Page 118 of Defiant

In that moment, I understood why they had stayed. Why not oneof them would escape when given the chance. That would have meant abandoning the others to their torment. They survived because they were together. I took their love, their support, and clung to it. Then quested outward.

Not…alone…Chet thought.Not alone?

No, Iwasn’talone. I’d never been alone. I reached out and found…

I’m here,Kimmalyn said in my mind. She didn’t know what was happening, but she’d felt me reaching out in my pain.Spin, I’m here.

I’m here.Nedd, on Platform Prime, with command.

I’m here.Arturo.

I’m here.FM.

Spensa?Jorgen.Oh, scud. It’s good to feel your mind.

All of them. Even Alanik, Sadie, T-Stall, and Catnip. Kauri and the kitsen. Shiver and Dllllizzzz.

Thank you,Dllllizzzz whispered to me,for bringing me home.More distantly, I felt Maksim and Peg. Even a strange worried mind that wasVapor.They sensed me looking for them, and I felt their warmth join that of the thousands of slugs.

Before their love, the pain didn’t vanish. But it looked so,sosmall. Like a candle in front of a sun.

With that perspective, both Chet and I knew we could handle this. I’d been through it before and survived. Maybe I hadn’t dealt with my father’s passing in the most healthy of ways, and losing Bim and Hurl had only exacerbated that. I was, however, more capable now.

Gran-Gran had died on her own terms, in a way she’d likely always dreamed of doing. By luring the enemy into a trap, then springing it. She’d lived a full life, and had gone out like she was in a story. None of that dulled my pain, but it didcontextualizeit.

I could live with this.

But she’s gone…Chet thought.Gone forever.

No,I replied.I remember her. You remember her.

That’s pain.

That’s life.

I…Can we really do this?he asked.Can we really just…keep living…with this?

In response, I let my mind hold the delver. I joined the chorus of thousands of taynix, of my friends.

I understand,I thought.We understand.

Slowly, Chet’s panic subsided, and his soul aligned with mine. It seemed wondrous that it worked. He was a being that had felt so alone when experiencing loss that it had created millions of clones of itself.

And yet, was it truly that odd? They’d been isolated in the nowhere.

That was the problem, wasn’t it?

The delver let out a long sigh, and I felt his emotions as if they were my own. Comfort. Gratitude. Strength. All of that love—the mere fact that the delver understood, deeply, that others cared…well, it legitimately helped.

And at long last, Chet accepted that there was only one way forward. One way to survive the pain. With the help of so many, he walked the path on his own and found that youcouldget through darkness. Though sometimes a friendly light was required to show the way.

48

BRADE

Brade watched her fleet go up in flashes of light.

Well, sometimes you had to break a few skulls to make a throne of bones, eh? At least now they’d have some war heroes to celebrate in parades and whatnot. Considering what the Superiority military had done to her family, she wasn’t going to let a lost ship here or there bother her.

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