Nix #3
It’s a strange politeness to ask after the fact, when she has already said—and seen—so much, but Nix wouldn’t stop her even if he could. He doesn’t expect any surprises, knowing well who he is and having accepted that more easily in the last few months.
“Go ahead.”
“As I am sure you know, your mate Leo’s soul is a treasure.
Virtually unmarred, so much so that I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Truly a beautiful calm amongst the everyday souls in and out of the Guild.
Normal souls, Nix. You must understand that every soul is beautiful, and every trial and deed is a spot on the miracle of life.
Good and bad, light and dark. The essence of life.
I don’t see the moments, just the…state of things. Does any of that make sense?”
It made perfect sense. Life was a series of choices, gifts, curses, and happenstance. Life and luck. It’s what you did with both that made you who you were—and what you carried with you in this life and into the next.
“And mine?” Nix can only imagine, by comparison to Leo’s, that his bears all its scars and dark places.
“Blinding. You are one half of a perfect whole. Unusual, certainly, and something I have only seen in Weres. Although some of us feel the bond, regardless.” She smiles and nods her head toward her partner, whose purple-sneakered feet are floating six inches off the tarmac with excitement about something Jamie has said.
“Grayson’s soul is beautiful.” Nix would know this even without their soul bond. In fact, he’d know it about Leo or Gideon or Luca or Rowan or Finn—and especially Jamie.
He knows it because he can see it in his bonds.
The revelation hits him with the impact of a high-speed train.
“My bonds,” he whispers. All the colors of the rainbow now, with Skye’s peachy orange sunset and his daughters’ glimmers of silver and gold. “It’s their souls.”
Elysia nods. “Just so—or at least I am fairly certain. While Grayson is the other half of your soul, you also carry the light from all your mates and children within you. Your soul is a bright, clear, incandescent white. Ignatius once shared that you had a metaphor for your soul and Grayson’s magic, and I admit to being intrigued.
It’s part of the reason I insisted on accompanying him. ”
Oh…the prism.
The idea had come to him in Ignatius’ office, and it had felt right.
He’d finally shared it with the kind man on his second visit, right before they’d come home.
A visualization of pure white light that enters Nix and refracts every shade of the rainbow beyond.
The prism doesn’t just channel the light.
It also interprets, amplifies, and reshapes it.
But with Elysia’s explanation, he realizes he isn’t the prism in this metaphor—he is the light.
Holy shit.
Is this why, when they’re together, Grayson can channel all frequencies of The Plain? They are a manifestation of both the source and its execution.
Reeling, Nix catches Jamie’s eye across the open tarmac, and his inquiring eyebrow asks, Are you okay?—as he no doubt feels Nix’s intense surprise.
His epiphany.
He’d known he had been the Goddess’s vessel that day at Carnell’s fortress, no matter how strange it sounded. Their presence had been made tangible not just on that platform overlooking the sea, but since the very beginning when he’d been made Were—maybe before.
Just like in Grayson’s dreams, or as Rowan’s gifted memories had revealed, Elysia has only confirmed what Nix has known in his soul of souls.
“My love, we should go!” Ignatius calls from where his feet are firmly on the ground once again. Nimue waits patiently in the third row of the large SUV.
“So impatient. Even after forty years, we still argue over time management.” Her eyes are soft with memories and affection. “I see I’ve given you something to think about. Perhaps we can talk again, and you can share what has you looking so shell-shocked. Yes?”
“Yes. I’d like to understand a bit more about—” He pauses, not sure how to talk about her Affinity and his revelation in a way that won’t be abrupt, or keep them standing on the tarmac for another hour. Or make him sound like an egotistical, megalomaniacal loon.
“I’ll look forward to it.” She grins, taking the handle of her own suitcase and rolling it toward her life partner, accepting his hand into the car.
Jamie tilts his head in question, no doubt wondering why Nix is still standing there in the late afternoon sunshine, but he waits, with no sign of concern or urgency.
Nix isn’t the only one who has learned to be still and wait.
He squeezes Rosie to his chest. She rewards him with a giggle and then a yawn, her sweet floral scent filling him to overflowing with love and grounding him back in his real life.
Reminding him that while he may have held the full power of a Goddess for a moment—and maybe still does, and certainly has over many lifetimes—he is still just a man.
Mate, lover, father, and friend.
And that is where the real light in his life comes from.