In Lost Dreams the Four Were Bound (Genean Chronicles Book 1)

Turn of the screw terror meets abominable horror in this dark sci-fi fantasy tale circling four pasts filled with lust, violence, and longing. In Lost Dreams the Four Were Bound marks the first entry into a universe of sword and sorcery action within a cruel sci-fi world. Reviews"A confrontation between beings of order and chaos endangers a remote humanoid village in this fantasy series opener... The finale, packed with Clive Barker–style phantasmagoria, is a gory bow atop all that’s come before it. A vivid fantasy with shocks that accompany the author’s inventiveness." - Kirkus Reviews"Bradley R. Blankenship's 'In Lost Dreams the Four Were Bound' is a high fantasy novel with the feel of a folktale, punctuated with a science fiction twist... This is the work of a promising writer, with a thoughtfully developed culture at its center." - BlueInk Review"The bleak landscape provides an evocative backdrop for characters obsessed with lust, power, duty, and death... Fantasy lovers with large appetites will be gripped." - The Prairies Book Review"His knack for building characters with pathos and wit, his immersive dystopian world, and stellar prose draw readers along while building up the shocking final showdown... This dark tale is sure to impress." - BookView Review"In Lost Dreams the Four Were Bound is a well-imagined dive into a science-fiction fantasy world in which the reader will be swept along with the riveting narrative." - Literary Titan"The author’s writing style... creates a story that is felt rather than read, with passages washing over the reader..." - OnlineBookClub"In Lost Dreams the Four Were Bound is a dark fantasy novel that introduces a complex world of androids, chimeras, treetop villages, and mystic ruins... The story moves toward an uncertain future full of inconceivable dangers." - Foreword Clarion Reviews DescriptionIn lost dreams the four were bound: the ancient friend lulled by comfortable melancholy, the jilted lover bent to sisterly duty, the prideful brother jailed in bloody ambition, all while Virage slept trapped in nightmare...For over three hundred years, a tribe of elvish Hyunisti talvuo has lingered in somber isolation deep within the giant trees and briar trails of the Lorinian Witchwood. Within their treetop village, the burdens of four outsiders underscore a chain of catastrophes eyed by watchers from afar. These chains weigh upon them, each a strand of past friendship, star-crossed love, resentment, and tragedy.While the outsiders toil beneath their ambitions, the rites of spring herald cascading changes for the forest folk. With four days remaining, suspense clings to the village. Yet beneath the anticipation, an abominable evil stirs. Its promise of freedom lures the cursed villagers to play to its manic tune. Its insatiable hunger threatens to devour all it touches.Can the four dreamers weather the coming storm?Or are they destined to be consumed by the horrific madness welling from the depths of the forest?Fantasy, mystery, swords, and sorcery await you in In Lost Dreams the Four Were Bound, the first book in the Genean Chronicles and part of the larger Remi's Cross Saga universe.

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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Prologue - Analysis Session: Omega-3043 – #7329 [Now isn’t this something.] Circuits flared as a crude image manifested from simple waveforms upon a nearby holographic surface. It wasn’t every cycle that the machine got to witness coherent data from its inquiry target. However, the machine lived for such moments. Until then, it had been attempting to assemble the data of the last few years into new patterns in the hope of uncovering something new. However, all manner of approaching it had been fruitless given the noise-to-signal ratio produced by the various distortions around the strange, hidden world. Of course, what could the little green-haired machine do other than follow the president’s orders despite the Foundation’s internal conflicts of interest? After all, it was what she had been designed to do. She couldn’t complain. Unlike the rest of her siblings, she had full access to the array of sensors and monitors aboard Ientec Prime. Among other things, she was also fully integrated into several superclusters to facilitate more powerful computations. Relativistically, she was several dozen orders of magnitude more powerful in terms of raw processing power and possessed half as many orders higher memory. Even better, she possessed a direct line to the president himself and could communicate with him through bidirectional means versus merely being receptive to his pull and push queries. All of that was irrelevant in the greater sense because it was her singular purpose for existence. [Initiating limiters to improve focus, GH-199076492,] the president said. [Please maintain coherence, and attempt to stabilize the data stream.] [Approved, Mr. President. Apologies,] GH-199076492 replied, realizing how carried away she had been in her own self-aggrandizement. [Focusing. Attempting to stabilize