by Sarah Fine
“Really?” Aislin gestured toward the glowing orbs. “You seem eager to restore order, but isn’t Moros a fairly important part of that? Punishing him to repay a two-thousand-year-old grudge seems rather small in that context.”
The Keeper of Heaven stifled a giggle and poked the Keeper of Hell in his bulging biceps. “Do you still like her?”
The Keeper of Hell grumbled under his breath. “A little less than I did.”
“Liar,” said his mate. “She’s perfect for what we need.”
Aislin blinked at them. “Perfect for what?”
The Keeper of Heaven tilted her head, sending a sheet of shining black hair sliding over her shoulder. “You seem eager to save him. Is it because you were fated to be with him, do you think? Like a compulsion?”
“Are you implying I didn’t make a conscious choice?”
“Your heart used to beat without you thinking about it. Is that what this is?”
“I don’t think so,” said Aislin. “I’ve watched him for as long as I can remember, and I know he’s brave and he’s determined and there is no better ally. If you want to repair the damage Chaos has done, you would have no stronger or more dedicated servant of fate than him. I am replaceable. He is not.”
Something flared in the Keeper of Hell’s eyes as he snatched one of the silvery balls from the Keeper of Heaven’s protective grip. “Wrong. You think I can’t reach into his chest and yank out one of these?” He inclined his head toward Clotho and Lachesis, who had sagged in their shackles, all their energy and divinity gone.
“Who is better suited than Jason Moros to bear its weight, though?” Aislin asked, her throat tightening as she thought of the way her entire family looked at him, the way the Lucinae openly loathed him, the way his own siblings had betrayed him. He’d borne it all with such strength. He deserved better than he’d gotten. It crushed her that she wouldn’t be able to offer him everything she wanted to. But she could offer him this. “If he wins this battle, you should allow him to remain free.”
“And what price would you be willing to pay for that freedom?” the Keeper of Heaven asked.
Aislin looked at the Keeper of Hell, at his ebony eyes and massive hands, remembering how his thick fingers had plunged into the chests of Clotho and Lachesis as if their breastbones were cobwebs. She wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that centuries of torture wouldn’t destroy her love for Jason Moros, but perhaps knowing he loved her, too, would sustain her. The alternative—seeing him in chains, brought to his knees, hurting and defeated after he’d fought so hard—was unthinkable. “Everything,” she said. “Anything you ask.”
The Keepers grinned and advanced on her as one. “I’m so glad you said that,” the Keeper of Heaven said as the Keeper of Hell tossed the third glowing orb at his lover. It flew onto her palm and floated there with the other two.
Aislin took a reflexive step back but gasped as she collided with a hard chest. The Keeper of Hell had appeared behind her. His hands covered her shoulders, holding her still. His midnight gaze moved from her face to his mate’s. “This will be interesting.”
The Keeper of Heaven nodded as she approached Aislin. The orbs in her hands were bright and pristine. They swirled in a circle as if they were magnetized. Aislin stared at them. “What are you—?”
“Birth and Mortality,” the Keeper of Heaven said quietly as she plucked one of the orbs and examined it.
And then her fingers closed around the orb, and she slammed her fist into Aislin’s chest. Aislin’s mouth dropped open as her vision went blinding white. Her body filled with a pressure so intense that she was sure her rib cage would explode outward, scattering the wreckage of her heart across the throne room. But just as she felt herself cracking and breaking, the pressure eased for a moment.
“Destiny,” she heard the Keeper say.
The agony doubled as she felt herself collide with the Keeper of Hell’s chest, as his hands held her mercilessly tight, as she lost control of her limbs and thoughts and self.
