Page 223 of May: Bloom & Bane

Who is Caelen… why does that name feel familiar?

“But the gods do not waste true soulbonds.” Therael gestures between Andrik and Lumi. “What you had was sacred, woven into the loom of fate itself. To let it end on that cliff would have been… a tragedy we could not abide.”

“So you brought us back?” Lumi whispers.

“We gave him a choice.” Therael’s attention shifts back to Andrik. “You, Caelen. You, who loved her so fiercely, you followed her into death without a second thought.”

If Andrik is Caelen, what do I have to do with this?

“We offered you a second chance. But it came with a price,” Therael murmurs. “You chose the burden. You became the beast. The judge. The protector. And you waited.”

“For lifetimes,” Andrik whispers.

“Yes.” Therael’s gaze softens.

“And when she returned to the cold... when the snow claimed her grief as it once claimed her life... the bond began to wake.” Lumi’s hand finds Andrik’s. “But the prophecy has conditions,” Therael continues. “She had to return to the cold willingly. Not as a victim of death, but as a seeker of truth. In search of something lost.”

“Anna,” Lumi breathes.

“Yes. Your grief for the sister who shared your soul, brought you back to the place where you lost it. And the one who coveted you⁠—” Therael’s gaze flicks to Micah’s body. “—had to be ended. Not by the hand of a murderer seeking vengeance. But by the hand of a protector, choosing love over his own kin. A necessity born of a love that cannot lose her again.”

Kin? Wait—is he saying Micah and Andrik are brothers?

“Only then,” Therael intones, “would your memories return. Only then would the bond be truly complete.”

“What about him?” Lumi gestures toward Micah’s body. “What happens now?”

Therael is quiet for a long moment, the light in his eyes pulsing hypnotically. “Therin made the same choice you did, Caelen.”

Who is Therin?

“When he realized what he’d done—when he saw her plummeting toward the water—he did not stay on the edge; he followed her into the abyss, begging the gods for a second chance. He wanted to undo the moment his hands betrayed his heart. He wanted to save the woman he believed he loved.”

“But he didn’t love her,” Andrik growls. “He was obsessed. He wanted to own her light because he couldn’t find his own.”

“Yes.” Therael’s voice is heavy with sadness. “And no.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“Therin did not seek to own her, Caelen. He did not wish to extinguish her light or cage it. He wanted only to be the soil beneath her feet—to do whatever was necessary to watch her bloom brighter. He stayed for her. He jumped for her. He spent over three thousand years mourning the moment his hands failed her before he was thrust into this life.”

Therin was thrust into… this life as Micah?

“His love was not the lack of light,” Therael continues, “but a lack of direction. He was the seed that tried to claim the sun. He poured his devotion into a vessel that was never meant to hold it, and in doing so, he let the weeds of his own soul take root. He did not see that while he was busy tending to a garden that was never meant to be his, his own true bond was waiting in the shadows, unwatered and alone.”

Lumi’s breath hitches, and her eyes roam to where Micah is lying in the snow. And in this moment, she reminds me so much of Eden. The fear and heartbreak from earlier has shifted to empathy.

“He was trying,” she whispers. “All this time... he was just trying to fix it.”

“He was,” Therael confirms. “But one cannot fix a severed thread by tying it to the wrong soul. To do so only creates a knot that must be cut.”

“But—” Andrik starts.

“Just as you were tasked with judging souls, he was tasked with mastering the meadow of his own spirit. To ensure the darker parts of his nature did not take root and choke the life from everything he touched—to bloom instead of bane.”

Lumi steps toward Therael, and Andrik drags her back.

“We sent him back with a twin. A twisted mirror—Mark—a soul prone to violence, to hunger, to all the things Therin was capable of becoming. His task was to guide that darkness. To prove he could protect a life instead of possessing it. To choose slow growth over the vine of obsession.”