Page 127 of She Who Devours the Stars

Eventually, the mythic alarm in the distance changed tone, going from disaster to celebration. Someone, somewhere, had declared us safe. Or maybe just bored.

Alyx laughed, then kissed my shoulder. “I think the administrative AI likes us,” she said.

“It has taste,” Dyris replied.

I grinned. “It has no idea what’s coming.”

We floated in the pool, the water thicker now, almost syrupy with resonance. Every time we touched, the glow intensified, casting shadows on the walls that looked like ancient runes or new constellations. Alyx traced a spiral on my stomach, then let her hand drift lower. I caught her wrist, squeezed, then let go.

Dyris’s hand found mine under the surface, fingers cold and strong. She squeezed, once, and I squeezed back.

Above us, the light fractured, turning the world into a thousand moving pieces. I let my body relax, let the salt sting my cuts, letthe warmth soak into my bones. This was as close to heaven as the world would ever let us get.

Alyx’s voice cut through the haze. “You ever think about running away?”

“Always,” I said.

“Where would you go?”

I shrugged. “Anywhere with you two.”

She smiled, and for the first time, I believed it.

Dyris watched, silent, but I could see the tension leave her shoulders. She let herself slide into the pool, slow, until she was right next to me, the three of us shoulder to shoulder, legs tangled, hearts beating at the same impossible rhythm.

We sat like that, unmoving, until the world started to spin again.

And when it did, we spun with it.

At the center of the pool, at the center of everything, I closed my eyes and let the gravity pull me in.

Maybe, this time, I’d let myself stay. Maybe, this time, I wouldn’t have to run.

Not when I had a home like this. Not when I had them.

The world could end a dozen more times, and we’d still find a way to laugh through it.

I let the water take me, let the light swallow us whole, and promised myself:

If this were the last day, I’d make it count.

If this were the next disaster, I’d own it.

If this was the only way to be real, it was enough.

We were enough.

And the rest of the world would just have to keep up.

Thread Modulation: Dyris Trivane

Axis Alignment: South Tower

Fern lay stretched across a faded towel, skin silvered by the last dregs of morning light and the first bite of artificial ozone off the margarita pool. The water burbled behind us, churning in lazy neon-green spirals, but Fern’s whole focus was the taste of me. Not the air, not the city, not even the taste of herself still lingering on my thighs. Me.

I was straddling her jaw, hips splayed wide, one hand fisted in her star-bright hair. Her tongue worked slow, patient, insistent. She licked with the devotion of a girl building new gods out of old flavors, and I let her, shuddering a little each time she switched from soft to sharp, as if she’d caught the edge of the world’s last secret and wanted to savor it before it slipped away.

The mythics at the Academy called it “mating the axis,” as if you could just line up the right magnetic poles and make a whole new universe from the friction. They never mentioned that sometimes the best leverage was a mouth that wouldn’t quit, and a will to be absolutely ruined before noon.