Page 279 of Interion

I swam against the current and surfaced again, facing the bluish barrier in the sky. In those few lucid seconds, I realized what covered me wasn't a blanket of feathers but a twisted wing. Kiara lay beside me, cold and still as a corpse, yet she was still breathing, shielding me from the snow with her mutilated wing.

My eyes rolled back in their sockets, reality blurring away, and I blacked out again.

Δ

Weak breathing, slow heart barely strong enough to beat. Each breath was freezing torment, and the hypothermia was reaching dangerous levels. I fought against my eyelids, and when I opened them, black spots flooded my vision like a swarm of angry bees.

After a few confused seconds as the reality of survival hit me, I turned to look at Kiara, and tears welled up, streaming down the sides of my face in a cry of relief.

“You… survived…” I whispered to her.

Even my tongue felt stiff and frozen; I could barely feel the rest of my limbs. Kiara didn't move, setting off an alarm in my mind that she could die if we stayed like this.

A strangled sob escaped my throat when, through the black spots clouding my vision, I saw the barrier tremble on the horizon and begin its descent. A satisfied thought about Breno flickered at the back of my mind, confused and jumbled. Around me, earth and snow were painted red and black, ashes mixing with the uneven terrain. I clutched something small and round in my palm—another confused thought told me not to let it go. I didn't let go.

Exhausted, I closed my eyes, unable to fight that monster called unconsciousness, but I didn't need to keep them open to know Zion was arriving. In the moments that followed, I felt the shadows stirring around me.

“Kiara…” I whispered, trying to tell him she should go first.

I felt Kiara's wing being carefully removed, and soon a thermal blanket was thrown over my body. Then a strong hand grabbed me with unsettling urgency. The touch was warmth against the frozen wasteland my body had become. I breathed deeply, catching his sandalwood scent.

“Don't close your eyes. Stay with me.” I heard the voice that meant the world to me. Gathering all my remaining strength, I did what he asked. “That's it. Just look at me and don't close those beautiful eyes.”

“Kiara…” I repeated, my vision blurred by tears.

Zion stared at my half-arm and Kiara's wing, trying to take in all the damage. He wore the expression of someone who had been dismantled and abandoned in ruins. He tore a piece from his military uniform and tied it around my mutilated arm. When he was convinced I was stable enough to move, he lifted me from the ground, careful with the injury.

His face turned, searching for something nearby.

“Take care of the chimera. The girl near the lake is fine.” Only then did I realize there was another person with Zion—a man in a white lab coat. “You need to keep her alive for a few minutes. Help is already on the way.”

The man agreed, and the shadows covered us. Soon I felt that strange sensation of being sucked through darkness and hurled somewhere else. His hands pressed me against his chest, as if trying to fuse me to his skin.

“Kiara,” I insisted once more.

“Owen is with her. The team will take her.”

Zion trembled as he carried us through an eternity of shadows. Meanwhile, I tried to organize my words—I needed to tell him things—but my head couldn't think straight, and unconsciousness lurked ever closer. Something was broken in my mind, a voice that kept slipping through the cracks. It wanted to be heard, and I could no longer ignore it.

“Zion?” I called softly during the journey. He didn't respond, but he was listening. “Now I understand the voice in my head.” He said nothing, but glanced at me briefly as he brought us through to the wall. “I worked on a blocked part of my personality… and being brave unlocked my power… but it also freed the… memories.”

This time he frowned, slowing down to study me. Before I knew it, we were already in the hospital corridor.

“What do you mean by that?”

“It means… that Serguei…” My body went limp, losing the rest of its strength, and my fingers unintentionally released the round piece I'd been clutching so firmly. It fell, making a metallic sound as it bounced across the floor. Zion immediately stopped and stared at it. Under the light of the archemic globes, it looked like a bottle cap with a chip in the center. His eyes widened in shock, and he cut me off.

“Where did you find this? In a drone?”

I breathed deeply, gathering air for one last sentence. Unconsciousness was already dragging me toward that crack full of echoes in my subconscious.

“It was inside a Caniçal.”

Δ

“Don't fight. Run.”

The voice carried through the forest, sweeping me up in a whirlwind of sensations. A voice I knew, a timbre I’d forgotten over the years but now heard with perfect clarity. It was my mother’s voice—I knew it was. How could I not?