People drifted in and out of the poorly constructed buildings and shops that had been converted to the camp's needs rather than stand-alone structures. The faded signs mark the city's past: a flower shop, a bakery, a shabby exercise studio with massive windows that had been spray-painted black. 

Reflecting on my past life didn't offer me much in the form of escaping a death camp, as I hoped for inspiration to find me in any form. My feet skid on the frozen blood, darkening the cracked and broken concrete. The overwhelming heat of the fire had me wishing for the familiar chill that had plagued me for some months. 

I shuffle against the pole, trying to find an angle that I could use to get the ropes to snap, but to no avail, the pole had seen too much abuse to offer me any form of resistance. 

The wear marks indicated so much suffering, the various scrapes already ground into the concrete all around me. So many people had fought for their lives here. "Damn it," I murmur. 

We lived because we didn't give up. Even the objects in this city were ground down to submission. "Where do you think they would have my friends?" I ask.

Ganath ponders this, "Well. The blacked-out building is where they used to take the magical beings we would bring in. They must sort them and decide who to sell and who would be best suited for extraction. While they don't intend to chop you up, I'm sure they're trying to increase your stress. Don't Solomonari respond to stress?"

 I stiffen at the question, glancing at him over my shoulder with a look of disbelief. "How would you know that? Those are trade secrets."

The elf chuckles lightly, "Ain't much for secrets anymore among us. Master Gabriel has conducted extensive research on magical users. Didn't bother me until now, funny how sitting on this side of the pyre changes your perspective. But, as for 'trade secrets', I've seen a few of you through the years. America has a version of Solomonari that is a bit less specialized. Less powerful, more vague, but there were quite a few running around." 

Talking to this elf was giving me whiplash, such a stark difference from the elves of old that spoke so melodically. 

"When you want to make money to feed your family, you learn how to get these people to trust you, and that's by sharing knowledge. Look at us? You might have trusted me, I imagine." He shakes his head, the humor leaving his voice. "To be honest, I deserve to be sitting here. I've hunted down innocent people of their parts, handed them over, knowing what would happen to them. If your friends are in that building, Master Gabriel will either harvest their essence or take their parts."

My warlord was right to suspect people of foul play; they were unnecessarily cruel.

 "Atone after we escape." That's all I can muster. The horror of what had been going on under the surface was far worse than we had imagined. I never would have guessed someone had figured out how to use pieces of people.

Racking my head for clarity through schooling and torment, the difference between me and them is that no Solomonari in this era would have had the education I've had. With my magic stores at an all-time low, I would have to be selective of what I used, as one wrong move could render me back into a state of unconsciousness. 

I think of an unbinding spell, though the words feel fuzzy, I begin to mumble to myself, trying to focus. The bindings that hold up the air vent to the steamer drop with a loud clang, and I curse under my breath, shutting my eyes to focus. If I survive this, I must remember to do more than just weather magic. 

The more I mumble, the more bonds that snap loose all around us. A rack of pans releases; corks fly off precariously placed wine bottles; a hanger full of an assortment of butchering tools flies off the wall and clatters across the sleet-covered ground. 

"Wow. You suck at this." Ganath muses.

I point my glare towards a snow-covered awning and curse the snow to fall on him, causing him to laugh at the suddenness of the assault. "I'm rusty on object control; my ability focuses on the weather. Now if you'll excuse me-"

 The hustle of footsteps makes me startle, and I spy that a large blade has been knocked off the counter not far from me. Extending my foot across the slick surface, I attempt to snag it with the toe of my boot

"What the hell was that?"

"Probably that clutz fire mage. He'll be next if he can't get his shit together." 

I twist in my bonds; my shoulders protesting at the awkward angle as I stretch and attempt to pin down the knife. The footsteps get louder, scuffing across the concrete. A young man trots out of the nearby storefront, and I freeze. He eyes me, lips parted, he's younger than my conscience could allow. 

Glancing in the direction of the approaching guard, he rushes to me quickly, eyes full of concern. "You shouldn't be doing that." He whispers, his voice a low hiss. 

"You shouldn't be doing this!" I snap back at him, and he seems taken aback by my accent. The youth watches me, his face changing from concern for himself to horror for my situation. Inhaling sharply, the men round the corner, and he kicks the knife in my direction, standing in front of me to block my form from the view.

