Her mind drifted very quickly to Fourth Earth and to the vampire she had left behind.How strange to think that just a little while ago, she had been living in a palace in Denver Four, caring for Casimir and his children, enjoying Beatrice’s friendship, and now she was here.
She had left the clouds and had fallen hard to earth.
That her fate seemed inextricably bound to Leto’s was clear.She knew his history, that he’d lost a mother to death vampires when he was very little.His soul had been closed off even longer than her own.But on some deep level, before these truths had been shared between them, she had known him and he had known her.
But what did this portend for her?Or, more accurately, what was she willing to do about it?
She was tired of not breathing deeply, so she pushed at Leto, giving him a hint.
“Hey,” she said softly and pushed again, taking care not to disturb the feathers.A vampire’s wings were strong but they were also in many ways fragile; even pulling on an individual feather too hard would cause pain.
But after a few more nudges, the last two quite firm, she realized he wasn’t just asleep, he was unconscious.
She was about to remedy the situation, but something within her vibrated softly, like a chime deep within her soul, as though something must be understood and known in this very moment, before she took one more step into the future.
She grew very still, her face smashed into the mattress, Leto’s body heavy and warm on top of her.
She searched through her mind and followed the sound of the soft chime, flowing down and down through a veil of dark clouds until her mind pulsed with blue light.She remained in that unearthly glow.
She had never been in this place before, but the color told her she was very close to her obsidian power, her blue flame power.Using her instincts, she wrapped herself in that power.As she focused, Leto’s soul was simply there.She understood then that in some mysterious way, her power was related to her ability to read the souls of others, even to search them, something she had been able to do since she was very young.
This time, however, Leto’s soul seemed sharper and clearer than ever before.
She sank deep into both his character and his past.She saw the battles he had waged, the thousands of conversations he’d had with Commander Greaves, his arguments with Greaves’s generals.Then before his abdication of his Warrior of the Blood status, she saw his close connection to all his warrior brothers, especially to Thorne, and how Leto had once served as Thorne’s mentor.She saw the women Leto had loved over the past century and beyond that, over the full course of his three thousand years.She saw him as a child, back and back until she was able to see what had prompted him to become a warrior.He had always wanted to be the very best warrior in his tribe.From a young age, he had prided himself on being the best.How much it must have hurt him to have been a spy.She moved forward swiftly in time until he was once more serving as a spy on behalf of the Sixth ascender James.She saw how James had explained how critical it was that Sixth Earth get extensive information on Greaves, something only a spy could deliver, and in the ensuing years just how much Leto had suffered as he performed his traitor’s role.
She saw the arena battle in which Leto had been required to fight Alison, each bearing a sword.She felt how much the performance of this duty wounded the depths of his soul, how much he had hated setting his centuries of experience against an untried woman, even how hard he had fought.Then his surprise when her vast powers had emerged and Alison had defeated him using a pocket of time reversal.However, in this moment, Grace saw something more.She realized that Leto had a connection to Alison, a purpose to fulfill with her in the coming days, though Grace couldn’t discern what that purpose was.
She knew that Alison was destined to open the Trough or portal to Third Earth, an unfathomable feat.This much Grace knew from conversations with Thorne over the past year and a half.No one knew the timing, only that when it happened, Second Earth would be changed forever.But what did it mean that Leto had this kind of connection to Alison?
She moved forward once more until she was now in the absolute present with Leto, still in his bizarre beast-form, crushing the air from her lungs, his weight growing heavier and heavier.
She was still locked into her blue flame power and was still rummaging around within Leto’s soul.She saw the nobility of his character—that his loyalty, until the moment he’d become a spy, had defined him.Breaking that loyalty had caused a cancerous growth in his heart.He no longer felt worthy of life, of what was good in life.He especially didn’t feel worthy of her.She also had the sense that the change he underwent with increasing frequency was permanent.
As she released Leto’s soul, she returned to her reality and Leto’s beautiful weight on her.She hated this war and what it did to fine, worthy ascenders, how Thorne had lived in pain for centuries, increasing when her twin sister, Patience, was taken; how a decent man like Leto had been turned into something almost unrecognizable.
Now she had returned to participate in the war in a way she had never imagined doing before.She was obsidian flame and had an opportunity to change the future.
Struggling to take her next breath, she knew the time had come to leave this dark place beneath the earth, to get some distance from Leto and chart the course she had set for herself.
Leto, you’re very heavy.Can you move, please?
She gave him another push back with her shoulders and when he still didn’t budge or respond to her telepathy, she simply folded from underneath him, hoping that his wings would lie flat afterward.
She materialized beside the mattress.The soft light blue linen sheets hung over the sides and spread out like a lake on the dark gray stone of the floor.
She gasped.She had never seen Leto’s wings so close before.She took a step forward, careful not to step on either the mesh superstructure that held the feathers in place or the feathers themselves.She had forgotten how beautiful Leto’s wings were; upper and lower wings essentially created four panels.The feathers were a deep blue like sapphires.
He was so beautiful, even in his beast-form.She felt an almost overwhelming need to stretch out beside him and offer him what comfort she could.
Right now, however, what she needed was time to think about what coming back to Mortal Earth would mean for her in the coming days.She thought the thought, and folded to the bottom floor of Leto’s cabin.A quick search through his home brought her to his expansive bathroom on the second floor and the sight of what she wanted now more than anything.A shower.
***
Endelle wasn’t alone in her office, but she might as well have been; at least that’s the way she felt.Thorne stood across the room by the east-facing windows, his back to her, talking quietly into his phone to his woman, hisbreh,Marguerite.Every once in a while, he’d laugh.Despite the passage of five months when Thorne had bonded with Marguerite, Endelle still had a rock in her chest that she couldn’t seem to get rid of.The rock was Thorne-shaped.He had a new life now with hisbrehand as the Supreme High Commander of the Allied Ascender Forces, but that didn’t change how much she missed him.
Thorne had been her right hand all these centuries, but he’d split from her and now lived his own life.She understood and respected that he had a new role to play.She just hadn’t realized how much she had relied on him or how important he’d been to her.
She’d get over it, of course.But today was one of those days.She had a nasty gut feeling about the war, that something bad was on the wind.In former times, she’d have had a sit-down with Thorne; they’d talk it over, then strategize.