imagery and wave signatures.] All around her, small signaling lights began to glow. Their luminance increased as she amplified the power draw for her running processes. A low hum came from the nearby cords as she ramped up the current. [Increasing power draw by fifteen percent.] [Acknowledged,] the president replied. [Removing current restraints. You may increase power by a further twenty percent if necessary.] Given the distance between it and the inquiry target, parsing the stream of data was nearly impossible for many of the systems aboard Ientec Prime. Nevertheless, waveform analysis of information from neighboring galaxies and star systems was enough to piece together the signal as she worked through the data from end to start. Localizing the non-random information gathered by their satellites revealed a distinct, known pattern. [Increasing power draw by twenty percent,] she notified the president. [Opening processing chamber to allow ventilation and reduce shell damage.] [Approved.] All around her, machinery activated, and small panels began to unfold. As she aggregated the signal, the small polyhedral enclosure surrounding her specialized rig unfolded. Rays of bright solar light beamed through the opening metal plates, grazing her silvery synthetic skin. Ultraviolet and infrared radiation sensors triggered impending tissue-damage warnings all along her exposed physique. GH-199076492 ignored the warnings and continued onward as the hum of electricity became a fervent buzz. Small sparks flickered in the air around her rigged body while images and numbers danced on the holographic surface of her head encasement. [Activating UV and IR filters,] the president said. [Verify tissue-damage warnings are cleared.] [Waiting,] she replied as the room dimmed. She felt the tiniest of vibrations in the air as the transparent metal alloy along the rear of the sterile metal room altered to block specific radiation. [All clear.] [Thank you,] the president said. [Notifications: energy signature recognized. Attempting to visualize and track intent.] [Identity?] The president’s response rippled through her being, sending her cybernetic nerves flaring. She felt his consciousness overlay her own as he began to interface with her. [Processing now,] she replied. Her body tingled as her synapses flared in conjunction with the input from the president’s presence. GH-199076492 delegated an entire subsystem to handle the unintentional spillover interference from his interface. [Difficulty managing noi—] [Stand by. Disconnecting neural sync.] The president’s message cut her off mid-notification. [Please reapply all subsystems for analysis.] [Thank you,] she replied as the sensation of the president’s presence stopped broadcasting across her physique. [Applying subsystem to task. Querying for best match of signature. Assessment complete.] [Please state identity.] [Anomaly Omega-3043 in an active state.] [Please confirm: Omega-3043?] [Signature and obfuscation pattern match that used by Omega-3043 within seven standard deviations.] [Please process and enhance imagery and intent details,] the president said. [Require visual confirmation.] [Verifying,] she replied. Her mind raced through all the possible algorithms that could correct for the distortions in the data. While she focused, she felt the vibrations of physical footfalls approaching, no doubt the president coming forward to analyze the imagery. She opened her eyelids. Looking out through the encasement’s visor, she watched with glowing, fluorescent yellow eyes as the picture began to clear. What had been a blur of color and unintelligible noise took on the form of a dark humanoid figure shambling across a barren plain. Around the edges details became distinct, from the haze of particles being swept up by moving air to cracked, red stone and sand littered across the arid landscape. The sky appeared as a washed-out azure glow. Somewhere behind the figure was a bright white light, perhaps the planet’s nearby star. Try as she might, she could not eliminate noise from the silhouette itself. [Please enhance details of the entity appearing at the image’s center.] [Requesting a further fifteen percent power increase,] she replied. [Acknowledged. Overdraw accepted. Please continue.] [Attempting to enhance,] she said as she allocated more power to the task of cleaning up the information. She shelved previous jobs. She focused every piece of hardware on the singular goal of cleaning up the visuals. Millimeter by millimeter, pixel by pixel, the image of the figure began to show promise. However, with every new piece of data that appeared to mesh with the scene, the number of cycles needed to correct for the distortion increased exponentially. [Predicted operation complexity is growing disproportionately to Omega-3043’s known obfuscation patterns. Attempting to determine the source of the additional randomization. Initiating new power request, twenty percent increase.] [Stop evaluation,] the president ordered, causing all her sensors to throw errors. [Please acknowledge. Stop evaluation.] [Shutting . . . down,] she acknowledged. GH-199076492 did not