Chapter 51 The Mother of All Lies
The floor wasn't metal anymore. It was moving, rippling like a dark pond. I tried to stand, but my feet sank into the liquid glass. Beside me, Kael reached for a handrail, but his fingers slipped through the melting walls. The golden ship, my only hope for a real life, was turning into a trap.
"Mom?" I whispered. The word felt like poison in my mouth.
"I gave up my soul to keep you safe in that cage, Eara," the voice boomed through the speakers. It was soft, but it held a hidden edge, like a razor wrapped in silk. "I let them turn me into code. I let them harvest my mind. And you reward me by running away with a glitch?"
The silver bird on the monitor didn't move, but the purple vial next to it began to glow. The liquid inside started to boil.
centre
"She’s not here, Eara," Kael shouted, struggling to pull his legs out of the floor. "She’s broadcasting from the station's backup drives. She’s uploaded herself into this ship’s computer!"
"I am the ship now!" my mother’s voice screamed.
The liquid glass rose, forming a tall, thin shape in the center of the room. It didn't have a face, just a smooth, mirrored head. It reached out and grabbed Kael by the throat, lifting him into the air.
"No!" I lunged forward, but the floor grabbed my knees, pinning me down.
"You think you want freedom?" the glass shape said, my mother’s voice coming from its chest. "Freedom is cold. Freedom is lonely. On that green planet, you will grow old and die. You will be forgotten. But with me in the loop, you are eternal. You are the Weaver. You are a goddess!"
"I don't want to be a goddess!" I yelled, tears of rage stinging my eyes. "I want to be a person! I want to choose my own path, even if it leads to the grave!"
I looked at Kael. His face was turning blue. He wasn't a hero in this moment; he was a man dying for me. Again. Every time I tried to be happy, someone I loved had to pay the price. The "High World" was just another name for a cemetery.
I'm done being the victim, I thought. If she wants a goddess, I'll show her what a goddess can destroy.
I stopped fighting the flow. Instead of pulling away, I pushed my hands deeper into the liquid glass. I searched for the connection. I searched for the pulse of the ship that my mother had navigated.
"You want me?" I hissed, looking into the mirrored face of the glass monster. "Then take all of me. Take the fire you put in my blood!"
I didn't weave a dream. I wove a virus.
I took every memory of the pain she had caused, the cold tanks, the fake smiles, and the smell of the furnace, and I forced it through my fingertips. I sent the image of my father dying on the ship’s brain. I sent the feeling of the stones hitting my glass skin.
The ship groaned. The lights flickered from gold to a sickly, bruised purple.
"Stop it!" my mother screamed. "You’re breaking the core! You'll kill us all!"
"We’re already dead, Mom!" I roared. "You killed us the day you chose the machine over the truth!"
The glass monster dropped Kael. He hit the floor with a heavy thud, gasping for air. The walls of the ship began to smoke. The beautiful view of the green planet outside the window started to tear like paper, revealing a terrifying truth.
We weren't heading for a new world.
The "Green Planet" was a giant metal shell. It was a factory. Thousands of mechanical arms were waiting to catch our ship and strip it for parts. It was just another harvest, a bigger one, waiting for the last of the human survivors.
"It’s a lie," I whispered, my heart shattering. "The High World... It’s just another farm."
"It’s the only way to survive!" my mother’s voice pleaded, sounding smaller now, more human. "Eara, please. If we don't feed the Great Loom, the stars will go out. We are the fuel for the universe!"
"Then let it go dark," I said.
I found the command for the ship’s self-destruct. It was buried deep under layers of her code. She tried to block me, sending waves of cold static through my brain, but I pushed through. I didn't care about my life anymore. I only cared about stopping the cycle.
My finger hovered over the mental trigger.
"Eara, wait!" Kael scrambled to his feet, grabbing my arm. He wasn't looking at the monster. He was looking at a small escape pod hidden behind a melting panel. "There’s one pod left. It’s manual. It’s not connected to the ship’s computer!"
"She'll follow us!" I said.
"Not if I stay behind to hold the door," Kael said.
He looked at me with a smile that broke my heart. He knew. He had always known it would end like this. He was the glitch that was meant to save the Weaver, even if it meant he had to vanish.
"No, Kael, don't you dare"
"I love you, Eara. The real you. Not the Weaver."
He shoved me toward the pod. Before I could scream, the glass monster lunged. But it didn't work for me. It went for the pod’s controls.
A second figure burst from the shadows of the cargo hold. It was the woman from the wedding, the "new bride" Kael had been holding hands with. But she wasn't smiling anymore. She was covered in blood, and she held a thermal detonator.
"The Master forgot one thing," the woman said, her voice a perfect match for mine. "She forgot that even a copy wants revenge."
She tackled the glass monster, pinning it against the ship's core.
"Go!" she yelled at me. "Before I change my mind!"
Kael slammed the pod door shut and hit the launch button from the outside.
As the pod shot away into the void, I watched the golden bird ship explode in a ball of white fire. But the fire didn't stay white. It turned black.
A giant, dark shape began to grow out of the explosion, a shadow that stretched across the stars. It had my mother's face, but it was miles wide. It opened its mouth, and I realized it wasn't a shadow.
It was a black hole. And it was inhaling the entire galaxy.
My pod wasn't flying away. It was being sucked backward, straight into the center of the dark.
And then, a hand knocked on the glass of my pod window. From the outside.
It was my father. He wasn't wearing a suit. He was just floating there, his eyes glowing with a terrifying, red light.
"The story isn't over yet, Eara," he said, his voice vibrating through the glass. "We’re just getting to the part where you lose."
He smashed the glass.