Uye shrugged. “Perhaps. Or perhaps they cannot do that. Perhaps the world cannot survive past the doors opening. Perhaps opening the doors will end the cycle here, regardless of how it occurs. Perhaps they wish to disrupt that cycle… or control it in some way. Perhaps the Bridge is blamed for ending the world because she, quite literally, ends the world?”
Shrugging, he looked down at the glass he held in one hand.
“Or perhaps it is simply not enough for them anymore,” he said, swirling the brandy he’d switched to in the bottom of his glass. “Perhaps they wish to go to these other worlds, too, create their own civilizations. Perhaps they tire of being trapped in a cycle they do not control, that limits their powers to a single world… or perhaps only one world at a time. Perhaps they wish access to many worlds. At their birth, not at some later date.”
Revik looked over at him, a pain flickering through his light.
It wasn’t sex pain that time.
I felt the understanding there, the resonance with some aspect of what Uye said.
Uye shrugged, taking another sip of brandy.
“Perhaps we are all trapped in this cycle in some way, daughter,” he added. “Perhaps they do not wish to be confined to this natural order anymore. Perhaps they would rather create a new order. One they control. One built only for them.”
When Revik looked at me, his expression and eyes hard, I knew he agreed with my father.
Worse, he understood better than Uye did.
Even as I thought it, Revik exhaled, his voice a frown.
“He’s right,” he said. “I don’t know their exact motive, but I suspect they can’t do what you’re suggesting for some reason. That, or they simply don’t want to be trapped or left behind until the next cycle evolves.”
Pausing, he gave Uye a grim look before returning his gaze to me.
“It’s pretty clear they can’t pass through the doors on their own,” he said. “The doorway the light opens, this literal ‘bridge’ between worlds… I suspect it’s only meant for living beings, for beings who carry their own light. I remember reading something along those lines in one of the scriptures of the Old God, the version of the Myths Menlim taught. I thought it was symbolic, of course. A kind of heaven/hell thing, where only the worthy were allowed to pass through the gates during judgment.”
He gave me a grim look before adding,
“As for the sun… I remember a passage on that, too, Allie.”
Still frowning, he began to recite a second time.
This time, the light seething through his words made me flinch, causing some part of me to recoil at each line he spoke.
For the light must die as we are reborn.
The stars must fall as the Thousand rise.
The end must come before the sun returns.
For within the end, a new door opens,
A door to free a Thousand lights.
A wind at the sail, the Great One flexes its wings.
He carries them to a verdant land.
A land of new earth, new sun, new moon,
Where new stars shine, new oceans team with life and death.
New lands bloom with a Thousand flowers,
A garden anew, a God reborn.
A Thousand lights cover its Thousand shores.
Revik’s voice trailed, right before he grimaced, as if the words tasted bad in his mouth.
He looked at me, his clear eyes still holding that faint bitterness, a touch of anger mixed with a deeper understanding.
“I heard that as a child,” he said. “Menlim spoke it to me. He told me I would live to see that day. He told me I would be instrumental in bringing it about. He said I would live to be king of many worlds, not only this one.”
I studied his eyes, trying to read past that deeper understanding in his eyes.
I fought to read the flashes of emotion that still burst off his light.
“The Thousand,” I muttered, replaying his words.
Revik looked over at me, but I didn’t return his gaze.
I’d heard that before, too.
I’d heard the Dreng referenced that way, as “The Thousand.” I’d heard it somewhere high up in my light, when Galaith died and the Thousand came to take him away.
Revik must have heard some part of that.
His jaw hardened, right before his voice deepened.
“They can’t use the Bridge to pass through,” he said, blunt. “I’d bet on it, based on their actions up until now, especially around these doors.”
He looked at Kali and Uye, then back at me.
“If I had to guess, I’d say they’ve claimed those doors in part to prevent you from using them. Maybe Uye’s right and they don’t actually intend to destroy the world. Maybe that part happens outside their control… maybe they fuck up and destroy it on accident. Either way, they think these telekinetics can get them through the portals, freeing them from the cycle. They don’t think you can do that for them.”
Still thinking, he added,
“Which means you might have to find some way to open the doors first, Allie.”
At the silence after he spoke, Revik crushed out his hiri with his heel.
My jaw clenched as I turned over his words.
I didn’t let myself think too deeply about what he hadn’t said.
Namely, that in opening those doors, I’d likely be bringing an end to the Earth, too. I’d likely be killing everyone we left behind.
I looked at Revik, my mouth hard.
“If you’re right, we can’t let the Dreng through those doors,” I said. “We can’t send them to a thousand other worlds… regardless of what happens to us. Even apart from saving the Listers and ourselves, we can’t let that happen. We just can’t.”
Revik nodded slowly, his jaw clenched.
When I glanced at Uye and Kali, I saw from their eyes that they agreed.
Revik clicked softly then, shaking his head, his voice warning.
