They walked together in her dreams. This time the Ine had brought her straight to the white horizon-less realm at the centre of his power. Sandsa had explained that all of his siblings were forced to meet there every so often to discuss how best to guide their people. Now this realm was barred to him; he was an outcast. Callista could understand why he didn’t care about this — it was a cold, unfeeling place.
She latched onto her conversation with the Creator God, unwilling to heed reality which sounded a lot like the cries of her son. Back in that room awaited the Desine, a wild wind she had tried to trap with her bare hands.
‘I’m nothing compared to the deserts in his eyes,’ she told the Ine. ‘If I stay, I’ll only be second best. And I can’t hang around, not if he expects me to raise his son while he looks after countless other sons. I love Sandsa, I do, but I…I don’t even know who am I when I’m with him!’
The figure beside her paused just long enough for her to catch up to him. ‘You underestimate yourself, Callista Krendasta. Is it because you do not know your destiny?’
‘It’s not like any of my dreams of the future have included what happens to me!’ she said breathlessly. He kept such a languid pace and it annoyed her that her legs felt too short, too sluggish, to keep up with him.
‘It was easy for you to accept Sandsa’s love because you foresaw it,’ the Ine remarked. ‘Now that there is only uncertainty in your future, you believe there is no place for you in Sandsa’s. It is short-sighted, Callista. Most mortals do not have the privileges you enjoy.’
Callista swung around in front of him, blocking his path and halting his steps. ‘So tell me what happens. Tell me what happens if I stay with the Desine. Will he let me be anything but his wife? Will I still be able to be…me?’
‘I will tell you nothing,’ the Ine said.
‘Please. I need to know what happens.’
The Ine lifted his shoulders and spread his arms. ‘Then stay with my son. And see for yourself.’
Callista held a hand over her frantically beating heart. ‘I couldn’t…I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t just be the woman who waits and twiddles her thumbs while she shares her husband with the galaxy.’ She lifted her fingers to catch the tear streaking down her cheek before it could touch her lips. ‘What if he forgets me? What if he never takes human form again?’
‘Those are fears you need to communicate to my son.’ The Ine seemed to grow even taller as he stared down at her. ‘You must be open with him.’
‘Why should I listen to you? You only see me as a lesson or an incubator.’
‘He needed your love.’ The Ine’s gaze remained as immovable as a mountain. ‘It taught him to care for his people, just as his life with you taught him to be a better guide for them.’
‘And what about my son? What’s his destiny?’ Callista pressed.
‘He could replace the god of the deserts, should Sandsa ever grow weary of it. Then you could have your husband to yourself once more.’
‘No. I won’t have it. I want…’ Callista closed her eyes and breathed deeply. ‘I want Kieran to discover who he is without his powers or any of this…any of this shit.’
His voice was maddeningly calm. ‘You are happy for your son to seek the future blindly but will not accept that uncertainty for yourself. Interesting.’
Callista spitted him with a glare. ‘Even if I take Kieran away from this, Fayay will still come after him. I don’t trust you to stop the Watine, because you clearly set him on us to start with. Is there a way to keep Fayay — and any other god — from sensing and finding my son?’
‘Yes,’ the Ine replied. ‘Although it would severely limit your son’s powers.’
‘Good. I don’t want him to carry that burden. How do I do it?’
When the Ine smiled, it was as though an artist had perfectly chiselled the lines into the face of a marble statue. ‘You already know the answer to that question. And so does your father.’
He turned and left her there, his fading footfalls her only company.
She took one last breath before she made her choice.
‘Fayay!’ she called.
A hot geyser appeared at her feet, spraying hot water over the shield she quickly erected. In the spout’s wake stood a smiling Fayay. ‘I hear you are ready to surrender the Desine to his duties and withdraw your distracting presence.’
‘I have one condition.’
‘Name it.’
She hardened her expression. ‘If you want Sandsa to stay where he is, you will leave my son alone. He is not a weapon for you to use against your brother.’
‘Then your son must forsake the deserts and his powers,’ Fayay said, his breath thick and foul against her face. ‘I will not abide a threat who can one day raise his hands against me.’
‘I know how to temper my son’s powers,’ Callista said calmly. ‘And he will live as a mortal, raised by mortals.’
Fayay’s teeth peeked out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Very well. But know this. If your son ever uses Sandsa’s powers, then our deal is off. I will come for him. And I will take him.’
‘Agreed.’
After he teleported away in triumph, Callista inspected the scars on her palms. She could not ask Sandsa to suffer the death of another loved one but nor could she stay at his side. An eternity without him was unbearable, but she would rather take that than look him in the eye and tell him that her insecurity had kept him from his people needlessly.
She had crushed him into a fragment of himself. He could only recover in her absence.
Just as she could only be herself in his.
***
Sandsa set his son back into the crib and smiled over at his wife as she roused herself. ‘It is alright. I believe he had a nightmare and no longer requires your services.’
Arching her back and stretching her arms over her head, Callista held his eyes, even as the sheet fled her naked form. Needing no further encouragement, Sandsa went to her. He felt…her thoughts were steady, resolved. His shoulders slumped in relief. In the morning he would explain how he meant to balance his family with his duties, but for now…her hips lifted from the bed and her knees parted, revealing the moistened lips that awaited his attention.
Sandsa knelt on the bed and worshipped her. His tongue swirled around her clitoris, eliciting moans, then he dove into her core, tasting her desire. Her fingers clawed into his scalp and drew him up into her kiss. He explored her mouth, moaning when he felt her tongue dance in response.
‘In me, now,’ she ordered.
