Read Online The Manticore Ascension: A Short Story in the Arena Mode Universe by Blake Northcott - Free Book Online

dilate. “Our fire woman is alive...at least for the time being. And her mind has been weakened significantly. If I were you I’d take advantage of this situation and jump into her head for a quick conversation – emphasis on the ‘quick’.” Tyler stepped aside and gestured with one hand; a stately flourish, as if he were beckoning me to enter a ballroom for a formal affair.
    I swept my blue hair aside and leaned in, preparing to read the fire woman, hands poised on either side of her sagging head. A single touch transported me like a hurricane, tumbling through her memories. A swirl of dreams and desires and darkened thoughts raced by, spiraling me towards a grassy knoll. I landed by a glassy, sun–drenched river where a young girl sat on a rock, kicking her tiny feet into the water. The flame–haired child couldn’t have been more than ten. It was the fire woman, taking refuge in her favorite memory.
    “Where did you come from?” the little girl asked, smoothing her hands over her powder blue dress as she hopped to her feet.
    I shrugged. “Another time...another place. I don’t know. I think it was a different reality.”
    “Anywhere is better than here,” she smiled. “Well, not here... I love it here. But back where we came from.”
    “So I’ve been told.”
    Her emerald eyes widened, searching mine. “Why are you siding with the humans?”
    “Why are you siding with Taktarov?” I asked in response.
    She turned and took her seat on the large flat rock by the river bed, lifting her dress before dipping her toes back in the water. “I don’t know. I was born after the war started. I don’t even know why we hate each other, to be honest.”
    I took a seat at her side, crossing my legs. “I need information.”
    “I know,” she said, without averting her eyes from the sparkling water.
    “I need to know if an attack is coming.”
    “I’m low–level,” she shrugged. “They don’t tell me about these things. I’m a nobody. Just a scout.”
    “A scout?”
    “They sent me to look for holes in the castle defense. Chinks in the armor.”
    I thought back to the conversations we’d had in her presence. Dawson, admitting that all of the shields were down, revealing that the castle was vulnerable. “You told them, didn’t you?”
    She nodded weakly. “Of course I did.”
    “He sacrificed you. Sergei Taktarov...he sent you here knowing you’d die.”
    “Probably.” Her child–like voice was light and innocent, but her words carried a crippling weight, dragged down by someone who had endured unspeakable horrors. “I knew it might be my last mission, but this was better than the alternative.”
    “How can you let him use you like this?”
    “And what are the humans doing with you?” She said sharply, turning to face me. “They’ll never trust you, you know. None of them will. You’ll always be the outsider – always persecuted for who you are, not what you do.”
    “They’re not all like that.”
    “You’re being naive,” she said, laughing under her breath. It was an accusation that sounded very peculiar coming from a small girl.
    “I shook my head. “Being naive is listening to someone who says the humans are all alike.”
    “Good for you...you found one. A single human who doesn’t treat you like an animal. And he’s worth fighting for – this one magical person? He’s going to flip a switch and change the way an entire nation thinks about us?”
    I reached out and took the girl’s tiny hand, intertwining our fingers. “Massive change is never a switch – it’s a dial. It’ll be gradual and frustrating, and there will be steps backwards, but it’ll happen. You’ve got to start somewhere.”
    “Well, good luck with that,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “Sorry I won’t be around to see it.”
    “No, you probably won’t,” I replied softly, the words catching in my throat. “But you can help me start the process.”
    She pulled her hand away