There were too many memories with Jon, though.
I couldn’t even begin to count them all, or to put them in any kind of order.
My whole life, Jon was the one constant.
When he let me go, I saw his face crumple, in a way I hadn’t seen it do since we were kids. Then Wreg was pulling him back gently, probably trying to keep us both from losing it. Grinning at me with those shining obsidian eyes, he stepped forward to give me a hug and blow some of his huge, warm heart at me, kissing my cheek and murmuring to me in Prexci.
I think a lot of it was prayers.
I admit, most of it went over my head, but I didn’t care.
I felt so much love behind it, the actual words didn’t matter. I fell into his light instead, clinging to him almost as fiercely as I had to my brother.
Eventually, Wreg let me go too.
I watched Balidor disappear through the door in disbelief, almost unable to believe he was gone, even after the flash of light rendered him invisible. Cass followed after him, looking back at me and Lily with a smile and a small wave before she disappeared.
Wreg disappeared after him, followed by Jon, who was still crying, and who only looked back for the barest breath before he was gone, too.
Maygar and Angeline stood there now.
I saw Revik’s eyes fill with tears as he held Maygar, and I found myself smiling at Angeline, hugging her and smiling and crying until she was doing the same. I think she was still in shock from everything that had happened to her and her arm, but she said thank you so many times I laughed again, and hugged her until she laughed, too.
When Maygar came to me and said goodbye, Angeline hugged Revik, if a bit more stiffly. Both of them hugged and kissed Lily before letting her go, and again I was reminded that Lily knew all of these people, that they’d all babysat and coddled her and played with her and taught her things about her light and goofed around with her.
I gripped Revik’s hand tightly again as Maygar and Angeline disappeared into that light.
Lily cried as she watched Maygar go.
Then we were alone.
It was just the three of us.
“YOU READY?” REVIK smiled down at me, then at Lily. He glanced around at the cave walls, which shimmered with even more heat. “I think it’s the last train out of here, family. We’d better catch it, before we catch on fire.”
Lily giggled, gripping his hand and swinging it.
I gripped his other hand, nodding.
“Lily first,” I said, motioning towards the door. I glanced at her. “If she wants.”
Lily grinned, like I’d given her a gift.
When she practically ran for the door, caution rose in my light.
“Look for us on the other side, honey,” I warned her. “Look for Uncle Jon, or your brother, okay? Stay with anyone you find until we come through.”
She grinned, nodding, half-skipping as she dragged us closer to the door. Seeing her sadness lift at the suggestion that she might see everyone who’d just left us on the other side of the door, I relaxed a little, too.
“We’re going to feel pretty dumb if we’re all back together on the other side,” I mumbled, smiling sheepishly at Revik. “All that melodrama for nothing.”
Revik laughed.
When we reached the opening, Lily released our hands, giving us a last grin.
“Catch you on the other side, mamacita,” she said in a joking voice, aiming a finger gun at me and pretending to shoot it.
I burst out in a laugh, surprised.
“You are definitely spending way too much time with Uncle Wreg and Uncle Jon,” I called after her. At Revik’s puzzled look, I shook my head, rolling my eyes. “Jon used to do that to me all the time when we were kids.”
Revik chuckled, clicking softly in humor.
“Be careful,” he called after our daughter. “Stay nearby.”
Lily rolled her eyes at him dramatically, and I laughed again, clicking softly. It hit me suddenly that we were all just assuming we’d see one another on the other side, and my spirits lifted for real.
“Teenager!” I called after her.
Rolling her eyes at me a last time, she walked through the door.
The light brightened, enveloping her… then she was gone.
For the first time, I felt a shudder in the bridge of light over our heads.
It rumbled through me, briefly disorienting me, almost as if the Earth itself had shaken under my feet. When my vision righted, I clicked into the Barrier, looking at the structure over my head. It seemed fine, and still appeared to be feeding light directly into the door.
I could see the silver strands outside of the aura of light, almost like they were waiting there, hovering in the dark.
Frowning faintly, I glanced at Revik.
He frowned back at me, his mouth in a hard line. He clearly felt it, too.
“What was that?” I said.
He shook his head, still frowning. “I don’t know.”
Watching him, I didn’t quite believe him. Realizing something about whatever he’d seen or felt just now genuinely bothered him, I studied his face, trying to get a sense of what he was thinking from his light.
“You go next,” I said.
I didn’t say it like a question.
When he opened his mouth to argue, I shook my head, once.
“I should go last,” I said. “It’s my structure feeding the door. I don’t think it’ll close that fast, but just to be safe, you should go first.”
Revik didn’t answer, but he was already leading me closer to the door.
“No,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. “Like you said, it won’t close that fast. It’s self-sustaining now. You should go first.”
Looking back at him as he steered me firmly toward the lit opening, I frowned.
“Why?” I said, pointed.
He shrugged––again, way too casually.
“Why not?” he said. “Come on. Reassure me. Go through, and I’ll follow behind.”
His voice remained light, almost distracted.
