Nightlights: Guardians of the Edge

10.9: Together Again

They were escorted to a military-looking building on the other side of the city from the devastated colonia: the headquarters of the defense operation. They were escorted by Martin, and by a number of other soldiers from other countries who were all very polite, and very insistent, and they were put into a room with a table and a water cooler and a television and four guards outside.

Ajax didn't care. He kept looking at Natalie. He didn't think he'd ever be able to get enough of looking at her, but when he glanced away, there was Jehane. And somewhere in this vast building was Seth. For the first time since he was a child, he felt like he was somewhere he belonged again. It felt like -family. The world had tried to tear his new family apart and he'd gone and gotten it back again, and it wasn't what it had been but people grew and changed all the time.

She had scars and open injuries both. They'd both been tended by medics, but they couldn't do much for the ones inside. He'd noticed how she'd tensed subtly once they'd been gently herded into the conference room. She was familiar with small spaces, with captivity. He gave her space, until she came over and leaned on him. "Don't let me go," she whispered. "Don't leave me alone here." So he wrapped his arms around her instead, and she relaxed against him.

He dropped his nose to her hair and breathed in her scent and looked at the others. Jehane sat at the table with her chin on her arms, her eyes closed. Sometimes they flickered open, and she looked at the others. Malachi, leaning against the wall under the television, never looked at any of them. His gaze stayed on the door, but there was a tension between him and Jehane, as if every time she moved, his weight shifted toward her and back again.

Ajax understood that.

Time passed. The news was full of the curious speculating about what had caused the Hellgate to vanish, and what was next for the wounded city. A scientist speculated about what the data gathered from studying the gate would mean for the world. Ajax didn't pay much attention. Everything they said would be meaningless once the military started to question them. Ajax's mind started to wander down uncomfortable pathways, wondering what would happen to them after that. They'd saved the world, but now what? Would they be imprisoned? Studied? They certainly weren't going to let them go.

Natalie slipped out of his arms and moved to the television, pausing before it to exchange another look with Malachi. "I'm going to change the channel." Malachi frowned, but said nothing, so she reached up past him to push some buttons on the TV. She settled, finally, on a cartoon channel.

Jehane opened her eyes to watch the cartoons as Natalie returned to Ajax.

After a while, Jehane said, "The thing about cambions is that everybody always makes them when they're... hurting so badly that cutting off their own arm would hardly hurt in comparison. So they do cut off their arm, kind of. Metaphorically. It doesn't take a whole lot to bring a cambion to life. Just a tiny part of a soul, and a certain state of mind. And the seed grows into its own soul, eventually, and your own soul grows back, if you don't keep picking at the wound." She transferred her gaze to Natalie. "Hatherly learned how to parcel his soul out in tiny seeds, but he still did it too much, too quickly." She sighed. "I think what grows back isn't what was there originally, but it does grow back. I'm pretty sure."

Natalie said, "Surge had his own soul, so you're probably right."

Ajax said, "Do you think he's there, in the ruins of the tower, like Elian? Or did he get destroyed?"

Jehane said, "I don't think it matters. He'll be something new, no matter what." She sighed, and put her head back on the table.

But after only a few moments, she turned her head toward the door, her eyes widening. Two minutes later, the door opened, and Seth, sitting in a wheelchair, was pushed in by one of the guards.