43. Regent
REGENT
“I’ll be by your side the entire way. From here or there.
I will give you my body as a shield if it allows me to walk along your path longer.
” Those were the words I told her, but the moment I placed my forehead on her shoulder as we trained, and she pleaded for me to let her fight, I conceded and submitted. Both as man and beast.
I fought it so aggressively, certain I was a fool twice, falling for a trick of the Fates yet again. Perhaps I had, but a world without Esther was not a world made for me. Only three full moons it took for me to fall for her, but I suspect this was written far before even I was born.
I’ve waited over four hundred years for you, I say to her through the bond, where our magic connects and becomes one.
Her eyes widen, and I feel relieved that she can hear me, but also selfish that I forced this onto her.
I didn’t think she had accepted the bond.
I wasn’t even sure if she felt it, and so I submitted to this being one-sided, if anything, preferring it not to be known.
I want to be her shield, but now I’m flooded with guilt for having not told her about it, truly giving her the choice and understanding of what it meant.
How are you speaking to me in my mind?
I stare into her mismatched eyes, an overwhelming sense of understanding passing through her. It’s likely why when she linked with my magic from the beginning, it merged instead of her being able to use it independently.
Mating bonds are common among higher beasts.
It’s a leverage to one another’s magic, an anchor if you will, especially through sickness and health, life and death.
Where you go, I go. And now vice versa. I never expected you could sense it.
If I had known, I would’ve advised you against accepting it.
Advise me against it? Why is it fair for only you to make that decision?
Her eyebrows crinkle as sorrow mars her features.
But you will leave me once you have the artifacts, and you will still ask me to free you from this body.
This world that you despise, and you will go back to being a demigod and leave me behind.
That is why I only wanted it one way, so I could protect you.
If something were to happen, then I could leverage my magic and life for yours.
I never wanted you to have the burden of the same in response.
I didn’t even know it was possible for a greer to accept a mating bond.
But, Denva, it fills me with grief as much as it does joy that you reciprocate.
But you will leave me, her voice cracks.
I can wait. And that is the truth. I have eternal youth, she does not. My stomach swirls nauseatingly, the thought of departure between us already too great. But how can I support her going into a fight head-on, without knowing I’ve put every protective measure into place?
Being free of this curse is what you’ve fought toward for fifteen years, to be free, to go back to your peace. You won’t find that through me.
But I have, Esther. You are my peace, even among the storm.
It only hurts me to fight it. If you choose to revoke it, I approve, but I will not remove my claim over you.
Other beasts will know you are mine, and it will deter them from engaging because of my scent.
I only ever want to protect you. It was inevitable from the moment I first laid eyes on you.
I knew you were mine. I simply didn’t want to play the hands that we’d been dealt.
“Esther.” The assassin comes out of the tent, his narrowing gaze isolating every point we touch. I shove down my beast, which immediately wants to tell him to fuck off before I break every bone in his body. “It’s chaos in here; you need to come back.”
She peers up into my eyes, confusion, hurt, uncertainty, but she leans up on tiptoes and kisses me, passionately, expectantly, and with a quiet power as her magic pulses.
It takes everything in me to let her leave, only wanting to pull her back in. But I follow her lead into the tent. The greers who keeled over now have blankets covering their faces.
Two greers sob beside an unmoving body as Sheila sits glumly, her hand resting on the raven carved cane. Imogine is comforting one of the greers, but the moment we step into the tent, she looks up expectantly for answers.
“What did you see? The Fates did not take kindly to our call. It is not often they suck so much magic in return for a ceremony, to the point of forcing two of our own to cross over into God’s Gate,” Imogine asks with hatred in her voice.
Esther is silent for a moment, staring at the bodies of those fallen, guilt flooding her.
I can feel the trickle of it through our bond, and I rest a hand on her lower back, letting her know that I’m here, hoping that she can sense from touch alone that this is not her fault. This is the gods, who chose to take it.
“The Fates are sick,” Esther says. Something I already knew, and the way Sheila’s face seems to sink further, I suspect she knows the same. “Well, one of them.”
“They revealed themselves to you?” Imogine whispers.
