CHAPTER 12
Back To The Beginning
"I- I'm sorry," Erik batted his eyes in confusion. "Wha- wait. You want to- you want to join Kaius?"
"Yes, but," Maija said quickly then spun away from him, covering her mouth with her hands. Why had she done this? She knew she would regret bringing Erik along and here she was. Maija just hadn't expected it to have happened so quickly. She debated grabbing the helm's controls and dropping him back off at the island that hung, still above them.
"Look, ugghhh," Maija groaned, grabbing her hair and tugging on it. She had to tell him. She had never felt comfortable talking about herself, even more her feelings. Her goddamn feelings. But now, she had no choice. "Years ago, I just appeared in this world. I had no memories, no knowledge of this world and was put in a fully grown body. I had no childhood, no parents, no family, no friends. I had no connection to anything around me. I was just as foreign to myself as the world was to me and there was no escaping from it. There is no escaping it."
Her lips had broken and the more Maija spoke, the easier it was to reveal more. Erik just stood in front of her, brows raised, eyes blank as if he was struggling to feel comfortable in front of a woman breaking down every emotional, life-altering scene in her life right in front of him.
"Now, I know it sounds bad immediately, but I need Kaius alive for just a few moments. He wants me. Apparently, shortly after I was 'created'- I don't know- people started watching me, knowing that I wasn't normal. One of those people was Kaius and now he wants me to join him at whatever costs because I have something that even I don't know about.
"I need him alive for just a few moments so I can get that information from him. I need to know. I can't keep living with a void in my mind and the easiest way to fill it is to have Kaius trust me enough to give to me willingly." She stopped, catching her breath. "Only then, will I kill him."
Maija finally stopped, waiting for Erik's reaction. She had just opened herself up to him, for the first time since Makhai and even then, she had been given no choice. It had been a very dark time for her. The longer she had been left alone, the more hurt she became. Not only physically but mentally. By the time Makhai had found her, she had been a shell of a person, scared and broken, empty and overwhelmed by a need to survive that at that moment, she wasn't able to fulfill. Maija had done the same for Erik and she did not want it to fall short. Not now.
He blinked. He was clearly still trying to process what Maija had told him. Erik opened his mouth, took a breath, then closed it. If Maija had a seat, she would have been on the edge of it.
Erik opened his mouth again and this time spoke, "So, you want to know where you came from, that's what all this is about?"
Maija's heart sunk, and dread ripped at her stomach. He was starting to doubt her. This had been a bad idea with a capital B. If only she had left, convinced him to let her just go. She wouldn't have to worry about this anymore. Now it was all falling apart around her again and again and again.
"Kaius needs to be stopped one way or another, you have to believe me that's all I care about," Maija pleaded with him, bending her knees, and clenching her fists out in front of him. "But I won't lose the opportunity to find out who I really am."
"You need Kaius to trust you enough for him to give you what you think he has?" Erik asked. Maija was afraid to answer. She nodded, aggressively. "Not a lot here sounds so guaranteed. What would you need me to do?"
"I don't know," Maija replied, forcing her mind to focus, let her words out smoothly. "Kaius needs to think I'm living up to the rumors he's spread about me. Everyone is out to get me. It needs to appear like I fought tooth and nail to get to him." Because she had.
"So, what will I be doing?"
She shook her head, "I don't know. We'll find out once we get there."
"Well," Erik stood straight and shook his arms, obviously shaking the nerves Maija and him shared. "We better get going, there probably isn't much time left."
Maija released her breath, slowly pulling another in. So far, Erik was on board, hopefully she could keep it that way. She stepped up the helm and grabbed firmly to the controls, but for the first time in a while, Maija had no idea where to go. But her destination quickly came to mind. She needed to go back. Back to where this all began.
The last place Maija had seen so many ships massed together had been right before an entire island fell beneath the void, stricken down by Kaius and whatever technology he had managed to scrounge together from the old one's dead remains. They needed to go back through the windwall that had brought her to this sector, and it wasn't very far away.
They arrived within minutes, Maija at the helm. She had never piloted so much in her life- Makhai mostly did that. She wasn't all too bad at it, had a good sense of elevation and windspeed and direction, she could handle turbulence well enough. But Makhai had been a hell of a pilot, far better than Maija could ever be. He had pulled a stunt that had left Maija's shoulder dislocated but they had survived it. She had survived it.
When they arrived at the windwall, Maija called back for Erik to check their fuel and then she took them through, pushing the engines up to full power. They raged forwards, attached the side of the ship's hull, pulling it with them. The wall sucked them in and pushed them down towards the void, but the ship's power was stronger. Within minutes, they had blown through the other side, their momentum ripping stray wisps of cloud and mist from the flowing wall behind them.
Erik stepped up behind her, his arm brushing up against hers as he rested against the side of the helm. Shivers tickled her skin and goosebumps burst along it. She brushed it off, mentally kicking herself for a reaction she couldn't prevent. Erik started talking but she had found herself to be so distracted, she had only caught the last half.
"I wasn't here to see it fall," he had said. "What was it like."
Maija blinked, trying her best to figure out what he was talking about. It came to her quickly. "Um, there was a flash of light from Kaius's ship. It seemed anticlimactic at first but then the whole island started to dip, sink." Its weight had pulled it farther and farther into the void and nothing, no amount of energy or mystical, ununderstood atlas energy could save it. Lidia had been on that island. Maija wondered how she had survived it.
She looked up at where that island had once been anchored to the world. Never had Maija seen an island move. No matter how much force had been applied to its side or top. No matter how large and how grand the structure that stood atop it had been, nothing budged an island. The island's steadfastness had always reassured Maija. If everything in her world were to change, not an island. She had mapped out that first sector, the only sector, until Maija had memorized the location of every island inside. Where every bit of floating rock lay, Maija knew it and not a single piece had moved or faltered. Islands were a constant. An always. Not anymore. Because there was an emptiness where a grand temple once sat, noble. A place for traders to rest and gather supplies. No matter how corrupt or greedy they had been, they didn't deserve it. No one deserved to have their home ripped from them, buried in a grave of compressed air so heavy it took that island and turned it all into dust.
No one deserved a death that great. None but the man who had caused it. And right where she had expected to find him, grand and pompous like he usually was. Kaius's fleet formed in the emptiness left by that sunken island. Like walking on someone's grave. Disrespectful.
Two strips of ship formed a row in the emptiness between them leading to a small ship parked in front of Kaius's massive flagship, sitting with red paint and black, ripped sails. The hull had been ripped and torn through war and combat but repaired with scrap metal that made the ship look more like a weapon than anything else. Maija felt sick to her stomach thinking the man who flew a ship like that could convince the world than she was the enemy.
"You were right," Erik said, she could barely hear him. Everything sounded muffled. Wind blew in her ears from the wall behind them. Maija had pulled the ship to a stop and took an inadvertent step back, putting a protective hand over her chest.
This was it. Here and now, Maija's life would change yet again. And Kaius was prepared for it. This was no battle formation; this was no way to manage a fleet. This was a welcome. A red carpet. Kaius had said that Maija would come to him, and he had been right.
"Are you ready?" Erik asked her.
She broke her eye contact with Kaius's ship and met his gaze. "Are you?"
