Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Fate
Iretreat quickly to my den. Not daring another glance in the direction of Jack’s frosted-hilltop hovel the entire way.
Not that I’d ever seen him in my time in Nivea prior to this…
not in many, many years. Of course, I knew he existed—was living out his retirement here—but the reality of it.
Of him. That was another thing entirely.
Logically, I have no right to be angry. I’d left him. I’d banished anything hanging between us. It was my fault.
Not his.
Then why did the choice sting? Why did my eyes blur, smearing the slips of colors whirling in my pool? Why did I lean forward, reaching for something I hadn’t dared touch since the day I’d taken Fate’s mantle?
Fumbling along the crags of the rough floor, my fingers halt when they collide with jagged edges.
I lift the stone out of the water, colorful droplets plinking along with my tears, rippling across the pool.
My nail scrapes against each forgotten edge.
They’re just as piercing, unable to be worn down by the water lapping at it for decades. Not lost to Time.
I ball my fist around the rock. I should crush it, destroy it like I did with Jax’s stone all those years ago.
It wouldn’t matter, though. I’d ensured he’d found his fated regardless.
I was certain of them, just as I am certain that no matter how tightly I grasp the remnants of this alternate destiny in my palms, I can’t break it. I let it go.
You already let it go. It never can be.
The ghost of ink seared into flesh spins at my sternum. It’s dim and unclaimed. Useless.
But it’s still there. He believes it’s gone and hates me for it. Rightfully so. I hate me a little bit too.
Trudging across the floor, I open the thick wooden door and turn down the long-unwalked corridor. Each step leaves a print in the coating of dust. My throat is thick, all the air sapped from the narrow space.
This path used to bring me comfort. Anticipation. Now there’s only dread and regrets.
I need to do this, though. Let what can never be stay lost to Time. I flip the stone over in my palm the entire trek. My skirt trails behind me and I grimace, imagining all the glittering dust I’m dragging along with me.
Clocks gently tick, suspended from metallic strings.
They sway overhead, their ticks driving the beat of my steps.
Meanwhile, the walls surrounding Time’s passage spin, stars, planets, and galaxies glowing down at me.
It’s the only illumination offered along this path.
No one was supposed to interrupt Time, little did the other immortals know that one of their leaders had left centuries ago.
Disappeared to wander the mortal world. Where they were valued and their existence held meaning. For what was Time to an immortal?
Mortals faced a ticking clock. It gave their lives purpose. It brewed their deepest fears.
What had started as a quick visit to the mortal world had become an indefinite hiatus, but Time had never relinquished their title. There had been no replacement. Jack met them in the mortal world once, long ago, but I’d never seen the elusive watchman.
The end of the spiraling tunnel expanded out into a large circular room. A large window of stained glass gives light to the space, illuminating streaks of pale blue that reach across the onyx floor. My bare feet slap against it as I make my way inside.
Dangling at varying lengths above are clocks, dozens of them that each cradle the imprint of a memory.
A little girl in a tiny village running barefoot in the fields, blonde ringlets mid-bounce.
A decade later, skating on an icy lake, palm catching the flecks of snow falling from the sky.
Another decade, pinned between icy arms, two shimmering blue eyes, like star-filled galaxies, staring back at her.
Spread throughout the large circular room, each memory chisels into my ribs, searing with the story of the past—a reflection of what could have been and what never was.
Every winter that gave way to spring. Every slip of stolen time between my former self and an icy boy who waited for me to believe.
They tick tick tick, moving around the ceiling, carried along the oversized hands that rotate. There are four of them. Hours, minutes, and seconds, as usual, and then a fourth… one that always seemed to work against me. Against us.
Seasons.
Swinging into view, I see it. The moment. The one we’ve lived over and over. Lips merely ghosting over each other’s. A sliver of gray slipping into sunlight. Winter’s acquiescence to spring. Another solstice gone by.
“When was the last time you came here?” Echoes a voice that’s as soft as fresh-fallen snow and as cutting as the blade of a skate.
Jack stands beneath the stained-glass hands of the window-clock, his towering silhouette caped in shadows. His snow white skin is covered in silver frost marks, glittering in the pale light.
To our left, a makeshift nook full of blankets and pillows is haloed in books and jutting shelves piled with candles and dried flowers. The bed is unmade. Has he been sleeping here?
“I-I’m not sure.” The wilted brown petals crumpled throughout the room are answer enough.
The passage of Time may not happen here, but I haven’t made those blue flowers since they were inked across my skin, back when I was a harbinger.
“What are you doing here?” I say, tucking the stone into the pocket of my skirts as I glance around at the numerous empty mugs strewn across the shelves. “Why is it such a mess?”
“Don’t like my home, you’re welcome to see yourself out, Lizzie.
” He huffs, blue prismatic eyes darting around the space as he brushes over wayward strands of rich navy hair.
Seems like just yesterday my fingers were threaded through it, dragging his silver lips to mine for one last kiss. A desperate goodbye.
“No one calls me that anymore.” I snap at him.
Why did I even come here? I should have left the past alone, a stone buried beneath the rippling surface.
The corner of his mouth flits up. “Why do you think I like it?”
