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The Anti-matter Legion’s busting the whole IPC ship to hell and back by the time the Express Crew shows up.
Right on time, just like Kafka said. Right when the whole cargo compartment’s about to slough off into the cold dead arms of space and really, that might not be so bad. Think about it, Yi—
—ing—
—xi—ng—
Eternal sleep. Break the glass and it’s yours. All blackness and darkness and cold sweet surrender to paradise, to—
“Oi,” Silver Wolf sails over him, the voidranger on his left disintegrating with a hiss of bursting color. “Watch your head.”
Blade lifts his sword in time to cleave the cargo containers chucked from his other side. The metal cracks cleanly and crashes into the wall, spraying the contents across the littering of Legion bodies, evaporating slow but sure into the air.
They’ll be here any minute now—the Trailblazer and Himeko. Kafka didn’t mention the girl or Welt Yang. She hadn’t mentioned Dan Feng, either, and Blade’s starting to wonder if the omission means something beyond the obvious, if maybe he’s wondering too late.
He gets his answer soon enough.
The containment doors fwip open and the Express crew comes dashing through, a whole horde of rangers flooding through the hall behind them. The woman’s drone shears rows away but there’s no end to Nanook’s minions, not even with Akivili himself swinging a bat like a sword.
“Bladie.”
Kafka’s silky voice crackles in his left ear.
“Ready?”
He senses the mara’s leash slackening, already loosening in her grip and he’s straining at the collar, ready to choke himself if she doesn’t let him go. Silver Wolf wiggles her fingers in farewell at the corner of his blurring vision, her body cubing away into a shower of neon blocks. The Trailblazer and Himeko see him now and they’re both skidding to a desperate stop before they slide into range but they don’t even matter, none of this matters, nothing but the hunt, the chase, bring it to them, bring it to them, make them feel it, that white hot terror of sleep without end—
“Alright.”
The sword crackles in his grip. Just him. Only him. Only me.
“Release.”
Let go.
He lets go.
Anti-matter Legion all look the same close and far away. He cuts down one, then another and another and another. They smell like nothing, expel nothing but garbled, mechanical shrieks when they die. Nothing compares to humanity, in that way. A person goes down wailing, kicking, screaming, fighting, clawing at his face like an animal. What he wouldn’t give for this destruction to mean something, for the death to be more than a drop in Nanook’s bottomless bucket. Kafka’s command came with terms: don’t touch the Astral Express. They need to leave this place alive.
That’s all he’s there to do.
A crash. Through the air vent comes white and green and black and Dan Heng, landing with the grace of a house cat from his fall. Blade sees him the same moment he sees Blade, eyes like hunks of unthawing ice. Surprised, maybe.
Ah. The thing inside him bares its many rows of teeth in delight. There you are.
He forgets the Anti-matter Legion. He forgets everything. Dan Feng’s here and what’s he supposed to do? Nothing? No.
“Bladie.” He can barely hear Kafka at all over the noise, over the chant of you, You, your fault, liar, deceiver, it’s all your fault, your fault YOUR FAULT, TRAITOR OF THE XIANZHOU, KILLER OF MY—
Dan Heng dodges him once, strikes his sword aside twice.
Is this it, then? He wonders. No. Do we do it now? Not yet. Wait. Be patient.
Akivili’s bat smashes into the back of his skull, but his vision only wavers for a second before he’s up again. Death works hard, but the Plagues’ Author works harder. Sirens start to wail, red light flashing but it’s not the red he wants, the one he needs.
“Blade.” Kafka in his ear again. “Stop—”
The ship keens, lurching. Gravity’s gone. Dan Heng’s back slams into his chest and the air screams with impending implosion until they’re shot backwards into sealed silence, a blinding white light.
The last thing Blade feels is the lightning-quick crack of his neck snapping as he hits the wall, and everything goes black.
-
Blade wakes up tasting blood. His limbs are rusted iron.
He must’ve died again.
Senses return in stages. He feels, next. Air’s death rattling in his lungs, hiccupping around the blood clotting in his chest cavity. There’s a hole in his ribcage. A fracture in his arm. A broken nose. He smells like bile and burnt ozone. His eyelids are too heavy to open. There’s the pant of breath, rapid, not his own. A quiet moan of pain. Fabric moving, limbs rearranging, a surprised yelp. Someone kicks Blade’s leg.
