I sucked in my breath as another portion of myself was torn asunder, but I did not have long to wait.
Immediately, I was made whole again with a portion of Connor's soul that was equivalent to the one that he had taken from me.
Our soul-bands merged into one continuous figure-8 eternity loop.
To my right, Corwin was already positioning our bands together, and even as I was barely recovering from Connor's initial soul-bonding, he spoke the same Entwining Command.
"Huenhochilai."
Immediately, I could feel the soul-bonding process also starting to take shape between me and Corwin.
I turned to him. The sunlight threw Corwin's face into sharp relief, rendering his visage into a two-dimensional stylized drawing.
I turned back to Connor, seeking and finding, a reciprocal stylized depiction of the other side of his visage.
At that moment, for the first time ever, I could not tell one from the other.
The brothers were of one accord.
And because they were of one accord, their barely constrained energy were swirling in the same pattern. The same energy which had radiated from them all these years, were perfectly matched.
The matched energy fit together into one single unit, swirling into a circular pattern. It passed through my body, and came through the opposite side perfectly intact since I had none of my own magik energies to interrupt that unique, matched pattern.
Their combined patterns—perfect clean arcs—blended into a vortex within the center of my body and then moved through each of the twins in the shape of a three-dimensional perfect figure 8.
We were a spherical vortex.
The blending of yin and yang energies moved with ease and perfection.
I gasped, shaking and barely able to contain within my body, so much raw power concentrated from both of them.
The energy was so strong, I could barely stand, but the twins supported me, holding me up with their strength.
We were conjoined.
The four individual soul-bands had become two figure-8 soul-bands with me as the link which joined the brothers into a single unit.
They looked at each other and laughed out loud with the joy of it all.
I was hit with new raw emotions because I suddenly realized why they were so elated.
It was through me that they were finally able to feel each other's souls in a way that they had never been able to before, twins though they may be.
They both looked at me with bright blue eyes.
"Ready?"
One of them asked, and even before I had the chance to affirm, we had taken off from the heliport with a BANG!
We rose high into the sky, a bright arrow, with me at the fulcrum and the twins on each side slightly behind me.
The concentrated powers of the brothers fused within me as a living entity, and for the first time, I had complete access to the same kind of power that all the mages around me had always been able to control.
But this was far, far different from anything that the mages normally had access to.
Like a laser beam, this power had spatial coherence originating from the twins' matched patterns.
The spatially coherent energy became amplified as it entered, unimpeded, through me due to my lack of the normal energy present in all mages.
It was ironic, that the same 'magik disability' which had haunted me all my life was the sole reason why I could act as an amplification for their powers, as opposed to a repelling force of the same positively charged energy.
The amplified spatial coherent energy blasted out into space like a tight narrow beacon, spiraling out of control as I struggled to restrain it.
The twins moderated their output to assist me in maintaining control of the power, and slowly, hand-in-hand, band-to-band, we learned how to move in unison.
We learned how to act as one.
As a power trio, we were able to soar through the air as a single unit.
In the process of learning how to truly fly, we finally understood how much natural energies had been wasted when it was not tamed and concentrated.
We had so much precision energy that we needed to expend only a minuscule amount to power through the skies, which returned that power to us tenfold.
We literally had unlimited power at our fingertips, as long as we had each other. This was the true power that could only be reached by a trinity.
And now we understood what a Trinity truly meant.
In the early hours of the morning, we finally landed atop a mountain in the distance, breathless and laughing with the joy of becoming living shooting stars.
As we watched the sun rising above the hazy horizon, our eyes lit up with shock and recognition when we saw our soul-bands.
They were bearing the unmistakable signature of not two but three mage's energies, intertwined into one perfect and powerful rune which promised a power far larger than any of us alone could ever hope to achieve.
"Now what?" I asked as I faced the sunrise.
"Now we return to the world and face whatever comes as a single unit," Corwin answered. "I will never allow anyone or anything to tear our family apart."
"Don't be afraid, sweet wife. We will protect you and stay by your side always," Connor promised.
I nodded, accepting their reassurances and pledges, but deep within, I knew our struggles had barely just begun.
As their hunger for me grew once more, the twins again reached for me, entangling their limbs and bands with mine.
And as we rose into the air, our natural buoyancy lifted us up higher and higher until our ears popped from the pressure changes.
Once we became giddy and intoxicated from the height and the lack of oxygen, we allowed gravity to pull us back towards the planet, falling into the bliss which claimed us once more.
They took me with them, up and down, and soaring on the waves of warm winds, entwined and inseparable, dancing an infinite, dynamic embrace.
Over and over again, they took me to new heights, and over and over again, I fell in love.
(End of Book 1)