I assume this means I am an excellent teacher.
It also means you are all very stupid.
—Virgil Clay, Lecture
The mist felt far less oppressive once Violet could see through it. Not all of it, but far more than the inch in front of her face she’d had the first time. In fact, she could see an even wider range after killing Caitlyn. The tangible rewards only made the desire to repeat the deed more intoxicating. Making their way to the station building was easy enough. A stationary train would be attacked if they waited for too long, but the rush outside the moment they stopped seemed excessive. It was perfectly quiet.
As they approached, Violet immediately spotted the crystal pylon. It stood next to an old but sturdy building, made primarily of cement. The pylon itself was perhaps fifteen feet tall and five feet across. It was composed of a pale orange crystal with a muted glow in the center. Every open side had a permanent defensive fighting position, built of stone and steel. Those wouldn’t be useful for most combatants, but they might be for a “scout” like Violet.
Stephanie seemed to tense as they approached, causing Violet’s hackles to rise. She glanced in all directions to see what had spooked the lancer, but she couldn’t spot any sign of a hedron. Stephanie didn’t pause or indicate any immediate threat, however, so the group followed her in silence until she led them into the stone building. The mist faded as they made it indoors, but it could still be seen through a number of remarkably thick windows in every direction.
Guy was the first to speak when the heavy door locked back into place behind Kiera. “Nice day today, don’t you think?” he joked. Violet and Kiera offered amused smirks while Aubrey rolled her eyes.
“A bit overcast, but not too humid,” Kiera agreed.
“You think?” Violet asked. “I was actually missing the dry air back home.”
“You left home, like, three hours ago; how much more humid could it have gotten?” Guy laughed.
“Can you all fucking focus?” Aubrey snapped.
“Now, now, no need for such coarse language,” Violet reminded. “We’re just maintaining our calm with humor. Really, it helps!”
“Right, we need to get started. Violet, would you mind joining me as I get the pylon hooked up to the train?” Stephanie interrupted. There was a barely-disguised urgency in her voice that killed any humor in the room.
Violet smiled, even as her eyebrow tried to rise against her will. That had not been the plan at all. All of the students had been meant to remain in the building, ready to fight if there were signs of a swarm, but otherwise protected. Violet especially had no particular combat strengths, and only one talent she could actually use in combat. It wouldn’t be strange for her to join the fight if necessary, but bringing only her out? Something was wrong, and Violet didn’t like it.
“Sure, happy to help!” Violet cheerfully agreed. Stephanie was already pulling coiled clear tubing out of a steel compartment even as Violet answered.
“Great. Carry this, if you don’t mind?” the lancer requested. Violet eyed the tubing suspiciously, but accepted it without complaint. Stephanie immediately grabbed another coil and hurried to the door. Violet followed her, sharing a confused glance with Kiera as the heavy door was pulled open again. The taller girl was clearly worried, but Violet simply shrugged. A moment later, the door was closing behind her, and she was in the mist again—alone with a woman she planned to kill.
“There is a much higher chance of a swarm than we thought,” Stephanie immediately said. Violet paused mid-step, several thoughts fighting for her attention.
She wondered how the lancer could tell. It seemed as quiet as anywhere Violet had seen in the mist. The station was clearly safe, at the moment. The lancer didn’t know for certain that something was wrong, but her anxiety had obviously skyrocketed. As Violet considered all of this, she realized she was missing the most important detail. What mattered most was that Stephanie had chosen to confide in Violet specifically. After their last experience in the mist together, the lancer had grown to trust her, apparently.
That could’ve been useful.
“Why do you say that?” Violet asked. Stephanie nodded toward the crystal pylon.
“It’s too dim. We schedule travel very carefully to avoid depleting any of these. But this one has nowhere near the expected amount of clarity. It hasn’t been gathering enough, for some reason,” she explained. It was Violet’s turn to tense.
“Will we have what we need? At least to get to the next station?” Violet pressed. She didn’t care for the idea of finding her way to civilization on foot. Too many variables she couldn’t control. Stephanie eyed the pylon nervously.
“I… think so. We’d have to drain it, though, and…” she trailed off as they reached the base of the crystal. There were two large, round ports in what looked like an actual gold base.
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“And what? What’s wrong?” Violet asked.
“And that can be dangerous. The transfer of clarity alone attracts hedron, but draining a pylon completely? It makes it unstable. When it’s unstable, it cracks, and the concentrated clarity has another exit other than the train. That will attract every hedron in the area, no matter what we do. But that’s not the worst of it. Because these pylons gather clarity naturally. The only reason it would still be so low is if something else was gathering too much nearby,” Stephanie explained. Violet grimaced.
“A nest,” she guessed. The lancer nodded.
“It would have to be. Nothing else could form so quickly. And based on how low this pylon appears to be, it has to be a big one. Either that, or another unusually high category. I’m not sure which. But… I don’t know if it’s worth the risk, Violet.” Violet locked her eyes on the other woman, carefully policing her voice as she responded.
