Rough bone expands and twists into a mass of spikes and thorns that burst from Adamus’s arm.

  The archers are knocked into the air as the roof explodes into a million pieces of dust and concrete.

  The prison, the gate, and the archers are all sent flying by the sheer force of the skeletal bst.

  Adamus grips his still-human left hand around the beast. He attempts to aim the fierce power that is fighting him. It’s begging for blood, begging for control.

  No! Adamus tells it, Work with me, you stupid thing! Work with me!

  The mob of prisoners who were running from the fire and the archers now look upon Adamus with wide eyes. Whether those eyes are full of shock, awe, or pure terror, he does not know, and does not want to. At least not now.

  “Run! You idiots!” He shouts, “Run! I’ll hold them off!”

  Marqus is the first to follow the order. Leo goes next, rushing to the next prison complex, no doubt in search of Jasper.

  A small flock of prisoners follow his lead, yet some stay behind with Adamus as the fmes and guards surround them. Samend is among them. He seems to freeze in thought as the few surviving archers draw their bows.

  “St, sta… Stand… Stand down!”

  Adamus yanks at his arm and swings the beast straight into the archers, knocking them off their feet. The lump of jagged bone smacks onto the bzing ground. Fmes crawl up to consume it as the thing spins around to strike at the guards who dare to stand.

  Adamus clutches the arm that is no longer his, holding onto it for dear life. The mess of prisoners are scattered now, but he can still hear Samend stuttering behind him, “What… what the—”

  The beast soars into the air, spiraling upwards in a trail of fme. Adamus pnts his feet as deep into the dry dirt as he can to steady himself, yet the monster that’s taken hold of his arm has other ideas.

  The bone charges past Samend and drags Adamus over to the complex that Leo and the prisoners he’s scraped together are attempting to enter.

  The beast breaks the complex open like a whip shing at skin. The concrete even bleeds out guards draped in white and red. Adamus wrestles his arm to strike them aside as the mob rushes into the building.

  As they charge into battle, Adamus stays behind. Still struggling with the beast protruding from his arm. He kneels in the dirt and fire. The bone flops down, jagged, twisted, and mangled.

  It twitches and pulses as Adamus pleads with it, Alright, thanks for the help. Now get back inside of me! I don’t need you anymore!

  Arrows fly down at him.

  Archers are positioned on the roofs of each prison complex. They're converging now, joining forces to focus fire on the mob.

  Adamus grits his teeth and stands. He then allows the beast to do what it's been yearning for.

  It lunges out and pierces the archers. Their bodies are torn apart by the massive bone that rams into them like a throwing spear.

  The fingers of Adamus’s left hand cw at his inhuman right shoulder before he loses his grip. The beast tosses him forward, deeper into the carnage.

  The thing smacks and stabs at everything in sight, filing like a helpless infant. Adamus can’t hold onto it any longer. It’s fast now, faster than it was when he once had control of it.

  He hasn’t let it out since the vilge back on Zamizer, and before that, he hadn’t let it out since Rome. As it kills and sughters, it seems to almost be negotiating with him. Providing a demonstration.

  Look at what I can do, Adamus thinks he hears the words in his mind, but it is in truth a sharp whisper. A single phrase. “One.”

  The bone stretches out, locking in pce and growing rigid. With the corpse of an archer on the end of it and fire consuming everything around him, the beast speeds back into Adamus’s arm. Yet it does not fully retract; it takes the form of a single spike. Just like in Rome.

  Adamus’s left arm is ripped open by a spear. The guard wielding it looks on in triumph that soon becomes terror as the arm takes on the same form as its brother.

  You’re giving me control now? Adamus wonders as the guard grips his spear and thrusts it at him again.

  Adamus twists away from the thrust and slices at the guard with bdes of bone. The slices are powerful, too powerful. The man is cut in half. His torso goes one way, and his legs the other.

  Adamus gazes at his bdes of hands, dripping blood. Fire is around him, there’s smoke in the air, and ashes raining down. Just like back then, time seems to stand still.

  Adamus stands frozen amid the fmes.

  The eyes of the guard’s torn corpse stare into him just as the dark eyes of Smith once did.

  They are judging eyes, frightened eyes.

  People once looked at me and cheered, Adamus thinks as he walks toward the cries of battle in the distance. They would cheer my name. Cry out for me. The glory of Rome, they called me.

  Adamus stumbles into the wreckage of one of the prison complexes.

  He finds it empty and burning, just like everything else. You said you would follow me through blood and fire, Marqus. Adamus tries to wipe sweat from his brow, but cuts it on the sharp bone. Where are you now, he wonders, did you run away with everyone else?

  “Adamus!” Someone calls out to him.

  He wades through the ash and smoke toward the distant voice. His arms weigh him down, feeling heavier than ever.

  “Adamus!” Marqus shouts again, “What are you just stumbling around for! Get over here!”

  Adamus clumsily makes his way over to the prisoners, all huddled together by a brick wall. Their numbers have increased but decreased just as much. As far as Adamus can tell, the only difference seems to be that a few women are now among the crowd.

  “Have you seen Kiren anywhere?” Marqus desperately asks. Adamus shakes his head, “No.” He coughs, “I can hardly tell what’s going on. Where’s Samend? Where’s Le—”

  “Charge them!” Leo screams, rising from behind the wall, “They can’t take us all at once!”

  The mob leaps from the wall, rushing over the remaining guards like a colossal wave swallowing sand on a beach. The masses of bodies smash into each other, colliding in blood, smoke, and fire.

  That fire is hastily extinguished as gusts of wind break over the battle from above.

