“I feel like this isn’t my body!” Avena snarled. She held up the jar with her mind, the warmth from the ruby bleeding through the glass. “Because this is my body. You put me in a jar! You ripped me from my flesh and stuck obsidian in its place. I feel strange all the time. I thought I was weak because I didn’t heal properly. But, no! You butchered me, you feckless bastard!”
“Now, Avena,” Dualayn said, his voice tight now. Sweat beaded his brow. “You must understand that I had tested this all before. Yours isn’t the first brain I’ve removed, just the first I successfully hooked up to the antenna. I was certain you would be fine. In fact, you are. Mostly.”
“Mostly!” Ōbhin growled through clenched teeth. His jaw tightened, fury on his face.
“You’re a pus-filled roach, Dualayn,” Fingers growled. “How could you do this to her? She sees you as a father! You were supposed to cure her!”
The horror swirled through her more and more. “Fix me! Put me back! I want my mind back in my skull.”
“That wouldn’t be advisable,” said Dualayn. “Most die. The one time I succeeded, well, she hasn’t been the same. Confused. Forget what year it is.”
“Who do you . . . Kaylin?” asked Avena in dawning dread. “You’re speaking of Kaylin? When she was saddened with grief for Dyain, what, did you remove her mind? Did you kill him, too?”
“I don’t kill anyone!” Dualayn protested. “I try to save. It requires pushing the boundaries of flesh, to try new things. I had to be shown this, too. Sometimes . . .” He shuddered. “Regrettably, it doesn’t always work, but you . . . Look at you. You’re talking. You’re thinking. You have all your memories. So you get a little woozy at times.”
“Woozy! I passed out in the street for hours! I was robbed. Could have been killed! Raped! I was helpless because you removed my brain!”
“I am sorry about that,” Dualayn said. “With any new procedure, there are bound to be some kinks to be solved. But we can do experiments. Refine the antenna to produce a clearer signal. That must be what is causing the blackouts. Your signal strength wavered. You weren’t getting enough information to your body. You shut down to your most base operation level. Breathing. Heartbeat. Digestion. I tried to match the Recorder’s depiction of the antenna, to shape it perfectly, but I must be off in some way. Please, please, let me think, Ōbhin.”
Ōbhin released Dualayn with a sneer and backed off. Avena shifted the jar in her hands, staring at it in horror. The wires were burrowed into her mind. She struggled to feel them worming through her thoughts. They were conduits to the Black.
Is the Black infecting my dreams? she wondered. No, no, it’s more like I’m living one person’s memories. One woman with white hair like . . . Raya? The White Lady has naturally white hair.
“You have thought of something,” Dualayn said, his hand reaching out to her.
Revulsion roiled through her stomach. She backed away, twisting her body to shield her mind from his touch. A fury greater than any she’d ever felt towards her mother seized her. At least her mother had the excuse of madness; melancholy had broken her mind.
Dualayn was just . . . just . . . evil.
“Don’t you ever lay a hand on me again!”
“But, child,” Dualayn said, pain in his eyes. “Don’t you see what this means? I’ll be able to fix my wife.” He reached for her again. “We can solve your fainting proble—”
Her hand flew without thought. She slapped him so hard his head snapped back. Her handprint blazed across his cheek. She wished she’d worn her earthen gauntlet so the blow would have broken his neck.
“Do not talk to me like you didn’t violate me to my core! You stripped me from my body and then expect me to be grateful?”
“Child,” Dualayn said, staring at her with betrayal on his face.
It infuriated her more. He looked at her like he loved her. She’d thought he did. How could he love her and do this to her?
“You don’t understand. Your mind will never die. Your thoughts shall outlive your body. I have made you into something beautiful. Something wonderful. Why don’t you understand, child?”
A steely rasp echoed through the lab. Ōbhin drew his sword.
*
The blade hummed to life in Ōbhin’s grip as he raised the vibrating edge towards Dualayn’s throat. The man flinched back from the resonance blade. He backed into the table, trapped. He arched his head back, leaning over the patient to keep the sword from finding his flesh.
“Fix her,” Ōbhin said, his voice colder than the glacier topping Mount Purity. “Put her brain back into her body.”
“I told you, I can’t.” He stared down at the blade. Sweat poured off his brow. “Please, Ōbhin, you don’t want to do anything rash. I have made breakthroughs. I will save so many lives. Please, don’t kill me.”
“Fix. Her.”
“The risks and complications of restoring her brain are too great,” he said, his voice shrill. “Reconnecting the nerves is delicate. They have to be aligned just right. At the moment, the obsidian mind in her head is interfacing perfectly. She has full control.”
“No, she doesn’t! She can’t trust her own body because of you. She could pass out at any moment. It could get her killed!”
Avena nodded, her face fierce. The fire he thought had snuffed out blazed inside of her. The woman who’d marched with him into the house in the Greenlet, who’d stood by his side to face the mob, and who’d helped him defeat Ust stood before him. He’d been wrong
