Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

 Notes: Oof. Just oof. Poor Kieron, is all I've got to say.

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

***

Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

 Photo by Pavel Anoshin

 

When Kieron woke, it was to the chill of rain-kissed wind against the skin of his face. He blinked blearily, groaning as the pain from the rocky surface he was lying on seeped into his consciousness. It felt like he had shards of rock lodged under the skin of his back, but when he tried to roll over the sharp pain in his left arm and shoulder stopped him cold. A gentle bump to his stomach, followed by a mechanical purr, was enough to let him know that Blobby was with him, at least.

His surroundings slowly came into focus. It was dark out, and clouds roiled across the sky, spitting rain and droplets of icy hail down on them. The occasional flash of lightning illuminated a strange landscape, and it took Kieron a moment to realize that they were on top of the plateau. The ground was split into vast seams, their tops as little as a foot wide. The one they were on right now was more like five feet, large enough for him, Carlisle, and—

That bastard. The hover chair was no longer hovering, resting firmly on the ground instead, and in its embrace lay the General, seemingly asleep but coughing fitfully despite that. Carlisle was beside him, rigging a tarp over his head to keep the wet off. She seemed to be moving all right, at least. Kieron must have made some sort of noise, because Carlisle looked over at him just as another bolt of lightning struck, this one close enough to make nearby pebbles buzz and clatter. The relief on her face was heartening, though. “You’re awake!” She knotted the end of the tarp so that it stretched flat from the top of the chair to the arm, then came over to Kieron. “Thank the stars. I wasn’t sure if you’d taken more head trauma or not.”

“I think I did,” Kieron mumbled as he tried to sit up. Oh, bad idea, bad idea—he immediately rolled over and retched what little liquid remained in his stomach out onto the ground. Carlisle crouched beside him, supporting his shoulders with firm hands until he was finished, then helped him carefully straighten up. After a moment of uncomfortable roiling, Kieron settled into the position. “Where…ship?” he managed.

“Down there,” Carlisle said, nodding her head stiffly toward the chasm to the left. “I was able to balance it enough to get us all out, but the tunneler knocked it back down pretty quick.”

Fuck. Those things were still around? Carlisle must have read his face, because she nodded. “Yeah, we haven’t shaken them, but they can’t climb all the way up and out without a huge expenditure of energy. I don’t think it’s worth it to them unless they know they’re getting food out of it. But they know we’re here. I’ve heard them moving around down there.”

Well, that was…horrifying. “What else?” he said through gritted teeth.

“I did manage to salvage some supplies,” she said, which was good news. “Food, tarps, a few potable-water straws.” Given all the rain that was falling, drinking through those was a better deal than carrying actual water. They could make almost anything drinkable…for a while, until they got clogged and needed cleaning. “Plus some painkillers.” She smiled at him. “You want some?”

“Fuck yes.”

“I thought so.” She handed over two pills, then pulled out a stim shot. “Where is it worst?”

Kieron dry-swallowed the pills to give himself a moment to think. Layering painkillers wasn’t usually a good idea, especially the ones that came in these old stim shots, but he didn’t have the luxury of being all that worried about his kidneys right now. He considered his body for a moment, shifting this way and that on the ground. “Left arm,” he said finally. “And my head.”

“All right.” She put the tip of the stim shot against the left side of the base of his neck and triggered it. An icy coldness flooded through his veins from the site, and Kieron shivered violently for a moment before…

Bliss. Holy shit. There was nothing quite as delicious as the sudden end of pain. Kieron grinned—he couldn’t even feel his arm anymore.

“Look at you, you lightweight,” Carlisle murmured. “Come on, let me bind that.”

“It doesn’t bother me now.”

“It will in a few hours,” she predicted. “So let me bind it now to make things easier for you later.” She didn’t have to set the bone, thankfully, but still wrapped it firmly in a cut-up tarp, then rigged a sling to keep it close to his chest. “There’s nothing more I can do about the concussion, I’m afraid,” Carlisle said regretfully as she passed Kieron a ration bar. He took it and ate as fast as he could without risking his stomach, then used the straw to drink from the cupped edge of the tarp they were sheltering under. It was amazing how much better he felt now; with Blobby warm in his lap and the gnawing pains of hunger, thirst, and his own brokenness gone, he was almost temped to go back to sleep. It seemed like it had been so long since he’d actually slept…but no.

