Chapter Forty-Three
~Kalo~
Leo’s energy shifted as it always did when he’d settled on a plan of action, like a blade being drawn and poised to strike.
And rather than unsettling me, like it might have done with anyone else, it steadied me instead. When this man made up his mind to do something, he would do everything in his power to make it happen.
“Come on,” he said, already dropping his marker and moving towards the door. “We need to run this past Visenya.”
I didn’t argue as I pushed up from the bed. If there was even a sliver of a chance that this could work, I would chase it with him.
We found Visenya exactly where we’d left her, still standing within the trap, once again composed in that unnerving, effortless way that suggested time didn’t press on her the way it did on the rest of us.
Evalina was there too, perched lightly on the edge of the dresser along the wall, picking through a pile of metal shavings next to her, while Felix hovered near the doorway with a half-finished piece of shaped iron in his hands.
Visenya’s glowing gaze shifted to us as we entered.
“You’ve returned quickly,” she observed. “Have you made your decision?”
“Not exactly,” Leo told her. “But we might have a different solution to the problem.”
Her head tilted slowly to the side, betraying her curiosity even as her expression remained unchanged. “In what way?”
I moved further into the room, making sure to keep close to the wall. The last thing we needed was to break the trap and summon Death before we were ready for him. “You said Death needs a soul to restore balance, so one of us has to die because Leo disrupted the natural order.”
“That is correct.”
“But what if there’s another violation that could be corrected instead?” Leo asked. “Would that even things out?”
Visenya studied him in silence for a long moment. “Are you speaking of a specific situation?”
Leo nodded. “The fae prince that Evalina mentioned. Tarron.”
Both Evalina and Felix tensed at the name, making me more curious than ever about exactly what had happened. I would have to get the full story when all of this had calmed down.
“He made himself immortal,” Leo explained. “Technically, he’s still alive, even though his heart has been separated from his body. Surely, that’s a disruption too? If Death wants some balance restored, couldn’t Tarron’s soul take the place of mine or Kalo’s?”
Visenya’s silence following that question didn’t seem to signify refusal or dismissal. She simply deliberated on it while I held my breath in anticipation of her response.
“It is… not impossible,” she said at last, and relief surged through me so quickly it almost made me dizzy. “But…”
Of course there was a ‘but’.
“It’s not as easy as simply taking one instead of the other. It would have to be significant enough to justify overlooking your transgression, and that would not be my decision to make.”
Leo’s jaw tightened. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“I would have to present the case to Death himself. He determines what restores balance, not me.”
A cold, instinctive dread coiled in my chest at the way she said his name. “Didn’t you say that we’d be better off not involving him?”
“He can be… unpredictable. Vengeful, even. If he feels you’re trying to manipulate him, he could refuse the substitute out of principle and take one of you immediately. He could even take you both, one to offset your actions and the other in place of Tarron’s soul. There’s no way to know.”
“But if we don’t try, one of us would have to die anyway,” Leo argued, and Visenya inclined her head in agreement. “At least this way, there’s a chance.”
Felix cleared his throat, helping Evalina down from the dresser. “Let’s go and discuss this with Vaughan. All of us.”
“We’ll be back soon,” Evalina promised Visenya.
Downstairs, the boardroom filled quickly.
In this pack, a summons from the Alpha was obeyed immediately, so within minutes, everyone had gathered around the boardroom table with Vaughan at the centre.
Leo explained his theory about offering Tarron’s soul as an alternative to his or mine, and shared that Visenya thought there was a chance it would work.
“The complication is that she’d have to present the proposal to Death directly,” he summed up.
“No,” Darius snapped. “Absolutely not. We’re supposed to be freeing her, not handing her back to him.”
I could see the fear written plainly across his face; not only could Death decide to take me or Leo, or both, he might take Visenya back with him too, and he would be powerless to stop it.
“Putting them together isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Calista suggested, holding up her hands when Darius threw a glare in her direction.
“I only mean that seeing them together might help us to identify the structure of the bond more clearly. And as long as she’s wearing the mobile trap, I don’t think he’ll be able to just take her.
She can remove it to summon him and then put it back on again, anchoring her in place. ”
Darius didn’t look convinced. “What if he removes it himself?”
“That presumes he’d know what he was looking for, and that Evalina would make it easy to remove.” Felix winked at his mate. “I don’t think that’s her plan.”
“It isn’t,” Evalina confirmed, a spark of pride lighting her expression. “I’m going to complete the final melding when it’s on her. The only way to remove it will be through my magic.”
“How close are you to finishing it?” Vaughan wanted to know.
“The structure is stable. We’re just working on making sure all the materials are in the exact right proportions, and then we’ll need to test it.”
Felix lifted the shaped iron piece he still held in his hands. “If it works, she won’t be tied to the room anymore, but the connection to Death should remain suppressed.”
“So, she could go to the fae realm with us to retrieve the heart,” Vaughan surmised. “Assuming we can get the dragons to part with it.”
“Are dragons easy to reason with?” I asked the room at large. They were a species I’d never encountered before.
“They’re better than a lot of men,” Calista said, shooting a teasing smile at her mate. “They truly hated Tarron and were glad to get his heart, so they won’t give it up lightly. We’ll need to offer them a trade. I’ll do some research on what dragons value most.”
There were a lot of moving parts to this plan, multiple variables and many things still unknown, but at least we had a plan and some possibility of success, no matter how slight.
Vaughan’s gaze moved around the room, resting on Leo and me in turn before shifting to Darius, whose nostrils flared with suppressed energy. Leo’s hand brushed mine supportively under the table.
“It’s dangerous,” he said, and no one argued with that. “But doing nothing guarantees we lose at least one of you, and possibly more if Death decides to escalate things since we trapped one of his reapers. So, we take the risk.”
Next to me, Leo exhaled deeply. “Thank you, Alpha.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Vaughan warned him. “You still might die. I can’t guarantee any of us can stop it.”
Yes, Leo might die, or I might, but for the first time since all of this began, it felt like we didn’t have to just accept our fate.
Rather than choosing which of us the reaper would take, we were choosing to give ourselves a fighting chance at the future we both wanted, and that was worth the risk.