Reckoner Redeemed

by Doranna Durgin

  “I meant to kill you,” Anjhela said, so harshly that only a hint of her silken voice remained. Trevarr made a sound through a shuddering gasp, the energies pounding into a heartbeat that was fast and hard and audible to them all. Anjhela looked down at her hand; it didn’t come near to covering the length of the deep, slashing cut through her leathers. She laughed a little as she slid down the wall.

  Trevarr spoke through the rising pulse of power, his voice breaking on a groan. “Anjhela...”

  “No!” She turned on him, snarling at the mere hint of his regret. “I would have killed her. You know I would have. But since I didn’t...now it’s your turn, kyrokha. Go fly. You should have done so long before you came to my hand again.” Her head rested weakly against purple-tinted flowstone. Still, she narrowed her eyes into annoyance. “They’ll be coming, you fool. The glyphs are breaking and you need to go. FLY.”

  Trevarr’s breath was a wild thing, his chest heaving with it. The pulsing energies filled him with blued sunlight, so sharp and bright that Garrie couldn’t see beyond it to his features. She threw herself at him, offering only the one hand while she kept the knife away from them both—bloody knife, preternaturally sharp blade, sticky in her grip.

  “She’s right—they must know!” She shouted the words, still not certain if the rising, shuddering grumble existed only in her mind. “Let go of yourself!”

  The shackles vibrated against his wrists, their glyphs glowing bright and brighter, shards of hot light cutting through the blue-tinted energies that flared around and through him, bouncing from the walls and cutting through the dark, rising fog. He closed his eyes, straining, fighting the energies, fighting himself. Fighting the constraints of Ghehera. Smoke rose to sting Garrie’s eyes and she wasn’t sure from where but when the door groaned behind her she knew damned well what it meant.

  Anjhela’s harsh choking laugh confirmed it. “Fly,” she said, her face contorting into both laughter and tears, her grip gone spastic on her side. “Fly.”

  “Open your damned eyes and look at me.” Garrie grabbed his arm, past the shackles, and pushing up through his light. Up against him. “Hold on to me—and let yourself go!”

  As if she didn’t know that exact feeling—of letting go to the energies, letting them make of her what they would. As if she didn’t understand exactly what held him back, his lashes wet and his whole body shaking.

  She hadn’t had any choice. And now neither would he.

  Garrie scooped up her fast-diminishing resources and shoved them out at him. Shoved hard. Everything she had and then digging deep for more, an aching emptiness creeping into her bones and gray sparks crawling across her vision.

  He made a sound of profound surprise, light limning his features from within, leaking from eyes and nose and ears and mouth.

  Fly! she told him, ramming the thought home whether he could hear it or not—scraping through the newly hollow places of her soul. Something wrenched inside her; something broke. And still she flung out everything she had for one...last...push.

  Trevarr threw his head back with a cry that turned into a roar. The energies whipped into a storm, blinding but not quite deafening her—not to the sound of his shackles shattering or to the explosive crack of the door giving way. Anjhela screamed a warning, and then Trevarr—

  The thunderous clap of wing, the scent of drifting wood smoke, the rustle of scale and feather.

  Garrie fell forward into the space where Trevarr had been, the shackles at her feet, the ethereal winds whipping in her hair, shouts of fury behind her.

  And then those things were all gone, and she was the one who screamed. And panicked. And flailed. And lost herself to the whirlwind of what had been inside her and now thrashed around her, all fury and freedom and inexperienced flight out of the cave and into the etherea.

  She tried to breathe and couldn’t, and found all her air gone with that first scream. The prickling gray sparks filled her vision; she would have fallen if there’d been anywhere to go, and instead simply went limp, startled into terror at the thing that should have occurred to her from the start. Because she’d shoved Trevarr into his ethereal form, and now she had no idea if he knew how to come back. Back from the travel, back from the unfamiliar form...

  Or if she passed out now, whether she’d ever wake up.

