“Take what is forged by immortal hand, and leave in kind what fate once planned.A thread for a thread, a bond for a bond—unravel the heart where souls respond. What was eternal is now gone, severed in silence, yet ever lived on.”
It wasn’t hard to recognize the cadence. Despite the lack of emotion in his voice, the whispered words of the ley line’s demand settled over me as though I had been there with him.
“I still don’t understand . . .”
“It unmade true mates. Every bond. Every thread. Fated love. Gone.”
I stared, my brain processing the words too slowly. “You can’t be serious...”
Vareck nodded. “Fated mates vanished. No one knew why. They blamed the curse, and I let them. But it was me. I was the catalyst.”
I swallowed, trying to make sense of it. “But Meera?—”
“She was the exception,” he whispered. “I thought the Fold had missed one thread.” He shook his head again, digging his bloodied fingers into the roots near his scalp. “Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t. Either way, it corrected its mistake.”
“But it wasn’t your fault,” I said, trying to reason through the madness. “You didn’t know what the ley line would take.”
His eyes met mine, dark and hollow. A slight sheen glazed over them. “I did.”
My words dried up as I stared at him. I opened and closed my mouth, searching for the right thing to say. He beat me to it.
“People were starving. Faerie can’t import enough food. The famine was—is—a crisis. The way I justified it was that you can’t miss what you didn’t know you had. No one is guaranteed they’ll find their true mate. We only hope. But chosen mates happen all the time. I thought it was better to take that bond away from the world than to let them starve. What I didn’t bet on—what I didn’t let myself consider—was that it wouldn’t work.”
“You were trying to save people,” I said softly.
“And Idamnedthem.” Threads of dark brown hair tore away from his scalp. I grabbed his hands with my own, trying to force him to stop. “Do you know what it’s like to wake up knowing you took fated love from an entire world? That you stole soulmates from the very people you swore to protect?”
“I don’t.”
“No,” Vareck agreed. “You don’t. And now—now the only one I’ve ever loved isgone. That’s not chance, Sadie. That’s the Fold collecting its due.”
A horrible silence stretched between us.
“But she’s not gone,” I insisted. “The bond might be, but Meera is still alive and kicking. She’s fighting her way back to us—to you. Bond or no bond.”
“You don’t know that,” he mumbled.
“Stop it.” There was no room for arguments. “My sister was in love with you before she knew you were real, before she had a fated mate bond. Nothing has changed.”
“Everything has changed.”
“Nothing thatmatters,” I said. My fingers wrapped round his, gripping them fiercely to stop him from hurting himself more. “So what if the bond is gone? So what? You said it yourself that chosen mates happen all the time. Fate or no fate, you can still choose each other.”
Vareck laughed, and I knew that was the moment I lost him. The unhinged sound coming from his chest made my own stomach twist. “In what world does she choose a man who sacrificed fated mates fornothing?”
His laughter faded, leaving only ragged breathing and the restless hum of the Fold, as though even the ley line was waiting for my answer.
I tightened my grip on his bloodied hands. “This one,” I said fiercely. “This world. The one where Meera never once looked at you and saw a crown or a curse—only you.”
His jaw clenched, but his eyes flicked toward mine, desperate and broken.
“You think she won’t choose you?” I pressed on, heart pounding. “She already did. Long before you two had a true mate bond. You can’t undo that. Not even the Fold can undo that.”
“You’re wrong.” He shook his head, but the motion was shaky now, unconvincing.
“The Fold may have taken fate, but love by itself was never something it could claim. It can unweave a thread, but it has no power over choice. And Meera chose you.”
For a heartbeat, something flickered across Vareck’s face; something fragile and unbearably human. “You truly believe that?”
