Page 8 of Love, Nemesis (Ocean to Ashes #2)

IT WAS LIKE the ocean, a distant, churning sound, voices upon voices of all inflections. Then came the first subtle wave, creeping up the shores of Lethe’s mind, close like breath in his ear.

The force muttered something inarticulately, and then louder, like a hot tide rising, bringing the waves closer to him. He knew he was standing on the edge of something vast, and his mind took him to a picture of himself, feet in the sand of a boiling, red and black ocean.

He heard the words clearer now, from a thousand souls.

Let me have your breath , they said. Give me your skin . Again, like a wave. Let me have your spine . The ocean would pull the wave back again, the drawing of the tide answering its own request with another. Give me your sight .

For a while, Lethe just listened, feeling the warm lust of the whispers like water brushing his toes, his heels, and then his ankles.

The Eating Ocean had many descriptions, human language trying its best to frame up the intricacies of an immortal, abstract force. It lived in a place outside of time, reaching through otherworldly spheres to stroke the human soul.

If it had eaten other worlds before theirs, Lethe didn’t know, but he knew it had eaten other souls, millions of other souls.

Looking out into the endless waters, Lethe didn’t see death. Death was a natural stage in the cycle of life. A dying body decayed and gave way to something else. The Eating Ocean was not a stage in the cycle of life. It was an interruption of it. It was made of pure madness.

The sand sucked him in. Lethe felt a thing he could not describe, but it extended beyond revulsion. His body reacted with so much violence he drew back hard, a blackening nausea blasting through his brain and scattering his essence like dust. His body lurched.

He woke up with sweat on his brow under the cover of a tree. He looked around, searching the vacant, grassy hills around Fort Row. He had a clear view of the entire fort from where he’d dozed off in the hills.

He inhaled, reaching for his flask before drinking a measured sip and returning it to his belt. He leaned forward, wiping his forehead on his sleeve as he sighed.

He could hear his horse pulling up the grass farther down the hill, eating near where it had been when he fell asleep.

He lay back, looking up at the sun through the trees, closing his eyes against a breeze. After a few more minutes, the tension in his chest passed. He sat up again, watching the grassy plains and the snow-capped mountains beyond.

The trees at the base of the hill shook with powerful winds that came off the plains, and the sound vaguely reminded him of the ocean. He blamed it for his dream.

He scanned the hills again, spotting one boy from his class waiting on his horse. A few more were nearby.

It was a patrol drill today, the easiest and his favorite as it didn’t require much instruction on his part.

The boys had to move back and forth along a designated perimeter, reporting to one another at specific touchpoints along their routes.

It went on for several hours, simulating a legitimate shift.

He rubbed his face just as a screech whistled into the air, removing his hand in just enough time to see a flare pop and sizzle over the trees below.

The wind rustled the branches above him, and a breeze caught the grass in the plains, brushing up into the sky and clearing the flare into the clouds.

He sighed.

“That can’t be good.”

Pushing himself off the grass, he walked down to his horse. He grabbed the horse’s reins before hopping on, directing the animal toward the trees.

He loosened a short spear tied tight along his saddle.

“Lethe!” a voice said. He turned as two boys from his class cantered around a nearby hill, slowing to a trot to match his horse’s pace. “Did you see that?”

It seemed they might have a real learning experience today on patrol.

“Yeah,” Lethe replied. “You boys keep to the rear. That was a flare.”

“A flare?” asked Dawson, a scrawny brunette with sunburned cheeks,.

“A call for help. We used them during the war.”

“So, it’s someone from the war? Like a war hero?” Perry asked from his other side.

“No one who would make a move like that under the circumstances would have survived the war. It’s probably a foreigner. Is anyone else coming?”

“No. Everyone else is on guard on the other side of the fort.”

“All right, well then, keep up.” He urged his horse into a canter, navigating the familiar trails through the woods and slowing when he neared the target area.

He stopped his horse, lifting a hand to stop the boys a fair distance behind him.

He surveyed the surrounding area and then signaled with two curved fingers and a side wave of his thumb.

The boys loosened the short spears from their side saddles and moved their horses back into a clearing to their left.

Lethe urged his horse onward.

“Hello!” someone shouted from the treetops, but Lethe kept his eyes glued to the woods. “Is someone there? Hey! Hey—hey, you!”

“Be quiet,” Lethe said.

“There’s a dog here, a gigantic dog! Be careful!”