“We should get going.” If the tunnelers were still tracking them, then they needed to get off the plateau as soon as possible.

“A fine idea,” Carlisle agreed. “You should get started tonight. I salvaged a few emergency lights—they don’t project very far, but they should help you make your way as safely as is realistic. You should go—”

Kieron held up his good hand. “No. We should go.” What was this “you” bullshit?

Carlisle firmed her mouth up as she shook her head. “No.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t.”

“Fuck that.”

She pointed to the General. “The hoverchair isn’t working anymore. I won’t be able to bring him along.”

That was a feature as far as Kieron was concerned. “So you leave him here! Or push him down into the canyon!”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Kieron was aware that his volume was going up, and not entirely with his consent, but he couldn’t help it. “He’s a mass murderer! He supported the idea of you being raped for disobedience! He just got through trying to kill both of us! He—”

“He’s my father.”

Kieron saw red. “What the hell does that have to do with anything? Since when has the parent-child relationship been anything other than a burden to you and anyone else in this entire fucking colony? You didn’t want anything to do with me!” He was slipping, he knew he was slipping, but he was too loopy to care. “And he clearly has never cared about you except insofar as you obeyed his every order like a good little soldier. He’s a terrible person.”

“I know,” Carlisle said, her voice flat. “I know that. But I can’t do it. He’s…” She shut her eyes. “For a long time, he was all I had. Obedience to him was my…it was my entire life. I can’t just leave him to die alone. I certainly can’t murder him.”

“Then let me do it.” Kieron began to get to his feet, but Carlisle pulled him down again. He glared at her fiercely, but was shocked out of his anger when he saw tears rise up in her eyes.

“You don’t understand,” she whispered. “You don’t know what it was like being his child. You—I did wrong by you, I admit that. I should have been a better mother, but I tried my best when the chance came to get you free of this awful world. That’s—that’s never been an option for me. This proves it. This whole exercise, everything about you coming back, it’s showed me that I can never be free. The most I can do is try to make sure that you are.” She swiped a hand over her eyes. “I’m not leaving him. That’s not negotiable, either, so don’t ask me again.”

Kieron gritted his teeth so hard he felt his jaw pop. “Then I’ll stay too.”

“You can’t. You need to get off this plateau as soon as you can and set up some sort of signal for your friend.”

“Carlisle—”

“You can’t stay here!” she screamed. “They’re looking for us, don’t you understand? If they find you, you’ll be killed immediately. I can’t watch that, I can’t. You need to escape, right now, while I’m still around to be a distraction for you.”

“I don’t want you to be my distraction,” Kieron yelled right back. “I want you to be my mother!”

“I never will be!”

Her statement echoed between them, and Kieron watched in detached awe as a dozen different emotions crossed her face before she finally turned away and began stuffing supplies into a pack.

Carlisle wasn’t his mother. She didn’t want to be his mother. She would rather stay with a dying murderer than try to escape with him. He was nothing but a burden to her; he’d always been a burden to her. Coming back here was the worst thing he could have done to her.

The results of his selfishness made him want to cry, but Kieron bit it back. Fine. He’d leave.

Getting to his feet was a challenge, but Blobby helped, elongating himself into something like a walking stick for Kieron to hold onto. He stood still as Carlisle looped the bag over his good shoulder, then wrapped a tarp around him. “Go due west,” she said, firmly in control of herself again as she pointed along the rocky ridge. “It’s the quickest way off the plateau. Once you’re down, find a way to contact your friend as soon as possible. Stay away from any structures you might find, and avoid all the transmission wavelengths you’ve used with your little bot so far, they’ll be monitored.” The last thing she did was tuck the stim shot into the top of his sling. “There are two more doses in there,” she said. “Space them out, otherwise you might have a heart attack.”

Kieron nodded dully. They stared at each other for a long moment, then Carlisle nodded. “Be safe.”

He wanted to laugh. He wanted to scream. He did neither, just turned and began to make his way along the crumbling ridge.

Kieron didn’t look back.

 

Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Thirty-Five

 Notes: Let's get this party started!