“Inevitability,” a voice echoed far away, and then Aislin was falling, flailing and screaming and unable to slow herself down as she plunged into a shimmering white abyss. Her only thought was that she had to stop her fall and climb back up, but bits of her were breaking off as she bounced against diamond walls—her fingers and toes, her arms, her legs, her skull. She was losing herself, and the further she descended, the less of her there was. Her loved ones’ faces passed through her mind and fluttered away like butterflies, too quick and fragile to hold on to. Her understanding of herself, her pride in her work and everything she had built over the years, her fear that she would disappoint her family . . . gone. The more she tried to cling to herself, the more she was lost. So she held on to the one thing that comforted her—she might be gone, but Jason would be free.
She hit bottom, shattering into a million glittering shards that pinged off the walls and floor of a wide white room before coming together once again, splinters of flesh and bone wedging themselves back into place. Panting, she rose and looked around. She was wearing a gossamer white dress, and her skin was smooth. Her hands ran down her body as she looked around in confusion. This room had no ceiling, and the walls rose so high that all she could see was endless white for miles. The chamber was empty—except for a large basket sitting a few feet away. With faltering steps, she shuffled over and looked inside.
It was full of glinting threads. Mesmerized, she reached down to touch them, but as soon as her fingers sank in, her mind filled with images, people she’d never seen before in places she’d never been, so many at once that the shock drove her to her knees. She grabbed the edges of the basket to keep from falling.
When she’d caught her breath, she reached in again, but this time she was careful to only brush a fingertip over the end of one thread. A vision of an old man rose before her, with a bulbous nose and a kindly smile. When she pulled her hand away, the image disappeared. Her heart kicking against the walls of her chest, she touched another, and another, and another as realization loomed. These were the threads of people’s lives, all tangled together in this basket. The torn, jumbled remnants of the fabric of fate.
And it was her job to put it back together.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Moros appeared in the throne room of the Keepers, his stomach tight with dread and eagerness, loathing and love, extremes that could barely be contained as he braced himself for what he would find.
“You did it,” said the Keeper of Heaven, who had her back to him. She was facing the Keeper of Hell, and whatever was between them glowed with an eerie light.
“I did,” said Moros. He hobbled forward. Most of his injuries had healed rapidly, but the wound in his thigh, delivered by the Blade of Life, remained. He would have preferred to appear before the Keeper of Hell strong and unbowed, but getting Aislin out of here was far more important. “As promised, I’m here to give myself up.”
“And to liberate Aislin Ferry from my diabolical clutches.” The Keeper of Hell smirked. “Very moving. But there’s no need.”
Moros froze. “What?” He looked around for Aislin, but she was nowhere to be found. Worry and need twisted together inside him. “Where is she?”
“Right here.” The Keeper of Heaven stepped to the side, revealing the source of the eerie glow.
Aislin was limp in the Keeper of Hell’s grasp, her platinum hair hanging in waves over her face. Moros cried out as he rushed forward.
“She’s free to go,” the Keeper of Hell said as he released her, allowing Moros to scoop her into his arms.
Her head lolled against his throat, and her breath was warm against his skin. “She’s alive again,” Moros said quietly.
“She’s more than alive,” said the Keeper of Heaven.
“Aislin,” he whispered, kissing her forehead. “Wake up, darling.” He needed her to look at him, to smile at him. He needed to feel her arms around him.
The Keeper of Hell laughed. “You didn’t thin
k it would be that easy, did you?”
Moros’s gaze traced over Aislin’s face. Her skin was luminous, her lips soft and pink. She looked perfect. But the Keeper’s laugh sent a chill down his spine. Something was very wrong. “Wake her up. I want to say good-bye to her.”
“Like I told you, I’m not keeping you here. You can take her and go.” The Keeper turned his back and strode away, heading for his dark throne.
Moros held Aislin tighter and looked at the Keeper of Heaven. “What’s wrong with her? What did you do?”
The Keeper shrugged her slender shoulders. “We asked a lot of her. But we needed someone to bear the burden of order, now that your sisters have given up their duties. And she really was perfect.”
Moros looked up at Clotho and Lachesis, still chained to the wall. They were staring at Aislin with an odd yearning in their eyes, and their chests were concave. Hollow. “No,” he murmured, looking back down at Aislin with horror taking root in his heart.
