Page 11 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

“Would I be able to recordae with him?” I asked, turning my attention to Truth, hoping that of the three of them, I could at least trust her to answer me. But the Fate merely gazed back, the windless air blowing her lustrous stars about her shoulders.

“Would it change your mind, if you could not?” Time asked.

My chest lifted and fell as I heaved a short breath. A sharp knot twisted the back of my throat.

I’m in this with you, and you’ll never be alone again. Fucking never. Do you understand?

“No,” I said, pretending my voice didn’t shake. I swallowed the knot down and it tasted like betrayal. Metallic and bitter. As though I’d taken a bite from my own heart and couldn’t wipe the sharp tang of blood from my own palate. “No, it wouldn’t change my mind.”

Love tittered at me. “Then why does it matter?”

“It doesn’t,” I said. But it did. It mattered. They knew it did, and I knew it, too. Knew it by the low agony in my stomach, the burn across my tongue, the hot needles pressed into my skin at the thought of what I’d willingly gift away. “I just want the truth.”

At the sound of her name, Truth finally smiled. “Oh, young mortal. Doesn’t everyone?”

“I may be cruel,” Love said with an icy glance at her sister, “but I can also be fair. You want a chance to recordae. I will allow it. Mate and cordae with any soul you please—except the one you came for. You may only bond with him again by the same means you did the first time.”

I lowered my chin, anger bubbling to my chest. “A life preserved.”

Love tittered.

Time released an impatient huff, something like envy flashing in her eyes. “Which payment will you choose?”

“Love’s,” I said breathlessly.

Truth gave a solemn nod. Time rolled her eyes. Her ticking stars shot apart, a slow burst across the sky, scattering herself once more into the twinkling canopy overhead. Truth’s departure was less grand. She turned and stepped into the vastness above, her edges shuttering out as though she’d disappeared behind a curtain.

Alone with Love, the Fate gave a dreamy sigh. “Tell me when you are ready, young Naiad.”

I glanced off the side of the open, dusty pathway, down to the endless stars below. My heart raced, the feeling in my fingers dropping into numbness as I stared into the depthless wonder of stars and velvet night. Here I stood, at the top of a precipice, knowing my safety wasn’t at risk but preparing for a fall anyway. My limbs braced for an unknown threat. A silent enemy, an invisible war.

“Will I still love him when we return to the living?” I asked. Then, quieter, “Will he still love me?”

The weight of the cosmos suddenly dragged over me. Face Darkness in his house of night? Easy. Slay a monster lurking below the sea? I’d willingly do it again.

Permanently sever the bond between my cordae and me?

My stomach twisted into painful knots. I wished he were here. To hold my hand and help me decide. To tell me it was all right, that he would forgive me for breaking it without him.

Spinning my ring over my finger, I called his name into the void, but nothing answered.

Death nudged into my palm, deep black eyes sinking into mine. Love tittered into the back of her hand, a coy smile revealing the flash of her teeth under a starry palm. “You won’t reach the other side with this leg. Once you reach the burning cosmos, you’ll have to run. I’ll patch it for you, but it will only last a day. One sunup and one sundown.”

“Where is the sun?”

“I do not know. One of these is yours.” She glanced around at the stars. “But I do not care which.” Behind her, the sky sparkled, and I wondered whether the other Fates had stayed to watch.

“Makua Ahi is my sun,” I said. “Aalto.”

Love clasped her hands together. “Aalto! He is here.” She floated across the sky, pointing to a burning dot at the far side of the night, almost hidden in the tangled web of flickering lights. The dust pathway led in the opposite direction, twisting out of sight. Love glanced at me. “Are you ready?”

“How will I know if he is up or down?”

Love quirked her mouth. “Time?”

The Fate didn’t appear, but Aalto blinked brighter into the sky, encircled by smaller stars like a twinkling wreath. My own personal timepiece.

“You’ve used a day already,” Love said. “Two more passes around Aalto until your time is up. Then you’ll belong to Darkness. Are you ready, mortal?”