Chapter 15 Fate’s Choice
Chapter fifteen
Fates Choice
Jade
Idrifted, weightless and formless. The absence of pain was the first thing I noticed.
Just... nothing. The second thing I noticed was the silence, not the quiet of an empty room or the hush of early morning, but the complete absence of sound that made me wonder if I still had ears to hear with at all.
The third thing I noticed was that I wasn’t breathing.
Hadn’t been for...how long? Time had no meaning here. But I knew what that meant.
I was dying. Or maybe already dead. The realization should have terrified me. Instead, it settled over me with strange detachment, like hearing someone else’s bad news.
Threads of light glimmered in the distance, faint at first, then gradually more distinct as my awareness expanded. They crisscrossed the void like luminous highways, creating a grid that pulsed with gentle rhythm.
“Well, this is fucking inconvenient."
The darkness shifted, folding in on itself as three figures emerged from nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. Cloaked in fabric that seemed woven from shadow and starlight. Their faces were partly obscured by their hoods, but I recognized them instantly.
The Moirai. The Fates.
Anger surged through me, I’d always been told death brought wisdom, perspective, some grand understanding of life’s mysteries. But all I felt was pissed off.
“Was this the plan all along?” I demanded. “Hook me up with the perfect mate just so I could get murdered by my psycho ex three days later? What kind of joke is that?”
The sisters remained motionless.
“Did you know?” I pressed, moving closer to them. “When you bound us together, did you know this would happen? That Trevor would trap Magnur? That I’d end up with a knife in my back?”
One sister tilted her head slightly, the gesture neither confirmation nor denial.
My fury expanded, filling the emptiness around us. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to him? ” My voice cracked. “Now he gets to spend his life grieving me? Blaming himself? That’s your grand design?”
I would have cried if it had been possible in that moment, maybe Ziggy had been right to not go to the sisters and I should have avoided them as well, then at least Magnur would be free.
“Fuck that,” I spat. “And fuck you three for letting it happen.”
The sisters remained unmoved by my outburst, waiting with patience that only immortal beings could possess. My anger burned hot and bright in the void, but like all fires without fuel, it eventually began to fade, leaving behind embers of grief and frustration that glowed painfully in my chest.
When I finally fell silent, Clotho spoke. “Your thread was never singular, Jade,” she said. “Always tied to two paths. Always.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, exhaustion replacing anger.
Lachesis raised her hand, and suddenly I could see it, a golden thread extending from my chest, but at a certain point, it split perfectly into two identical strands, running parallel to each other.
“One path led to Magnur,” she explained. “One to Trevor. Both woven long before you drew your first breath.”
Atropos, stepped forward. “Trevor’s lineage carries the blood of those who once bound your mate. Their fates have been knotted together for centuries, and when you entered the pattern...” She shrugged. “You became the point where all threads converged.”
“So this was inevitable?” I asked, hating the helplessness in my voice. “I was always going to end up dead in a warehouse?”
“This moment was always one of many possibilities,” Clotho said. “One thread leads forward into the life you began with Magnur. Another leads into darkness and then back to light in another time, another place.”
“If you let go now,” Lachesis added gently, “you and Magnur will meet again in another life.”
I stared at them, incredulous. “Another life? You expect him to wait for a reincarnation that might not even remember him? After everything he’s been through?” I shook my head. “That’s not good enough.”
The sisters exchanged glances. When they looked back at me, something had shifted in their gaze.
“There is always choice, Jade,” Atropos said finally. “Even here.”
“Then give me one,” I demanded. “Because I’m not leaving him alone. Not like this.”
The space around us rippled and transformed, the formless void taking on definition as if someone had suddenly adjusted the focus on reality itself.
The threads I’d glimpsed earlier multiplied and brightened, creating a vast network of interconnected lives stretching infinitely in all directions.
I could see how they tangled and separated, how some burned bright while others dimmed, the visual representation of every choice, connection, life and death that had ever been or would ever be.
It was beautiful and terrifying and way too much for my human brain to process.
“Jesus,” I whispered.
The sisters moved as one, their hands weaving through the air in elegant motions that seemed to pull certain threads into sharper focus.
The space directly before me cleared, until only the two identical strands of luminous gold threads remained.
They pulsed with matching rhythm, so similar that they could have been reflections of each other.
“These are your primary threads,” Clotho explained, her voice soft but clear. “Two paths, equally strong, equally possible.”
But which was which?
Atropos stepped forward, reaching into the folds of her shadowy robe to withdraw a pair of scissors.
“There is a way,” Atropos said. “But the cost could be greater than you imagine.”
I straightened my spine. “Tell me.”
“You may cut one thread,” she explained, the scissors catching the light as she held them out. “If you cut the thread tied to Trevor, you can end your path with him and use Magnur's immortality to anchor yourself back to life as his mate.”
