Cormack didn’t shudder at the words, but he wanted to. He shook his head, thinking of how wrong to have a place full of beauty inhabited by those who would deform themselves in such a barbaric manner.
Reaching for his hand, Allora turned to face him.
“You don’t have to come with me if this bothers you.”
It would bother me more to be separated from you. While he understood she was being considerate, neither would he leave her alone while they were in enemy territory. He’d been anticipating an attack since the door had opened on the shuttle, and he found himself wishing it would just come already.
This waiting gnawed on him like a rabid wolf trapped in his ribcage, consuming him from the inside out.
“Let’s get this over with.”
After ascending at least a thousand steps carved out of the igneous rock they reached the closed temple doors. Allora reached out a hand, probably intending to push them open but Cormack yanked her away.
“Let him go first.”
The monstrosity stared at him, its soft words revealing nothing useful. “No trap awaits you, but what lies within can be just as deadly if you do not receive it in the right frame of mind.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Allora shiver.
His task mistress perceived the threat like an oncoming storm, just as he had. Unfortunately, they had no ground to go to, no cover to take.
Rothguard pushed open both doors at once and Cormack made sure to block Allora’s body with his.
Her soft hand landed on his shoulder, her warm breath falling on his ear as she said, “If they wanted us dead, we never would have left the Born stronghold.
Let’s hear them out.”
Her lack of apprehension concerned him—he needed her on her guard for he could not kill Cyborgs and protect her at the same time. “Did no one teach you it is unwise to trust a Cyborg? They care about one thing only, annihilating us to continue their own depraved existence.”
“And who taught you that, soldier?” The male voice who challenged him rumbled from the shadows.
“It is wise to always look to the source of your information before blindly accepting it as truth.”
“Step into the light.” Allora commanded. Though her hands shook, her voice rang out clear as a bell.
Cormack’s chest swelled with pride. Was there ever such a woman?
The new Cyborg did, moving slowly, methodically until his face was illuminated by the overhead lighting. His hair was white blond in color, his eyes a familiar shade of purple. He wore no implants on his face or hands, no evidence that he was a Cyborg other than his placid mien.
“Who are you?” Allora stepped past Cormack.
“My name is Vitrolith. I am the one you would call father, Task Mistress.”
Her shoulders stiffened as though bracing for a hit. “You don’t look like a Cyborg.”
He didn’t even twitch. “Neither do you.”
Allora flinched, eyes blazing. “I am a Born woman, not one of your kind!”
“Actually, Allora, you are both.” Another voice said from high above them. Cormack looked up into the rafters, where a girl stood. Before he could ask how she got up there, she stepped off the ledge, plummeting thirty feet down until she stood stock still before him, absorbing the impact with only the slightest bend to her knees.
“Hello, soldier.” The child said, offering him a brilliant smile. “I’m happy to see it is all working out as it should.”
Like the one who called himself Vitrolith, this girl had white-blond hair and no visible implants. Though the way she’d managed that fall made Cormack believe she had some sort of biomechanical enhancement going on, even if his super keen senses couldn’t detect them.
Dismissing him, the girl turned to face Allora. “Do you know who I am?”
“Cassandra?” Allora shook her head. “”Tis not possible—you died when the world stopped spinning.”
“Who told you that, daughter?” Vitrolith raised an eyebrow. “I see the Borns are still spreading their lies, just as they did with your mother.”
“You will not speak to me of her!” Allora snapped, hand dropping to the whip on her belt. Cormack moved to her other side, providing her physical and emotional back-up.
Seemingly unaware of the danger to herself, the girl took one of Allora’s gauntleted hands in both of hers. “The soldiers told me you found the missing journal, the first one Cassandra ever wrote.”
Cormack scowled down at her. “I thought you were Cassandra.”
The girl grinned at him. “I’m only a replica, an incomplete copy of she who beheld what would be. My function is to interpret events that the real Cassandra saw and based on those prophesies; guide the survivors past this time of turmoil.”
“Then, you’re not real?” He couldn’t believe it, every pore, every wisp of hair, even her scent told him that this child was as alive as he was.
She shrugged. “What is real, soldier? Something that your senses tell you is there? The way one comes into this world? The knowledge we pass on, is all that real? I live, as you do, can die as you one day will. But I was engineered, not born or bred, same as my father.” Her gaze fell on Allora, who collapsed to her knees, her head bowed, shoulders shaking. “And my sister.”
Cormack shook his head. “Lies! I have seen her hurt, seen her bleed. Felt her body! She is no Cyborg!”
Allora said nothing.
He gripped her by the shoulders, shook her. “Tell them! Tell them about your mother.”
“My mother….” Her eyes had gone unfocused, and he shook her again, until her head wobbled. Damn it, she had to tell them!
“Soldier, it will be all right.” The child said, slipping her arm around his. “She is just as you’ve always known her, the same as you’ve always loved.
Does it matter so much how she came into being?
Would the world be a better place if she did not exist?”
His vision blurred as he stared at Allora, still lost in a daze, so far away from him, so far he could never hope to reach her again.
“Cassandra…,” Vitrolith warned.
The girl held Cormack’s arm in a vice-like grip.
“Be at ease, my sire. We need him as much as we do her.”
“He’s losing it, he might hurt you.”
Cormack shook uncontrollably and fell to his knees. My task mistress is a Cyborg creation? It must be false, he would have sensed it about her, the same way he did the others.
“He needs to see the truth. Only then will he accept what is rightfully his.” She kissed his cheek and the world went fuzzy and dark.
19
When Allora saw Cormack fall flat on his face, she came out of the odd trance Cassandra had cast over her with her touch. Nothing was as she’d believed it to be, not even herself. Memories of things that happened before her birth vied for her attention, shouting inside her own head, but she locked them all away, needing to help Cormack. “What did you do to him?”
“She is beginning to see.” Cassandra straightened her shoulders and stepped back toward Vitrolith. “In time you will accept it as truth instead of the lies you were fed from infancy.”
Questions plagued her and as she leaned over Cormack, checking for his pulse she had to ask, “Why did you come for me now, after all these years?” The answer doesn’t matter, she told herself even as she braced for impact. Just like the overlord, these people needed something from her. She’d be a fool to give it to them just because they claimed to be the family she never thought she’d have.
Cormack’s heartbeat was strong, his breathing steady. She stroked his face while staring up at Vitrolith as he responded to her question.
“It was prophesized that your mother must take you to a Born colony, where you were to be raised as one of them.”
“Cyborgs can’t reproduce sexually—they feel no drive toward anything but power.”