Page 90 of Guardian's Destiny

The first time this happened to me was when my superior turned out to be a traitor. This was even worse.

For a moment, the room spun around me, my hands flailed, looking for something to hold on to, and then suddenly, there was Vraax. His strong arm snaked around my waist, and I leaned into him because I really didn't have the strength to stand up. He was my rock.

I had never been a spiritual person. Mom and Dad took me to church for Easter and Christmas, now and then to a Sunday service, but it hadn't stuck with me. I went through the usual teenage phases, did the Ouija board, read about witchcraft and vampires, and some of my friends and I went to the cemetery one night looking for ghosts because we had listened to one too many podcasts. And yes, there had been a phase where I considered reincarnation a thing. The problem was thateverybody always wanted to be the spirit of Anne Boylen, Cesar, Washington, or whatever. None of my friends boasted to have been a peasant in 1400 England dying of an infection from an ingrown toenail.

That little detail had pestered and pestered me until I gave the entire thing up. And now, it felt like it was a lifetime ago. Since then, I had watched hundreds of people die without ever seeing a ghost, spirit, or light, leaving me thinking that death was it. There was nothing else after that. There had been only blackness before I was born, and there would only be blackness when I was gone. I had been fine with it, too. It wasn't like I could send a complaint to management and say, hey, this isn't fair. So I accepted it.

Until now.

My mouth moved, opened and closed, without a word exiting. I would have loved to suspect Zapharos was only fucking with us. That he would break out into loud laughter, screaming:Gotcha. Deep down though, I knew that wouldn't happen. He was serious.

I never had an anxiety attack before. But I felt like I was on the verge. It was getting harder to breathe, and my heart was beating erratically while the room kept spinning around me.

"Easy, Sloane," Vraax whispered in my ear, grounding me. "I'm here. I'm your safe place."

"Okay," I croaked, because there was a frog the size of a pit bull lodged in my throat. But I was feeling better, having him here. He was right. He was my safe place.

"Why are you so cool with it?" I asked after I cleared my throat of Mister Pit Bull.

"I just found out I'm a test tube baby." A deep grin sounded in his voice, and I actually found myself taking a deep, steadying breath. "So this is actually good news. I might have been raised in a lab, but at least my soul wasn't, and that is what matters."

I wish I could accept this as simply as he did, but it wasn't that simple for me.

"So what? I was killed on Darlam twenty thousand years ago, and my soul traveled all over the universe until it found a spot on Earth."

Zapharos’s eyes turned cold, and I knew he wouldn't answer my question.

"So what?" I demanded. "You want me to take your word on blind faith that I am Solaana?"

He nodded. "Yes. That and because it's written all over your body."

"What?"

He pointed at my leg, "Your name, it's written over your leg."

I wasn't a person to take things on blind faith. I needed hardcore evidence, but what he said… it resonated with me. As much as I didn't want to believe it, itfeltright.

"So if I die, I'll be reborn and Vraax and I have to… search for each other all over the universe again?"

Zapharos shook his head, "That's not quite how it works, because fate plays a big part in it too."

"Predestination and crap?" I asked.

"No," he surprised me. "Nothing is predestined, and that's where we come in."

He meant his species, the Arkhevari.

"So what, you're some kind of matchmaker?"

He sighed as ifIwas tryinghispatience, when it was the other way around.

"Not even close. I'm tired now, though. Can we postpone our little conversation?"

I mumbled, repeating his words, before I pulled Vraax forward. "Let's go. He won't say anything else."

The door opened automatically, but before we stepped through, Zapharos halted us. "Sloane."

I turned. "Yes."

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