Dari, in their relative splendor. They were right in front of him, and it was all Aron could do to resist the lure of Dari, of touching her and experiencing her thoughts at such a depth, with or without invitation.
He quickly shifted his perspective again, terrified he’d commit such a transgression, and this time when he gazed at the two people before him, Dari and Nic seemed to blend together like matching aspects of some beautiful and mysterious creation. Like a tree, with a powerful trunk, but also leaves and branches—only Aron couldn’t tell which of them was which aspect of the tree. The image had such a solid, total feeling of truth that it guided his next action, almost as if it were he, Aron, being compelled.
He focused on Nic’s right hand, which on this side of the Veil had no bent fingers curling inward to impair its motion or grip.
Move, he instructed, imagining what he wanted Nic to do.
Nic’s hand twitched, but remained still.
Aron refocused his thoughts and tried to summon some of the graal energy he remembered throwing behind commands he had used in desperation. His awareness sharpened even more, until he imagined he could see the blood flowing through the veins in Nic’s wrist, pulsing across the back of his hand.
Move, Aron commanded again, once more imagining the action he had envisioned.
Nic’s right hand lifted until it hovered above Dari’s. Moments later, his fingers settled over hers, as Aron had commanded.
Colors sparked and flowed between the two of them, and Aron again saw them blend into a tree—this time a huge, impressive heartwood, the likes of which could only be found in legend, or perhaps in the forgotten depths of the Adamantine, never before observed by human eyes.
This image was something outside anything Aron had experienced before, even more real than Snakekiller’s hood snake phantasm, or the images of the goddess and gods he had encountered. It possessed a veracity that went beyond his understanding, beyond this world.
Fate.
The word echoed through his awareness, and for a moment, Aron sensed the eyes of those dangerous gods and the wicked goddess focusing on him from somewhere on the other side of the Veil.
He didn’t want them to see the tree, but he couldn’t stop admiring it.
Was the tree a creation of his own mind, or had he accidentally shared a piece of Nic’s graal, and seen the future—not just his own, but in some strange way, the future of Eyrie?
Not the future, no. That didn’t feel correct. Aron searched his mind, his legacy, and came to a better understanding. He was seeing the truth, and truth knew no boundaries of time or place, or even decency.
With a start, Aron lost his grip on his concentration. He slipped back through the Veil, and sat breathing as if he had run to the Den all the way from the main gate and keep. He slumped forward from the bone-melting exhaustion he had experienced only from longer Veil sessions, and stared at Nic and Dari in their human forms.
They sat motionless, still lost on the other side of heightened awareness.
Nic’s hand rested on Dari’s, and as Aron watched, Dari’s hand moved until her fingers laced through Nic’s.
A lump rose in Aron’s throat, and a host of emotions exploded in his belly and chest. He couldn’t name any of them, and neither could he stand them.
He knew Dari and Nic were at no risk, that Dari would guide herself and Nic back to this side of the Veil. Aron didn’t want to be there when they came back to full awareness. He didn’t want to have to explain himself when they opened their eyes, so he departed Dari’s chamber so swiftly and quietly that Iko at first didn’t rouse from his guard’s stance outside the door.
Aron was halfway down the Den steps when he sensed Iko catching up to him. As Aron fled the Den, he passed Stormbreaker, and Aron turned his face away. He had an awful sense that he had just cost them both something precious and irreplaceable, but he had no way of explaining it in a way that might be believed.
Perhaps not now, not today or even next week—but soon, Dari would be lost to them. Some part of her heart was already gone. Aron saw the mythic heartwood in his mind, and the way Dari’s fingers had intertwined with Nic’s, and he sensed the loss like a new hole in his soul. He had no idea what