"King Orm!"

He does not remember ever being this tired. For one of the royal blood line. He never thought the burden would become so heavy. The fighting has left him angry. And on the heels of that anger, bitterness. Good soldiers dying. And they are barely being held back.

"This had better be important Vulko."

His heart turns to frost when they enter the room where Aeryn was once present. The place is swarming with medics. And instantly, his mind churns out a thousand possibilities, none of which are promising.

"What . . ."

Following through from there, Vulko prevents him entering the larger infirmary. For there behind the crystal reflection is a sight bad enough to make him sick to the stomach.

There must be hundreds of them down there. Women. Children. The water is putrid yellow with the stench of their rotting skin, their dry lips seem to moan but the words are incoherent. The wails of the little ones. Their eyes are like a sea of dimming orbs glowing there in the darkness.

"Where are the medics?!" he snaps upon seeing the lack therein. "Have you gone mad?!"

"There can be no contact!" Vulko insists. "The contagion is highly intelligent. There are already medics in there, when it gets close to someone who is not infected, it appears it can eat through just about anything. So far, only the razvite glass, this material before us, appears to stop it."

"How did this happen?" he growls.

Vulko swallows. "Aeryn . . ."

"Impossible. She would never do such a thing."

"Intentionally? Of course not. But the virus escape came as soon as she entered Atlantis, not a moment before."

"Where is she now?"

"I urged her to use one of the secured cubicles," Vulko whispers. "They were . . ." He clears his throat. "They did not want her alive."

"I will speak with her immediately."

What stops her going out there? Giving herself over? It is no more than she deserves is it? To have the gall to come here, or how did she get here? The nanites . . . It's something to do with the nanites. But she's so damn tired, she can't remember.

"Aeryn?"

That sounds like Orm. But it cannot be Orm. Because Orm hates her. And he would not be there, behind the glass would he? Aeryn rouses herself from the bed, ignoring the dry scabbing along her hands that cracks and bleeds when the moves her fingers.

"Orm?" she murmurs. "Are you real?" She rests her head against the glass.

"I'm real!" He seems almost desperate that she should know it. "I'm real, I promise. Aeryn . . ." He traces her face with his fingers. "Aeryn forgive me, forgive me . . ."

She laughs weakly. "What are you sorry for?"

"For leaving you. For being too afraid to love you properly. For not waiting until you were healed before letting you go . . ."

"Orm, Orm," she shakes her head. "I'm tired. I'm practically falling apart, let's not remember that, it doesn't matter now."

"It does matter. When you're well again . . ."

"Orm," she sighs. "You are very optimistic my dear. But I can feel it this time. I can't shake this one. My father . . ."

"Your father?"

"I saw him," she mutters. "And Yanda. There, with the eighth kingdom. I always thought that I escaped. But he let me go. He let me go . . ." Her chest starts rattling. "Knowing that I'd come back here for you . . ." Only speaking it out loud does the cruelty of his plan fully embrace her. "Everyone was playing games with me, and now I'm just relieved it's going to be over . . ."

"No . . ."

"Orm . . ."

"No! I won't listen to you talk like that anymore. You speak as if you were already dead! Everything can be reversed . . ."

"How?" she cries. "Look at them Orm! I mean you don't even know the razvite can hold it! He wants everyone dead and he wants to use me to do it, every second I'm alive, I'm just doing what he'd want me to do, being what he'd want me to be . . ."

Does he catch the streak of madness in her eyes. "Don't you do it . . ."

"I'm sorry Orm."

That's when the lights go out and the Sun itself becomes as shadow.