by Unknown
“I hadn't thought of that,” he blinked and then nodded. “Yes, I'd like to be there.”
“Alright.”
“Queen Vervain's leaving? And you're leaving?” Guirmean frowned in concern. “Is something amiss?”
“There's something I need to take care of as soon as possible,” I nodded, “and Arach promised me a visit so yes, he'll be gone for a little while too but it's nothing to worry about. I'll look forward to finding you settled into Castle Aithinne when I return.”
“Thank you, Queen Vervain,” Guirmean gave me a little smile.
“I hope you'll be nicer to him now, Nora,” I winked at her.
“We'll see,” she laughed.
Then I kissed Arach goodbye and he held me tight as I asked the Ring of Remembrance to take me back to the last time I'd left the God Realm. I felt myself pulled away from him and part of me panicked at the sensation. Then I surged through time and the realms, till I found myself once more in my bedroom in Pride Palace.
I reformed in front of the breakfast table and Trevor flinched, spilling a little of his coffee.
“Damn it,” he growled. “I'll never get used to that.”
“What?” I heard Odin's groggy voice from behind me and smiled. That's right, I'd left while they were still sleeping.
“To her time traveling,” Trevor wiped his pajama pants off with a napkin.
“Vervain time traveled?” Kirill sat up and rolled out of bed smoothly, padding down the steps and over to me to give me a good morning kiss.
“Yep,” I kissed him back because love doesn't care about morning breath. Even lion morning breath.
“Before breakfast?” Azrael peered at me from beneath the blue sheets. “That doesn't sound like you.”
“Well I had breakfast first,” I laughed.
“Why didn't you tell us you were leaving?” Odin went to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup. Then he took a seat beside Trevor.
“I told her to go,” Trevor shrugged. “I figured she'd be back before you guys woke up and then you wouldn't have to worry.”
“That was rather considerate of you,” Odin nodded to him. “But next time, I think I'd prefer to know.”
“Who are you and what have you done with Odin?” I narrowed my eyes suspiciously on him.
“Da, you are very calm zis morning,” Kirill folded his arms over his beautiful bare chest and considered Odin. “How do you feel about all of us?”
“I...” Odin blinked and then looked at the other men. “I feel pretty comfortable actually.”
Azrael started laughing.
“What the hell, angel?” Odin scowled at him but Az only laughed harder.
“That was a kinda funny sentence,” I smirked at Odin. “What the hell, angel.”
“He needed to sleep with us,” Azrael pointed at Odin.
“What?” I turned horrified and shocked eyes to Az.
“To sleep beside us,” Az clarified with more laughter.
“Da, Azrael is right,” Kirill confirmed. “I zink being so close to us overnight has set ze magic back into place.”
“Well damn,” I huffed. “That's right, you've never spent the night with any of them. Az has but not you.”
“I think I should be pissed about this,” Odin frowned and then shrugged. “But I'm not. I feel pretty good actually.” He smiled and sipped his coffee.
“See, the Kool-Aid tastes delicious, doesn't it?” I chuckled.
“Oh, bad reference,” Azrael shook his head as he climbed out of bed. “What did you go back to Faerie for anyway?”
“I wanted to ask Faerie about Alaric.”
“Who?” Trevor lowered his cup.
“Oh right, sorry,” I sighed. “The guy Toby saw in the Aether, his name is Alaric and Toby was right. He is God.”
“What?!” Trevor asked in a horrified voice as the rest of the men just gaped at me.
“Oh and he said Arach needs to become a part of our little group,” I added. “So I'll be mirroring Arach in a little bit and he'll be coming over for a visit. Now that I know all he has to do is sleep with us, we can just have another slumber party and it should work itself out.”
“What?!” All of the men asked together.
“Okay, let me explain but I gotta do it fast because my magic is literally starting to burn itself out.”
“What?!” Another chorus from my power base of men.
“Relax,” I held up my hands. “Sheesh. Alright, so, in the beginning-” and I told them everything.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Shortly after I'd explained Alaric and answered the numerous questions those explanations encouraged, I mirrored Arach and he traced over with a small satchel of clothes. He hugged me like we'd been separated forever and I realized that it had been over a month since my last visit to Faerie. Which meant Arach had to wait that same amount of time for me to mirror him when I'd returned to the future in the God Realm. So it must have felt like forever to him.
Getting Arach settled into our bedroom was an awkward business involving a lot of wary looks and a few strained attempts at conversation between him and my other men. He was kind of the odd man out. The others were now bonded again and none of them had ever liked Arach to begin with, so the prospect of sharing a bed with him was probably a distasteful one for them. Oh well, they'd all feel better about it in the morning.
I didn't have time to worry about it though because while Arach was putting away his clothes, I was calling Mrs E to explain the situation of my unbalanced magic to her. She in turn told Toby, who was still staying with her and Mr T. Toby agreed to help me immediately and advised us to meet him at his and Naye's home, where we could reverse the ritual that bound our magic. I don't know why but I was a little shocked at how easily he agreed and how fully his parents supported his decision, even after I told Mrs E that the ritual could be dangerous.
