128. Violette
VIOLETTE
The song of cathedral bells echoing in the distance stirs me to consciousness.
Towering, spiralling columns and stained glass windows depicting the same moving shapes and patterns of someone’s eyes, though I can’t place whose, surround me.
Distantly, I feel like this should be strange, but somehow it feels entirely natural... as I float here.
I have no idea where I am, though there is something impossibly familiar about it.
I find I don’t mind this not-knowing.
I simply am. Am simply here.
As I stare at one particularly mesmerizing stained-glass design, the air seems to vibrate.
I focus my eyes further and realize I can see actual photons of light–they seem to hum and dance in coordination with the thunderous but soothing sound of the cathedral's bells ringing in some distant, sky-high tower.
As I focus further on each individual photon, I realize worlds—a universe—exist within each of them.
My lips part in awe, and I find myself leaning towards a specific one. I feel myself, my soul being pulled towards it. Images—memories—filter through my mind the closer I get, and I get a shock of pain that feels like a jolt of electricity.
“Violette.”
I know that voice.
That name.
It takes concerted effort to divert my attention away from this microcosm calling to me.
I turn to find?—
Levi.
Oh, gods.
Memories come rushing back to me in a crushing and disorienting tsunami.
My heart is surely hemorrhaging, yet I see no blood.
Levi’s hands gently grasp my shoulders, and there’s a calm certainty in his gaze that steadies me.
“Be still.”
The words are softly spoken, but the timbre of his voice is no less a command—infused with power that reaches beyond this world and bleeds into all existence.
My heart rate steadies, and like a cask being uncorked, the fear and heartbreak suffusing me drains. Replaced with the peace I find in Levi’s eyes–the human ones I’ve come to know and love.
His gaze studies mine, and I his.
“What is this place?”
Levi opens his mouth to reply but stops short as his eyes lift to something—or someone—behind me. I turn to find the cervahnith several feet behind us, a frown creasing his face. “A place like this is forbidden from the living.”
Levi’s eyes darken. “Just as you are forbidden from entering the living realms. Leave us, or I will dissolve every fragment of your being.”
The cervahnith’s expression tightens, but he turns to leave, briefly glancing at me over his shoulder. “There is nothing you can do to save him.”
Azrael.
I can’t breathe against the boulder that manifests in my throat; upon my chest.
“Is this my karma? That because I’ve denied my power and my nature my entire life, that I can now no longer control it, and am destined to destroy my father’s city and kill one of my soulbound?”
Levi’s expression reveals nothing, but his words give me cautious hope.
“It is not written in stone. This is a liminal place of my own creation so that I could..."
That he created...
Sacred fuck, what kind of magic does he possess?
“Give you options,” he finishes.
My brows knit together as I wait with bated breath for him to finish his sentence, unconcerned about anything other than the mortalized god of death. “Is it true though? That we can’t save Azrael?”
Levi sighs, brow furrowing. “He doesn’t have to die beneath a slab of marble in your father’s palace, no, but changing his mind—his desire for this reprieve—is not as simple as altering one single event.
We cannot control free will, but you can change your reaction, and thus Azrael’s fate, to some degree, and that of Sinsól. ”
I shake my head in disbelief. “So what are these options?”
Levi raises his head to study my gaze.
“Tell me what you wish to change, and I will make it so.”
My brows knit together in bewilderment. “This is your power? You can control fate?”
He huffs a dry laugh. “Not exactly... To put it simply, I am able to access, and thus, impose my will to some degree upon time, space, gravity, and plasma. The four of which are, essentially, the foundation of physical reality. I wouldn’t truly call this my power—I can merely access the multiversal consciousness of higher, non-physical dimensions that don’t experience time in a linear fashion. ”
My brows lift in awe and realization. “It was you... The note.”
The memory of standing in Caerwynath, at one of my lowest points.
A note appearing mid-air and fluttering to the ground.
Tears smacking the paper in retribution, words that both inspired and infuriated me.
Gave me hope.
