Chapter 50
KORMAC
I stood with Many Hands in the Depart Room, facing the sea of stars.
“We really do not understand destiny and its many loopholes,” they said.
“Not even you?” I wondered.
“Certainly not.” They placed three of their hands on my shoulders. “I thought you would never remember us when you fell, would never come back here again. Yet here you are, Titus again with your undying power intact and your destiny awaiting you.”
It turned out, even angelus could be changed, could fall onto a new path. We weren’t one-dimensional beings, for the most part. Okay, so we were most of the time outside our jobs. I was the first to be changed, but Many Hands didn’t think I would be the last.
“Existence is complicated,” they’d said before coming here.
And they were right. I couldn’t explain the many layers of why this was happening, only that I was meant to be down there with Valance. Again. We were meant to turn hate into love, to be together. Maybe the old woman made that happen with her actions, or maybe it was something deeper than that.
As Marcus had said, we were to serve destiny, not to really understand it.
“Valance fixed the world,” I said again for the hundredth time.
What an achievement. What a miracle.
A fourth hand joined the other three. “You helped him do that.”
“Along a twisted path.”
“But a path all the same.” A fifth hand stroked my glassy head. “Whenever you are ready to jump, take your leap.”
“This isn’t goodbye,” Olivia said, standing in the doorway. “We don’t know what will happen next, if you will come back here again.”
“I like the uncertainty,” Marcus added from behind her.
They were different, less rolling joy, more open to darker and deeper things, to more confused feelings.
It didn’t make Fatumstellae a darker realm, only one with more thought beyond parties and frolicking in fields.
We enjoyed complex conversations now, talked about our jobs, the messiness of emotions angelus weren’t privy to.
My friends wanted to change, to be better versions of themselves.
It was from those conversations we started to hear whispers from Faerie, a voice calling my name. Prayers from a broken heart, the voice’s master unaware of its pleading.
Valance.
Always Valance.
I went over to hug my friends again, enjoying the last of our glass bodies connecting.
“I’ll miss you so much,” Olivia said. “Again.”
We’d become closer than ever before.
“Me too,” Marcus added.
“You both take care,” I responded, giving them one last hug.
“And you.” Marcus slapped my back. “Live a good life down there.”
“I will.” I returned to Many Hands, facing the stars again. “I’m ready.”
“Then jump, Kormac.”
That was the first time any of them didn’t call me Titus.
“Make your jump.”
I did, landing naked in a grove of fir trees with huts and jinn everywhere.
“…or memories. There as a vessel to fill the world with my magic forever, never to surface, never to be disturbed.”
That was him! What was he saying to that jinn?
“Valance!” I called.
“Kormac?”
He blinked out of sight.
I ran forward, nudity be damned. “What happened?”
“The consort?” a male jinn said.
I glared at him, then at the female with the bangles. “What did you do to him?”
“Are you Kormac the Consort?”
“Just Kormac,” I growled. “Where is he?”
“I’m terribly sorry.”
My stomach rolled. “What happened?”
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“Please answer me.”
She sighed, explaining his wish to me.
It took every ounce of strength for me not to faint. “He did what?”
“His heart was broken, his grief too much for him,” she said. “He wanted peace, so he wished for it.”
“Then undo it.”
“I can’t undo it,” she responded. “But you can.”
“Then I—”
“Wait. Do not wish yet.”
My stomach continued to roll, my heartbeat a series of painful flutters. “I have to have him back right now.”
“I’m sure,” she said. “But you have to be careful with wishes. There is always a price.”
I ran my hand through my hair as a jinn appeared with a long fur cloak. It dragged in the snow, too long for her short stature. She offered it to me, and I took it, throwing it around my body. A male jinn offered me boots. I took those, too.
“Do you cater to many humans?” I asked.
“It is good to be prepared for all visitors,” the matriarch answered.
“What about Valance?”
“Talk to me, but do not wish. What do you want?”
“I want him back, of course.”
“How?”
“By him being here.”
“And then what? What do you want your life to be like with him? A consort to a king?”
