Rose nodded. “But those are absolutely our redwoods.”
“Not ours, per se,” Esme sighed. “Derek is right. I think we’re looking at a modified copy of our world. It’s the only explanation for this…”
There were people gathering in the clearing. All the clones from every corner of that… “Shade.” I saw myself and Derek, too. Our children and grandchildren. Their uncles and aunts. Their cousins. Friends and colleagues. People we’d lived with for most of our lives, mimicked by these vicious creatures. A woman came out of the villa, and everything fell silent.
“Welcome, children,” she told them, smiling and obviously satisfied by the gigantic turnout. Isabelle’s clone was but a drop in this ocean. “Welcome. I know this has been a long journey for each of us. Some of you might have worried that what I promised might not come true. Some of you might be thinking you’re better off losing yourselves in the world, pretending to be someone you’re not. Do not despair, children…” The crowd grew restless, but the woman didn’t care. She glowed like a sunbeam, her hair long and golden, her dress black and white, her sapphire eyes burning like nothing I’d seen before. Even her voice… it was sweet and different, designed to send a rush of adrenalin through me as I listened. “Do not despair, for we shall have it. Soon, everything we have worked for will become a reality. Soon, we shall have it all. You! You shall have it all!”
The clones roared and clapped with delight, while the woman smiled and enjoyed their reaction, taking it all in, sipping from the joy of each and every person present.
“You know the switch is needed, and a perilous journey lies ahead. Certain conditions must be met,” she went on to say, growing suddenly serious. “Most importantly, we need more portals.”
“Every time you open one, one of us dies!” a clone shouted. “And we never know which one of us it will be until it’s too late!”
The golden woman was unmoved. “It is a minimal price to pay for greatness and freedom, don’t you think? Besides, there are more of you in my laboratories than there are stars in the sky. I only need to greenlight your production. So, it doesn’t matter which of you dies. Your lives are needed to fuel the portals, and your lives are absolutely replaceable. This is about more than just your well-deserved rewards, however. How much longer shall we let those Shadians think they own the world, huh?”
The clones burst into cheers, shaking their fists as the golden woman smiled once more.
“We will take it,” she said. “We will take it all!”
That was everything the crowd needed to explode, applauding and crying and laughing at the same time. By the time the video ended, we were slightly wiser but just as confused. It took us a while to even formulate thoughts after what we’d watched. We had so many questions.
“Do you think that’s where the kids are?” Phoenix said, asking the most important question of them all.
I wanted to say yes, but the thought horrified me because it meant our children were out there in that wretched plane of existence, surrounded by awful clones that were led by that golden woman with way too much power of persuasion in her voice.
“We need to get to them. Fast.” Derek said what I couldn’t. He was scared, too. I could see it in his eyes. Rose and Ben were troubled, stealing glances at one another. We knew what the general consensus was, but nobody wanted to say it aloud.
Our children were in deep trouble, if that was their current environment. The worst part was that we couldn’t do a damn thing to get to them. Not until one of those shimmering portals opened.
Astra
My immunity to the black mist was an ace I had to use fast. As the Berserkers came down on us hard and with everything they had, I bounced across the short grass and tapped Regine’s shoulder, then Myst’s. The light inside me had grown beyond my ability to control it—an apparent side effect of my physical contact with the liquid darkness. But it didn’t matter. Whatever my nature was responding to, it was making me stronger and bolder than ever.
Maybe it was the knowledge of my ability to open shimmering portals that had been the true game changer. Maybe my psyche had taken a leap of faith, and now everything else was just… falling into place, piece by piece.
Thayen used his pulverizer weapon on the incoming clones. The ground shook from their approach. A mass of doubles came from every direction, converging on the villa. Whatever Hrista’s ultimate goal was, she wasn’t here to tell us about it. No, she’d left us here to die. After playing with us, waiting for us to actively search for trouble, she’d decided it was time to end us.
“Jericho, Dafne! We need dragons!” Thayen shouted. They would be effective against most of the clones. It left the two of us with Myst, Regine, and Brandon against Torrhen and about a dozen other Berserkers, each looking scarier than the last.
One of them was tall enough to rival a tree, with massively square shoulders and a cape as black as night. Another was stocky and muscular, with blue fires in his eyes so bright and vicious that it made my blood freeze. They had weapons of darkness—swords, long knives, axes, and even a sickle-sword. They were fast and ruthless, and sometimes it was hard to push back. My light held them back, but never for too long.
Torrhen, in particular, was a persistent foe. Myst drew light from Jericho’s fire, and Regine came to me for hers. Allowing the glow inside
