Chapter 16 #2
She chuckled as she stood. “Deal.”
Edwin took Olivia by the hand, drawing her away from me. The other angel with dark hair sighed at the array of food. “We only just started. Edwin never puts out this kind of spread when it’s just us.”
“Devon,” Renee warned, and he threw up his hands before he turned, hitting the drapes with his wings on his way out.
Jason, the vampire who’d introduced himself earlier, flashed me a grin with fang before following the others.
Silvia squeezed my shoulder and I turned. She pulled away and clasped her hands. “I might have brought you into this world, but Renee will understand what you’re going through better than anyone.” She smiled. “Except perhaps your second mother.”
“Yeah,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “When do I meet her?”
Silvia and Renee exchanged a look. “I can tell you things about her that Silvia can’t, if you’re interested. But Silvia is going to have to leave the room.”
The angel gave me a look of longing and forced herself to turn away. “Wait,” I said. Silvia turned back to me and I slipped into her embrace, letting my hands run around her tiny frame and graze along the soft down of her feathers that protruded from her back. “I’m glad to have met you, Mother.”
She stilled, then chuckled and returned my embrace. “It’s a blessing I never hoped to have. Thank you for coming here, my darling. And promise me you’ll always think with your heart. It will never lead you in the wrong direction.”
I nodded and she pulled away, leaving me alone with Renee, the founder of Fortune Academy and one of the most powerful witches alive.
She toasted me with her drink. “Shall we discuss your future?”
“I’m upset to hear about the imprisoned families,” she began.
I studied her for a long time before deciding she was telling the truth. “You really didn’t know? Aren’t you a founder?” Along with the Fate Witch Evelyn, Renee had built that school from the ground up. My classes praised her like she was a goddess.
Now that I met her in the flesh, so to speak, and in purgatory no less, that felt like an appropriate assumption.
She sighed. “I knew that when we picked Guinevere to be the Dean with Merlin at her side, we were getting a double-edged sword. They’re both powerful immortals and the ideal leaders in my absence, as well as Evelyn’s, but they’re ambitious and ancient beings.
They won’t always see things the same way you or I do and they think about long-term goals.
When it comes to mortals, they tend to forget how precious and fleeting life is and I am not surprised to hear they’re taking that for granted. ”
“For granted?” I snapped. “They’re holding families against their will, and for what? Dante said that they might be affected by the Third Echo of Calamity and turned into supernaturals, is that really so bad? Why do they need to be held hostage?”
She tapped her lip thoughtfully. “It’s something to bring up with them, for sure. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions without hearing their reasoning.”
Sighing, I pulled up a chair and slumped into it. Some help Renee was going to be.
“Why don’t you tell me about your Virtues,” Renee began, making herself comfortable on one of the low-rise sofas. “Why do you feel the universe has made a mistake?”
I reached for a drink and coddled it, hoping it had plenty of alcohol. I took a sip, relieved to feel a pleasant burn down my throat. “You’ve met Orion, I presume?”
She nodded. “The Demigod. What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing’s wrong with him,” I said with a sigh and threw my head back to rest on the chair’s edge. “He’s perfect, but he came here to break the bond with me after we’d been together. If he’s really some fated mate, how could he do that to me?”
She gave me a knowing smile. “Every relationship is going to be unique. A creature like Orion will struggle with the idea of joining your mate-circle, but he already seems to be coming around.”
“Because of my mother?” I asked with a raised brow. “She’s pretty sexy for an angel.”
Renee chuckled as she set her drink down. “She was a fallen angel for quite some time. She ascended and got her wings back, but she still retains that Earthly allure angels get when they mingle with humanity.”
I hummed. “I see. So, what about my other mother? Can you explain to me how that’s even possible that I have two mothers? Who is she?”
Renee nodded. “Your mother is a succubus, as well as a type of demon and your heritage is a royal one when it comes to the Hell-bound realms. She’s asked me not to tell you any more about who she is until you visit Hell yourself to meet her.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay.”
