North existed in the space between seconds, her consciousness diffused into a crystalline lattice of non-thought. Time moved differently here, slower and kind of sideways, each moment stretching perpendicular to itself. She was aware without thinking, present without full processing, not entirely alive, not exactly dreaming.

  Then a sharp point pierced her index finger. The signal! That was the signal!

  Her awareness snapped back like a rubber band released, an ocean of scattered thoughts cascading through her network in a painful rush. The light had changed as her network of thought accelerated, catching up to reality. The angle of shadows shifted dramatically.

  She was no longer in the bathroom.

  Her eyes focused slowly, taking in unfamiliar surroundings. She discovered herself in a bedroom, still chained to the damned chair with her own handcuffs, now positioned facing a window. Through the grimy glass, she could see the Darkbrook valley spreading westward, and there…

  Mount Olympus was on fire.

  Not just on fire. The entire northwestern face of the mountain had been carved away, replaced by a glowing crater that pulsed with hellish orange light. A massive column of smoke rose into the evening sky, mushrooming at the top.

  Her family’s domain. The bunker.

  The realization hit her like a runaway train and for the first time in her long life she felt pure, liquid terror engulf her entire body.

  "No, no, no," North whimpered, crystalline tears welling in her eyes, small pieces of herself breaking away from the rising tide of grief and shock.

  "They must have tried leaving without you," a familiar voice said from somewhere beside her.

  North's head snapped around, the chains on her hands rattling. The dark haired, amber-hazel eyed human sat on his bed, his enthralled Wendigo monstrosity wrapped around him in an absurd parody of comfort. The star of the Frontenachii Dominion Fleet was making soft beeping sounds while playing with a tablet.

  "You," North choked out. "I gave you the coordinates to my family’s compound! You…”

  “How exactly would I give the Frontenachii fleet your compound location without exposing myself?” the self-proclaimed Emperor of Earth arched a dark eyebrow.

  North sobbed louder, losing more liquid crystals.

  "My family—" North wailed. "My grandfather, my siblings—"

  "Probably got harvested," Ash said flatly. "The Frontenachii love crystalline fungi. You said so yourself. They're still alive, about to become... more gun-shaped, right?"

  North stared at him, unable to process the casual calm cruelty in his voice. This wasn't the nervous young man or a clueless mageling she'd tried to recruit. This was something else entirely. She was far too terrified to look into his mind again, worried that his pet Princess would devour her whole, digesting her for centuries. Getting eaten by an Omnid was a fate far, far worse than death, even worse than being turned into a gun or a crystalline murder tank.

  "HARVESTED VEGETABLES!" the Princess announced cheerfully. "Circle mushroom pasta sauce! BEEP!"

  "Why?" North sobbed out. "Why would you wake me up to show me… THAT?!"

  The Emperor studied her with a calm expression.

  North wanted to scream, to rage, to break free and tear his throat out. But the chains held firm, and a Wendigo Princess was watching her with glowing eyes, and the grief was drowning her, each awful, looping, repeating thought fracturing through her crystalline matrix like cracks in glass.

  "You're a distributed consciousness, yes?” He asked. “Multiple perspectives, shared memories? You remember being your family? Can you think extra sharp, extra loud? Can you maybe think in a specific voice, emulate a particular person from a video?"

  "Why does that matter now?" North sobbed.

  "It matters because Shady here," he gestured to the Princess who was now pawing idly at his hair, "needs to relearn things VERY quickly. And you might be able to help with that."

  "LEARN CIRCLES!" Shady perked up. "EDUCATION BEEP!"

  "I'm wondering," the human contemplated, "if she can read specific thoughts from your crystalline network. Pull knowledge directly. You said you remember being other vampires, having their memories."

  "That's not…" North began.

  "Think at her loudly," Ash commanded. "In Latin. Something she wouldn't know."

  "I'm not helping you with teaching an Abyss-damned Omnid Princess to…" North hissed, already knowing that being obtuse and uncooperative wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

  "Your family is gone," the Emperor pointed out. "Melted in an atomic hellfire of a Corpse Seeker shot from orbit. As we speak they are probably being scraped off their compound walls and put into jars or whatever. Remember, you can either be useful to me, or you can become Shady’s chowder. Your choice."

  North stared at him, then at the Wendigo Princess who had tilted her head curiously, silver, glowing eyes focusing on the vampire with a murderous, hungry intensity.

  Mater tua tam obesa est, North thought desperately in Latin. Your mother is so fat.

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  "Mater tua tam obesa est!" Shady suddenly announced in North’s voice. "CIRCLE MOTHER FAT! BEEP!"

  Stercus accidit, North continued. Shit happens.

  "Stercus accidit! BAD CIRCLES HAPPEN!"

  Futue te ipsum, North thought vindictively. Go fuck yourself.

  "Futue te ipsum!" Shady repeated. "SELF CIRCLE ROMANCE! Educational Latin BEEP!"

  Ash laughed, the bastard actually laughed at this, as his enthralled Princess continued spouting Latin profanity pulled directly from North's mind.

  "Excellent," he said. "She’s learning. Quicker than GoTube. You can think in parallel as several streams, yes? Language, meaning, images?”

  North nodded.

  “Great, you’ll make a far better instructor than me or the TV then,” he smiled.

  He pulled out a laptop and played her a GoTube video compilation of the Frontenachii Admiral talking. “Please think at Shady in her aunt’s voice, picture every word visually and in other languages. Ascribe meaning to each word for her to understand. She’s has to learn to sound like herself and not spout random shit.”

