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“What use would regrets be? The past is the past, and I cannot change it, not the decisions that led me here, not the actions that caused the ones that followed. A new season comes, winter will always arrive, and I will live again.” She smiles, the expression so wistful I feel an ache inside. “We were never meant for the mortal world, you know. But I loved it too much to stay away...”
“I have heard the stories,” I reply, and her eyebrows lift. She smiles, but says nothing else for long moments, and we watch the glitter and flare of the city.
“Falcon is frustrated with you,” she comments after the silence has grown too long to tolerate. “He thinks there is another path to regaining your crown.” Falcon never gives up in believing in the impossible. Except for himself, he thinks that he is doomed to be as he is for eternity.
“He is always trying to convince me that there is another way,” I sigh, and Shay hums, looking at me closely.
“Are you so sure he is wrong?”
“What else could I do? The key is the key. The way is shut. The only people who can pass through it are mortals, on their final and last trip to the Underworld. I am neither mortal nor dying.”
Shay’s lips thin, and she sighs, turning back to the window.
“Your problem,” she says quietly, “is that you have never truly loved anything enough. You cannot see the path before you, because you refuse to open your heart.” My mouth opens, and she holds up a hand to silence me. I seethe, but stay quiet. I’ll hear her out. She is relentless, like the winter winds she calls family.
There is no way to truly ignore her when she demands a person listen.
“Love is not weakness, not if it is real. Real love is a source of strength, a bond that can never be broken. But you must allow yourself to feel it, and accept it, and let it guide you.”
“Are you done lecturing me, grandmother?” I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my tone and she gives me a withering look. But I am no schoolboy. I haven’t been since my own horrifying origin story, something so unspeakable that had made me identify somewhat with the filial betrayal Katy has experienced.
“If only I could freeze you,” Shay murmurs, her gaze distant as she gazes over the city. “I think you’d be happier, not having any thoughts or feelings, at least for a short time.”
“You could, you’re just too kind-hearted,” I reply, and she laughs softly.
“And yet,” she is talking to herself, ignoring me, “it was a mortal that opened the doors, the gates, for us, and let us escape.”
“What?”
“Mortals have such power,” she says, glancing back at me, and then looks toward the door. Shay is her own creature, as much as she’s my friend. Sometimes, I wonder what she’s really doing in the mortal realm. I know she loves this place, and the way it never dies, and yet it’s always dying, constantly changing, a cycle that mirrors her own existence. “Mortals are the ones with the power of creation, the ability to bring new life into the world. More so than any of us.
“And the power to end it,” I add, and she nods.
“Yes, but that’s not all. There are other ways that their existence can affect ours, ways you might not expect.”
“What are you talking about, Shay?” My voice is tight, and she looks over her shoulder at me. She gives me not so much as a smile, but a grimace.
“You’ll know it when you know it,” she says, cryptic as ever, before she leaves me to try to work through what she means.
“I have an idea,”that voice, has been haunting my dreamless sleep for three days. I’ve been avoiding her, although as far as Katy is aware, I am busy being called away from the club on important meetings.
Yeah, important meetings with my right hand.
Fuck.
I look up from my desk as she stands at the threshold of my office. Her arms are held behind her back and she rotates back and forth in excitement, her eyes lit up with hope.
“Oh? An idea about what?” I try to keep my voice level. I should have known that avoiding her would have made her want to seek me out. I have not told her about what Shay said to me, about love and power and the connection between mortals and the gods. It was probably garbage, loveless as Shay is. What does she know about mortals and affection? She regularly freezes them to death.
No, if anyone knows anything about the love of humans, it’s me. Not Eros, not Cupid, me. Who cultivated a land, a whole planeof existence for them to rest for their afterlife? I never denied them fire, or punished them for defying me. I ensured they, all of them, the bad, and the good, would have some place to call home when death came calling. I think I have the patent on loving-mortals locked down.
Unfortunately, that comes with rules, a geas... all sorts of pesky things that get in the way with me, oh, say, pursuing my own true happiness.
Or any sort of happiness, really.
I try not to stare too much at the woman in my doorway, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail that is the perfect thickness for wrapping my hand in...
Focus, Hadrion, you fucking idiot.