What else would there be? “I…”
“I don’t want a throne, Kormac. Not really.
All I’ve wanted is a quieter life than the one I was born into.
I love luxury. I love palaces. But they are only riches, not richness.
They don’t offer nights of conversation and lovemaking, exploring the world together.
Holding the hand of your beloved, watching the sun rise and set.
I want those things. I want a better life… ”
“What kind of life…” I said.
“Yes.”
What kind of life for him and me?
“But remember, there will be a price,” the jinn said.
“Can you tell me what it is?”
“Tell me your wish—without wishing for the moment.”
“I need to think.” Pressure built in my skull.
“Would you like food and wine?” she asked.
“No, thanks. I’m fine here.”
“As was he.”
“What?”
“King Valance said the same thing. He was fine standing right there.”
That made me smile as much as hurt.
Think. Think. Think.
“I want us to have a happy life together, free from the hellpiss of Faerie politics. Something new, a life of exploring and love. Quieter, freer. But he has to be king, doesn’t he? He has to give his power to Faerie. Without it, the world dies.”
“That’s correct.”
“Then I can’t wish for that. I have to bring him back and let him be king.”
The matriarch stepped forward. “Is that what you want? What you think he would want?”
“My first suggestion would appeal to him more.”
“Then you should have that.”
“But—”
“May I suggest you mention you would like to be bonded through life when you speak your wish?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have come again from the stars,” she said. “Written to be here with him. It would be good to be bonded to him for when I tell you the price.”
“The soul bond?” I questioned.
“Yes. Add it to those words you told me, again without wishing, and then I will explain.”
I did as she asked.
She clasped her hands together, interlocking her fingers under her chin. Her bangles jingled like pretty bells as she did. “Valance can indeed come back to live that life with you, but without his magic. It must stay in the deep, keeping Faerie alive.”
“Okay.”
“It will leave him Sidhe again, bonded to you as you once were. Safe from harm, protected by your undying you have returned with.”
Many Hands had managed to give it back to me. “You know about my undying power?”
“I don’t keep my head in the snow, Kormac. My home may be small, but my mind is enormous.”
That kept my lips together.
“There is more of a cost,” she said.
“What?”
“If you want to be free of Faerie’s politics, Valance cannot be here. He is Valance Rosestar, king-in-waiting. He has a better claim for the Faerie Throne than anyone. He must step aside, allow for a new spoke to the wheel.”
“Take away his birthright?”
“Yes.”
Should I make the choice for him? I know he didn’t want the throne, but wasn’t that up to him?
“Leave Faerie?”
The human realm…
“My friend Maeve used to talk about exploring the human realm, asked me if I ever thought about it. I did, many times. Now I think it sounds wonderful. Somewhere new, somewhere that isn’t Faerie.”
“And Faerie will be okay with his power buried like that?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Take your time, Kormac. There is plenty of food and wine if you need it.”
She really wanted me to eat and drink. But I refused again, running the only two options I really had through my mind. If I returned him to be king, how miserable would he be? If I gave him a different life, would he hate it? Blame me?
Why couldn’t I just have him back without this hellpiss?
Because you came too late…
Because you’re meant to be his destiny again…
“Gods…” I breathed. “This is hard.”
No response. The jinn matriarch couldn’t make this decision for me. She’d presented the details, the price, and now it was up to me.
“What about the price for making him king again?” I said.
“He can never be anything but the king, to have much of anything else outside of his duty.”
“Not even me?”
“As much as he can, but not fully. Such is the price of absolute power.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Isn’t it?”
“It makes the choice easier.”
No answer.
“I’m still thinking.”
“As I said, take your time,” she answered. “There is no rush.”
Only, for me, there was. The more time I spent, the longer I endured without him.
I didn’t come back here again to see him blink away, to feel this ache for him every hellpissing second.
He should be in my arms, our hearts reunited again.
Acting on the feelings we’d confessed to each other, exploring what they meant.
By the gods.
By the stars.
By all the hellpiss in existence.
“I’m ready to make my wish.”
“Then speak, Kormac.”