Chapter 3 Rumi
Rumi
The wild magic gets worse the further north we travel, and by the third day I'm the only one who can reliably navigate us through it.
I take point because my senses catch the chaos pools before we stumble into them.
The others follow in a loose formation behind me, trusting my judgment in a way that still catches me off guard sometimes.
A century of being the one no one trusted at all doesn't vanish overnight, even with five mates who would die for me.
The strange landscape we passed through yesterday was unsettling.
This is something else entirely. The corruption here has had decades to fester, maybe centuries, and it's developed a kind of awareness that makes my skin crawl.
I can feel it watching us, testing our defenses, and probing for weaknesses in our bond.
Twice in the last hour I've had to pull Stellan back from stepping into pools that looked like solid ground but would have swallowed him whole.
"Left," I call back, steering us away from a patch of air that tastes wrong.
The wrongness is hard to describe to anyone who can't sense it directly. It's not a smell or a sound or even a feeling, exactly. More like a pressure against the part of my mind that processes essence, a warning that something ahead doesn't follow the rules reality is supposed to obey.
Harlow confirms my instinct a moment later. "The veil's thin here. Really thin. I can see through to the other side without even trying."
We give that patch a wide berth. Whatever happened to make the barrier between life and death so fragile, I don't want to find out by losing someone through it.
The wild zones come more frequently as we continue. Pools of raw essence that shimmer with sentient hunger, reaching for anything living that passes too close. Pockets where time moves differently, and we lose an hour crossing a clearing that should have taken minutes.
The black threads in my aura prove useful for the first time since I learned what they were.
When the chaos presses too close, I feel them reaching out, absorbing the excess energy before it can destabilize us.
My father told me the threads were part of my divine heritage, that balance requires holding darkness as well as light.
I believed him because I wanted to, but I didn't fully understand what he meant until now, watching the wild magic part around me because part of me speaks its language.
I am darkness and light. Chaos and order. The thing that stands between extremes and keeps them from tearing reality apart. For the first time in my life, that feels less like a burden and more like a purpose.
We find the underground community on the fourth day, following signs that most people would miss entirely. Scratches on rocks that form a pattern only visible from certain angles. Essence traces so faint they're almost invisible, deliberately dampened to avoid detection.
A boy appears seemingly from nowhere when we get close enough, his skin the grey-brown of living stone, and he studies us for a long moment with eyes that have no pupils before nodding and gesturing for us to follow.
The tunnels go deeper than I expect. The stone-skinned boy leads us through passages that twist and branch in patterns designed to confuse, and I find myself grateful for his silent guidance. We'd be lost within minutes without him.
When the main cavern opens up, I stop breathing for a moment.
Several people have built a life down here.
Homes carved into the walls, connected by ladders and walkways, lit by essence sources that glow softly.
A woman made of living shadow holds a child whose power hasn't settled yet.
Twins move in perfect synchronization near what looks like a communal kitchen.
An old man flickers between solid and translucent as he watches us enter, his expression wary but not hostile.
They've survived. Hidden from everyone, abandoned by the system that should have protected them, and they've built something real anyway. I’m not even sure why I keep being surprised but there’s so much I was never privy to after being sent to Grimrose.
Their eyes go wide when they register my wings, my aura, and the golden light shooting through with darkness. I know what they're seeing. I know what it means to them.
"Are you really a demigod?" The question comes from a young woman near the front, her voice barely above a whisper. "We thought they were all killed."
"Most were." I don't soften the truth because they deserve better than comfortable lies.
"Dmitri hunted my mother's people systematically.
She was a minor goddess of harmony, and she died holding off Council forces so my father could escape with me when I was barely old enough to survive without her. "
The crowd goes quiet.
"I spent a century not knowing what I was," I continue.
"Thinking the black threads in my essence meant I was corrupted.
Broken." I let the memories surface without trying to pretty them up.
The decades of hiding. The constant vigilance.
The bone-deep certainty that I was defective and the only way to survive was to make sure no one ever found out.
"I believed what Dmitri wanted me to believe.
What he wanted all of us to believe. That anything different from his seven-element system was dangerous. Unacceptable. Worth eliminating."
People shift their weight and exchange glances, recognizing their own stories in mine.
"My mother believed the world needed divine balance.
She believed that someone had to exist who could harmonize what Dmitri had divided.
That's why she chose to have me, even knowing what it would cost her.
Even knowing she might not survive to see me grow up.
" I let my aura flare, the black threads spreading outward until they're visible to everyone in the cavern.
In the soft light, they don't look threatening.
They look like ribbons of night sky woven through gold.
"These aren't corruption. They're not a sign that something went wrong with my essence.
They're part of what I am, and what I am is exactly what I'm supposed to be. "
A child near the front of the crowd reaches toward the threads with obvious fascination, her small hand stretching out before her mother can stop her.
The woman starts to pull her back, fear flashing across her face, then stops herself.
The threads drift closer to the girl's outstretched hand, responding to her curiosity with something that almost feels like curiosity in return.
When they make contact with her fingers, she giggles, delighted by whatever sensation they create.
"You're not broken," I say, looking at each face in turn. "None of us are. We're just different kinds of beautiful, and Dmitri spent three hundred years trying to make us forget that."
The community joins our network before I finish speaking, all of it happening in real time.
Their shoulders straighten, their chins lift, hope replacing the resignation they've worn for so long.
Skye steps forward to begin formal introductions while Ambrose moves to discuss contract details with the community's leader.
Harlow finds me while the negotiations continue.
