Mila and the others launched a horrid assault against Asira. Ben moved forward to help her fight them off. But mistaking the gesture, Asira pierced his thoughts. As she did, images flooded back to her. She saw the whole of his plans when he turned neighboring Bakongo villagers into enemies of the Dajume. She saw his murderous acts against the humans, including his own Stewart kindred. She was even more enraged. With a stunning display of power, the pulse emitted from her disabled her attackers with incredible swiftness. They all retreated as she turned her full attention to Ben.
“You will pay for what you’ve done, Bensaí!” Asira said as she hurled another attack toward him.
Shielding against her attack as much as he could, he replied, “I will not harm you!”
“Fight!” she demanded.
“No!”
“Why won’t you fight?”
“Because I am already destroyed without you!”
His unexpected admission stunned them all—Nubí and Bensaí alike.
“You will say anything now!”
“Then finish me,” he said solemnly as the fullness of his energies lessened. He dropped his defenses becoming totally vulnerable to her.
Stunned by his acquiescence, she pierced his thoughts once more. This time she felt something other than his deceit or anger. Something far more powerful within his being had given him peace. Images of laughter and extraordinary happiness now filled his spirit as he thought of this human woman. There was incredible love when he was with… her. Pulling away, Asira’s thoughts came into crystal clarity. She remembered everything.
“Ben?”
Looking at her, he knew Deborah was finally one with Asira. Her essence cooled, and rage interrupted. But he could not escape what he’d done. Whether intentional or not, he’d harmed them both.
“I’m so sorry, my sweet. I will love you even when I am no more. Do what you will.”
Reaching out to him and merging her essence with his, the fullness of their love empowered them. Lost to each other, neither felt the emergence of the others. Ripping Asira from him, the Bensaí’s deadly attack against her was relentless. Hurdling his entire being in the path of their combined assault, Ben absorbed far more than he could sustain. He looked at her as he felt his essence slipping away.
“No!” Asira screeched.
In that instant, a divine and powerful presence appeared. It was The Supreme. IT’s light and energy engulfed them ceasing the attack. The boom of IT’s continence overcame them all. The weakened Nubí offered their full submission to IT’s will. The Bensaí stood firm in IT’s presence. Yet, Asira joined with Ben.
“Why do you come now? Why did you come for her and not us?” the petulant Veshlu asked.
“It is time.”
“You left us. Why?” Ben said.
“So that you would find the greatest power I left for you all. The one thing you needed most to tend to what we have made.”
“There was nothing to find! We have managed well without you!” Veshlu asserted.
“Cease, Veshlu!”
In an instant, he was gone. Soon all memory of him vanished from them.
“We have not found what you left us,” Edra said.
“It has been found in Asira and Bensaí.”
Drawing Asira and Ben closer, IT said, “They have found it. Because of them, the whole of creation will know.”
“I don’t understand,” Bujon said.
“Tell them.”
Asira simply said, “With every fiber of my being, I love him.”
“Bensaí, your love for her gave you the power to endure, and yet you willingly laid it all down for her.”
“And I would do it again.”
“No greater love than mine, you have shown Asira.”
“Did you divine us for one another?” he asked.
“When you set suns for the planets, do you know when rain will fall? Or how warm or cold it will become on any given day?
“No.”
“It is the same with each of you. The love abiding within you, the love you feel for Asira, divined you both for one another.”
“What is to become of us?” Mila asked.
“You will all return to me so that you, too, will finally know love again.”
“We are to be apart from you again?” Ben asked solemnly.
“No. Your love for each other will always bind you to me. We will not be parted again because of it. But you have work to do.”
“What will you have us do?” Asira asked.
“Your seed will spread throughout the whole of the realm and the universe. Together you will bring forth a greater love that will come back to me.”
“How do begin?” Asira asked.
The Supreme let out a hearty, bellowing burst of joyful laughter.
“However you choose! All of time and space will bend to you.”
Ben and Asira drew closer to each other.
“Where would you like to begin, my sweet?”
Of all the places in the known universe…
With the morning sun streaming in through the window, he never expected to awaken in Deborah’s bed. Feeling the weight of her in his arms, he looked into her smiling eyes and wide grin.
“Why here?” he whispered.
“I was happiest with you here. So our journey begins here. We’ve got all of space and time to explore the universe.”
“So what do you want to do first?”
With a sultry smirk, she replied, “I’m partial to Big Ben.”
THE END
Asira Awakens Page 21
