“Are we close?” I asked, steadying myself on the headrest of the pilot’s couch as the shuttle swayed.

  “We’re there,” Corin answered, without looking up from the controls. “How’s our passenger?”

  I winced at the muffled shouts coming from the compartment behind us.

  “I believe he’d like to lodge an official complaint.” I said, forcing a smile.

  “Are you sure you want to do this? He is your father.” Corin asked.

  “That depends, are you sure it will work this time?”

  “Yes.” Corin’s fingers danced across the nav display. “I also determined why your blood did not. His contains genetic markers that neither you nor any of your brothers possessed—I’m positive they will allow us access to the command substrate.”

  The substrate was a mycelial network, one that Corin’s people used to connect their minds over the vastness of space. My father hired dozens of scientists trying to reverse engineer it, ultimately murdering them all when none of them could.

  “Then I'm sure, so long as your queen doesn't rip my head off.”

  “I cannot predict how she will react to being liberated, but I will do my best to protect you.”

  “I understand.” I said, surprising her with a pat on her shoulder. “After what my ancestors did to your people, that’s more than I deserve.”

  She turned, studying my face a moment and smiling as she landed the shuttle without looking. “I’m sure she will forgive you of your family's sins, just as I hope Aine’s people will forgive us of ours.”

  Despite not being able to read Corin’s thoughts, I could see the guilt tightening the corners of her eyes. Her face always gave away what she was feeling. Or perhaps she only made it obvious for my sake.

  The seat’s restraints slid back with a schlink as she stood, her lips parting in invitation.

  I took it, closing the distance between us, still staring into her eyes long after our lips had parted. From afar they looked simple. White, with two grey rings to delineate the iris, but at a breath’s distance, they moved. Grayish-blue specs swirled inside them, like a snowstorm raging over a frozen wasteland. They were terrifying, and impossible to escape.

  Could I escape?

  “We should hurry.”

  “Right.” I said, time speeding as I returned to the present.

  The door to the rear compartment dilated as I stepped through to find my father—if I could call him that, secured to the medical frame we’d used to restrain him. He squinted against the sudden light, eyes boring through me with a look of pure hatred before flicking nervously to Corin.

  “Hello, your grace.” I attempted to read him, smiling when the attempt bounced back. “Mirroring?” I drawled, impressed, “I don’t think you ever taught me that technique.”

  “Where have you taken me?” He asked, sounding calmer than I’d expected.

  “To the first site.” I answered, pacing round the med-frame to his side.

  His face went still, frozen like the legs of a man who was standing on thin ice and just felt it crack. Even with his mirroring still in effect, it was easy to guess his thoughts as he rolled his head from me to Corin, who still stood just beyond his feet—his lips parting as he understood what she was, and what her presence here truly meant. He must have written her off as just another modified human, equipped with illegal implants, but there was no mistaking now.

  “Vi-sari,” he uttered at Corin, swallowing hard when she answered.

  “We prefer Vethsyara,” Corin said, speaking for the first time. “It means first ones in our tongue.”

  “How? You weren’t conscious when I brought you here as a boy.” He asked, rolling his head back to me, his intention to stall for time slipping through his mirror.

  “The subconscious mind holds many secrets.” Corin answered, moving past his metal berth, towards the rear of the shuttle, “the body remembers everything. Time spent moving, the force of each turn, even the faintest whine of an engine can be decoded into pounds of thrust, if you know the design and specifications.”

  “This is a bluff.” The duke spat, letting his head fall back into the table as he snorted out a laugh, “a ploy to make me lead you to it. It won’t work. What house put you up to this?”

  He strained, tilting his head back as the rear hatch hissed open. His brow creased as he looked at me again, probably wondering why neither of us bothered trying to convince him. Fear colored his face. I watched him in silence as he worked through all the possible reasons why, until only one explanation remained, we were telling the truth.

  “Listen to me,” he said, meeting my eyes as I activated the glide on his med-frame. His body shook slightly as the stretcher lifted off the ground. “I know I haven’t been kind to you, but you are making a mistake—one that will kill us all. Do you understand?”