“I don’t understand; what other options do we have?” Violet asked. Stephanie took a deep breath.
“Honestly, the safest thing to do would be to try and walk to the next station. There shouldn’t be more than an orange nest on the route at worst. If we don’t attract attention to ourselves, a few of us have the talents necessary to make it safely,” she answered.
“A few of us?” Violet asked. Stephanie crossed her arms, still looking at the port to connect the tubes to the train.
“That’s the issue. If we were to bring everyone, we’d never make it. There is a reason lancer teams never exceed five members. Hedron like blood as much as clarity, and too much of either in the open air will attract them in any case. If we tried to bring everyone, we’d just find ourselves swarmed either way. And anyone we leave behind…” she trailed off.
“The train will attract whatever is living in any nearby nests, anyway, won’t it?” Violet finished. Stephanie nodded. Violet noticed a slight tremor in the woman’s hand.
“Fuck. This was supposed to be easy, and I was supposed to be reassigned to guard Prism’s border,” the lancer cursed.
“We’ll have to risk the instability and refuel, then, right? If we are in the same danger regardless, it seems like that at least exposes us to it for the least amount of time, right? All things being equal, that’s the only benefit we can hope for,” Violet suggested. Stephanie met her eyes and examined her for a long moment. Ever so slightly, she shook her head.
“I like you, Violet. And I owe you. I really, really owe you. I’d be dead, if it weren’t for you. That’s why I asked you to help with this. I wanted to speak in private,” the lancer finally said.
“What do you mean?” Violet asked, innocence exuding from her voice like radiation. Stephanie swallowed hard.
“There is one more option. The hedron in the area will go for the largest group of people, and the richest source of clarity. If only a few were to travel on foot, the rest would attract the hedron in the area. Not only would two or three people attract very little attention, but…” again, she trailed off. She couldn’t voice the rest. That the rest of the students and the conductors would attract all of the hedron in the area. That all of them would die. Just to make the trip safer for the smaller group who fled. At least, unless the nest happened to be in the one direction they traveled. Stephanie must have supposed that to be a lesser risk than any other option. The woman wanted to sacrifice everyone.
This scared Violet. Not traveling through the mist. For some reason, the bite of that threat was fairly dull to her, by this point. Rather, it was the first thought she’d had when the suggestion was made. It wasn’t disgust, and it wasn’t even guilt. It was all calculation. Instead of feeling anything, she’d exclusively examined how likely Stephanie was to be right. And her second was that it may not matter to her.
Violet had noticed what Stephanie hadn’t. Even in the middle of combat, hedron ignored her. Unless Violet attacked them, they seemed to care little about her. Even a green hedron hadn’t bothered with her. It was entirely possible that every option was safe for her. It wasn’t until she’d decided not to trust that as a certainty that she’d started wondering about the risk of joining Stephanie. She simply hadn’t safely tested the observation enough to rely on it, and once she realized that, her first thought was that Stephanie offered the most beneficial option.
She didn’t want to leave Kiera behind. She was growing fond of Guy, too. He just had something of an oblivious but loveable air about him, and he didn’t seem to expect anything from her. Neither looked down on nor detested her. She also wondered if abandoning them would feed her calling. Which led her to wonder if such a large gain in clarity would attract hedron after all. She wasn’t sure how that worked yet. Her very last thought was about whether she’d be killing people who didn’t deserve it, already shattering the one barely-stable boundary she’d set for herself. What scared her most was that she was almost willing to do it. If it meant she’d survive. That mattered more than storybook ideals she felt only a fragile connection to. She could almost convince herself that using them as bait wasn’t really killing them. That it wasn’t her responsibility.
Then she remembered. And she realized who Stephanie was. A true coward at heart. More than Alex, and more than Derek.
“It was your idea, wasn’t it?” she asked. Stephanie blinked.
“What was?” she asked.
You didn’t tell me all of this because you owe me your life. You do, but it’s not why you told me. It’s because of my perception. Because the next station will take days to reach on foot, and you need someone to keep watch while you sleep. And I’m the best option. Because you have lots of ideas to keep yourself safe, don’t you? Violet thought.
Stephanie looked around the mist nervously. “I don’t know what you mean,” she repeated.
Violet glanced back at the thick glass of the building where the other volunteers were watching them curiously. She smiled at them and waved, even as she considered.
When the fucking lancers decided to bring a chained lamb along to sacrifice so they wouldn’t have to fight a green hedron. I assumed it was Derek’s idea, since he seemed like the team leader. And because he actually set the bait himself. But this bitch came up with the scheme, didn’t she? It’s basically the same thing she is suggesting now. Nice of her to decide I should be one of the ones who live this time, I suppose. I guess the conductors wouldn’t agree to leave a bunch of teenagers to die. They are likely a higher category than any student, but more dangerous to bring along. So she wants to settle for my perception instead. That has to be it, her mind raced.
She’s the one who suggested killing me before.
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