Chương 14: “Something Older”

It came on a Wednesday at 3am. Not a Seeker this time. Something that didn't move through the dark but moved with it, something that had been circling for weeks in wider orbits that had been getting slowly smaller. Vorrath had felt it coming. He had been preparing. He went into the garden without waking June. The thing at the edge of the radius was large in the way some things are large, not necessarily in size, but in how much space it took from the air around it. It looked at him.

"You're bound," it said.

"Yes," said Vorrath.

"To a child." This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it"Yes." It considered this.

"Are you going to let me pass?"

"No," said Vorrath. He was not at full strength. He had three floors reclaimed and zero minions and a bond at thirty-one percent. The thing at the edge of the radius was older than him and had not spent three thousand years dormant in a closet. He won anyway. It took eleven minutes and cost him the back fence and a crater in the garden that he was going to have to think about. He lay in the grass afterward and looked at the sky. He heard the back door open. Small footsteps.

June sat down next to him in the dark and didn't say anything for a while. Then: "The fence again."

"Yes." She looked at the crater.

"Are you okay?" Nobody had ever asked him that. Not in three thousand years. Not once. He didn't answer. She didn't push. She just sat with him until he stopped being whatever shape he was in after the fight, and then she went back inside, and he lay in the garden a while longer looking at the stars. System: Bond Strength: 41%. She sat with you. You let her. We're not making a thing of it. We're absolutely making a thing of it.