  "Why the fuck would I—"

  "Because," the Emperor said, "you're alone now. Completely alone. The last vampire on Earth. If you help me fix Shady quickly, make her into a more coherent Princess, we can maybe convince her Admiral aunt not to hunt us down.”

  “You think that—"

  “This is our best option going forward,” the human insisted. “Say, would she gain your knowledge if she just eats you?”

  The vampire’s eyes bulged. She had no idea if Omnid Wendigos could extract information from the crystalloids they devoured. If the answer was yes, then she would assuredly stop existing then, become mere snack for...

  "NOM NOM MUSHROOM!" Shady barked.

  More crystalline tears fell as North realized she had no choice. She was trapped between two monsters, and the only way to survive was to feed one of them the accumulated knowledge of her now almost entirely extinct bloodline as quickly as possible.

  She was alone now. This meant that she was the last branch of her former colony, the carrier of generations of knowledge, the last crystalloid on this damned planet. The responsibility to propagate their kind forward, to expand, to make a new domain… all of it fell to her now.

  “Fine,” she growled. “FINE! I’ll teach her!”

  “Great,” the Emperor walked to a pile of ropes and started binding them in loops to the edges of the chair. “Remember, talk and think in the voice of Admiral Evelithria, just a bit younger maybe. Also, visually and conceptually repeat everything I say in your head loudly, so Shady can understand everything."

  “What are you doing?” North asked in Evelithria’s voice, readjusting her thoughts and vocal chords ever so slightly.

  "What are you doing?" Shady repeated.

  “Making North's chair into a backpack so that you can wear her on your back, Shades,” he said. “You two need to run away for a bit.”

  "Run away?!" North stammered out.

  "Run away?!" Shady echoed in Evelithria’s tone.

  The Emperor continued knotting ropes, creating crude shoulder straps attached to the chair legs. "Cascade is about to become ground zero for the biggest Scrutimancer convention this side of the dimensional curtain. Once they finish scraping your family from that crater and realize what they've found, every Prad Division currently hanging out in space and in random government buildings will converge here to search for more yummy, precious crystalloids. Ergo, you should hide somewhere that's not a house with a driveway soaked in vamp juices."

  "Shit," North choked.

  “Shit!” Shady repeated.

  "Thus, you two are going on a girls-only camping trip," the Emperor said, testing the rope harness. "Shady is going to cut up a couple of bears. You will wear them as meat suits, slow down their decay with your vampire mojo and pretend to be wildlife while teaching our Princess here how to sound like a proper Frontenachii heir."

  "Wear... bears?" North choked. In her network, she was already picturing the entire horrid process—Shady striking down the bears with her massive claws, hollowing them out, then North infesting and animating them with her spores.

  "BEAR COSTUME CIRCLE!" Shady declared. "Like Storm-o-Lyx but MEAT! Fresh meat costume! Very fashion! BEEP! Furry convention... in forest!”

  "Exactly," the Emperor nodded. "North will adjust the bear suits to think at sloth-speed, hopefully making both of you invisible to Scrutimancer noses. You both hide in plain sight as local wildlife. Meanwhile, North will teach you everything about being Princess Aquillianne Quantivia Frontenachii.”

  “I don’t know anything about being a fucking Frontenachii Princess!” North protested in the Admiral’s voice.

  “You know enough about being a vampire princess or whatever,” the Emperor shrugged. “Princess it out together. And you know enough stuff about the Frontenachii. Improvise. Your survival depends on it.”

  “I…” North began.

  “Adapt, overcome, bear up,” the Emperor ordered. “Survive.”

  "And you?" North asked.

  “And you, Emperor mine Ash?” Shady bobbed.

  "I'm going to take center stage," the man said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Surrender myself into the Frontenachii embrace. Play my part.”

  North's mind raced through the implications.

  He's using himself as bait. But why? What's his endgame? How would he even avoid being bound or being put in a box?

  He was buying them time? Time to get away? Why?!

  "Bait," Shady said suddenly, plucking the multi-layered thought from North's mind. "Emperor is BAIT CIRCLE! Fishing for... for..." She frowned, processing North's multi-dimensional thoughts and perhaps the Emperor’s thoughts too. "Fishing for time. Advantage. Information."

  The Emperor smiled. "See? She's already getting better. You're a great teacher, North!"

  "I'm excellent!" Shady preened, then pointed at North. "Mushroom teacher is adequate vegetable! Acceptable fungi education!"

  “Don’t eat North. Learn with your brain hooks or whatever. Got it?”

  “Got it!” Shady saluted. “No eat North. Absorb mentally. Hook, chew, digest thoughts.”

  "How long?" North asked.

  "How long?" Shady repeated.

  “The Admiral gave me a deadline to produce a coherent princess. Two days,” the Emperor answered, showing a timer app on his phone, counting down the hours. “Process the speed of this countdown and count in your head to match. You can do that too, yes? You're basically Frontenachii computers, right?”

  “Yes.” North gritted her teeth, not enjoying dedicating a part of herself being forced to behave as a timer.

  “Yes!” Shady saluted.

  “Find bears, put them on and slowly head south. Meet me at Wynoochee Lake, Coho Campground when the timer reaches zero. Got it? Here’s your phone, track your location by GPS. Put the vampire-pack on and run now, Shady.”

  Shady accepted North’s phone with her tail and put the chair with North on her back. She leaned down and hugged her human master, then stood back up.

  North nearly bit her tongue off as the Omnid shot off out of the house into the forest.

  Fuck, fuck my life, fuck me sideways, she thought, bouncing in the chair.

  “Fuck me sideways!” The Wendigo enthusiastically repeated the words, trees flashing by, the forest growing deeper and darker with each step of pounding, clawed feet.