Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (50)
Her hand snapped up and grabbed his wrist as he was about to drive the elixir into her shoulder. He had attached a needle to one end and had attempted to inject her with it.
The Sage frowned. “Why are you objecting now? I was always going to administer this formula. A cognition booster should have no influence on its effects, aside from potentially speeding up the process.”
“Don’t like you doing anything to my mind except listening to it,” Yerin said. “You start putting something into my head, and I’m putting something into yours.”
She extended one of her red-chrome sword arms and slid it close to his temple.
He didn’t avoid it, and his expression showed nothing but annoyance. “This is the most efficient method of retrieving your experience. It’s similar to the procedure used for leaving behind an inheritance to one’s disciples. It is nothing to fear.”
“You want to swear to me on your soul that this won’t knock me out, slow me down, or hurt me, and then I’ll let you use it.”
The Sage hesitated, confirming her suspicions. “The only purpose of this compound is to enhance your memory. It will be similar to a…a daydream. There will be no danger while I am here to defend you. Even my Shadow is committed to your protection while you are cooperating with us.”
“Got a bargain for you: let’s try it like normal first, and I won’t gut this ship on my way out.”
Red Faith scowled. “It will only be more difficult for you to produce clear memories, and if your experience isn’t to my satisfaction, then you will waste both of our time. The concentration necessary to produce a coherent dream tablet is enough that you will be all but incapacitated with or without my formula. This is foolishness.”
Yerin looked down at his wrist. “Then I guess I’m taking your hand with me as a trophy.”
He tugged at her grip, which she released. “Very well. Make your attempt. Should you fail, I will insist that you try again.”
“Not itching to be anywhere else.”
That wasn’t true on any level. Not only did she have other business, but she hated being in Redmoon Hall. But sometimes you had to do things you hated.
Red Faith drummed his fingers on the violet elixir for a moment, and she was sure he was considering trying to inject it by force. Finally, he spun around and seized the arm of a complex steel frame, which he extended until it was in front of her face.
The steel arm carried a scripted purple lens, and he fixed a blank dream tablet to the side opposite her. “Focus on the moment you first separated from your Blood Shadow. As much as is possible for you without the assistance of my elixir, relive that moment vividly.”
That was easy enough, since the memory tended to stick in her mind. She was lying in a basement that shook with a battle overhead. Outside, Akura Malice fought the Bleeding Phoenix. Dust fell from the ceiling as the building trembled, and Mercy was off to one side, desperately fighting a tide of bloodspawn.
A tide that Yerin was sure she’d soon join. Her Blood Shadow, the parasite that had infested her as a girl, was struggling to take over. To heed the song of the Phoenix and break free. It was taking all of her mind and spirit, all of her willpower, to restrain it.
Lindon leaned over her, his face soft with concern. He told her to fight. Told her he wouldn’t leave her. Then, with his Remnant arm, he reached into her spirit.
…but Yerin had another memory overlaying that one. She existed only faintly, a spirit locked in darkness, trapped in a small area. She heard a song that promised freedom and fought to reach it, to feed, to satisfy the hunger that was all she’d ever known.
Then a hand of even greater hunger seized her and pulled her free. She felt his spirit and his firm will as she emerged into the light, and felt the fear of her host body.
Ruby’s memories. Her birth.
Dream aura streamed from Yerin’s mind, through the lens, and into the tablet. The flow cut off as Red Faith removed the lens.
He clicked his tongue. “Memories this obscured will be of minimal use in research. We will finish the process, but if there are any inconsistencies or pertinent details missing, we will repeat this step. It would be far more efficient to accept my clarity elixir, and then we could assuredly complete the transfer in one—”
“How efficient is it to talk instead of work, would you say?”
Red Faith stared at her, and she had to glare back so she didn’t shiver. His eyes weren’t filled with hatred or anger at her defiance. They were cold fish’s eyes, just watching her as he calculated.
After a few more seconds, he swung the lens back into place. He didn’t even trade out the dream tablet; maybe this one still had room.
“When did you begin practicing my techniques for a humanoid Blood Shadow? What was your motivation for doing so, and what was your experience using them?”
“You want me to focus on one thing, or six?”
“Those are prompts meant to focus you on the next stage of the Shadow’s development. If you have a strong memory associated with the initial training of the Blood Shadow or use of my techniques, that is the recollection to focus on.”
Yerin remembered Eithan giving her Red Faith’s tablet, making her choose, and her first time hearing the Sage’s voice in her mind.
When the memory was finished and Red Faith reviewed it, his pink eyes widened. “Eithan Arelius was the one to procure these techniques for you? And in your opinion, it was he that encouraged you to practice my methods?”