His vision’s dim. He’s still mostly blind. Darkened shadows splotch and speckle, the fluorescent IPC lightbulbs above overly-bright. Slowly, that returns to normal, too, until he sees enough to know. Sees enough to know Dan Feng’s face.
His dark hair. Light eyes. Fair skin. The room around them is small. A containment area with no clear exit, all the same shade of IPC gray and white.
His spine clicks back into place, nerves reconnecting. Blade lifts his head to find the sharpened spear tip of Cloud Piercer leveled ingot-length from his nose.
Dan Heng’s glaring down at him, shaking, blood trickling from his temple. As if you’re somehow so above all this, the voice in Blade’s head shrieks, cold and furious. As if you get to look down on us after what you did, traitor, traitor, liar, TRAITOR—
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you now.”
The mara goes nuts for the words, (kill! kill! kill!) dancing and stamping all over his brain stem, leaving their bloodied footprints everywhere. Blade feels his face stretching into a grin.
“Why in the name of every hell—” He laughs. “Would I do that?”
Dan Heng’s frown deepens at the corner of his mouth. He’s so still he may not be breathing. A comforting thought, if nothing else.
A bleating, mechanical ringing slices through the silence. Dan Heng stiffens immediately, his grip on Cloud Piercer tightening as he looks for the source.
“What is that?” he asks, probably just for himself.
The naïve façade’s even more irritating up close. The ringing continues.
“My phone.” Blade cocks his head at him, sneering. “Answer it.”
Dan Heng blinks down at him. “You have a—” He shakes his head. “Never mind.”
“Front pocket.”
Dan Heng doesn’t move. He’s still pointing the spear at him.
“Why should I listen to you?”
Blade groans. The mara and monster both cackle like it’s funny, like Dan Heng’s made a joke.
“She’s probably the only one who can get you out of here,” he growls. “Answer. It.”
Dan Heng hesitates. Clearly, he’s having trouble stomaching the fact he must touch him to do what he’s told and normally Blade wouldn’t give a shit what’s making Dan Feng uncomfortable, but right now his phone’s vibrating right against his hipbone and it hurts too badly to be pleasant. His body’s fighting to regenerate but the mara and Destruction eat whatever progress Shuhu’s magic makes. Mending and eating, knitting and eating, over and over again. He won’t die like this. He’ll just be stuck a layer deeper than he had been.
“I won’t touch you.”
Cloud Piercer lowers a fraction.
“I—” Right, blood in his mouth. He spits, iron dribbling down his chin. “—have no interest in killing you here. Take it.”
Dan Heng stares at him a beat longer. Same cold eyes. Are they? Yes. Really? Yes.
He misses Dan Heng crouching down, groping around before pulling his phone free. He taps the screen.
“Hello?” Dan Feng says.
“Hello, Dan Heng,” comes Kafka’s voice at the end of the line.
She doesn’t even sound surprised. She’s not surprised. Blade chuckles. Dan Heng shuffles away from him, picking up Cloud Piercer again on his way back. Stupid, selfish fool.
“You were expecting me?”
He’s too far now for Blade to hear Kafka’s instructions. That’s fine. He doesn’t need to know. Whatever she’s saying now doesn’t concern him. The hole in his lung’s sucking his energy like a drain but at least he has the pain and all its pretty facets: breath whistling thick and viscous, his heartbeat slowing, beating like a hammer against cloth. Blade closes his eyes. The darkness isn’t comforting anymore, but it’s better than being here.
When he opens his eyes again, Dan Heng’s at the center of the room looking at the ceiling. Cloud Piercer’s looser in his grip. He’s not ready to fight. Blade could do it now, do it quick, over so fast he won’t even know, imagine his surprise, imagine Dan Feng looking at you like you once looked at him, do it, kill him, killhimkillhim—
“And if I refuse?” Dan Heng asks, eyes coming back to him.
Dan Heng studies him. He grimaces. There’s a line in his jaw where he clenches it shut. He steps closer, till they’re eye-to-eye. Blade smiles, because it’s funny for a reason he can’t really see.