That mischievous smirk is one I know well. After all, Jack was the original rule breaker in our world. A maverick in his own right. That smirk used to signal joy, quiet getaways, secret passions. A forbidden love that was ours. Now with dead petals stuck between my toes, all I feel is sorrow.
My brows knit staring down at the wilted state of the room. “What are you doing, living in Time’s place?”
This space used to be a dark but vibrant sanctuary for us.
“They weren’t using it,” Jack shrugs, brushing aside some petals in his path with his foot before taking a few steps toward me.
He’s so tall he crosses the distance between us and a moment later is cupping my chin and lifting my gaze to meet his.
“Call me sentimental but not all of us can just cast aside the past.” The corner of his jaw ticks and his face is all hard edges slashed with betrayal.
“You may be free of it, but it still drags behind me like an anchor, drowning me in those memories.”
His eyes flick up to the clocks hanging above.
It used to be cold when he touched me. I used to jolt at his touch, alive and invigorated by it. But I was a different being back then, duty bound to spring and the sunlight. Now I carry it all and I feel… absolutely nothing.
Pain lances my ribs at that. My voice is a rasp. “Jack…”
“Don’t.” He releases my chin and steps back from me. I stumble forward from the loss of it. Of him. “I came here and waited off and on over the years. I foolishly hoped you’d come here too. After a while, I realized you weren’t. But I still fucking came back. Do you want to know why?”
I do. “No.”
He shakes his head at me. That smirk that once coaxed me to stolen kisses and fervent touches now laced with venom.
“I hoped if I waited long enough that I’d heal.
That by the time I went back out there and had to take my post again as the head of Winter, I’d be able to face it.
You. But I don’t think there’s enough time in all the realms to heal me.
” He undoes the buttons of his shirt one at a time until silvery marks, twining stems with flowers and snowflakes, slice between the panes of his muscular chest. He takes my hand and places it on the etching. “Heal this.”
I trace over the lines and swallow the bulb of regret lodged at the back of my throat. “You still have yours.”
Something flashes in his stare, as if he’s searching my reaction for something. When he speaks again, hurt draws his gaze away from me. “I always wondered… but from the look on your face, you don’t.”
“I…” I stumble over my response. The bond may be unclaimed, but I never belonged to anyone else.
I’m already sharpening the pain between us just by coming here, entertaining whatever foolish notions dragged my feet of their own accord to a place hidden away from anyone but Time’s fickle fancies and a pair of star-crossed lovers.
I should have left the moment I saw Jack, tossed the stone into the abyss of Time’s passage, but I didn’t.
Curiosity rooted itself within me and the last thing I want to do is leave.
“If facing me is so hard, why did you come today, Jack? You haven’t come out in decades. Why now? What do you want?”
“Same thing I’ve always wanted.” Two sparkling irises snap up from trailing the floor. “You.” He closes the gap between us once again, palms sliding to my upper arms, holding me in place. “I know the rules. What you chose. Maybe you’re content with your decision… but maybe you’re not.”
“What makes you think I’m not?” A tear tracks down my cheek and his attention follows its path down to my chest.
“You’ve been breaking the rules, Lizzie,” he says, gently knocking my chin upward with a knuckle. One navy brow arches up. Devious and enthralling. “I know you tampered with Jax’s destiny. How many others?”
I don’t respond. Can’t.
“I’m curious as to why. You never were one to break the rules and you know how dangerous it is to alter the course of Fate.”
“That’s not true.” I sniffle and my jaw tenses, teeth clenching. “I broke many rules to be with you.”
“Do you regret it?” The question falls from his lips so easily, a flurry of memories sneaking in from the corners of my mind.
“Never.” I scan over the moments captured above us. I envy Time, running with a steady and effortless pace. Fate doesn’t get such ease. Fate is deliberate. A series of choices. A constant balancing act. “Doesn’t change the choice I made. The bond I severed in making it.”
“What I don’t understand is how it can be severed when, no matter how much time passes, you’re still right here,” he says, guiding my hand over his chest to his mark.
“It shouldn’t be possible, and yet, I’m still claimed by Fate.
By you, Lizzie.” His voice quivers but it’s deep and rich, its waver is less of a weakness and more of an avalanche.
It rattles me, and I know that whatever he says next has the force to crumble down every wall I’ve constructed.
“Tell me you don’t feel it. Tell me I’m alone in this. That it’s over.”
I stare at my feet, the streaks of colors around the hem of my skirt and over my toes a reminder that I’m not the human he loved, not the harbinger he’d been destined for. “I can’t give you what you want.”
“Then just give me tonight, Lizzie.”
“What?” My brows draw tight and I release a shaky breath. It’s a puff of white between our lips. “We shouldn’t.” But as I say the words, I can’t help staring at his, the silvery blue of them beckoning me.
How different would he feel now that I no longer succumbed to his chill. Would his kiss still have the power to make me feel alive?
“We’ve been doing what we should for far too long.” Every muscle, every pane of frosty skin is taut. Strained. “Give me one night of shouldn’ts.” The words come out as a growl, a desperate plea rising up from some deeply primal and submerged part of him. “It’s all I’ll ask of you. Nothing more.”
“One night.” I repeat, and as I say it I know it’s a lie but one I am willing to drown in. “Nothing more.”
“Unless—“
Before he says anything that’ll damn us both, I wrap an arm around his neck and drag him to my lips.