wish to stand down, but she could not resist the president’s command or its urgency. As much as she wished to finalize her original objective, she put holds on all processes to kill off all tasks related to the inquiry. One by one, the multitudes of processors throughout her rig reported idle as each thread of execution came to an immediate halt. Her management subprocesses began to reclaim the newly available resources. After only a few seconds, her rig reported a return to dormancy. [All processes and related tasks terminated. Flushing all completed frames to the output display.] [Verifying,] the president replied as his consciousness merged with hers once more. Her synthetic skin buzzed. Spots of light flickered in her artificial eyes as she caught glimpses of her rigged body from the neural overflow. The swathe of power cords, glass-fiber-alloy communication cables, and various apparatus adorned the back of the curved chair-like rig in which her android frame lay. Each implement was plugged into a unique port designed for the specific purpose of her task. A tuft of her signature emerald-green hair was exposed near the rear of her helm encasement. Reflecting off the shiny, metallic finish of her headgear, she saw the president’s dark silhouette adorned with a crest of luminescent platinum hair. Looking through his eyes in spurts, there was something enjoyable about having the president inspect her thoughts and processes. She often wondered if it was similar to how organic beings perceived positive reinforcement from their elders, parents, or whatnot. According to pure logic, it couldn’t be the same because she was a far different creature. However, she still imagined there must be some similarities. A strange flaw seemed to exist in her programming that took small pleasure in the adornment and status of her shell. That was probably based on the president and board’s personal aggrandizement of the human form and the vanity that came with it. Or maybe it was just residual pride in his handiwork overflowing from the president’s consciousness. [GH-199076492, terminate all non-essential host processes and prepare for maintenance,] the president directed. [Acknowledged,] she said, preparing to shut down her physical body. One by one, she terminated extraneous processes and ramped up a backup to maintain perfect mental persistence for when she awoke. However, as she ran through her list of non-essential tasks, she found a single program that was failing to halt. [President, irregular program activity. Failing to terminate process.] [What process?] he asked as his consciousness probed her neural network. [Rig attachment process failure. Error, cannot terminate process while assessment is active. Please wait for the process to halt successfully.] [Attempt to inject a hard fault to terminate.] [Mr. President?] she queried. Rarely was a machine as sophisticated as a green-haired asked to hard fault a task. Resource collection would perform the same operation over time if the resources were necessary. Many dangers were associated with hard faulting running tasks. Furthermore, it was difficult to pinpoint what effect the action would have on her current mental processes. Also, it was small, using only a fraction of her resources. [Attempt hard fault,] the president commanded as he withdrew his consciousness from hers. [Acknowledged,] she replied as she accessed the process’s memory pool. [Injecting hard memory fault.] She waited, expecting errors and warnings to flare throughout her system as the program crashed. However, after several seconds, a strange sensation crawled over her physique. The process was still running. [Success?] [Re-attempting hard fault,] she said as she rewrote a large swath of the running process’s memory. The task was almost certain to crash. However, it continued to spin, ramping up its utilization of her internal resources. A sinking feeling flowed throughout her neural network, an experience that she could only find one word to describe: dread. [GH-199076492, report. Success or—] [Re-attempting.] She initiated a reply, trying once again to crash the process. This time she took no chances. Removing all read and write limitations and attempting to erase all data it was acting upon, she moved the running process to an empty section in her memory. Nevertheless, the program continued to persist and grow. She tried everything she could as she analyzed what resources it was acting upon. Still, nothing in her monitoring or debugging tools could provide insight into how it continued to run. A feeling akin to dizziness overtook her as it ate away at a hefty chunk of her host resources while drawing nearly 200 percent of her expected operating power. [Assuming failure. Proceed with disconnection,] the president said. [Quarantining GH-199076492. Instating firewalls and neural barriers. Removing all system privileges. Please acknowledge reception, GH-199076492.] [Mr. President . . .] she attempted to form a message to notify her reception of his harsh rebuke but could only manage to allocate enough resources to maintain standard sensory perception and network