Page 132 of She Who Devours the Stars

When it ended, I thought I was dead.

Thousands of years later, the snarling hunger had lessened to a dull purr. It wasn’t sated, but it was... sleepy? I opened my eyes.

I was on the floor, again. The towel was gone, the room darker, the smell of ozone so thick I could taste it in the sweat on my lips. My body was a wreck, every muscle spasming, every breath a jolt. I tried to move, but the mythic had bled into my bones and left me shaking.

Above me stood Aenna. No, she was hovering, a centimeter or so off the ground, toes pointed, red hair floating around her head like a corona.

She looked incredible. More alive than I’d ever seen her, skin aglow, the freckles on her face sharp as if lit from inside. Her hands flexed in and out, little arcs of bioelectricity dancing from fingertip to wrist. She was herself, but more, every flaw upgraded, every line of code debugged and then rewritten in her own, new language.

She bent, leaned down, and kissed me on the lips. She tasted like ionized sugar, a dash of synthetic mint reminiscent of stims, and the heat of thought made physical.

“We’re not done,” she said, voice back to a single channel, but ringing in my head like a bell.

I tried to say something clever, but all that came out was a single, ragged whisper: “…again.”

Aenna grinned, and the room shuddered, and I realized the spiral wasn’t finished, it was just starting.

She straddled me, weightless, letting her hands roam down my chest, tracing every rib, every scar, every old story still written on my skin. I felt her mythic field pressing against mine, resonating, trying to collapse the difference between us into a single, shared waveform.

This time, I let her win.

We rolled, tumbled, came together, every sense sharpened by the echo of what we’d just survived. I clawed at her back, not caring if I drew blood, if anything, hoping I would, just to taste her again, to prove to myself that this wasn’t a dream.

She was rougher this time, less reserved, moving with the wild confidence of someone who’d spent a few centuries mastering their new myth and was ready to see what it could do. She pinned my wrists to the floor, kissed down my throat, bit at the tender spot just above my collarbone. I hissed, arched, and shivered as she moved lower, mapping my whole body with her tongue.

When she bit my thigh, then let the tip of her tongue caress my clit, it was the end of everything.

I bucked, gasped, saw white, then black, then every color from the Spiral all at once. I came so hard I bit my hand to keep fromscreaming the roof off. Aenna kept going, drinking me down, feeding off the pleasure like it was the only thing that could keep her mythic engine running. Had I, somehow, turned the awkward scientist into a succubus?

When I finally collapsed, spent and shaking, she climbed up beside me, pulled me into her arms, and just held me, her body still humming with the aftershock.

I could have stayed there forever. Maybe I did. Time wasn’t real in here; it had been forced into new shapes, unstable flows, and seemed to be harboring up a grudge against me.

When I finally caught my breath, I looked up at her, eyes blurry.

She smirked, brushed a strand of hair out of my face, and said, “For science.”

I laughed, and the sound rolled through the room, through the whole city, out into the mythic grid until I was sure everyone on Eventide could feel it.

If they cared, they’d have to deal.

Aenna’s body fit perfectly against mine, every edge and curve in sync, every need amplified instead of erased. I could feel her breathing, her heart pounding, the new power surging in her blood.

“Again?” I asked, half-serious, half-daring.

She nodded, slow and sure.

This was going to be a problem. An outstanding problem.

I grinned, turned my head, and caught her mouth in another kiss.

The Spiral didn’t let go.

And neither did we.

Thread Modulation: Dyris Trivane

Axis Alignment: South Tower