{Gait}

Sagan’s smile was mercy for Korac’s mind. She took his hand, and he stepped through the conduit. His boots splashed in yellow blood, splattered across the Emporium’s glass roof. Gusts of fresh air provided some drama for his grand entrance, blowing his mid-length white hair. But that effect paled in comparison to the sky funneling away into something his mind struggled to comprehend.

Was one half of Gait splitting away from the other?

And people—No. Nacre glass beings climbed out of the gutted center. Some already approached the Emporium. With the severed planet beyond them, theirs was the superior entrance.

Unwilling to waste another second, Korac ignored the scenery and gazed at Sagan. Strain bruised under her eyes as they shifted in shades of purple, black, and yellow. All the conduit activity cost her dearly. He swiped lemony blood from her lips.

That unmade her. Sagan trembled in Korac’s arms, allowing the tears to fall.

Cupping her face in both hands, he brushed them away with his thumb. “Give to me what you want. Take from me what you need. Until Eternity takes me, I’m yours.”

He kissed her.

It was unnecessary to speak of their fears. How close they came this time. No. They needed this more.

“What am I looking at?”

Fucking Xelan. His whole ‘alive again’ thing might detract from their moment. Sagan broke the kiss and gazed behind Korac. Judging by the look on her face, the other Icarus’ return downright eclipsed it.

Thanks.

“Xelan!” Wearing a nacre-glass suit, Sagan pulled him from the conduit and squeezed the once-dead Icarus voraciously.

The Traitor Prince, with a questionable past, winced at her might and kissed the top of her head. “Sagan.”

No. Korac wasn’t jealous. Not at all. Because he’d just realized what he stepped through when he exited the conduit.

Razor.

Split in half and still upright. White-haired and white-eyed. No gore. Only yellow blood. And was that… Were his bones nacre? Both of the white eyes, one on each half of his split face, focused on Korac and blinked. The Icarus almost jumped out of his skin. “He’s alive!”

“Who’s alive?” Xelan held Tameka’s hand as she escaped the prison onto the roof. Both of them looked down and yipped the hell aside.

Tameka gaped at Sagan.

Xelan asked a surprising question, “What reason could you give for killing Razor?” He seemed willing to listen, but also prepared to defend the Pain Curator.

Interesting.

The Seamswalker looked behind her to the approaching glass beings. When she turned back, she instructed in her kind but confident manner, “Xelan. Tameka. Help the others get to Earth or Cinder. I’ll open conduits for both.”

The couple exchanged a look full of love and concern for Korac’s girl.

It offended him. “You two should know better.”

They both glared at him. Sagan gazed with a wry smile.

Korac took her hand and squeezed the nacre glass around her other bicep. “We’re together. Nothing can stand against us.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Xelan narrowed his eyes. Tameka glanced from both halves of Razor to the herd of unfamiliar entities. Scooping up the nacre cuffs, she muttered a few obscenities under her breath about finally being a family again and people splitting up. Xelan helped her with soothing murmurs.

Korac pushed the envelope. “Oh and find our axes, would you? The whip, too?”

Over her shoulder, Tameka ordered, “We all go home today. Together,” before the two jumped into the Emporium.

Only then did Korac recognize the sound of wailing from below. There. The red-feathered Lyrik collapsed to her knees and screamed at the ceiling. Her face swollen from the hot tears. Or from the pregnancy.

Sagan turned her back on it and faced the glass people in the streets.

“Love, do you know them?” Korac gripped her shoulder and pressed his front to her back. The glass was cold.

Without turning, she explained in three pitches, “I have so much to tell you. I don’t know how you’ll take it, but I know where to start.” She turned and searched his eyes with the most sorrowful expression on her pretty face. “Korac, I need your consent and your promise.”

“Always to you, Sagan.”

She smiled despite herself. “Aren’t you going to ask for what?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “No need. I trust you.” Korac peered around at the catastrophe. “But I won’t lie. You’ve certainly piqued my curiosity.”

A light blush graced her cheeks, and suddenly it smelled like frost and pine. The blush deepened until she finally forced herself back to the matter at hand. “I want you to promise, you’ll keep an open mind. That you’ll listen. And that you’ll let me hold you when it’s over.”

Tall order with an ominous ending. Korac raked his gaze down that glass suit of armor and all her bare skin beneath. When he met her eyes again, Sagan flushed red. He soaked in her gasp and reddened cheeks to prepare him for whatever came next. Satisfied, he assured, “I promise to keep my mind open. That I will listen. And that we’ll hold each other when it’s over.”

A pretty smile was his reward. More than Korac deserved after everything Sagan went through. And he hated that he’d yet to tell her about experiencing the event that led to this.

Before he said a word, he stepped aside. She opened a conduit beside them. Through it, he saw the street below, welcoming the strange people. “Sagan?”

She tried for reassuring, but couldn’t manage a smile. Instead, she took his hand and led him to Razor’s halves. “Korac, I’m sure you’ve learned by now that he holds the key to your past.”

Korac nodded solemnly and kept his promise of an open mind while every instinct in him screamed to finish the Pain Curator.

“I’ll join you on this journey, if that’s okay? I need to act as a bridge. And whatever happens to me, know that I’m fine.” She squeezed his hand encouragingly, while her words unnerved him.

He nodded again.

Sagan held two fingers to the pulse point on Razor’s wrist and mirrored the gesture on Korac’s wrist. They both fell to their knees.

{???}

“Nothing you say here will sway me, Seamswalker. I. Will. Not. Cycle. Tell my father to abandon the cause.”

Razor stood in a beautiful white room with yellow roses carved into the walls and ceiling. They cried lemon-colored tears into an enormous pool below. The same yellow as the man’s blood. He wore the same white suit with black stitching as the day he called Inanis on Gait.

“Now, take the contaminant with you on your way out.”

Sagan stepped up and slapped the Pain Curator. It turned his face. The sound echoed in this place outside of reality.

Korac watched every twitch Razor made, prepared to intervene while also loving his woman for her censure on his behalf. Sagan was more than capable on her own, but he wouldn’t mind a piece himself.

With more calm than Korac expected, she scolded the other man. “You never use that word again. Forget it exists.”

Razor clenched and unclenched his jaw before facing her again. “Why must I like you? It does me no good, but I find I can’t help myself.”

Sagan searched his eyes with something warring in her own before confessing, “I’ll kill Triss if you refuse to cycle.”

He clicked his tongue and waved a finger at her. “Not moments ago, you struck down an Aegis. Now you’re resorting to lies? Empty threats don’t become such awesome power. Your heart’s too soft to harm a woman you know is pregnant.”

“Mine isn’t.” Korac raised a challenging brow when Razor met his gaze. “Pehton’s isn’t. We have more than enough people happy to be rid of Triss.”

Sagan scrutinized the Pain Curator carefully before she said on a breath, “You’d rather let her die than cycle.”

When Razor returned his gaze to her, it filled with something close to shame. “Not even for her.”

“I’ll release you from the Atheneum.”

They all whirled to find Xelan below.

Razor’s eyes widened. “You’re alive?!”

Korac let his mouth gape. How was the Icarus even in here? How did he know what ‘here’ even was? Twice today the Traitor Prince surprised him. Also, “The Atheneum? What is cycling? And how are the two related?” A good General was never this under-informed.

Xelan gave the full weight of his gaze to Sagan. “You didn’t tell him?”

Her mouth fell open now. “How did you know?! And I was getting there.”

Korac eyed the two of them. “What is there to know?”

“You’re the Atheneum, baby brother.”