Page 33 of The Godhead Complex
Mikhail walked along the crimson-red wall of the empty Golden Room of Grief with his hood cloaked over his face, as he always did, but he planned to reveal his full self to them today. Well, maybe not the little part about him being with a member the Godhead that they were trained to kill, but he did want the Grief Bearers to see the fire in his eyes when he spoke of the war. The flames within Mikhail needed to spread to their souls and filter down to the hearts of the soldiers. Flames of anger and justice.
His fingers shook as he hovered them over the alarm that alerted the Grief Bearers of his arrival. Pain radiated from his right kidney and he wiped the sweat from his forehead. The human body was capable of regenerating and repairing almost any cell, but the human body was also capable of eating itself alive from the inside out. A wonderful fact.
Mikhail never knew which path his body might take.
One of obedience. Or one of betrayal.
He depended on his body to regenerate healthy cells, but he’d learned after breaking his ankle in the Glade years ago that the body stored trauma in different ways. Nicholas forced Mikhail to spend to six weeks on his couch for constant observation as he explained that sometimes trauma was processed as expected: the body healed. But at other times, the impact ofonetrauma caused an explosion of multiple side effects.
The body and the mind are interlinked, Dear Mikhail.
Nicholas insisted on testing Mikhail’s memory and levels of anger each and every day, worried the broken bone might trigger his mental state back into the comfort zone of a Crank. Mikhail hated the tests. He hated the time it took to heal. He loathed it all.
Mikhail breathed deep for three seconds, held his breath for three seconds, exhaled for three seconds, then hit the alarm. He tried to relax as he moved to the exact center of the room, holding his body in as normal a posture as possible, but the stab wound in his right side weakened him. His legs buckled and his breath labored. Even so, he felt better than he should have. Shock. Like the broken ankle on which he’d walked three miles to reach Nicholas, he remembered that shock could last for hours or days before the true impact of an injury presented itself.
But enough time had passed since the boy stabbed him that Mikhail was sure the kid had missed his main organ. Probably why the little bugger was in Hell. Weak strength and poor execution. The Remnant Nation had no room for such weakness. The men Mikhail awaited to join him were twelve bearers of knowledge but they were even weaker than the boy who’d stabbed him. He needed the armies of the Nation to be strong while keeping these most senior leaders of the Nation weak. It was the secret to any successful government: Power was one thing, strength another. As he waited for the Grief Bearers, he closed his eyes under the shadow of his hood.
Mikhail entered the place in his mind where anything was possible and all was revealed.
The Infinite Glade.
And he exhaled.
He conjured in his mind a single, simplicable, proposal: to give the present and the future one last chance to change its course before he revealed himself. Before he started the war. What was about to be done could not be undone.
Ever.
He asked the Infinite Glade,Is it time to execute the war?And in a flash the word YES, in all white, glowed within the blackness of his mind. Still, knowing this was what he’d prepared for, Mikhail felt conflicted. A similar feeling had come over him when the boy cut the wild pig loose and he watched it run and squeal into the far distance. This confliction between anger and relief mesmerized him, because it meant he was—at least for today—more human than Crank.
A shuffle of footsteps. He opened his eyes and the colors of the Golden Room of Grief flooded his vision. A room with red walls and golden accents that almost blinded. He’d created this war room, with the red a shade somewhere between the color of bright bloodshed and that of darkened, dried blood that stained weapons. The gold accents were crafted from pyrite found alongside deposits of gold. And along with the pyrite there was sure to be arsenic, because as great as gold was, it was always mined alongside clusters of poison. A lesson he’d never forget, no matter how muddled his mind:
Anything of value was equally toxic.
Mikhail straightened his legs and steadied his breath as the footsteps drew nearer.
“The Great Master!” one of the Bearers of Grief exclaimed upon entering.
“Oh highest of high!” Another Grief Bearer bowed. Mikhail quickly counted six of them, but that wasn’t enough. Not to ignite the flames of war.
“Where are the rest?” He spoke low and slow from the shadows of his cloak, careful not to let on to his pain.
“Griever Glane and Griever Barrus are missing. Along with a Priestess.” One of the Grief Bearers stepped forward. It had been decades and Mikhail still failed to learn their individual names. He didn’t care who Glane or Barrus were, he just needed the numbers.
“And what about the Orphans from the cliffs? You haven’t promoted anyone in their absence?” It had been his plan for years to promote stronger Grief Bearers by the time they went to war. He had systems and plans, and the faces of those before him were ones lacking competence. His anger raced through his wound and pounded at his back.
One of them continued. “Griever Haskin and Griever Clarence have sped up the pilgrimages for the Orphan soldiers, even starting the rituals at sixteen for some of the stronger ones.”
“Then why are there only six of you right now?” He emphasized the wordnowas if it were a command and not a question, but he was met with only silence. He’d once again overestimated the Bearers to be more than what they were. Just like he’d underestimated Alexandra. And now he was in the middle of this mess of Evolution without a solid Nation to stand before him. “Say something!” he demanded.
“They . . . they . . .”
A skinny Bearer stepped forward. “The Orphans have not been . . . coming back.”
Mikhail breathed his routine. The cloaked men in front of him were merely tools. Nothing more. The entirety of the Remnant Nation, a box of tools that he would finally use today. Tools that could break and be thrown away after the war.
The men before him did not deserve the sacrificial ritual of war. They didn’t deserve the feast of a pig. And they didn’t deserve to see Mikhail’s face. He fixed the hood of his cloak tighter. “You have more problems in the Nation than I have time for. Missing Grief Bearers, holes in the tunnels of Hell, allowing Orphans to flee. Never mind the missing. This war has begun.” He paused as each Grief Bearer lowered to their knees. At least he still had their will to bend to his own. “Gather the Orphan Army and the Crank Army at once.” The Bearers looked at each other with great hesitation. “What is it?”
“The Army of Cranks oh, Great Master . . .”