“Fine. I understand. I’ll do as you ask.”
“Excellent.” Kafka. Blade can hear her again. “Now, Dan Heng, be a dear and hand the phone over to Bladie.”
Dan Heng takes the phone from his ear, hesitating again, looking Blade over before setting the phone on his shoulder by his ear. It almost slips but Blade manages to catch it between his ear and clavicle. Dan Heng extracts his hand quickly, but it’s tempting to forget the cellphone and bite his fingers off. Anything to make him hurt, make him bleed even just a little, little more, c’mon, come here, slam your fist at his temple till there’s nothing left but mush and bone—
“Bladie,” Kafka sing-songs.
“What.”
“Oh, don’t be angry.”
“I’m not angry,” he says, boiling with rage.
“Don’t lie,” she sings again. “Remember what we said about being honest with our feelings.”
He glares at Dan Heng, hoping it’ll make him feel worse.
“This wasn’t in the script, Kafka.”
He spits again. More saliva than blood.
“Not the script I gave you, no.”
“I’m going to kill you one day,” he mutters.
“Aw, babe,” she drawls. “Not where the kids can hear.”
“It’s time we move,” Silver Wolf says, bored in the background.
“Kafka…” he warns. Blood in his nose. He blows out hard and it gushes all down his front.
“Listen to me, Bladie. Go with him.”
“No.”
“Go with him.”
The leash tugs tight. He doesn’t have to strength to push against it. Blade grinds his teeth, finds one loose and rips it from the roots with his tongue. It rolls around in the cavern of his mouth.
“See you soon,” Kafka coos, and the line goes dead.
Blade drops his shoulder and lets the phone slide to the floor with a clatter. Dan Heng jumps back, and when he reaches for it Blade hocks the tooth at him. It hits his forearm. Dan Heng flinches away with a soft, disgusted sound. It’s surprisingly satisfying.
“Leave it,” he rasps. Silver Wolf will get him a new one.
He disappears from Blade’s range of vision. “Alright.”
He returns a beat later.
“We should set your arm before we go.”
“Unnecessary.”
Dan Heng says nothing. Seems like he doesn’t want to argue.
“Can you stand?”
“Shut up.”
Blade leverages his knee up, the muscle crackling down his shin. Pain rips up his side, burns and spreads like fire across his chest and into his scapula. He grunt-coughs and hacks a hulking clot of blood onto the metal floor with a splat.
He makes it to fours—three, minus his broken arm—before the sound of air on steel swings near his ear. Cloud Piercer. Again. Again? How do you never learn, you at least used to be good at that, so good, very good at learning from your mistakes, Dan Feng.
Blade squints up at him. “I told you already—”
“Let me help you up, at least.” Dan Heng’s voice is steady, but the little tremor in his lance betrays him. “We’ll be here all day, otherwise.”
The blade smells clean, like fresh oil. He huffs and grabs the sharpened edge with his good hand. Dan Heng pulls him up.
On his feet, the difference in their stature’s clear. That’s different. No, it isn’t. Dan Feng was taller. No, he isn’t. Stop making excuses. Dan Heng’s gone tense at the other end of Cloud Piercer’s reach. Blade still holds the tip of the spear. He could wrench him closer like this. Blade senses his fear through the length of steel, soaking into the jade like foul-smelling water.
The spear cuts through his palm easy as tallow when Dan Heng pulls it back. Blade hardly even feels it. He shakes the fresh sting off, wringing his hand, smattering flecks of red against white. The entire side of their tiny room’s like that, painted in a splattered veneer of his past life.
“What happened?” He should’ve asked Kafka, but she might’ve not even told him. She tells him most of what she can, even less of what she can’t.
Which only leaves him with one other option.
Dan Heng looks him up and down. Blade leans heavy to his right—the busted rib’s making it hard to stand straight, but he just has to endure it a little longer before that ache eases, too.
“Kafka didn’t tell you?”
Blade grunts again. He doesn’t feel like answering. The force of his voice in his chest sends him staggering into another cough.
“The zone where we were collapsed. Your…comrade managed to send us through a portal before the entire area was crushed under pressure.”