“As for your conception, she acted as a medium between the Incubus King and Silvia, in effect transferring her magical gifts onto you. She might not have carried you, but she’s your mother just as much as Silvia is in terms of your genetic makeup.”
I cupped the Blood Stone at my neck. It had gone cool after our travel through the heavenly realms, but it was only subdued like the darkness in my chest. I knew once I got back to Fortune Academy it would return to its full strength.
Renee took note of the stone with a raised brow. “You’re strong to have been able to bring that here. It just shows your heritage.”
“My dark heritage, you mean.” I might be part angel, but two-thirds of me came from the other end of the spectrum.
Renee leaned on her elbow and trailed her finger over the velvet texture of the couch, making three circles that overlapped one another.
“Think of your gifts like this. You have three parts, but they all overlap to make something new.” She pointed to the small point in the center.
“In order to reach this point, you need to accept who and what you are, and in order to do that, you’ll need to bond with all of your Virtues.
” She trailed her finger to the left, intersecting two of the circles.
“Right now you are here, and that’s as far as you’re going to get on your own.
The universe has blocks in place to keep supernaturals from becoming too powerful.
What you can become is unlike anything the cosmos has ever seen and that’s why you need your Virtues.
You need them to unlock your potential, to embrace destiny, and to become a Champion of the Third Echo of Calamity and stop its destruction. ”
“What will happen if I don’t?” I asked. “I mean, the Champions who came before me didn’t really stop the Echoes of Calamity.
You yourself unleashed the initial wave which began the merging of the realms. Fortune Academy taught me all about it, as well as the First and Second Echoes.
The first being the merging of Hell and Earth, which was only barely stopped.
Demons are still able to sporadically come to Earth.
” Mages and Witches had jumped on that one, finding ways to summon them through artifacts that didn’t require sacrificing their souls.
“Then the Second Echo was the true merging of the realms that overlapped so much, supernaturals found themselves flung to Earth. Supernaturals became public knowledge among the humans and it’s barely controlled chaos right now.
What good did the ‘Champions’ really do? ”
She narrowed her eyes, flicking her wrist and the room immediately darkened. My eyes tried to adjust, but this wasn’t a natural darkness. An image of a street lined with run down looking shops came into view with a Fortune Teller’s store in the center.
“This is Fortune Street, where I grew up.” She clicked her tongue and the image transformed, showing nothing but a dark endless void.
“If I had not been there to keep a Fate Witch from her goal of ultimate power, everything would have been destroyed. The shockwave that came from our battle began the Echoes of Calamity stronger than they’ve ever been before.
Calamity hits whenever the fabric of space-time has been distorted, when magic has been tampered with and Fate itself has been torn.
There was no way to avoid the consequences of what happened, but this was the best outcome. ”
She grabbed my wrist and brought me closer to the holographic street. It changed and my skin warmed as molten lava ran down the cobblestones and screams spilled from rooftops.
“This is what it would have looked like had the First Echo not been averted.” The image changed again as bridges materialized over the molten surface and a row of prisoners stood in a long line as they shuffled, straining against the chains around their necks.
“This is what Sarina would have brought the world to had Evelyn of the Royal Covens not taken her rightful place and embraced her role as the Champion of the Second Echo of Calamity.” She waved her hand and the room transformed back to its original shade, bringing the table of delicacies and lounging furniture back into view.
I startled when I matched gazes with Orion who sat, fingers steepled, as he grinned at me.
“If you choose to reject your Virtues, then the world will suffer a similar fate. We can’t know what it’ll look like, but the fabric of Fate itself has been damaged and each Echo will be stronger than the last until Fate has healed itself.
” She rested a hand on my shoulder, squeezing lightly as she lowered her voice.
“Give them a chance, Lily. The universe might be screwed up, but you are its Champion. It didn’t make a mistake when it chose you, and I’ll let you in on a little secret. ”
She leaned closer so only I could hear her.
“You chose your Virtues, not the universe. And if you can’t trust yourself, then you can’t trust anyone.”