"Honor the Good King." He murmurs under his breath. I scramble to hide the knife under my person, shoving it towards my hip with my heel in an attempt to bring it toward my fingers. "Gentlemen," he greets, not sparing me another glimpse; he was experienced enough not to keep looking at me, at least.

Seth, our prosecutor, backhands him sharply across the face. "Look at this damn mess! What the hell were you doing out here? Costing us more than you're worth!" These red eyes turn towards me, and I tilt my chin up in defiance. "I must thank you for bringing me such an assortment of magic users. I was coming up short on my quota, but now I think I've just earned myself a vacation."

I jerk on my bonds, using the movement to sweep the knife back towards my hands. "There won't be a world left, you're running it dry with what you're doing," I manage, stretching my fingers for the handle. "I know you are familiar with the state the planet is in; or are you lacking the intelligence to realize you're on this damned rock as well?"

 A laugh begins to roll through the group. Seth squats down in front of me with a broad smile. I don my best politician's face, squaring up with him. "You won't be laughing when this place is nothing but wraiths and bodies." I spit. "You'll lead them right to you with all of this death."

"How do you think we keep them fed? Keep the population up? We throw the useless ones right in there with them." Seth wets his lips, pretending to consider my words as he brushes my bangs out of my face. "Master Gabriel is so excited that we found you. But, I admit I was an idiot to think you were working with him, but now that I know who ya really are, it makes it all the sweeter. "

 Amused, he grips my hair and yanks my head back to examine my split lip. "Your group is in the way of progress. Let it burn. In the end, all that will be left is us. So, keep running that mouth, and I'll stuff it full of cock. Act as tough as you want, but you're at the last of your reserves, or you would have escaped by now. So why don't you show some gratitude that you get to live an extra day and keep your mouth shut?"

I narrow my eyes, jerking my face away from his hand. "Please. You probably couldn't get that tiny dick out of your damned zipper before the cold snapped it off."

Another man steps forward, but Seth raises his palm to stop him. "Let him have his moment; he'll be plenty sorry when we carve up his friends. But, Nicolas, it's a worthy sacrifice to get the right people in the right places. You know all about that, don't you? The Mistress has told us all about your little games in the past."

So she had told them about the time travel, I glance toward the ground, cursing under my breath. Our leak could have been coming from the Dead City; if Red had been loose with my information, we had to assume the worst. While I'm sure most had good intentions, I could see the plot of a spy being relatively easy.

"You sacrificed plenty of people to get what you wanted; we're just taking a page out of your book." 

If they had any interest in my tour, they would know how wrong that was. It was as if our own war had never stopped; it had just gone on underground ever since I was taken from the fight, only the sides were much more bitter about the impending conclusion.

 The pendulum wanted to swing back, this time eliminating the human side, who could not survive the impending apocalypse. "This is not the right path, and you know it," I tell him, low enough that only we can hear. "This plan isn't going to work. Nobody lives through this. You're going to die right alongside these bastards, screaming on the way out."

"She said you'd say that. Know what I see? A world in shambles, and only one race that can help. Ya want oxygen? You come to us. Food? Ya come to us. Warmth and safety?" He gestures to himself. "Money to be made, sweetheart. A changing of the guard, if you will. We will be all that remains and finally get some damned justice." 

I slip the blade of the knife between the rope and my hands, attempting to cut through it with the rusted blade. "You're killing your brothers!" I snarl back. "What magic user would side with you after what you've done?!"

 "A worthy sacrifice, if they wish to judge, then they can die with the humans! Master should be here shortly, so I encourage you to be silent while you wait." Seth stands as I nick the last piece of rope and yank my hands free. 

Coming around, I plunge the knife into the base of his throat. "Who saves you?" I ask him, my tone flat. 

Jerking the blade from the sputtering man, I stand up on wobbly legs. The inky black blood indicates that this person was a strigoi as he fell to the ground. As my fingers tremble on the handle of the blade, my body flashes me a warning: I have nothing left. I'm hardly able to stand, and yet my body moves on its own, ready to fight.

 The fire mage comes to stand beside me, his hands blazing. 

"Get out of here," I tell him under my breath.

"Hell no. We've been waiting for this, for you. I want to remember the day we fought back." He whispers, spitting on the strigoi, who gurgles his last breath in a pool of his own blood.