I know life, at times, has been cruel. I have watched every moment of it...
You told me it was worth it and that you’d choose this path every time...
Life will get easier.
You will find your way.
You will find the love you long for—or rather, it will find you.
The love and adoration shining in his eyes make my own burn with gratitude.
He dips his head in confirmation. “Of course it was me..."
One hand reaches up to cradle my cheek, thumb gently swiping away a tear as I lean into his palm. “It will always be me.”
My breath shudders out of me as I try to refrain from breaking down into a puddle on the floor at this male’s feet. “You have no idea how much hope that note gave me.”
My hands curl around his wrist and forearm as if seeking to anchor him to me forever as he bends to press a kiss to my forehead. “I love you, mia rovina. I will follow you always–in this life, the after life, and through every incarnation.”
My lips tremble against the force of the sob crawling up my throat.
Wearing an almost apologetic expression, he draws back slightly to guide my gaze to his. “You’ll never be rid of me.”
The sob brewing inside me bursts free on a laugh.
Levi’s thumb strokes along the length of my jaw. “Outside of destroying Sinsól, is there anything else you would change?”
My eyes search his. Brow furrowing. Heart hoping. “How far back can you go?”
“Travelling to 10 years ago or to a thousand years ago is like opening a book to page ten versus page one thousand. It makes no difference.”
Akash almighty.
My gaze falls from his as I attempt to fully process this.
I could change... everything.
Past.
Future.
Kill my father before he wreaked havoc on all of Bellorum.
Before he kills my mother...
My mind lingers on that possibility before it strays...
Maybe I could reunite her with her people, her family, when I came of age... And then show up at my father’s doorstep, ready to rule at his side, perhaps even do some good for this world. I could skip all the pain and suffering of, and after, my mother’s death.
The brothel.
Lucen.
Thessaly...
My heart clenches with grief.
Thessaly could continue to live out his life in peace if he never met me.
Would never have to die at the hands of my father’s henchman.
Even from here, I can hear Thessaly scolding me. If you think I wouldn’t have chosen the gift of knowing and mentoring you—you are gravely mistaken, child.
The sound of his voice, even if only in my mind, almost makes me smile.
I could save myself the heartache of ever having to say goodbye to Azrael. To endure his death, no matter when it occurs, by avoiding him altogether. He’d have no bargain to make. He would continue to live.
But Lazarus...
They are the same person, I try to tell myself.
It feels like a lie.
And neither would be my soulbound.
The image of Persephone’s stunning face appears in my mind, as she stands beside Mors on her ship—beautiful and radiant, even in the stormy dark.
The curse of his loneliness would perservere...
Her presence persists.
Possibilities spark like a sputtering flame inside my skull.
I’m far too selfish to try and change his fate with Persephone, not to mention it would be utterly catastrophic, but perhaps I can somehow ease the aftermath.
Even if only in some small way—as Levi did with the note he sent me in Caerwynath.
What if I sent Levi back to him...
Fuck, I can’t do that, or Lazarus would never come to be.
My thoughts wander back to Tempus, the god of forward-moving chronological time.
I’d bet anything Azrael’s lust for death began when Persephone rejected him. When Tempus revealed their fate—and that of all the worlds, should they be together.
Resolution fills me, although there’s no guarantee what I have planned—a tiny, seemingly insignificant alteration in Azrael’s history—will work or make any difference... but I’ve spent my entire life living on hopes and prayers, and by some miracle it led me to three soulbounds.
“No.”
Levi arches a brow. “No?”
I shake my head. “There’s nothing else I would change.”
Well, nothing else that I would have you change.
His brows knit together. “Even if it would save you, and potentially others, suffering?”
The burning at the back of my eyes returns.
“As selfish as it may be, there isn’t anything in this world I wouldn’t sacrifice to have you.”
The love radiating from Levi’s deep green eyes begins to glisten.
Gradually, he nods in understanding before pressing a kiss to my forehead.
“And I, for you, mia rovina.”