Page 213 of Psycho Gods

I ripped my gaze away from Aran and forced my feet to walk toward the door. If I let myself get closer to her, then I’d never leave. I’d curl myself around her like a cat and breathe in her wintry scent. I’d close my eyes and pretend everything was fine as I clung to her like an addict with his fix.

Sunlight reflected across the small room in streaks of unnatural gray.

I made a harsh gesture toward the door, and John sighed loudly, the noise desperate and broken. He tangled a blue curl around his finger and gave it a soft kiss. He released her slowly.

Incorporeal clouds of regret and unease hung around us as together we slipped out of the warm, enchanted room, and into the snowy forest.

The air was freezing.

I barely noticed.

I was too busy drowning in cool tones. The world was shades of bland. The once vibrant green needles of the conifers was now a sickly gray, and what was once a rich brown bark was now a sullen, bleached white.

Even the snowflakes were muted.

They no longer glinted as they fell and reflected sparkles from the sky in prisms of colors. They swallowed the sunlight.

Consumed it.

John stared at me with intensity. His dark-brown eyes now appeared black. He asked, “Are you sure about this?”

“I’m not sure of anything anymore,” I said honestly, and John grimaced in agreement.

He gave me a curt nod, and I didn’t wait for him to change his mind.

I released the darkness I always held in check.

Gray snowflakes disappeared into the void and the forest grew quieter as if it sensed the disturbance.

Shimmering black expanded before me as I let my power flow. The dark coalesced into something wider.

Taller.

The fabric of reality trembled, as it always did when it was introduced to a new form of matter. Our power wasn’t solid, gaseous, or liquid, and it didn’t buzz like enchanted technology.

It was silent.

The absence of matter within the presence of a realm’s force.

I tipped my head back and let it flow. It was like taking a deep breath after drowning. Using my mind’s eye, I shaped the darkness into a floating rectangle that was about the dimensions of a door.

It hovered over the steaming ground in front of us, glittering and black. It was a state of high energy.

Cold air filled my lungs, and snowflakes gathered on my lashes, reminding me of the woman we were leaving behind.

We had to do this.

For her.

For all of us.

“Let’s go,” I said. “Hopefully we can get answers before anyone realizes we’re gone.”

John dragged his hands over his eyes tiredly as he half stumbled, half threw himself into the darkness.

He disappeared.

Branches scraped together, as the storm picked up. My hair whipped around my head as frost burned my cheeks.