Chapter 9

Nicholas had known better than to trust Alexandra completely but it turned out that their beheaded God hadn't trusted Mikhail as much as Mikhail once thought, either. Was he as unhinged and as assumptive as Alexandra suggested? Why didn't Nicholas tell him what he'd done with the real vials of Newt's blood? The only thing Mikhail could do was walk the path of the Maze, amongst the stone ruins and rampant ivy, and try to decode where Nicholas had deposited the Cure. There were a hundred places he could have hid something if he meant for Mikhail to find it, but none of them were checking out. And Nicholas had been the telepathic one—not Mikhail. The best he could do was sit and meditate and hope a vision of the Cure's concealment would come to him.

The blood in his body still boiled deep with anger and a heat that reminded him of the sweltering inflammation he'd endured when he had the Flare. He breathed in for three seconds, held his breath for three seconds, and exhaled for a long three seconds to enhance his calm. He couldn't get visions of information if he were angry; only being calm and centered—or asleep—would allow his intuition to flow.

He leaned against prickly vines and mossy rocks. He closed his eyes and put his hands in his lap in the position of the first Mudra, something Nicholas had shown him: the gesture of knowledge. With his forefinger and his thumb joined, the other three fingers on his hand extended, together. Nicholas had compared it to the Godhead, to always standing together. His rage curled up inside him once again and he reminded himself that it was always supposed to be this way, he had prepared for this. Maybe not without Nicholas, but he had prepared nonetheless. For the uprising of all uprisings.

For years Mikhail had prepared without fully understanding why—until Alexandra's own Evolution became out of control. Nicholas had once quipped that he hoped he didn't live long enough to see the aftermath of Mikhail and Alexandra's love; they were once each other"s moon and stars. But Alexandra's star in Mikhail's world became too much like the sun. Volatile flares, scorching all those around her. He breathed deeply. He concentrated on nothing except clearing his mind like the clearing of the Glade. He breathed in, held his breath, and exhaled. In the open, empty, vast space of nothingness and everythingness, he entered the place in his mind where anything was possible and all was revealed.

The Infinite Glade.

Colors and shapes seemingly swirled around as if to ask him what would you like to know? He focused his thoughts on the vials of Newt's blood and the Cure and waited, but nothing appeared. The only time this happened—when he wasn't able to see anything in his mind's eye—was when he tried to conjure conflicting ideas.

Was Newt's blood not the Cure? he tried to see where the Cure was, the same Cure that had changed his blood and body back to humanity from the Gone. In the Infinite Glade of his mind, only one word grew bigger. The word was in itself a vision, big white capitalized letters growing in a sea of blackness: ISLAND. What in Crank's breath did that mean? There were over 2,000 islands in Alaska alone.

His mind itched with the unlimited possibilities. The frustratingly limitless. He had no reason to question the same man who had saved his life and raised him to power, but Mikhail often wondered if the power was worth it. Part of him still felt like a Crank inside and the pressure of being a man of Godliness clashed against the parts of him that still screamed with madness.

Show me the Cure.He hoped for a vision that held something, anything of detail. And with another slow inhale and another deep exhale, the Infinite Glade opened up to show a rack of vials, hundreds of variants of the Cure. And within the room of his vision, Alexandra walked around, smiling and directing scientists. The future was changing but the constant of his fellow God obtaining the Cure for the Evolution remained the same. How could he let her be the one in control of others when she lacked so much self-control, herself? With the anger rising up in his chest, almost a comfort, the vision evaporated before his eyes. It didn't matter. He had seen all he needed to see.

With no clear path, he would plow his own. And it would be a war path.

A war like Alaska had never seen before. Maybe the world.

He walked toward a patch of light that shone down into the dark, damp tunnel. The light. Where the outside world leaked in just enough to guide Mikhail toward the exit. Some people believed that a light awaited them at the end of life. But he imagined only darkness. That's why it was better to be a God in this life.

His feet sloshed through an inch of water along the stone tunnels. Water that held a stagnant stench. Sewage and mold permeated that smell, but this was a path he knew as well as the veins tunneling through his own body. Besides the entrance to the Maze and the paths that were sacred within the Glade, Alexandra knew nothing about these secret tunnels, especially the one through which he walked, now. Alexandra didn't know what she didn't know. He lifted the vines and moss that camouflaged the end of the current trail and he crawled up onto the Alaskan ground. He was outside the city limits, the sun moving toward dusk.

SQUUUEEEE . . .

The sound sent a cold wave through Mikhail's body. It sounded like a knife or an ax being sharpened across metal, ready to strike in battle, but once his brain caught up, he realized it was just the pig traps he'd set. A wild boar squealed at him again.

"Oh. Hello." He shivered with the good fortune. He'd take the poor animal to the Remnant Nation as an offering. A feast meal. He dragged the trap along, the thing kicking up dirt as the pig wrestled with the moving ground below it.

SQUUUEEEE! SQUUUEEEE!

He couldn't blame the pig for crying. Emotions were what made animals and humans alike. Fear. Terror. The will to live. Mikhail understood that better than most. In a way, Mikhail felt like crying too, not just for the loss of Nicholas, his most trusted ally, but for the future. The future looked about as worthless as Nicholas' body without a head.

Heaving with the effort, he pulled the wild pig and the trap closer to the Berg, hidden just beyond the pine trees. "Juuust a little further." He too felt like kicking and screaming. It brought him no joy to unravel the plans that awaited. The boar snorted and snotted and blew an attitude that made him question if he shouldn't do the same. He could throw a Godly fit. Abandon his plan. Stop Alexandra in a way that would be less violent. Less death. Less destruction.

But for nearly thirty years Mikhail had known his part of the New Alaska would end everything that Alexandra and Nicholas had built. Removing Alexandra would be easy, but her cultlike followers of the Godhead might take generations to deprogram. Death and destruction were a shortcut for humanity to thrive.

He lifted the wild pig onto the Berg with a mighty groan. "Just a few hours in the air, and we'll be there," he told the pig, and the animal squealed back as if it knew its fate, already. Mihail would enjoy having company on the flight, even if it was a crying, squealing, smelly mess of an animal.

Once he arrived at the Remnant Nation, he planned to do what he'd done every month for years— meet with the Grief Bearers and instruct them on the coming war. But this go-around, there'd be an escalation.

Time to end the Godhead once and for all.