Second Dominion (Fourth Age)
Aurean Cycle no. 462 of the Macbeth dynasty, reign of Aldric II
Second Quadrant, Alay (Seat-Planet of House Claw)
A dream—the kind where you try your best to scream, but only muffled sounds come out of your throat. Jean was shouting something at Law's side, but he couldn't hear.
It was as if the world itself had been sucked into a thick layer of glass, where every noise arrived broken, reduced to a distant vibration.
Amarel was still warm in Law's arms, and yet already seemed centuries away. White knuckles clenched around blood-soaked fabric. Half a head blown away, an absence that didn't even have a shape. Blood ran down his chest in uneven splashes, drummed on the floor like acid rain. The body was heavier than a human could be. Law held him, and every passing second the weight grew, as if guilt itself were solidifying in the flesh. For an instant he saw a child in his arms, small, eyes swollen with tears, clinging to him and begging for protection. Someone from a memory very, very far away. And behind him, the broken voices of dying parents: Protect him.
The memory overlaid the ferrous smell of blood, and Law staggered.
The noise covered everything: blasters screaming, walls booming, lights trembling like inflamed veins.
Jean was shouting something, but Law didn't hear. He didn't want to hear.
Amarel's body had collapsed against him with absurd weight, as if life had decided to become ballast. A moment before he'd been laughing, throwing off jokes as always. A moment later, just empty flesh.
Law set him against the metal cradle, his brain hammering into nothing.
How does he know? He never saw us together. Shit. He's not moving. If only I'd turned sooner. I've gotten slow.
Fuck.
How does he know?
They sold us out.
It's my fault.
I should've turned sooner.
How does he know?
He's not moving.
The head… it's… it's…
Shit.
It's my fault.
I failed.
Dan… I'm sorry…
Every thought was a blade twisting in his gut.
A blue beam grazed his ear and shattered a chunk of wall behind him.
After the guards shut down the platform, they had bolted into the refrigeration room, firing blind to force a passage. The metal had trembled as if reacting to the heat of the shots. Now they were crouched behind the canister's metal cradle, a refuge worth less than nothing.
Snow's guards were six, plus the butler with his predator's calm, plus Snow himself, still, glacial, as if orchestrating a black mass. No haste, no emotion: he let the weapons speak for him.
Shots thundered off the smooth walls like a storm of nails. Every blast ricocheted and came back closer, as if the walls themselves were betraying them.
Jean's breathing was ragged. She was wounded in one arm: blood seeped slowly, staining the sleeve of the suit. She felt the burn in flesh and bone. She had brought the portable console from the cold room, and now used it as an improvised shield. Two shots had already sliced its edge. Another had scorched her left thigh in a graze. Lancing pain. Blood soaked her trousers, hot and slick. Her voice broke into a mix of screams and sobs lost in the din. She had no time to cry, but the pain made her shake, and every time she tried to raise her weapon, her hands slipped.
She forced herself to breathe. Hold. Hold. You can't break now.
She fired blind over the cradle's rim. She saw one guard stagger back, but two others had already flanked from the right. She could hear them moving like hunting beasts, coordinated, lethal.
Everything was there. The chances, the money, the dream of settling her father's debt, of saving the business, of not feeling crushed anymore. All of it was there, reduced to a hell of plasma and searing metal.
"Bastards!" she shouted, and she didn't even know whether she meant them or herself.
Every time she pulled the trigger, Jean felt blood slide along her palm, hot, viscous, a mixture of pain and anger. Every snap of the blaster was a knife driving into her shoulder, and yet she kept firing. Not out of courage. Out of desperation.I can't die here. Not before I've paid off my father's debts. Not before I've set everything right.The thought ricocheted inside her like a desperate mantra. Then another, more bitter one: and you… you brought us here. She looked at Law, motionless with Amarel in his arms, and rancor burned her throat. But she said nothing. Not now. Not when the only thing keeping her body upright was blind fury.
Lacrosse was breathing in jerks, eyes wide, unable to tear themselves from Snow's figure. Everything in him screamed to run, but his legs were nailed down. He felt his skin burn where they had hit him.
The shot that killed Amarel had petrified him: the head flying apart, blood geysering red, and that ferrous smell forcing its way in.
It was the first time he had seen violence so close. A few centimeters from him. At his companion.
