"The Orrans took us, but they gave us food, beds, an education. They taught us to use a power we were born to use." I took a deep shuddering breath. Josef didn't take the chance to argue, so I forged on. "We weren't meant to be forgotten, Josef. We were meant to be powerful. The Orrans gave us that chance."
"They started a war that killed my family." Josef sounded cold and hard. "They kidnapped us. Tortured us. Maybe you've forgotten just how many times the training they put us through almost killed you, Eska. Maybe you've forgotten how many times I sat by your sick bed. It wasn't just because I didn't want to leave you." There were unshed tears in his eyes. "I spent all those times speeding your recovery with Biomancy. The physicians would have left you to die. The Orrans would have left you to die. They didn't care about you. They didn't care about us. The Terrelans..."
"PUT US IN THE FUCKING PIT!" There are few times in my life I can say I have truly screamed at someone but this was one of them. "Look at me, Josef." I took a step forwards into the light. "I have been beaten. Bones broken. Look at my face. You know how I got the scar." I ran a finger across the tender, ragged flesh on my left cheek. "This is what the Terrelans have done. This is how much they care."
In the silence that followed I heard the sounds of steel on steel. Blades clashing together in a chaotic song. I glanced towards the second doorway, hoping my friends were faring well against whoever Josef had brought with him.
"You brought soldiers?" I asked quietly.
Josef nodded. "The others don't matter."
"They matter to me!"
Josef sighed. "I only need to bring you back."
"And then what?" I said. "I spend the rest of my life in the Pit and you get to go free." I wiped tears from my eyes. It was an unfair accusation. I had been willing to condemn Josef to just that.
"They're still willing to accept us both, Eska. Swear fealty..."
"Obedience," I said bitterly.
Josef let out a sigh, deflating. He looked exhausted. "The war is bloody well over, Eska. We won't need to fight anyone anymore. Swear fealty and we can leave together. We can be together again, Eska. Just you and me."
I decided to counter his offer. "Take off that uniform and we can leave together right now," I said. "We don't need the Terrelans and their offer, Josef. We'll run."
"They'd chase us." Josef shook his head and I could see he was beaten. Not by me. The Terrelans had beaten him into submission, and he no longer had the strength to fight them, or the lies they told. "If I don't come back, they'll send others. I don't want to fight or run. The Terrelans have their own academy. We could teach others. A life of peace."
We stood there, staring at each other for a while. We both knew the truth, though neither of us was willing to admit it. We wanted different things. Josef wanted a quiet life away from fighting and war. I wanted revenge on everyone who had put me in the Pit, everyone who had kept me in the Pit. I wanted revenge on everyone who had taken my life from me and destroyed everything I knew. The academy was gone. Orran was gone. And now Josef was gone. All I had left was my anger, my hatred. I didn't want peace, I wanted to watch the world burn.
I saw it then. The Josef I knew, the young boy who had shared so much of my life, the young man I trusted and loved more than even myself... was gone. I don't think he realised how much he had changed. I still wonder if the Pit did that, or if it was me. I think it was probably me. I've always been a danger to those I love.
"Eska!" I turned to see Isen standing in the second doorway, my little sword in his hand, the blade dripping red. "Josef?"
"Is it because of him?" Josef asked.
Before I could answer, Josef flicked out a hand. Isen was picked up by an invisible force and crushed against the roof. Josef flicked his hand down and Isen's body hit the floor with a squelch. Even in the dim light of the lantern I could see a pool of red spreading out beneath the body.
I think I was in shock. I didn't move. Couldn't move. I just stood there staring at the body of crushed flesh that had, only a moment ago, been Isen. Hardt shouted, a noise with no words only pain, and a moment later the older brother was there beside the corpse of the younger. He was distraught, babbling with tears streaking down his face.
"Or him?" Josef asked.
The threat to Hardt is what moved me. I had always known Josef could be brutal. He never hesitated to kill when we fought against the Terrelans. He understood, long before I did, that war is harsh, and the winners are often those who strike first. But I had never seen him kill someone we knew. I had never imagined he could so casually murder someone we both called a friend.
I stepped forward, hands up. "Stop it, Josef."
Being hit by a psychokinetic blast of energy is never pleasant. It feels like a wall slamming into every bit of your body all at once. I suppose I should be grateful that he was gentle. One moment I was moving forward, and the next I hit the far wall and crumpled. I might have screamed from the pain but the breath was driven from my lungs by the impact.
"You did this?" Hardt stood from the corpse of his brother. His body blocked the doorway behind him, and the light from the lantern made the grief on his face so plain. I struggled against tears of my own.
But I had no time for tears. I had no time to grieve; I wasn't even certain I would for Isen. I knew Josef. With a Kinemancy Source in his stomach he would kill everyone and drag me back to the Pit, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop him. Well, there was nothing anyone but I could do to stop him.
While Josef was watching Hardt, I snatched the pouch from my belt, took the Source from inside and popped it into my mouth, swallowing hard. It took only moments for me to discover I had just killed myself.
Chapter 35
My vision sharpened, as though everything I had ever seen before had been blurred without me knowing it. My heart began to race so fast I thought it would burst inside my chest. I felt power flooding through me from the Source in my stomach. Josef started to turn his head towards me, but he was moving so slowly, a determined look etched onto the lines of his face.
I knew then I had about a minute to live.
Every Source affects a person differently. Most take about five minutes to kill the unattuned. Chronomancy speeds up the body, makes everything faster. It makes the Sourcerer faster. It also kills them faster. Even someone attuned to Chronomancy can only hold a Source for a few hours before it starts to age them unnaturally.
I felt the cramps hit even as I rose to my feet. Pain blossomed in my limbs and in my stomach. I fought it, swallowed down the agony and lurched forward.
"Look at me, Josef," I said. My voice sounded strange as the Chronomancy slowed down the world around me.
"Eska," Josef said, his voice a lethargic drawl. "What have you done?"
There was a lesson Josef tried to teach me early on in our incarceration. A lesson Hardt and Isen tried to teach me also. Even the overseer and Deko knew it long before I did. When the odds are stacked against you, when you look down at your cards and realise you have been dealt a shitty hand and have no way to win, you have two options. You can give up, but if you've learned one thing from my story so far it should be that I never fucking give up! Your other option is to damn the cards, and damn the odds, and damn the game. Play the player. Beat the player. Do that, and it doesn't matter what the rules of the game are, nor how unlikely you are to win.