Chapter 3
You would think that being stuck outside of time would be a more luxurious experience.
Let me tell you, TV definitely got it wrong.
I figured there'd be some luxury apartment in the sky with digital screens where I just flipped through and looked at all the different timelines.
Some cosmic penthouse with a couch, maybe a minibar.
That's not it at all. I got the short end of the stick.
I look around, and it's just a vast expanse of nothingness.
Blackness in every direction, thick and endless.
The darkness is quiet, with no sense of distance whatsoever.
I've been floating for who knows how long, which was a pleasant change after running from overgrown man-eating plants that wanted to kill me. But after a while, it just gets boring.
I look down and I'm still in the same damn outfit from when I got here. I thought that existing outside of linear time would come with some kind of wardrobe upgrade. An ethereal gown, maybe? Something goddess-like. Flowing fabric, a nice backlight.
No. There's still mud on my knees, somebody's dried blood on my sleeve, and if I fish around in my pocket, I still have that stupid vial from the Sage and the flower from the Autumn Court.
Why the hell the universe thought I needed to keep those of all things, I do not know.
Both were given to me with the same cryptic instruction: "You'll know when to use them. "
They sure as hell haven't been helpful here. They occasionally become warm in my pocket, but I have no idea what the hell that means.
I do not know how long I've been in this place.
Time doesn't move the way it should, or maybe it doesn't move at all.
Sometimes it feels like minutes. Other times it feels like years.
I shift around and look, stretched out before me and around me and through me, I can see all the timelines. Every single one.
They shimmer in the darkness like threads of light, some bright and pulsing, others dim and frayed at the edges, and if I hold out my hand, it's almost like I can be immersed in them.
Threads of possible moments I can step inside and live them.
Feel every version of what happened, what could have happened, what went horribly, catastrophically wrong.
It's been fascinating, actually. Seeing what happened all the other times. Especially the iterations that collapsed.
For example, in Iteration Two, Peeble thought it would be a brilliant idea to create a pollen bomb during the battle at the Bloom.
What they didn't realize was that the chemical reaction it would set off with the concentrated Root magic in the Heartspire would literally blow up the entire realm.
Just—gone. Everything. Poof. Hence, the start of Iteration Three.
I'd have paid good money to see the look on Peeble's face when they realized what they'd done, except nobody survived long enough to have a reaction.
Plus, they would never have admitted it being their fault.
In some timelines, Kaelren and I have beautiful love stories.
Long, sprawling lives together where we figure it out, where the realm doesn't demand impossible choices, where we just get to be.
In others, we're constantly fighting, trying to kill one another, locked in some vicious cycle of betrayal and rage that burns everything around us to the ground.
But none of it helps with the ache.
I miss him. Constantly. It's not the dramatic, sweeping kind of missing that makes for good poetry.
It's the dull, grinding kind that sits in the center of your chest like a stone you can't cough up.
He was so crushed when I left. I could feel it through the bond before it stretched thin.
The way his whole body went rigid, the way his corruption flared, the sound of my name in his mouth like it was being ripped out of him.
It felt like my soul split in two, leaving him there. But I knew what had to be done. The convergence was collapsing. The realm was tearing itself apart. I was the only one who could stop it, and the price was this: floating in the cosmic sensory deprivation tank for eternity.
I can only hope that he's doing his part. Trying to bring me back. Because I swear, if I have to stay here another minute, I'm going to lose my mind. Assuming I haven't already. Hard to tell when there's no one around to confirm you're still sane.
Another perk of this place, and I use the word perk loosely, is that I get to see all the potential futures. All the things that could have been. All the things I'll probably never get to experience.
For example, there's one where Auradelle won.
Where he took control of the Bloom and weaponized it, and we tried to flee back to Earth, but eventually the corruption followed us through.
Kaelren and I were held prisoner in what used to be Jo's house until we died.
Slowly. He made us watch each other deteriorate. I know, pretty morbid, right?
Then there are the ones where Kaelren becomes a tyrant. Where corruption swallowed him whole and he decided he could have a mistress on the side while ruling with an iron fist. Let's just say in that timeline I took care of the situation, and suddenly, he went missing. Funny how that works.
I lay back and stare into the nothing. There is no food here.
No water. No physical needs at all, really, which sounds nice in theory but in practice just means there's nothing to do with my hands.
And goddess, what I wouldn't give for a Dr Pepper.
Just one. The first chance I get when I'm back, I'm finding one.
I don't care if I have to walk to the nearest gas station in whatever realm I land in.
As I relax, a new thread brightens, and another future plays out in front of me. This one is different.
The world has been saved. We're back at Jo's house, and Kaelren and I are together.
The house looks better than I've ever seen it.
We've been working in the garden, bringing it back to life, restoring it to the way my grandmother kept it before she got sick.
Tomatoes on the vine, herbs in clay pots, and beautiful sunflowers.
We do simple, mundane things. We go to the grocery store and argue about what to have for dinner.
We stay up late watching movies on the couch with Kaelren's arm around me, his body warm against mine while he makes dry, disapproving comments about the plot of every film we watch.
We grow old together, but not too old. We still look fabulous.
We renovate the house and add on to it. Peeble demanded their own personal suite, so we took the mother-in-law quarters and turned them into the beetle palace of their dreams. They demanded imported Egyptian cotton sheets, handwoven tapestries, custom lighting, a gilded perch.
It looks like a god-awful throne room when you walk in there, all excess and ego crammed into four hundred square feet. Peeble wouldn't have it any other way.
On the other end of the house, we built a library.
Real bookshelves, floor to ceiling, with one of those rolling ladders I've always wanted.
That's where I spend most of my time. Some days Kaelren and I just spend the entire afternoon reading, stretched out in overstuffed chairs, not talking, not needing to.
Just existing in the same room with the windows open and the smell of the garden drifting in.
This is the life I wanted. There's no politics. No death. No trying to survive another day in a realm that wants to consume you. We just get to live.
My favorite part of the renovation is the bathroom. I insisted on a massive claw-foot tub. One big enough to hold both Kaelren and me. Considering he’s taller than any human, you can imagine the size of it. It’s practically a small pool.
The vision shifts, and suddenly there's steaming water in the bathtub.
Soap bubbles come up to the edge, the room thick with warmth and the scent of lavender.
Next thing I know, I'm lifted and placed in the tub.
I look down and I'm naked, skin flushed from the heat, and I look over to the side and Kaelren is standing there.
In all his naked glory.
His abdomen is on full display, hard ridges and clean lines, his carved marks tracing dark patterns across his chest and down his hips. My eyes travel lower because I have zero self-control with this man, and the package he has is truly the gift that keeps on giving. My mouth waters.
"Will you join me?" I ask.
He smirks. That devastating, knowing smirk that makes my stomach flip. "You don't even have to ask."
He climbs into the tub and settles opposite me.
Water sloshes over the sides. He takes one of my feet in his hands and massages it, his thumbs pressing into the arch with slow, deliberate pressure.
He works lavender oil into my skin; the scent mixing with the steam and the warmth until my entire body goes loose.
He pours me wine. Serves me chocolate. We laugh about something, I can't even remember what, something small and stupid and perfect, and we play in the water like there's no weight on us at all.
Then the massage moves higher. Up my calves. Past my knees. His hands sliding along my skin beneath the water with deliberate patience.
He reaches the apex between my thighs, and I gasp.
The most mischievous grin spreads across his face. The kind that says he knows exactly what he's doing and has no intention of stopping.
"You didn't think I was going to let you get clean without getting a little dirty first, did you?" he says.