“I think this might be best for Toby as well,” Mrs E had said to me. “It's difficult enough to mourn the loss of a lover without having the added strain of being connected to her magically.”
“True enough,” I had replied.
Toby had provided us with the chant to get us past his wards and we all traced in to find him and his family waiting for us in the living room. Seeing him again was like a punch in the gut, especially in those surroundings. We just stood and stared at each other for a bit before we could say anything.
“Hi,” I finally whispered.
The careful mask of his face fell, crumpled into grief, and he simply strode forward and wrapped me up in a hug. We held each other for awhile and everyone let us, giving us that one moment to come to terms with what we were about to do. Even Arach kept quiet.
“I've missed you,” he whispered as he pulled away from me.
“I missed you too,” I nodded. “I'm so sorry about this.”
“This is not even close to being your fault,” he slid his hand down my arm and took my hand.
“You met me at a very strange time in my life,” I tried to joke but it sounded strained, even to me.
“Fight Club?” Trevor asked. “Really, Vervain?”
“I was desperate,” I gave a little laugh.
“Yeah,” Toby whispered, “I know the feeling.”
Then Arach cleared his throat and I had the lovely experience of introducing Toby to my husband. Toby handled it fairly well, shaking Arach's hand and huffing a little laugh as he looked Arach up and down. When Arach narrowed his eyes, Toby shook his head and said, “I just realized why it was so difficult to make Vervain forget all of you. No magic is that strong.”
Arach laughed a little and nodded in acknowledgment of what that must have cost Toby to say, before he replied, “She's just as hard to forget. I tried once and nearly killed myself with the effort.”
The other men shifted behind them, sharing a look with each other before moving up beside Arach in a show of solidarity that made my throat tighten. Trevor actually put his hand on Arach's shoulder, startling Ar
ach a tad. Trevor pretended not to notice Arach's flinch as he focused on Toby.
“We all know the hell you're going through,” Trevor reached his other hand out to Toby and Toby took it with a grateful smile.
“I appreciate you saying that,” Toby shook Trevor's hand.
“Ve appreciate you doing zis for her,” Kirill added as the others shook Toby's hand as well.
“Please don't thank me,” Toby sighed. “I already feel horrible enough without your thanks.”
“Are you sure you're okay with this?” I asked him as I shooed my men back a bit.
“Of course,” Toby voice was achingly sincere. “I never would have done the ritual with you, had I known what it would do to your star.”
“There's a lot we wouldn't have done if we'd only known,” I sighed. “Okay then, do you know how to undo it?”
“Yes,” he gestured to Naye, who was standing off to the side, near their parents. “Naye will guide us again.”
“This will be painful and possibly fatal.” Naye warned with a surprisingly sympathetic look.
“Of course it will,” Odin groaned.
“When is it not?” Arach commiserated with Odin.
“I'll be alright,” I said to all of them.
“And ve vill be zere to make sure of it,” Kirill nodded.
“You can't be within the circle,” Naye warned. “You'll have to stand outside with me.”
“Fine,” Trevor stared at me stoically, not even glancing at Naye.
“We've prepared the room already,” Naye started heading down the hallway.
“That was fast,” I said.
“We had help,” Toby nodded toward his parents and I gave Mr T and Mrs E a sad smile. They smiled back encouragingly.
“You're strong enough for this,” Mrs E said to her son and then transferred her gaze to me. “Both of you are. You'll be fine.”
“Thank you,” I took a deep breath and let Toby lead me down the hallway and back into the room where our magic had been joined together.
Memories rushed over me; Toby above me, inside me, his magic meshing with mine until they were indiscernible from each other. His eyes going soft and liquid, his mouth on mine. The taste of his skin, the scent of moisture in the air. I shivered with the wash of emotions it brought on and Toby's hand clenched on mine.
“I'm here with you,” he whispered. “We'll do this together.”
All I could do was nod. Then he helped me over the intricate sand symbols drawn around the circular space with a pallet in its center. I blanched, suddenly realizing that we might have to reenact all of the previous ritual.
“We won't be joining our bodies this time,” he whispered to me, leaving me shaking with relief and maybe just a touch of regret.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“This is about separation not unity,” he faced me and took my other hand so that he was holding both of them. “The exchange will be through our hands only.”
“Good,” I heard Odin grumble and then he made a whooshing sound as Azrael elbowed him in the gut.
Then the drumming began and everything fell away beneath its beat. Naye started to chant and the candles scattered throughout the room flared, blinding me to all but Toby. His eyes, with their blue centers, settled intensely on mine and I felt myself surge forward into them.
Everything went black. I was standing in darkness with only the touch of Toby's hands to reassure me of his presence. He squeezed my fingers and I relaxed a little. He was right, this was about separation. We wouldn't even see each other during the transfer.
Inside me, the moon magic rose up, surging into my hands, reaching for the other part of itself. I felt the missing piece within Toby's palms. Right there, mere skin separating us. It seemed, for a moment, that the process would be simple, easy, but then my hands started to tingle. The tingling became an itch and the itch became a burn. Soon my hands were on fire, an odd feeling for me, even after all the times Naye had burned me. This was a different fire, a different pain. It was the burn of rejection.