The woman picks up a whistle and blows it as men begin to flood out of their structures toward us; I swallow hard at the large number of people who embody this camp. "We're probably going to die," I promise him, shaking my head in disbelief. 

 "Honor the Good King!" The mage shouts, reaching towards the fire pit, forming a dragon made entirely of flame around himself. His body disappears as the inferno lizard takes shape, charging into the fray. 

I grasp the large butchering blades, grateful I had dedicated some time to hand-to-hand combat. Making my way back towards my new elf friend, I toss him a knife. 

"If you turn on me, I'll kill you myself." I threaten him as he scrambles to cut himself free. 

Ganath shrugs, "What if I tell you, honestly, that I'll be on the side of whoever wins?"

Rolling my eyes, I dive down behind the pelts at the sudden gunfire. "Seems your morals left with your bindings." 

As I peer over the pelts, not all the workers are fighting towards us, as some turn on their own; a vast majority are running from the fiery dragon. 

I take a deep breath, standing, as I pull snow off the tops of a roof and send it cascading down in icy daggers to create a barrier and put some distance between me and them.  Running to the barrier to lean against it, absorbing the chill in an attempt to cool my body, I'm once again surrounded by the screams of battle coupled with gunfire and the clang of metal on metal. 

Using gravity and the snowfall from the roofs, I work through the group, creating ice barriers and taking out whoever I can. Their frozen forms encased in ice; contorted into portraits of death, I've grown numb to the sight. I've got to keep moving; adding more death onto the stack of haunting memories waiting in the queue could wait. 

My temple throbs, I feel the toe of my boots snagging with every other step, and note my body has stopped shivering, though my breath still fogs in front of my lips. 

Was I entering a state of shock? Using gravity was buying me time; if I could operate simply by controlling the snow's fall, surely I could get to him.

Following the pull of the bond, I spot gray hair and fight to get to the man. I take a gust of wind, blasting the incoming assailants as I hug him from behind, but he feels wrong—my body sags, the wind leaving my sails as my fingers retract. Cold to the touch, I note the metal where skin should be. 

The man turns in my grasp, and the metallic hand closes around my bicep. "Let go of me, Tonic!" I shout through clenched teeth. 

He pets my hair with his flesh-covered hand. "Sorry, Nic. Did you think I was my father?" His expression shows the heavy curtain of pity he holds for my mental state; I don't have the reserves to blast him away. "It's alright, I'm here, I'm going to save you." 

My gut wrenches, and I jerk against his grasp. "You sure have a habit of waiting until the last second, you damned coward!" I spit in his face, kneeing him squarely in the groin as I twist free. 

I attempt to run, and yet a scream stops me; my feet betray me as I stop in my tracks and glance over my shoulder, spying that he has Helen by her hair. A knife to her throat, his body curls from the strike to his genitals. 

"Come. Here. Nicolas." Tonic snarls, teeth bared. 

Helen shakes her head, guarding her injured hand; I can tell by her stance that she's just as exhausted as I am. She only wears a dirty curtain, clutching it to her body to hide her naked form. I take one small step, and he practically roars at me, "Now!" 

Shutting my eyes, I will myself to obey, forcing my legs to move. 

"We are supposed to be friends." The sickness that had been tainting Tonya had to be getting to him. I couldn't believe that this much insanity lurked in Tonic under the guise of medication, almost as much as I couldn't believe he had managed to escape again. 

We had to leak; someone on the inside had to have let him out —perhaps we had been misled all along that he had been captured.

My gaze stays fixed on Helen as she fights against his hand. The blade dents her skin, held under her jaw, as she tilts her head up and away. 

"Just let her go, Tonic. It's me you want."

Emotion runs heavy in the mentally unwell, underneath the mind control, he was still Tonic. Frightened. Uncertain. "I just want to get back to our family and our friends; we can start over in the compound. I think you're ready to be with me, to help these people see that this is the way forward."

My mind races, attempting to piece together how I was even looking at this man, who could have possibly let him out? 

The knife leaves his hand, sailing past me to drive into the skull of an assailant. "I keep saving your life because I care about you. She said you would love me... that my father would transfer the celestial being and we could be together." 

Helen thrashes in his grasp; the robotic hand clutches her throat and picks her up off the ground. His jaw tightens, Tonic's expression darkens as he glances toward the girl who clutches his wrist. "Tonic, please, snap out of this." Helen pleads.