  Adamus clutches what he can of his fists as the twin symbiotic ships descend, flexing their pitch-bck skin against the grey sky.

  Soldiers drop from them, more well-armed than any of the guards. They must have seen the fire and come running. They chop into the prisoners, hacking at them with their stone swords.

  While everyone else’s attention is on the battle, Adamus focuses on the ships.

  “I think I found our way out of here.”

  Marqus turns to him, “What?”

  Adamus hops onto a mound of rubble. Kicking his feet across the ash and smoke, he propels himself into the air. He holds his long bdes of arms out to the ship's dark skin. Spying his fingers out as if grasping at a bzing sun, he screams. “This is what you want, right? To fucking use me!”

  The beast stirs. The bdes harden. The spikes go from jagged to straight. Narrow. Focused.

  “THEN FUCKING USE ME!”

  Adamus speeds into the ship.

  The bdes grate on the skin at first. Touching it like a needle against soft flesh. However, that is just for the brief moment that they first make contact.

  The rest is a clean slice.

  Ribbons of bck break across the sky like long, streaming banners behind Adamus’s bde arms. He curls himself into a ball and lets his limbs drift aimlessly as he soars, or rather falls, onto the next ship.

  The symbiotic ship that he’s cut in two plummets down to the bzing wreckage of the prison below as Adamus stabs into the next one. He stabs over and over and over again until he breaks through into the craft’s interior.

  It is there that he lets the beast do its work.

  So this is what I am? He judges himself as the thing makes its way through the crew of soldiers gathered inside the ship. A monster used by a monster? I’m letting you do this. I need you to do this. Are you happy now? Killing all these people?

  Before Adamus knows it, one of his bdes is against the pilot’s throat, and the ship is settling down on the burning ground below.

  “Thank you,” someone seems to say, whether it is himself, the beast, or the pilot, Adamus does not know.

  The ship’s hangar door opens. Adamus runs out, waving his hands and crying to the mob, “Over here! I got a ship over here!”

  Slowly but surely, the prisoners notice his cries and look over. Some still look at him in horror, most are simply tired and seek to be anywhere but here.

  The first dozen that rush onto the ship are survivors, scattered during the battle. Adamus doesn’t recognize most of them. His sudden lightheadedness doesn’t help that fact.

  He stumbles against the hangar doorway on the side of the ship, retching as the pilot sprints off into the dead woods in fear.

  Leo and what’s left of his group arrive as Adamus vomits into his hands.

  His hands!

  The bdes have retracted!

  His cracked ribs and bruised skin suddenly heal along with the rest of his injuries. Like wringing a wet cloth, the hurt is squeezed out of him. He coughs at the sensation, “Rope.”

  “What?” Leo asks, dumbfounded, “We couldn’t find Jasper or Kiren. Why do you need rope?”

  “Just fabric… or— I don’t—” He vomits again and fumbles his way onto the dirt. As everything grows blurry, he falls.

  The pce he nds is right at Samend’s feet.

  “You’re…” Adamus can hardly get the word out, or any word for that matter. “Alive?”

  Samend looks down at him with his rge, dark, Martian eyes. Adamus stares into those bck holes of contempt, waiting for some sort of response.

  He doesn’t get one.

  Samend merely walks past Adamus’s limp, fallen body.

  What did I expect? Adamus almost wants to ugh. Almost.

  His arms suddenly become tight. He clenches his jaw, fearing that the beast is fighting for control again. Instead, he lifts his head to find Marqus wrapping a red scarf around his scarred forearm.

  “I can’t find Kiren.”

  Adamus rises as much as he can. “I’m sorry.”

  Marqus ties off the knot and hands Adamus a second scarf for his left arm. “You have nothing to apologize for, my—” Marqus shakes his head, clearly holding back tears.

  Adamus begins to wrap the scarf around his arm. “She may have just not been in any of these complexes,” He guesses, trying to reassure Marqus.

  As Adamus finishes the knot, Marqus nods, “Maybe.”

  Adamus forces on a weary smile, “Thanks for helping me. Helping us, I mean. My Father would have been lucky to have men half as brave as you and Leo.”

  Marqus gives his own strained expression of gratitude, “Thank you. I know he would be proud of you.”

  Adamus shrugs, “That…” He sighs, recalling what Marqus said when they were trapped together, You aren’t the Emperor I wanted. “Remains to be seen.”

  Marqus grasps Adamus’s shoulder, “Should we get out of here?”

  The two board the ship.

  Strangely, the prisoners are all gathered around Leo. They all pat him on the back and speak of his bravery. Man and Woman, human, Squideel, and Martian alike all take turns admiring his boldness and cunning. Marqus joins the celebration while someone seals the hole Adamus made in the ship’s hull with what’s left of Hariv and Rensa’s getin.

  Soon, the ship is airborne and spacebound.

  The newly freed prisoners settle down then. Some discuss pns of where to go next and what to do. Leo helps lead those discussions with Marqus at his side.

  Adamus does not join in. He doesn’t join in anything.

  He sits alone in the corner of the ship.

  The only attention he gets is the occasional gre.

  People used to cheer when they saw me do what I did today, he remembers the gdiator arena with a sigh. Adamus Atheneum was once a great and beloved young man. Heir to one of the greatest empires in the universe. The only judgment I got then was accusations of being spoiled and having a somewhat high libido.

  He smiles at how insignificant all that seems now. However, that smile fades as the group aboard the ship all ugh amongst themselves.

  So…

  What am I now?

  Adamus asks himself the question.

  And fears that he may already know the answer.