Shadowfever
Page 173

I survived.
So far.
Theres more?
Always.
I couldnt stop staring. I knew who he was. And now that I knew, I couldnt believe I hadnt seen it before.
Never let you, small thing.
Let me now.
Why?
Curiosity.
Dead cats.
Nine lives, I countered.
He smiled and his head swiveled in a distinctly Unseelie manner. I was also seeing, superimposed on a space of air that couldnt existat least not in this realman enormous darkness regarding me. Its head didnt swivel: It grated like stone on stone. It was as if the king was so vast that no single realm could contain him, around him dimensions splintered, overlapped, shifted. His eyes locked with mine, opening wider and wider until they swallowed the entire abbey, and I went spinning, head over heels, into them, with the abbey tumbling beside me.
I was wrapped in enormous black velvet wings, taken into the heart of darkness that was the Unseelie King.
He was so far beyond my comprehension that I couldnt begin to absorb it. Ancient didnt come close, because he was newborn in each moment, as well. Time didnt define him. He defined time. He wasnt death or life, or creation or destruction. He was all possibles and none, everything and nothing, a bottomless abyss that would look back at you if you gazed into it. He was a truth of existence: Once youd been exposed to him, youd never be the same. Like a contagion that infected the blood and brain, he forced new neural pathways to develop merely to handle the brief contact. That or you went nuts.
For a split second, drifting in his vast, ancient embrace, I understood everything. It all made sense. The universes, the galaxiesexistence was unfolding precisely as it should, and there was a symmetry, a pattern, a stunning beauty to the structure of it.
I was tiny and naked, lost in black velvet wings so lush, rich, and sensual that I never wanted to leave. His darkness wasnt frightening. It was verdant, teeming with life on the verge of becoming. There were shiny pearls of worlds tucked into his feathers. I rolled between them, laughing with delight. I think he rolled with me, watching my reaction to him, learning me, tasting. I tumbled among planets, constellations, stars. They hung from his quills, suspended, trembling with growing pains. Waiting for the day he would unfasten them, bat them off into the ballpark, and see what they might do. A home runhey, batter, batter! Fly ball, watch out! That ball sucks, didnt stitch it tight enough coming apart at the seams
I saw us through his eyes: dust motes floating in a shaft of sunlight that stabbed through the rusted-out roof of a barn. He was as likely to swipe his handthrough us and watch us scatter as he was to turn and walk away from this particular hole-in-the-roof byproduct. Or maybe sneeze us all into the great outdoors, where we would go whirling off in a dozen different directions, lost in lonely oblivion, never to come together again.
By our standards, he was mad. Utterly and completely mad. But every now and then, he surfaced and walked a fine line of sanity. It never lasted long.
By his standards, we were paper dolls, flat and one-dimensional. Barking mad as far as he was concerned. But every now and then, one of us walked a fine line of sanity. It never lasted long.
Still, all was well. Life was, and change happened.
Me. He thought I was relatively sane. I laughed until I cried, rolling around in his feathers. Because of his imprint inside me? If I was a shining example of my race, we should all be shot.
He showed me things. Took my hand and escorted me into an enormous theater, where I watched an endless play of light and shadows from a prime seat in the front row. He watched me, chin on a fist, from a red crushed-velvet chair in a box near the stage.
Never did get it all out. His voice came from every speaker: huge, melodic.
The Book?
Cant eviscerate essential self.
Playing doctor again?
Trying. You listening this time?
Hes stealing your Book. You listening?
The dreamy-eyed guys head swiveled away from the stage, and suddenly the theater was gone and we were back in the cavern.
Wings no longer cradled me.
I was cold and alone. I missed his wings. I yearned for him. It hurt.
It will pass, he said absently. You will forget the pain of separation. They always do. His eyes narrowed on Vlane. Yes. He is.
Arent you going to stop him?
Que sera, sera.
I was being stalked by a song, haunted by the calliope from hell. Its your responsibility. You should take care of it.
Should is a false god. No fun there.
Some changes are better than others.
Expound.
If you stop him, the changes will be much more interesting.
Opinion. Subjective.
So is yours, I said indignantly.
His starry eyes glinted with amusement. If he replaces me, I will become something else.
I could almost hear the Sinsar Dubh saying, Is not any act of destruction, should time enough pass, an act of creation? The apple didnt fall far from the tree.
I dont want you replaced. I like you as you are.
Flirting with me, beautiful girl?