Breaking

She came in the night.

Not the dream her. Not the flickering shape at the edge of the fever. Her. The real one. The elder. She came through the door and she closed it behind her and she stood in the dark and she looked at me and I saw her.

I was deep in the fever but I saw her. The lucidity came and went in slices now, seconds of clarity between the dream, and in one of those seconds I saw her standing by the door and she was looking at me and her face was not the mask. It was open. Unguarded. The face of a thing that had made a decision and was acting on it and knew exactly what it was doing.

She crossed to the bed. She did not hurry. She sat on the edge of the mattress and the weight of her was slight and I felt it through the fever and the weight was wrong, too light, the wrong body, but my mind was already reaching for her, already trying to make her into Elena, and the dream was rising to meet the reality and the two were merging.

She put her hand on my chest. Her palm flat over my heart. She leaned down and she put her mouth beside my ear and she said my name.

Elena. The dream said Elena. The dream rose up and took the elder and shaped her and the elder became Elena and I was lost.

"I waited," I said. "I waited."

"I know." Her voice. Low. Close. The wrong voice made right by the dream. "I'm here."

She kissed me. Her mouth on mine. Cool, not cold. Almost. The taste was different but the dream corrected it, smoothed the difference, gave me Elena's taste where there was none, and I kissed her back and my hands found her and her body was wrong under my hands, the proportions different, the weight different, but the dream said Elena and I believed the dream because the dream was all I had.

She undressed me. Her hands careful, slow, and I felt every touch amplified by the fever, every nerve singing. She undressed. Her body pale in the candlelight and it was not Elena's body and I saw that it was not Elena's body and the dream said it was and the two truths existed simultaneously and I could not resolve them and I stopped trying.

She put her mouth on me.

The cold. The wrong cold. Close enough. The dream filled in the difference. Her tongue and her lips and the slow deliberate movement and I arched into her mouth and the marks blazed on my neck and the burn was there, the dark heavy signal, and the gold that flickered was tarnished, amber, old honey, and my body did not care. My body was starving and the mouth was on me and the mouth was feeding the dream and the dream was Elena and I gave myself to it.

She moved up my body. Her mouth on my stomach, my chest, my throat. She found the marks. She put her lips on them and I felt them pulse, the burn surging, and she breathed against them and the marks reached for her. I felt it. The bond reaching. The thing inside me that was Elena's, the shape she had carved, reaching toward the mouth on my neck, trying to connect, and the mouth was not Elena's but the bond was fever-loose and desperate and it could not tell the difference.

She bit.

The white hurt came and it was wrong. Not the clean bright white of Elena's feeding. A dark white, if that makes sense, a white with shadow in it, and the gold that came was dark and thick and the burn in the marks surged and the bond reached and reached and the elder fed and her hands were on me and her body was against mine and she was trying to take. Not the blood. Something else. The space. The shape Elena had carved in me. She was trying to pour herself into it.

She moved up my body and she straddled me and she took me inside her and I was in the dream and in the room simultaneously, two realities overlaid, and in the dream Elena was above me and in the room the elder was above me and they were the same woman and they were not and the marks burned and the bond reached and she moved on me and she fed and she was close, she was close, I could feel the bond straining toward her, the edges of Elena's shape blurring, the thing inside me confused, reaching for the wrong frequency because the right frequency was gone and any frequency was better than silence.

She rode me and she fed and she leaned down and she put her forehead against mine and she breathed against my face and she whispered something in the musical language and the words went through me like water and I did not understand them and I did not need to because the tone was the tone of a thing that was taking and was almost done taking and was telling itself it had the right.

Her face shifted.

I saw it. The lucidity sliced through for one second and I saw her face above mine and it was not Elena. Silver hair. Ancient eyes. The geological age pressing down on me through the skin of her face. The mouth red with my blood. And the eyes were bright, so bright, and the brightness was hunger and triumph and something else, something I had no name for, and the face held for one second and the dream crashed back over it and it was Elena again and I told myself the flicker was the fever and I arched up into her and the marks burned and the bond reached.

And she came.

Her body clenched around me and her mouth tightened on the marks and the sound she made was low and raw and it was not Elena's sound, the register was wrong, the timbre was wrong, and my body did not care, my body was following hers over the edge, and the release and the feeding hit together and they were dark, dark gold, dark white, dark everything, and the bond surged toward her and for one moment, one terrifying moment, it almost took.

Almost.

The marks screamed.

Not sang. Screamed. A sound that was not a sound, a sensation that tore through me, and the burn became a blaze and the bond jerked back from the elder like a hand pulled from a flame and the dream shattered and I was in the room, in the dark, and the elder was above me and her face was hers, fully hers, silver and ancient and flushed with my blood and with what she had almost taken, and she looked down at me and her eyes were wild.

And the wall came in.

Not the door. The wall. Stone cracked and dust rained and the sound was enormous, structural, the sound of something breaking through that was never meant to be broken through, and the cold came in with it, Elena's cold, Elena's frequency, Elena's presence slamming into the room like a wave, and the marks on my neck answered it, screamed for it, reached for it with everything they had left, and I knew.

She was here.

Elena was here.

The elder looked up. Her body still straddling me. Her mouth still red. Her eyes went to the ruined wall and I saw her face change and the change was fast and it was complete and it was the face of a thing that knows it is about to die.

One word. The elder said one word. I do not know what it was. It might have been Elena's name. It might have been an apology. It might have been an explanation. I will never know because Elena did not give her time to finish it.

The shapes after that were the fever's. I saw them through the haze and the dark and the failing of my body and I cannot swear to the order or the detail. I know there was movement, fast, faster than I could track. I know there was a sound, wet and final. I know the weight of the elder lifted off me and did not return. I know there was silence, brief, absolute, and in the silence I felt the bond snap back to its frequency, Elena's frequency, the needle finding north at last, and the relief of it was so vast that I wept.

Then hands on my face. Cold hands. The right cold. Elena's cold. And her voice above me, saying my name, my real name, over and over, and the sound of it was raw and broken and nothing like the voice I knew and everything like the voice I needed.

I tried to say her name. I do not know if I managed it. The fever was taking me down, the dark tide pulling, and the last thing I felt was her hands on my face and her voice saying my name and the marks on my neck singing, finally singing, the right frequency, the right mouth, the right everything, and I let the dark take me because she was there and the dark was safe now that she was there.

I went under.

And the last thing I heard, distant, felt more than heard, was the sound of something inside her breaking that she would not be able to fix.