I was glad we’d done so too – taken it so slow – because she cried out uncontrollably when I first began supporting her weight, only to bite her gray lip hard to stifle the reaction. And apparently, it was loud enough to draw attention.
Once I was finally upright, and began slowly carrying her down the hall, wanting to avoid as much movement as possible, another woman came rushing in at a much quicker pace than many of the others had moved, heading me off in the sanctuary.
“Ruth?!” she said in alarm, staring at me with borderline panic.
“I’m okay, Martha. Tell Ezra I’ll be back soon,” she quickly replied.
The woman could only nod in response, still wary, but helpless to do anything even if it was needed.
Moving past her and heading outside, I spread my wings out and began gradually lifting us into the air, again to minimize excessive movements.
“Now,” I said, looking down to meet her gold gaze, as the world around us began to distort.
She at first focused on me, waiting on my words, before urgently noticing our surroundings bend to my will.
“Time to show you something you’ve never seen before.”
And just like that, the world around us turned black for barely a second, only to immediately turn bright blue as we appeared in the sky above a lush green forest.
Ruth’s gold eyes were as wide as saucers as she looked around urgently, completely baffled. “This…” Her voice trailed off. “This isn’t possible.” Her expression then became agonized, truly tormented, as if I’d just betrayed her in the worst way imaginable. “This is a trick. You’re messing with my mind.”
My own eyes widened, before I sighed, shaking my head as I lowered us through the canopy of trees. “How about I get you some blood, and then you can decide if it’s truly a trick.”
“What will that prove?!” she replied with defeat as I settled on the forest floor. “A mind powerful enough to create this realistic of an illusion, can also recreate other sensations.”
I sighed again, knowing she was right, having experienced something similar from Ragnarok when my mind was still transforming. Still vulnerable to those kinds of attacks.
“And you’re not powerful enough to see through such a thing?” I wondered, keeping her in my arms for the moment.
“I could be! But not if the blood is an illusion!” she snapped, before immediately becoming apologetic again to an extreme I’d yet to see. Her sudden subservience went far beyond humility as tears appeared in her black and gold eyes. “Please forgive me, my lord. Whatever I’ve done to provoke this, whatever you’ve agreed with Jericho – whether you have or haven’t – please spare me this torment. Please don’t put me through such a nightmare. This is far worse than reality.”
Realizing words weren’t going to convince her, I slowly began lowering her to the forest floor, already knowing exactly where I could find a large supply of relatively easy-to-access blood bags.
“Be right back,” I said simply, disappearing into thin air.
When I returned barely a full minute later, Ruth was openly sobbing on her side, a handful of dirt held right up to her nose, though almost no tears actually escaped her eyes as she breathed in the fresh earth.
I set the crate full of blood bags down and grabbed one to hold up to her lips. Of course, she was completely confused to receive blood in this form, and also hesitated due to her disbelief that any of this was real.
However, the moment the crimson fluid touched her lips, she urgently grasped both the bag and my hand like a cobra striking, sucking it out as fast as possible. And then, once she was mostly finished, I freed my fingers to grab her another one, with her sensibility having vanished as her mind became hyper-focused on her hunger, and nothing else.
For her, in this very moment, it didn’t matter if it was real or not. Nothing mattered, except consuming these blood bags, one after another as fast as she could down them.
Much to my surprise, she almost got through the whole crate before she began slowing down, her intense gaze softening. She then unexpectedly jerked her head away halfway through one bag, as if finally regaining control of herself, shocking me even more as she began crying violently.
“What’s wrong?” I asked urgently.
She just shook her head, her body wracked with sobs. “How are you doing this?” she cried. “How are you taking away the pain? How can you make this blood taste so real? How?”
I took a deep breath, having no idea how I could convince her this was real. Maybe if I had just made the trip the normal way, then we wouldn’t be having this problem, though I also didn’t want to waste an hour traveling through space.
“What will it take for you to believe me?” I demanded, my tone a little annoyed.
“Pull me into your head,” she retorted, sounding grieved, her eyes hidden. “Drop all your barriers and show me this is real,” she sobbed.
My eyes narrowed. “I assumed you couldn’t communicate telepathically in this state,” I replied, knowing the healing in her body would take some time. I also didn’t want to suggest that she had said that herself, when she hadn’t in this particular time loop.
“I can’t reach out right now,” she explained in between sobs. “But you can pull me in. Show me this is real, or else drop the illusion. I can’t take this. I fear I won’t be able to handle reality after feeling this.”
I didn’t really want her to know the whole truth, especially about the world ending soon, but I figured I could keep from sharing that information. So, tentatively, I did as she asked, reaching out with my consciousness and tugging her into my head.
At this point, after what had happened with Jericho, I wasn’t even surprised that I pulled her in much further than what was normally possible for others. Nor was I surprised that the unexpected intimacy only made her crying worse – that realizing this was truly real, and that I wasn’t hiding anything, made her crying worse.
