Chaos (Lanie Bross) - Lanie Bross Page 0,10

at her.

“There can be no other answer but her death,” a second councilman said. “He has escaped. If they should manage to join forces …” Though he spoke in a soft whisper, Miranda overheard.

They could only be talking about one person. Ford.

He was a Radical who believed, like her, that no one should dictate how others lived or died. And he would not let her rot here forever. Not when power was within his grasp.

The head council member ignored the objection. “If you accept our terms, you will remain imprisoned here at Vita for the rest of your days. But you will be allowed to live.”

“What kind of life is that?” Miranda’s hands shook with barely controlled rage and she clenched them into fists at her sides. How dare they insult her with such an offer? “You must all be mad. I’m a true Radical. I will have freedom or I will have nothing.”

There were several explosions of light and sound as various Radicals temporarily lost control of their bodily forms.

“So you decline our offer of leniency?” the head council member asked.

“I decline to admit that I’m wrong. I choose to go down fighting, and you should, too.” Miranda stood tall, her chin up in defiance. No matter what happened, she would never bow to their demands.

“Then as head council of the Tribunal, I sentence you, Miranda, to death, at the hour the sands of time have determined.”

An enormous hourglass rose from the podium. Red sand immediately began to sift down into the bottom of the hourglass.

Miranda stared at her death sentence.

When the last grains of sand had passed through the hourglass, she would die.

The wind abruptly fell away. Luc found solid ground under his feet and staggered forward, off balance, doubled over by the heat. His sneakers sank into sand. When he opened his eyes, he saw the great red cliffs extending in a line as far as he could see. To his left was an ink-black ocean, washing silently against the sand.

He’d made it.

He turned slowly. Two suns burned brightly in an ash-white sky. In a weird way, it was good to be back. It made Corinthe feel closer. She had found him once, in this world, had wrestled him to the ground on top of the cliffs. He remembered how he’d pinned her to the ground, had seen himself reflected in her violet eyes, the color of a sunset sky.…

As if the world itself wanted to help him, a quick gust of wind burst across the sand and revealed a tiny crystal at his feet. It glittered in the suns and he bent to pick it up, sifting through the sand. He sucked in his breath.

In his palm he held Corinthe’s crystal earring. She was wearing the pair when he first met her on Karen’s houseboat, and had eventually given them to Rhys. Luc balled his fingers into a fist to try to crush the searing jolt of pain the memory caused.

Had Rhys left it here for Luc to find?

Luc covered his eyes and scanned the ocean of shadows, looking for the familiar silhouette of Rhys’s sailboat. Nothing but black, all the way to the horizon.

Then something moved. Luc squinted. The horizon seemed to shift. Then it rose, as if a great wave were building out at sea. The tide of shadows drew back, so more and more of the red beach was exposed. It reminded Luc of pictures he’d seen of a tsunami; before the wave came, the tide abruptly went out, leaving a litter of seaweed and trash and driftwood behind.

What the hell was going on?

At the horizon, the wave was growing taller. Luc was standing on a vast stretch of flat desert where, only an instant before, the ocean had been. His throat was dry.

The wave began to move.

Shit.

It was surging toward him: a vast black shadow, tall as a mountain. Luc took a step back, then another, nearly tripping in the sand, until he felt the flat stone of the cliffs behind him. The wave was so tall it blocked out the sun. For a second, Luc was plunged into darkness.

Then the wave simply broke apart. Figments, shadow people, poured out of the wave like foam surging offshore. They crawled up the beach; they streamed past Luc without acknowledging him.

They were leaving. The Figments were leaving the Ocean of Shadows. Where was Rhys?

“Excuse me.” He tried to grab at the nearest Figment; it was insubstantial as mist, and didn’t look at him. He