One Great Year Read Free

off his motionless soulmate.
    Marcus had pulled Theron from the water and immediately begun resuscitating her. Finally she had sputtered; there had been a freshwater flood and coughing, and the young woman had opened her eyes. She was alive, and Marcus was overwhelmed with gratitude.
    â€œI thought you left me,” she had choked, still gasping. She remembered the helplessness she had felt as she had watched him swim away.
    â€œI will never leave you,” he had promised, cradling her in his arms, his voice muffled and lost as he had placed his lips to her head. Theron’s crushed leg was bloody and bent at an awkward angle, and Marcus held her still to reduce her pain.
    From above, Helghul had watched with conflicting relief and disappointment as Marcus emerged with Theron. He had hoped she would drown. He had hoped she would live. He had been at odds as to what he had desired for her, though he had certainly wished that Marcus had died.

    In their younger days Theron, Helghul, and Marcus had been friends. She was funny and clever and had created the most fantastic games and challenges. She was a great student and teacher, and she consistently outperformed everyone. Marcus didn’t mind being outshone, but Helghul grew to resent Theron.
    Though Theron consistently outdid Helghul, as they matured he concluded that she would be his ideal mate. She was intelligent, unusual, and so powerful in her telepathic and psychic ability that he couldn’t help but admire her.
    Theron was a phenomenon among her people. Astral travel was a skill that usually took centuries of the Atitalans’ exceptionally long lives to develop, but Theron’s parents had discovered when she was a child that she had a special talent for moving beyond the material dimension. Without training, she had shed her human vessel, connected only by an invisible umbilical cord, and her spirit had traveled the Astral Grid.
    Theron’s father had also been a gifted telepath and psychic, and at the time of his death he had been the Elder of the Sixth Chakra, also called the third eye. He had taught his daughter to control and respect her abilities. He had warned her of the dangers that lurked at the edges of the Grid and had urged Theron to stay within view of the Great Light, avoiding the dark Guardians that howled and thundered from the abyss of the outer realm.
    Theron was the only student in Helghul’s class that he believed to be his equal. He resisted the love that he felt for her, but he acknowledged that theirs would be a powerful alliance. In the early years it had not been clear that she and Marcus were anything more than friends, and it seemed absurd to Helghul that she could ever choose Marcus over him. Certainly she would choose brains and breeding over ease and brawn.
    The defining moment came in their late adolescence when, working on a project, Helghul impulsively confessed his love for Theron. But Theron apologetically affirmed that she loved Marcus and hoped to someday become his mate. Helghul’s vulnerability was plain, and he quickly looked away. His mind clouded with humiliation.
    Theron was empathetic and kind, but no tact could have soothed Helghul’s unrequited heart. Ever after he imagined Theron and Marcus were laughing at his vulnerability, and he bitterly retreated from them.
    In the years following, Helghul avoided the couple whenever possible—his ego scabrous and infected where her rejection had wounded him. He watched her with begrudging admiration whenever she was near. His jealousy and wish to outdo her twisted into a torturous knot in his gut, filling his third chakra, fueling the fire in his belly and trapping him in the prison of his ego. Helghul’s loathing for the irreverent slacker Marcus also consumed him, and he contemplated how the couple would be made to pay for their affront when he became White Elder.
    Despite his apparent disdain for Theron and his open insults and bitterness,