  Lungs burning, personal energies drained, she only had time to realize there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

  ~~~~~

  A glimpse of a familiar cave—too small, too small!—and wings battering against rock. The whirlwind glimpse of another, a precious gasp of air and away again, a tumult too big to be contained.

  A tumult that didn’t know how to be contained.

  A tumult that would kill them trying.

  Shattering rock, splintering trees, the angry scream of a startled predator, the resounding crash of something unknown, all in a daze of barely seen, barely perceived, barely conscious. Frustration and twisting effort all around her, hints of solidity swept away by flailing uncertainty until even in that daze, Garrie knew they were close to flying apart forever.

  Dissolution.

  Darkness.

  ~~~~~

  Darkness breaking through to rainbow clarity, a sweeping rush of light. Feet, on solid ground. Black fog tickling her bare ankles, arms caressed by a very physical breeze as she fell, boneless and emptied. The solid flap of wing, the brush of scale-like feather, the sense of looming presence, a deep huff of breath from a thing of strength and size.

  Garrie took a deep whooping breath of warm, spiced air. Energy whirled, more softly than before—brushing her cheek and ruffling her hair. Trevarr’s voice came from the exact height that it should, his hands holding her upright exactly where and how they should be. “Open your eyes now. Open them, atreya, and look at me.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 35

  The Newly Empty Cavern of Her Soul

  Garrie’s inner world swooped wildly, unstable in the newly empty cavern of her soul. No strength in her legs; no sight beyond the flutter of her eyelids. She slid limply through Trevarr’s grasp; he went down with her, supporting her.

  No sound came out behind her words. “...Still a dragon?”

  His voice held a rare affection. “Kyrokha. And I am not.”

  “Thought...maybe...you wouldn’t be able to come back. Or wouldn’t want to.”

  “It...” he hesitated, revealing more than he probably meant to. “It was a close thing.”

  How could she even imagine? To be what he was...to finally be what he was. Whatever that meant for Ghehera, or for Garrie, or...

  He gave her a sharp little shake. “Wake, atreya.”

  Hadn’t she been?

  “Atreya!” His grip tightened on her, bringing her back from her fog again.

  “I think I’m empty,” she told him, and didn’t know she was crying until he swiped the tears away with his thumb.

  “You shouldn’t have—” he started to say, his voice abruptly rough. “Not so much of yourself.”

  Her objection was weaker than she’d intended. “So? You aren’t the boss of me.”

  He gathered her up, supporting her; resting his face beside hers. Wet. Trevarr, emotional. Trevarr, crying.

  “Don’t—” she told him.

  “You,” he told her, silencing her with gentle fingers on her mouth, “are not the boss of me.”

  “I am too,” she would have said—but his mouth landed on hers, silencing her. And kissing her. Kissing her with deliberate intent. Kissing her with a gentle longing, the connection firm and confident—and then a new curl of energy fluttered inside her chest and she understood.

  So much more than a kiss. A gift. Giving back.

  She made a querulous noise.

  Their mouths brushed as he spoke. “You filled me with yourself. You freed me. I have more than enough to give in return.” He kissed her brow, her eyelids, and then her mouth again, filling her with cool, smooth energy.

&nbs
p; Not cold. Not burning. Not a thing to scour away through her temper and leave her ragged with internal conflict. She shivered with it, her hand creeping up to his shoulder, her eyes fluttering open to a broad night sky, massive firs looming to the side; gritty, unrelieved dirt suddenly evident at her back. “Where are we?”

  He drew back, sorrow flickering over his features in the faint glow of the energies he’d stirred. “Solchran,” he said. “When it was still Solchran.”

  The village shunned by Ghehera. Exiled. Literally.

  “We must move. This spot is protected from Ghehera, but not from predators.”

  Protected? She couldn’t hide her surprise, even as the firs spun around them. Still empty. Deeply empty.

  Bitter darkness filled his voice. “They scoured Solchran from the earth with a harsh hand, and in doing it made a spot of utter silence.”

  “Then move us home.” Garrie fought for equilibrium even as panic swooped in. Quinn. Lucia. The shelter. “We have to stop that kyrokha!”

