The Age of Light (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 1) Read Free Page A

sinking,
drowning, drowning in bitter red, sinking in boiling blood. She thrashed about,
coughing, the bitter water filling her mouth, her lungs. The seaweed tried to tangle
her and pull her down. She fought the stinging strands, clawing to get away,
blind with redness. She was drowning...
    The
ice hands touched her, and she struck out at them, thinking that they would
pull her further into the boiling sea. But the hands held her, dragged her out
of the sea and the silver voice tasted of peppermint and sage. The deadly sea
came out of her lungs, her stomach, and the hands of ice touched her
everywhere, leaving behind their coldness, soothing her fevered, burned skin.
She reached out blindly and felt the arms that were attached to the hands. The
hands let go, leaving her to the boiling sea that tried to suck her back into
itself. She clutched after the hands, huddled against the body, cried as the
sea surrounded her, creeping over her head, devouring her feet. She cried out
that it burned, and she pleaded to the hands to save her. The hands picked her
up and ran with her, away from the searing sea of fire and blood. It pursued,
sometimes covering her completely with its licking waves of flame, but the
hands did not stop, did not drop her or permit her to be swept away.
    The
hands, with the sound of hooves striking the earth, took her to the shores of
another sea, a sea of ice, and plunged in with her. The voice of peppermint again
touched her lips, spread over her tongue, sought to clear away the boiling in
her throat, her lungs, her belly.
    Jeliya
held fast to the hands, begged them not to let the sea of red take her.
    “Don’t
worry,” whispered the voice of silver over the roar of the sea, “I won’t let
you go...”
     
    the
light turned to darkness...
     
    The
Beloved stepped from the cold dark, a pool of light in the endless eternity of
nothing.
    She
cringed, afraid, the darkness so void of substance that it seemed to tear at
her being with its nothingness. But then that Other moved closer, calling to
her in a voice of golden vastness; a voice so sweet that it made her forget all
else. She looked up into the face of the Beloved and smiled at His welcome...
    And
He smiled back...
    The
hands of warm ice touched her from far away and the silver voice from seas of
gray and claret called to her also, despairing that she should go further, that
she should go to the arms of the Beloved. She glanced back, uneasy, then looked
to the placid expression of the Beloved who stood motionless now, neither
beckoning nor urging away, neither challenging the voice nor moving forward to
claim her nor turning away back to the cold darkness. The silver voice called
again from the empty darkness behind her, closer, louder this time, fueled by
desperation. Jeliya took another step forward, to the golden glow. Then she
shuddered as a force from behind took hold of her, made her look back, kept her
from advancing to the alluring light ahead. She quivered with strange conflict,
turned; and then an explosion of heady silver, radiant pleasure seared through
her with sweet fire, the touch of brilliance piercing her with a thousand
needles of ecstasy. And from out of the heart of the blossoming expansion of
silver light stepped a figure of glowing darkness, a darkness hard and real and
full of life, totally unlike the ungiving cold that had gripped her before. The
dark arms enfolded her in a loving embrace, the silver light blinding her to
all else, the touch burning away all thought or feeling save orgasmic
connection. Union. Oneness.
    The
dark presence sighed her name, drew her back, the silver radiance around her
cutting off almost everything else from view, even, when she looked back, the
sadly smiling face of the Beloved...
     
    light
turned to the flow of darkness...
     
    The
trushi birds pecked at her eyes with red-hot beaks. She shrieked and clawed at
her face, trying to catch them or drive them away but the devilish birds eluded
her hands