Fated (Fate of Love Book 1)

by AJ Brooks

  “Do not pretend that you were going to choose me, Cassius, simply because another man could want me. You cannot keep me for yourself only when you wish it so. You are selfish and spoiled and I cannot wait any longer. I am seventeen. I grow older each day. If I don’t wed soon, no man will want me. Then my sisters cannot marry. Do you not see it?” Her voice rose to make evident the frustration, the turmoil, that this had caused her.

  “You are not his match.” Cassius kept his head down, because he knew she’d take it as further jealousy, and it was. Rage tensed every muscle in his body at the thought of any other touching his Lena. But also Cassius spoke the truth. Lena was not meant to be with the Duke. She was not meant to be with Cassius. But there was no reasonable substitute.

  “What do you propose?” Cassius continued.

  “I want you to Fate the Duke to me.”

  “I can’t, Lena. The Duke is not my assignment. And even if he were, you are not his match.” Surely she knew that he couldn’t give her that.

  “What does that matter? I’ve seen what you do with those arrows to people who don’t need it. I need this, Cassius. I need to marry the Duke.”

  Cassius pulled a short arrow from his quiver and rolled it between his fingers. Lena scrambled forward across the straw covered loft and took his face in her soft warm hands.

  “You love me?”

  “Very much,” he said, and winced, because he knew he should be choosing her if he loved her as he said.

  “Then do this. For me. So I may live out my life knowing that I have protected my sisters. Done good for those I love.”

  The scathing words cut him, but his duty was to the Fates. To restore his full status to the gods and prove to his mother he could do his job.

  His mind blurred as her fingers traced the outlines of his features. He watched her lips as her pale eyes took him in as if for the last time. She was the definition of beauty for him, of kindness and heart. Her innocence and faith in good infected him and he wished he deserved her. He would never deserve her.

  He closed the distance as voices outside the barn drifted through the open window. The Duke and Lena’s father. Last chance.

  “Helena! My darling, we have a visitor,” her father’s voice rang through the air, making Cassius desperate.

  Lena kissed her love more deeply than she’d ever done before. She knew this would be the last. That it had to be the last. His lips felt like shelter, his hands felt sturdy and sure—like home. But what Cassius wanted from her wasn’t going to keep her family fed. It wasn’t going to save her actual home, not the one on the land, not the one in her heart.

  She slid her hands over Cassius’s smooth muscled shoulders and down his arms, savoring his taste and his smell and the way he felt. How he’d given her the most passionate night of perfect memories. She would never regret giving herself to him, but memories weren’t enough.

  Her father called and if Cassius refused to act, the security of her future rested solely with her.

  As she finished memorizing his solid torso beneath her fingertips, she slid her hands to his hips, the quiver of arrows hanging as it always did from a leather belt. He was distracted by her kiss and he didn’t notice she’d pulled an arrow until it was clenched in her fist and she pulled away. His eyes burst wide with surprise and he reached for her, as fast as a god.

  There was a burst at her chest as she plunged the point into her heart, Cassius grabbing at the arrow only a second too late.

  They stumbled apart and his eyes flashed so many shades of hurt and anger that Lena gasped. His twisted features made him truly look like a god in that moment. Tall and towering, bronzed with golden anger and exuding power.

  “What have you done?” His words were a whisper but they thundered through Lena’s head as she backed to the edge of the loft.

  “Helena? Where are you, daughter?” Her father’s voice sounded in the doorway to the barn as he led the Duke inside.

  “Coming, Father.” She forced herself to sound pleasant and took hold of the weighted pulley.

  Her eyes caught Cassius’, freezing him to stone. Even as solid marble, his eyes begged her to change her mind.

  She swung down on the rope landing casually on the barn floor, making the Duke step back in surprise.

  “Well, that was quite an entrance, young lady.” The Duke laughed and held out his hand to Lena.

  Cassius receded into the shadows of the loft even though he knew they could not see him. He watched as the woman he loved smiled her breath-taking smile and reached out to touch another man.