  “I’m undoing the mistake, the one you made when you took this world three-hundred years ago.”

  I pulled up the controls for the med-frame in my HUD, setting it to follow and leading it down the ramp where Corin stood waiting on the blackened stone. Any doubt the duke still had fled him as we led his stretcher through his own illusory field, the same one he put in place a few hundred years ago to disguise the site as part of the nearby mountain. The stone rippled like water as we passed through, revealing obsidian archways on the other side. Each arch flared further apart along the path, spanning thirty or forty feet across nearer to the temple. I remembered thinking they resembled the trunk of an elephant when I was a boy.

  “If the queen is revived, empire won’t hesitate to glass this world. All this does is guarantee our death.”

  “How will empire know?” I asked without looking back at his stretcher, “especially when you’ve gone to such great lengths to keep this place a secret.”

  “It was hubris to try to keep her hidden,” Corin added, “your desire for leverage over empire becomes the kink in the chains that bound us.”

  “Lucian, you cannot want this. There are Visari scattered throughout the empire—millions will die!”

  I halted alongside Corin as she stopped and turned to speak. The duke’s body jerked against his restraints as the stretcher ceased behind us.

  “You assume we are your douter, but humanity has proven again and again that you need no help extinguishing the flame.”

  He gave Corin a look of disgust. “You are no pacifists,” he breathed, his jaw trembling, “and you—if you think her queen has any room for you in her world, you’re a bigger fool than I thought possible.”

  “I’d gladly die to see this injustice ended.”

  I frowned as he broke into a laugh, turning to continue the procession as he wheezed behind Corin and I.

  “The only thing you’ll end is our species, you petulant waste. You—think you are the hero,” he choked out another laugh, “Marching gallantly to the gallows. You are cattle, leading the rest of us to slaughter—and for what? What promises does this mechanical whore make?”

  I swiveled round, incensed. Corin placed a hand on my arm, smiling faintly before answering in my stead.

  “My queen will shatter your hierarchy and stem the endless reaping of lives to feed the immortality of a few. She will create a world of true equity.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Ah, yes. I suppose we’re all equal in death,” he scoffed.

  I flicked my eyes back, examining the inside of my skull a moment before continuing up the shadowed path. At least on the outside, it was like the ones repurposed around the planet, except it featured three spires, each jutting up at an angle and meeting at a point. Underneath them sat a smaller, three-sided pyramid; the entrance carved into the side facing the path. Something about its sharp lines irked me. It’s simplicity. Obsidian perfectly hewn with no room for error or embellishment.

  I eyed Corin as we neared the entrance, opening my mouth to say something when one of the archways exploded. We both ducked as rubble and debris rained from the pillar several feet behind us. Engines whined overhead. A falcon, judging by the sound. The part of the archway still standing groaned as gravity tipped it slowly towards the one we stood beneath.

  “That would be my men,” the duke said, barely managing to keep the smugness from his voice as he attempted an appeal to reason. “If you release me now, I will allow you—”

  “Shut up,” I muttered, activating the enclosure on his stretcher and scanning for the attacker as the glass muffled his rambling.

  I spotted a warped shimmer drifting through the sky. Our airborne assailant. It slowed down before hovering thirty yards to our left. I wondered why it hadn’t tried for another pass before realizing they must’ve spotted the duke in his stretcher. Ropes unspooled from underneath, followed by a dozen soldiers fast-roping their way down.

  Corin and I looked from the soldiers to the several-hundred-ton slab of obsidian teetering towards us, then shared a nervous glance.

  “Run,” she directed, her voice more determined than alarmed.

  The broken archway struck the next in line, the force of it sending tremors up my legs as it too began to topple forward into the next. I nodded as we both surged ahead, the duke’s stretcher still set to follow; racing after us.

  “Can you seal the door?” I asked, panting to keep up.

  “Yes,” she answered, her breathing much steadier than mine, “we just need to make it inside.”

  She was holding back to match my speed.

  “Go on ahead,” I shouted, slowing slightly as I brought up the stretcher’s controls, trying to switch the follow command to her.

