Page 49 of Love, Nemesis (Ocean to Ashes #2)

THE HORSE’S HOOVES clacked over the stone of the great bridge, separating the outer farmland from the initial ring of buildings in the State capital.

“This isn’t right,” Cal said.

“Hmm.” Lethe stopped his horse, eyes narrowing as he peered into the distance.

“The city is too quiet,” Cal said, voicing a thought that had passed through Lethe’s mind a mile or so ago.

He’d picked up on the silence but was unable to voice it without having to also explain to Cal the nature of the virus that continued to proliferate in his blood in addition to the heightened senses it gave him.

“Ares won,” Cal said, audibly distraught. “He must have.”

“Let’s go,” Lethe said, proceeding forward.

Cal fell in behind him. “We just survived one mass killing. I think we should turn back. Get news from someone else.”

Lethe lifted his chin to the sky. His eyes eased closed as he breathed in the air. He couldn’t smell blood.

He did smell shock.

“Cal,” Lethe scolded him, relaxed. “Turn back, but you’re doing it on your own.”

Cal didn’t reply.

They proceeded forward. Lethe scanned the area before he stopped with a view of the main street.

Complete silence. He’d been apprehensive about coming back initially.

He had been tempted to take a detour to En Sanctus to get more Snake Bite, but he’d sensed something awry in the State capital’s direction and changed course.

Cal hadn’t known enough about his original plan to notice the shift in it.

Right now, he was glad he’d come.

He could see people in the distance, standing completely still like statues. Lethe peered through the pounding sun, inspecting the details around him as they moved closer to the scene.

“This isn’t Ares,” Cal whispered. “This looks like…Chronos.” They got closer, stopping on another bridge before what looked like a gray overlay, cast over the city in a sphere.

“It’s like it’s been activated. But this is bad.

Chronos is never supposed to be activated like this over the entire city. ”

Lethe peered curiously through the haze, trying to see if any people’s reactions within the haze could give an indication of what had happened. He dismounted and started walking forward.

“Hey, hey!” Cal said. “You want to be frozen in time?”

“I need to get closer,” he said, looking around as he inspected the gray.

“We shouldn’t stay here,” Cal said, clutching his Atlas to his chest. “This isn’t supposed to happen.”

“Who would have done this?” Lethe said, his voice barely above a whisper as his thoughts carried him elsewhere. He looked up at a sun grayed out by the distortion.

“No one would do this,” Cal whispered. “Maybe Ares? No one on our side would do this.”

“Stay here,” Lethe said.

“For how long? You know if you’re gone for ten years, I’m not staying—”

Lethe waved back at him before walking forward.

Cal said something back, but the deeper Lethe walked into the gray area, the farther Cal’s voice echoed. Soon the world around him was silent.

The air was stagnant with trauma, choking any deep expansion of the lungs.

Gray shock painted the world in the shades of an apocalypse.

Every human and every creature was frozen: birds and leaves stuck in mid-air; a baby reaching after a toy; a man whose finger was extended with an incomplete gesture of his hand.

Give me your time.

He heard The Eating Ocean whisper.

A drop rained from the sky, landing on his cheek. He wiped his face, seeing the black water stain his hands.

He looked up to see dark clouds above.

“All right,” he whispered with a smile, waving his hand across the ground before him.

He felt suddenly light, the time no longer slowing him down. He could feel his pulse through his fingertips, focusing the Madness in his blood toward resisting the strain of Chronos’s time.

He kept walking.

He explored, his arm starting to throb as he used it to wade through the pressure of time around him, resisting its ability to lock him in. The last of the Snake Bite in his system was fighting hard and the sudden inpouring of Madness.

Lethe walked through the gates of the capital and its buildings before exploring the hallways, noticing a soldier frozen mid-run. He walked past him, turning into a wide corridor.

Ana sat there in the middle of the hall, ankles crossed, knees drawn up toward her face where she buried her head. Her arms were locked over her head, hands gripping her hair.

Around her, soldiers lay in motion, some reaching, some falling, some shouting from the blast.

Lethe walked through the hallway, his feet soundless against the ground.

The air seemed to thicken as he neared her, like the core of some nuclear collapse of time.

His arm throbbed as he compelled the forces of time away from him with black sentience, the pain spreading deeply through his chest as his pulse quickened.

