AllFreeNovel
Share Us
18
ADDIE
Persephone brought me back to Limbo. I tensed, waiting for the world to open beneath my feet and send me plummeting into the nothingness. Limbo had healed from the last time I’d been here, though. There were holes here and there, but they were no bigger than my fist and slowly knitting back together before my very eyes.
I turned to Persephone. “Why here? Shouldn’t we go directly to Hel’s domain? I feel like Fenrir’s lover would have gone there. Isn’t it obvious?”
“Do you know why I’ve been watching you?” Perse slid a glance in my direction.
I scowled. We didn’t have time for lessons.
“I try to keep my nose out of the affairs of gods. It tends to get me in trouble.”
Perse laughed. “That’s fair. We can be a capricious bunch. The Abrahamic pantheon is a mess right now. Your own matron is being secretive. I understand your hesitation, but I have no desire to use you for my own benefit.
“In fact, I came here because I admire you. I always saw potential in you, so I stuck around to see if you would ever rise up to grasp that potential.” She gave me a knowing smile. “And you did. You blossomed like a flower that had been kept from the sunlight for too long. Your petals unfurled as wide as they possibly could the moment light came into your life. Despite everything, you’re still valiantly reaching for that light, even if fate is begging you to stop.”
I cringed, expecting her to chastise me for meddling with fate. The gods probably weren’t big fans of those who sought to escape theirgrand plan. However, Perse surprised me.
“Just between you and me, I defied fate, too. I took one look at that dark, brooding king of the underworld and knew that he would be the only one to make me happy. And I was right.” A dreamy smile reached Perse’s lips. “The fates planned for me to stay in the mortal world to keep it lush and vibrant, but it didn’t need me all year round. My mother didn’t need me, either. I wasn’t going to be her emotional support goddess for the rest of my divinity.
“I brought you here, where the gods aren’t listening, to tell you that I want to help you defy fate. We’re going to make this quick, because your lover is trapped in a prison cell with a beast of a motherfucker.” Perse took my hands in hers.
Her divine arcana ignited my own. She directed my hands and the sensation of threads thrummed under my fingertips. I gasped when I realized what she’d done. Perse had shown me how to reach into the weave of the world.
“Close your eyes. Can you feel your own thread?”
I could. It was ice cold to the touch. My arcana hummed through it, as familiar as my own name.
“Good. Now search for your lover’s fate thread. That should be simple with his soul here with us.”
Maddox’s fate thread thrummed like a steel wire. It fit him. He was stern and steady, though I worried if I bent it too much it might break. He’d already gone through enough. I could feel the worn knot in the wire where Paige had betrayed him.
Perse guided my hand up to another knot, one that was both cold and strong. “You’ve already tied your threads together. Now you have to guide them towards one another so that they stay together for the rest of your lives.”
I nodded. As I pushed forward, the two threads seemed to go on forever. Were fate threads always this long? For a moment, I wondered if we were immortal. That couldn’t be right. I’d nearly died several times. It was our souls that were immortal. Our souls would outlast our bodies for a long time to come.
This would make sure that our lives and our afterlives would be intertwined for as long as we wanted them to be. However, I wanted to enjoy my life with him. I would not allow anyone to pluck me from the world of the living before I was ready. So, Perse guided my hand back to where I could feel a slight divot in the threads.
“That is your death,” Perse informed me.
“I don’t understand. How can I tell when it is?”
Perse pulled my hand back to the present. The divot that marked my death was not far away. It made my breath catch, but I steadied myself and lifted my chin. Without instruction, I searched for the divot again. I poured my arcana into it and reshaped it so that the divot disappeared.
To my dismay, it reappeared again up the thread. I did this over and over. To my surprise, it exhausted my arcana. I had this vast sea of power, but moving my death took a great amount. I could only do it so many times before the sea would be drained.
Worry crept into my mind, but I wasn’t going to be deterred. I found the divot in Maddox’s thread and managed to move my own death up, closer to his. I had no idea how far in the future that would be, but it seemed to be a distance from where my death had originally been. I would have to be satisfied with that.
Maybe then, Maddox and I would get to bask in normalcy for a little while.
“Suck that, Bastien. This is how you do it.” I grinned.
Perse raised a brow.
“Bastien? Remember? He hunted Reapers and used their souls to avoid dying himself.”
I’d done exactly what he’d wanted to do. I’d thought it impossible, but I wasn’t like any other Reaper. My blood was divine. I could do anything if I put my mind to it.
