Mind of the Magic (Arhel Book 3) by Holly Lisle Page A

anger she needed to confront the “Dreaming God.”
I have no wish to be a god, and even if I did, I would have no wish to be a god with you. Your name is Edrouss Delmuirie, whether you want to admit it or not, and you’re an idiot. You tried some stupid spell and got yourself frozen here, and here you’ve been for Lady only knows how long.
    I created you. I made you for me—to be with me
…
    Faia was unrelenting.
No, you didn’t, Delmuirie. You didn’t make anything—except a stupid mistake. And even if you had, I wouldn’t stay here with you. I don’t love you. I don’t want you. I have a daughter, and I have a place in the world. That place has no room for you.
    She felt his anger begin to boil around her. Heat mixed with lust mixed with fury mixed with bewilderment in an ugly fusion that threatened to suffocate her.
    You—will—love—me. I have been alone forever, but forever has become a moment, a nothing, now that you are here. I searched the universe in the hopes of finding another like myself, but none like me existed. I was alone—I have always been alone. I moved stars in their orbits, and changed even the flow of time so that someday I might have you by my side, and now at last I have you. You will be my consort.
    No,
Faia said. Hard as crystal, cold as ice, she shielded herself from the heat of his desire.
If you made me stay here, I would withdraw from you and be silent, and you would still be alone. You will not have me, and I will never love you.
    Then, to emphasize her point, she backed away. She followed her spirit lines back to her body, out of the seething cauldron of rage the universe within the emeshest had become.
    Even when her spirit was all but free of the god-aura, she could still feel the “Dreaming God’s” wrath clawing after her.
You cannot leave me! You cannot reject me!
    I can.
She pushed him away.
I did.
    Then she pulled the last thread of her awareness free from the wall of light and slipped back into her body. Immediately the sensations of simply
being
overwhelmed her, as they always did when she returned to her physical self after long absence. The dull ache in her lower back, the tingling of her nearly numb legs, the roar of her breathing, and the pounding of her pulse in her ears; all of these brought her back sharply to the reality of human existence. Still, the heightened emotions from her time in the emeshest clung to her. Tears streamed down her cheeks; the loneliness of the “Dreaming God” still hurt—and she hurt for him.
    Except he isn’t a god, she reminded herself. He’s a man. A fool of a man who has my daughter and my friends and my daughter’s father trapped within the barriers of his stupidity.
    The emeshest was no longer golden, and it was no longer still. It undulated along its border, whipping out tentacles toward Faia, pulsing dull red and mottled purple and dirty yellow—the colors of a bad bruise. It looks like pain, she thought. If I were going to draw pain, I’d draw it like that.
    Faia scrambled out of the reach of the tentacles, back against the wall where Witte sat, gripping a rock. He was pale and shaking. Sweat beaded on his forehead though the tunnel was cool.
    “This was a bad idea,” the little god said. “I was wrong to do this. You have to calm him. You have to put Delmuirie back to sleep.”
    “My daughter is in there,” Faia said softly. “Remember?”
    Witte stared at her. He wore death in his eyes, and fear. “Please,” Witte croaked. “Stop him.” The wall of light flickered and he flickered with it, so that for an instant Faia could see the rock he sat upon through his body. “He wants you back. Delmuirie wants you back. I can feel it. He’s—angry.”
    Faia’s hands knotted themselves into fists, and the muscles in her shoulders tensed. “I want my
daughter
back, and I’m angry too. What do I care if he’s angry?”
    “I’m going to die.”
    “Gods don’t die,” she said, her voice cold. “Remember?