47. FORTY-SEVEN #4
The nothing within the Void expanded exponentially. So quickly that...
Creation’s composure broke. Just focus on what you want and leave, before you scour your entire planet!
At the void’s wordless summons, Calver thought on his heart’s desire, lifted a hand, and clenched his fingers around nothing—
—and returned with everything.
Calver gasped as the void coursed through him. Raimee’s lungs heaved in time with his. The air around them rang with static. Shock and relief flooded Calver, vanquishing his void state. The moment ended. All that remained of it was reflected in the silver of her eyes.
Raimee coughed and gasped until her cheeks flushed from the blood now racing into them. “That… was… so… unpleasant.”
Calver reached to brush her hair from her face, but retracted his hand before it could touch her. His whole body shook. Thank you thank you thank you. He thought it with such reverence , it might have even been a prayer.
“In every possible future,” Raimee croaked, tears in her eyes, “I didn’t see this.”
Because in every possible future, she had died. Including the one they had just experienced.
What had just happened? Calver couldn’t piece it into coherent thought. The more he tried, the further it slipped from him, like a dream long lost.
It didn’t matter. She was still frail. Whatever had happened was a miracle. He wouldn’t desecrate it by taking the chance, yet again, of letting the Survivor harm her.
He scrambled backward until he reached the ledge.
“What?”
“Calver, wait!!” She crawled on hands and knees towards him, choking and coughing. “It’s not you!”
She was wrong. They were the same. He started down the ladder.
“Calver! Search for it. Search for your shadow.”
Calver froze.
The Survivor was gone.
“I’m trying it now… Holding together the space around it.”
Calver clung to the ladder, eyes scrunched shut, wind whistling through his hair. He let his mind explore its edges. With a tentative prod, he sought the creature. He thought about the worst things. The things he’d done. The things he stood to lose.
“Is it working?” she called, voice quaking.
He started back up the ladder and flung himself over the ledge. Raimee was there, body sprawled flat against the roof. She held out a shaking hand. Calver stared at it.
He was an idiot.
His hand touched hers. It was cool and dry and soft. Nothing happened. He left it there for several seconds before pulling away. Then he sank to his knees beside her.
“About as difficult as counting. So long as I focus, I don’t see why I can’t maintain it.”
Calver rolled his bloody lips to moisten them. He wrapped his arms around his midsection, wanting and wanting some more.
“Calver?”
He’d been still for a full minute. She looked at him, face full of more scrutiny and hope than had ever dared to share a single expression.
Calver raised his hands and willed them not to shake. Don’t act desperate.
Raimee’s cheeks seemed to regain half their color in that moment, and her still-weak body released a powerful snort. “Just like that?”
Her giggle warmed the wind off the sea.
“I could eat.”
Calver thought his chest might just explode for all the joy that filled it.
It wasn’t used to joy. There might not be enough space.
He fought down the corners of his mouth, a battle valiantly lost until he was stuck with lips stretched wide like a blubbering frog.
He turned away, heels of his hands to his eyes.
Slender arms wrapped around him from behind. “Don’t hold it in,” she murmured into the back of his shirt.
For the first time in fourteen years, he didn’t have to.
Calver didn’t know how long they spent there, tucked against the knee wall of the roof, watching the stars blink into the twilight. Somehow, Raimee wound up nestled against his chest. His chest.
It was still an unbelievable thing: that anyone, let alone her, could want such nearness to him. But it seemed each moment he’d convinced himself she was waiting for someone to come rescue her from him, she gripped him tighter.
He wasn’t sure what to do. Mass murderers didn’t usually pair well with benevolent rulers.
Whatever this was, it was unsustainable.
It had no chance at progression. And yet it made him happier than he could ever remember being.
He had wanted this for months. He didn’t need to do anything but absorb it before it was gone.
But as the minutes passed, her unchanged condition began to itch at him.
He may have brought her back, but only just.
“I’ve…I’ve been trying. It’s not working.”
"Maybe."
The silence that followed seemed hollow, and he was glad when Raimee rushed to fill it.
“How long have you known you were like me?”
“A part of me knew it from the start. It was like you ignited something inside of me, all those weeks ago. You trained my senses on how to distort. Only, I learned the wrong way—pulling energy the way you do. I couldn’t do it.
Every time I clung to a future I wanted, I gave up my present to get there. A sort of magical bloodletting.”
Raimee went off on an explanation of her months in the Jiradesh, quietly exploring her power, skills growing sharper while her body grew weaker.
It was like the days outside of Chira’na, listening to her rattle off a half-dozen different things she’d discovered before breakfast, voice filled with unmatchable enthusiasm.
What he would give to keep that enthusiasm in his life.
It pushed everything else away. Every failure.
Every grief. He leaned in until her speech faltered.
“I’m… talking too much.”
He brought his hands around in front of her.
“But you haven’t said anything.”
As long as he listened to her, he didn’t have to think about how this moment wouldn't and couldn't last. About Fankalo. About Cul’Mon. About the child.
He’d wholeheartedly believed that he could fix things between them. That his sister would forgive him. That he could save her from what she’d already been through.
You couldn’t save someone from the past.
Fankalo had heard his plea and chosen not to listen. She might have even set him up. He’d held on for so long, he hadn’t been able to see the truth that lay beneath his grip: she’d let go of him a long time ago.
Calver pulled Raimee in a little tighter as darkness settled over the ocean. She turned up her face. It was inches from his. The soft pull of her breath against his neck smelled sweet. His body warmed wonderfully.
Fuck.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t let her do this.
Raimee laughed—actually laughed—the madwoman. And it eased every tension in his body. “Tell me about it.”
She didn’t pull back. She only leaned closer. “Then tell me another time. I’m enjoying myself.”
She had asked him to signal. Then, naturally, she ignored all of it and changed the subject. “Who was he?”
No need to ask who she meant. Cul’Mon was a lot of things.
“Was he the Hand?”
“Then I take it you still have things to do?”
Calver paused for a long while before signaling,
Raimee clicked her tongue. “It must be incredibly frustrating to be you. I say that because I’m catching it secondhand.”
She’d called him frustrating, yet she’d pivoted in his arms so that her face was so close to his. Maybe he should just do it. Now. Before she came to her senses. He’d tried to warn her, after all. And, look, she was tilting her chin up.
Had “frustrating” been a double entendre? Surely not. She hadn’t known whether the average male retained their testicles when winter began. Considering her upbringing, the thoughts in his head were borderline criminal. He really shouldn’t do it.
Her lips parted.
Fuck it. He was going to do it.
A sudden scraping and thunking sounded along the ladder leading to the roof. Calver stiffened and reached a hand behind his back to palm the dowaga.
“Relax,” Raimee murmured. “I’ve got it.”
They were sitting in an enemy-occupied city with a battle waging below. The Ruxian in his arms had demonstrated mercurial control over unknowable powers. Sometimes she saw the future, but only when the future saw fit. And all he had to do was relax.
His muscles coiled ever tighter. The air around them took on a pearl-like sheen—Raimee’s doing.
A head bobbed into view, then a ruddy red uniform.
The gate guard from Chira’na—Chevek. He gave Calver and Raimee an unreadable look, then hurried to inspect the doorway leading into the warehouse.
Nearly a dozen more Red Wing soldiers filed onto the roof, each sparing them an overlong glance before fanning out to the perimeter.
“Clear,” Chevek yelled as a final body bobbed into view.