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This time, the glass pieces had arranged themselves according to Rith’s orchestrated pattern and she’d become something horrible, something she had never thought she would be—a blood slave.
The question was, what could she do about it?
Her analytical mind kicked into high gear. She was flat on her back, on a filthy, dusty floor, in a room without light of any kind. She had no idea where she was, which part of the world she was in, or even whether she was on Mortal or Second Earth.
At least both arms were free now, free to move the few inches up. She touched the field. For some reason, of all the things that had happened to her, feeling this field, which kept her imprisoned again, sent fury writhing through her, compressing her chest, swelling her neck, causing her throat to seize, especially since she wanted to scream but she wouldn’t, not when Antony needed his sleep.
After a long moment, when her heart had calmed back down, she drew deep calming breaths. It was time to think, not to freak out.
She had power, a lot of power, that much she understood. She had thrown a hand-blast at Endelle before she had even ascended, without even knowing what a hand-blast was. She had sent the Supreme High Administrator of all Second Earth flying over and behind her desk. She had done that.
All her life she had felt powerless. Now she had an abundance of it yet was still trapped. What on earth did this mean?
Something needed to change, something she didn’t understand, not yet.
She drew more deep breaths, one after the other. From what she understood, Alison had also ascended with a phenomenal amount of power, and she had created similar restraining energy fields during her arena battle with Leto.
Huh. Parisa began pushing at the field over her. She held her palm flat and released a small pulse of energy, a tiny hand-blast. Thank God she hadn’t gone full-bore because the energy caught on the field and traveled like lightning in a thousand directions at once above her, leaving her covered with small burns. She could smell singed fabric as well.
Okay, no hand-blasts.
She breathed some more, one breath then another.
She recalled being in Fiona’s hospital room with Havily and Alison. A sisterhood.
Never had Parisa felt as close to other women as in that moment. Their sufferings, their shared power, their difficulty with mate-bonding had given them much in common.
As a child, she had never stayed in one place long enough to develop friendships, real friendships. She had always been the outsider, never quite fitting in, always the object of jealousy in the friendship twosomes that dominated schoolyards. Having boyfriends during those years had been equally impossible.
Her life had been colored, shaped, pummeled by her early experiences and her parents had been just flighty enough that they hadn’t recognized or understood her suffering, or that her development was being warped. They had shared a love of moving around and experiencing new places but she had been left to tag along without either of her parents recognizing there might be repercussions.
She had fallen into a pattern of survival that had always required that she remain … aloof. And yes, inaccessible.
She felt defensive suddenly because the person she’d grown up to be wasn’t her fault. She wanted to wrap her arms around her chest but the field wouldn’t allow it. In this hateful captivity, she couldn’t even comfort herself.
There had to be some reason why she was stuck here. Something she needed to learn. She was convinced that even the worst situations could provide some opportunities for self-knowledge and growth.
God help her.
Tears trickled down the sides of her face. She had done her best, she truly had, to make the most of her life. She felt she had succeeded admirably in terms of her career. On Mortal Earth, she had loved being a librarian. Now, here she was in another dimension with plenty of power but apparently not the ability to access it in a way that would allow her to free herself or Antony.
Again her thoughts returned to Fiona’s hospital room and to that feeling of belonging. Then she’d seen Antony—who was really Rith—on the greenbelt.
Being grouped around the bed, she’d felt like she belonged.
But running then folding to Antony had been so rash, so separate from the group, so foolish.
She knew better. That’s what popped into her head. She knew the level of Rith’s power. Why had she run out onto the lawn, folding to the false Antony, without so much as a whisper of anxiety?
At the very least, at the very least, she should have looked around, even asked Havily to accompany her outside. Militia Warriors had surrounded the building, protecting those inside, but she had hurried out, separated herself from the group, without a single thought. She had been so used to making decisions on her own behalf for so long, that it hadn’t even occurred to her in that split-second before she folded to Antony that she ought to be careful about leaving the security of the building.
Her body stilled as her thoughts heated up, as the truth of what she was thinking sank into her bones. Maybe independence was a wonderful attribute, but what had her level of independence, her extreme of independence actually won her?
She rocked her head back and forth. What had it won her? Well, it was pretty obvious, since she was trapped beneath a field of energy with no way out and that she’d ended up in Rith’s clutches again.
Her situation suddenly seemed fully of irony. That which she had relied on for so long was in this moment her complete undoing, and not just hers, but the undoing of the man trapped in a separate field opposite her. He had followed her to try and save her and now he was trapped as well and destined to be executed on Greaves’s whim.
Holy shit. This was all her fault.
If she had it to do over again, what would she do? She would have paused. At the very least she would have waited to see why Antony was out there. She would have contacted him telepathically. She would have consulted with ascenders who had been on Second Earth a helluva lot longer than her own sweet self.
Her thoughts took a leap, an important one. Could she turn to the group now? Could she consult with others, say, with Endelle, to help her get out of this fix? Did she have enough power to do that?
Maybe.
Air whooshed into her lungs. She opened her voyeur’s window and thought of Endelle. The next moment there she was in one of the palace rotundas, surrounded by all the Warriors of the Blood.
She was about to attempt a communication with Endelle when she heard Thorne cry out, “We have to assemble the army at once, Endelle. For f**k’s sake, we don’t have a choice. Greaves has just folded another five thousand Militia Warriors and another hundred death vampires to the South Rim.”
