“What have you done, Yisini?”
Kairos pulled the roof off Yisini’s shelter and landed in front of the Allbirther, his breath shimmering with silver flames.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
Yisini ignored Kairos’s fury. She was busy writing things down.
“YISINI!”
Finally, Yisini looked up. “I know what I’ve done.”
“Then tell me.”
“I accidentally lobotomised our brother, forcing him to revert back to his mindless Wolfdrake form.”
“YOU WOKE ARKEDETELOS FROM HIS SLUMBER?”
“Accidentally, yes. I’m working on a solution now.”
Kairos put his head in his clawed, winged hands. “You know that he has already destroyed ten suns, seven planets, twenty nine moons and about 400 million living organisms, 1.5 million of which were intelligent ones?”
“I know. I felt it. Wasn’t happy about that. But we’re going to fix it.” Yisini continued scribbling. “I am genuinely working on it right now.”
The Whenvern took several deep breaths. Yisini noticed a wound across his neck, clearly he had already tried to confront the Wolfdrake, with obviously negative results. “So what is the plan?”
“The Wolfdrake won’t stop until it’s satisfied parts of its hunger…”
“You mean Arkadin.”
“He’s not Arkadin. As far as we are concerned, as far as the universe is concerned, I killed Arkadin. He’s dead. He’s not coming back.”
“Surely-”
“Nope!” Yisini hissed. “Arkadin is gone forever. We’re stuck with Arkedetelos now, and, being the mindless, hungry animal that he is, won’t stop until he’s full. What I am working out now is when the Wolfdrake will be full, which is when we can strike.”
“And how do we strike?”
“I have one more vial of the substance I used to control Arkadin in the first place. If we stab him in the same place I stabbed Arkadin to lobotomise him the other day, then my vial will get in and slow him down, enough for me to give him instruction to stop.”
Kairos hesitated. “Can’t we… Can’t we just confront him now? Surely, between the three of us, with Kenon’s assistance and possibly mortal assistance as well, we can slow Arkad… Arkedetelos down enough for you to get that shot in?”
Yisini shrugged. “We could, but he’s hungry right now. Might bite me or Epani and get a taste for us. We want him to slow down naturally.”
“Which means Billions will die.”
“Well, we don’t know yet…” Yisini shrugged some more. “But either way, we’ll stop him, we’ll punish him and then we’ll grow back stronger. This is just a kick up the butt to get us to move faster. If you want, while I work on these calculations, you can go and find some mortals to throw at the Wolfdrake. See if that slows him down. But otherwise we just need to stick to this plan of mine.”
Kairos nodded and stretched his wings, ready to fly off. But before he did so, he glanced at Yisini. “You seem… not at all worried.”
“There’s no need to be worried. We’ll fix this and everything will be better.”
“But what about all this death and destruction?”
“As long as Epani and I survive, everything will be fine.”