Run, Midonia. Run.
I do not run.
I don’t want to.
He is no longer a shape before me, no longer the vision of a man. He is all around me. He is the thick, stinging air. He is the wind outside this ruined citadel. He is the night. He touches me in ways that should be impossible. I have never been moreheld.
He coils around me, caressing my skin as if my clothes are not there, as if I have come to him naked and willing.
In some way, I have.
I don’t resist.
I allow him, this darkness all around me, the shadow that consumes me, to go where he will. To touch me ashe will. To use me. Molten desire pours down my spine as unseen teeth graze my neck. As unseen fingers glide across my skin.
I fall to my knees as pleasure engulfs me, crying out there in the ruin, alone but for the shadows that seem to drown me.
STAY WITH ME.
His voice rings out from the gullet of the mountain itself.
My breaths are ragged. Scorching tears stream from my eyes. I lower my forehead to the floor, overcome.
DON’T GO BACK TO THEM.
The words echo inside my head. He can reach me even here, this inescapable darkness, the shadow that haunts this planet.
MIDONIA.
My throat burns. I’m still shaking, stillwanting, when a cool touch startles me. Skin against skin. A knuckle, dragging along my exposed jaw. I jerk up, heart in my throat. He crouches before me, a man again. He’s so beautiful that to look at him feels like a knife in the quivering muscle of my heart.
‘Midonia.’DON’T GO BACK.YOU ARE NOT SAFE THERE.
I almost relent. I almost give in. I nearly allow him to have all of me, right here, forever. But a spark of coherent thought ignites in me. And for a brief instant,I know with the utmost surety that I’m a lamb led to slaughter. And he’s the one who holds the knife.
I grab that flash of clarity with frenzied fingers and drag myself to my feet.
He reaches for me with claws of bone and shadow.
But I’m already running, stumbling, falling – getting up again, the scraped skin of my knees ignored. I feel him at my heels, the heat of his gaze, the icy burn of his presence. I don’t know if it is the man or the shadow or both who chase me.
9
Icy rain begins to fall as I descend toward the village. It came in an instant, the clouds gathering above the trees as if called there by some greater being.Anguish, I think, and with the name comes terrified laughter, boiling up my throat.
There are some things I know to be absolutely true: The universe is infinite. We will never truly plumb its depths; we will never know all there is to know of the unending cosmos. All kinds of things, grandiose and horrible, could populate the stars and we will never meet them; never even guess that they exist.
Butgodsare not real. Anguish can’t be real.
My feet slide in the mud as I hurtle down the mountain, but the rain falls harder by the second. The erratic slam of my heart mirrors my chaotic thoughts, my movements distracted and thoughtless. My lashes grow heavy with cold droplets. My hair is soaked, plastered to my neck and face. The leather shoes the sisters gave me are useless here. I may as wellbe barefoot in the mud. What I wouldn’t give for my boots right now.
I descend as quickly as I can, but it’s slow going. I try to stay upright even as the mud pulls at me, threatening to drag me down. The trees, pillars of black on all sides, seem to watch me with stoic amusement.
I refuse to look back. I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll see him following me. Grasping at me. Inches from my body, inches from dragging me back to him, smothering me, disappearing me.
And who would mourn the loss? Who would come looking for me? Who would worry? I have made every effort to disappear; I’ve cut myself off with purpose. Iwantedto get away from my life. Iwantedto be forgotten. So that I, in turn, might forget.
Maybe it’s better if I turn back. Part of me wants him to have me,allof me. And maybe Irena was right.Who in this world has a choice?Maybe this place, the sisters, the solar flares, this ruin on the mountain … they have all been on my path since the beginning of time. All I do now is walk toward destiny.