  “No.” she said, grabbing my wrist and jerking me forward as a rifle round tore through the air inches above my head.

  The orange streak slammed into the column on our right, tearing out a chunk and melting the spot around it.

  Stumbling from the force of her tug, I fought to get my feet back under me, turning my head enough to notice the armored figures racing towards us. Several more were crouched and aiming rifles from the hills overlooking the path. Behind us, archways cascaded forward, each one slamming into the next.

  “Never—appreciated—how terrifying dominos could be—at--scale,” I wheezed, as another round whizzed in front of me, the heat of it forcing my eyes closed.

  As touched as I was by her refusal to let me die, the situation seemed hopeless. If we stopped running to take cover between the archways, we’d end up crushed, but if we kept running, those riflemen would eventually find their mark.

  “Idea,” I shouted, pulling the stretcher’s controls back up in my vision.

  She shot a puzzled glance, her eyes widening as the stretcher swung upright and turned to face the oncoming gunfire.

  The duke roared in muffled outrage, displeased by his new role as our human shield. Peeking out from behind it, I withdrew the pistol at my side and fired at the first soldier closing on our flank. I was close enough to hear him squeal in pain as my round tore through his armor and into his kneecap.

  A second armored figure burst onto the path ahead of us and charged, knife drawn. Corin extended her arm, catching his helmet in her palm and stiff-arming him. The soldier managed a single swipe at Corin’s chest before the inside of his helmet exploded in a sea of red. Without slowing, she held the limp corpse out in front. I chuckled nervously as it dangled from the blunted rod extending from her wrist.

  “I liked your idea,” she said, patting the side of her new shield as its feet skipped and dragged over the path in front of us.

  My lungs burned with every step as the entrance grew closer, I pounded ahead on fumes, slamming into the massive circular door. I directed the stretcher behind us, unloading my remaining rounds at any soldiers that stepped into view along the path. Corin held her own human-shield behind us, extending her other hand towards the door. A circular orifice dilated in the center of the door, the surface warping and gyrating like a kaleidoscope made of stone as she shoved her arm inside.

  Tossing away the spent pistol, I braced myself against the door as the last arch slammed into the temple above us.

  “Something wrong?” I asked, swallowing at the massive obsidian slab above us.

  The weight of the one behind it was causing it to slide down the sloped face of the temple, the sound like two cliffs made of glass, grinding and scraping over each other, and threatening to crush us where we stood.

  “It’s not allowing me to authenticate.”

  “Let me--” I started, placing a hand on the part of her arm extending from the orifice.

  “It won’t work, he’s locked everyone out, including himself. Give me a moment.”

  “I’ll try,” I said, drawing my rapier.

  There was a round depression in the doorway, allowing us some cover. Thanks to the archway threatening to crush us, we only had to worry about a narrow gap on either side. The soldiers must’ve realized the same, because instead of coming through the narrow opening one at a time, two soldiers wielding rifles climbed atop the rubble fifteen feet ahead. I ducked behind the stretcher as one aimed his rifle at me, likely looking for a clean shot on either Corin or myself. The other soldier grunted as he worked his way towards us through the shattered remnants of archways.

  “How much longer?” I asked, as a molten round slammed into the door next to Corin’s head.

  She didn’t flinch. Instead, she closed her eyes, counting on me to handle the threat as she continued working on the lock. At the same time, I heard boots scraping over stone, along with a faint hum inching closer. I frowned at the familiar noise of a shimmerblade moving in and out of phase, knowing It’d ruin the monofilament of my blade if they touched.

  “Not long, I think I understand what he did.” She answered, head down in concentration.

  The soldier lunged between Corin’s dead shield and my living one, his knife near-invisible as it drove toward the center of my eyes. Before it could perforate my face, I set a new hover position for the stretcher, sending it a foot to the left. The med-frame collided with the soldier, redirecting the blade to slice my ear instead, before lodging itself in the door. Adrenaline numbed my senses, turning what should’ve been pain into the vague wetness of blood running down my face. Had its tip been stuck in flesh or anything more malleable it would’ve been fine, but whatever alloy the door was made of was too strong. The phase shuttered like a dying hummingbird before shattering at the hilt.