However, what I was shocked to discover was the fact that she had a secret.
A really big secret, at least in my perception.
I already assumed she was of Ragnarok’s lineage, and previously I hadn’t cared, since I could have easily been a part of his lineage too, if I had been bitten by someone like Ruth or Reuben. Because the resulting demonic features had little to do with a human’s race.
But what I was shocked to see in her head was that she wasn’t just a random member of his kin.
Ruth was one of his daughters, bitten by one of his previous partners, and not just any daughter. She had been his strongest daughter – his strongest family member – and thus his strongest General.
And far worse, especially since relationships weren’t genetic and instead purely based on the order in which they were bitten, Ragnarok tried to make her his wife, even though she had already bonded with another man.
Because, unlike Enkidu, whose partner was also powerful enough to be a Ruler, or Gilgamesh, who ended up with a son and daughter as Rulers, Ragnarok had never produced a Ryujin who even came close to the power of the other Rulers – not even after several thousand years.
None of his kin had barely a fraction of that level of capacity, with even his original partner falling far behind. And to a man who was powerful and craved power – to someone who valued others in his lineage based on their power – that fact was a blow to his pride and ego.
So he set his sights on Ruth soon after she came into their world, grooming her from the beginning, being very patient at first for over a millennium. Even when she bonded with another, he continued the pursuit, not perceiving the other weak man as an obstacle.
But when she firmly rejected his will, he finally retaliated the moment an opportunity arose.
Because, while what she’d done in biting Ezra was illegal for the general public, she normally could have gotten away with such an act, were it not for the fact that Ragnarok had tried to use it as leverage to lay down his final ultimatum to make her his wife.
And w
ere it not for the fact that she rejected his will, partially as an act of faithfulness to a man who ended up leaving her – without hesitation – when she was condemned, then she and her infant son wouldn’t have suffered for the last fifteen-hundred years, which was almost two-thousand five-hundred Cycles.
There was also a small part of her that feared further retaliation, if the bastard ever became aware that someone had freed her from her condemnation – a very real fear, which was why no one else would have considered helping her out, even if they knew. But I had a plan for that, thanks to an observation I’d made in passing after syncing with Jericho.
This connection I was capable of forming with others, it wasn’t just some random capacity to become mentally close with multiple people.
It was more than that.
After Jericho synced with me, she noticed that she couldn’t sense the same number of Ryujin anymore, back on Venus – a perceptible difference considering that Enkidu and Lilith’s lineage made up nearly half of the population.
But now I was beginning to suspect something else was going on.
Something much different.
Jericho wasn’t able to detect the same number of Ryujin, because she was no longer detecting those of Enkidu’s lineage.
And likewise, unobserved by Ruth, those she was beginning to sense back home weren’t the same people she had once sensed over a millennium ago.
They were of Gilgamesh’s lineage.
Or, more accurately stated, Ruth was now a part of my lineage.
Chapter 26: Culmination
In hindsight, I realized I probably should have been worried about Ragnarok noticing someone in his lineage instantly appearing in the human world. After all, while he was on the other side of the planet where it was still nighttime, probably still arguing with Gilgamesh and Enkidu after my disappearance, he wouldn’t have been able to avoid perceiving such an unprecedented event.
However, it seemed that, just like how Miriam tried to close off her mind from everyone to ‘hide herself,’ likewise Ruth’s weakness had a similar effect. Prior to her body healing itself, she was virtually invisible to anyone further than a few miles away, no matter whose lineage they originated from.
I only thought about this well after the fact though, once I had retrieved Ezra and brought him back to the human world as well.
The unexpected realization that Ragnarok could show up at any moment made me anxious, but when I asked Seth how many Ryujin he could sense on the planet from our current location, he answered with three.
Which was the same three I could detect, including Gilgamesh, Gabriel, and…well, Miriam.
Alternatively, Ragnarok had brought with him many of his Generals, with something like twenty individuals who should be detectable to them both, which only further confirmed my theory.
And I’d barely interacted with Ezra telepathically, instead only his mother, which also had interesting implications.
However, even though Ragnarok hadn’t sensed either of them, I knew Miriam, Gabriel, and Gilgamesh might have noticed, so I didn’t want to hang around long enough for any of them to show up either. In Miriam’s search for me, she especially might decide to travel this way even though it would have meant I had vanished from her sight only to reappear a while later on the other side of the planet.
The truth, of course, was much more extreme than that, but I knew she wouldn’t initially think it a possibility, given what should have been my current physical state of only being partially transformed.
Thus, only about half an hour after Ezra had consumed as much blood as he could, I took them both back to Sekajin to finish recovering. Despite their injuries, they both really only needed blood, with Ezra not becoming ravenous like I suggested, their skin beginning to appear hydrated again as their bodies healed.
Unsurprisingly, Ruth was actually breathtakingly beautiful, as virtually all the Ryujin were, her black hair glossy and her medium gray skin now looking smooth. Though I only noticed it in passing as just a confirmation of my initial assumption.