  Shot fired. First contact. True love.

  XXI

  Zarah

  I stop as we reach the small wooden steps, clutching Cy’s hand like my life depends on it. Cy turns to me, doubt cutting across the contorted features of his face. His brow is twisted, and the cracks that scar his face float beneath the surface. He looks how I feel.

  “You okay?” he asks slowly.

  I lean over and let my head hang for a second, wondering what to expect inside. Three little grannies? Or tall and terrifying like that woman Serissa… “Just need to breathe.”

  His fingers run up and down my back a few times. I take a few slow breaths in, letting the air slip back out of my lungs each time. Better. Not, like, a lot better, but better. I steel my shoulders.

  “Zarah?” Sadness pulls at his features again and I hate how he’s looking at me, like I’ll shatter to pieces at any moment.

  “I’ve lived in hell, Cassius,” I say and he flinches. “Don’t worry about me. Not here.”

  “It doesn’t change that I wish we didn’t have to do this.” He pulls in a breath. “Ready?”

  “No. Probably not.” I force a smile. “Are you?”

  He returns my smile. “Definitely not.”

  We face the little cracked wooden door, surrounded by stone and ivy.

  “This looks very quaint.”

  “Not inside. The house might be the craziest part of this whole world. The Moirai like to show off.” He shakes his head and chuckles before all his features become stone serious again. “You’ve painted the Fates before. It takes some getting used to but they really are nice. I guess. Except maybe Morta. But she’s not really mean, she’s…she’s just…” He grimaces, showing a side of him that feels beautifully young. “Ah merda, I’m rambling. Just don’t cringe from the eye, Morta hates that. After that you’ll be fine.” His words come in a rush of breath and he rolls his shoulders up by his ears, stretching his neck from side to side.

  Oh, god. The eye. Of course, the Fates. No eyes. My heart leaps into my throat as Cassius opens the door.

  “You’ll be fine,” he repeats, I’m sure more to himself than me.

  We step through the small doorway and into a palace.

  The walls are rich and warm, and the windows open... The view is somewhere drastically different out each one. The walls are rounded and smooth and the doorways are rounded and smooth, and the windows look out on places I’ve never been. Sunlight beams through one window, while streaks of rain slide down another, casting strange shadows across the over furnished foyer.

  I’m… This...

  I lean outside. Quaint granny-cabin on the exterior. Lean back in. Enormous palace-like room on the inside.

  Cy looks around the space with wide eyes, like he’s never been here before. He squeezes my hand tighter while the other slowly runs along a thick tapestry that hangs on the wall next to us. He chuckles.

  “Amazing.” His astonished voice makes my eyebrows pull together in confusion.

  “What’s amazing?”

  “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

  “What?”

  Cy looks at me and then gestures to the huge round room. “This isn’t what I see when I come here, Zarah. Curo mentioned we don’t live by the same rules as mortals. The house is taking on the appearance you wish it to have, or expected it to have. The walls are old log and moss when I’m here alone. You’re shapi
ng it.”

  “Does that mean I can change it?” I take one more look around thinking about what it would look like as Cy described it and suddenly the walls begin to shift. The ceiling lowers and I’m surrounded thick round logs packed together with vibrant green moss. I gasp and everything shifts again back to how I originally saw it.

  I imagine a world where I could make my paintings shift and change depending on who was looking at it and I want to live there.

  “So amazing.”

  Cy takes a step forward and I follow. When I do, the ground shifts and the walls change again. My head spins and the movement makes me dizzy. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. When I open them there are three women standing in front of us. Exactly like I’ve painted them.

  They’re real. In front of me. Actual beings and not figments of my imagination.

  This new room looks so familiar, they seem so familiar, I want to ask if I’ve been here before but don’t dare talk. When I turn around, the front door is a large room away, but I know I didn’t step this far inside.

  “I thought something felt different.” The shortest one says, leaning forward as if trying to get a good look at me, but there’s an emerald green fabric headdress covering her eyes, pulled low over her hooked nose.