  I sliced downward with my rapier, cleaving his torso diagonally from shoulder to hipbone. He wavered, placing a hand on his breastplate before falling to the ground. The instant his body stopped convulsing, more rounds spattered the door around Corin. Her head jerked to the side as one grazed her temple.

  A breath lodged in my throat as the wound came into focus. The round had carved a channel into the side of her head, leaving behind a circular trench of burned synth-flesh two inches wide. I gasped out her name, reaching for her when her voice stopped me.

  “I’m okay,” she said, her head still tilted to one side. “Just need a little longer.”

  The wound had already started to close, black fibers spreading throughout the missing section of her skull.

  “Right,” I swallowed, shaking myself back to the present as synthetic fibers finished threading into place, filling the wound.

  I checked my own injury, wincing in pain as I padded the sliced ear. My hand came away covered with blood. It was superficial, but I’d need to cauterize it to stop the bleeding.

  Bits of obsidian rained down from where the archway continued to grind against the temple. The high-pitched scrape was almost deafening as it loomed overhead, still threatening to collapse and bury us at any moment.

  “I’m almost through.” Corin shouted.

  Around her wrist, small circular sections of the door began to swivel back and forth, each ring locking into place with a dull clank. I exhaled, relieved as the door released her arm and began to rumble. It was opening. I felt a low rumble beneath my heels as the ancient panels inched apart, revealing a staircase descending into darkness on the other side.

  One surged in from the side as we stepped backwards onto the stairs, jabbing his sidearm behind the stretcher and aiming for my chest. Using my earlier trick, I sent the stretcher sideways, pinning his hand inside the doorway as the muzzle lit up. I roared in pain as the round lanced my shoulder, almost losing my footing on the staircase.

  The soldier continued to squeeze off rounds with his arm pinned to the wall, his other arm wrapped around the stretcher to stop it from following us inside. Corin crushed the man’s wrist with her heel, causing his sidearm to clatter down the stairs, landing right in front of me. He reeled backwards, releasing the stretcher to nurse his mangled wrist, his screams muffled by the helmet. Using the distraction, I directed the stretcher past the threshold, to hover in front of me, at the center of the staircase.

  Realizing his mistake, the soldier lunged for the stretcher, only to be knocked backwards by a dead body as Corin flung her human shield at the man. He stumbled backwards, landing on his side between the open doors, which had finally started to close.

  “Move,” I shouted as the sniper atop the rubble opened fire.

  A shot whizzed past Corin’s shoulder as she ducked behind the half-closed door. With my sword arm dangling limp at my side, I picked up the pistol with my other hand, holding it sideways to check the counter on top of the barrel. Six rounds left. The man it’d belong to started to crawl from between the doorway. He’d just pulled his body free of the closing doors when a chunk of obsidian fell from above, flattening his helmet.

  Peeking out from behind the stretcher, I aimed the pistol’s sights at the narrowing strip of light between the two massive doors, ready to empty its remaining rounds into anyone that tried to force their way inside. It was only when my father spoke directly into my mind that I realized I’d miscalculated.

  “We both lose, I’m afraid.”

  What…

  My eyes widened as I realized what he planned to do, or rather, what he’d commanded his men to do.

  A single orange shot slipped through the almost closed panels, shattering glass and piercing the stretcher before streaking out the other side.

  “Fuck,” I let out as the door sealed shut, leaving Corin and I in darkness.

  Using my HUD I reoriented the stretcher so it hovered horizontally above the stairs, activating the thin strip of lights above the headrest and cursing again at what I saw. A section of his skull was gone, sheared away by the round that’d pierced the stretcher. Despite that, somehow, he seemed to be alive, his body twitching and jerking slightly as he held me with his remaining eye.

  “What now?” I breathed, eyes wide as I regarded Corin.

  The second he died, the queen would be lost, locked out of the substrate forever.

  “We need to get him to the main chamber; there’s pods that can keep him alive.”

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