Kinnek took a deep breath before he said, “The humans want to cement the joining of Earth and the place the monsters come from. According to them, it needs to be done with blood, specifically yours. Their idea from the get-go was to sacrifice you to one of the monsters. Let it eat you alive. That seemed important to them—that you be alive. After some conversation and negotiation with the Koa Esher, they are now pretty certain that a pair of legs will do just as well, and that the Koa Esher can have the rest of you.”
The blood drained from my face. Inkiri clicked and clicked and rubbed my skin, now cold rather than cool. I curled my legs in under me. The presence had said something like that, hadn’t it, about how they would just love splitting me in two. That hadn’t been hyperbole.
The realization that I was having something like a panic attack was distant. The overwhelming fear was immediate.
I’m here, your knights are near, and you need not be afraid.
The presence stepped into my mind with the soft force of sunlight shining through a window.
Your mate is with you as well. Those things the humans want, they must not happen.
The presence did something that didn’t exactly switch off whatever thing had been happening to me, but it made it ebb away faster.
“Shit,” I said. “Shit.”
Kinnek nodded. “Pretty much that.”
“Are you well?” Inkiri was feeling me over. He was more tense than he’d been a moment ago. But then so was I. He’d been right, I would’ve been way better off never knowing this.
“I wouldn’t say that, just…” I gestured to my head. “Magic.”
Inkiri kissed the temple I indicated. “We’ll protect you, Sadir.”
I nodded. I knew that. But I was till scared. “W-what now?”
Kinnek stood. “Maybe you put on pants as well and come down to dinner.”
“Or you could stay in bed, Sadir, if you prefer.” Inkiri kissed me again. “I will bring you up some food.”
I shook my head. “No, not that. What happens now with the…the guy. In the bunker. And the other guys outside.”
Kinnek looked over his shoulder. “The second high counselor has not been told what I just told you yet, but I will tell him soon. He’ll want to leave extra protectors here, I’m sure, and if you do in fact decide to settle back on Aër, it’ll be good for them to know to be on guard.”
Yeah, the Koa Esher might not give up when it came to getting me. I sat up straighter. “Can humans get to Aër? The mages, the human ones who did this? Who stitched the veils together?”
“Some already have,” Inkiri said. “The veils are no longer as impermeable, and just like bagua can walk through the fusing points from Aër even without a mage, so can humans from Earth.”
That changed everything. Esaka had been terrible for several reasons. They had wanted to take me and hurt my guys, and they had succeeded in hurting Nokim. Nokim simply got in the way of bullets far more often than seemed right, and maybe I should ask Kinnek—or Vergis—to talk to him about that.
But more than anything, Esaka was people’s home. There were kids there. Sonyo came to mind, the little pupil at the Raiken who’d been so interested in strange human me and had gotten me a good half dozen beautiful scarves. If either Koa Esher or human mages—or worse, both—came after me again, they might hurt others in the process. People who had nothing to do with any of this might become collateral damage, and it would be like when I’d started the apocalypse all over again.
I pushed myself up off Inkiri’s chest and knelt on the bed instead, hands folded in my lap. No matter what I did, where I went, I might not be able to escape. I had a feeling that the fear that had driven me to run and never spend too long in one place had probably saved me. Maybe…maybe all the monsters had been so interested in me because they had sensed something about me, some need to…eat me. Maybe just like Inkiri had heard the mate call, they heard like a dinner bell when they saw me, even if they had no idea that it wouldn’t just give them dinner but also a foothold on Earth.
The presence, still there, gave a subtle nod.
Well, darn it all. I didn’t like being right.
My mind was reeling. I couldn’t put other people in danger, I just couldn’t. Not after what I’d already been a part of, unwilling or not. I couldn’t let the monsters eat me and become a permanent fixture here on Earth either, and the only way to avoid that was if I wasn’t there anymore.
The thought, bleak and terrifying, was the only thing that made sense. I remembered Vergis and the pigeons. He’d probably help me out, if I explained it right.
The presence curled and coiled through my consciousness, unsettled, but I pushed it out with some effort, something I hadn’t realized I could do until that moment.
Kinnek flicked my nose with his finger. “Don’t be an idiot.” He was looking at me, his arms folded in front of his chest, his expression stern.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“I know that look. Don’t be an idiot. They didn’t manage to feed you to the monsters the day they merged the spheres. The day your mate call snapped into place. Doesn’t that tell you something, snapdragon?”