Silver Wolf. She’s probably tripling her high score in Tetris as they speak.
“The problem is, she sent us to a restricted area of the ship only accessible to high-clearance personnel.”
“Where?”
“…The prison cells.”
She really does have a shitty sense of humor.
“She told you a way out.”
Dan Heng swallows. “Yes.”
“Then, do it.”
Dan Heng eyes him a second longer before retreating. He doesn’t turn his back, even as he shuts his eyes. The air goes thick with humidity. Cloudhymn magic smells like rain on grass, thunder overhead, molecules pulled taut around coils of lightning.
Just like that, Blade can see it: the battlefield past the aurumatons glowing a smoky, amber red, the sky blackened with smoke, the dragon’s unearthly blue scales like a river slicing through blackened land. Dan Feng, high above them. He’s shielding his eyes to see him from the ground, and there, the swoop of a starskiff looping around his great aqueous tail like the flash of a falling star—
The doors to their cell buzz, then slide open.
Dan Heng edges around the doorway, an eye still on Blade as he looks up, then down, the hall branching before them.
“Let’s go,” he says, quietly.
Blade takes a step forward. The floor rushes to meet him. His head smacks the ground. His vision swims again.
A touch. Someone’s touching him—Dan Heng, touching you, don’t let him touch you. He snarls and the touch is gone. Only the pain remains. Only his breath, ragged and hot against the floor. Familiar. He knows the smell.
“You were hit by a trampler’s arrow.”
“She tell you that, too?” He grits out, pressing his throbbing forehead to the floor.
“No. I saw it happen before the implosion.” Blade blinks the murk from his vision, rolls onto his cheek to find Dan Heng hovering nearby. “It may be interfering with your ability to heal yourself.”
His breath stutters, starts to pump faster. “How would you…”
“I have killed you many times before. It’s given me ample opportunity to understand how your curse works.”
Curse. Curse. No, not a curse. It’s a gift. No, it isn’t. Yes. A gift.
“You know nothing.”
“Fine. I know nothing.” Not a drop of sarcasm. He means it. “You still must let me help you.”
“I—” He raises his voice. “—don’t have to let you do anything. Leave me.”
Even as the words pass over his tongue he feels the noose at his throat tighten, tugging him forward without his consent. Get back. Come here. Come home, Bladie. His fingertips scrape against the floor, searching for purchase against the smooth alloy where there is none. He manages to drag himself a handful of feet before he can’t breathe, and he might be about to die a second time in less than ten minutes but what does that matter, what does any of this matter for when the one you live for is right there in your grasp.
Kill him. Kill him. KILL HIM Y—-XI—G
Dan Heng’s hand lands on his shoulder, cups the bone before sliding over his shoulder blade to hook beneath his arm, the broken one. Dan Heng touches him and it feels like the world’s ending. It might as well be.
Again, Dan Heng pulls him up.
He is smaller. He is. Dan Feng’s horns hit my temple. Drunk, swaying, strolling home, his hand in my hair, my fingerprints on his underarm—NO—NO—NO—
He struggles but Dan Heng holds firm. The hand on Blade’s side claws at his clothes to keep him there.
“Stop—Just—” Dan Heng’s grappling him, holding him upright and everything’s spinning and dark and shiny. “Stay still. It’s okay.”
Air shudders into his lungs.
“—it’s okay—”
The ground’s solid beneath him.
“—okay—”
They stand there, Dan Heng holding him, Blade leaning heavily into his side.
“Okay,” Dan Heng exhales, as if to steel himself. “Let’s go.”
Their going is slow. Blade doesn’t recall most of it. The trampler arrow fits into the wound in his chest like a puzzle piece, and he can feel the Abundance skirting around the burnt edges like a cautious probe around a crash site. He wishes it’d hurry up and get on with it. His gift. His curse. Dan Heng doesn’t say a word as they turn left, then right down a narrower hallway. Everything looks the same.
Footsteps. Hoofbeats. Stragglers left in the Legion’s wake. They stop.
“Can you stand?” Dan Heng asks.
“Go. Take care of it.”
