Page 116 of The Sunlit Man

“Figure he’s just rightly scared.”

She didn’t reply. But as he left, two shades—with glowing redeyes, bearing the uniforms they’d been wearing when they’d died—joined him from the corners of the room. The Admiral needed no vocal command for them, and their movement meant she obviously wanted to be alone. Not even accompanied by the dead.

She did not like hearing that their prey had slipped away again. Truth hustled to the main chamber.

It was best she remain alone during a time like this.

Zellion sat onthe beach, listening to the water roll across the sand, feeling…strange to be out in the sun. Just a normal one, but still. He kept feeling like he should be hiding.

He had a good sense of time, but it was stressful to sit there, waiting. Marking the passing of counted heartbeats with scratches in the sand. Until he wasreasonablycertain that, back on Canticle, the Beaconites would be out of the sunlight and into the darkness.

If he waited too long, they’d suffocate. So he had to use his best guess and summon the weapon back when he thought it was safe. It appeared in his hand as a sword, and he used it to—at long last—cut that stupid weight-increasing band off his leg.

He stretched, feeling freed from a thousand pounds. And yet, another weight replaced it—one upon his soul.

“Did I get the timing right?” he asked. “Did I just burn them alive or did I set them free? Did they get crushed by dirt above? Did Elegy save Rebeke?”

Silence. Auxiliary was dead. Worse than dead, burned away entirely—nothing remaining in the Cognitive Realm. This sword was now a corpse, one truly separated from the soul that had inhabited it.

No voice interrupted his musings to act as a replacement for his withered conscience. He was completely alone.

He’d likely never know what happened to Rebeke, Elegy, the Greater Good, and all the other Beaconites. Because he couldn’t afford to look backward, didn’t dare bring the forces that chased him anywherenearpeople he cared about. If he ever returned there, they’d know the place meant something to him. Everyone he’d ever spoken to there would become a target.

He had to hope that, since he’d only been there a short time, nobody would realize how deeply he’d come to care for the planet and its people.

In the distance, he spotted another boat. They passed this way often, though he saw no other land in the area. Just this atoll he’d appeared on—and it had been a few inches under water during the recent tide change. It lacked even a single tree.

He groaned softly, climbing to his feet, then formed Aux into a mirrored shield and used it to catch the sunlight. In minutes, the ship had turned his way. The people crewing it turned out to be Sho Del of all things. He hadn’t known there were any enclaves of them off Yolen.

Their small ship arrived, and he waded out to meet it. It was time to start running again.

The End