“They’re going to try to open the doors before you can, Allie. That’s why everything’s accelerating now––with the network down, and losing me, they’re out of time. It’s why they’re moving all those people. It’s why they’re exterminating Listers.”
He paused, glancing at Uye and Kali.
“If Kali’s vision is right, the world will end if they do this. But the Dreng might not know that. They might not care, of course, but they really might not know.”
Revik looked back at me, his expression serious.
“We took Feigran from them. They don’t have a pet prescient any more. We don’t know what Feigran told them about this already… but I doubt it was much. Feigran told me Menlim was trying hard to get visions out of him while he had him in custody. He asked every day. Menlim would try to induce trances in him. He fed him drugs, put him on wires, tortured him, gave him sexual companions. According to Terian, the pictures just weren’t coming for some reason… not about the things Menlim wanted to know.”
Still thinking, Revik frowned.
He made a noncommittal gesture, as if dismissing an unpleasant thought, or maybe something he felt on me. He glanced at me, the glass of bourbon still clutched in one hand, his expression grim.
“In any case, we don’t have much time, wife,” he said. “They will move fast now. It’s clear that’s the purpose of these Mythers… to enact this final part of their plan.”
There was a silence after he spoke.
That time, no one broke it for quite some time.
18
ANOTHER LIE EXPLAINED
I AM WITH him again, and we are alone now.
We are alone in his room, in the dark, and I am in pain.
Pain threads through my light, making my back arch, my whole body clench as I fight my way away from it, in any way I can.
He is near me.
He is too fucking near… and he is way, way too fucking far away.
Even as I think it, I feel his hands on me.
He touches me, caut
iously at first, then more roughly, his fingers wrapping around my wrists before he forces my legs apart with his body. My pain worsens, my back arches. I feel him looking at me, right before his pain expands into mine like hot liquid.
It winds and coils deeper into me when I let him in, blinding me.
He doesn’t move, though.
He doesn’t fuck me, he doesn’t even kiss me.
He lays there, opening to me, opening to the pain, letting it be there.
His pain is worse than mine––or maybe it simply worsens mine, worsens both of ours. Our lights mirror one another, reflect, resonate, amplify. It turns what was unbearable into torture, making everything more immediate, more insistent, somehow more deliberately cruel.
My light turns animalistic when he still does nothing about it.
That lack, that waiting… it turns into anger, aggression, an unwillingness to compromise, to even hear any excuses from him anymore.
I’m so tired of his reasons. I’m so tired of both of our reasons.
He grips me harder in his hands.
Then he slides lower on me, forcing my legs wider.
I feel his fingers…
Then I feel his tongue.
He kisses me down there for what feels like an endless amount of time.
I feel it deep in my belly, a hard pain, like a diamond of light he is pressing, pulling on, fucking with some part of his mind and light. It’s like he’s reached inside me, into some place I know but couldn’t explain physically, couldn’t even comprehend on that level.
He’s found some way to circumvent my body altogether, hitting me right at that source of pain and light, where it hurts just to feel the edges of it, but he’s pressing hard, wrapping his light into it, making me cry out when he refuses to let up.
I am about to come…
His light pulls back, fighting for control even as it grows hotter, wetter somehow.
He starts kissing me again, licking and kissing and pulling until I groan, my fingers wrapped in his long hair, my mind going blank when he doesn’t let up. His tongue seems to go all the way inside me, as far back as the hirik of his cock, as far as he has with the telekinesis.
My pain worsens all over again, bringing his light further into mine, suffocating me, even as he keeps fucking and kissing me with his tongue and lips. It winds higher into my light, deeper into my body, until it feels like the bands of his arms wrapped around my chest.
I feel his weight on me, his fingers inside my cunt and my ass.
He groans, and I hear that all the way through me.
He fights to hold me off, but it’s sliding… it’s sliding away from us both…
He groans again, feeling me lose control…
I WOKE MYSELF up, bucking hard as I came.
I couldn’t think. I couldn’t stop the jerk of my body as I smothered a choked cry, holding my breath so I wouldn’t make more noise. I was covered in sweat. My head throbbed, pain choking my light, sparking through my body, making me see stars.
It seemed to go on for a long time.
The spasms didn’t want to end, didn’t even want to lessen in intensity.
It went on for what felt like forever, but was probably only a few minutes.
When it finally tapered off I trembled all over, feeling like I’d lost my mind entirely during that blank stretch of time while I couldn’t control anything about my body or light. I could only lay there, feeling like I’d been beaten up.
I should have felt better.
I should have felt… relief. Even a small amount of relief.
I didn’t feel relieved, though. If anything, the pain was worse.
Everything felt fucking worse. It felt hopeless, like I could never have him, not like I just had. He wasn’t mine. He still wasn’t mine, as much as he told me otherwise.
I made myself turn my head.
When I did, eyes reflected back at me in the dark, like a cat.
He was awake.
