come to a consensus here on Calliope.”
“What’s that?” Varga asked.
“That we deserve an hour’s worth of pure celebration.” Viola sighed. “Some food, some spiced blood, some drinks, and a little bit of music.”
“But I should keep working,” Phoenix retorted, stifling a grin as he gave Viola a sideways glance. She laughed.
“You’ll get your reward in triplicate once you find Mortis and Taeral,” she said, and it was enough to get Phoenix’s focus back on the screens. I figured that the “triplicate” involved plenty of physical affection, too.
“So, what, we get to party in Luceria?” Herakles grinned.
“Catch our breaths,” Riza replied. “We get to catch our breaths.”
Yes, I thought. The clock was still ticking. The race was still on. But there was no point sitting and sulking in a room for the few hours’ worth of peace that we’d gotten. We had no way of helping Phoenix move faster. We couldn’t take other field missions, because we needed to be ready to leave for Mortis at a moment’s notice. I didn’t mind spending some time around Varga, anyway—the kind of time that didn’t involve running or fighting for our lives.
And Viola was right. We’d gotten a small win from the Volcrun caves. A small one, but a win nonetheless. We may as well eat something, drink something, relax for a few minutes, and gear up for the trip ahead. We all knew that the real crazy was just getting started.
And we’d be smack in the middle of it.
Harper
Ramin and I had been drifting for hours. A shapeless mass of fiery sparks that followed the stardust stream to… we didn’t know where it was leading, exactly, only that it took us far away from Brendel and what I imagined would be her unimaginable wrath. Ramin, a rebel Hermessi, had made it so deep inside her camp that he’d been on Yahwen. He’d seen where the Hermessi children were kept.
Of course, neither of us knew how to get there from Calliope or Neraka, since we were still lost in space. But we memorized every single galaxy and star cluster along the way, making sure we remembered the details, so later I’d check with Phoenix on an astral map and pinpoint the oldest twenty-planet system in the In-Between. It was important, because it wasn’t just where Brendel was hiding the Hermessi children. It was where she was going to complete the ritual and bring about the end of days for at least two dimensions.
Ramin had been betrayed by his own son, and I’d been there to witness the entire exchange. My heart broke for him, but I was relieved that he was out here, with me, despite the fact that the ritual Hermessi were using his son as leverage. Granted, Ledar had joined Brendel’s mission, along with a few other Hermessi children. We hadn’t seen that coming, and it did make our effort to save them a tad more difficult—but not impossible.
I was tired, emotionally speaking. Inalia had had no choice but to come after Ramin, once he was discovered. She and a bunch of other Fire Hermessi had been relentless in their chase. Fortunately, Ramin had been able to jump on the nearest thread of stardust before they could catch him—and, inevitably, discover me hidden inside.
We’d gathered a lot of knowledge from our endeavor, but we were both in serious trouble, now. Ramin couldn’t go back to Neraka. He was branded a traitor and a rebel, and the other Hermessi on his planet were bound to kill him the moment he got close enough. After all, they had Ledar to take his place, like Inalia had succeeded Brann. But we had to find a way back, nonetheless, since I needed to get back to my body as soon as possible.
Soul-walking was a rare and fickle thing, made possible by my unique relationship with Ramin, but it wasn’t without risk. The longer I stayed away from my body, the higher the risk that I wouldn’t be able to go back into it—that my physical form would die, leaving my soul stranded.
“We can’t keep going like this forever,” Ramin said after a long period of silence.
We’d moved at different speeds. Sometimes, the stardust rushed us through the cosmos, turning every single star around us into brief flashes, mere flickers in time. Ramin had the ability to remember details which I couldn’t at that velocity, and he mentally passed them on to me for future reference. At other times, we floated slowly enough for me to