My heart ached along with my palms and then the pain spread upwards, along my arms. It sank into every cell in my body, pushing out the rooted Darkness and Water while simultaneously pulling in the severed parts of the Moon.
I could feel Toby tensing beneath my fingers and just as I began to scream, so did he. We fell to our knees together. Though I couldn't see him, I could still feel his every move. I felt the impact on his knees as he hit the stone floor, as I'm sure he felt the jarring of my own body. We were deeply connected, even as we sought to sever our ties, and there was the rub. The pain. Our connection and our love for each other. Down deep, we didn't want this, didn't want to split our magics back to their lonely parts. We were fighting against the ritual subconsciously. Fighting against ourselves and each other.
I knew the pain we felt would have been experienced even had we hated each other but it was compounded by our love. Isn't love just one step away from pain? This ritual was so much more than just undoing the spell that had unified our magic. It was undoing our love.
I screamed again, this time in fear and rage. Magic couldn't change the way I felt about Toby. It would not! I was not that weak, not that easily manipulated. I wouldn't give into it. My emotions were mine, the love and the grief, and I wouldn't give them up.
Toby's hands started to shake around mine and I knew he went through a similar battle within himself. The pain started to intensify, seeping further into me, past my physical body and into my very being. All three of them.
Another scream pulled itself from my lips and I heard something from beyond our circle. The others who were there with us. My men. Toby's family. They weren't taking this so well. I felt their presence pressing in against us, testing the strength of the circle and the ritual. I couldn't let them breech the magic but I also couldn't pay the price the ritual was demanding.
Magic always has a price but I hadn't expected it to be love.
“No!” I screamed and heard Toby's echoing roar.
We would burn together. I suddenly knew it for a fact and strangely enough, I didn't care. In that moment, it seemed the right thing to do. I'd rather burn to cinders with him than give my love for him as a sacrifice to the ritual.
“Vervain,” Toby's voice cut through the darkness. “We must let go. I can't let you do this.”
“I won't give up my feelings for you,” I vowed and clung tighter to his hands, even though the pain intensified.
“Yes, you will,” pain filled his voice. “I love you too much to let you burn for love of me. Let go, Vervain.”
“No,” I whimpered.
“Then I'll let go for you.”
I cried out as the anguish of his rejection washed over me. It was a cold tide, turning the flames to soggy soot. I gasped with the weight of it, the height of it. A wall of emotion that he'd freed to save me. The magic took his love and turned it cold, turned it against me until all I could do was release my own.
It flowed out of me in a rush of relief, the pain washing away with it as the moon magic bonded with its missing piece and became whole again. Our hands separated as we were thrown back away from each other and the darkness was pierced by harsh light. I found myself lying in the smeared remains of the sand symbols, staring across the empty space of the inner circle at Toby. It might as well have been a chasm between us, that was as far away as he felt to me.
My men rushed over to me and helped me up as I continued to stare at Toby, searching within myself for some seed of the love I'd had for him. There was nothing, not even an ounce of affection. He was like a stranger to me and I could see that he felt the same way about me. I think that hurt the worst, seeing the lack of love in his eyes.
Yet, as I stood, surrounded by an abundance of love, and saw his family rush over to him to surround him in their love, I knew it was for the best. We could never have been together. Devoid of the love I'd had for him, I could now see that it was truly a blessing to be free of it. For bot
h of us.
Now we could both move on.
“Toby,” I called over to him and he gently brushed aside his family so he could walk over to me.
“Vervain,” he smiled a little. “Are you alright?”
“I am,” I nodded. “Thank you for having the strength to save us.”
“It would have been so sweet to have burned with you,” his expression softened, though there was no love to it, just a memory of love. “It was a hard thing to resist.”
“I couldn't,” I agreed. “You saved my life.”
“Then we're even,” he held a hand out to me.
I stared down at the dark fingers, so foreign to me now, and then I took his hand and shook it.
“Goodbye, Tobadzistsini.”
“Goodbye, Vervain,” he leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “I may not feel love for you any longer but I'll always treasure the memory of it. Thank you for giving me that.”
“Thank you for giving it up.”
“I know what to look for now,” his smile turned a little brighter. “And that I deserve to look.”
“May you never have to look far for it,” I said as I laid a hand to his chest. The butterflies of my love magic lifted inside me with delight and rushed forward. They loved giving blessings to those who deserved them. “May love always find you.”
His eyes widened and then settled into a happy sort of wonder. I took my hand back, pulling the magic back inside me, happy myself in the knowledge that he wouldn't be alone for long. Someone would love him for me.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
“Are you alright?” Arach asked as we walked into the dining hall of Pride Palace.
“Yeah, I'm good,” I nodded, oddly upset that I felt so okay about losing Toby.
“Carus, I have to go,” Azrael came over and kissed my forehead. “The spirits call but I'll return tonight for our little bonding session,” he winked at Arach and Arach's eyes widened in horror. Which of course made everyone else laugh uproariously.
“Get out of here, you flirt,” I gave him a quick hug. “Thank you for being there for me.”
“An-gel,” he waved a hand down himself. “I'll always be there if you need me. It's in my job description.”