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I slid my arms around him, beneath his shirt to the skin of his back. I memorized the feel of him, his body against mine, the steady beat of his heart against my cheek. I drank him in, knowing it would never be enough.
And now we must each go to our own distant battles. My hand went to the back of his neck, and I drew him down for a kiss. Our parting kiss, perhaps our last one. He knew it as much as I, and we joined with all the desperation and pain and love and grief and joy that had brought us to this point. He broke the kiss, cradled my face, and rested his forehead against mine. The world retreated and we simply Were. United. Timeless. Infinite.
And now I knew. The first time we’d made love, Mzatal had shared the universe with me like this, forehead to forehead. That was when he’d instinctually forged our essence bond.
Mzatal’s confirmation enveloped me. In the vastness of the void, he asked if I regretted the union. Asked if I wished to sunder it. In answer I drew our consciousness higher, entwined, reveled in the freedom and the expansion. Though our bond would be silenced, it would remain for eternity.
Eventually, I covered his hands with mine, forced myself to pull away, kissed his palms, stepped back. “Go, beloved,” I murmured. “Unleash hell.”
Resolve settled over him. He squeezed my hands and released them. “Tah zhar lahn, eturnik.” I love you, eternally.
“Tah zhar lahn, eturnik,” I echoed as my heart broke into a million pieces.
His hands closed into fists to call potency as anger kindled at the injustice of our situation. Rage crackled through our bond, and his breath hissed through clenched teeth.
Dread and grief flooded me as his fury escalated toward a flare—an arcane burst potent enough to reduce my entire property to ash. This was the toll he paid for daring to be open and maintain his essence blade—uncontrolled fury that now only affirmed our decision.
His eyes sought mine through the rage, and I felt his essence call to me. He wavered on the brink of the terrible sacrifice—to give up all that was the true Mzatal. Love. Laughter. Joy. To silence and sequester our bond. He couldn’t do it on his own, needed me to urge him into the prison he’d created. To save both worlds, it was my duty to lock down a weapon of uncontrollable intensity and release a new one of ruthless precision. Nausea rose as his anguish and fury whirled higher. My duty sucked.
“Boss.” I called to him on all levels. “Mzatal. Do it. You have to close off now.” I backed to the far edge of the nexus. “CALL THE GODDAMN BLADE!” I screamed at him. “DO IT NOW!”
A terrifying cry ripped from his throat. He thrust his hand up, gripped the hilt of Khatur as the blade answered his call.
“So alone.” His words shivered through our bond.
“Never,” I answered.
“Tah zhar lahn.”
“Eturnik.”
Eyes on mine, he swept Khatur in a vicious arc. The barriers slammed shut like impenetrable walls of tungsten steel, and our connection shattered into icy silence. His face transformed to an unreadable, glacial mask as he retreated within. His eyes went last, radiating boundless wrath that hardened to terrifying, flint-grey vehemence. A wave of black malevolence roiled from him and through me.
Shocked to my bones, I staggered back and off the nexus. Expectation didn’t hold a candle to reality.
The concrete of the nexus slab beneath his feet blackened. Heart hammering, I retreated farther as the blight spread, and within seconds the whole of the platform succumbed and glistened like obsidian. Strands of silvery metal writhed across its surface and settled into intricate patterns. Unnamed dread rose within me as the last strand slithered into place.
Dangerously silent and forbidding, Mzatal turned his back on me as if I held no more importance than a worm in the dirt. He strode off the nexus toward the wooded path that led to the pond valve, and I sank to my knees to watch his departure in numb horror. With each step, the grass charred and smoldered beneath his boots. The trees shivered as he passed between them and then went still.
Silence. Not a whisper of wind through leaves. Not the call of a bird or the buzz of an insect. And nothing of our connection.
In another heartbeat he was gone, leaving only aching emptiness and the stench of sulfur in his wake.
Mzatal. Beloved. What have we wrought?
Chapter 36
A crow cawed, harsh and merciless and, as if it had broken a spell, normal sound rushed in. The rustle of leaves, the chatter of squirrels, the hum of a mosquito. Ordinary sounds of my backyard.
I swallowed and licked my lips, pulled myself to my feet and edged closer to the slab of the nexus. Not concrete anymore, that was for sure. Wary, I extended a hand toward the glassy blacker-than-black surface, touched a finger to it and yanked it back as if testing a hot stove. Emboldened, I touched it again for an instant longer, and when I failed to die or turn into a newt, placed my hand flat on its surface. Cool and smooth, and even without arcane senses I could feel that it was powerful.
The silvery threads had formed an intricate filigree, like a perfect and symmetrical fractal snowflake. Silver-white and so shiny they practically glowed.
I straightened and took in the whole of it. If I focused on its amazing beauty, I didn’t have to think about everything else that had happened here. Didn’t have to think about what Mzatal had become, and what we’d sacrificed.
I shook myself, blew out a gusty breath. Yep, the nexus was frickin’ incredible. Idris would shit himself when he saw it.
Speaking of Idris, where the hell was he? I looked around, frowning. Surely he and Pellini had felt Mzatal after he’d changed. Why hadn’t they come outside? Even Sammy was mysteriously absent, and no one was peeking out the kitchen window.
