Chapter 142

It's so very different this time, so much less suffocating but no less overwhelming. Dallin was right--it's been waiting for this, and it's insistent. It batters at Wil's defenses, and it takes everything in him to listen to Dallin's voice in his mind--It's all right, trust me, it won't hurt this time--trust him as Wil had just said he did and lower the walls, let it in.

He's buffeted inside it like a leaf on the wind, and it winnows into his every crevice, fills him up 'til he thinks he'll burst. And still it pours itself into him.

He sees the Mother, only She was called Ǽlif back when time began, and he sees the Father, who was Briongloid when He caught sight of His beloved for the first time. Maeting, She calls Him, because She'd dreamed of Him, and Wil almost flinches, watching as She plaits a silky strand of sable through with the spiny green stem of the delicate little white flower that had kept Wil captive for so very long.