Page 59 of Tasteful Anarchy and Tangled Auras
In a detached way, I wonder that I’m not seeing any of his teeth through his cheek. I’m dissociating again, I realize.
I’m sobbing, but then, inexplicably, the tears are burned away, rage drying me out wholly.
From where I kneel, I can see Alys through the leaves. The word “ruthless” shudders through me, reverberating.
I feel Bryn coming for us. I kneel, rooted in place, hearing fully returned, but all I hear is the thud of the blood pounding in my head.
Trying to think before acting, I breathe deeply.
Bryn crashes straight through the brush to us, shocked. He drops to his knees, “Oh, Ossy, no.”
Fury is easier than the absolute destruction of my soul. I feel Ossy’s aura bond slipping away further away, turning in on itself. “What the fuck, Bryn? Why?”
A sob catches in his throat. “There were bombs. Ossy and I searched. Rory brought them to the river. We couldn’t evacuate people; the cell would detonate prematurely. We had most of them in the water, so I went to sweep the buildings for explosives. I found the cell’s agent.”
I shake my head, trying to deny this is happening.
So many questions, so many what-ifs, just so damn many.
My eyes slip to Alys, struggling to sit up, at the same moment that something drags on my aura. It’s Ossy. He’s tangled. He’s in my soul, and I won’t let him leave us.
Yeah, fuck this.
Time slows for me again, and my eyes shift to spirit-sight. Tangled little threads. Ossy’s blue aura—loyal, empathic, intuitive—is just about dissipated. Even those tiny connections are starting to slip away.
I look up at Bryn and see some of Ossy’s blue is intertwined in his green aura. Interesting.
My eyes snap up to Alys and her strong yellow aura. Yup, ruthless. That’s the word of the day. Or year, whatever.
I reach out, pushing my energy to her and yank her aura up and away from her body. It sticks for a moment, not wanting to let go, then snaps away. If I wasn’t so pissed, I’d be horrified and shocked, given that I have no idea how I just did that. But I don’t have time for introspection right now.
I roll her yellow aura into a ball and pull it to me, into me, and hold it there. Slowly, it shifts to my purple. Once it does, I feed it slowly, gently through the blue threads, drip by drip. As more and more of my aura flows into Ossy’s, the threads get larger, merging, like a water tributary system, and I realize that what I’m feeding in is slowly turning to his blue.
My eyes shift as I keep carefully feeding my energy down the threads. Ossy’s face is still and I abruptly realize he’s not breathing. My heart clenches, and I force more aura down the tributaries.
Bryn is staring, eyes wide.
I see the fresh aura reach the ocean, having traveled down all the little streams, and now finally reaching Ossy’s body.
Blood recedes, skin closes; he’s mending before our eyes. A brilliant shimmer engulfs where his hand was, and as it fades, his arm is whole. As the mash of skin ripples and smoothes, he takes a deep, shuddering breath.
My rage is gone, replaced by bone-deep exhaustion. I collapse on his chest, sobbing, before he can push himself up. His arms wrap around me.
“Hush, little mate. I’m here. I couldn’t leave you.”
Then I feel Bryn wrap his arms around the two of us, and darkness overtakes me.