“She agreed to it,” said the Keeper.
“She did it for you, brother,” said Clotho, her voice a mere whisper.
The Keeper of Hell reached his throne. “Shut up,” he said in an annoyed voice. He looked over his shoulder at the Keeper of Heaven. “I’m off to reunite these two with their sisters and brother. Their screams will echo for an eternity.” His ebony eyes were wistful.
The Keeper of Heaven blew him a kiss. “Until next time.”
The Keeper of Hell made a catching gesture, his large fist closing over empty air. And then he turned to Clotho and Lachesis, whose chains dissolved. But before they could flee or fall, he grabbed them by the throats and dragged them toward his throne. They began to shriek as he pulled them into the black and disappeared into the inky darkness.
Moros felt his wounded leg begin to shake beneath him as he returned his attention to the woman in his arms. His strength was fading, grief filling him up. “You destroyed her,” he said in a low voice.
“I remade her,” said the Keeper of Heaven. “She is Fate now.” Her smile was bright. “She’ll be amazing.”
“She is mortal,” Moros shouted. “Her mind and body weren’t made for this!”
“Well, she’s immortal now,” said the Keeper of Heaven. She reached out and touched Aislin’s hair. “We decided to place the whole of Fate in her hands—and in her body, where it will be safer than a realm within the Veil. But I’m sure it’s overwhelming for her.”
Moros’s world was bleeding crimson. “Overwhelming? You’ve given her the burden of every fate, of every living human. A responsibility three immortals used to bear. And you’ve forced it upon her. You forced it inside her.” He could barely breathe as he imagined what they’d done, jamming those glowing orbs of divinity into Aislin’s precious chest.
“She was willing. She said she would do anything to set you free.”
It felt like Chaos’s hands were locked around his windpipe again. “She should never have had the choice,” he whispered.
“Her body will go on forever,” the Keeper said. “That should console you.” She turned to walk up to her throne. “And as long as she does her job, I’m not really concerned either way.” She lifted the hem of her gown and strutted up the stairs of the dais. “Nice seeing you again, Moros. I’m glad you defeated Chaos.” She disappeared into the glittering light of her throne.
Leaving Moros alone with the woman he loved in his arms. He’d expected a tragic good-bye. He’d expected her to cling to him before he was taken away. He’d expected to send her off, back into the earthly realm, with her taste on his lips and her scent in his nose, the things he would carry with him into Hell.
He hadn’t expected this.
With leaden footsteps, he walked to the edge of the Keeper’s throne room and willed himself back into the real world, to his penthouse, his refuge. The building was still standing, as it was a few blocks to the west of Psychopomps, but he had a clear view of the devastation. Aislin would have been horrified—but then she would have set to work overseeing the salvage and rebuilding. But now, as he laid her on his bed and brushed her platinum hair from her brow, she’d been given an infinitely larger responsibility, one she might not be strong enough to bear, one that had driven her so deep inside herself that her mind was unreachable.
He squeezed his eyes shut as he sank to his knees. His sisters had taken their revenge, and so had the Keeper of Hell.
Moros had Aislin back. They were both alive. But he’d lost her all the same.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The threads were a mess, and the basket seemed bottomless. The more she pulled, the more came up. The pile of them, taller than she was, filled the room. She’d been tugging and yanking, blowing her hair off her sweaty forehead as she worked without stopping. No one else was here to do the job, and she couldn’t help the sense that these people needed her. Every time she touched a thread, she could see their lives stretching before them. At first it had been incapacitating—she could touch only one at a time or she would get dizzy and end up on the floor. But now she could grab a handful and manage the flickering flashes of lives that needed living. She’d found she could separate and sort each image as it appeared before her eyes, but now she had to do the same with the actual threads.
She straightened up and set another bunch of tangled strands on the pile, rubbing her back and looking around at the hills of shimmering filaments around her. “This is going to take a while,” she said quietly.
It didn’t matter how long it took—she would find a way to reassemble the fabric. Because she was Fate, and she knew that now. She couldn’t believe she’d ever forgotten it.
