If they attack us, I don’t have the energy to fight back.
“Do you think you can do it again?” Niklaus whispers.
Whispers in Old Alkadonian become apparent. Vexamen Breed.
“Do what?”
“What you did to Apple May. Do you know how you did it?”
I shake my head. “I’m so weak.”
Useless.
After everything we’ve been through, we can’t die here. We can’t! I need to get Niklaus home. I don’t care if he hates me for this forever. I don’t care about all the shitty things he’s said to me over the years. I need to get him home.
They move in on us. The slow steps are like watching your own public hanging. The noose. The audience. The slow walk to an old wooden stage. The truth of it is, if these soldiers don’t kill us—sitting here in the snow will.
I grab Niklaus’s wrist and squeeze, though my fingers are hard and numb.
More hushed conversations go on in Old Alkadonian. A debate. It’s a back and forth. They point to us as we shiver in silence, holding on to each other.
Krimson, you’ve protected me my entire life. Where are you now? Have I lost you forever? Has moving through time severed our connection?
A word keeps getting tossed around as the soldiers move closer.
“Bliétzvìz.”
Bait.
My name is not Krimson.
I blink in surprise at the unnatural intrusion in my thoughts. It echoes through what Ibelieveis the void, though I could be wrong. The voice is low, a faint scrape beneath a calm tone. Low and controlled. Male. Each vowel ending in cursive. And an authority that seems infinitely undisputed.
The soldiers whisper-yell at us, pointing and demanding answers to their questions we don’t understand.
“We do not speak Old Alkadonian,” Niklaus responds.
How have you come to enter this mind?The voice pushes into my thoughts with more aggression this time.Are you a threat to our system?
Are you…are you a Short-Haired Windila too?I ask, feeling like I’m going completely mad. But perhaps he is like Dellilian. A guide?
The voice goes quiet.
“Èupzx! Èupzx!” The soldiers snap their fingers at us.
Up! Up!
Before we can protest, our wrists are bound, and we’re shoved through the snow to an open area. The Vexamen Breed look over their shoulders in loud, obvious paranoia.
They say things likescream, bait, hurry, the great beast is with them.
Ah, you must be a fictive alter. Though, that doesn’t seem right either, does it?The voice returns.
Alter?I think on this. There’s no way. Unless I’ve been driven to real, debilitating delusions from the electroshock therapy.Which alter areyou?
Cricket, the gatekeeper.
My eyes go wide.
