Chapter Forty-Six
I materialize in Moranya’s tower, then slide to the floor.
My throat is sore with tears. I had expected to leave alone. I knew I could never tell him goodbye. “He wasn’t supposed to come back to see that,” I sob, though little more than breath escapes.
Basile tried to convince me to let him go in my place, but I told one last lie. I convinced him that only one who had already been to Moranya’s Lair could handle the mirror.
I couldn’t let him sacrifice himself, though he would have. Willingly.
Either of them would have, and that makes it all the more difficult.
The sound of footfalls pulls my attention up, and slowly, I force myself to stand.
“You have returned,” Moranya says, her gaze fixed on the mirror in my hand.
“Did you think I wouldn’t keep my word?” I ask, my throat tight.
“I have hoped for this for so long. I suppose I expected you to change your mind. Not about returning the mirror, but about trusting me and repairing it. Especially after knowing the depth of my failures.”
I inhale slowly, turning my attention toward her.
“The tales made you out to be a monster, but you merely sought to save the souls of mortals—and the Fate you loved. Who among us hasn’t made mistakes in order to do good?
I know I have. Besides,” I add, “for someone who only wanted our kind to live on, I don’t think you would put us all at risk, even for Kastiel. ”
“Thank you,” she says softly, “for seeing my truth.”
“It was shame that kept you away, wasn’t it? It’s why you established the Court of the Exalted to rule before Anton came along.” I swallow my sorrow—pretend it away.
“I knew I was unfit to rule it—especially in my grief. A grief that only compounded over the years until I was desperate and thought of little else.”
“And now?” I ask.
“Now it won’t matter. Kastiel is much more a deserving ruler than I would be.”
I place the resin and mirror down on a table.
“Would you like to do the honors?” I hand the mirror to her, wrapped though it is in a cloth binding, and it’s like releasing a breath.
I never want to wield such power again. I uncork the resin, pouring a few drops in the final crack.
I watched carefully as Anton fitted the pieces back together.
“All we need to do is place this inside. According to Anton, your touch can seal it.”
It catches me by surprise, the wetness tracking down her cheeks. I have never seen her overcome with emotion like this. Until now, she’s kept her feelings at bay despite the pain in her words, as if it has been so long that she’s forgotten how to release the restraints she put in place.
I feel my own tears gathering once more.
She is about to see her love again, while I am forever separated from mine.
I can’t even take comfort in knowing my grief will fade, as will my mortal love.
I imagine that it won’t take long for my body to perish here—for the fevers will return, no doubt, and eventually take their toll.
That, or Moranya will simply offer her hand.
Then I will be just a soul, and the memory of him will slip like sand through an hourglass, lost to time.
If anything, that’s what hurts the most. I want to keep it close, the way Moranya kept Kastiel close. Anton is a part of me now, as are my feelings for him. I don’t want to lose either.
I wrap my arms around my stomach, a compress for the pain, and watch as Moranya puts the final shard into the resin, then hovers her hand over the surface of the mirror.
It lights as if it contains a thousand stars—a shimmering, iridescent silver-blue that radiates outward, so bright my eyes squint shut. When I open them, a figure emerges from the beams of light, so tall I have to tilt my head.
The Fate of Dominion is not what I expected, and yet somehow more.
Kastiel is like a marble statue come to life in stunning, shimmering glory.
His skin is a deeply burnished brown that glows silver under the light of the aurora, his hair a formation of perfect, soft brown waves.
He wears glistening armor that I can’t seem to identify the color of, the hue changing as he spins to face Moranya.
Moranya, who I realize is sobbing, smiles up at him through her tears. My instinct is to brace myself, to see what he might do. I hold still, but he doesn’t appear angry. Only…concerned.
Then he opens his palms, and from them comes a glowing pearl-white light, brighter even than the sun. It’s as if he’s holding the moon in his palms.
Then it explodes—upward, outward, like shards of fire shooting in every direction. I throw myself down onto the floor, cowering, only to feel it wash over me in a cool, soft wave.
He just set the magic to completion.
He just saved her realm.
When I glance up, Kastiel is approaching Moranya slowly, intently. She looks so small and insignificant before him, despite her sheen. But she was never a true Fate herself; she had only borrowed that power.
