Page 64 of The Enduring Universe (The Rages Trilogy #3)

AHILYA

She was a tendril, caught in the wind.

* * *

She drifted for eons, swirling away from the heat of the battle. Becoming.

* * *

She had a body, she knew, but she could not feel it. She was everywhere and nowhere, but then she separated. A deep, terrifying sorrow filled her. A sense of smallness.

Though her eyes were closed, she could see the rupturing of Cohesion like tiny burns in the fabric of a great consciousness, scorching the lives within. Still, she reached for its sentience, despite knowing that to be a part of it now meant pain. She did not care. She did not want to be alone. There had been belonging within Cohesion, a freedom she had craved all her life, a possibility of becoming more than the one person, the one, small, non-architect she had been. Cohesion had shown her everything that she could be. She did not want to be away from it. Terror filled her to be so lonely.

, Cohesion whispered, giving her a name, an identity.

She shook her head. No. No, no, no. She did not want to be Ahilya. She wanted to be it. To be named was to become the other. Please no, she wept.

But with the name came meaning, a brief notion like a dream remembered.

Cohesion was breaking apart, but it still recognized her. The combined consciousness returned memory to her, and she saw herself in Nakshar, with a man she had once loved, a man she had once belonged with.

It was a message. She was not alone. Despite Cohesion’s rupturing, she had always had someone else alongside her on this journey, for better or for worse. Someone else witnessing her life. Someone else who knew her, in all her shame and glory.

Like a child seeking comfort, Ahilya searched for him.

Weeping, alone, terrified, she turned, seeking him.

Reality shattered.