An echo of a voice reached her, and she stopped as she leaned over the basket again, listening. It wasn’t coming from the threads—she wasn’t touching any of them at the moment. The murmured words were too quiet to understand, but the voice sounded familiar and filled her chest with unexpected longing. “Hello?” she called.
The voice went quiet, and she began to work on separating each thread from the next, laying them out along the infinite floor of her domain. If she was supposed to rebuild the tapestry, she’d have to examine each strand individually. She pulled at one, the life of a woman, now in her thirties, with years and years stretching ahead of her. But as she tried to tug the woman’s thread, she found it was knotted with another. As she ran her fingers over those tangles, planning to unknot them, she let out a surprised cry at what she saw, the woman in a man’s arms, him offering her an umbrella in a downpour, her shopping for his favorite kind of candy. Fate stopped trying to untangle them, and instead laid them out together. A strange yearning came over her, and she fought the urge to return to those knots, to watch and watch as the couple made love and fought and forgave and fell asleep together.
She pushed it out of her mind and refocused on her task, separating threads and organizing them. As she pulled a new thread from the pile, she noticed it was still knotted with several others but had gone gray and dull. That wasn’t right. Something had to be done about it.
She frowned and reached out, pulling a pair of scissors from the air.
She blinked down at her hand. She had needed this tool, and it had appeared from nowhere. Biting her lip, she raised the scissors and peered at herself reflected in the metal blade. Ice-blue eyes looked back at her. She lowered her hand and looked down at the gray thread. Though she’d been working for . . . really, she had no idea how long she’d been working, but it seemed like a while . . . this was the first gray thread she’d noticed, and it felt important. Her thumb ran over the dull strand, but she couldn’t see much, just a fog. With a trembling hand, she followed the path of the thread, right to where it tangled with several others.
She lowered the scissors, positioning them over the thread at the place that felt right. Then she snipped it away and watched it float to the floor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Moros jerked as he felt the sting in his chest, making his chair rattle against the h
ardwood floor. He hadn’t felt that sensation in days, but he knew exactly what it was.
Cacia looked over from her spot at Aislin’s bedside. “You okay?”
Moros stood up and slowly walked over to the woman he loved, who lay still and unmoving on his bed. It had been ten days. Ten agonizing days. And Aislin hadn’t so much as twitched. But . . . now a face rose in his mind, one with a beaky nose and prematurely receding hair. Antoni Banach, thirty-four, resident of Warsaw. His time had come.
Moros let out a bemused laugh. “I’ll be right back.”
He followed his sense of the young man through the Veil and found him sitting at a long table in a crowded refugee center, eating synthesized protein from a tin. Slipping into the real world, Moros walked by, touching Antoni on the shoulder as he passed, Marking him for death.
He waited impatiently in the Veil as Antoni choked to death, then watched as his soul rose from his body in the cold gray world. Almost immediately, a portal opened, and Rosaleen Ferry stepped through. “Moros,” she said in surprise.
Moros gestured at Antoni. “Do the honors, if you please.”
Rosaleen’s fingers rose to the Charon’s Scope at her throat, maybe wondering if this was a trap. “I just want you to know—Aislin’s will made it clear that she wanted me to be the Charon if—”
“She’s not dead.”
Rosaleen bowed her head. “Of course not. But she wanted me to take the role if she . . . couldn’t.”
“I know,” Moros said quietly, staring at Antoni, who waited passively to meet his final fate. “And she’s busy anyway.” He wasn’t sure if he wanted to shout with rage or laugh out loud. Maybe both. Aislin had figured it out. She’d cut her first thread.
Rosaleen guided the young man to Heaven, but when she looked into the portal she’d opened with her Scope, waiting for her coin to emerge, she jumped back in surprise. Moros leaned over to see the Keeper of Heaven herself standing in the opening. Her diamond gaze was triumphant. “She did it,” the Keeper said happily. “Now we’re in business again.”