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“The what?” Ezra asks when a sudden, agonizing pressure clenches my stomach, and I double over, gasping; I feel like I'm choking, choking for air. The Moon Goddess realm is calling me; it's a summons I've fought against countless times.
The air around me feels heavy, charged with the energy of being called home, a home I wish wasn't mine.
“Not another one,” I groan, fighting the pull of the other realm. Sweat beads on my skin, my vision tinges gold as I resist.
“No, I am needed here. I don't want to go back,” I plead to the unseen forces that bind me to an eternal duty.
Mateo's hands are on me then, his touch both soothing and restraining. “Go, deal with it. We'll handle Dom,” he whispers, his voice laced with the pain of separation.
My protests are a murmur, “I should be here.” But the pull is insistent, remorseless.
“You have a responsibility much bigger than just us. Go, we'll see you soon,” Mateo's words are a gentle command, and with a last, reluctant glance at the surrounding chaos, I let go.
The transition is swift, and I find myself in the familiar, echoing expanse of the fountains' room. My voice is sharp with fear and frustration. “Who was born or died?” I demand, scanning the fountains for an answer I'm terrified to receive.
Bane's face is a grim omen, and my heart drops like a stone into the abyss. “Is it Marabella?” The name escapes me in a whisper of dread as I rush to the fountain.
“There is nothing you can do,” Bain attempts to anchor me to reality, his voice a mix of reason and regret as he grabs me before I can see who it is.
“Who! Who is it?” I shriek, the fabric of my restraint tearing me apart as I fight against tossing him aside.
His arms are a vice, holding me back from the fountains. “Kat, you can't meddle, you could make things worse!” Bain's warning is a tide trying to hold back the storm of my grief I know is coming; he wouldn't be pulling me away unless it was someone close.
But then I see him—Donnie—in the fountain, and my world narrows to a single, devastating point. “Donnie?” My voice breaks, a frail sound against the roar of my heart.
Bain's grip is iron, unyielding, as he wrestles me away from the edge. “No! No! Andrei!” I scream, my soul fracturing under the strain of his name, my heart splintering into a million pieces.
Even as we fall, Bain's resolve does not waver. “I will rip you to pieces if you try to stop me,” I vow, a promise of wrath and ruin.
“Then do it. I'm not letting go. You are welcome to put me out of my misery,” says Bain, his challenge steeped in the pain of understanding. “Every goddess has interfered, and each time it made things worse. You create the bonds; you don't meddle. Has history taught you nothing, Katya?”
“He's my brother,” I wail, my plea a blade against the stone of his will.
Bane speaks, his voice soft next to my ear. “Kora is my daughter, yet she is trapped in the fountain, detached from her vessel; I never once asked you to pull her out and to let Marabella go. She'll be free when Marabella dies. You think I don't want my daughter out of that fountain? Do you believe I didn't wish her home?” Bain speaks of the cruel tapestry of fate and consequence. His words are a chain, binding me to an unbearable truth neither of us wish we were burdened.
The realization crashes into me with the force of a storm—my burden is a crucible, one that I bear so that others may be spared the agony of choice, the terror of loss.
ChapterNinety-Five
Katya
I'm tired. Tired of the weight, of feeling the sting of death, of shouldering the blame for every inevitable end. I am a goddess, but now, I am also achingly, devastatingly one of those who scream for their loved ones.
“I know, but this is your burden,” Bain whispers, pulling me close.
“I'm sorry, my goddess, I'm sorry, but you must endure, so others don't have to,” he murmurs. In his embrace, I understand the crushing, sacred duty of my existence. I am the Moon Goddess, not fate itself; I create bonds, I don't choose if they keep them, I am to watch but not meddle, keeper of bonds, the silent guardian of lives I am not to alter.
And as I cling to Bain, the echo of my own heartbreak is a requiem for the choices I cannot make, for the love that binds me, and for the lives that continue beyond my reach.
“Don't tempt fate; if I know anything from watching Celeste and Seline, the consequences are never worth it. Save him, and ten die in his place. Save those ten and one hundred in their place. You know the consequences, you know the rules, you play with fate, and fate will tip against you,” I can't help but wail, my heartbreaking shattering and turning to dust.
“I'm tired, Bain, I'm so tired. I can't do this, I can't live like this, I can't. I watch and do nothing. They condemn me. Not only that, but when I do something, I condemn someone else. I'm never enough. I can't save those I love without condemning others. I'm tired of everyone dying on me. I'm tired of feeling their deaths; I'm tired of failing,” I sob.
“I know, I know, but this is your burden. Seline made it yours because you can handle it; don't make it someone else's by meddling. You create the bonds, you don't create their lives, and you certainly don't create their deaths,” he whispers, tugging me closer.
“I'm losing everyone,” I murmur as I give up, the weight of everything crashing on me. What is the point of being a Gemini Moon Goddess if the only thing I can do is watch?
“You're not losing everyone. Marabella is alive.”