I’d asked him to leave some light in the room, so I could see him. I’d asked him that after that first session we’d had together, when I couldn’t see him at all after we’d finished.
Now I could see him, but it didn’t really help. He was as impenetrable as always.
He lay on his back, his head turned to the side, his light eyes studying my face. Even though I could still only make out his outline in the dim light of the room, I swore I saw pain in his expression. Caution and pain––I felt both on his light, in the emotions that seethed off him.
I was still staring at him, looking at his light, when he turned his gaze up to the ceiling. Lying there, he rubbed his face with a hand, forcing an exhale as he closed his eyes.
I felt a whisper of memory off him, of pain and heat and liquid fire. A corresponding ripple left my light, even as I fought to suppress it.
“Were you awake?” I demanded. “Were you awake for that?”
He shook his head. More pain left his light in a cloud.
“No.”
I clenched my jaw. I believed him, but somehow, my anger at him only flared hotter. I wasn’t sure if I was more angry that he’d done that to me in his sleep or that he wouldn’t do it to me when both of us were awake.
I remembered what he’d shown me earlier that night then, and my fury bloomed hotter. As the memory cascaded over me, that anger slid briefly out of control, until I clenched my hands into fists on the mattress, mostly to keep from hitting him.
“Go ahead,” he said, his face still mostly covered by his hand. “Hit me, Allie. Hit me if you want to.”
“I’m not going to hit you,” I snapped. “I’m going to beat the shit out of him, though.”
Revik turned his head, looking at me.
He didn’t ask me who I meant.
Exhaling then, he dropped his hand back to the mattress, turning so that he was once more staring up at the ceiling.
“He won’t remember it, Allie,” he said, his voice tired. “He won’t even know why you’re angry.”
“So fucking what?” I burst out. “How the fuck could you do that to me? How could you let me go back with him after that? How could you?”
Revik winced. I saw pain in his eyes, not separation pain but the other kind, but I didn’t care. It just made me want to hit him all over again.
I knew the answer to my own question of course.
I knew, I just didn’t give a fuck.
The Council didn’t give him a vote.
They didn’t even give him any real choice.
The Council, Vash included, decided it was some kind of karmic thing, that me and Jaden were meant to spend time together, that they couldn’t interfere, nor could they let Revik interfere. They decided they had to leave well enough alone when it came to my relationship to the human population, no matter who it was, or the nature of that relationship.
In other words, they wouldn’t help me, no matter what kind of asshole, piece of shit rapist my ex-boyfriend was.
And Revik went along with it.
He fucking went along with it.
He went back to England and drowned his sorrows in pussy and alcohol.
“Well, at least I know why you always hated Jaden,” I snapped. “Must have felt good, to be able to be so self-righteous about that. To have that over both of us.”
Revik didn’t answer.
He didn’t say anything, which only made me want to hit him more.
He’d refused to defend himself in any of it, even though there were things he could have said, ways he could have distanced himself from what occurred. I saw all his memories of that time––including the part where Vash and the Council threatened to take him off protective duty with me altogether if he ever went near Jaden again, much less if he harmed him.
I knew he’d been forced into a bad decision.
Either way he’d gone with it, I would have ended up with Jaden, my memory wiped of all of Jaden’s sins… for the second time. The only difference would have been, they would have
taken Revik off guard duty with me. They would have replaced him with someone else.
Balidor, maybe. Maybe even Dalejem.
Revik winced, looked away. “Allie. Don’t.”
I bit my lip, realizing I’d thought that loudly on purpose.
I couldn’t quite make myself feel sorry about it, though, as unfair as I knew that was.
I knew there’s nothing Revik could have done.
I knew that.
I just didn’t care.
Biting my tongue, I hit him, hard, in the chest. I only used the flat of my hand, but there was enough anger behind it that he flinched, holding up his hands in reflex.
I didn’t let myself hit him again.
Rolling over to my side so that my back was to him, I stared into the light that shone from under the bathroom door, the light I’d asked him to leave on so it wouldn’t be pitch black, so I could see him. Staring into that light, I fought to breathe, to let the feelings out in some way, to move past them, or at least decide what to do with them.
His own feelings still swam through my light, along with the pain from us fucking in the Barrier, along with everything he’d shown me in the hours before that.
I felt like I was choking on all of it.
After a few seconds, a warm hand started rubbing my back, sending light through my skin and blood and spine––sending a flicker of love into my heart.
A part of me wanted to turn, to shove the hand off.
I didn’t, though.
I didn’t move. I didn’t even turn my head to look at him.
I lay there instead, silent, feeling tears run down my cheeks.
I didn’t cry where he could hear it. I didn’t want to share that with him, not yet––maybe not ever. I just knew he wasn’t mine. He wasn’t fucking mine.
He’d given up on me. He’d listened to Vash, to the Council, to fucking Torek, his “friend” in England, who I also wanted to punch in the face, even though I knew he was in America right now, helping Declan track Chandre––even though I’d always liked Torek.
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