“The night my mother was killed, your intersection point was compromised —”
“By nulls, not by essence-wielders,” my father says, interrupting my train of thought. “The shifters were clever, though even following on the nulls’ efforts, I still have no idea how they breached the castle.”
“Oso was Disa’s mate,” I say, my heart aching. “Even with a rejected soul bond, he holds enough of a tie to the intersection point that he can cross through the boundary. I thought it was just here, but then … I realized the connection between my mother’s death and my own first death.”
A myriad of emotions flicker over my father’s face, as if he can’t figure out how to even begin to react. His voice is cool, stilted, when he finally speaks. “Oso?”
“According to her journal, Disa was in the process of assuming the power of the Conduit and the guardianship of the intersection point when she found her soul-bound mates. Three of them. She believed they must have been called to her, because without the power fully settled, she needed help defending the intersection point. From you.”
“Not me,” Zhen snaps. “I wasn’t even born.”
I push on, needing to just get all my thoughts out, to see if I’m correct. To see if he can help me, even just a little. “Something happened in the defense of this intersection point … and it … cracked.”
“Cracked?” Zhen echoes doubtfully.
“There is a wound here … possibly in the fabric of our dimension.”
He frowns deeply.
“And … something came through … maybe it was just an influence, whispering in Oso’s ear. But then he picked up a knife and killed his brother, who was also bound to him by the universe. Disa rejected him, and I think that served to deepen the otherworldly connection. Then Oso killed my mother. He killed me. Disa did something to him in defense of me. Or maybe he came for the intersection point and I was in the way. Either way, he is no longer a man, no longer just a shifter once bound to the Conduit.”
Zhen is shaking his head, though in disbelief, not denial. I can’t really blame him. I’ve just shoved a shitload of half-formed thoughts at him.
“Oso?” he says again.
“The Cataclysm,” I say. Then I give him the clarification he really wants. “The Cataclysm can cross through the boundaries of a claimed intersection point. The Cataclysm has tried to take an intersection point for himself, at least twice, but maybe three times. The Cataclysm killed my mother, your soul-bound mate.”
Zhen slumps back in his chair, mind clearly whirling. “You think … you think the boundary to another dimension has been compromised. Enough for a creature to come through and inhabit a shifter?”
“A shifter tied to the Conduit.”
Zhen falls silent for long enough that it’s Rath who prompts me to continue.
“Another dimension? That’s … based on what exactly, Zaya? I know this isn’t all just supposition.”
“Based on the portal the Cataclysm threw me through, expecting I would just pop out the other side at his compound in the Federation,” I say, keeping my gaze on my father. “He was wrong.”
“You were trapped,” Zhen says, thinking out loud. “Because … you … you were cut off from all essence.”
I nod, pressing my hand over the amulet hanging around my neck. “The shard saved me. Or more specifically, harnessing the essence contained in the shard helped.”
“You believe in the theory of dimensional layers?” Rath says doubtfully. “Or … that the portal could have been connected through another world within our universe? Same dimension, but different planet?”
I shrug, shaking my head and honestly not really knowing the answer. “You believe that nine gods laid down their power and their lives to create a barrier around the earth,” I finally say. “That their essence, anchored in the intersection points, fuels that barrier and threads through us all.”
“You believe,” Rought adds quietly, “that another goddess still walks this earth, all that energy threading through her … all our fates, our life force, drawn from the universe and threaded through us all.”
“Nine soul-bound essence-wielders,” my father murmurs. “Even if you don’t subscribe to the gods theory …”
“And what does the boundary truly protect us from?” I ask, already certain I know the answer but needing my father to confirm it. “Seventy years, if I’ve got the timeline right. For seventy years, something has whispered in Oso’s ear. Something spoke of great power, maybe even infinite power, playing on natural jealousy. Until Oso commissioned a knife, somehow whetted it with Disa’s blood, and managed to murder his younger brother Ward with it. Maybe intending to kill his other brother, Ari, as well. Disa’s attempted rejection of the soul bond was another blow, no doubt, allowing the being speaking to Oso to gain a greater hold.”
I let those suppositions settle in everyone’s mind for a moment. Then I add, “But I believe it was whatever followed my first death that allowed the being to take over Oso completely. It refers to itself as a god. It wants me at its side, under its control, so it can rule the earth of this dimension. My proof, other than the words from its own mouth, is Oso couldn’t have any more children after he killed me. Disa did something, maybe finally tried to kill him. And when that didn’t work, she stripped my soul bonds from me. Maybe thinking that my ties to Oso’s sons were what allowed him continued access to the intersection point.”
“She what?” my father barks, irate.
“She was wrong,” I whisper, taking Rought’s hand so I’m holding both of my chosen and soul-bound mates, and aware of the beast just on the other side of the windows no doubt listening to our every word. “She forgot, or maybe never knew the details of my mother’s death. That Oso crossed onto the intersection point you held.”
“I had held it for only six months,” my father says, suddenly weary and looking older for it. “We thought … Merrick brought you to me, and we planned to tell Disa, definitively, that we were together. Soul bound.”
