She followed after Sol, stepping inside the station building. What she saw was disconcerting. Every chair had been toppled over, the walls and tables punctured with so many bullet holes their surfaces resembled a wasp’s nest. There were gouges and scorch marks on the floors. Clearly there had been a battle here, an intense one between hunter and daemon, and probably more than just one.
“Luna. Let’s get moving.”
Sol delivered the curt order and spun on her heel, heading back outside the building. Lunafreya hurried to follow. She would have liked to shut the door behind her, but the force of Sol’s kick had bent the hinges, preventing it from closing properly.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Not sure yet.”
As they walked, Sol pulled from her pocket the same small transceiver that Lunafreya had seen her use before, the thing she referred to as her “smartphone.”
“I’ll call in and find out where the next rendezvous point―”
Sol stopped mid-sentence with a gasp and came to an abrupt halt. Lunafreya’s skin prickled as she picked up the sounds both of things crawling across the ground and of wings cutting through air. Vague shapes lurked in the darkness. She sensed they’d been surrounded.
The assault began from above. Sol didn’t even have time to draw a gun, so Lunafreya flung her right hand up in haste. A repulsive sensation writhed its way along her arm, but she didn’t have time to be disgusted by it now.
A shotgun blast rang out. Sol had managed to grab her primary weapon, but even that wasn’t going to be enough to deal with this many enemies. Lunafreya realized that it was up to her to stop the daemons. She focused the power into her palms. The flying daemon that had grappled onto her arm crashed down right in front of her eyes.
It’s all right. I can do this, she told herself.
She took down a daemon lunging in from the side, then swept forward to cover Sol’s back. Her companion would not suffer even a single scratch; she swore it would be so.
She remembered the look in Sol’s eyes when the young woman related how she’d been left with nothing, the broken sound of her voice when she’d demanded to know what had kept the gods from hearing her pleas. At the time Lunafreya had wished desperately to help, to do anything to understand and ease Sol’s grief. She wanted to protect her new friend.
The moment the thought entered her mind, something inside her burst free. The very flow of time seemed to change. She could see the daemons about her frozen in mid-motion, and in this moment, she felt as though she could destroy any of them simply with a glance. The daemons in the air crashed to the ground, Lunafreya waving away the clouds of miasma they left behind, already intent on finding her next prey.
She continued to rip apart each and every black mass that lunged toward her. It was exhilaratingly easy, like crushing clumps of dirt between her fingers. She was hunting the daemons one by one―no, cleansing them from the world. Collecting trash, piece by piece.
Faster. More. She had to take more!
“Luna, what have you . . . ?”
At the sound of Sol’s voice, she snapped back to reality. She looked around, but there were no more daemons.
She’d destroyed them. Every single one. With her own two hands.
Lunafreya’s legs buckled, and she collapsed unconscious to the ground.
When Lunafreya had collapsed, it was not from fear. It wasn’t until a while later that she understood why, but the cause of her weakness was the scale of what she’d done. She’d absorbed so much scourge in so little time her body was overwhelmed.
The darkness inside her would never dissipate. The more of the sickness she absorbed, the more sway it held over her. It pulsated and writhed within her, looking for any chance to take control.
Yet she still remained blessed with the healing powers of the Oracle. She’d been drawing on those powers unconsciously to help stay the tiny thrashing creatures within her.
That must have been the reason why she was chosen by the Draconian: her ability to withstand the scourge. A regular human being without divine powers of healing would simply succumb―once the scourge entered their body, they would quickly turn into a daemon. In contrast, the Oracle’s power could counterbalance that of the scourge, which made her an ideal choice.
“Are you okay?” Sol peered into Lunafreya’s eyes, handing her a mug with a steaming liquid inside. Lunafreya nodded weakly and accepted the hot drink.
After the battle at Nohm, Sol had apparently managed to carry the comatose Lunafreya back inside the station building. Not only that, she’d restarted the generator and restored light to the interior.
“I don’t really know what I’m doing when it comes to making tea,” Sol apologized. “Getting it right’s harder than I thought.”
“I am sure it is lovely. Thank you.”
Lunafreya took a sip. The tea was in fact a bit more bitter than she cared for―which meant that for Sol, it must have been nearly undrinkable.
“The aroma is most pleasing,” Lunafreya said, “As is the warmth.”
Sol smiled and replied, “That’s exactly what I thought. Figured you might appreciate it, especially now.” Lunafreya realized it was true. Back at the signal cabin, where they’d found the teapot, Sol had fumbled for a way to compliment Lunafreya’s efforts, eventually settling on the comforting smell.
“Do you think maybe . . . ?” Sol began, staring deep into the mug in her hand. “Do you think maybe, if you keep absorbing daemons the way you’ve been doing, you might lose your mind or something? Could you end up becoming one? If so . . . would it be better for all of us―you, me, the rest of humanity―if I killed you now?”
The words were sinister, but the tone was not. Sol made no movement to draw her guns. It was not the tense mood of that first evening over cups of tea, when Sol had still been careful to keep her weapons within easy reach.
“I wonder about that as well. Whether it is necessary for me to become a monster in order to stop them. I find myself . . . uncertain why the gods would put such a calling on my shoulders.”
Lunafreya understood that the power she wielded was necessary to stop the daemons. But it seemed stopping the daemons might well cause her to become one. It was a terrifying thought that filled her with dread. She trusted in the gods, but still, she could not dispel her unease.