Chapter Twenty #2
Tem had completely forgotten it was Sunday. They would be expected at the castle tonight. And Tem would be expected to bleed.
“No,” she said. “I want to spend the day with my parents. I’ll meet you there.”
For some reason, after the night they’d just had, she craved the comfort of her mother.
Caspen kissed her. Then he turned to Gabriel. “You did well,” he said simply. Then he was gone.
Gabriel nudged her shoulder. “Hear that, Tem? I did well.”
Tem didn’t dare tell him just how well he’d done; she would let Damon tell him in his own time.
All she could do was be happy that he was alive and that the visit had done what she’d hoped it would do: make it difficult for Gabriel to turn against the basilisks.
After the way he looked at Damon this morning, Tem doubted he would lead another protest.
Tem accompanied Gabriel to the village before setting off for her parents’ cottage.
She didn’t just crave the comfort of her mother. Tem also wanted to see her father. He was the only person she could ask about the bloodletting.
Her mother was in the garden when she arrived. “Tem,” she said. “What brings you here?”
“I…”
How to answer? There were so many questions she needed to ask, and they were all for her father. But Tem was not yet ready to ask them. So she said, “I just needed to get away.”
Understanding passed over her mother’s face.
They spent the day together, pulling weeds and tending to the garden. Tem found peace in the manual labor, allowing it to lull her into a trance. It wasn’t until late afternoon that she finally went inside, leaving her mother to finish the last of the work.
Her father was at the kitchen table. “My child,” he said as she sat down. “What ails you?”
Tem found it significant that he immediately knew something was wrong. He may have been absent for her entire life, but he understood her as if he hadn’t been.
“The royals are bringing back the bloodletting.”
Shock passed over his face. “That…saddens me,” he said simply.
Tem saw the grief in his eyes. She was about to make that grief worse. “They asked for volunteers, so I…” She didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want to sadden him even more.
Kronos held up his hand. “Temperance,” he said quietly. “I do not wish that for you.”
“I know.”
He had suffered for so many years—decades—in that cold, dark dungeon. And now his daughter would do the same.
“It’s the only option,” she continued. “If I give them a supply, no one else has to.”
He pursed his lips but didn’t say anything. Tem knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t try to change her mind. Her father was not like Caspen, imposing his opinions on everyone; he was reserved and tolerant and kind. He knew why she had done this.
“Will it hurt?” Tem asked. By the look on his face, she already knew the answer.
“At first,” he said. “And then your hands will go numb. It is not so bad after that.”
Dread twisted her stomach. “Will there be aftereffects?”
Kronos sighed.
She hated that she had to ask him this—hated the fact that she was forcing him to relive it. But she had to know.
“It will weaken you,” he said. “It may impede your ability to transition.”
Tem shrugged. That hardly mattered. “I can’t transition anyway.”
Her father frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Caspen has to help me. And even then, I can barely manage it.”
Her father straightened. “How long has that been the case?”
“Since the wedding. Why?”
A pause.
“What is it?” Tem asked.
Kronos held her gaze. There was fear in his eyes. It scared her.
“What happened at the wedding?”
She blinked. So much happened at the wedding she had no idea where to start. “What do you mean?”
“I mean”—he leaned forward—“did you crest someone?”
There was only one person Tem had ever crested. “Yes.”
“Who?”
“Leo.”
“Oh, child,” Kronos said quietly. Then he stood, crossing to the window to look out into the garden at her mother. Late-afternoon light bathed his face.
“What is it?” Tem insisted. “What’s wrong with me?”
Her father sighed. Rather than answering her question, he said, “It will only get worse.”
“What will?”
“Your inability to transition.”
“But why?” Tem stood too, crossing to join him. “I’m a Hybreed. I’m supposed to be powerful. When Caspen taught me how to transition, it only took me a few tries to do it easily. And then—”
“And then you crested Leo,” her father finished.
Tem frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“The crest is extremely powerful magic. Even more so when performed on someone you love.”
“So?”
“So”—he turned to face her—“it is pulling the two of you together as we speak.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You love him. And you loved him at the time of the crest.”
“Yes, but—”
“When you crest someone you love, you must consummate the crest.”
Tem’s mouth fell open. “What?”
“It is an ancient magic, Tem. When you crested Leo, you bound him to you. You must complete that bond. Your ability to transition will continue to deteriorate until you do so.”
“But Caspen never had any problem transitioning after he crested me.”
As soon as Tem said it, she realized why. They’d consummated the crest mere days later, when she snuck out of the castle to see him. Most likely there hadn’t been an opportunity for Caspen to transition between the time he’d crested her and when they’d slept together.
“Why haven’t I heard about this?”
“Most people have not experienced it. Basilisks tend to crest humans who they only wish to use for power. They are not often in love with them.”
