Page 43 of Grounded (Convergence #1)

Hands clutched at her. Someone was screaming. A man. Her man.

Liria shot awake, automatically reaching for Thax. His eyes were open, but he wasn't seeing—at least, not what was really before him. Terror oozed from his every pore. He screamed again.

“Thax!” Liria cupped his face. “Thax, look at me. I'm here. It's Liria. Your destra. We're back. We made it out. Together. Remember? Always together. You and me. We got out of there. We're on the surface. In the fortress. We're safe.”

Shuddering, Thax focused on her. “Liri?”

“Yeah. Hey, baby.”

That's when Thax's father came bursting into the room. He stopped short and stared at them. Liria ignored him.

Turning toward Thax on the Aethari-sized bed, she said, “You did it. You got us to that tunnel.”

“You came for me.” Thaxvarien swallowed, his throat working hard. His breath hitched. “Down there. Dear Magic, Liri, you went underground for me. I thought I had dreamed you. I thought I was still there.”

“Magic and technology led me to you. They told me what to do. Showed me where to go. Steadied me. I knew I could save you. But it was you who saved us in the end.” Liria glanced at his shoulders. “You gave up so much to get us out.”

Thax blinked. Then, slowly, looked over his shoulder. “Oh, fuck. No. My wings? Where are my wings?!”

“I'm so sorry, Thax.” She set her hand over his ruined amulet. “I think this protected you for as long as it could. But the tech was too strong down there. It suppressed the magic inside you. Your wings—they disintegrated. I'm sorry, but they're gone.”

“My son.” The Speaker fell to his knees and wept. “Oh, Source, why would you do this to him?”

“Father?” Thax sat up. Then he flinched and looked over his shoulder again. “Liria . . .” He looked at her as she sat up. “Oh, fuck. What am I?”

“You are Thaxvarien Rennux, the bravest man I've ever met. You're my destru. And you're alive. The wings didn't make you who you are. That's still in here.” Liria laid her hand on his chest. “Nothing can change this heart.”

Thax's gaze went from her to his father. Bleak. He stared at the weeping man for a few hollow moments. And then he lay down. On his back. Wincing, Thax rolled onto his side and curled up into a ball.

“Get out!” Liria hissed at the Speaker. “You're not helping.”

The Speaker looked at her and then at Thax. “He's . . . what have they done to him?”

“This wasn't the Nethren. Just being down there did this to him.” Even as she spoke, Liria remembered feeling the Source of Technology. The clarity. The purpose. The longing.

It had been so alluring, even though it didn't want to consume her.

Liria understood why the Nethren had dug so deep.

And why the Aethari had gone so high. Once you got that close to a source, it was hard to turn back, no matter what the source wanted.

And both sources wanted the same thing—balance.

Harmony. Unity. They wanted each other, craving each other as much as Liria craved Thax.

They didn't want to hurt anyone. Just as fire couldn't help burning those who got too close, neither could the Sources of Technology and Magic prevent the mutations of those who got too close to them.

Mutation—the word echoed through her mind. Did that mean that Thax was actually healed? Did his journey underground return him to his true form?

Thax whimpered.

“Hey, I'm here.” Liria lay down beside him and pulled him into her arms. “You're going to be all right.”

“Grounded,” Thax whispered. “Liri, I'm grounded forever.”

A shiver ran through her. “It's not so bad, baby. You're alive. That's what counts. We'll figure the rest out together. We face the future together, no matter what it brings. Remember? No matter what.”

Thax bent his face into her neck and wept.

“Oh, great Source, what have you done to my son?” Thax's father lamented. “Why choose him to speak through and then take your gift away? I don't understand!”

Turning her head to look over her shoulder, Liria hissed, “Source led me to him.

It spoke through you, remember? It told me to go, and it even came to me down there and helped me converge as I've never been able to before.

The Source of Magic saved Thaxvarien's life!

Both of our lives. That's what it did. You should be praying in gratitude, not lamenting, you fool. Your son lives!”

The Speaker's stare went blank as he looked at her. He got to his feet. “Thaxvarien.”

