Page 127 of The Space Between Stars

What am I?

The Survivor’s metallic voice was level as ever. {If there is one thing to be said for you, it is that you are endlessly predictable.}

Don’t toy with me. What am I?

{Two steps down from deity. A failed experiment. An abomination. A coward.}

Time stretched. Half submerged in the void as he was, Calver vaguely noticed Kian’s elevated voice. Niklaus’s rose to meet it: a battle of words, circling one another like snakes.

WHAT AM I?

Had the Survivor eyes, he felt they would have narrowed on him. {You know what you are.}

The truth turned the world around him to madness, the possibilities and insights stacking outward in an endless line. All those years his mother had promised him his father was a loyalist… His family had been on the losing side of a secret schism. No wonder Cul’Mon had wanted him—chased him across the ocean. Calver was an experiment, designed to produce a weapon. And considering the prospect of a Tera’thian distortion stratum, the experiment had been successful.

The Survivor sifted through his thoughts, and Calver took equal advantage of the moment to search through the memories of their shared experiences. It didn’t take long to find the feedback he was looking for: Fankalo. Fankalo talking about Luck, about futures, about Fate. Words that had entered his ears and he’d never heard or thought on. Fankalo looking at him with broken eyes. He’d been a burden all this time. Even before the incident. How had he not realized how bad it had been?

Does Fankalo know?

{Of course she knows. A lot smarter than you, isn’t she?}

Get out. He had everything he needed now. VOID.

If the Survivor’s grip on his headspace lessened, it was imperceptible.

{Are you angry, Calverous?}

I don’t need you anymore.

{You keep saying that, and yet—}

I am in control now, and I will finish this without you. VOID.

Nothing happened.

Calver nearly put down his guard, thinking the Survivor’s silence to mean it had fled, until—

{I’ve always been the one in control. I descended, assuming you were a lost cause. But you are still here.}

Gooseflesh erupted down Calver’s neck. Void void void. When the Survivor had submerged itself in Chira’na, he’d actually believed himself rid of it. He should have known better. Things that were good were never things that were lasting.

{But you already know when you’ll be rid of me.} As the void mantra continued to fail, Calver’s panic spiraled around him, seeping through the cracks in his mind for the Survivor to lap like nectar. {How long do you have, Calverous? I know you count.}

The answer slipped out. Three-hundred and thirty-two days.

The Survivor hummed. Its weight deepened, crushing him. {Giving you control has only ever been a mercy: an entertainment. It makes no difference to me whether you claim your headspace until then. You’re still headed exactly where I want you.}

Calver’s gut plummeted. Despair clouded where he had begun to long for a future. There had only ever been one way forward. VOID.

{I might have turned in quietly, barring your hiccup of misbelief. Instead, I’ll leave you with this reminder of how little agency you have.}

Voi—

The thought was struck from him. Calver’s psyche became a brittle leaf in the Survivor’s palm.

The mind-djinn clenched its cold, iron fist.

NIKLAUS