“Sort of, I was in a weird domain under the sea. They wore fox masks, so I don’t know what they look like, but it’s irrelevant. They speak in riddles, but from what I gathered, one of them fell ill with god rot because they told a secret to another god.”
My forehead crinkles. “But the Fates are not allowed to tell secrets of other gods. What did they tell them?”
“They didn’t say,” Esther replies.
“The Fates have god rot?” Sheila asks, looking forward as if she sees more than what she says.
“Yes, I saw it myself. One does. She has erratic behaviors. They said that Felia visits them, but Neina does not.”
Imogine and Sheila look at me expectantly, my jaw grinding. “That’s not good. It means Felia’s become arrogant and thinks she’s invincible.”
“Have you heard from Neina?” Sheila turns to me and inquires.
Esther looks to me then, and I can sense her mind brushing against mine, a welcoming and foreign feeling all the same.
“I have not heard from my mother since I was cursed,” I admit. “The last time was her word of warning that Felia grows hungrier for power, and I must protect the people and the lands.”
I often reflect if that was her way of warning me without directly involving herself.
And I fell for the trickery, ashamed that I found myself in this position, but if anything, right now in this room, it feels inevitable as I look to only one woman.
Realizing that it was never Katarina who was my promised mate, as the Fates had once eluded.
Whispering sweet nothings about a bonded mate who took the form of a human female.
All these years later, I realize it was always going to be Esther.
“Whatever Felia is up to, it’s enough to turn the Fates crazy and Neina quiet. We’re in trouble,” Sheila says.
Esther seems to consider this for a moment. “The deranged Fate seemed to have spilled another secret. She mentioned that the fourth god is concealed?”
Blood drains from my face.
Sheila’s gaze is yet again upon me, expectantly.
Regent? Esther’s voice trickles through my mind, soothing my beast.
“I don’t know of the fourth god’s name. I thought he was dead.
Every millennium, a new god is born, Neina being the first of light and life.
Then Felia of the death and darkness. Then the Fates, who control the elements, and those blessed to harness magic.
The fourth, the youngest god, was said to control the beasts, and that’s when greers and beasts were able to fall into contract with one another.
But his time was short-lived, only about five hundred years or so, and Felia killed him, scared by his power and ambition.
Only a god can kill a god; he barely had any time to become known or thought of. ”
“When was the last god born?” Blaze asks. It dawns on me that despite having a massive dislike for the human, he is sharp in his way of thinking.
“Almost a millennium ago.”
“Which means a new god is soon to be born,” Sheila says with realization.
“But it cannot, or perhaps it is in danger, if Felia knows who or where it might be birthed,” Imogine whispers in shock.
The tent falls silent. The absolute devastation of not only the gods’ interferences coming to make sense, but also the reality of why Felia is moving so many pieces.
Esther takes Grimace into her hands as he inspects and sniffs at her throat, liberated by the shackle that no longer weighs him down.
I admire the blue vine markings mirroring my own that shift along her skin, a male pride filling me. She’s never looked more beautiful.
“This is what we can assume. Everything that’s been happening in our world, being on the brink of war yet again, and even the start of it almost two decades ago, could very well be from Felia’s influence trying to overpower and monopolize those of us weaker and living,” Sheila says.
“Did they say anything else?” Imogine almost pleads as four warriors walk into the tent to pick up and remove the bodies.
One of the spirit greers’ sobs becomes louder, and Sheila slams her cane for silence.
The woman immediately stops sniffing, wiping her eyes, and finding a hard resolve in her expression.
We are in the time of war. The whims of what brought us together are far more serious than what we ever imagined, Esther thinks, her body and mind still not entirely discharged from the disorientation the Fates inflicted on her.
“When they told me the fourth god was concealed, the sick one became sicker, bleeding black ink-like…” The words die on her lips as the two bodies are carried out, her gaze dropping.
It was not your fault.
“When that happened, the mad Fate said that the elements have turned. Tick-tock. Not much time or they all die,” Esther continues.
The mention of death hangs heavy in the air.
Not far away, heavy drums begin to thrum, and we look that way collectively.