  “You are in no condition.” He gathered her up.

  She scowled. “I can walk.”

  He made a sound of dissent, nonetheless subsiding to rest an arm over his knee and wait her out.

  She rolled up to her knees and shoved one foot out to stand, making it just that far before slowly wobbling down again. Without comment, Trevarr scooped an arm under her knees and one behind her shoulders, tipping her into his arms as he stood.

  She scowled at him all over again. “Shut up.”

  He shrugged as if her weight was of no consequence; she gave up and rested her face against his shoulder as he moved out, striding freely. She held on a little more tightly when he ducked, stepping steeply downward into an inkier darkness. “Where—”

  “The ground here is hard,” he said, taking another step, and another, and then stopping, slightly bent. “No one digs without glyph-tools. Ghehera relocated only surface structures.”

  “But?” She held tightly as he fumbled with something, the arm behind her shoulders barely supporting her. A soft blueish light spread to reflect against his face, and spread further to reveal a tiny dugout lined with lashed wooden shelves and a clutter of tools.

  “Nevahn-hei was a better glyphmaster than they ever knew,” Trevarr said, and a sudden stillness about his features alerted her. He loved this person, Nevahn-hei. He lowered her gently onto a narrow cot. “His workshop was once above this private place.”

  Garrie struggled to sit up on shifting furs. “Okay, but we need to—”

  We need to...

  ~~~~~

  She opened her eyes to the beams framing a rocky ceiling. Wait. What? She’d been sitting up. She’d been ready to go.

  She was not ready to go.

  Trevarr’s recent gift of energy no longer stirred in her chest. Her heart gave a sudden double-thump and then raced hard, as if afraid of that emptiness.

  Smart thing, her heart.

  “You shouldn’t have given so much,” he said again, this time with a desperate anger, his grip painfully tight at her shoulders. “Too much.”

  She was beginning to agree. Her eyes, rolling back in her head, definitely agreed.

  He shook her, not the least gentle. “You will not—!”

  She couldn’t even tell him he wasn’t the boss of her. She couldn’t feel her hands or feet; she barely felt it when he shook her again. She was weightless, ungrounded, and drifting apart from herself.

  Dissolution.

  He said something. She wasn’t sure what. He said it again, and louder. He was on the cot with her, she thought. Lying over her and completely covering her. Holding her in place. In one piece.

  She got only the gist of his words—and the gist was enough. The wrench she’d felt—that sense of something breaking. That had been her. She’d given so much of herself that there was nothing left to close down the flow. I’m leaking.

  If she’d figured it out earlier, maybe she could have mended that leak. But now was not soon enough.

  She became suddenly aware of Trevarr’s hands cradling her head, his mouth on hers in an achingly fierce kiss, his body weighing her down with dense strength. The energy flowed sweet and smooth between them, but the moment she unthinkingly kissed him in return, he pulled away.

  “Invite me.” His ragged voice held emotion she wasn’t used to, didn’t expect—couldn’t quite define. “To you.”

  “I—” she started.

  “But understand,” he said, eyes blazing into silver. “There is no going back.”

  She frowned, her mind’s eye flashing back to the Bestiary and the kyrokha pages she’d read before she knew it had anything to do with Trevarr. The bonding. The unique attraction between kyrokha and human. The obvious human resentment of it...the way those women weren’t seen again. The way his own mother had left her people to live in exile with a father she wasn’t sure he’d ever even seen.

  “Do you hear me?” He demanded it of her. “No going back.”

  “From what?” Whispered words, as his most recent gift receded. Not just a leak, that renewed loss of vital energies. A flood.

  “From us.” He kissed her cheeks, her brow, and a tremble passed through his frame. “Invite me, atreya.”

  “Us..?” She faded to gray again, unable to see him, still able to hear him.

  “What we will become,” he told her. “Together. Always.”

  A panic rose in her, roiling up that last little bit of self—bringing his face back into view, so close to hers. “Wait!” she cried, weak as it was—meaning it, in spite of his surprise, his hurt, all mingling with what remained of desperation.

  His fear.

  Of what they’d become, or of what he was about to lose?

  Frustrated, raced her decline with whispered words. “Not like this—not forced on you. By choice—!”

  His soft huff of laughter stopped her word flood. He touched his mouth to hers and then, because he was what he was, gently bit her lip. A scold. “Atreya,” he said, “I made that decision long before now.”

