Page 328 of Seer Prophet

I stared at him, bewildered for real that time.

I was still standing there, watching a small fleet of helicopters make its way towards us over the dunes, when Terian fell to his knees.

I stepped back, reaching for my gun in reflex.

But it wasn’t a trick, or any kind of ruse?not that time.

He looked up at me, another smile teasing his full lips. Then his eyes rolled back, that bare smile still visible on his face.

He fell forward onto the sand.

Staring down, I frowned, releasing the handle of the gun strapped around me over the black dress. Even before I knelt beside him, checking his pulse, I understood.

The good news was, at least we knew.

We now knew exactly what happened to Terian’s bodies when we put Feigran inside a Barrier containment tank.

The thought didn’t bring as much relief as I thought it would.

I stared down at his auburn head, the longer strands still being lifted and ruffled by the desert wind. As I looked down at him, a pain rose in my chest, one I couldn’t begin to understand with my rational mind. Still kneeling beside him in the white sand, I glanced up as the helicopters pounded closer, remaining near him as the warmth first began to leave his flesh and skin.

I remembered my mother, Mia Taylor.

I remembered Jon’s hand. I remembered what Terian had done to me in D.C. What he’d done to Cass in that mountain prison under the Caucasus Mountains.

There was a good chance Cass wouldn’tbeWar?not without Terian.

All of that was still real to me.

All of it still mattered.

Even so, I didn’t walk away from him right away, like I thought I would have. I lingered there, feeling I couldn’t leave somehow, not without saying or doing something.

“Thanks, Terry,” I said finally.

My words were stripped of sarcasm that time.

I guess that was something.

“Go with the gods, brother,”I said, quieter. Hesitating, I finished the quote, in spite of myself. “…Until we meet again in that more beautiful place. Where the oceans meet the end of the world. Where the water shines like diamonds.”

I knew that place.

Those words actually meant something to me.

I could only hope he knew that place, too, assuming he didn’t return to Feigran when we let him back out of the tank.

Assuming we everdidlet Feigran out of the tank.

Regardless of what happened to Feigran, I knew somehow, Terian was dead. Whatever Terian had been, however that part of him might integrate into the wider personality of Feigran as a whole, Terian himself, as a viable, separate entity, was dead.

For the same reason, he didn’t answer me.

He didn’t even hear me, I’m sure.

But I’m glad I said it, anyway.

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