  The tall thin one in gauzy nude with pale hair and smooth skin aims a gnarled staff at me. The black iris of the eye looks me up and down.

  “Cassius,” she says as the eye opens wider. “You’ve brought us a mortal?” Her voice is high and song like, her words flow together with growing excitement.

  I stop, stunned, amazed. “Will you pinch me or something?” I whisper to Cy.

  “Want me to bite your finger?” he teases with a nervous laugh.

  “Cassius,” the tall blonde one says. “Don’t be rude to our guest. Come in, come in. Please, young girl. Come and sit.”

  A darker woman dressed in a long black robe holding a glowing pair of scissors presses her fingers to her nose and sighs.

  Now I feel like I should defend him. “Biting my finger is a joke because I have this problem with reality, and...”

  “Oh she’s rightly adorable!” The tallest chimes. “Cassius, how charming!”

  “Nona, pl–“ Cy steps forward but a swift wave of her hand silences him dead in his tracks. I feel her power if only for a moment as the eccentric behavior of three seconds ago breaks to reveal these ladies aren’t all they seem to be.

  The feeling doesn’t last. As quickly as she silenced him, the tension eases and the wide smile is back on her thin face.

  All three women gesture at once, flapping their hands for me to come closer, and I step forward as I hear Cy exhale behind me.

  “I know you weren’t expecting me. I don’t want to offend,” I say. “We—”

  The eye is trained on me making me feel about two inches tall.

  “Such lovely hair, and unusual clothes... I don’t understand how Cy dresses, but maybe all mortals are like this now... So interesting.” They all talk over each other as if they’re one, but also different.

  I glance down at my standard jeans and boots. A short time ago I was at Max’s house, and now I’m...here. Wherever here is.

  “What do you think of our home dear?” The eye is tilted toward me so far that I fight the urge to lean away.

  “Bigger on the inside than the outside,” I try to tease.

  “Oh! Is it?” Her thin brows pull up in surprise.

  I smile and glance back at Cy who is looking like I’d picture Max would look if he brought a girl to meet his parents. He chews on the inside of his cheek, his eyes dart around a bit, and his hands are locked behind his back. Almost the opposite of how I see him.

  “We actually hoped to ask you a few things,” Cassius says.

  “Cassius. Please don’t interrupt.”

  He steps back and tosses his hand in the air as a sign of surrender.

  “This is the first time I’ve seen you put in your place,” I tease.

  “Oh! We like her already. Well done, Cassius.” Two of them clap lightly.

  “You did punch me in the face,” he says.

  “Oh, dear,” one of the women says.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I don’t know your names, I’m—”

  “We’re Nona, Decima, and Morta,” all three say at once, giving me no clue as to which is which.

  I’m trying to push their names to the odd faces with no eyes. Nona’s the lithe, pale one. Decima is the rounder one who seems a little less thrilled but interested and Morta looks like she’d be glaring…if she had eyes, that is. I know this like I know my name is Zarah. I painted these women. We know each other, even if we don’t know each other.

  “Sit, dear.” Decima waves her hand and a chair slides up to me. The room moves and shifts as a table appears and I have to close my eyes to stop my stomach from lurching. Curo was right—this world hurts the brain.

  Long fingers grip my shoulders and I’m pressed down into a wooden chair that’s more comfortable than I’d have thought. My eyes open, and I jump a little because Nona is leaning over the table pouring tea and staring at me without eyes. I try not to stare back. A warm hand takes mine and I look over at Cy, now sitting next to me. He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. At least the feel of his hand brings me some comfort.

  “Real,” he whispers as if he could sense my wavering confidence.

  “Nona, Decima. I need to ask you some questions. I brought Zarah here–” he starts and lets his head fall into his hand with a smack when Nona cuts him off again. This feels like a normal interaction between the two of them.

  “Zarah!” Nona claps her hands. “What an interesting name. Pray, who named that? So peculiar…”

  “Oh but she’s peculiar, sister. Surely you see that. The fate of this one is blurry. So very peculiar.” Decima takes hold of my hair and lets it slide between her fingers. What I want to know is what ‘blurry fate’ means. Gaining more questions wasn’t exactly our purpose in coming here.