Thax just wept harder.

“You don't understand, Daughter,” the Speaker said hollowly. “You have never experienced the freedom of the sky. I mourn for Thaxvarien, for his loss, not mine. He's right. Grounded. That's what he is. He will never—”

“Get out!” Liria roared, surging up, one hand going back toward Thax as if she could protect him from his father's words. “Get the fuck out of this room now!”

The Speaker of Icara fell backward as if Liria had shoved him, and then he fumbled for the door. As he left, she brushed back Thax's hair and made soft, comforting sounds.

“You're alive, Thax. That's all that matters. And we're together. We can handle this.”

“Liri,” he wept harder. “They're gone. Half of me is gone.”

“They weren't even a quarter of you, baby. Just appendages. Tools really. Honestly, they were a bit cumbersome, don't you think?”

Thax lifted his head and made a sound that was part laugh and part horror. “I will never fly again.”

Liria cupped his face in her hands again. “Everything would be lost to you if you had died down there. Are your wings really worth your life?”

It scared her that he didn't answer.

So, she went on, “Listen to me, Thaxvarien Rennux.

I know you're still processing, and it will take time for you to recover, but I will be beside you every step of the way.

I promise you that I won't leave you to wade through this alone.

And you'll see. This is not your end. Just another beginning.”

“I know I should be grateful, and I am, Liri. To you.” He kissed her cheek. “I will never forget the sight of you standing before me, coated in metal, with one of their weapons in your hand.”

“I had to disguise myself.”

“You were amazing. Even as the Source of Technology drained me, I felt in awe of you. You gave me strength. It was your words, not my wings, that carried us up to that tunnel.” He took her hands from his face and kissed them.

“I shouldn't have been surprised that you came for me.

My brave destra. Braver than any Aethari—man or woman.

Source chose to speak through me, but it was only to save you.

You are special, Liri. I've always known that. Now, I know why. Both sources have chosen you.”

“That's called convergence, Thax.”

“What you did down there was more than convergence. I've never seen anything like it. The way you saved me from that fall . . . Oh, sweet Magic, I would have fallen.”

Liria thought Thax was getting better, but then his expression cracked, and a terrible sound came from him—a keening. He clutched her to his chest and just wailed.

“It's going to be all right.” Liria rocked him as best she could and kept saying the words that everyone said in terrible times.

But those words needed to be said. He needed to hear them. And Liria would be whatever Thax needed. She wasn't about to watch him self-destruct after she'd gone into the ground for him. No fucking way.

They spent hours like that, just holding each other.

Thax cried until he had no tears left, and Liria cried with him.

She couldn't be there, loving him, and not cry.

But she tried to hide her tears and be strong for him.

He was so far gone into misery that she was sure he didn't notice. At last, he fell asleep.

Liria lay there, finally processing the situation herself.

Thax was right about the convergence—it was yet another impossibility that had become fact.

Well, maybe not an impossibility, but it was a miracle.

She shouldn't have been able to converge down there at all.

That's why she had taken a Nethren weapon with her.

She shouldn't have been able to use a pulser.

That's what Medeans had always assumed. But now, thinking about it, that didn't make sense to her.

Converged items worked in the sky cities, and they were close to the Source of Magic.

So, why couldn't convergence work below, close to the Source of Technology?

Her pulser probably would have worked fine down there.

And that made her wonder about the Nethren themselves.

If Aethari didn't kill convergence, why would the Nethren? But Liria had seen proof of it.

Or had she?

Nethren destroyed the pit barrier often, and it was assumed that their very essence helped them. But what if it wasn't that? What if they simply used tech machinery to open the barrier? That was something she couldn't answer yet, so she moved on.

The fact was that Liria had converged underground.

In a Nethren city. She had summoned technology to give form to physical things and then converged it with magic to power those things.

That was convergence. On top of the supposed impossibility of her converging at all underground, there was the way she had converged.

Convergence never happened that quickly, especially not with such large creations.

A trav converged in seconds? Not even the best converger on the planet could do that.

It had to be because she had both of the sources with her.

Had they really chosen her, as Thax said?