In fact, as I watch her, that lustrous sheen dulls, her appearance shifting altogether. Her hair, once blue and weightless, drains of color, and her form shrinks until she’s closer to my height. The power has left her, and now she is a mere mortal. This is how she looked when she was Mercy.
If I’m not mistaken, she’s trembling.
When Kastiel reaches her, he tilts her chin up. Finally, he says, “I heard every word you spoke to me, night after night, for thousands of years. You did not abandon me. You did not give up.”
“On saving you?” She shakes her head. “I would not.”
“We have lost a great deal of time,” he states.
“We have many things to fix,” she adds. “The way the realm is run, the ruling systems, justice…Tell me you will do it, Kastiel. Tell me you will take my place and do what I could not. I want nothing more than to shed this burden.”
It’s as if they are picking up mid-conversation now, and perhaps they are, as seemingly one-sided as it was for a time.
But Kastiel says, “For years you begged me to cast you into the Sands upon my return, insisted that you were unable to live with your failures. You forget, Mercy, that this lair was your vision. No one knows the souls of mortals like you do. I certainly do not.”
She had been planning to cast herself into the Sands on account of her failures? I hadn’t known just how far her grief had taken her.
“I lost who I was,” she says. “I do not feel worthy to fix it myself, Kastiel. Please.”
“Maybe there’s another way,” I can’t help but say, and both of them turn to me.
But I turn my words toward Moranya. “Well intentioned as you were, you have still caused great harm. The one thing you did right, however, whether intentional or not, was to preserve souls—especially the purest of them.” I glance at the aurora through the window.
“What if you don’t do this alone? What if they are the guidance you need?
Perhaps the fix will not happen overnight.
Perhaps the solution can come from the most selfless to exist among mortals.
You could establish a new court, one where they usher in souls, dictate judgments, decide how to establish everything else.
In the meantime, you two can ensure the power is properly kept. ”
“Wise indeed,” Kastiel says. “And perhaps then we can let ourselves heal while passing on the torch.”
“But what would that mean for you? You are a Fate, meant for a purpose,” Moranya asks.
“I no longer wish to be a herald over other realms. I see the error in the ways of the Fates. They cannot understand their actions unless they exist among those they seek to take action against.” He paces to the window, gazing out at the realm.
“Instead I will gift my power to the realm itself—to be used by the both of us. We will be its guardians, you and me. Conduits for the magic. But we will not rule it. Is this suitable for you?”
“You would really give your power to such a cause?” Moranya watches him, astonished.
“I have had a long time to ponder what I wished; my consciousness has been with you, alert for all this time.” He brushes his fingers through Moranya’s hair, then sets a kiss upon her lips. “Here we can be together. Your soul will not perish, nor will mine. And we can set things to right.”
Together with Moranya—whom Kastiel now calls Mercy—they begin to repair the lair. As they explained it to me, the magic is working to complete the realm, but still there is much to do if they want to make it right.
“Will the mortal world be safe from another herald?” I ask Kastiel the next day as he and Mercy accompany me up the trek of the mountain, where I might be closest to the aurora itself.
I asked to watch when the time came for this.
“Now that it is at peace, I should think so,” he tells me. “For however long that will last.”
That doesn’t exactly put me at ease.
But there’s one thing I can’t understand. “The Fates,” I say. “Was it really out of fear for Mercy that they vanished?”
“There are thousands upon thousands of worlds like yours,” he tells me.
“But the Fates are not overlords, as some believe. We are abstract creatures, beings who wish only to live in peace with the universe, to exist blithely among the stars, and only when our attention is summoned through countless prayers do we turn our focus to judging the merits of a world. Most would prefer to exist in solitude. We do not have the same desires and needs as you—at least, not respectively. Mercy, of course, opened my eyes to new desires—ones I would be unable to quench in a life without her.”
“I know the Abyssal isn’t for souls,” I say. “But I very much wish I could read your and Mercy’s story for myself one day.”
“I imagine the new court will make many changes soon, now that the realm itself is healed. Perhaps that will be one of them,” Mercy responds, taking Kastiel’s hand. “Shall we?”