Page 54 of Stars in Mist

‘You too, Mirage, although you may have an inkling of what I’m about to share.’

Zane waited as the gathered Riders pushed their heads to the back of their seats and closed their eyes.

Only then did he shut his own and, using a kick of psionic energy, thrust himself into a scene over a year ago at the Rings work site, with the silver sands of the regolith plain flowing around him.

It was an old memory.

One where a cloaked figure and twenty-four monks stood across from Illanna, Luka, and Duke, poised with their weapons behind him.

Zane raised a hand to stop their advance.

The fateful moment came. Ankis lifted his weapon to shoulder height and aimed for the Rider’s head.

Zane’s view shifted to the slimline rifle as it slowly spat out a dark, howling, needle-thin photon energy beam. The strobe of pure blackness came ever closer, ready to pierce his mind and extract the waiting payload.

Then came his mind probe that shot over the incoming beam and sliced through Ankis’ weapon’s battery. The resulting explosion jerked Ankis backward, where raging black flames consumed him.

His adversary’s robe burst into flames and fell apart, revealing a silhouette covered in a suit made of dull strings of black gems phasing in and out of different body shapes.

Zane switched his psionic vision closer as Ankis’ form flickered and distorted, cycling through multiple facades it had hidden.

Time slowed, and the faces underneath the malfunctioning mask paused their rapid interchange, stopping on one visage.

Zane paused and held the vision still.

There was silence as his fellow Riders registered the features.

Then came a wave of their emotions, ranging from disbelief, pain, anger, and doubt.

He heard them give guttural cries and sensed their tortured thoughts.

‘Enough,’ he growled, pulling them out of the vision.

Zane opened his eyes to see his brothers staring at him, mouths slack.

Seconds later, they reacted.

Ki’Remi’s face streamed with tears, Kage snarled, and Xion clutched his head, leaning against the table, unable to comprehend what he’d witnessed.

Zane met Kainan’s eyes with sadness. Hiskhosishook his head, also grieving at what had been shared.

When Zane had shown him the same vision a few days ago, he’d had to use his psions to keep his leader from tearing Eden II apart with his flames.

He’d since calmed down, but a raging fire still blazed in his eyes.

‘Is this true?’ Kage ground out, his voice hoarse and tortured.

‘’Tis.’

‘How?’ Kage rasped. ‘How infokkin’ hell?’

Zane leaned back, pursing his lips. ‘On the day itself, I didn’t register what I was seeing until way after Ankis fled. The mask was also moving too fast for me to get a proper read. However, something about one of the faces I saw haunted me, so I probed the Elysian Eye, which does not lie. What you see was as it was on that fateful day. The Shard guide helped slow down the vision. The result is the face you saw.’

‘So Ankis is, in fact, the resurrected body of -?’ Xion’s voice failed him.

Zane inclined his chin. ‘It would seem so.’

In anger, Kage rose to his feet and paced the room. ‘How is this even possible?’

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