He doesn't say anything at first, just appears beside me solid enough to touch, but with that slight shimmer at his edges that tells me he's keeping one foot in the death realm.
We stand together watching Ambrose work, and the silence between us is comfortable in a way I wouldn't have expected a few months ago.
"Your mother," he says eventually. "When you talked about her holding off the Council. I could feel the echo of it."
I look at him. "What do you mean?"
"Deaths that significant leave marks. Sacrifices especially." His pale eyes meet mine, and for once there's nothing distant about them. "She's not gone the way most people are gone. What she did, the choice she made, it left something behind. I don't know how to explain it better than that."
My throat closes. I've spent a century grieving a mother I barely remember, and here's my mate telling me some part of her still exists in a way he can sense.
I don't know if it's comforting or devastating.
Maybe both. He seems to read that on my face, because he reaches over and laces his fingers through mine, squeezing once before letting go.
"Ambrose’s still pushing too hard," Jade murmurs after a while. "The exhaustion is coming off him in waves."
"I know."
Jade's tail flicks against my leg. "You've been watching him a lot lately."
Heat rises to my face that has nothing to do with Stellan's fire, and I fumble for a response that doesn't give everything away. Stellan laughs softly against my shoulder.
"It's not a criticism. Just an observation."
They're not wrong. I've been watching Ambrose for a while, telling myself it was concern, that any of us would pay attention to a mate who kept sacrificing pieces of himself.
But concern doesn't explain the way my chest tightens when he smiles, or the way I want to pull him close every time he retreats into work.
He's ancient and brilliant and so fucking lonely it makes something ache behind my ribs, and I want to tear down every wall he's built until he understands that someone sees him.
Not the Crossroads Keeper. Not the contract writer. Him.
The negotiations stretch into the afternoon, Ambrose writing contract after contract while Skye answers questions and the community slowly lets itself believe that help might actually be real this time.
I watch Ambrose's hands tremble slightly as he finishes another binding, his shoulders drooping slightly against exhaustion he thinks no one notices.
I'm not the only one who sees it.
Skye has migrated to Ambrose's side at some point, sitting close enough that their shoulders brush.
He's not interrupting the work, just present, one hand resting on Ambrose's thigh while Ambrose writes.
Every few minutes Skye leans in to murmur something, and once I catch the ghost of a smile crossing Ambrose's face before he schools it back into concentration.
I find myself drifting closer without meaning to. "How's he doing?" I ask Skye quietly, settling on Ambrose's other side.
"Stubborn as ever." Skye's thumb traces idle circles on Ambrose's leg. "But he let me sit here, so that's progress."
"I can hear you both," Ambrose says without looking up from his contract.
"We know." Skye grins at me, something warm passing between us, an understanding that doesn't need words. We've both been watching. We've both been worried. And we're both here now.
I glance around the cavern, looking for the others.
Stellan has found the community's youngest members, a cluster of children with unstable essences who are thoroughly enjoying his fire tricks.
He's conjured a small flame that dances between his fingers, the kids mesmerized, reaching for it without flinching.
Jade is across the cavern talking to Mira, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed while she gestures at something I can't see.
Whatever she's telling him has his full attention, his tail still for once.
And then there’s Harlow standing at the cavern's edge, deep in conversation with the old man whose essence flickers between solid and translucent. Two beings who understand what it means to exist between states, finding common ground.
"They're good with them," Skye says, following my gaze. "The kids, I mean. I didn't expect Jade to be so patient."
"He knows what it's like to be young and scared of what you are."
Ambrose sets down his pen, flexing his fingers. The trembling has gotten worse. Skye notices immediately, catching Ambrose's hand and bringing it to his lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles.
"Break time," Skye says.
"I have two more families—"
"Who can wait fifteen minutes." Skye stands, pulling Ambrose with him. "Rumi, help me with him."
I take Ambrose's other arm, and together we guide him toward one of the smaller alcoves branching off the main cavern. He protests weakly, but there's no real fight in it. He's too tired to resist both of us.
The alcove is carved smooth by decades of patient hands, the three of us settling against the wall, Ambrose between us, and for a moment we just breathe together. "You two are ridiculous," Ambrose mutters, even as he leans into Skye's warmth on one side and mine on the other.
"You love it," Skye says, pressing a kiss to his temple.
I watch them together, Skye's easy affection, and Ambrose's reluctant acceptance that slowly melts into something softer.
The wanting I've been carrying for the last few days rises up so strong I can taste it.
Skye catches my eye over Ambrose's head.
His expression shifts, something knowing settling there, and he tilts his head slightly. An invitation.
I lean in and press my lips to Ambrose's jaw, just below his ear. He goes still between us.
"Rumi..." His voice comes out rough.
"I've been wanting to do that all day," I admit against his skin. "Longer, maybe."
Skye's hand finds mine behind Ambrose's back, squeezing once. "So have I. Wanting to see you do that, I mean." His voice drops lower. "I’ve been wanting to watch you with him."
Ambrose makes a sound that might be a whimper, though it’s a bit lower, carrying the full weight of his essence. "You two are going to kill me."
"Eventually," Skye agrees cheerfully. "But not today. Today we just want you to rest."
I turn Ambrose's face toward mine, giving him time to pull away. He doesn't. His green eyes darken a little, his breath coming faster. "Tonight," I tell him. "After the work is done. I want more than this."
"We both do," Skye adds.
Ambrose closes his eyes, overwhelmed. When he opens them again, something has shifted in his expression. “Mmm, I like the sound of that.”