You cannot have him, she thought again, and flung both hands out like playing dodgeball back in high school.In those days they’d played with basketballs, and the teachers turned a blind eye so long as the kids didn’t smack each other in the facetoooften.
Teenage Liv was certain they were trying to teach how to get away with cruelty; adult Liv, if she thought about it at all, pretty much assumed it was to prepare kids for an uncaring world.
Now, Liv realized that in all those years, she’d never missed a single throw.
This time she didn’t, either.The thing with its spear went flying, trailing a long scarf of thin black blood hanging in the air as it was torn into pieces like it had swallowed one hell of a lit firecracker.
Liv tumbled off the altar and landed in a clattering, fly-buzzing pile of bones at its foot.A giant retch wrung at her middle—the rotting smell was even worse, if that were possible—and made it to hands and knees, then halfway upright just in time to catch Erik as he collapsed.
Or she tried to.He crashed into her, not even trying to soften the fall, and that was a very bad sign.A bubble of bright red burst on his dry, chapped lips; they rolled down the stairs in a confusion of arms, legs, and whatever rancid dried guck was smear-crusted on edges biting Liv’s bruised arms and shaking legs.
When they reached the bottom she squirmed frantically, untangling herself as death and combat bayed all around them, finally getting her arm under his big, broad, dumb shoulders.
“Don’t leave,” she whispered.“Don’tleave, Erik.Hold on.Oh please God, hold on.”
She wasn’t even aware of speaking, and the explosion of force had drained her.A trickle of warm power was returning, but slowly.The bottom of her barrel was well and truly scraped, as Mika would say.
Still, Erik curled into her with a heavy, weary sigh.Liv cradled the muscle-heavy, deadweight bulk of the only sanity she had left in all this cluttered rot and chaos; she kept willing, hoping, pleading for him tohold on, hold on, hold on.
Really Something Else
It fucking hurt,all over.Even the slight movement of respiration ached unmercifully despite the softness wrapped around him, pulses of warmth at regular intervals stealing into the black void he had become, sinking a little deeper each time despite his fretful, motionless turning-away.
I’ve done enough.Let me rest.
Unfortunately, life seemed to have some sort of hold on his corpse.And that meant the Mad God did, too.Even in the floating darkness, the faintest echo of whispers rose.Temporarily muted by defeat and a Son’s physical weakness—tiny wisps of thought, nothing more.
Or maybe he was simply second-guessing himself, mistrusting his own mind.He’d often wondered if the god rested between neurons, waiting to hijack the spark of a thought.Or ifhewas somewhere in electricity itself, riding the most intimate of tiny lightnings.
Of course, Father said…
Ignatius.Soupy, half-conscious alarm flowered next to the spiked pain in his chest.He was aware of movement, cloth shifting.
“Easy,” someone said.“Easy, brother.All’s well, battle’s over.”
Except it never was.Not while a Son was breathing, and the sough of air into his abused lungs was cold, knifing tender tissues.
“He’s breathing on his own now, at least.”Another voice, male as the first but essentially different somehow, the Flame’s warmth threading through.The pulse of the earth didn’t make Dreamers anew, it simply uncovered what was there from the beginning, burnishing hidden beauty.“A determined fellow.”
That was why the uncontrolled Flame turned Sons into barbecued hulks past even alirai’s miraculous abilities to heal, even with the obedience of a Son’s flesh to the Dreamers.The glow simply showed what lay under a Son’s mask of humanity.
The fury, the twisting, and the corruption.
“I don’t think lack of determination has ever been this man’s problem.”Dry and cool, a Father’s voice.“We’ll wait outside.Call if he starts to thrash.”
No.Ignatius, something about him…
Erik was all but useless.He’d fucked up every way possible, from the verybeginning, and now they wouldn’t let him close enough to?—
The reminder hit him squarely, flooding every twitching muscle with urgency.He thrashed, his left fist hitting something solid before he was trapped, intangible bindings folding into place.
“Erik.”Calm, sure, and certain, alirai’s command in a familiar, sweet, husky voice.“Calm down.”
It washer.
Consciousness flooded him as he went paradoxically limp.Was it relief or blood, the copper against his tongue?Maybe both, and it would hurt twice as much when they told him he was being posted elsewhere.A Father would shake his head, a Younger would simply look solemn—don’t make a scene, brother.Spare her that, at least.
“Liv…” A cracked, choked moan.