The boy was wedged against the cradle's side, with the Krava canister a few steps away, puffing white vapor. He'd been hit in the side, a scorch on the too-long suit fabric.
He forced himself to move. He grabbed the blaster Amarel had dropped. His hands shook. He raised the weapon, fired a shot. Missed. Fired again. A blue flash struck a wall. The guards laughed—he swore they laughed—while they kept shooting.
Lacrosse wavered. I'm useless.
His eyes fell back to Amarel. Instinctively he straightened the collar, a useless, human gesture. Then he sought his aim again.
A flash. A flare. Again the green-blue plain, again the boys running. The girl turning. "Hey."
BANG!
"Hey," he answered, but it was a whisper lost in the roar.
BANG!
The world was shattering between two realities that refused to merge.
A shot tore his left shoulder and hurled him against the cradle. He screamed, a strangled scream. It wasn't pain, it was more fear. He fell to his knees, the blaster rolling away.
Jean grabbed him by an arm, dragged him closer. "Hold on!"
Then she shifted suddenly, crawling along the floor to get to Law. The wound made her pant, but she still clenched the blaster. "Law! Cover me!" she shouted, though she didn't even know if the voice had come out loud or only in her head.
A rain of shots chipped the metal cradle behind which they were sheltered. Incandescent splinters scraped their faces. The guards advanced with slow, measured steps. No hurry: they had already boxed them in.
Snow, meanwhile, spoke. His calm, icy voice cut through the tumult like a knife.
"I'm disappointed. I thought you understood my position. And instead you sell yourselves to those unhinged ones… you sell me. Ingrates."
Snow's voice imposed itself over the din. It wasn't louder; he didn't shout. It was the world itself that fell silent to let him speak. Every syllable arrived limpid, clear, as if the hall breathed with him.The blasters' lights didn't touch him. He stood there, motionless, and yet it seemed the space around him filtered the shots, as if even light respected him.Jean panted, Lacrosse trembled, Law didn't breathe. And he, glacial, enunciated the words as if reading a sentence already written.
Snow lifted his chin. "But this changes little for me. You brought a spy? Let them come"—he gave the Krava milk canister a slight kick—"I now have an opportunity. I granted one to you as well… but you were pitiful in taking it. And now you will die."
Jean lowered her gaze to the canister, still intact in the room's cold, and felt a wave of nausea. All for that. All for a damn canister.
"No…" she murmured. "It doesn't end like this."
She raised the blaster with both hands, aim shaky from the wound, and fired two shots toward the butler's shadow. One guard cried out, but the reply was immediate: a plasma beam grazed her shoulder and slammed her into the cradle. Jean screamed in pain, clenching her teeth.
"Jean!" Lacrosse cried, voice cracking. He threw himself toward her, trying to drag her behind better cover. But his every movement was clumsy, the suit too big hampering him, blood sticking his hands.
Law finally laid Amarel on the ground. His fingers trembled, but never fully left the fabric of his friend's suit. Amarel's empty eyes stared without seeing, and Law felt his heart explode in his chest. I didn't make it. Not again. I never make it.
Jean yanked his arm, voice broken. "Law! Move!"
But he didn't move. His legs wouldn't answer. Everything was his fault. He hadn't protected Amarel. He hadn't protected anyone. The promise he had dragged since childhood weighed on him like rusted chains.
The shots went on. Lacrosse, crouched on one knee, fired blind over the cradle. His hands shook so much every blast went wide. He saw only flares and shadows. Every time he dropped his gaze, Amarel's blood brought him back to reality.
"It… it can't end here…" he whispered, more to himself than to the others.
Jean clenched her teeth, trying to stanch the blood with her free hand. "We're screwed…"
Snow did not advance. He didn't need to. He stayed still, watching them. His pale blue eyes were colder than the room itself. Now and then he tilted his head slightly, as if at a firing range, figuring how to center the target.
The guards tightened the vise. Three on the left, three on the right. The butler in the center, motionless, an elegant shadow.
Jean drew a deep breath, as if gathering every remnant of courage. She turned to Law. "If you're going to do something… do it now."
Law looked at her with an indecipherable expression. Then he looked at Lacrosse, who kept firing listless shots, as if he didn't believe he could really hit anything. Then at Amarel again. The blood. The ferrous smell burning his nostrils.
Law's heart hammered. Too slow, too late, always too late.
The voices in his head wouldn't stop.
