Page 89 of Guardian's Destiny

"What the fuck," Sloane yelled.

"Zapharos," Ella rushed forward, throwing herself at the Arkhevari, kissing him, before glaring at Sloane, "What have you done?"

"You were going to kill me." Sloane stared at Zapharos incredulously.

"I warned you not to go too far, Sloane," Zapharos responded, with some residue of anger left around him. But it wasn't like the Black Abyss I had seen before any longer.

"Youwarnedme?" Sloane laughed bitterly. "You have some nerve?—"

"Alright, let's get his feet taken care of," I suggested, trying to diffuse the situation.

"You shot me." Zapharos tilted his head, amusement spread through him once again. "Twice."

I located the healing wand in one of the built-in-the-wall shelves and turned it on while I walked over to Zapharos on wobbly legs. They felt worse than after a hard workout.

"Hurt her and I will kill you," I told him, while I moved the wand over his left foot first.

"You're both bloodthirsty," Zapharos grinned. "Actually, it kind of makes me glad that you have more of us in you than I thought."

"Alright, answers, now!" Sloane crossed her arms over her chest after depositing the blaster back into its holster.

"No, you need to leave, both of you," Ella demanded.

"Easy, lumiya," Zapharos soothed the human female. "I might have aggravated our friend too much."

"She had no right to shoot you," Ella insisted.

I shot a warning glare at Sloane as a low growl emanated from her throat. She stopped but huffed exasperatedly.

"She did," Zapharos admitted. "Trust me, let it be." He nuzzled her neck while I moved the healing wand to his right foot.

Sloane tapped her foot on the ground.

"What do you want to know?" Zapharos adjusted himself and Ella on the chair, and I returned to my post on the wall, placing the healing wand on a table. I wasn't going to clean everything up for him.

"Let's assume for one second I believed in reincarnation," Sloane started.

"You don't?" Zapharos provoked but then must have thought better of it because he waved his hand magnanimously to invite Sloane to keep talking.

Sloane was too worked up still to even take offense to Zapharos’s little gesture. "So given reincarnation as an option, how would it be even remotely possible for one soul to be reborn in a lab and another on Earth?"

"Why would it not?" Zapharos replied, and when Sloane took a deep breath to allow her temper through one more time, he raised his hand. "I'm being serious. If you were to believe in reincarnation, you would have to believe in a higher power, true?"

I shook my head. "Not necessarily."

"Can we just stop all this mumbo jumbo and you just tell us straight if Vraax is the reincarnation of the same Vraax on Darlam and I of Solaana?"

"Yes."

Dumbfounded, we both stared at him. This was the first straightforward answer he had ever given.

"Yes, as in we can stop the mumbo jumbo, or yes, we are the reincarnations?"

"Yes to both."

SLOANE

For the secondtime in my life, I felt as if someone had ripped the carpet right from under my feet. Like one of those fancy tricks where someone pulls a tablecloth off the table so suddenly, all the dishes remain standing. All but a few who shake precariously. That was me. I was shaking to the center of my core.

---