Ariock flew between rock fragments amid distant stars.

Out here, he was no messiah, no Bringer of Hope, no Giant. His galaxy armor was a flimsy gesture of defiance against the deathly void of space. He was small.

Weak.

Useless.

When he spread his awareness in search of life sparks, all he sensed was the directionless thrum of Evenjos. Her presence washed out any other life sparks that might be in her immediate vicinity, and for all Ariock knew, she was mimicking the space dust around him.

He kept searching for Vy.

His fiancée had refused to give up on him when he was in a depletion coma and a bunch of Alashani had given him a funerary procession. She had trusted him when the Torth took her as a hostage. She had stood by him even when he’d accidentally killed Jinishta and a hundred more of his best warriors. Heck, she had eased the passing of his mother.

So Ariock would not give up until he found her.

He used his powers to dodge tumbling ice rocks, ignoring the throb of his warning headache. Spots danced in his vision. He was dangerously close to depletion.

Still, he examined debris. He looked more closely at any shape that vaguely approximated the size of Vy.

Most people believed that saving the universe was the right thing to do. It was supposed to outweigh a single person’s life. Ariock wasn’t sure. If this universe lacked Vy, then it was too dreary for him.

Vy?

Ariock figured he must be hallucinating, because he saw her in the distance. But she wasn’t frozen and dead, like the corpses he had seen in the debris field earlier. He flew closer. Vy was not frosted with ice, like the battlebeasts and the Death Architect. Her red hair was weightless and billowing. Her eyes were so blue they verged on purple.

And her expression changed when she saw him. She looked grateful.

How could she be alive?

Ariock floated into her embrace, disbelieving. Was this some sort of heavenly afterlife?

A refreshing sense of well-being swept through him. His vision returned fully, his headache receded, and he felt loved.

He did not sense Vy’s life spark. Evenjos’s powerful thrum made life sparks impossible to detect.

Was this woman actually Evenjos, impersonating Vy yet again?

I am Vy. Her voice seemed to breathe directly inside his mind. This wasn’t coming through a speaker. Her words felt imaginary—telepathic. Glory (Evenjos) merged with me. She is gone now. But she left behind her magic dust. I am imbued.

“You have powers?” Ariock dared to hope.

But how could this be Vy? Even if, by some miracle, she was…

Well. She was different.

I can’t easily explain it, Vy’s mental voice admitted. I think maybe Evenjos and I got supercharged from whatever was coming out of the temporal gate.

Ariock remembered shoving astronomical forces into the temporal stream. He had destroyed the entire wormhole network.

Perhaps his actions had supercharged Evenjos and Vy?

I don’t know how Evenjos (Glory) (Sorrow) gave me her power, Vy thought in his mind. But she chose to do it. She could have kept me on life support. But she was (so distraught) looking for (someone) another place to go. She chose to follow Garrett into death and left me with her dust.

“I don’t understand.” Ariock couldn’t easily shake off his skepticism. “Evenjos chose to die?” That didn’t sound like the Evenjos he remembered. The Lady of Sorrow might have wanted to die when she was trapped in mirrors, but later on, she had purposely avoided dangerous battles.

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She did, Vy’s mental voice affirmed. She wanted to go wherever Garrett had gone. I think she was curious about death.

Ariock remembered how insecure Evenjos used to be. Her own actions—or inactions—had condemned her long-ago people and caused the Torth Empire to arise. Evenjos had carried a burden of guilt. She had been trapped in her own private misery, forever atoning.

Just like Thomas.

Like Ariock.

And like Garrett. But around Garrett, Evenjos had been more playful and more self-assured. The old man had awakened something new in her.

Maybe that was why she had followed him.

“What happened?” Ariock asked.

Vy gripped Ariock’s armored hands, and she replayed her own memories. He experienced what she had been through. Vy augmenting Evenjos’s already prodigious raw power, and pulling a death comet off course. The Death Architect triggering a self-destruct sequence for her asteroid laboratory. The Former Commander decapitating Garrett—and escaping. Evenjos hadn’t been able to save her lover. Instead, she had merged with Vy again, protecting her in outer space.

