Semua Bab Alpha’s regret : The return of his rejected mate: Bab 81 - Bab 90

HELEN’S P.O.V.The Atlantic was not a body of water; it was a soup of memory.We had been drifting through the "Museum of the Drowned" for six hours. The field offloating bodies seemed endless. They were suspended at neutral buoyancy, bobbinggently in the wake of our thrusters. Men in business suits. Children in pajamas. Soldiersin tactical gear. All gray. All staring with open, milk-white eyes at the intruder passingthrough their grave."Don't look at them," I told Kai, who was staring fixedly out the viewport, his jaw tight."I know him," Kai whispered, pointing to a floating figure in a tattered coast guarduniform. "That's Rodriguez. He served in the Southern perimeter in '28.""He's gone, Kai. It's just a shell.""It's a minefield," Leo said from the pilot’s throne. His voice was strained, beads of sweatstanding out on his forehead. "They aren't just bodies. They're capacitors. If we touchone... the whole network wakes up.""Then steer clear," Silas said, hunched over the s

LEO’S P.O.V.The ocean is just a heavy sky.That’s what I told myself as the black kelp dragged me down. It wrapped around mychest, my legs, my throat. It squeezed the air out of my lungs in a rush of bubbles thatsilvered in the dark water.I hit the sea floor.I wasn't deep—maybe two hundred feet. But it was dark. The sun I had just liberated wasblocked by the canopy of the Black Kelp forest above.I was pinned to the silt. The kelp tightened.It wasn't just holding me; it was tasting me.Tiny thorns on the obsidian leaves pierced my suit, then my skin. I felt a cold, stingingsensation as the Architect’s black oil entered my bloodstream.I have you, the Architect’s voice vibrated through the water. You are empty, Little Star.You have no fire left to burn me.He was right. I was running on fumes. My core temperature was dropping. My goldenaura was a flicker.Around me, the forest moved. The massive stalks of kelp swayed in a current that didn'texist. They were leaning in. Feedi

HELEN’S P.O.V.Children are supposed to be loud. They run, they cry, they ask questions.The fifty children we had stolen from Ironwood’s lab were silent.We had set up a makeshift nursery in the cargo hold of the Goliath. Mattressesscrounged from the crew quarters were laid out in rows. The children sat on them, kneespulled to their chests, staring at the bulkhead with identical, slate-gray eyes.They didn't sleep. They didn't eat the rations we offered. They just... hummed.It wasn't a melody. It was a low, resonant vibration, like the sound of a refrigeratorcompressor. When all fifty of them did it together, it created a standing wave that rattledthe teeth in my skull."They're syncing," Leo said, standing by the hatch.He leaned against the metal frame, looking exhausted. He was still radiating a faintheat, drying the damp air of the hold."Syncing with what?" I asked, looking at a little girl who was staring unblinkingly at myleft boot."With the Architect," Leo said. "The

LEO’S P.O.V.Being a god is boring.People think it’s all lightning bolts and smiting enemies. They forget about themaintenance.I stood in the middle of the North Field. I had been standing there for six hours. Myboots were sunk three inches into the mud. My arms were raised.I wasn't fighting. I was shining."A little more to the left," Martha yelled from the porch, sipping iced tea. " The squashesare looking pale."I gritted my teeth and tilted my palms five degrees west. I adjusted my output fromSearchlight to Warm Afternoon Glow.The massive, car-sized pumpkins around me seemed to sigh, their leaves unfurling todrink the radiation I was leaking."I feel ridiculous," I muttered."You look useful," Elena said. She was sitting on the hood of the jeep, reading a grimoireshe had salvaged from the farmhouse attic. She looked better her hair was washed, andshe was wearing flannel instead of rags. "It’s a good look on you, Sparky. The glorioussolar lamp.""I should be hunting hi

LEO’S P.O.V.A declined call doesn't make a sound. It’s just a cessation of a signal.But to me, sitting on the porch of the farmhouse in Kansas, it sounded like a gunshot.I stared at the comms unit on my wrist.CONNECTION TERMINATED.My dad didn't just miss the call. He hit the kill switch. He saw the danger, saw mereaching out, and he slapped my hand away."He's in trouble," I whispered, standing up.The wooden planks of the porch groaned under my sudden shift in gravity. The airaround me heated up, curling the leaves of Martha’s hanging ferns."He's fighting," I said, looking North. "I can feel the spikes in his adrenaline. I can feel theimpact."I took a step toward the edge of the porch."I have to go.""No," Martha said.She didn't shout. She just sat in her rocking chair, shucking peas into a metal bowl. Ping.Ping. Ping."If you leave," Martha said, not looking up, "the corn dies. The salt gets in. The childrenwither.""My father is dying!" I shouted. The force of my voic