Title: Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Thirty-Five

***

Chapter Thirty-Five

 

Photo by Mariola Grobleska

Ciro would give almost anything for the numbness that used to come to readily to him. Ever since he let Angelo take him in, the lack of feeling that was starting to overwhelm him has pulled back. Even when he uses his magic, it’s like having a protective golden blanket covering his body, protecting him from himself. But now, back on the couch and weighed down with rats covering his legs and a Doberman to either side of his torso, Ciro is uncomfortably aware of his own form. He feels every touch—the scritch of claws sinking into his clothes and the thud of stubby tails knocking against his thighs. The only space for his raven is on top of his own head.

Ciro’s sure he looks like an idiot. The important thing, though, is not to look like a victim. If Angelo walks in here and sees Ciro in tears or worse, he won’t react well. If all Ciro can do at this point is keep blood from being shed the moment his father and his lover are in the same room together, then that’s what he’ll do.

The distant power he’s learned to feel through his chest roils in response to his own sense of indignation at being sidelined. It’s here to be used, so use it! The temptation is strong, but Ciro knows he can’t give into it. He’s not as strong as his father; he’s just not. That’s a lesson he’s had beaten into him over and over throughout his childhood, and he’s learned it like second nature by now. His father and Nephele combined…well, that’s so impossible it doesn’t even bear thinking about. No, the best thing he can do is protect Angelo by being an obedient little captive until he figures out his lover’s plan.

Because Angelo has to have a plan. He must. Otherwise he’s walking straight into a trap, and Ciro can’t bear to even think about that. It’s impossible, it’s infuriating.

He’s smarter than that. Angelo will know what to do.

The intercom on Victor’s desk sounds. “He’s coming up,” Richard says.

“Good. Make sure he catches a glimpse of the girl, but don’t engage. If he comes your way, kill her and make your escape.”

“Understood.”

“You can’t kill her,” Ciro insists. “Maria is important to Angelo. If you kill her, he’ll never negotiate with you.”

Victor looks at him with an odd expression Ciro can’t quite understand. “I might have been too hard on you after all,” he says  finally, and Ciro wonders when he slipped into an alternate dimension where his father admits to potential wrongdoing. Even Nephele is taken aback. “I believe in instilling a reasonable amount of humility in those around me, but you take it to lengths that verge on stupidity.

“You’re the mate of a kinnara, my son. I could have that useless girl cut into pieces and tossed along his path, and he would still come to me if it meant getting his hands on you again.”

“But he won’t,” Nephele asserts from where she’s standing in a corner, no fewer than five dogs penning her there so she can’t come back to hunch over Ciro like a vulture. “Because he’s mine, Uncle. Remember, you promised me Ciro would be mine.”

Victor doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at her. Ciro can feel Nephele’s tension rise through her link to her familiars, who are twining around each other and chittering angrily, but not quite biting yet. He focuses on his own familiar instead—the comforting weight, the warmth, the feeling of love and protection—and then realizes that he can feel another bird.

His other bird. The familiar he sent to Angelo is still with him, and they’re both almost here. Ciro lets himself slip into his other bird’s eyes, and he sees the double doors of this office right ahead of them, turns and sees that he’s on Angelo’s shoulder. His lover seems to sense the change, because he turns and looks at Ciro’s familiar. He doesn’t say anything, though; his mouth is in a terse line, and a second later he bends over to set Chiffon on the floor. Ciro has to flap wildly to keep his perch, and not just because Angelo is bending over. He brought Chiffon? What was he thinking? He can’t help it—he pecks Angelo in the middle of his forehead.

“She’ll be fine,” Angelo says in a very measured tone. Then he steps forward and, without knocking, enters the room.

Ciro slips back into his own eyes to look at Angelo. He’s dressed in a suit of embroidered silk, his hair slicked back, gold around his neck and in his ears. He looks distant, powerful, and so beautiful Ciro’s heart aches to see him. The raven on his shoulder suits him somehow, and if Ciro didn’t know better he’d say Angelo was a witch himself.

