fifty #7
Mira was back in that loft above the barn, running her fingers over Sulim’s books, built for her by a husband who loved her, but whom she could not love.
They ate stale crackers and drank lukewarm tea, but it was some of the happiest moments of Mira’s life.
If she could understand her mother, if she could connect to that part of the unknown creator who breathed the “soul” into existence, then it was in that moment, when she beheld how Sulim loved her.
Her hands lifted, tenderly breaking through the blue barrier and taking Rahara’s palms. “I know what kind of woman I am.”
“Tell me.”
The blue expanded around them. Life created, and life abstained. As the rush of a million years splashed around them, Mira looked into Rahara’s eyes and said, “My mother’s daughter.”
In the end, she was as selfish as Joiya had been.
Mira stumbled against the altar, a headache subsiding the moment it arrived.
Her blinking eyes did not reveal where she was at first. Initially, everything was much too bright—then, as if someone turned off the lights, Mira couldn’t see a damn thing. Not until she rubbed her eyes, swallowed the nausea, and was comforted by a voice she hadn’t heard in much too long.
“What happened?”
Mira turned. Only a few feet away, her mother approached the priest from Qahrain. Tharin. That was his name. He was friends with Kanhith. Who was here, wouldn’t she know it?
“Mercenaries,” Tharin spat with shock. “They waited until I had stepped away for a break, then attacked.”
While gasping silence fell upon the Temple, Mira had exactly five seconds to figure out what had happened. And what gift the Void had bestowed upon her.
“Ma…” The others argued over what had happened on Qahrain. Yet Joiya finished asking her questions and faced her daughter, who approached with dawning realization that made her grab her mother’s arms and shout, “Tattoo!”
There was no time. Mira had been sent back to the moment she discovered that mercenaries had attacked Graella’s wedding on Qahrain. No time. No freaking time! She had to go to the Gardiahs’ home now. She had been too late before…
Joiya touched her daughter’s shoulder before nodding. Right in front of everyone around them, she swiped the tattoo off Mira’s arm and said, “I’ll be right behind you. Ramaron!”
Mira was already gone before she heard the response. This time, she teleported directly to the hallway leading to Jacelah’s salon, where she knew Sulim and Sonall had rushed to hide. They didn’t make it in time. But maybe Mira would make it before their would-be assassin.
The chaos was fresh in the house. Blood splattered on one of the walls, a maid that Mira barely recognized slumped over with her hair loose and covering her lifeless face. That wasn’t there last time. She rushed down the hall. What else had changed?
She saw the salon doors. They were ajar, but all she saw on the other side was a mercenary’s armor flying through the air, followed by yelps, shouts, and calls for what to do, as if the couple on the other side had a perfectly choreographed self-defense plan.
Mira mimicked ripping open the door, her sorcery working from a distance. Much to her dismay, she still had not made it in time before the mercenary barged into the salon.
Yet the scene was quite… something.
There was no blood. No dead bodies. Mira’s world was not shattered.
“His legs!” Sulim braced her whole torso against the head of the mercenary sent to kill them.
The man was on the floor, arms flailing until she snapped them together and slammed her ass against the back of his head.
The vague crunch of a nose breaking was the only thing that brought some blood to the room. “Watch for those kicks!”
Sonall swore through his vapid inability to catch the man’s legs in one go.
It took Mira rushing forward, using her unleashed sorcery, to help the remaining Gardiahs subdue their attacker, disarm him, and tie him up using his own liquid laser rope—something Sonall was quite adept at doing, as if he had used military-level bondage every day during his life as a rancher.
Even the knot was straight from Cerilyn.
“What the hell is going on!” he yelled to nobody in particular, although Sulim was quick to bounce up to her feet.
“Where the fuck are we? I swear I was just—” With a loud, pulsing groan, he braced himself against his mother’s settee, hand on his head before slowly melting down into a solid lump in one of the seats.
“Where the fuck are you from?” Sulim had the mercenary in a headlock. Mira stepped back, gobsmacked. “You’ve got First Tribe stench all over you.”
The mercenary whimpered as he was bested by two humans and a julah who had barely done anything except show up. “Holy shit! A goddamn julah? No fucking way, man!”