“Thomas is safe for now,” Ariock reported, once he had absorbed all that had happened while he was deflecting the death comets. “But I need to teleport him home before he runs out of breathable air.”

I need to replenish more of your strength first. Vy held him, wordless, her mental voice suffusing him with her mood. Let me do that for you.

“You can’t!” Ariock said, alarmed. A lesser Yeresunsa could not revive a greater one from depletion. If Vy tried, they would both end up depleted and dead. He pulled away.

Vy pulled him back. Her strength was a pleasing shock.

Humans, she thought, can augment Yeresunsa.

Ariock realized that she had already showed him her augmentation power, through her memories, but it had hardly registered to him. Now he thought about it. He had slept next to Vy for months without realizing her untapped potential.

He supposed that if he had known, he might have tapped that.

But would he have risked bringing her into battle situations? Hmm.

I am still human, Vy let him know without words. I can augment you. We can augment each other.

Ariock wanted that. He wanted to peel off his armor, and hold her, and touch her skin.

Glorious Vy. Could this really be his fiancée?

Indestructible Vy?

“How are we communicating?” Ariock asked, his deep voice flat inside his helmet. “I’m not telepathic.”

Glory created a semblance of telepathy gas, Vy’s mental voice explained. I can’t explain it, but I learned it from her. That is the key to the augmentation link.

“You’re inside my helmet?” Ariock hoped he wasn’t inhaling and exhaling dust motes that belonged to Vy’s new body. What did his breathing feel like, to her?

I feel you, Vy let him know. But I’d rather touch you like a human, like a person, instead of this way.

She glitched. She fell apart, then re-coalesced.

I am not used to these powers. Vy’s thoughts were ashamed. I mess up every time I start to consciously think about how I look.

Her hair coiled into braids. Then it loosened again. Vy’s mental voice laughed, embarrassed.

I’m glad you’re the only person to see me like this, Vy thought. I don’t know how I’ll face Cherise. Or my mom. I don’t think I can face anyone else until I can (pretend to be normal) control my powers.

“I get that.” Ariock marveled at the demigoddess who would be his wife. She was more perfect than ever. Her skin had a healthy glow, defiant of outer space.

He wanted to touch her indestructible body, to see how it felt.

Touch me, she urged impulsively, without words.

Ariock dared not deplete himself further by teleporting to a planet.

Then he realized that he didn’t need to teleport anywhere if he wanted to touch Vy, body to body. He didn’t even need to item-teleport his armor away if he wanted to get naked. All he had to do was undress.

His supercom crackled. “Good news, Ariock,” Thomas’s faraway voice said. “I jury-rigged a way to communicate in short bursts in local space. And guess what? Cherise figured out how to augment Zai! They found me. And they can teleport across the galaxy and bring passengers, so we have a way home.”

“Nice,” Ariock said. He undid the clever buckles on his armor and took it off, plate by plate. Undressing was a strangely human act. He usually teleported his armor or clothing on and off. At least he remembered how his armor was supposed to be removed.

“Ariock?” Thomas said, worried. “Are you okay?”

“I’m with Vy,” Ariock said. “Go home without me.”

“Um…”

“See you later, Thomas.” Ariock removed his gorget and helmet.

The silence was total.

He was entirely naked in space.

Shielding himself was so natural, so second nature to him, he remained comfortable. But his warning headache returned. He would die if he kept this up.

Vy fell into his arms. Her clothing vanished. They joined.

A refreshing sense of well-being swept through Ariock as he nestled into Vy. His headache was gone in an instant. He knew she was elevating him, augmenting his power to such a degree that he was no longer in danger.

There was no sweat, no discomfort, no dramatically terrifying size differences.

Only fun differences.

They were cosmic. They twined like radiation. They were as dynamic as solar flares.

I love you, they said to each other, speaking in a language of electric vibrations that felt like words.

They crashed and withdrew and crashed again, building each other up, climaxing, as powerful as a binary star pulled by each other’s orbit.