If only I'd turned sooner. Dan, I'm sorry. I didn't make it. I never make it.
His hands trembled. Not from fear. From something pressing, wanting out.
Snow stared at him. And for the first time, a shadow of curiosity passed through his blue pupils.
Law's breathing deepened, as if he were about to drown and had just found air.
And then, he sighed.
"—" Snow, Jean, and Lacrosse watched him in silence.
Law rose, heart pounding. He was exposed.
"What are you doing?!" Jean croaked.
"In the end, it isn't something that depends on me," he murmured.
Snow frowned. "On the contrary, it did depend on you. You could have avoided all this."
A shot. To the shoulder.
Law heard a slight boom inside himself. Not outside—inside.
"You could have granted me the chance."
Another. To the chest.
A deep sound, like a system powering back on.
"You could have gone home with your companion and your money."
The sound grew louder.
Another. To the forehead.
Louder.
The guards began firing in bursts, all at the same target.
Louder.
"All for—"
Louder.
"But what—"
The white-skinned S'Ari's voice died in his throat. For an instant he froze. He couldn't make sense of it.
Unless everyone with a blaster in that room had suddenly gone blind, he could swear they had hit that bastard standing there at least thirty times. No, more—around fifty.
The torn suit confirmed his doubts.
Then why the hell isn't he bleeding?!
Truth was, there were superficial bruises. Bruises. From blasters. At less than three lumes' distance.
A jolt.
Light.
From where? From him.
Jean and Lacrosse shielded their eyes with their arms. The guards and the butler did the same. Snow remained still.
When the light dissipated, Law's body was surrounded by something incorporeal and transparent. A wavering layer, silvery and bluish. On his skin, channels, thick veins, of the same color. He stood motionless.
In Snow's head, in the bodyguards' heads, and in the butler's, it was as if a mental flash drive had been inserted. What did it contain? Memories.
Voices, censored and hardly accessible news.
News of scandals, violence.
News of the monstrous tragedy on Ignar six years ago.
News of a very dangerous man.
Snow murmured, voice cracked. "You…"
Law lifted his gaze. His eyes shone, animal. "Me."
They all recoiled, panic-stricken.
It didn't help.
Eight.
No more words.
Law was no longer in the same place.
A guard lifted his arm to shoot. As he lifted it, he lost it. Diagonal cut across the forearm. Clean, but not that clean.
He tried to force a scream. Throat slit. No—his entire head flew off. A cut so strong the impact destroyed the wall behind.
Law stood before the body, a bloodied shard of glass in his hand.
Seven.
Now they were the ones firing blind.
Three consecutive thrusts. Two to the chest. One to the head. Window between thrusts: a third of a second. Holes as big as cannon shots.
Six.
Two changes of position. Two vertical slashes. Two horizontal. Blaster, arms, gut, throat.
Five.
Blaster on the trajectory. Deflection. Clean thrust to the head.
Four.
One-hundred-eighty-degree turn. Use of momentum with minimal shift. Wide slash. Body completely hewn in two.
Three.
Change of position. Drive. Quick thrust to the throat.
Two.
Every slash, every thrust, every stab was trailed by a silvery wake, with a trajectory and destructiveness far greater than a shard of glass should offer.
Law shot toward the butler with such force and speed that when he grabbed his head and smashed it against the wall, it burst immediately, like a balloon full of blood.
One.
Lacrosse and Jean were still seated, paralyzed. Five, six seconds. Seven dead.
Law turned toward Snow. The first began to advance. No run, no sprint. A calm walk. The second retreated.
"You should have been dead."
He, drenched in blood, lifted his shoulders nonchalantly.
Snow pulled a vial from his pocket and downed it quickly. Extracted Krava milk. The cold rose from his stomach to his throat. For an instant his fingers trembled, then veins flowered beneath his skin, blue and sharp.
Law said nothing.
"This is what separated us…" Snow enunciated, looking at his hands. His body was circled by a faint pulsing layer of the same color as the veins.
"Only this… only this is what it takes to stand above the others… and you hid… pa—"
He didn't finish. Law lunged forward and seized him by the throat.
He lifted him into the air.
For an instant there was no sound. Enough time to draw breath.
Then he began to stab him.
Fast. Very fast. It sounded like a machine-gun burst.
He kept on for at least ten seconds, then hurled him to the floor. A bleeding pool from chest to belly.
Snow had lost his chance.