Hearing this young man espouse the familiar epithets of any kid who had been caught up in the mercenary life was disorienting to Mira, who still had a raging headache as she decided to leave these two to it.
Knowing they’re safe is enough… Mira could hug and kiss Sulim later—right now, she was more concerned with the commotion going on in the rest of the house.
She discovered her mother, Ramaron, and Kema clearing out the rest of the house of any living mercenaries.
Two had been killed, but more had survived, telekinetically booted to the front yard where local authorities from Harksplit began to arrive.
Everyone in armor and currently disarmed of their weapons had the same sentiments: “Nobody said anything about any julah!”
“Fuck! We are so fucked!” “Is that the High Priest’s wife? Get us out of here!”
Mira didn’t recognize any of them, not that she was sure why she would. Yet when she approached her mother, standing by herself in the front yard as Ramaron spoke with the authorities, she said, “It’s good to see you.”
Joiya slowly acknowledged her, as if coming out of a fog that had enveloped her mind. “It’s good to see you, too.”
They did not embrace, although Mira struggled with her combined memories of having a mother and having lost her before she could remember. She’s right here, though. And there were more people she had lost—or never had at all—around her.
“Hey!”
Mira swung around, yanking her head back as she beheld someone hanging out of one of the second-floor windows. Sulim’s blond head was the first thing Mira saw, then the staunch look of what the fuck is going on that was soon shared by most of the people, human julah, descending upon Gardiah Estate.
“Aren’t I supposed to be dead?”
Mira could hardly contain the smile threatening to ruin the dour mood in the front yard. “Not anymore! I took care of it!”
Sulim disappeared into the house. Joiya startled her daughter by appearing beside her.
“You’ve been on quite the journey, my heart.”
Mira didn’t deny it. “These events went very differently at one point.”
“Oh. I know. I was there.”
They stood there while the humans did what was necessary to subdue the last of the mercenaries, take counts of the dead, and interview the survivors.
Kema did little to hide how much she fretted over Sonall, who eventually wandered out into the yard and sat on a half-broken bench between the house and the family stables. The horses were quite upset.
Only Sulim didn’t hurry outside. Instead, Mira was treated to another appearance in one of the upstairs windows, from which Sulim shouted, “Where the fuck is that traitorous bastard!”
“You cheated first!” Sonall yelled back up at her while Kema futilely attempted healing sorcery on a bump on his head.
“I’m not talking about you! God damnit!”
Mira turned toward her mother. “I’ll be right back.”
“I know. Do what you must.”
When Mira teleported up to the second floor, she found Sulim in the hallway, sitting on a windowsill with her head buried in her hands. Is she all right? As Mira approached, she noticed that Sulim was groaning in pain. Specifically, she was on the verge of throwing up.
“What the hell is happening!” she cried.
Mira knelt before her, drawing Sulim into her arms and shushing her with a kiss.
“You know who you reminded me of just now?” she asked her soulmate.
Sulim shook her head. She barely had it in her to raise her eyes and behold Mira.
“Gemma Qudoh. I was in prison with her. When my mom got me out, she hung out of her room window to say goodbye. You’re a prettier blonde, though.”
“I swear to God, Mira…”
“What?”
Sulim flung down her hands and snarled, “I’m supposed to be dead!”
“But you’re not, are you?”
“No…” Sulim snorted. “What the hell did you do? Just a moment ago, I was getting shot! Or I was…” She closed her eyes. “In a really freaky place.”
“You died twice.”
“And I almost died again!”
Mira clasped her arms around Sulim, pulling her close enough to smell the roots of her hair. “And you’re not dying for a long, long time if I have anything to say about it.”
That had been one of her wishes at the End of All Things. A place she was glad that this Sulim vaguely remembered—because that Sulim had every right to a happily ever after as much as this one did.
They sat in silence as the world went on around them. They clung to one another as tears slowly fell and adrenaline was finally allowed to leave the tired body. “You’re alive.” Mira wasn’t a telepath, but she did her best. “I promise, we’ll be together a long, long time.”
Because if Mira could ask for a boon at the End of All Things, she would ask for the stars and the moon. But most of all, she would ask for Sulim.