“I said be quiet,” Lethe replied, glancing up at the tree only long enough to see two arms and legs hugging the trunk.

“I’m Cal, from the State. I was going from town to town, and then this thing attacked my horse on the way in. My horse ran off. I’m hurt.”

“And you thought drawing in the locals to save you was a good idea?” Lethe responded, irritated now.

“It ate my weapon! I didn’t have a choice!” Cal pleaded.

The brush rustled behind Lethe. He twisted on his horse just as a black dog the size of a lion burst from the bushes.

He drove the spear into the monster’s throat, using the momentum of the creature to lift it up and over his horse.

The thing collapsed and rolled on the other side.

Lethe moved with it, ripping the spear free as the beast rolled away.

It hissed and gagged, clawing against the earth.

Lethe whistled through his fingers, and Dawson and Perry rode up behind him.

“You killed it?!” Cal exclaimed from the tree.

Lethe kept his eyes trained on the great dog as he heard the boy climbing down with the rustling and breaking of the bark. The creature twitched and squirmed as it died, eyes, teeth and tongue as black as night, evidence of the State experiments that had helped create it.

Twigs fell around Lethe as Cal struggled down the tree.

“It’s a black breed dog,” Lethe said, taking a deep breath to soothe his body back into a relaxed state.

“Leftover from when the State released them into the Mystics. A few escaped out here.” He drew out a hunting knife from his saddlebag before hopping off his horse and kneeling by the beast. He split the belly open, drawing back his sleeves.

Reaching inside, he removed something caught in the stomach, forcing all the contents to spill out with a flood of bile.

“The State hasn’t made black breeds for thirty years,” Cal said.

“Thirty years State time, not En Sanctan time.”

A circular object glistened, odd and pronounced from the rest. Lethe lifted it up, finding it a perfect fit in his hand.

A glass orb encased by a brass ring with levers.

He’d seen one before and recognized the State issued Atlas.

He glanced back at what remained of the stomach, noticing a skeletal hand, a portion of the bone puncturing the lining.

A ring was still fixed on the finger, an insignia of an arrow cut down the middle, pressed into the metal.

“Is this your weapon?” Lethe asked, standing up. He turned, acknowledging the boy at last.

Cal wore a beige button down, ripped and bloodstained, with black riding pants. A large leather belt was fixed across his thin hips with an assortment of pockets and gadgets. The symbol of a clock stitched into the pocket of the shirt was a clear indicator of his involvement in the Numbers.

He offered out his hands, green eyes beckoning, sandy-brown hair trapped to his face with dirt and sweat. Cal looked to be around fifteen. It seemed the State was recruiting them early these days, likely trying to compensate for thinning forces along the border.

Lethe tossed the Atlas to him, and Cal squeezed his fingers together, activating a copper ring on his right middle finger. The object whirred and snapped into the hand with the ring. Some bile splattered onto Cal’s face. He backed up, spitting and coughing.

Lethe extended his clean hand, and the boy shook it. “Welcome to En Sanctus. You’re in Fort Row. My name is Lethe.”

“Thank you so much,” Cal said, wiping his face with his sleeve.

“Dawson will give you a ride back to camp,” Lethe said, gesturing to Dawson’s horse.

Cal struggled on, grabbing on to the edges of the saddle, slipping with a bloodied cut on his hand, and then grabbing again.

“Dawson, make sure he gets a Statesman’s welcome. I’ll be back shortly.”

Dawson smirked knowingly. “Yes, sir.”

“Also, tell Manaj I need him out here and to bring torches.”

“Yes, sir.” Dawson nodded promptly before riding off at a brisk pace.

“You want Manaj?” Perry asked. “Is something wrong?”

“I will need a second witness,” Lethe said, removing the handkerchief folded around his neck and wiping his hands on it. He folded it around the bony hand, pushing the dog’s carcass back with his foot to search for any other fragments. “Perry, do you have any oil on you?”

“Yeah.”

“Set this thing on fire, would you?” Lethe rolled the hand up and stuck it into his saddlebag. “Wait here when it’s done burning. I’ll whistle when I need you.”

Perry confirmed the directions before Lethe jumped back onto the horse, riding out into the woods for any signs of overturned earth. He found a clearing of scattered dirt, centered on a series of broken boards in the ground.

He whistled for Perry, who came carrying a portion of the dog’s leg like a torch, still burning with thick, black smoke. He rested the leg down in the open, giving the smoke room to rise through the trees.