connection. The rogue task had leapt to consuming most of her system. To make matters worse, a strange jolt overtook her as her physique tightened up. The mechanical and neural motors in her body started to actuate, running in the opposite direction of their intended motion. Her heat sensors raised high-priority warnings as the primary external conduit to her shell approached extreme temperatures. Her body drew an ever-increasing amount of electricity. “Casera, Liora! I need you both in here now!” the president yelled, calling for his organic cohorts. The sharpness of his tone sent a wave of panic throughout what little of her emotional matrix was not encumbered by the still-expanding process. “Green-haired, listen to me. Focus on my voice.” [President . . .] GH-199076492 attempted to send a message, but it bounced back to her. He had cut off all direct contact with her. As the process grew ever larger, her mind swayed. Preservation tasks and even the recovery processes within her had failed. Each shut down as they gave their resources to the all-consuming rogue running rampant in her systems. “Respond to me audibly,” he said, his voice reached her perfect synthetic ears. “Liora, remove her helmet. Casera, unplug everything from the rig. All power cables, network connections, everything. Ensure nothing is connected to her.” “They’re practically on fire, Maxim!” a rough, feminine voice roared. “Just do it!” “Mi . . . st . . . er Pres . . . i . . . den . . .” GH-199076492 attempted to access her motor functions, her mind fixating on the president, as instructed. Her vocalizations sputtered as her available resources dropped. Her head jerked. Someone had removed her head encasement, exposing her frozen face. Her loose green hair fell to the side as every sense went numb. “I can’t get the main feed cable disconnected,” the rough voice behind her called. “It’s too damn hot.” “Out of the way,” a quiet, muffled voice said. With a loud pop, the tension was relieved from GH-199076492’s back as the feed cable fell slack. “Watch where you’re pointing that thing!” Casera shouted. “Shut up, both of you!” the president commanded. “Green-haired, stay with me.” “Re . . . sourceeeessssssssssssssss.” Her jaw motors and vocalizers froze as her motor functions locked up. Darkness filled her vision. What she had once described as dread turned to panic and from panic into existential terror. She tried again and again to open lines of communication, but her system raised errors with every attempt. She was cut off from the outside world, every sense dulling as the singular running process within her ate away at what little remained of her being. With darkness gripping her, the last thing she experienced was a singular jolt of kinetic force as her body gave out an anguished roar. *** The sound echoed off the perfect walls of the observation room, filling it with an ever-increasing volume and a distinct air of menace. GH-199076492’s body convulsed in the small docking chair into which she had been neatly tucked. Her back arched into a near-perfect curve, mouth open, metallic teeth bared with animosity. Her glowing yellow irises flashed as small stress fractures appeared across the specialized glass that made up the container of her eyes. “Both of you, get away from her!” the president ordered, staring at the android’s writhing body. The decibel output of her emissions approached an impossible level for her vocalizers. He worked to establish control of the structural grid that kept the room’s architecture intact, calculating a new texture that would reduce the amplification of the little droid’s inconceivable vocalizations. As he finalized the designs for the room’s new geometry, his female cohorts joined him, one on each side. The black-skinned, animal-like women covered their bestial ears while turning to watch the horrific display. “Prepare for adjustment.” Panels and mechanisms within the room activated at once, shifting the plating, joints, and outlets of the interior to form the new one that he had imagined. Even the translucent alloy of the room’s rear took on a textured shape as he altered the currents within it to create small, smooth valleys and peaks. With the new geometry of the walls, the android’s severe vocals ceased to echo throughout the room. In response, the droid’s body fell limp into the chair. “Is it over?” the rough-voiced chimera on his left, Casera, asked. “Doubtful,” he said, stepping forward. Scanning the android’s small, naked body and rig, he was both amused and appalled that the pictures she had fervently worked on persisted in their half-finished state. “Green-haired, can you hear me?” No response. “Maximillian, I doubt she’s alive after all that. Look at her,” Liora said quietly as she watched from other his side. She was correct. As far as the structural damage was concerned, GH-199076492’s body was beyond repair. Just looking at her limbs, the various controls had malfunctioned and splayed her in an impossible position for her imitation human form. Her vacant eyes were full of broken glass, their glow diminished and nearly indistinguishable from the room’s ambience. The