  ~~~~~

  Then, yes, she said.

  Yesyesyesyes.

  She didn’t know if he could still hear her.

  ~~~~~

  The slow movement of powerful ethereal wings. The brush of feathery air. Smooth, gliding energy flowing around and through them. A delirium of sensation waking nerves, invoking life.

  Not the familiar burning cold touch, but a clear, bright flow of life and exuberance and love. It filled her, soothing away the raw and open spaces of her soul. She rose to it, embracing invasion with a wonder she hadn’t expected; and it clung to her, molding itself into place. Offering what she needed, where she needed it.

  Healing her.

  She felt that shift back toward rightness.

  And then she felt everything else.

  His weight above her, his elbows brushing her shoulders as he braced himself, head bowed. His breath against her face and her neck. His ethereal half enfolding her, wrapping her in a caress of depth and beauty, and awakening her until awareness turned to feathering pleasure. She sucked in a sudden breath, and he lifted his head, catching and holding her gaze—all bright eyes and startling uncertainty. Maybe a wild hint of fear, with his own ethereal energies visibly shifting and forming around them, wings formed of light and power, the hint of sleek substance and form filling this small space.

  Energy coiling around her, coiling through her.

  Stuttering.

  And Trevarr, suddenly wincing and stiffening, struggling to hold back what he’d started as if what he’d done so far might just be enough. Watching her through that struggle, as if he might just be able to tell. Still trying to protect her from what she’d already accepted and what she now yearned for.

  Paying the price for it.

  She found she could do more than move. She could surge upward, surprising him—grappling him right off the narrow cot to end up on the hard dirt floor over him. “I said yes!” she snarled, her heart beatin
g so hard—at her own fear, her own awareness of the unknown, and yes, that yearning. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  This time when he trembled, it had nothing to do with uncertainty, and everything to do with the imminence of building power. She caught his gaze one last time. “Yes.”

  He made a sound deep in his throat, a resonance that expanded to reverberate around the tiny cellar. Bright energy flared in sharp, cool ethereal breezes. Squinting wasn’t enough; Garrie closed her eyes altogether. Still she saw them dancing across her inner eye, tumbling through her and then back again, twist and coil and surge. Collecting her. Binding them.

  Sanity made a last bid for attention, spiking fear down her spine. We have no idea—

  The binding held her; Trevarr held her.

  So we might live, he said, words directly intimate with her mind. Not hiding his own fear—nor his elation, nor his silent joy and the spurt of pleasure flooding them both. Twist and coil and surge, a deep dance of intimacy spiking to ecstasy, physical bodies tumbling and ethereal natures entwined and drawing into a tightening spiral. Each breeze feathered along Garrie’s nerves in the body she’d all but forgotten, coiling down into pinpoints of euphoria that she felt, that he felt, that they felt together—

  The pinpricks detonated into white hot incandescence. Tangled energy sparked between them, around them. Inexorably bound.

  And then it gradually faded, the molten sensation slow to release them. Garrie’s lungs burned; she gasped out the breath she’d been holding in. They lay limply together, entangled, damp skin against damp skin, tears of effort and emotion on Garrie’s face. Both breathing hard and fast, simply being aware of each other. Trevarr’s other subsumed itself within him; Garrie’s breezes replenished, replete and tidy unto themselves. Individuals again.

  Such as they ever would be.

  Together. Always.

  Garrie smiled into the alien darkness.

  ~~~~~

  The living overhead light fluttered wanly in the wake of barraging energies, but Garrie didn’t need light to flex ethereal muscles, looking for weakness—and for the leak.