But he does know better, and now that they’re together again he can see the gold threads emanating from Angelo’s body like waves, curling around and over him. Those threads reach for Ciro the second Angelo walks through the door, and Ciro braces himself for the rush he’ll feel the moment they touch him…

But the touch never comes. Something blocks them from reaching Ciro, a shield extending more than a foot in front of the couch, and it strikes Ciro that his father never does anything without a reason. The things he’s filled this room with, all his objects of power…one of them must be responsible for keeping Angelo’s power from touching him directly right now.

If Angelo realizes that, he doesn’t let on. He doesn’t even look at Ciro, just keeps his eyes on Victor, who sits behind his desk with the smug air of a man aware that he holds all the aces. “Mr. Hambly,” Angelo says evenly.

“Mr. Fabroa.” Victor nods his head. “I see you brought a guest.”

“I could hardly leave Chiffon behind,” Angelo says airily. “She pines without me. Don’t worry, she’s no threat to you.”

“I’m not talking about the dog.”

Angelo tilts his head at the raven, which leans over and preens gently at his hair. Nephele makes a furious noise, and when Angelo smiles at her, he goes from calm to vicious in an instant. “Everything that belongs to my mate belongs equally to me.”

Victor nods slowly. “You admit it, then.”

“Of course I do.”

“Then I hope you came ready to bargain.” Victor extends a hand toward the chair across from him, but Angelo shakes his head.

“I don’t bargain with thieves. I hope you came to this meeting ready to apologize for taking what’s mine.” His voice is cool and controlled, and Ciro’s heart is in his throat. He doesn’t know what kind of game Angelo is playing, but Victor hates being dictated to. “You’re going to relinquish my mate to me and give us your blessing, and a promise of distance from here on out. I also expect the return of my employee.”

“Oh, is that all?” Victor’s tone is mocking. “I think you’ll find that I’m the one holding all the advantage here, Mr. Fabroa. What can you possible do that would compel me to give my son to you for nothing?”

Angelo crosses his arms and looks around the room. “You’ve done a good job here,” he says almost absently. “Some of these artifacts are impressively powerful. You’ve even blocked the manifestation of my bond to Ciro, and you’ve limited the amount of power you and yours can do down to your familiars.”

“Your point?”

Angelo smiles. “My point is, you’ve cut off all spell power. What you didn’t cut off is internal manifestations, and that shows me that you know almost nothing of kinnara magic. You’ve left me my internal power, which is all I need to sing every last drop of emotion out of you.”

Victor looks a little puzzled. “What, you’re threatening to make me into some sort of automaton?”

“Oh no. You’ll stay a man…a man who is unable to feel a single thing, from anger to joy to pain. And before you start thinking that’s a good idea,” Angelo adds, “consider this—with no emotion to drive your actions, and no pain resulting from them, you’ll do…nothing. Nothing at all. You’ll sit there until you die of dehydration, in a puddle of your own filth, utterly unmotivated by anything and everything.

“You’ll lose your empire, and you won’t even notice.”

Victor looks aghast in a way Ciro has never seen before. He could cheer…but from the way the dogs are growling and the rats are seething against his skin, he knows it’s far too soon to take anything for granted.

Especially a win.

 

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Sixteen, Part One

 Notes: I love monsters. I just do. And my kiddo loves bugs, so this one is a cross-inspiration ;)

Title: Hadrian's Colony, Chapter Sixteen, Part One

***

Chapter Sixteen, Part One

 

 

Photo by Viktor Talashuk

Kieron was intimately familiar with terror.

He knew the terror of deep space, being on the edge of the universe clamped between nothingness and near-death. He knew the terror of growing up without an anchor, no parent to protect and guide him. He knew the terror of living among people who hated him, of loneliness, of loss. He knew the terror of loving someone so much that the thought of their death was worse than any fate he himself could suffer. And yet…

He’d never known a terror like this before.

The ground rippled like a wave behind their ship, more sharp black wedges breaking the surface, and Kieron braced himself against the ceiling with both hands as Carlisle suddenly blasted the engines, jerking the ship straight up and spinning it at the same time. Alarms blared wildly, screaming warnings as Carlisle got the narrow ship to turn end-over-end down the canyon—toward the beast that was trying to eat them, but he barely had time to catch his breath before he realized that a shift had gone on. The sine wave-motion the creature was traveling in took it smoothly beneath them as they flew up and over, and Kieron had just enough time to see what looked like the head of the beast, consisting of a wide, flattened maw edged in those terrible shovel-teeth, burst through the ground and flail as it tried to catch them.

