Page 44 of Twisted Bonds
“Let’s take it piece by piece.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “We’re fugitives with our pictures plastered everywhere. Yurghen is alive. Presumably he wants revenge for you know… killing him and thwarting his research efforts. And I’m stuck underground in some mountainside stone palace that’s run by someone with a supervillain fetish.”
“But you’re okay, and that’s something to be thankful for. And you’ve found the last Shard.”
I try to lean into his embrace. Try to let his words resonate.
Because if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t think everything is going to be okay.
In fact, I feel the exact opposite.
Behind us, Sunder’s eyes pop open. “Here, this one seems wrong,” he says, reaching for one confetto. I meet his eye, and I can see the warring impulses clear on his face. He wants to jump up and hug me, but he’s determined to see this quest through.
His hand, wrapped in a golden glove of Bobble’s Chroma, grabs one from midair and his face is instantly coated in a veneer of disgust. We race to his side, kneeling before him. I bite my lip, trying to hold back the flurry of questions bubbling on the tip of my tongue. Don’t distract.
“It feels…. Wrong. Oily. It’s him. I know-”
Sunder grunts with exertion, beads of sweat dripping down the side of his face. He releases a roar from his chest, the raw emotion sending me back with surprise. But while I’m repelled, Bobble is thrust forward, grabbing Sunder by the shoulders. “You can do it. Focus. Feel the feelings, First.”
Sunder growls a slew of curses as I watch the tender concern on Bobble’s face.
The piece of confetto slips through his fingers, flying up into the flurry, and my breath catches. Sunder pants. “So much guilt. Anger. Shame. I couldn’t…hold on anymore. I’m sorry.”
I grab him into my arms, and he slowly wraps around me. “It’s ok. You did great.”
“I could see through his eyes. That’s never happened before. I knew it was him. It felt like him. Like us. And then I slipped in and out of his mind.”
The dream wavers and darkness collapses around us. The last thing I hear is Sunder’s growl. “We’re coming for you, Mira.”
twenty
Dan’thiel
Correspondence lay discarded across the old wooden table that has become my desk. Earmarked books are stacked across the floor while others lay open with long, cracked spines. This once simple room has grown into chaos over the last months as the Vessel and Shards collide. My simple room in this Otherworld castle, a place that’s neither here nor there, looks more like a war room these days.
“This doesn’t just affect me anymore, Rynlin. We must tell the other Guardians what Yurghen is planning before it’s too late.”
My mentor watches the flames in the hearth over my shoulder, staring at the same point in spacetime as me. A remote tower in Illuemera.
“Prince Dan’thiel, this is none of our concern. I’ve told you again and again, we do not meddle in the affairs of the real world. It is frowned upon to even watch.”
The same warning, again and again. My hands pull at my cheeks, trying to give myself a moment to gather my patience.
“And what if he succeeds?”
The question is poised like a knife, quiet and sharp.
Yurghen could single-handedly destroy the future of all the mortal races.
The lanky being of the Otherworld blows out a puff of hot air. “Then so be it. The other Guardians will give you the same answer, Prince. I’m sorry.”
How can he say that? How can they not care? I round on him, trying not to let the hurt show on my face.
“You’d let Yurghen rip open the Great River of Souls? You’d let all those souls waiting for rebirth slip through the cracks and be devoured by the Underworld. If there are no mortals left, then what will the Otherworld and your Guardians even exist for? You’re supposed to guard the space between realms, but what will you guard when all is lost because of your inaction?”
He gives me a suffering look that I’m far too used to.
“Prince, there are far more creatures in this universe than those in Illuemera.”