“Why the hell isn’t it working?” Ross demanded, peering over the edge of the cliff.
“What is wrong? What isn’t working?” Nali asked.
They all turned at the same time. “It’s Gem. The power she emitted destroyed the last alien. It isn’t working this time,” Ashure replied.
“Asahi…,” she gritted out with dismay, her eyes locked on his face.
“I’m in control,” he promised her.
The spider-like webs ran up his throat and along his cheeks now. His eyes held a haunted expression but they were clear. She reluctantly returned her attention to Ashure.
“Drago is laying down some dragon fire, but it doesn’t look like it slowed those things down either,” Ross commented.
“I wonder if smashing it with a rock will work,” Koorgan suggested with a grim glint in his eyes.
Asahi frowned. “It would take an enormous rock to do that,” he observed.
“I’ll find the perfect one,” Koorgan promised before he bolted toward the edge of the cliff.
“What is he—? Is he suicidal?” Asahi exclaimed in shock.
Nali grabbed Asahi’s arm when he stepped closer to the edge. “He’ll be alright,” she reassured him.
“Koorgan always had bigger balls than brains—literally,” Ashure muttered.
Together, they watched as Koorgan twisted around and faced them as he flung himself over the edge and began to grow. Asahi’s shocked intake of breath reminded Nali of the first time she had seen a giant enlarge. Koorgan’s hand, now with a palm spread of close to twenty feet across, gripped the edge of the cliff before he began descending along the sheer wall. Asahi pulled away from her and walked over to the edge to peer down at Koorgan.
“Now I understand why he’s called King of the Giants,” Asahi mused.
“It looks like he’s found a rock,” Ross commented.
Nali was about to comment when she noticed Asahi suddenly stagger. She reached for him only to stop when he shook his head. His eyes swirled with—gold.
“What is it?” she murmured.
“You must stop the alien before it reaches the Gateway,” Asahi urgently instructed with a feminine voice and inflection that didn’t sound like him at all.
“Asahi? Are you—you?” Ashure warily asked.
Asahi turned and looked at Ashure. A smile curved his lips, and to Nali’s shock, the alien’s black spider webbing turned to gold under Asahi’s skin.
“He is here, but I needed to communicate with you. There is only one way to stop this creature,” the entity inside Asahi answered.
“Who are you?” Nali demanded.
“I am Aminta. I could only inject an infinitesimal amount of my energy into this body, I am sorry, but I can give you information.”
“What are you?” Ross asked in a guarded tone.
“What I am is no longer important. The creature’s composition used to consist of a bacterium that lives and grows within the DNA of its host, but a portion of it mixed with me and the remains of a genetically mutated symbiot. It feeds off our energy. I am too weak to stop the mutation,” she explained.
“How do we destroy it?” Ashure demanded.
Aminta glanced up at the stars. “Someone is coming. She can destroy this abomination once and for all. Make no mistake, you will all be needed to battle this enemy. Kill its various forms, make it condense into a single body with a fraction of its power left—that is vitally important. You must hold it off until the visitor from Valdier arrives to deal the final blow. It cannot be allowed to reach the Gateway. If it were to access the River of Life, I fear it would be unstoppable. Every spark of life in this universe would eventually be consumed.”
“What about Asahi? If we defeat the creature, what will happen to him?” Nali quietly asked.
Aminta looked at her, and Nali saw the answer reflected in Asahi’s possessed eyes. Tears filled her eyes, and she silently shook her head.
“No—I won’t lose him,” she said in a raw voice.
“This has never been done before: dual essences within a human like this. I have claimed him for the side he wishes to fight for, but the creature still sees him as one of its own resources in this war. What happens next, it will hurt him. I wish I could give you hope, but I simply don’t know if he can survive this.”
Nali leaned heavily on Ashure when her knees threatened to collapse, and he wrapped his arm around her waist. She regarded Asahi's calm face, past the thin veneer of Aminta’s control. The gold faded until she was staring into Asahi’s brown eyes.
“Nali,” Asahi hoarsely said.
She pulled away from Ashure and wrapped her arms around Asahi’s waist. Closing her eyes, she held him. All around her, she could hear explosions, Drago’s roar, and Koorgan’s booming curses.
“Empress, our forces have retreated to the second level,” Pai said.
Nali opened her eyes, pulled back, and stared into Asahi’s eyes. She slid her hand up his chest and caressed his face. He wrapped his hand around hers and held it against his cheek.
“Go. Aminta and I will connect with the alien,” he said.
She nodded and reluctantly turned toward Pai. “I will assess the situation,” she replied.
“We’ll help Asahi,” Ashure said, waving his hand at Ross.
“Thank you,” Nali murmured. She nodded to Pai. “Let’s kill these things.”
Chapter 27
Before reaching out to the alien, Asahi linked to the Goddess inside him, bringing to the fore a strong desire to join forces—and knowledge flooded his entire being. The scene they had witnessed in the mirror made much more sense now.
The entity that had shattered Aminta’s original form was a tainted symbiot. Symbiots, Asahi learned, were the living gold companions of the Valdier, a dragon-shifting species. These golden companions were healers and shapeshifters, and they were born in the River of Life that contained the essence of the species many believed to be Goddesses. The symbiot that had attacked Aminta, however, had been perversely altered by the power-hungry Valdier outcast, Raffvin Reykill. Together they had waged war on the Goddesses in