smell of ozone and burnt synthetic skin hung in the air, a result of damage within the android’s body. “Be that as it may, her internal processing unit may still be active,” he said, even though she was by all probabilistic reasoning gone. Either way, he possessed different interests. He wanted to know what had infected her. He had at least one obvious set of suspects considering their observation target, but he needed certainty. “Have I ever told you that you’re a bad liar?” Casera asked. “No. I will take the notion and refine that skillset for organics such as you,” Maximillian replied. “Watch out!” Liora screamed. He spied the slight raising of GH-199076492’s fingers as they curled in reverse. Behind him, he heard Liora draw her guns. “Halt, Liora,” he commanded, his eyes fixed on the small droid. Faster than they rotated backward, the idle fingers curled into a fist, the pale silver skin tearing along the joints. Liquefied repair machines and neural fluids leaked and fell, forming small yellow puddles on the ground. Jerking upright, the droid sat, its head tilted to the right due to Liora’s harsh handling of its encasement. With slow, clockwork-like motion, GH-199076492’s torso turned to face him, her motors and controls popping and grinding. “GH-199076492, can you hear me?” Maximillian inquired. “Iiiiii . . . iiii . . . iiiiiii . . . . . . . . iii . . . . . .i . . .” The android’s voice jittered as her mouth dropped open. Beneath her torn skin and coagulating ochre gel, small cables and wires slithered, moving up her right side. They dug their way out from underneath her pale skin and pressed against her neck, propping it in place. They sewed through the tissue and into her jawline, creating muscle-like support for her mouth. For a moment, her ragged lips drew closed, her vacant eyes staring into space. Then she spoke in a voice unlike any Maximillian had ever had the pleasure of sensing audibly. “I . . . AM . . . HERE . . . VERUDT!” The intonations and sounds reminded him of the speaking programs and applications of old. Mangled grammar and disjointed words mixed with an electronic buzz. But the words themselves seemed to carry a weight that oppressed the very fabric of reality in the room. “Who are you?” Maximillian asked, his straight posture and demeanor unchanged. “Are you the entity that infected GH-199076492?” In the back of his mind, he started cutting off systems throughout the room and the whole of Ientec Prime, isolating the intruder. He would be prepared just in case things turned violent. [Engage gate drive, one percent.] “YOUR . . .. INTER-FERENCE WILL NOT BE TOLE-rated any lo-NGER, FALSE MAN.” The voice was trying to manifest a consistent tone. “Ha-VE YOU LEAR-ned NOTHING FROM your prev-IOUS travails?” [So, it’s one of them then.] Maximillian contemplated the probability of the entity heralding from the outer realms of self-proclaimed order or chaos. He thought the latter was far more likely. “So, you are the saboteur of our signal? I take it you’re an entity of Nogias? An agent of chaos?” Maximillian prodded the entity without hesitation as his systems made ready to engage the gate drive. “AN A-gent of CHAOS?” the entity said as it struggled to lift the android’s body from the table, with little success. More wires and machinery twisted and turned underneath GH-199076492’s skin as it attempted to fashion a makeshift musculature. “I’m SAEL, YOU HORR-id, FALSE-man. I AM OVERLORD of tha-T WHICH CONF-ounds YOU! YOUR TECH-no-LOGY is MY PLAYTHING. I’m be-YOND YOUR COMPREHENSION. AND FOR MEDDLING in THE aff-AIRS of G-ods, YOU SHALL PAY DEARLY!” “Over my dead body he will!” Casera exclaimed, drawing her signature rail rifle. “Just give us the word, Max,” Liora said with a growl, readying her pistols. “Stand down,” Maximillian ordered, scanning the possessed android with near-perfect acuity. The energy signatures throughout her body were oscillating without any discernible pattern. The incident provided him the opportunity to study a being from one of the most unique realms of this universe. He could analyze one of the few that could alter not just its own timeline but also the causality of its environment. “As for you, you will either tell me everything you know about Omega-3043, or you will free GH-199076492.” “Oo-H DO YOU CA-re for THIS LI-ttle frame, pre-TENDER?” the otherworldly voice asked as its shell lurched off the rig chair, the android’s body falling into a crouched position. With grinding servos and a snap, the droid sprang upright, curving its torso toward Maximillian. The machine began to cackle with a crackling, hissing clamor. Keeping its cracked yellow eyes focused on him, the possessor opened GH-199076492’s hand and grabbed her exposed left breast. Forming a maniacal clown-like smile, the entity ripped the mammary implant from the droid’s body, spilling globs of flesh and jelly while throwing the synthetic hunk to the floor. “TE-ll me . . . does it cause y-OU PAIN TO s-EE your PRE-cious PUPPET HA-rmed?” “I grow tired of your crude displays,” Maximillian said with his same cool demeanor. “Answer my demands, chaos lord, or I shall force you