For Ezra it had been the first time he tasted blood, causing him to begin crying in response to the relief it created in his body, which likewise prompted his youthful-looking mother to cry when seeing him so overwhelmed.
Now in the middle of an empty plain in a random location on Venus, the two of them held each other for at least another half hour while they openly expressed their emotions. It wasn’t until I suggested we had someplace to be that Ruth collected herself.
Without explaining further, I took to the sky, making sure she could follow with Ezra on her back before heading towards my own home – a place I knew was made specifically for me, but also a place I would never get to enjoy. I felt like I knew enough about Miriam’s personality to know she wouldn’t be thrilled, but also wouldn’t be upset about it, especially given the circumstances.
Ruth caught up quickly, commenting on her capabilities. “I haven’t flown in so long. It’s like having the ability to move after being fully paralyzed. I never thought I’d be able to experience this ever again. Most of us take it for granted.”
I could understand that, since I’d been incapable of flight much longer than I’d been capable, but I had no intention to share that with her.
“Are you fully recovered?” I replied evenly, without looking, my thoughts elsewhere now, contemplating both the joy and pain of reuniting with Miriam.
Ruth didn’t respond right away, seeming hesitant by my tone. “Yes, I believe so.”
“Good, because I have someplace to be after I’ve dropped you off.”
I could hear the wariness reappear in her voice.
“Drop us off?” she repeated slowly, the confusion partially coming from that phrasing not being something used in their language.
I nodded. “I know you want to avoid your father, so–”
“He is not my father,” she snapped. “He is nothing to me.” She was then apologetic in response to her own outburst. “Please forgive me, my lord.”
“No need. Call him whatever you want. I am fully aware of the insect he is,” I said, using the derogatory term in their language. “A plague on the Ryujin race. So I’m taking you someplace where you can live in peace, if you so desire. At the very least, I expect you to stay there for three Gradus.” I paused, reminded again of the end being so near. “You shouldn’t be bothered by anyone while you’re there.”
When she didn’t respond, I finally glanced at her, seeing her staring at me in bewilderment. Her son riding on her back, was the complete opposite, a large grin on his midnight face as he saw the world with his black and gold eyes from high above for the first time.
“Just who are you?” she asked in disbelief.
“Does it matter?” I wondered.
“Yes, it matters. No one calls a Ruler an insect so casually. Especially not an Original. And while I will do whatever you ask of me, I can’t subject my son to a war.”
“I have no intention on starting a war,” I replied, still focused on her gold gaze. “However, I also do not fear him.”
“Well, you should, my lord. Because even as strong as you are, he’s stronger.”
“He is stronger,” I agreed, finally looking away. “And he can do certain things I can’t. But there are also things I can do that he can’t. And my unique abilities, which you’ve seen for yourself, are superior to his. My warping can also be used as a weapon, severing limbs with ease. So no, I do not fear him.”
She was quiet after that, the silence lingering until just before we crested the mountains surrounding the castle Miriam built for the two of us.
“And you give me your word you aren’t going to start a feud with him?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “In fact, I intend to avoid him as much as possible. I only wanted you to know that it wasn’t out of fear that I do so.” I nodded in the direction of the castle coming into sight. “Now, let me welcome you to my home.”
The castle Miriam had built truly wa
s impressive, enough so that Ruth was baffled even despite having seen plenty of high-level architecture throughout her many years.
“Pretty,” Ezra commented, focused on the lava waterfall and gurgling fountain in the near distance.
“You built this place?” Ruth asked in shock as we aimed for the western courtyard.
I waited until we landed, the monstrous walls high above us on all sides in the wide open space, before answering her question.
“No, my beloved did,” I replied honestly, watching Ezra get down and begin walking around eagerly.
Ruth’s gold eyes were suddenly sharp. “Your partner?” she rephrased. “Did something happen to her? When we were nearly synced earlier, I saw that you didn’t have a connection with anyone else.”
I hesitated, wondering how much I should explain. I didn’t really want to admit I wasn’t connected to Miriam right now, but thankfully I knew Ruth wouldn’t know it even if I was, especially since Miriam herself hadn’t initially known of my link with Jericho.
“You’ve seen that I can do things others can’t?” I said, to begin with. I then continued after she nodded slowly. “Well, my mind works a little differently than most. I am connected to my partner, but that doesn’t prevent me from being able to share a close connection with others.”
Ruth’s eyes widened, her speech tentative. “And…she’s aware…that we nearly synced?”
“I only allowed you in my head to show you that this was real – obviously that requires a certain level of intimacy.”
“B-But…” Her voice trailed off.
“But what?” I asked simply.
“Please forgive me, my lord. But pulling me in that far wasn’t necessary to show me this was real.”
I shrugged, deciding not to comment on it. Not being fully aware of what the norm was, meant I didn’t know how far was too far. It was like going to a new culture were kissing was a greeting, but seeing a woman’s ankles was adulterous.
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