It failed, but it wasn’t giving up. Even as they straightened out and Carlisle punched up their speed, the beast dove back through the rocky crust and into the ground, which shifted like sand in the places it had already tunneled once before.

“Get us out of here!” he shouted at Carlisle.

“We need to stay in the canyons,” she shouted back, and—what the fuck?

“Why!?”

Carlisle didn’t reply, just kept checking her instruments as she sent out ping after ping in an effort to read the limits of the walls that surrounded them.

Kieron resisted the urge to keep questioning her. Whatever her reasoning was, he had to let her get on with it unless he wanted to fight her away from the controls, which—bad idea in the middle of a chase. He glanced back, but the tiny viewport at the stern of the ship didn’t give him much of a view. Deciding to be useful, he took a second to clamp the General’s chair down. As little as he liked the man, he liked the thought of being smashed by his power chair even less.

A sudden turn to the left happened sharply enough to send Kieron flying into the wall. A new plethora of alarms began to sound, these ones indicating structural damage to the ship, as they straightened out once more.

“Find a place to sit,” Carlisle yelled to him.

It was tempting to just stay where he was on the floor, but Kieron was stricken with an incurable need to know what the hell was going on. He didn’t want to die without knowing it was coming, and if that meant staring a monster in the mouth as it crunched him to pulp, then he was going to fucking stare it down. He crawled over to the copilot’s seat and hauled himself into it, buckling in with difficulty. Blobby got into his lap, and Kieron looked down at the little bot with concern. It was covered with blood. “You shouldn’t be able to bleed,” he said slowly.

“You’re bleeding,” Carlisle snapped. “Handle that head wound before you get spatter all over the control panel.”

Oh, shit, he was bleeding from the head again. Kieron winced as he tried to staunch it with his bad hand. Concussion, you’ve got a concussion. And none of these ships had Regen.

At least they seemed to be outpacing the tunneler, even if Carlisle wasn’t willing to let them leave these damn canyons. Still… “Take us up,” Kieron insisted.

“The second there’s space,” Carlisle said. “We should be clear in another minute or so. We just have to—fuck!” The entire ship rocked, and a second later there was a hideous wrench that felt like the floor was about to be ripped right out from under them. “That’s our back legs. Damn it.” She checked the readings again. “I thought we were faster than it.”

Kieron swallowed as he stared out the viewport. “That assumes there’s just the one of them.”

“How many can there be in here?”

He pointed. “At least one more.” And it was no more than a thousand feet ahead of them, rearing up and blocking the entire canyon with the breadth of its segmented frame. Hell, it was even larger than the last one. It reminded Kieron of a…what were those things on Trakta called…a centipede, that was it, only this centipede was wider than the freighter they were in and going to crush them if they didn’t—“Climb, now. Climb fast.”

“We’ll be shredded by the top!”

“The ship is fucked either way, but at least up there we won’t be eaten alive!”

Carlisle swore as she adjusted power to the engine, sending them skyrocketing upward at an angle that was almost sharp enough to scrape the belly of the ship against the belly of the beast. Fire flamed against it, but it didn’t seem to notice, and even as they rose up its massive head began to curl again, readying to crush them back down to the ground and carry them into the earth.

They would never be found. Elanus would never know what happened to him. The terror was sharper than any pain, flattening Kieron’s mind into nothing but a panicked buzz, love and hate and every other emotion lost to the overwhelm. Kieron clutched Blobby close and waited for the impact, and—

The scream of metal on stone filled his ears, and then he heard the whistle of wind on top of that. But they weren’t in the canyon anymore. They were above it, and the tunneling creature was falling away from them. They also didn’t have a left-side wall anymore.

“We won’t get far,” Carlisle screamed over the noise as she heaved the ship back toward the far side of the plateau. “Look for a spot that’s thick enough to hold us!”

Kieron did his best to look, he really did. But while adrenaline was keeping the pain away, he was still seeing double of everything, and he could barely breathe. All he could do now was hold onto his baby boy and watch as the jagged-edged canyon top came closer and closer.

Metal shrieked, rocks crumbled, and everything went dark.