Infinity Blade: Redemption

with them, Siris. You are a leader. A real leader.”
    The Dark Self stirred, and Siris felt satisfaction from it. It knew. It knew he needed it.
    No. He knew. He had to stop thinking of it as a different thing from himself. The Dark Self was him, not some alien thing. For all he wanted to play with children and eat pies, that wouldn’t save his people. Getting to this facility on the paper in front of him . . . that would give him a chance.
    “I guess the greater truth is,” Isa said, “it’s not important if we win or not.”
    He looked up at her.
    “Something has to change, Siris,” she said. “The world, the people in it . . . Well, sitting around with my nose in a mug, not looking at anything happening around me—that’s not working for me anymore. So we’re going to fight instead. You’re going to lead, and I’m going to . . . well, do whatever the hell it is I do.”
    Siris nodded, meeting her eyes. “You’ve changed.”
    “It’s been over two years.” She looked back at him, defiant at first, but then relaxing. He found himself remembering the days—short though they had been—that he’d spent with her. Days he had sincerely enjoyed.
    Her hands rested a few inches from his own. She moved one closer to his.
    “I’ve changed too,” he warned. “Those years in the prison, they were . . . difficult.”
    “I can believe it. I wasn’t expecting things to just pick up where they left off. Hell, you’re still Deathless, and . . . Well, what I did wasn’t about us. Not entirely, at least. It was as much about those people down below.”
    “Thank you,” Siris said, resting his hand on hers. “Thank you for coming for me. You don’t know what being trapped in there was doing to me, Isa. I don’t care about your reasons. Just . . . thank you.”
    She nodded.
    “There’s a problem, though. I’m not good at leadership.”
    “Sure you are. They—”
    “ I’m not, Isa. I grew up isolated, treated as a doomed Sacrifice, forced to practice swordsmanship instead of spending time with others my age. I know nothing about leadership.”
    She frowned.
    “Everything I know about being a leader,” he said, “comes from somewhere else. Other instincts. Not me—or at least, not the me I want to encourage. If I’m to lead here, I’m going to be relying upon the methods of our enemies.”
    “We can’t fight a war with brave songs and good intentions, Siris. You’re our weapon. They forged you, yes, but we can use that.” She hesitated. “And I trust you.”
    Hell take me . . . He met her eyes again. Then, making a decision, he slipped a paper off the stack—the map with the facility he’d been looking at earlier.
    “Then we’re going to strike here,” he said. “How soon can the men be ready?”
    “Immediately.”

CHAPTER
TWELVE
    LESS THAN a week later, Siris crept along the shelf of rock, following Isa and two members of her strike team. He tried not to look over the ledge’s side to his left, or at the sheer drop there.
    He wasn’t certain what would happen if he died falling off that cliff. He couldn’t awaken at the rebirthing chamber near Saydhi’s lands, the place where Isa had taken him over two years ago. That had been destroyed by the Worker.
    Perhaps his soul would find another rebirthing chamber. More likely, he’d end up lying broken on those rocks below until his Deathless body regenerated and he woke up. But a third possibility worried him more than the other two—the possibility that he’d be reborn as a child again, as he’d done so many times during his centuries as the Sacrifice. He had grown accustomed to—though not particularly comfortable with—this life as a Deathless. Losing his memory again, his identity, frightened him.
    It frightened the Dark Self even more.
    Isa held up a gloved hand ahead, and the team stopped. The two other men with them—Isa had introduced them as Dynn and Terr, expert scouts—were as silent as she was. Siris was amazed at how they could move without their steps making sounds on the rock.
    Siris wasn’t as good as they, but fortunately he wasn’t some lumbering lout either. Apparently, Ausar had been reasonably accomplished at stealth. Perhaps thousands upon thousands of years of life left one reasonably accomplished at just about everything.
    Isa moved on ahead alone, leaving Siris with Dynn and Terr, all three crouching on the ledge. A cool wind gusted over them, and Siris settled himself to