There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. -Hemingway
The Way to Peace
July 30 2024
It’s been four years since the war with Juvia Colony and the city has been peaceful. But when two concurrent murders, one in Basal and the other in Apex, fall into Shuu Dayl’s lap, he’s once again burdened with intense visions; this time that have nothing to do with the future. Just when the twins thought they had learned everything about their past and gained something like normalcy, new discoveries throw not just their world, but the whole Peerage, into chaos.
Nothing is as it seems when Thanatos receives a plea to return to the planet. Way City has fallen into political and civil unrest, and even the House of Schatten isn’t what it seems when a series of ancient, implanted memories surface that may shed a different light on their actions.
This time fighting the past just might mean changing the very foundation of Way City.
PROLOGUE
“Tell me, what happens next?”
Depthless black eyes watched the video playing on the display of a dark office. A small boy was sitting in a chair, hands clasped between his knees, shoulder-length silver hair gleaming in the white overhead lights. He didn’t twitch or fidget but sat quietly, staring at the man seated in front of him.
“Six white masks spin in a circle,” the boy began, tears welling in his big gold eyes. “They’ve always spun, from the beginning of everything. There’s threads coming off them, hundreds and hundreds, so many different nows I can’t trace them all.” He sniffed, rubbing a hand across his face.
The man leaned forward, staring intently as the boy became still again. “Just tell me what happens, then I will make it go away,” he breathed intently.
The boy sniffed again and nodded. “The threads start to break. Slow at first. As they break they snap back and crack the masks. Blood goes everywhere but the threads keep breaking until just two masks are left. One’s cracked and bleeding, one’s just stained.” A few more tears dripped off his chin before he looked up to stare at the man.
Slowly the tension drained out of his body, and he stopped crying as his eyes became glassy. “You can take this memory away,” he said dully. “Like you’ve taken the others, but they’ll come back. At the end, when you’re starting to think you’re going to win. You might get what you desire, but you’ll never actually get what you want—”
The video cut off. The playlist at the side of the screen switched videos and a new one started, of the same boy but a different room and interrogator. It was just one of many videos in the queue, a long playlist disappearing from view. There was no real title to the playlist, only a few random numbers.
0334-2.