Sonny nods. “Yeah. The language shifts. The tone of the records changes. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s all less controlled. More… urgent.”
“Urgent how?”
“Like he’s running out of time,” Sonny says. “Or trying to achieve something specific before something else happens.”
“And then he dies.” I don’t phrase it as a question.
“Allegedly,” Sonny says.
I stare at him. “Allegedly? What the fuck does that mean?”
“There was no body,” Jack says quietly.
That hits heavier than anything else so far. “What?”
Sonny nods. “No confirmed remains. No proper record of how he died. Just… an announcement.”
“That’s it?”
Sonny bobs his head again. “That’s it.”
I run a hand through my hair, wincing slightly as my shoulder protests. “Okay,” I say slowly. “So best-case scenario, he started something he didn’t finish. Worst-case?—”
“He didn’t die,” Sonny finishes.
“Or someone else continued the work,” Jack adds.
Silence stretches between the three of us.
The glow in the walls pulses faintly. The rhythm is steady, unbothered.
“How long ago did people start coming through?” I ask, looking for confirmation more than anything. If the king started experimenting a century ago, does that mean there were others a long time before us?
“About twenty years,” Sonny says.
I arch my brow, strangely relieved. “Same time Varek showed up.”
“Yeah. It looks that way,” Jack responds.
“So something changed,” I say. “Between Ithius starting this and Varek being dragged through.”
“Exactly,” Sonny says.
Jack nods. “The scale increases. The rifts get bigger. More stable. More frequent.”
“And suddenly people aren’t just slipping through by accident,” I add. “They’re being pulled.”
Sonny’s lips twist. “It looks that way. It seems that they’re definitely targeted.”
The words sit heavy in the air.
“Why?” I ask. “Because of the whole fated mates thing?”
Neither of them answers.
“But if so,” I continue, “how does the rift or whatever is creating the rifts know who does and doesn’t have a fated mate?” As far as I’m aware, every human that’s come through has a fated mate.
As for the other species not born of this world, there are still plenty without, but I can only assume that with time—and more rifts—that their fated will come through eventually. Right?
