Ribbons of past overlaid. Different homes, enormous trees hovering on the edge of her vision. A mishmash of timelines all converging as one. To this moment, this statement.
“Trust you? Holder of Chaos.”
“I am more than Chaos.”
“The Chaos will kill me, Norn of the Past.”
“Or it will be your salvation.”
She grunted, pain slamming through her body. A vice clenched on her ribs, compressing them until their sharp edges were razors against her lungs. All to keep the past going, to say the words she’d already known would push him away.
The past repeats.
But she didn’t want to do this—face his fear and hatred—because she was the outlet to his greatest fear.
Wolf.
He was always a wolf, and the Chaos always made him loathe what he was.
Made him misunderstand what he was truly meant to be.
And she was supposed to allow it. To let the grains of time continue so the future would become past once more, a vicious cycle linking the Norn of What Shall Be and the Norn of What Once Was.
They had always been tied, two halves of a whole in opposition and seeing as far as could be seen along opposing sides of the continuum. Twins, sisters, rivals, and the creator of the other’s doom. She whimpered, her cells shrinking, the blood in her veins slowing like thick sludge.
A swell of heat crawled over her skin, burning more ashes, packing her with the memories of her failures she wore on her skin. How she wished he could shed it, release the living organism of her history.
Wasn’t that what everyone wanted?
To learn from their past, but leave the pain there?
But she could not. Always trapped, always torn to shreds.
“Nanshe!”
Choking on a gasped breath, she still fought. Not this time. She wouldn’t push him away. It didn’t matter what the past craved, she couldn’t see him walk away from her again. She didn’t care if he eventually came back, if they shared loved for just a few moments before he was ripped from her. The adage “it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all” was a fallacy to soothe those who’d never lost what was created just for them.
They’d never known love like the one between fused souls.
This timehadbeen different.
Another heat surrounded her, tempered with the scent of tangy, sweet musk of the flowers on the Khalub-tree.Home. Children of the future may have deemed the tree a myth, but Nanshe knew better. Knew it had been a favorite of Inn–
No, she would not call her sister by that name here.
Nanshe took a deep breath, pulling Carlo’s scent into her lungs.
She wondered if he even recognized this part of himself. The one aroma that could soothe her. His hard arms clenched around her, and hot breath skirted over her neck.
“Here,tesoro. I’m right here. Breathe with me. Don’t tell me whatever it is.”
No!
“Trust you? Holder of Chaos.”
“I am more than Chaos.”
“The Chaos will kill me, Norn of the Past.”