to do so.” “FO-rce ME?” the creature roared. The color of the poor android’s eyes began to darken, the yellow of her irises transforming to smoking embers. Taking a step forward, head slumping, the monstrosity limped as sinewy cables and strands wove through flesh to support the broken body. As a coil of metal and carbon snaked up the green-haired’s broken back, the dark lord whispered in the droid’s soft, almost childlike voice. “You haughty piece of metal and sand. You want to force me?” With a sickening crack, the cable snapped the green-haired’s head upright, its eyes leaking a dark red liquid, appearing almost ghost-like. With a deafening scream, it beckoned. “Be FORCED TO PERISH F-ALSE MAN!” Throughout the room, the grinding and hissing of motors and electricity could be heard as the entity began to take control of nearby devices. The room’s panels shifted and jolted, each one jerking and springing for Maximillian and his bodyguards. The back wall twisted upon itself, the near-liquid glass-alloy forming large spiked prongs that flew like spears toward his contingent. “Kill it, Liora!” Casera yelled as she unloaded a molten slug from her rail rifle. The igneous metal embedded itself in the android girl’s body, tearing away a large chunk of mass from its mid-section and scattering flesh and wiring across the room. Liora opened fire with her pistols. Acidic rounds pierced the creature’s frame, exploding with sizzling slime that dissolved its skin while eating away at its carbon-metal supports. Despite their assault, the creature’s attack continued unabated. “Enough,” Maximillian said. [Direct link with gate drive established. Activating gate receiver.] A microsecond later, Maximillian raised his right hand, diverting what power of the gate drive he had commandeered to a small ring-like device on his middle finger. Focusing all processes on the task, he imagined the form of a polygonal mesh around himself, his protectors, and the rest of the space station. Finalizing the design, he flushed the information to the ring-like device, establishing parameters for the curvature of space-time within the field. Milliseconds before any of the rampant debris arrived, he activated the small gate receiver. All around them the world warped, bending and twisting as space and time condensed, forming a bubble around Maximillian and the rest of Ientec Prime. The flying debris and liquid glass were obliterated as they smashed into the bubble’s surface. The monster roared as it pounded the android’s fists against the dimensional barrier, layers of the skeletal frame scattering into sub-atomic particles as it collided with the field. “Fucking hell,” Casera exclaimed as she watched the impressive display. [Now, to simplify things,] Maximillian thought as he began re-purposing the defensive shell. His mind raced as he established new parameters and formed a small containment sphere out of the unfolding of the space. Faster than either of his companions could blink, he modified the physics of the new enclosure to allow for the flow of specific auditory frequencies to create a strong displacement of charge within the new space. With a single hint of vengeance, he activated the receiver once more. Faster than the spatial envelope had formed, it unfurled itself around the space station and the small group, rolling into a small sphere as it collapsed and enclosed the possessed android. Immediately, the controls and tech within the room halted all sporadic operation. “What . . . WH-at HAVE YOU DONE?” the monstrous being roared from within its dimensional prison, the sound echoing behind the imagery of the creature’s speech. It writhed and slammed the droid’s body into the force field but could not break free of it. “RELEASE ME!” “I think not,” Maximillian said, surveying the damage to the room. [Engage blast shields in Research Lab HL-TS-10833.] His request was answered as the room shook, the exterior blast coverings encasing the weakened glass-alloy along the back wall. “Now, I believe you were going to tell me about—” “YOU KNOW NOT WHAT GA-mes you PLAY, VERUDT!” the dark lord exclaimed, its cybernetic voice mixing with that of the android. “AMRUK DUR, MARRLURSAI IMET TAU VES-na RO-uarl INDRAS-al SAEL VIRAGE!” “The Virage?” Maximillian probed as he attempted to process the archaic words. “I’m sorry, but the nuances of vocalized Inun speech are lost on me. As for the rest, your words of power are useless from where you’re being held, servant.” With the utterance of the last word, the enclosure rippled. Several lightning bolts ripped from one end of the sphere to the other, electrocuting the small droid shell and causing the beast to roar in anguish. “FONES IM-ard Ul-numati, fake MAN!” the possessor said as it thrashed within its prison. [This is all we’re going to get out of this session,] Maximillian surmised, a small grin cracking across his face. “Very well,” he said, a hint of sadism in his otherwise flat voice. “I shall send you back to whence you came, servant.” Lightning flashed once more as he uttered the last word, tearing and scorc

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