Alert for any possibility, Tate advanced the ten feet to Christopher’s side. She circled him, looking for any traps she hadn’t noticed. Finding nothing out of place, she glanced around. Besides her companions, whose faces were tense—except for Tyne who simply looked intrigued by the situation—the corridor was empty. No sign of Peter or anyone else.
Finally, Tate dropped to one knee and reached for Christopher’s shoulder. He flopped onto his back with a groan, revealing a pool of blood under him.
Tate stared at the wound in his chest. For something so small, there was so much blood. Enough that the skin had turned waxen and his lips pale. Pain carved deep grooves into the skin around his mouth and eyes, and the knowledge of his death lurked in his gaze.
Tate put her hand over his chest wound, even knowing it would do little good. “Damn it, Christopher.”
Why couldn’t he have listened to her? If he had, he wouldn’t be dying.
Tate couldn’t say that she and Christopher had ever been friends. In truth, they’d been closer to enemies. Despite that, she’d felt a connection to him that made her reluctant to see him go. In a way, they were two sides of the same coin. He with memories of the past he shouldn’t have and her without the memories she should have. It left her with the feeling of kinship.
He groaned as she pressed down hard, trying to stem the blood.
“Hold on. We’ll get you help. You’ll be fine.” Tate knew as soon as she said it that it was a lie. He wouldn’t be fine. Christopher was dying and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
Tate had enough experience to know the wound he had was mortal. Maybe if they’d gotten here sooner or didn’t have a long trek to the surface and then another to find a doctor or healer, he could survive. As it was, it’d take a miracle she didn’t have.
Tate went still. That gave her an idea.
“Ai, are you there?” Tate raised her voice. “Ai, I need your help. Please.”
Ai controlled the pace the sleepers awakened in. It stood to reason she could put someone to sleep too. From what little Tate knew, the sleepers hadn’t all gone into rest at the same time. Tate was living proof of that. She’d gone into the sleep well before the final battle with the Creators.
Maybe. Just maybe, Christopher could be put into the sleep too. It would be like hitting pause. Not quite alive but not dead either. His injuries could heal in the same way Tate’s mind had healed. It would take a long time. Centuries possibly, but right now it was the only plan she had.
As stupid as it was, she didn’t want to see him die. There had been enough of that in Tate’s life.
Christopher struggled to speak, his words no more than a soft whisper.
Tate leaned forward.
The barest hint of sound reached her. “If one Aurelia rises, the other falls.”
Tate didn’t have time to puzzle over the meaning of his words. Quick as a snake, one of Christopher’s hands shot up, his palm meeting her forehead, fingers spread on her head.
Images invaded her brain. Faster than she could catch them, forcing their way in. Pain splintered her temples as her mind fractured from the overload.
Distantly, Tate recognized this scene. It was when Christopher became the person he currently was. Only instead of Christopher and an unknown creature, the roles had been reversed with Tate standing in for Christopher.
Ilith hissed and heat flared in her chest. The pain that had threatened to fracture Tate’s conscious eased. The flow of images remained the same, still fast and unrelenting, but the mental strain associated with the sudden influx retreated.
Tate calmed. No longer fighting the surge or trying to make sense of what was happening. Simply letting the images flow as they would.
Her breathing slowed as understanding settled in. At first microscopic, almost unnoticed among all the other sensory information. As if a missing piece was being slotted into place after an eternity of absence. One she had not even realized was gone.
As abruptly as the flow had started, it stopped.
Tate wobbled, disoriented at the sudden change. Christopher’s hand was forcibly yanked from her forehead and Ryu’s face appeared in her view seconds later, concern in his eyes as he mouthed something.
“—alright?”
Tate blinked at him, knowing he was speaking but having difficulty adjusting to a world outside the data stream.
“Answer me.”
She touched his hands. The feeling of detachment was fading but not quick enough. She started to assure him but then stopped, her gaze moving over his shoulder to a woman standing twenty feet away.
She looked familiar, Tate noted distantly.