He’s gone, quicker than Blade can reach for him again. He only skids half a step before catching himself, clutching that gnawing, acidic ache roiling under his ribcage.
Dan Heng’s quick with the spear. He was quicker. Shut up. He wasn’t. Yes, he was. Each slow, cloudy blink of his eyes has him spinning, racing, sliding under. The Legion’s no match for him. Nobody was. He was peerless, fearless, your inspiration, your best friend, your—
When it’s over, Dan Heng approaches him, Cloud Piercer still drawn. His breath’s a hair quicker, the rise and fall of his chest visible through the black fabric of his shirt. There’s blood staining, crawling up the pristine white of his coat.
“Can you walk now?”
He doesn’t want to come closer again. Ha. Hahahahahaha.
“Mm.”
The hall light catches when Dan Heng turns around. Blade sees it clearly now, the abacus cinched with sturdy red ribbon at his hip. Green, brighter than before. Jade. So, he has it. He’s the one with the Luofu at his beck and call.
Arbiter-General on speed dial, he hears Silver Wolf say.
For a reason kept under wraps and out of his reach, this new knowledge irritates him more than anything else so far—more than Dan Feng’s presence, the broken temple of his body, the sterile smell of IPC Lemon-Lime cleaner. How dare you? How DARE YOU? The laugh crawls out of him, punching through that hole in his lungs with a wheeze.
“Jing Yuan didn’t waste any time, I see.” He coughs. Less wet, now. Dan Heng looks over his shoulder, hardened. “He’s such a slave to sentiment.”
“Whatever you’re trying to say, leave the General out of it.”
Blade scoffs.
Jing Yuan? Blame? No. Kill? No. Kill? No. You will never hurt Jing Yuan. Do you hear me, Yi—ng? You will not harm Jing Yuan.
“He is not the one who must pay,” Blade manages over the monster’s babbling. “You are.”
Dan Heng stops and turns.
“How many times must I tell you—I’m not Dan Feng. I cannot give you what you seek.”
LIAR. DECEIVER. DECEIVER. Blade shuffles along another couple of steps before he stops, too.
“No. Only you.” LIAR. TRAITOR. KILLER. “You’re the only one. You, and me, and her…”
Dan Feng sighs.
“You’re mad.” He says it softly, like it hurts him.
I’ll show you hurt. I’ll show you. He tries to quiet it, the monster, but it’s writhing and recoiling in Dan Feng’s presence, thrashing at his insides. Come here and I’ll show you your heart still beating in my hand when I tear it from your chest.
“One day, you’ll remember. You’ll remember what you did and wish I had come to kill you sooner.”
Dan Heng draws up tighter, but he doesn’t back down. Blade feels his shattered humerus beginning to glue itself back together, exploding in reverse back to its proper place. The shifting sears like a reminder: he did this to you. His fault, all his fault.
Your fault, the monster weeps. Your fault, your fault, allyourfaultallyour—
“You will beg for death before the end.”
A hollow beat. Dan Heng lets him come closer, and next Blade blinks it’s to the sharp, icy defiance in his eyes.
Fool. You cannot escape. Run all you want. You will never escape—
“I cannot change what Dan Feng has done in the past. I cannot pretend to understand it. All I can do is forge my own path forward. Even so…” His hand closes to a fist. “I am sorry for whatever role he played in what happened to you.”
No. Hurting, hurting, why are you hurting me, stop, stop, don’t kill me don’t kill me, please don’t, don’t, don’t, J——u—
Blade flinches. Something’s banging at the door, clawing at the walls, leaving their insides plastered all over the walls. He shuts his eyes.
“I recognize this apology means little to you now,” Dan Heng says. “But it’s all I’m able to give. I am not him. I never will be. That’s why…”
—stop. Stop. Dan Feng? Where are you? Stop—
“…even if I do remember everything as you say, I will never submit to you. Your desire for revenge will never be mine. You would do well to remember that.”
Noise. All of it. Just noise. It’s only noise, Bladie.
His eyes open. Dan Heng hasn’t budged. He’s still staring at him like there’s something to prove, like his point has any legs to stand on.
“Move.” It’s a chore to form the words. “We’re almost there.”
