“Why would he leave?” Twister stood there, his hands looking like they needed to do something.
Fly folded down to his knees. “Mei,” Fly said, his voice crushed.
Suddenly, a wave rolled over them. It held love, and confession, and stark, beautiful truth.
Thera stiffened, raising her chin. Then in a blink, she was gone.
* * *
Thera tracedthe pattern of the wave right to him. He was floating, now part of the Veil, and therefore easily tracked by her.I knew you were special. You gave the Veil back something it cherishes, and asked for nothing in return, not even your life.
She meant everything, so it wasn’t a sacrifice.
She smiled.That’s what you think. You gave your life for Fly’s the moment you blocked Null’s strike. For Mei, you gave your life for her closure and for your truth. Both sacrifices were given without any price.
He looked at her even as he faded even more.Your story has just begun, Than.She touched his forehead, taking away any memory of this place or this meeting with Mei. His journey in the land of the living depended on his pain and grief. He deserved to move through it, to take the crucial lessons he would learn, and become the man he needed to be for that future. She slipped him into the space she reserved for extraordinary souls.
She reached out.Lechuza, you must retrieve North’s body and bring it to the entrance to the Veil now. I’m coming. Use the Scar and the Corridor. He must be there when I exit.
She turned to the entrance, and as she ran, she held him tight to her, the Veil feeding her grip, giving back to what he had so freely given.
It whispered to her.Do you know what you are giving?
She whispered back.Yes.She thought about Chaos, about the infinite possibilities he wove, and she took that leap of faith.Everything changes.Then she saw the opening and, with a burst of speed, leapt for the bright world beyond. Reality.
Thera sailed through, and her body solidified, muscles wrapping bone, veins and heart pumping blood, flesh encasing it all. She arrived at the font where the team had gathered, and lying at its base was North. She knelt, shaking in a body that was new, and pressed both palms flat to his chest, and with the new breath in her lungs, she pulled him from that holding space and shoved him back into his body.
Then she collapsed.
* * *
Fly stood lookingat North from across the room, the space between them filled with the low hum of conversation. He hadn't pressed North for details from their ordeal in the Veil, hadn't wanted to add to the weight he already carried. He had only thanked him for saving his life, but that seemed to be the only part North could remember. After that, it was a blank wall, a void where a life-altering experience should have been. The sight of his brother, whole and present, yet missing a piece of himself, was a constant, dull ache in Fly's chest.
Thera seemed to materialize next to him, her presence as silent and natural as a shift in the light. "He doesn't remember anything," she said, her voice a soft echo in the warm air. "It won't come back in time. It's lost to him."
Fly's gaze remained fixed on North, a muscle tightening in his jaw. "What happened with Mei?" he asked, the name barely a whisper, heavy with years of guilt.
"Gone," Thera stated simply, her expressive eyes full of a sorrow that transcended time. "He gave her what he could at the risk of his own life. She's a lost soul right now, adrift."
Fly turned to look at her. "When I felt her, through him... I reached out."
He had seen Thera in the Veil, light and thread and the suggestion of a woman. The flesh-and-blood version standing in the library was harder to look away from, and harder to make sense of.
She possessed the kind of beauty that simply commanded attention. Her face was all soft strength, sculpted cheekbones balancing a mouth that seemed perpetually on the edge of revealing a secret. Olive-toned skin glowed with the warmth of sunlit stone, lending her an eternal quality that made guessing her age impossible.
Thick brows framed almond-shaped eyes that defied a single description. Sometimes they were rich earth after rain, warm brown threaded with honey. When she moved, they shifted to a green like leaves below clear water. They never seemed to settle on one shade, as if every answer held another possibility waiting beneath it. Their steady gaze unnervingly direct, as though she saw through pretense before a word was spoken. There was intelligence there, but also patience, a woman accustomed to waiting centuries if necessary.
Her hair was a tapestry of dark chestnut and honeyed bronze, falling in long waves woven with delicate braids and slender coils that caught the light like spun gold. Fine metal bands and understated ornaments threaded through the braids gave the impression they belonged there rather than serving as decoration, as though they were part of an older tradition.
Loose tendrils escaped to frame her face, softening features that might otherwise have seemed regal enough to intimidate. She moved with quiet confidence, every motion fluid and deliberate, the effortless grace of someone who had never once questioned her place in the world.
There was something ancient and enduring about her. The kind of presence that made a room instinctively grow quieter, as if the air itself recognized her before anyone else did.
She caught him doing the math and smiled, faint, like she'd watched smarter men than him try and give up. "You asked her for her forgiveness, didn't you?" Thera's tone was knowing.
Fly bit his lip, the coppery taste of blood a small, sharp anchor in the sea of his emotions. "Yes. She gave it to me, and I thought I would feel better, but I don't." The confession felt like tearing open a wound he thought had finally scarred over. The forgiveness, which he had craved for so long, felt hollow, a ghost of a relief that refused to materialize.
Thera nodded, a gesture of profound understanding. "That is the way of things that were lost. Sometimes even I can't get them back."