Something nagged at me though. Something about Revik’s tone, something in his light, the tenser energy I felt around his light, the slightly too-tight grip of his fingers. Before I entered the aura of light around the door, I came to a dead stop, stopping just shy of the edge of the opening. I looked back at him, frowning for real.
“Hey,” I said. “What Balidor said… about closing the door. It won’t matter, right? If we leave it open? That’s not going to be a problem, is it?”
Revik looked at me, frowning back.
I saw his eyes change slightly as he thought about my question.
Or maybe he was thinking of a way to answer my question.
Or more like coming up with a plausible lie.
My frown deepened. “Okay, what? What is it?”
His crystal-like eyes clicked back into focus. I hadn’t even realized he’d gone that far into the Barrier until I saw his light irises refocus on me. Frowning at him, I opened my mouth to ask, but he headed me off, shaking his head, once, motioning with his hand.
“It’ll be fine, wife,” he said. “Go on through. Lily’s waiting.” He smiled. “All of them are probably waiting for us, wondering what the hell we’re doing.”
I could see it on him now, though.
I could feel it, even though his light was calm. His expression didn’t show anything, didn’t betray a damned thing. That maddening infiltrator’s mask of his erased every hint of emotion from his face and eyes, but it didn’t work on me anymore.
“Revik.” I stared at him. “What is it? Seriously. You need to tell me. Now.”
“Alyson––”
“Don’t Alyson me,” I snapped. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what the fuck is wrong. Why are you acting like you won’t see me on the other side?”
“I will see you on the other side,” he said, sharp. “I will, Allie. Now go through. Now.”
My heart was ham
mering in my throat, my fear rising so fast I could barely breathe, even beyond the debilitating heat in the room.
In the same instant, it hit me that I knew.
I already knew what it was.
“You don’t think we can leave the door open.” My voice turned openly accusing. “You think the Dreng will pass through if we leave the door open.” Still thinking, staring at his face, I felt myself pale. “…That’s why they’re waiting up there. They’re waiting for me to leave. They’re waiting for me to go, then they’re going to try and follow us through the door.”
Revik frowned, as if still trying to decide if he should deny it.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” I demanded. “What are you going to do? Try and close the door before they can pass through?”
“Allie.” He shook his head, firming his jaw. “I think you’re the Bridge. You’re the guardian of the door. I think when you pass through, the door will change.”
When I opened my mouth, he raised a hand, cutting me off.
“I have no intention of staying behind if I can in any way help it,” he said. His voice grew warning. “This isn’t me intentionally martyring myself, wife. I’m just trying to keep us safe. I’m trying to make sure this isn’t all for nothing. Let me do that. You can’t. The door won’t close until you leave. It has to be me.”
“If you close the door, you can’t come through!” I snapped, my voice hoarse. “Revik! Lily and I will die without you! You won’t be saving us! You’ll be fucking killing us!”
“You don’t know that.” He shook his head, lips firm. “New world, love. New rules. We have no idea if things will work the same there. And I’m coming. I swear to every god in the heavens, if I can make it through, you’ll see me on the other side.”
“Revik, no! NO, goddamn it!”
I started to walk towards him, but he walked towards me in the same instant.
Realizing what he intended to do, I fought him, twisting out of his hold when he grabbed my wrists and arms, when he began forcing me backwards, towards the door. I fought to activate the telekinesis, but he was too fast. He blocked me in that space, using structures and holding pieces of my light the way I’d taught him myself.
Letting out a shriek of frustration, I punched out at him, but he avoided my fist. When I kicked out, he absorbed my blows with a wince, clenching his jaw as he gripped me tighter, forcing me back into the door.
In the end, all I could do is cling to him, screaming.
“NO!” I gripped his hands as I felt the light engulf me from the door. I held onto him with all of my strength, trying to pull him through with me. “NO!”
“Allie… let me go! Please, baby! Please… let me go!”
Tears were in his eyes.
His voice rose in my mind, soft, gentle.
Let me go, wife. I’ll do anything I can to follow. Anything… I swear it. I’ll find you on the other side, no matter what happens.
Don’t play the fucking hero with this, Revik! Gaos, I’ll never forgive you––
Let me go. Please, baby, please. I’ll come after… I swear to the gods, I will.
Memory filled my eyes, a glimpse of light, of Tarsi’s cakes.
I remembered a vision of him, standing with the sun behind him, filling the sky.
I remembered holding his hands, just like this, screaming at him while he begged me to let go, while he begged me to let him save us. I remembered his face, I remembered his tears, I remembered all of it.
I remembered all of this.
I remembered how it felt at the time, how we’d both thought it meant he would die.
NO! I screamed at him. NO, REVIK! NO! DON’T DO THIS!
But it was already too late.
The light flashed brighter…
And he was gone.
64
SUN
HE STOOD THERE, panting.
Relief suffused him briefly that she was gone, that she’d made it through.
Guilt followed immediately after, but he couldn’t think about that.