He’s right. The closer they get to Kafka and Silver Wolf the stronger the Spirit Whisper becomes, and by now Blade’s gotten used to chasing the lead she keeps him strung on. His senses are duller but so are his thoughts and the mara’s drive for blood. Even the monster is content to curl up and sleep, for a time.
They round another corner, and at the mid-point he sees them. Silver Wolf pops her gum. Kafka smiling, benignly. Blade manages to stagger there before she holds out her hand and he falls into it, the warmth of her shoulder against his forehead like falling to a tub of hot water. He could drown. He hopes he will.
“Where are they?”
Dan Heng sounds mad. A flash of jealousy hits Blade like a whip. The sting soothes quick enough beneath the steady wash of Kafka’s Spirit Whisper. Clean, cleaner, wiped clean like mist, until there’s nothing left.
“Don’t worry.” The whisper pauses when Kafka answers. She soothes a path down his forearm. “You’ll see them soon, all in one piece. I promise.”
Slowly, the mara’s smothering touch starts to retreat. He’s lighter, bones made of air when the Abundance takes control, closing the gap in the ribs, rushing blood down his cold limbs. It used to hurt. It doesn’t hurt anymore. It hasn’t hurt for a long, long time.
His vision’s clear enough to see his feet now, look over and see Dan Heng where he’s still standing, for some stupid reason, a handful of guarded meters away.
“They were never in any danger, were they?”
He’s talking to Kafka. Look at me. I’m the one you should be looking at when I put my hands around your neck and—
The Spirit Whisper’s waves washes, stronger. The silence is so aching blissful he near falls to his knees.
“That depends on your definition of danger,” Kafka says.
“Don’t play games with me, Stellaron Hunter.”
“You really are no fun…” She murmurs, shaking her head. “No wonder Bladie wants to kill you.”
“I should’ve known. You would never intentionally hurt Caelus, after all.”
“Oh?” Kafka’s voice lifts, a sign of danger. “Now what gave you that impression?”
Dan Heng, wisely, chooses not to answer. It’s good. If he had and Kafka got to sink her teeth into him before Blade did, he might have to kill her twice.
“Why did it matter if I brought him back alive, then?” Dan Heng asks, undaunted. “He cannot die.”
Blade thinks he can hear Kafka smiling.
“Because you needed to talk. The dead don’t hold very good conversation.”
On the ceiling above lands an unravelling clunk, the hiss of hydraulics. Voices raising before they’re lost beneath a booming wave of sound, a sea of screams.
“Oh, Sam…” Kafka murmured, looking up.
Silver Wolf sighs. “I told him not to open fire.”
“Well, what’s a few more million credits, huh.” Kafka turns back to Dan Heng, smiling. “I’m afraid that’s our cue. Thank you again, for bringing Bladie back.”
Dan Heng’s focused back on him, though. Confused? Maybe. Blade cannot see his face clearly enough to be sure. The Spirit Whisper’s in full swing smoothing out all his edges and nothing short of Dan Heng baring his throat could provoke him to strike.
“What did you do to him?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your concern.”
“I’m going ahead,” Silver Wolf says, yawning before she winks out of sight. “Let me know when you’re done here.”
Kafka’s heels click on the backstep. “You better run along, Nameless. Before you end up in that holding cell a second time today.”
Further down the hall’s a glint of red—Himeko, Caelus racing behind her. Dan Heng notices too, casts one last look back before jogging to meet them halfway, too far to hear what he says when Caelus grabs his forearm and tugs him close. Concern. Laughing. Smiling. Blade needs to look away, but he can’t.
For a split second, he thinks he’s seen it before. Maybe. Somewhere. Somehow, somewhere else. Not here. Not them. Not with him. No, it is him. No, it isn’t? It is. It was him then, too. Remember. Remember, Y——g:
Remember that happiness will never be yours again.
Fingers wrap around his wrist.
“Bladie.”
She sounds different. He can’t pinpoint how. He doesn’t turn to look at her.
“It’s time to go.”
Remember that, the monster whispers.
Remember that, Dan Heng said.
I’ll try, Blade thinks, to no one in particular, as Kafka adjust her hold to his palm and pulls him gently into the portal at their backs.