I covered my mouth with my hand, nausea rolling in my stomach.
"The whispers started after the first year. The echoes outside the walls whispered to us. Promised us freedom. Promised us revenge. Most of the others went mad. My mother..." His throat worked as he swallowed. "She lasted three years. I watched the strongest woman I ever knew turn into a hollow shell who didn't recognize her own son. And when she finally died, the guards just tossed her body into the chute like she was garbage and not a queen or even a person."
Tears blurred my vision. "Cypher, I... I didn't know."
"I didn'twantyou to know. I didn't wantanyoneto know." He looked down at his hands, turning them over. "Ten years intoour imprisonment, the elders who were left organized a riot with the help of a handful of Assembly guards who were sympathetic to our cause. They organized an escape route, rejected food and water for days and gathered what little soul magic they had left. They pushed through the pain of the dampeners, and detonated themselves against the outer hull. They blew a hole in the Dredge."
"Only a couple dozen of us made it out on skiffs that were waiting for us outside the blast zone. I was the only one who didn't make it in time, and my skiff was destroyed. I drifted in the Deep Gallery for a week before I was found, and all I could see when I closed my eyes were our elders, screaming as they expelled every morsel of power in their bodies just to give us a chance at freedom. So don't tell me I'm obsessed. Don't tell me I should let it go. I owe my people a home. I owe them a world where no one will ever put them in a cage again. And if I had to trick you to get you here, if I had to become the monster the Assembly made me to get the Genesis Engine, then I will fucking do it. I will live with your hatred if it means my people get to live too."
I was speechless for a long moment, having expected literally anything but that. I'd known that Nytherians were rare, that most of them were long dead or scattered across realms, but the idea that the Assembly had kept them locked away instead of granting them asylum… I suppose I couldn't say I didn't believe it. Not when my father rotted in the Dredge for helping people. The Assembly had secrets, and it made me wonder what would happen if the public learned of them.
"The Genesis Engine," I said, my voice trembling. "How did you plan on accessing it before you knew what I was? What was your plan? Or did you even have a plan until you pulled me from the Gallery."
Cypher closed his eyes, and for a moment, taking a deep, shaky breath before he met my eyes again. "Because, Juno.I'ma rift."
I shook my head. "That's... you can't be. You said you needed me because?—"
"Iama rift," he repeated, taking a single step towards me. He raised his hand, and a tendril of darkness that looked like a slowly undulating smoke curled from his fingertips. It was oily. Wrong. It moved with a jerky, spasmodic rhythm. I took a small step back, eyes wide, heart pounding. This wasn't elemental magic at all.
"The Dredge didn't just break my mind. It broke my magic. After so many years locked away in darkness with the echos calling to me, it corrupted. I can feel the fabric of the First Dark, but if I try to channel it, if I try to shape it like you do, it rebels. The last time I tried to connect to the First Dark, I killed three of my own crew. The bridge wasn't stable enough, and by the time they went through it was too weak and they were gone."
I sucked in a breath, my stomach sinking. He never mentioned losing his crew before. Never mentioned names and neither had the rest of the crew. How long ago?
He clenched his fist, extinguishing the shadows. "I can't use the Genesis Engine. It requires someone who can handle it without corruption. Someone whole. I am… not… whole. I haven't been whole since I was eight years old."
I paced a few steps, boots scraping over ground that shouldn't have existed. My body ached, and exhaustion was beginning to set in. "You couldn't have just told me about this?‘Hey Juno, by the way, I'm a rift too, and the Assembly imprisoned me for a decade, and now I want your help to punch a hole in the universe!”’
"I didn't think you'd believe me," he said. "Wouldyou have believed me?"
I thought about it. About the girl I'd been six months ago, scrabbling for rent and her mother's medicine. "No," I said, because at least he'd earned a sliver of honesty. "But I might have appreciated the fucking effort."
Cypher held my gaze, not looking away from the accusation in my eyes. I wanted to hate him. I wanted to stay angry. But how could I, knowing what I knew now?
"I wasn't lying about needing the codex," he said. "But it's useless without a functioning rift who can control the void. And it can't be just any rift. It has to be someone who's been touched by the First Dark itself."
Me then. Specifically me.
"Where are the others?" I asked suddenly, head on a swivel as I squinted into the distance. But it was impossible to make anything out.
"The First Dark separates travelers if the bridge isn't controlled. It's a defense mechanism." Cypher gestured vaguely at our surroundings. "We'll find them if we head to the Genesis Engine."
"Ifwe reach it," I said dryly.
"When," he insisted. "I've mapped the path as best I could from the codex's descriptions. It shouldn't be far."
A bitter laugh escaped my lips. "So we're wandering through this place with directions from some dusty tome that could be complete nonsense after several thousand years, and I'm supposed to what, trail behind you like a lost puppy? Put my life in your hands?"
Cypher's eyes darted to the shadows beyond my shoulder. "Standing still here invites trouble. This darkness looks empty, but it's far from it."
As if to emphasize his point, something moved in the shadows behind him. A ripple of darkness against darkness, like a predator swimming beneath murky water.
"What was that?" I hissed, instinctively approaching him.
"One of the reasons we need to keep moving." He held out his hand to me. "I know you hate me. You have every right to. But right now, we need each other."
I stared at his outstretched hand. This man who'd lied to me, manipulated me, violated my trust, my family. This man who'd survived horrors I couldn't imagine. This man who'd turned himself into a monster to save what was left of his people.
I didn't take his hand. But I did nod.
