“Then the Draziri developed space flight and stumbled on the Hiru,” I guessed. “Which proved that their religion was a lie. There was no creator god. There was just an alien species.”
“If that fact became public, their entire social structure would have collapsed,” Tony said.
“And the Draziri priests wanted to keep their power.”
“That too. They destroyed the planet before the general population could learn that the Hiru existed and then declared a holy extermination of all Hiru. At first, the Hiru didn’t understand why, then when they did finally figure it out, some committed suicide to show the Draziri who they were killing. When they succeeded, the temple guards would destroy everyone who witnessed the Hiru’s true form and then blame the deaths on the Hiru. People do horrible things in the name of keeping things just the way they are.”
“Where did you take Mrak?”
“There is a little planet in the corner of the galaxy,” he said. “Its sun is dying.”
“I thought suns took billions of years to die.”
“Not this one. It and the entire star system are slowly transitioning out of our dimension. The change has killed most of the biosphere and now the planet has entered the in-between stage, where it exists neither in our space-time nor in the new one. It’s a ghost of a planet. I left him there. He no longer needs to eat or to breathe. He can’t kill himself. All he can do is exist alone among the barren rocks on the shore of an empty ocean, watching the sun grow dimmer every day.”
I shivered. “How long…”
“Not too long. Maybe another twenty years or so. A mind can only take so much.”
“What then? Will he just sit in the dark forever?”
“No. I will get him before the sun dies and end it. If he goes mad before then, I’ll end it sooner. Imprisoning a mad creature would be cruel.”
And that’s why seeing an ad-hal was never a good thing. I had to change the subject.
“Do you know anything about Sebastien North?”
He shook his head. “But I do know something about Michael.”
The memory of Michael’s corruption-ravaged body flickered before me. “What?”
“He was an ad-hal,” Tony said quietly.
I took a step back. “Michael?”
He nodded.
“The corruption took him, killed him, and when it fled his body, it focused on you.”
“I know,” he said. “Michael isn’t the only ad-hal who disappeared in the past several years. Something is hunting us.”
The ad-hal served as our protectors. Without them, we would be defenseless.
“This is for you.” Tony handed me a small card. “I was going to wait until tomorrow, but since we started talking, let’s do this now.”
I opened the card. Three words in black ink. You are summoned. The Assembly was summoning me. My actions would be scrutinized. I would have to answer hard questions.
“Don’t worry,” Tony said. “The rallying point is at my father’s inn. I’ll be there to testify. You can bring Sean, too. You’ll need to introduce him to the Assembly.”
“Um…”
“You know you have to do it sooner or later,” Tony said. “It will be okay, Dina. You’re not the only innkeeper to survive the death of an inn, but you joined a very exclusive club today. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
“Yes, in the morning.” I forced a smile. “Today is Christmas Eve for us. I served some very old wine.”
Tony rubbed his hands. “Then I’m going to help myself.”
“You totally should.”
He hurried to the tables.
I turned and walked away. I had two hours before the feast. I needed to take a shower and think.
*
I had just finished my shower when my magic told me Sean was coming up the stairs. I wrapped a towel around myself and opened the door. He was holding a bottle of wine and a tray with some delicious-looking pastries.
He saw me, in a towel, with wet hair on my shoulders. A wolf looked at me from inside his eyes, a wild wolf, hungry, feral, scarred, and every inch mine.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yes.”
He stepped inside and set the platter and wine on the bed. A quick dash of anticipation mixed with anxiety rushed through me.
“I put my house on the market,” he said.
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
I was still lost three days ago. He sold his house while I was still out, not knowing if I would come back.
“I have an offer. I accepted it.”
“What if I hadn’t come out of it?”
“I knew you would,” he said.
“How?”
“You don’t give up. And…” He raised his hand and touched my cheek. His rough fingers grazed my skin, caressing. The breath caught in my throat. “You wouldn’t leave me.”
We stood next to each other. Suddenly I was very aware that I was wearing nothing but a towel. The wolf was looking at me through Sean’s eyes, so close, if I reached out, I could touch him.
“This is the part where I should probably do that thing Arland does,” Sean said quietly. “Where he announces that he isn’t a poet, but a humble awkward soldier, and then composes a sonnet on the spot.”