Морган Райс - Victor, Vanquished, Son

“We bring her.”

They moved in on either side of Stephania, but she made a point of moving with them, so that it looked more like a noble escort than her being taken prisoner. She even reached out to rest her hand lightly on the woman’s arm, the way she might have with a companion walking around a garden.

They led the way across the city, and since it was one of the rare gaps in the dust storms off the cliffs, Stephania didn’t bother with the hood of her cloak. She let people see her, knowing that the rumors of who she was and where she was going would start.

Of course, in spite of what she made it look like, this was still a long way from a pleasant stroll. These were still killers beside her, who wouldn’t hesitate to murder her if Stephania gave them a reason. As they came toward a large compound in the heart of the city, Stephania could feel the fear knotting in her stomach, pushed down only by her determination to do all the things she had come to Felldust for. She would have revenge on Irrien. She would get her son back from the sorcerer.

They marched her through the compound, past the working slaves and the training warriors, past statues depicting Ulren in his youth, standing over the bodies of slain enemies. Stephania had no doubt that this was a dangerous man. To be second only to Irrien meant that he had fought his way to the top of one of the most dangerous places there was.

To lose here was to die, or worse than die, but Stephania didn’t intend to lose. She’d learned the lessons of the invasion, and even of her failure to control Irrien. This time, she had something to offer. Ulren wanted the same things that she did: power, and the death of the former First Stone.

Stephania had heard of people basing marriages on worse things.

Ceres stepped from the small boat onto the bank, in awe of the fact that a place like this could exist somewhere underground. She knew that the powers of the Ancient Ones were involved, but she couldn’t see why they would do this. Why make a garden in the middle of a nightmare?

Of course, from the little she’d seen of the Ancient Ones, the fact that there was a nightmare might be a sufficient reason for the garden.

Then there was the dome, which seemed to be composed of pure golden light. Ceres walked closer to it. If there was an answer to be found here, she was sure that it was somewhere inside that dome.

There was a faint haze to the light, and inside, Ceres thought she could see a pair of figures. She just hoped they weren’t more of the half-dead sorcerers. Ceres wasn’t sure she had the strength to fight any more of them.

She pressed into the light, and Ceres couldn’t help bracing herself for some kind of shock or force designed to fling her back. Instead, there was just a moment of pressure, and then she was through it, inside the dome and looking around.

Here, it looked like the interior of some opulent room, with rugs and divans, statues and ornaments that seemed to hang from the interior of the dome. There were other things too: glassware and books that pointed to a sorcerer’s art.

Two figures stood at the heart of it. The man had the same look of grace and peace that Ceres had seen in her mother, and he wore the pale robes that she had seen in the memories of the Ancient Ones. The woman wore the darker robes of a sorcerer, but unlike the ones above, she still seemed young, not desiccated by time.

Looking at them, Ceres realized that they also had the faintly translucent look she’d seen in other parts of the complex, in the memories there.

“They aren’t real,” she said.

The man laughed at that. “Do you hear that, Lin? We aren’t real.”

The woman reached out to touch his arm. “It’s an understandable mistake to make. After all this time, I imagine we look mere shadows of what we were.”

That took Ceres a little aback. On impulse, she reached out for the man. She found that her hand passed straight through his chest. She realized what she’d just done.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be,” the man said. “I imagine it is a little disconcerting.”

“What are you?” she asked. “I saw the sorcerers above, and you aren’t like them, and you aren’t like the memories either, because those are just images.”

“We’re something… else,” the woman said. “I am Lin, and this is Alteus.”

“I’m Ceres.”

Ceres noted how close the two stood to one another; the way Lin’s hand lingered on Alteus’s shoulder. The two had the look of a couple very much in love. Would she and Thanos ever end up like that? Presumably not that transparent, though.

“The battle raged,” Alteus said, “and we couldn’t stop it. What the sorcerers planned was evil.”

“Some of your kind were no better,” Lin said with a faint smile, as if they’d had that conversation many times. “It happened so fast. The Ancient Ones imprisoned the sorcerers as they were, their magic blended past and future together, and Alteus and I…”

“You became something else,” Ceres finished. Sentient memories. Ghosts of the past who could touch one another if nothing else.

“I get the feeling you didn’t fight your way through everything above just to find out about us,” Alteus said.

Ceres swallowed. She hadn’t expected this. She’d expected an object, perhaps something like the point of connection holding the spells above together. Still, the Ancient One in front of her was right: she had come there for a reason.

“I have the blood of the Ancient Ones,” she said.

She saw Alteus nod. “I can see that.”

“But something is restricting her,” Lin said. “Limiting her.”

“Someone poisoned me,” Ceres said. “She took away my powers. My mother was able to restore them for a little while, but it didn’t last.”

“Daskalos’s poison,” Lin said, with a note of disgust.

“An evil thing,” Alteus said.

“But a thing that can be undone,” Lin added. She looked at Ceres. “If she is worthy of it. I’m sorry, but that is a lot of power for someone to have. We have seen what it can do.”

“And given what we are, it would take a lot to undo it,” Alteus said.

Lin reached out to touch his arm. “Maybe it’s time to see new things. We’ve been here hundreds of years. Even given the things we can create, maybe it’s time to see what is next.”

Ceres paused as she heard that, the implications of it sinking in.

“Wait, healing me would kill you?” She shook her head, but then thoughts of Thanos, and all the others on Haylon, interrupted. If she didn’t do this, they would die too. “I don’t know what to say,” she admitted. “I don’t want someone to die for me, but a lot of people will die if I don’t do this.”

She saw the two spirits look at one another.

“That’s a good start,” Alteus said. “It means that there is a reason for this. Tell us the rest. Tell us everything that led up to this.”

Ceres did her best. She explained all about the rebellion, and the war. About the invasion that had followed and her inability to stop it. About the attack on Haylon that was, even then, putting everyone she loved at risk.

“I understand,” Lin said, reaching out to touch Ceres. To Ceres’s surprise, there was a sensation of pressure there. “It reminds me a little of our war.”

“The past proceeds in echoes of itself,” Alteus said. “But there are some echoes that can’t be repeated. We need to know if she understands.”

Ceres saw Lin nod.

“That’s true,” the ghost said. “So, a question for you, Ceres. Let’s see if you understand. Why is this still here? Why are the sorcerers trapped like this? Why didn’t the Ancient Ones destroy them?”