Tomas nodded graciously, looking his new companion up and down with an air of mistrust and concern.
“I guess we’re even, then,” he said.
Some nesting birds in the pine trees lining the ravine were beginning to rise with the sunshine, singing a symphony of harmonic tunes to each other to end the stark morning silence.
Lynn was still preoccupied with checking herself over. She examined the blackened skin on her fingertips and her dark veins around her body. It was as if she were exploring her body for the very first time.
“So, what happens to you now?” Tomas asked.
“To be honest, there is no way to tell.”
“You are Blight-stricken now, aren’t you?”
Lynn bit her lip. “Yes.”
So, it was true then, Tomas realised. She had made some sort of sacrifice to save him from those horrific giant spiders.
“Will you die?” Tomas said. Despite being straight-faced, his tone was rather solemn.
“I only took a sip,” Lynn said. “If I were to have had an adverse reaction to the Blight, I would have died within minutes.”
“But instead, you…” Tomas gestured with his hands, imitating the ripping of the limbs from the spiders’ bodies which he had witnessed.
Lynn nodded. “Magister Prime Impatus’s hypothesis was correct, then.”
Tomas recalled the conversation he had had with Lynn when they were locked away in the cell beneath the Repository. She had described the experiments the leader of the Imperium was conducting on those children.
“The Magister Prime told us all that drinking a few drops caused strange, powerful, unpredictable changes in his own body. So, it may depend on the host, and the dosage of Blight that one drinks.”
It was an incredible story that Tomas would never have believed, but after seeing it first-hand, he was without a doubt certain that Lynn had been telling the truth all along.
Tomas stared down at his scruffy-looking shoes. “I’m… I’m glad you didn’t die, for what it’s worth.”
“As am I,” Lynn smirked. “I will be on the lookout for any adverse symptoms, however. I know very little about Blight, but what I do know is that drinking it never came without a cost.”
“You think it would have made you sick?”
Lynn worriedly studied her blackened fingertips. They almost looked necrotic from the cold as if frostbite had taken them, yet they were still alive. Something about the way they were coloured appeared unnatural.
“I don’t know,” Lynn sighed.
It was still tough for Tomas to feel truly sorry for her. She was a part of the organisation who had not only abducted children but used them to create this strange substance, on top of everything else that had occurred.
Surely, she was somewhat responsible for what was happening.
It’s your own fault, Tomas thought. All this shit happened because of the people you associated with. Losing Rilan and Landry, the attack on the Repository and now Brittlepeak.
Tomas wanted to say the words but felt it might be best not to be so direct. Truly, however, he did not believe the spiteful insults playing in his mind. Whether he liked it or not, the girl had saved his life and was his only companion.
To be honest, all he wanted to do was leave. Leave that place for good, leave Lynn Jhono forever. He was exhausted and had had enough loss for a single lifetime.
Yet, after all he had witnessed and the events of the last several weeks, there was no doubt in his mind anymore that there was some honesty to Lynn’s story.
“Everything you said has been true, so far,” Tomas realised, looking Lynn in the eye. “About the attacks, and the Blight. So, that means-”
“It’s not over, not by a long shot. This is only the beginning,” Lynn said.
Tomas gazed up into the brightening sky, observing the bleeding star streaking across it with its long tail, noticing how each time it reappeared, it seemed to be growing larger. As if it were slowly becoming closer.
Lynn pulled the old tome from the satchel she still wore, patting its thick cover. “I believe that somewhere in here lies the answer to what is happening. Perhaps the information we need to be able to stop all of this. Something that can help us. But I need time to read it. It will take me days to get through this entire book.
“I fear that this is larger than just the Grand Repository and Brittlepeak, Tomas. It is bigger than the damn Broken Coast! This may affect everything. I worry that these events will soon be happening across the world if they aren’t already. That is how it starts. How it always starts.”
“How what starts?” Tomas gulped.
“The Cataclysm.”
Tomas frowned, shaking his head. “You know, perhaps all of this could have been avoided. All the horrors my friends and I have faced is because of the Imperium and the work of your Magister Prime.”
“Believe me when I say that I did not want any of this to happen.”
Tomas exhaled sharply. “None of this had to happen.”
Lynn could tell that Tomas was still mourning his losses quite viscerally- it was written clearly across his face and behind the inflections in his words.
“Each day that star grows closer to Eos,” Lynn said, pointing up at the sky. “The Magister Prime believed that it had something to do with the Cataclysm, and the secrets to both may be right here within these pages.”
Tomas ran his fingers through his hair, frustrated and exhausted.
Lynn drew her lips to a line. “I need you, Tomas. I can’t do this without you.”
He glanced back at the woman, her words somehow resonating more now than they had been before. There was desperation in her tone.
“I am alone in the world, in a strange place. I do not
