54. Love and Fate
Love and Fate
Mariana
This time, I did not run away.
I did not concern myself with Heris and his possible retribution, nor the alarmed voices of the ledgermasters, or the renewed clash of steel. I did not cower in the face of my oncoming grief, as I had with Grinnick.
This time, I held my lover close, barely able to breathe through my own sobs.
Faren’s new tunic was torn and soaked in blood, the wound a dark slash along the waistband of his trousers.
I yanked on the straps of his breastplate, freeing him of the rigid armor with a clatter, and scrambled to put pressure on the gash—but there was no staunching a bleed like this.
The wound was too deep, and I was no healer.
I was no weapon, either. I was simply Mariana. Always Fated—it seemed—to lose that which I held most dear. No matter how hard I tried, my Fate was to—
Wait.
My Fate.
“You changed my Fate,” I said to Faren disbelievingly.
The presence of the Morta had warped my foretold future and allowed Faren to step in and intervene—to alter the unalterable.
Awe shot through my panic.
What if I could do the same for him?
I recalled the few other instances I’d witnessed the defiance of the Fates: Idris rescuing Anya, Hattie curing Noble.
I thought of the potions I constantly carried in my satchel, the vial of water from the Well of Fate.
The Valiant had tried and failed to break their Oaths, save lives, and cure infections with the magical waters, but the results were never consistent.
We’d never managed to solve what my friends from Waldron had achieved—not entirely.
It all felt too big, too mysterious, too cosmic and unknowable.
My brief optimism deflated.
With quivering fingers, I brushed the sweat-soaked hair off Faren’s face. He already felt too cold. “Faren.” My voice was watery and tight. “I don’t know what to do.”
Tears tracked hot lines down the sides of my nose, dripping onto Faren’s cheek. His body was heavy in my arms, eyes closed. He still breathed, but shallowly. I feared each rise of his chest might be his last.
“There’s something I should’ve told you sooner,” I whispered against his temple. “I love you.” I cradled his head against my chest, rocking gently from side to side. “I didn’t want to fall in love again, but I did, and I love you, and I’m sorry.”
My heart was breaking, glass shattering in my chest; the shards pierced my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
When I squeezed my eyes shut, inside the black of my imagination, I saw flashes of the past few weeks with Faren.
Sparring together on foggy, pink-tinged mornings.
Nestled side by side at the corner table in the Lark.
Twirling around the bonfires in Waldron.
I had once thought that I couldn’t love and lose someone again, but now, tucked within the heartrending grief of this moment, I was grateful to have had the privilege—brief as it was—to fall in love with Faren.
Of all the Oaths and all the magics and all the alchemy, Hattie had said on the night of Anya and Idris’s wedding, love is the most powerful.
She was right. I understood that, now—
—or did I?
I’ve been working on a theory, the alchemist had also told me. About the Well of Fate and Oaths. What if Hattie hadn’t simply been swept up in the moment, waxing poetic about her best friend’s wedding? What if she’d been trying to tell me something?
Oaths. Magics. Alchemy.
Anya and Idris. Hattie and Noble.
Could it all really be so simple?
I opened my eyes and tugged at the laces at Faren’s collar, so I could place my hand on his bare chest. With my sensitive fingertips, I felt the wheeze of his waning breaths and the fluttering of his heart. My magic tingled in response.
It felt, inexplicably, like hope.
“You changed my Fate,” I repeated, sliding Faren’s limp weight off my lap. “Now I’m going to try and change yours.” I cradled the back of his head as I settled him onto the marble, then grabbed my sword from where Faren had let it drop. “But first, I need my satchel.”
This time, I wasn’t running away, but running for help.