Chapter 73: Not the First (Her POV)
I didn't know where I was going. Away was enough. My heels cracked against Maximus's floor with every step. Too loud. Everything was too loud. The music. The laughter behind me. The skirt brushing my thighs. I wanted pants. Coffee. Silence. Preferably in that order.
I kept walking, chin high, spine straight. Past gods and demi-things who suddenly found somewhere else to look. Past conversations that dipped as I approached and resumed behind me. Past Ravina, lounging with her glass raised and that smile still fixed on her lips. I didn't look at her. Gods lived too long. That was the problem. Give anyone several thousand years and apparently they collected enough history to make every conversation complicated.
The portal opened. I stepped through. The Observatory greeted me with stars. Galaxies turned beyond the glass, slow and endless, while my heels followed me across the platform. Click. Click. Click.
Too much. I stopped and snapped my fingers. The glamour disappeared. Heels. Tiny skirt. White straps. Painted fire. Gone. Soft pants settled around my legs. A worn T-shirt replaced the gold, sneakers covered my feet, and my hair twisted itself into a messy bun. A steaming mug of coffee appeared in my hand. Better.
I walked to the edge of the glass and sat, legs crossed beneath me. For a while, I did nothing except drink my coffee and stare into space. I wasn't angry with Malvor. At least, I didn't think I was. He hadn't lied. He just hadn't told me. There was a difference. Probably.
I took another drink. I wasn't embarrassed. Certainly not ashamed. I didn't care that Ravina had known. I cared that everyone else seemed to know things about the man I loved that I didn't. Another piece of history dropped into my lap while everyone waited to see what I would do with it. I was tired. That, at least, I understood.
"I need a minute," I whispered. Nothing answered. Usually, I loved that about the Observatory. The stars didn't need anything from me. They simply existed, and for a while, I tried to do the same. My shoulders loosened. My jaw stopped aching. A galaxy shifted overhead. Another spiraled lazily beneath the glass. Starlight flickered across my skin. Somewhere beyond the Observatory, Arbor hummed. I closed my eyes. Still too much. Malvor's realm was never truly quiet. Chaos moved through everything here, subtle but constant. Usually, I found it beautiful. Comforting, even. It was him. Motion and possibility woven into every corner of his world. Tonight, I wanted it to stop moving. The thought brought a small ache with it. I loved Arbor. I loved its impossible stars and ridiculous rooms. I loved the god whose magic kept all of it dancing. But loving something didn't mean I had to need it every moment. I finished my coffee and sat until the warmth left the mug.
When I finally stood, red and white light bloomed overhead as if the stars were saying goodbye. A portal opened. I stepped toward it, then stopped. Malvor. I opened our bond just enough to let him feel me. My Chaos. His presence brushed mine immediately. I am fine. I am here. I didn't send everything else. I couldn't. I didn't even know what everything else was yet. But I knew what mattered. I love you. I need space, not distance. I am safe.
I let the words settle between us with all the warmth I could give them. Just something true for him to hold while I figured out the rest. I eased the bond closed.
I stepped through the portal. Aerion's realm waited on the other side. Aerion's realm was gone. As if a black hole had opened its jaws and swallowed everything whole. The sky was bruised gray. The ground under my boots cracked. The air still stank of vacuum-burned magic. Pieces floated in the wreckage. No birds. No voices. Nothing. I had wanted quiet. Apparently there were limits.
I walked. Dust clung to my sneakers. Bridges ended in air. Columns spiraled upward into clouds that swallowed them whole. I stepped over what might have been a shield once, now split. Something tugged at me. I turned before I knew why. There, between two leaning pillars, space folded strangely. I knew that scar. Oh.
I had been here before. The Room. Still standing. Of course it was. I stood just inside the doorway for longer than I meant to. I stepped farther in. The air was heavy and stale. The walls remembered. The pain here didn't scream. It just pulsed. I knew it wasn't just mine. I could feel the others. Their grief clung to the walls. I brushed my fingers along an emblem carved into the wall. An old sigil of valor, warped and cracked.
I moved to the center of the room, arms loosely crossed, coffee cooling in my hand. Annie had come into this room. I had walked out.
Once, I'd known every inch of this room from my back. Now I was standing in the middle of it with coffee in my hand. My body remembering before my mind did. My heart kicked hard. My lungs seized. My breath caught high and sharp in my chest. The room breathed, and I breathed with it. The scent rose next. Cold metal. Burned oil. Ozone thick enough to sting. My stomach dropped.
Ravina's voice. "You're so quiet when you're afraid. I wonder what else I can take." Fingers hovering beside my face while my lungs begged for air that wouldn't come. I clenched my jaw. My hand shook around the cooling coffee.
Root, Tairochi whispered in my memory. I pressed my palm to the wall. Cold. Solid. Present. Breathe. I tried.
The rasp of rope pulling tighter. The heat of Aerion's hands holding me down. The weight of him crushing me. His breath, too close, too hot, curling against my cheek. The sickening shift of the cot beneath me. The cold press of metal near my face. The low growl in his throat when I wouldn't break the way he wanted.
The moment his hand slid to my throat, not to hold. Not even to threaten. To decide.
My stomach twisted. My chest squeezed too tight to pull a full breath. "No," I whispered. "Not here. Not now." My fingers dug into the stone. Match the rhythm beneath you.
The floor vibrated faintly, the heartbeat of the earth itself. Steady. Patient. Waiting for me. I inhaled slowly. My lungs shook. But the air stayed. The tilt of Aerion's head. His eyes narrowing. Deciding. Navir moving fast. His hands at the ropes. His voice saying something I couldn't follow. Fingers brushing my ankle—
Heat. Aerion saw it. Navir glowing. His own rune burning beneath my skin.
Aerion looked at the rune then at me. Whatever hesitation had been in his face disappeared. His hand had closed around my throat fully then. The pressure had been absolute. Tightening. Tightening. Tightening...
My breath stuttered now in the present, my throat aching around the phantom. "No," I whispered again, eyes squeezed shut. "You don't get to live here."
I pressed harder into the stone. Root. Breathe. Present. Not past. My pulse slowed.
Too much light. The runes burning. Reality folding. Aerion gone. Navir gone. I didn't remember standing. Didn't remember the ropes coming loose. I remembered the note. Walking. Arbor.
I pulled away from the wall. My breath still shook. My throat still ached. But I was here. I looked around the room. "I walked out of this room. He didn't."
Where are you? The thought slipped loose before I could stop it. That was when it hit me. The scream. Aerion. I dropped the mug. It shattered on the floor, coffee spreading like blood. The scream didn't stop. It tore through me, through the stone, through the air itself. Until the wall in front of me cracked and split wide open.