Page 108 of Love, Nemesis
His body lay there for a moment, a quiet mass among corpses.
The ashes swirled, the heat billowed, and the room cooked.
It was in these moments that Lethe thought of god.
Chapter 28: Setting Sail
ANA MOVED HER fingers across the canvas, finishing the image of a swan gliding across a blue and white sky.
She wiped her fingers on a cloth lying on the ground near the chair where she sat. She glanced back at the white house with brilliant flower beds lining a stone path to the entrance.
“Ten minutes,” Diane said, lying in the grass beside her, looking out at the capital down below.
“I’m done,” Ana said, facing the painting again. She stared at it, the paint a fresh, glimmering reflection of the sky. The reflection of the sun gave it life, but even that would dry soon, and the image, to her, felt somehow incomplete. It seemed right.
“Did you ever find it?” Ana asked.
“Do you really want to know?” Diane replied, squinting into the sun, elbows back in the grass, legs crossed in front of her. “I’d guessed you weren’t asking on purpose.”
“So, you know?” Ana said, smoothing out the white, ceremonial dress she wore.
Diane lay back, folding her hands over her face. She sighed. “The source of The Great Light. It’s tied to a blue shell. It’s in the science division’s lab,” Diane said. “So, unless we have one of the very special keys, we’re not getting in, but now we know. It really does exist. It’s in the State. I have to admit, I was convinced before, but having evidence…it’s unreal.”
“All right,” Ana said.
“That’s it?”
“It was a possibility that the State had it. Now, it’s a reality.” Ana watched the painting, digesting her feelings about The Great Light. She didn’t want to spend her final moments thinking about it.
“As for Jasper,” Diane said as if sensing her mood, “I haven’t heard from him, but he’s close, I’m sure. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Mystics come over that horizon any second. I bet Hailey’s nervous. I’d love to be in one of his planning meetings right about now—scrambling for a strategy.”
“And no word from Lethe or Cal,” Ana said, avoiding the topic again. She didn’t really want to linger on the idea of the Mystic invasion either.
“No. Not yet.” Diane checked her watch. “You have five minutes.” She turned back toward the house. “Everything is ready.”
Ana exhaled through her nose. She stood up, folding the cloth neatly over her stool. “I know,” she said and then eased down into the grass next to Diane.
The birds were chirping outside. They sat there and listened.
“Two minutes,” Diane whispered.
Ana stood and turned toward the house. “Let’s go inside.”
A group of people waited in the small, white house, looking up from their watches when she entered. They cleared the path forher, and Ana walked between them to the bed. She lay down over the stark, white sheets, the sheets they’d wrap her in before her burial. Resting her head on the pillow, she looked up at the ceiling, folding her hands on her stomach.
Ana noticed a vase of fresh flowers in the windowsill when she walked in. They had been brought by one of the secretaries sent from the State to document the last moments of any Numbers soldier. The other people were official personnel, some she recognized, some she didn’t, but still a rather strange turnout for her final moments.
She’d been told a day or so ago that Hailey was regulating crowds, sifting through them for people with anti-State agendas and Mystic sympathies. Apparently, he’d caught wind of her fame among the Resistance and had mandated that those allowed to attend her funeral be strictly regulated by the State.
It was either a subtle jab or a simple matter of caution. Ana wasn’t sure about Hailey’s intentions. She imagined it didn’t look promising that she’d returned at all from hunting Ares, much less that she’d returned alive. If anything, she was surprised Hailey seemed willing to let her die in peace, but maybe he was just relieved she’d be gone soon and thought it best not to bring too much attention to her situation and make a martyr out of her.
Diane took a seat beside Ana in a chair near the bed. Ana was grateful for her attendance. Diane had lost several friends in combat on the border in the past few years, and she knew this wasn’t easy for her. Ana, on her own, wasn’t concerned about dying.
In fact, she’d waited a long time for this. The hardest part was imagining the pain of those around her.
She checked her Atlas, which rested on a small pillow by the bed, looking back up at the ceiling as she counted the seconds.
Three seconds left.
