Page 139 of The Garnet Daughter
I steal my breath and stare out into the countless figures on the horizon, First Son standing highest among them. I turn back to the city behind me, the thousands of lives who wait and watch from the wall, praying for a miracle while I stall this army and August helps disarm the beacon.
But I could end this now, be certain First Son does no more harm, take him to the space between and ensure his demise.
I exhale, looking up at Omnesis, who is leaning forward, watching intently like my deliberation has tilted a scale she finds interesting.
And with that, I choose this path, sealing it and whatever outcome it may bring within myself.
I hold my wrist comm up to my lips, trying to steady my trembling voice. “August.”
“We are so close, not long now,” he answers.
“August, listen to me.” I take in a sobbing gulp of air. “Go to Frith, meet me there. I will be waiting for you.”
Omnesis shoots upward into the sky, her great wings flapping in contented beats as she leaves the battlefield, heading away from us and into the birthlands.
I can make out August’s frantic voice as I pull off my wrist comm, letting it fall on the dry ground and walking toward the enemy.
I walk for so long, I lose track of my own thoughts, staying focused on my task and letting all instincts of survival my body shoots to my mind fade away. I wipe at my eyes, keeping away the blur the moisture creates, until I can see First Son soldiers more clearly.
And when First Son himself steps forward, closing the last bit of distance between us, I lose all ability to speak.
He gestures me forth, and I obey as if I am truly surrendering myself to him.
“Daughter,” he says in the language of the gods.
The tone almost blows me backward, the timbre shaking me down to my bone marrow and causing my heart to palpitate out of rhythm.
I advance, determined to seem brave even if I tremble like a prey animal.
He turns, expecting me to follow him, and I do, falling in line at his side and facing his army. His aura is so palpable, divine in nature. First Mother’s son, her first creation. The darkest parts of this world made flesh.
Every emotion I have ever experienced in my life comes forward, every memory, as if my body truly believes it is leaving this world.
With a shaky hand, I reach out and touch his arm, instantly fused by the electric current running through him. I close my lids and picture Frith, the mountain, the grassy valley below. I picture the darkness I felt crossing back from that world to this one, the void I traveled through to get here, now calling it forth, begging it to obey.
His spiked helmet turns to me, the eyes a black abyss of their own, his posture changing at the surprise of my touch, of my gift.
A seam in the very air between us opens like a portal to be crossed. Inside are stars like the night’s sky, alive and twinkling with life.
Wordlessly, I pull him toward me, his immoveable body captured by the edges of my manifested fold.
I retreat into it, pulling him with me, screaming and grunting for him to follow.
But he jerks back, grabbing my wrist and fighting me with a force my gift easily overtakes. I float into the space between, reaching upward as if it were a pool of water and his torso was laid across the surface.
I tug again, closing my eyes and picturing Frith, and with a sharp zip, his body is shot forward with mine, but I cannot hold it as we cross the space between.
What was once solid now dissipates into shadow, fading into the darkness of the stars that fly by.
He is gone but still remains, not here in the space between or back on Cosima’s battlefield, but he is still present. I can sense him in the darkness, calling out to me in his terrible voice from somewhere else, or perhaps as something else.
My lungs beg for air not available here, and with another thought of the place I have called home since my birth, I fall hard onto the grassy ground of Frith and gulp inward with a screaming breath.
I wait each day to hear August’s ship, looking out on the grassy plain he landed on when he first came to Frith. The sky isbrighter now, the conjunction phasing its way out and a new rotation of all the worlds starting.
I have waited for him every day since my arrival, not able to communicate and know if my plan worked. He should be here by now, and yet it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep my worries at bay with passing time.
I close up my waterskin and brush off the debris from my clothes, resolving myself to walk back to the village before dark so I can feel the forest and distract my anxious mind.
