Page 80 of Infala: Claimed By Rivals
Olivia stared and stared until her eyes blurred. “Oh, shit,” she realized, willing her eyes to unfocus more until the patterns shifted together like one of those weird paintings from her childhood. Her heart raced, the men feeling her body tense under their touch.
“What’s wrong?” Rykker asked.
“I figured it out. Holy shit, I know what’s going on! Overlap the designs. Just the Infalas. Align each of their matching parts with mine.”
The images shifted in the air and the men stared in awe at what they saw. Rykker audibly gasped.
“It can’t be.”
“There’s no denying it, my brother,” Arkness replied, his eyes welling with tears of joy. “We are Infala bonded. But not one or the other of us. It is all three!”
Olivia’s hunch had proven correct. While each of the men had only partially matched her Infala, combined, their two designs matched hers perfectly, as if the two halves of an interlinked key were required to finally open a very, very complicated lock.
“What does it mean?” she asked. “I mean, I know the basics, but isn’t this supposed to be impossible?”
The men sat up and looked at each other, the same thought springing to both their racing minds. They uttered the same thing at once.
“We must see Zoldana. The overseer will know.”
“I’m sorry,your Infalas are doingwhat?”
The look of utter shock on Overseer Zoldana’s face said far more than mere words could. It was so extreme that Olivia worried that if the woman had been much older her heart might have given out from what they told her.
“Yeah, I know, it’s kinda weird, from what the boys were telling me.”
“Weird? Finding a second fraxxin nut in a single pod is weird. Having your domicile unit prepare you a bath from soup is weird. But this? This is unheard of!” Zoldana was pacing now,her feet seemingly trying to keep up with her racing mind. “You three stay right here. I’m having Skrizzit Nijello brought to us.”
Zoldana hurried from the room, leaving the three lovers on their own for what was sure to be a very short wait. Given her agitation, they doubted very much that Nijello would not drop literally anything to come at a full sprint when she called him.
“So, I guess we kinda freaked her out,” Olivia said with a little chuckle, taking a seat and pulling her men down to sit nestled up against her on either side.
“I’ve never seen her like this,” Rykker noted. “But, then, I do suppose this is the sort of thing that would qualify for a freakout-level reaction.”
Arkness nodded, his hand on Olivia’s knee. “I think you’re right. I, for one, cannot wait to see what Nijello’s reaction will be.”
He wouldn’t have to wait long. Very shortly the Skrizzit and Lithos, his young assistant, came rushing in with Overseer Zoldana following close behind, the three lovers’ Infala designs hovering in the air in front of him, overlapping and separating over and over as if on some sort of OCD-inspired loop. And given the look on the man’s face, that might not have been too far from the truth.
“Impossible,” he muttered as he studied the runes for what was likely the hundredth time. “It’s just so unlikely.”
“Or, as you said,impossible,” Zoldana replied.
The Skrizzit’s hands were constantly in motion, rearranging the Infalas displayed in front of him in every possible way, always returning to the same undeniable fact. Together, the three of them made a whole.
“I do not understand how this could have happened,” he blurted in frustration. “I was the one who applied the pigment. I was the one who tested and re-tested the designs.” A look of realization flashed across his face. “The existing markings!”he exclaimed, turning to Olivia. “The runes made part of your existing markings! That must be it! Tell me, have there been any unusual reactions?”
An uncomfortable little smile formed on Olivia’s lips. “Uh, yeah. About that.”
“What? Tell me!”
“Well, I can kind of move things like I couldn’t before.”
“You are stronger, yes, that is part of the runes.”
“No, you don’t get it. I can move them with my mind.”
Rykker and Arkness were unfazed, having been the firsthand recipients of her delightful new talent. Zoldana, Nijello, and Lithos, on the other hand, looked shellshocked.
“You can move things with your mind?” Nijello finally said, the enormity of the possibilities this implied spreading before him like a vast, uncharted territory to which he was the first explorer ever to set foot. He was shocked, yes. Terrified even. But he was also intrigued. “Show me.”
