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“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
“I don’t know. What doyouthink it means?”
“I think you’re suggesting I’ve acted on the bond.”
“Have you?”
More redness flushed into my cheeks. When I didn’t answer fast enough, Gullie zipped over to me. “Youhave, haven’t you?!” she said, her eyes wide.
“I really don’t want to be discussing this with you,” I said.
“You’ve said that. I’m your aunt. If you can’t tell me, who can you tell?”
“My mother.”
“Psh. You wouldn’t. She’d send him far, far away. She’d be a hypocrite, of course, but she’d still do it.”
“And why would she be a hypocrite?”
“Well, because she and your father were madly in love well before the Royal Selection finished, and like you, she didn’t think she would end up with him when it was all over.”
“If I had stayed where I was, I would’ve ended up with Lord Cyr.”
“I’m not so sure. I think you would’ve found your way to your belore, in the end.”
“How? Cyr was clearly going to win. Not on his merit, obviously, but because he was more of a crowd pleaser.”
Gullie shook her head. “The Royal Selection isn’t about who wins and who doesn’t. Yes, the winner gets a soul bond with a Royal, but that’s twice in a row, now, that the Royal has already had a soul bond with a contestant. Your mother ended up with your father, even though she was absolutely not going to win the competition. Not from the beginning, anyway.”
“I didn’t want Valerian when I first saw him. I didn’t want anyone.”
“Maybe not, but you’ve gotten to know him since all of this began. I don’t think that happened by accident.”
“You don’t?”
“No. Fate is all powerful, and its reach goes far beyond even what we can comprehend. Fate can start cooking up a scheme thousands of years before any of us are born. For us to think that we can truly manipulate it, or interfere with it… it’s bullshit, honestly.”
I could almost hear my grandmother Pepper yell‘language!’
“So, I was meant to meet Valerian, I was meant to run away from home, and I was meant to let this crone interfere with Fate?”
“Maybe it’s not as clear cut as that. All I’m saying is, you and Valerian meeting, your bond, and the circumstances you have been thrown in… those didn’t happen by accident.”
“No. They were choices. Choices I made.”
“Because of choices others hade made for you. Choices that go back years, and years.”
I paused. “How did this go from me sleeping with Valerian to us getting into existential philosophy?”
Gullie jabbed a finger at me. “So, youdidsleep with him!”
“That’s not—!” I protested, cutting myself off. “I mean, it’s not what I meant.”
“You can drop the act. I’m not going to tell you that you’ve done something wrong. I actually think he’s good for you.”
“Good for me?” I frowned.
“Well, look at you. The old you would’ve gone racing after him to try to figure out where he was going and what he was doing. Or worse, you would’ve rushed headlong into the castle and gotten yourself killed or tortured. Instead, here we are, staying put and waiting.”