The sensation moved down his spine as he knelt in front of her. He lifted a hand to her knees, fingers moving through her hair. Her hands collapsed loosely away from him. For a moment, he thought that she was dead. With quick precision, he imagined how these events had unfolded.

His hand found her chin, and he prompted it up. He met the vacancy in her eyes, his other hand rising to push the hair from her face.

He could see the blackened fingertips on his hands, the pain spreading as the virus explored his bones.

Lethe met Ana’s gaze, calling out to some deeply buried light in her eyes. He leaned his forehead against hers, eyes softening, “It’s time to go.”

He saw the flicker of a response, something rolling in the cells of her soul, like a prisoner flinching at the first spot of light. She was disoriented and fatigued.

He stroked her hair, standing slowly to his feet as he surveyed the room a final time. Soldiers were frozen in motion. Hailey stood calmly nearby, having not even turned his head.

Lethe approached him, meeting the man’s eyes a moment before drawing his dagger and driving it forward. The movement was quick and easy, no blood seeping from the wound as Lethe returned his dagger to his belt. The blood would come later, when Chronos withdrew, but Hailey was as good as dead.

He stepped away, sweeping Ana into his arms. Picking her up, he held her close to his chest as he turned from the hallway and returned through the streets.

Cal was waiting in the same spot when he left the sphere. “—not staying right here,” he said, finishing the line Lethe had already heard him say. The boy jumped backward, blinking at him in surprise and confusion. “Whoa! How’d you do that?”

“Let’s go,” Lethe prompted, setting Ana up on the horse before hopping on behind her. The sphere of time shuddered behind them and started to fade.

“It’s going away,” Cal said.

“Ana.” Lethe nudged her, coaxing her out of daze. “Where do we go?”

“She mentioned having a place in Satellite,” Cal said. “I think that’s a good start. It’s out of the way.”

“Satellite it is then,” he said. “Lead the way.”

Cal inspected Ana for a moment and then glanced back up at Lethe. “All right,” he said and started off. Lethe wrestled the gloves from his belt, slipping them over his hands before he followed after Cal.

It was a sizable distance to Satellite. Ana took the reins when they arrived near her home, still not speaking. She led them through the rest of the trails, hopping off the horse and stumbling toward the cabin. She threw open the door.

Lethe and Cal ran in after her to see her collapse against the kitchen counter.

She grabbed the nearest knife. Setting her mechanical arm on the counter, she tried to wedge the blade into a gap in the arm near the elbow.

She slammed the blade into the wedge, and the device reacted with a whirring sound, sparking the knife back and sending electricity reverberating through her body.

It threw her back, her body crashing into the floor and rolling.

She sat up, reaching for the knife again that had fallen beside her.

Lethe swept in, grabbing her hand and pulling her tightly into his chest.

“Ana,” he called firmly and she fought him off.

“No!” she shouted, her first word, voice broken and dry.

Lethe wrestled the knife away, tossing it to Cal, and she shoved at him.

They stumbled back, flipping the table over. The cup of tea, having sat on the table for weeks, flew across the room, shattering as it threw liquid across the floor and walls. What remained of the bottom of the cup rolled toward the door.

Ana gripped her hair, turning as she shouted again, throwing her hands down over the counter and gripping the edge as Lethe released her, each hand on either side of hers on the counter. His chin hovered over her shoulder and he stayed there behind her.

She panted, white-knuckled, body trembling from weakness. She sank down against it, Lethe helping her down before backing away.

She turned so that she could look up to the ceiling.

Her head rolled to the side, gaze following the pathway of spilled tea across the room.

Her eyes lingered on a painting leaning against the opposite side of the room.

It bore the depiction of rich, colorful flowers, each of the petals painted like different types of feathers.

No one spoke as the minutes passed.

“Lethe,” she said in the silence.

“Hm?”

“As a Rider, you dedicated your life to protecting the Sanctus Ghost, even when you felt like you might have failed.” She paused, but her expression remained void. “Was it worth it?”

Lethe didn’t speak for a moment. “You’re asking me if I think it’s good to be good. Are you sure you want my answer to that question?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Even if you don’t like my answer?”

She didn’t reply, turning her head to look at him as if to prompt his answer.