Page 269 of Hunters and Prey

Black resonated with those spaces, too.

He was a link in the chain, a bright, gold and green node on that vine of fire-like light. The snaking strands of Dragon appeared in the space all around me, looking almost like––

––a map.

It looked like a map.

I stared up at it in the dark, at those green and red vines, like a spider-webbed matrix of light, stretching across worlds.

I looked for the connection.

The only one I saw was me.

Focusing on the next node in the sequence, I went into those glowing, rotating structures above my head. I infused them with that light, with the light of Dragon.

I pointed them at that next place, the next step on the ladder…

…and I vanished.

IOPENED MY EYES.

An indigo blue sky stretched over my head.

I stared up at it.

I stared up at the clouds drifting overhead, giant thunderheads curling in gray and black and white. I stared at the contrast between that sky and those clouds. I could feel life all around me. I could feel presence all around me.

The lag was shorter that time.

The lag almost didn’t exist at all.

I knew where I was… or at least where I wasn’t.

I knew who I was.

I knew who Black was.

I wasn’t back to him, not yet, but that was okay, too.

I felt the other piece of Dragon almost before I’d focused my eyes. He was here. I barely had to look for him, barely had to connect my light to his when I felt that burst of sparking flame, that resonance flaring in my aleimic light.

Looking up at that sky, I couldn’t help it.

I laughed.

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