“And if I cut the wrong one?” I asked, already knowing the answer would be terrible.
Clotho spoke, her tone gentle but unyielding. “If you cut Magnur’s thread, you sever yourself from him completely. Not just in this life, but all future ones. The connection will be unmade as if it never existed. You will never find each other again, in any form, in any world.”
I closed my eyes overwhelmed with the urge to scream. If I chose wrong, Magnur wouldn’t just lose me now; he would lose any chance of finding me again, even in another life.
Lachesis turned to me. “The threads appear identical because both connections are real. Both have shaped your existence.”
“But one is built on love and one is built on obsession,” I argued. “They’re not the same.”
“No,” Atropos agreed. “But they are equally binding.”
“And there’s no way to tell which thread is which?” I asked, desperation edging into my voice.
“The heart knows,” Lachesis said simply. “But only the heart.”
Atropos stepped closer, the shears extended toward me. “Your fate is in your hands,” she said, placing the scissors in my palm.
I stared at the threads glowing before me, the scissors weighing heavy in my palm.
How the hell was I supposed to choose when they looked exactly the same?
My entire existence, not just this life but apparently all possible future ones, hung on a choice I had no way of making with certainty.
Classic. Even in death, I couldn’t catch a break.
I could almost hear Trevor’s voice telling me I was being dramatic, that the choice was obvious. And maybe that was the first clue.
I closed my eyes, shutting out the intimidating presence of the Moirai and instead, I focused inward, reaching for memories of Magnur that might guide me.
A warmth spread through me so bright and peaceful, I held on to that feeling knowing it was him, his fire spreading light in the darkness to lead me home to him.
I opened my eyes and looked again at the threads before me. They still appeared identical, but I had a certainty that I knew who was who.
I reached out and grabbed the thread on the right firmly in my hand, feeling its energy pulse against my fingers like a second heartbeat.
With my other hand, I raised the scissors to the thread on the left.
My fingers trembled slightly with the weight of finality.
This was it. No do-overs or second chances.
“I choose him,” I whispered to myself. “I choose us.”
The blades closed around the thread with surprising ease.
For a fraction of a second, nothing happened, the thread remained intact and I thought perhaps I’d failed somehow.
Then it parted with a sound like crystal shattering, the effect spectacular.
A surge of golden light exploded outward from within me, so bright it was almost blinding, the severed thread writhed like a wounded snake, its golden light fading to a sickly yellow, then gray, then nothing as it collapsed and unraveled into oblivion.
The thread still clutched in my hand burned brighter, it thickened and pulsed with renewed vigor, as if finally free of something that had been siphoning its strength.
I looked at the Moirai, half-expecting them to tell me I’d chosen wrong, that I’d just severed myself from Magnur forever. But their expressions, what little I could see of them, held something that might have been approval. With entities as old as they were, who the hell knew?
“Your path is clear,” Clotho said softly. “But not easy.”
“Nothing worth having ever is,” I replied.
The sisters inclined their heads in unison as they began to fade, until they disappeared entirely, their purpose fulfilled, their role in my story complete.
The void around me started to collapse, the vast expanse of threads receding like stars at dawn.
The golden thread in my hand pulsed once, twice, then pulled taut, as if something on the other end had suddenly grabbed it and yanked hard.
The sensation was immediate like being hooked by a fishing line and reeled in.
I slammed back into my body, every nerve ending suddenly screaming to life all at once.
The knife wound in my back burned like someone had poured molten metal into it as the fatal wound began to heal.
My head throbbed where Trevor had struck me.
My wrists stung from rope burns. Even breathing hurt, my lungs protesting as if they’d forgotten how to function.
But I was breathing.
I gasped, air flooding into my lungs in a desperate, ragged inhale that sent fresh pain shooting through my chest. My eyes flew open, vision blurred and swimming with tears.
Magnur’s face hovered above mine, features contorted with grief and desperation. His arms were wrapped around me in a crushing grip. His wings created a dark canopy above us, sheltering us from the harsh warehouse lights.
“—to me, please,” his voice was rough. “Jade. Come back to me.”
“Magnur,” I managed, my voice barely a whisper.
His entire body went rigid, eyes widening in disbelief. “Jade?”
The thread between us pulsed with renewed strength. I could feel him through it, his shock and desperate joy flooding into me, mingling with my own relief and love.
“Hi,” I said stupidly, because what do you say when you‘ve just returned from the brink of death after cutting your fate free from a psychotic ex-boyfriend?
His laugh was more sob than sound, his arms tightening around me as he pressed his forehead to mine. “You were gone,” he whispered. “The thread, it...you were gone.”
I reached up with trembling fingers to touch his face. “I came back for you. To you.”
I looked at him and I knew with absolute certainty this was where I belonged.
“I chose you,” I whispered. “And this time, no one will take that away.”