  “That’s because her fate's been tampered with… Sometimes, I wonder about you sisters… How do you not see that…?” They’re talking over each other again.

  “Tampered with?” Cy looks up, his eyes darken to a caramel color and flick over to me so fast that I barely notice but at the same time, the shift in his eyes screams that he knows more about this blurry fate than I do.

  When I turn around, the eye is close to me again, only it’s not my reflection I see in the large iris, it’s the woman I painted. Light eyes that look at me, no into me, accusingly. Her chestnut hair is spun in a braid over her shoulder, the way I like my hair. Her high cheekbones and low eyebrows match the frown I can feel on my own face. I look to the side and so does she. Look down and she follows. At first I think it’s an illusion, or an image in a crystal ball. But when we both blink at the same time an icy chill settles down my spine. This is Monet’s Lena. Cassius’ Lena. The woman I painted. The one who’s story I’ve heard again and again. The one who chose to walk away from her lover. Not just her lover. The man she loved.

  “Helena,” Cassius breathes. His hand slips from mine and he recoils into his chair.

  Our eyes catch and I’ve never seen the depth of sadness touch any face the way it does his.

  I lean toward him. “What’s wrong, Cassius?”

  “You’re her. I was right.” He shakes his head, his eyes wide like he’s gone into shock and it sets my heart beating against my ribs. He turns a sharp glare to the sisters. “Have you always known?”

  “Known about what? What are you talking about?”

  “Yes.” Nona speaks over me. “She is Helena.”

  Cassius chokes beside me, but I can’t take my eyes off the reflection of this girl.

  “No. I’m Zarah,” I correct.

  “Helena first, dear.” Decima says. “So many troubles. So many.”

  “How is this possible?” Cassius’ voice is suddenly hard.

  “All in time.” Decima wave
s her hand in dismissal.

  Too many emotions flood me at the mention of Helena. At the sight of her reflection staring back at me. Cy’s heartbreaking story. That was...me? That’s impossible. Completely impossible. Just her gown says that she lived long before my time.

  “No.” Cassius shakes his head and I reach toward him, but he’s too inside himself to notice. "It’s not possible. This never happens. How could Fate do this?"

  Nona scoffs. "Fate didn't do this to her, dear boy. You did."

  Cassius's head snaps up and straight pain washes across his features. My fingertips graze his sleeve before he pulls too far away. He looks like a lost little boy shaking his head wildly from side to side. I want to scoop him up like he did to me in the park.

  “I’m missing something,” I say. Something big.

  Cassius pulls in a deep breath, almost like he’s trying to re-grip or re-shift. I do this a lot. He seems unable to fully digest what’s happening, so I turn to the Fates.

  “I need to know why I can see and paint your world. And why I keep having to kill Unfated.”

  The dark sister steps forward, snatching the eye from the blonde. “You killed an Unfated?”

  “Three, in the bathroom at school. Kind of hard when you can’t see them.” I try to joke.

  “…most impressive...stronger than we thought...so much left...doing quite well…”

  Their mumblings make no sense.

  “Cassius, you’re excused,” they say together, their sudden chorus of voice shaking me.

  I spin to face him and see a flash of the splintering across his features. When I look back to the eye, I see the cracks on his face in his reflection.

  “Cy.” I jump from the chair and step toward him. His chin quivers for the briefest moment as I touch his face. “What happened to you? Where did you go just now?”

  “I happened to me,” he whispers as his eyes close and I continue to trace the black lines, because I can see them now, and faintly feel the indents in his skin. “Helena, I’m so sorry.” His words break.

  I clutch his face in my hands.

  “I’m Zarah. I’m not her, Cassius. I’m Zarah.” I say defiantly but not because I’m angry, because I hate this look on his face. I see hundreds of years of pain and only now do I start to understand the cracks. The guilt he carries is now visible in every part of him.