“How do you know about it?”
Kronos shifted. His eyes flicked to her mother. He said nothing else, and Tem didn’t ask anything further. She didn’t want to know whether her father had crested her mother. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the situation at hand.
“I sent Leo away,” Tem insisted. “I told him to find Evelyn.”
Her father shook his head. “That does not matter, Temperance. Nothing can void the bond of the crest. You cannot circumvent the demands of fate.”
So this was it. The catch.
She’d known, somewhere deep in her gut, that something had gone wrong.
It was not, as Bastian would say, an elegant solution.
Cresting Leo had solved one problem but created another.
She had known her inability to transition was strange, that she was not progressing as she should. Now she understood why.
Tem thought about how electric she felt every time she was around Leo, how the air itself was on fire around her.
She thought of how polarizing it had felt to touch him, how incredible his skin had felt against hers.
It went beyond an emotional connection. She hadn’t experienced anything like it until after she crested him.
Now it was nearly impossible to be around him, and finally, Tem knew why.
This explained everything—her inability to transition, her intense attraction to Leo, her need.
It had all begun after she crested him. Now she understood why it was torture to be apart from him, why it felt like she was missing a limb when he wasn’t around.
It wasn’t just that she loved him. There was something bigger at play here—something cosmic.
The crest was drawing them together, urging her to sleep with him.
Something else occurred to her: Leo had been looking pale lately, worn. If there was a consequence for her, surely there was a consequence for him.
“Can he feel it too?” Tem whispered. “The…bond?”
Kronos tilted his head. “He can.”
“In the same way I do?”
“Yes,” Kronos said. “Most likely.”
The words were said gently, with no judgment. Despite herself, tears filled Tem’s eyes.
“You will both continue to suffer until you consummate the crest.”
Tem shook her head. “We can’t consummate it. He’s engaged to Evelyn.”
“Yes. But he is also bound to you. You cannot ignore that bond.”
“But we can’t sleep together.”
“You must.”
“But we can’t.” Leo was a man of his word. And he’d given his word to Evelyn.
Her basilisk side deemed this a minor detail.
But the human side was trapped by its permanence.
Leo was not available to Tem even if she chose to sleep with him.
There was no appropriate situation in which they could sleep together, nor would there be for the foreseeable future.
Tem would never seek to compromise his marriage, never try to seduce him when he was committed to someone else—at least, her human side wouldn’t.
Her basilisk side couldn’t care less about Evelyn.
Her basilisk side felt such ownership over Leo that Tem could barely wrangle it into submission.
The two parts of her were deeply at odds, forming an internal struggle that was quickly becoming insurmountable.
She didn’t trust herself around him, couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t do something she could never take back.
Kronos leaned in. “Hear me, Temperance. You must.”
“But why? What happens if we never consummate the crest?”
If transitioning was the only thing at stake, Tem would gladly never do it again.
Her father pursed his lips.
True fear sliced through Tem as he looked her in the eye and said, “The object of the crest will die.”
A great weight pressed against Tem’s chest. Before she could even begin to process that, a deeper truth hit her.
If the blood bond is broken, a curse is put into effect.
What curse?
Whoever was betrayed must kill the betrayer. My father did not want to kill my mother. But he had to. The blood bond forced him to.
Tem was lightheaded. She needed to lie down.
It was not his choice. My father could not resist. No one could.
Caspen’s own mother had died at the hands of his father when she had slept with her true love. If Tem did the same—if she slept with Leo—Caspen would be forced to kill her.
“How long do we have?” Tem whispered.
“Not long,” Kronos said. “And the longer you wait, the more discomfort you will both feel. It will eventually progress to pain.”
“What kind of pain?”
In reply, Kronos touched his palm to his chest. Tem understood he was holding his heart. “Your ability to transition will only deteriorate. Eventually you will not be able to do so at all. When that happens, it will be too late for Leo.”
Tem stared down at her hands, counting the freckles beneath each finger.
“Tem,” her father insisted. “You must—”
“I know what I must do,” she whispered.
But that did not mean she could do it. Tem had ordered him to find her. There was nothing to be done about it. Or was there? Caspen had threatened to solve it himself. But Tem could solve it too. Leo was bound to her, after all. Tem could order him to leave Evelyn. But it was not a viable solution.
Tem was no god. She did not believe what Caspen believed—that her current position of power gave her the right to control others.
She would not mold Leo’s future again. She’d done it once and had regretted it every day since.
Even if she did it—even if she violated his trust and treated him like her puppet—Kronos had made the terms crystal clear.
There was no room for exceptions, no possibility of a loophole.
If she consummated the crest, she signed her own death sentence.
But if she didn’t, she signed Leo’s.