He couldn’t think about how terrified she’d felt, how betrayed, how furious she’d likely be with him when she got to the other side. He only hoped he’d be there for whatever she decided to dish out in punishment for what he’d just done.
Even if it was months of the silent treatment, of kicking him out of their bed, of threats, of arguments, of being shut out––he’d take all of it, any of it.
He’d take whatever she wanted to throw his way, if only he made it to the other side.
Realizing he was throwing the words up almost as a prayer––a prayer to the gods, a prayer to the Ancestors, to his wife, his children, his friends, his comrades––it hit him he was out of time. Whatever karma or the gods owed him, whatever he owed them, it was too late to do anything about any of it now.
He had to play whatever hand he had left.
It felt like the cave had risen twenty degrees in the handful of seconds since his wife disappeared. Heat shimmered the air, making it hard to see, making him blink as sweat ran into his eyes. Steam rose from the walls, coming from the earth.
He wondered if he’d be dead already, if he was human.
He knew it would be too hot soon, even for him.
It would be too hot, and then this body would die for real.
Remembering his wife’s face, her tears, his daughter’s cocky grin as she aimed that finger at the two of them, clicking her tongue and finger-shooting him like she was a cheesy movie star from the 1950s, he felt his jaw firm.
He focused his light upward.
He focused on the light of the sun, aligning his aleimi to resonate with the towering, ladder-like bridge his wife spun out of her light. Once he had his light body vibrating at the right frequency, he receded deeper into that rose and gold space, clicking rapidly backwards, gazing up through his aleimi at the night sky, at the Barrier stars.
He examined the teetering structure that had been the bridge his wife built between the sun and what remained of Earth.
That structure already swayed as he watched, grasping for cohesion with his wife’s aleimi gone. He could feel it crumbling, disintegrating without her light there to hold it, to give it structure and weight.
He saw the Dreng draw nearer, feeling and reacting to the absence of Allie, as well.
Their silver lights following the retreat of that white and gold light––that beautiful, high, fluid frequency that was uniquely hers. Watching them, Revik realized it was that same light that kept the Dreng at bay.
It was Allie that kept them away.
The very essence of who and what she was prevented them from passing through the door. It was as if her light was poison to them, as if it burned to the touch.
Whatever it did, it was dissipating now, leaving that bridge gray, absent of her light.
Watching the Dreng stalk after that retreating frequency of light, Revik knew once it was gone, the Dreng would use what remained of the bridge to pass through the door.
From inside the Barrier, he could see just how close the sun was now.
It filled the sky, pulsing and flaring out arcs of heat, fire and light. Alternately glowing blood-red and blinding gold and white, it grew enormous in his eyes, its light and heat hammering down on Earth as it moved inexorably closer.
Fear and awe warred in him as the reality of it sank in.
He saw Mercury get swallowed up in a blinding flare.
He saw the clouds of Venus boiling as the larger planet seemed to spin faster on its axis, pulled closer to the giant ball of gas as it moved through the sky.
At the same time, he saw the line of light between the Earth and the Sun continue to fall.
It would be a race, one of fate, of time––one outside his control.
It would be a race to keep them from using what remained of his wife’s bridge to pass through the door, to do it before the sun killed him.
Seeing the Dreng draw closer still, chasing that gold and white light, he
didn’t think.
Rising higher––higher than he’d ever gone inside the Barrier until that day––he flooded the structure with his wife’s light. Resonating with that gold and white space, he flooded it through the falling bridge, forcing the Dreng back.
Tears came to his eyes as that gold and white filled him.
He saw a blue, bowl-like sky, stretching high and endless over a valley covered in trees and grass, met by a golden ocean. Red, orange and gold clouds clustered overhead, framing the water as dolphins swam next to fish and turtles and flying sea birds.
He flooded the structure with that valley’s light as it came tumbling down.
The Dreng drew back as if burnt, hissing at him.
Swarming back towards him when they recognized his light, they crowded up to the edges of that gold-white barrier he’d erected of his wife’s living flame. They glared at him without coming closer, exuding hate, exuding violence, exuding pain, exuding threats.
Revik saw their faces.
He knew them, just as they knew him.
They swam before him, sad, rage-filled, bitter… familiar.
Menlim. Gerwix. Merenje. Galaith. Deifilius. Stami. Ute.
There were more of them now, so many more.
He didn’t try to name all of them, but looking at them brought a flicker of sadness to his light. They were lost. All of them were so lost.
They were lost, and they didn’t even know it.
You aren’t her, one of them hissed. You can’t hold it… we’ll kill you the second you let go, and then we’ll go through and she’ll die too…
Revik knew that face. He remembered it from the war.
Wreg might have even recruited him.
You can’t hold it, another said. You aren’t her…
They threatened him, dove at him, swimming around his light like a cloud of silver shadows, like flashing knives. They fought to distract him, to disorient him, to confuse him, to get him to drop the connection, to lose his line to that high, gold-white space.
They tried to get him to let go.
But he’d never let go.
He’d never let go of Allie. He’d never let go of that high, white-gold space that was hers.
Sun Page 87
