“Are you still with me, miraculous boy?” his voice reached me again, as I managed to peer out at him more clearly, making out his towering muscular form, those glimmering blue fissures all over his exposed chest and face with his glamor still down.
He was gazing at me intently.
I was bound before him still, my boots rooted to the slimy magical substance that was tethering the white bands crisscrossing all over my body—except my head and face—and holding me in place, while also preventing me from being able to call my magic.
“Yeah,” I murmured. “Still listening… you said… a battery, right? That’s what you want from me… to be that?”
“That’s a rather demeaning way of putting it, and not something I will accept you terming yourself.”
I frowned. “You said you need my help to charge your… metaphysical construct.”
“You may refer to it asSanctus.And, yes, I require your assistance. However, that is very far from being the only reason I have sought you out.”
“Sanctus?” I mused.
“Correct,” he said, moving up close again and stroking my hair, my eyes fluttering closed for a moment as he imbued me with additional heat.
He smiled and told me earnestly, “I wish you not to merely function as an everlasting power source, but as a partner. As somebody who can finally find belonging in a realm of existence I have created precisely for those like us. Those of great power whose usage and abilities are considered heresy. Those who the world not only doesn’t understand, but also fears. And means to harm and incapacitate. For you and I, they even wish to eradicate us, Winter. In Sanctus, things do not operate that way. We are free and even encouraged to be what we are, to reach the full potential of that.”
He pressed his bare chest to mine and had me groaning as the skin-to-skin contact infused me with so much more… life. That warmth—whatever magic he was using to achieve it—that was how it felt. Bone deep. “How does that sound to you?” he rumbled at my ear, before then stepping back.
“I’m… not sure,” I murmured, awash in the tranquility haze.
With a spark of his magic, he was clad in his ornate gold coat again. He gestured with regret at me bound before him. “Know that it vexes me that I cannot remove you fromNihilumbraitself, Winter, only relieve the effects. Unfortunately, I must take precautions.”
My glazed eyes met his. “It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“I’m relieved to hear it.”
“Actually, it feels amazing.”
“It does, hmm?”
“Yeah. Vibrant. Sparkling. Warm.”
“That’s what I intended to gift you.”
“You did?”
“Indeed. To show you, to have you feel and experience it, so you could understand how things could actually be for you.”
“All the time?”
“Of course. I wield the power and the means to provide you this eternally. In fact, I spent many years specifically developing this gift for you.”
“Why?”
His eyes shone at me. “You truly have no idea how extraordinary you are, do you?”
“I… don’t know,” I mumbled, wanting to stay deep and sink into the incredible feeling all the way.
“With me, you will. In Sanctus, you will.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t?” he queried.
I thought I noticed a harsher tone. But I wasn’t sure. Not right now with how distracted I was.
