond space and time. No matter what happens, she alone will hold the memory of what's occurred here."

"But surely, this is the first time she's done this… otherwise, she would have known."

"It appears to be. Not that it matters." Tarak raised his sword, his aura becoming cold and menacing. "Now, go. "

In a daze, Dragek complied. After all, what else was one supposed to do when the head of the First Division pointed his sword so threateningly?

He just had to believe, with every fiber in his soul, that Tarak knew what the fuck he was doing.

"Very well," he said at last. "Go well, Tarak al Akkadian. And come back to us in one piece."

"If all goes to plan, I won't even need to." Tarak was infuriatingly confident. "I am what they made me, and I have everything that is precious to me to protect. As do you."

Tch. Dragek could only shake his head in exasperation, throwing caution and restraint to the Goddess.

As he stepped into the dark entrance of the portal, a tendril of celestial energy coiled around his soul, drawing him closer to the slipstream; toward the mysterious energy that flowed throughout the Universe.

Finally, he saw how beautiful it was.

He couldn't hold back any longer. He dropped his barriers and desperately reached for her because he needed to believe that she would be in his future.

How he needed her more than life itself.

I'm coming back now, Jade. Everything will be well. Just wait for me, and no matter what happens, don't forget how you found me.

Because he couldn't stand the thought of a timeline where they had never crossed paths.

The power of the Universe washed over him, and once again, he started to fall…

But this time, she was there to catch him.