He obeyed and found that she was tight and tense. Sandsa gently worked his thumb over her throbbing nub until her muscles relaxed enough for him to sheathe himself completely inside her wet heat. She met his deep thrusts with fervour, forcing his rhythm, and it wasn’t long before she pulsed around him, once, twice. He gasped and closed his eyes, allowing the cascade of pleasure to overwhelm him.
When he looked down at her again, she was smiling.
He smiled back and kissed her, his lips languid against her own.
Lying on his side, her warmth at his back, Sandsa felt her fingers trail over his thigh, his softened member, his stomach, a sensitive nipple and then to his lips. She was mapping him, leaving her mark in every crevice.
Soothed by her touch, Sandsa closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.
***
She ran.
The flight from the mining moon to Gerasnin had taken two hours. At any moment he might wake and realise they were gone. No matter how far she fled across the galaxy, Callista knew that he would sense their location and be there within a heartbeat. She had left the starship before the docking ramp had even hit the ground, desperate to reach her destination before he came for her.
With each jolt, the precious bundle in her arms made several minute sounds of protests that began to blend into one uniform wail. Callista followed the streetlights as they flared to life beneath the darkening sky and guided her towards the enormous stone temple, both GLEA’s headquarters and a place of worship. Callista sobbed with relief when her feet met the white steps. She began to climb, Kieran now silent in her arms, possibly sensing her urgency —
‘Colonel Nerani,’ Callista said in surprise, halting.
Her son wrinkled his nose in displeasure, no doubt sensing the nest of Chippers in their temple. Unlike in Atsa City where there had only been an outpost, here on Gerasnin, the seat of their power, they had many of these large buildings. To Callista they looked like stone coffins. The soaring arches and cheerful purple banners did little to belie that feeling.
‘Clan Leade — Callista,’ Nerani corrected herself, pausing on her way up the steps. Her boots were polished enough to reflect the stars and the stubby tentacles on her scalp were lined up perfectly.
‘You’re a long way from Yalsa 5,’ Nerani noted. ‘We heard you’d left with Bolt but it’s not like anyone bothered to tell us why.’ She glanced down at Callista’s arms in wonder. ‘Your son’s really strong. I can feel it.’
‘I need your help so people can’t feel him,’ Callista said.
***
Callista framed her forehead with both hands, keenly aware of the bump caused by the implant beneath the skin on her right temple. She held her breath, reaching for the core of power inside her, the one that had begun in her childhood as a passing distraction and had then become a curse that had lured a god into her bed. She scratched deeper and deeper until…
‘How do you feel?’ Nerani asked, rocking Kieran in her arms.
Callista wet her lips. ‘I can just…make out you and my son, but it’s faint. The chip is severely hampering my powers.’
‘Next question. How’d you know it would work?’
Callista shrugged. ‘Just something my father told me.’ And it was the Ine who told him the chips would nullify our powers and make us undetectable, she added silently, then said out loud, ‘I had no other choice but to try. Can you please give my son a chip?’
A frown filled Nerani’s face. ‘It seems a shame that you would limit his powers this way. He could be of great service to GLEA without the chip. He feels…immense. Like a god, even…’
Callista tensed. ‘By the laws of Gerasnin, I’m his legal guardian and I am giving him over to the care of the Chip…the Galactic Law Enforcement Agency. You can’t stop me.’
This way he will be free of the Ine and the deserts.
And he will be free of me. I cannot lead another man astray.
Her palms itched. Callista rubbed them together, but the irritation persisted. Glancing down at the binding scars, she bit her lip.
‘Are you sure about this?’ Nerani asked her for the hundredth time.
‘No.’
‘But you’re doing it anyway.’
Callista nodded.
‘You would make a fine Chipper yourself, you know,’ Nerani told her, holding out Kieran as though to give him back, but Callista stood and retreated from her son, her eyes burning as he began to cry his own tears. ‘What’ll you do, then?’
Callista stared unseeingly through the ceiling, to the stars that would mock her every night for the rest of her eternal life. ‘Be myself.’
***
He woke alone.
Sandsa sat up and stretched out with his senses. Callista was nowhere nearby, nor was his son. He peered frantically into the stars around him — and found nothing. Sandsa tossed the sheets aside and again tried to follow the cords that connected him to his family, but they ended abruptly just beyond his field of vision.
Sandsa breathed deeply, trying not to panic.
Then he saw the techpad on her pillow. He lifted it and read the message she’d left for him.
Sandsa, my love,
You never had to choose between the deserts and me. The Ine made that clear. I should have told you but I was selfish. All this time, I kept you from your true self. And I am so sorry.
The Ine also told me that I existed simply to teach you how to love your people — or to provide a replacement if you refused to return after your lesson. This is not the destiny I’d have chosen. I wanted so much more for myself. And this is not what I want for Kieran. If he stays, he’ll be manipulated and endlessly targeted. He deserves a chance to live as man.
You won’t be able to sense us. I found a way to ensure that. Don’t worry about Fayay or the others — even if they do manage to find us, we are safe from them.
I need to find out who I am without you. All I know is that I am not the wife of a desert god.
I love you.
I’m sorry.
‘Why didn’t you tell me this was how you felt?’ he whispered, pressing his lips to the small screen of the device.
He had taken her from Atsa, away from her friends and away from any chance of her having a normal, mortal life. And he had just assumed that she’d wanted this.
Sandsa stood and hurled the techpad at the wall. Pieces of it rained over the floor.
Callista was right. He’d never had to choose.
She’d chosen for him.
His human form disintegrated and he became a tortured wind, howling with eternal fury as he scoured the galaxy.
But no matter where he looked, the Desine could not find her.