 "Is it her? She keeps bringing you back to their side? Does Helen keep getting in the way like everyone else? These people you brought here didn't want this... none of them did--"

"Nobody here wanted to die, Tonic!" I shout, flinching at the gunfire, grateful for the inferno dragon attempting to keep me alive. Every instinct said to run for cover, but the moment I moved, he would act. I'd been in this standoff before; insanity did not play by the rules. 

"These are necessary sacrifices! We only kill bad people! And now, we need to help you, help your sickness. I can fix you if you come with me, they will give you medicine that will take away these thoughts!"

"Tonic, look around!" I command him, taking quick steps forward as he holds her away. "You know that you are wrong, I know you.. You were my only friend in those early days. I can see it on your face, you can fight this."

There are times when things happen that I can't even explain. The interesting thing about magic is that it tends to come from your darkest places; when we think we can't take any more, the universe has an interesting way of throwing you a lifeline. 

Siren's words play back in my head, rolling on repeat. The gods were not ready for this world to end; they held an invested interest in our side of this battle, and it would be by some miracle that I had happened to be in their favor. 

Nothing is as it seems.

I feel a calm come over me as I inhale slowly; the world seems silent. Everything falls away in a moment of clarity. A Solomonari is one with nature; we are the balance that brings the rains and follows the sun, allows light where there is darkness, and brings peace to unholy ground. I feel that call deep in my bones, a sense of purpose, a heartbeat mirrored from me to the earth beneath my feet. 

As I begin to walk, the snow falls away, and Tonic takes a step back as Helen's struggles fade. He was going to strangle the life out of her, and I have nothing left to expend, nothing to give; with the universe at my fingertips, the call comes for someone else. I can't win this; it was not my destiny to save or liberate Tonic.

This is not my fight; this is not about me; I'm merely the messenger. A worthy opponent stands out like a beacon in the back of my mind, someone who could do what I could not. Alpha was helping me again, lending me a hand, showing me the cunning nature that came with sight and smell. 

As I stretch my fingers out, I snap the lock off the gate that holds back the prodigal son, for there is no one who values Helen's life more than him. 

Dropping to my knees, the shiver returns, my body snaps back into reality, and I feel a weight lifted off my shoulders. "I don't want to kill you, Tonic, but you've left me no choice but to do whatever I can to stop you. If you have a god, I would beg them for mercy," I tell him, falling to my hip with the exhaustion that overwhelms me.

The white wolf appears in the doorway, fangs bared. In Norse mythology, there were drugs a man could take to induce a type of 'berserk' rage, similar to what Marcus had gone through with the release of his wolf.

Here, with the massive white beast before me, I knew that a long-suppressed warrior had been unleashed with only one goal in mind. Marcus had no purpose with his cavalier life, Legardo had only one, and Tonic had a hold of her. Centuries of resentment now had reason to be unleashed; the object of his universe was firmly in Tonic's hand.

Tonic wheels around, holding the girl between them. I spot Jed, freed from the same cage, and see the glimmer in his eyes as he influences Tonic, watching the metallic hand almost appear to malfunction.

Helen drops to the ground in a heap, and Tonic writhes against the secondary impulses of a lesser magic-user. The white wolf closes the space between them, and I crawl toward Helen as I try to keep below the gunfire.

Covering her with my body, I attempt to guard her against the impact of man meeting wolf. The second wave of panic unfolds as my companions start to spill out of their holding cells. 

This is why we need an army; we cannot do it alone. Wolves and magic users who had expended little energy in our fight with Gabriel were fresh to finish what we could not. 

"Helen, are you alright?" I check her pulse, pulling the curtain over her slender form. 

She peeks at me through long, pale lashes, flinching as she swallows. "Not. Fault." She manages, clutching her throat. 

I pull my eyebrows down. "He's gone, Helen."

She shakes her head, fighting to sit up as I shield her from the spray of snow from the battling duo. Tonic fights against the massive jaws of a wolf crazed with protective instincts. "I know my uncle Tonic, and you saw it, he's still in there.." Her voice is hoarse, raspy. "Please, Nic, if nothing else, save him for mercy on my father. He will never forgive himself if he kills his brother." 

I analyze her face, searching those large eyes still holding so much innocence and hope, remembering when I used to look that way before I saw the other side of the mask. "Where is Verando?"