“Has truly binding the fates helped?”
“It’s not getting worse. But it’s not getting better either. The damage was done long before we bound them.”
A chill ran through me as understanding dawned. “So he could kill you.”
“He could,” Thorne said, his voice steady. “But he’d be killing himself as well. Our existence is connected in ways even we don’t fully comprehend.”
“What if that’s his plan?” The fear that had been gnawing at me for weeks finally took shape. “What if he’s desperate enough to end it all? To take you both out?”
Thorne cupped my face between his hands, his thumbs brushing my cheekbones. “It would never be. Ezra lovesexistence too much, loves himself too much. His anger toward me is deep, yes, but his survival instinct runs deeper.”
“You can’t know that for certain.”
“I can. I’ve known him since the beginning of everything, Paesha. Even at his most irrational, his most vengeful, self-preservation has always been at his core.”
I wanted to believe him. Needed to. But the memory of Archer’s blood on my hands, the sudden, unexpected brutality of his death, made certainty feel like a luxury I couldn’t afford.
His eyes hardened. “I’m not wrong.”
“Together, then,” I whispered, sealing the promise with another kiss.
The night deepened around us, the kingdom slept below, and for a few precious hours, we allowed ourselves to forget about vengeful gods and looming threats. To simply be Paesha and Thorne, two souls that had finally found their way back to each other after too many lifetimes apart.
Tomorrow would bring its own challenges. Tonight, we had this. And it was enough.
The garden had been restoredsince Archer’s death, new life coaxed from soil that had once turned to dust with grief. Everything had been restored.
Everything except him.
I sat on the stone bench, my eyes fixed on the statue before me. Bronze, gleaming in the sunlight, capturing Archer in a moment of laughter. His head was thrown back, one hand resting casually in his pocket where his coins would have been. Thea had done so well, working from memories, but she hadn’t quite captured the crinkle around his eyes when he smiled,hadn’t perfectly shown the way his shoulders relaxed when he felt truly at ease.
Still, it was something. A reminder of what we’d lost. What we were still fighting for.
The gods who had accompanied us to the Fates’ realm had done exactly as we’d predicted, spread word of my power, my victory, my unbridled rage. Their purpose was never to help, not truly. We’d needed witnesses. Needed them to see what I was capable of, to carry tales back to Ezra, to make him think twice about moving against us openly.
Information was its own kind of weapon. Fear, its own deterrent.
Ezra had gone silent immediately after word spread. No one had seen him. I knew where he was usually. Bouncing between this realm and Etherium. Sometimes he’d go to another, where I hadn’t been. Where I couldn’t track him with my power. It took us a while to realize that was where he was hiding when I couldn’t find him. But still we waited. Day after endless day, growing more restless with each sunrise, more tense with each sunset.
Which was likely his plan.
“I remember when he tried to juggle.” Thea’s voice broke through my thoughts as she approached, a basket of flowers tucked under one arm. “He dropped every single ball, and then pretended it was intentional.”
I smiled despite myself. “He claimed it was a new style. ‘Controlled chaos,’ he called it.”
“Always quick with an excuse.” She sat beside me, setting her basket down. “Tuck and I are heading to the Underground. There’s a celebration tonight, something to mark the first full harvest since everything changed.” She hesitated, glancing at me. “You should come. It would do you good to get out of the castle.”
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“You can’t, or you won’t?”
“Both.” I ran my fingers over the smooth stone of the bench. “If I sit here, he’ll come for me and not everyone else.”
“He’s not coming for you. He’s a coward. And you can’t die so there would be no point. Plus, this is why we have guards. And Thorne. And Minerva. And all the other immortal beings who seem determined to hover around you these days.” She reached for my hand. “You’re allowed to live, Paesha. That’s what Archer would want.”
“I’m not sure any of us know what Archer would want anymore.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Thea didn’t flinch. “He wouldn’t want you sitting alone in this garden, staring at his statue every day.”
