“It’s you,” he rasped. Then he glanced at Willem. “Where . . . How?”
“Deva,” Willem said with a shrug.
Sandor’s expression clouded and he turned to meet my gaze. “This isn’t the end of it. Whatever Fate has planned, this is only the beginning. A test. She was so certain you were trying to get me to break my bond with my One and give you a piece of my soul simply because I had contact with you. But I’m not the only turul you’ve seen recently.” He glanced at Ozzie. “Be careful. Fate will be after you next to try to get to Deva.”
“Fate already found me,” I said. “This task was a test. Finding you and finding your soul mate were two pieces of it. I honestly expected it to be harder, but all I want to do now is talk to Fate so we can settle up. I’m done being fucked with.”
An all-too-familiar cry split the air, and I spun to see an enormous, copper-winged falcon soaring through the empty windows of the high rise we were in. The bird transformed into a human figure, a face emerging along with a shapely body covered entirely in feathers.
“Sophia?” I said, blinking in surprise at her sudden appearance.
She folded her wings, panting heavily from the exertion of what must have been a strenuous flight. “If you want to stay clear of Fate, you have to leave now. Go, and don’t look back!”
“I’m not leaving,” I said. “I did what the bastard asked. I want a chance to negotiate the safety of the bloodline, along with my freedom.”
“Oh, child. As long as you exist, Fate will never let you have that. You are far too powerful a creature. Not only do you command the hounds’ obedience, you have earned their love. The best you can hope for is a long leash, or being forced to sacrifice the key to your power.”
“You mean my soul, don’t you?” I asked, a twinge of panic shooting through me. “But Fate said we could negotiate. Doesn’t it follow its own rules?”
“Yes, it does. But it didn’t say it would offer any compromise. You will forever be trapped in its games if you go through with this, because it will never give up control.”
“Sophia, I have to try,” I said. I had to do it for the turul’s sake. If there was a chance the curse could be broken during a simple conversation, then it would be worth it.
I glanced at Ozzie, conveying my question to him through my link to Llyr. He gave the barest shake of his head and glanced away, but it was enough for me to know I couldn’t trust Sophia with our information from the Diviner. She may have had the best intentions and want to keep us safe from Fate’s wrath, but she still worked for Fate in the end, even if her loyalty was under duress.
She gave us all a defeated look. “I warned you. But now I have no choice but to take you all to my master.” She lifted her arms, and a series of glowing glyphs appeared down the length of them.
“Are we okay with this?” Llyr bellowed over the roar of the wind that had kicked up, ripping through the plastic sheeting that partitioned off the construction. I held tight to Bodhi’s hand on one side and Keagan’s on the other. The others clung to each other, Maddie’s eyes wide as Willem and Sandor wrapped themselves protectively around her smaller form.
“We have no choice!” I yelled back.
Brilliant indigo lights flashed around us, the color I’d begun to associate with Fate ever since realizing my rogue hounds were made of its magic. A moment later, dozens of unfamiliar hounds surrounded us, my four cowering at my feet. But these did not resemble bloodthirsty beasts—they merely circled us all, slipping in and around our group, their ethereal bodies brushing through ours.
They were draining us of magic, I realized, and a moment later, darkness snapped closed around me.
* * *
The most disconcerting part was that I remained conscious for the trip. It occurred to me that Sophia must have been the only one who could actually find us, and that her display had been a beacon for the hounds to locate us as well. Would I be able to wield that power one day?
I dismissed the idle wish. If what she’d said was true, Fate didn’t even want me wielding the power I already had. But it couldn’t kill me, and now that I’d carried out its task, all I hoped was that it would follow through on our agreement and leave the bloodline alone.
Brilliant light obliterated the darkness so suddenly I hissed and slammed my eyes shut. Our surroundings had changed, the temperature warmer, the scents nonexistent. When I opened my eyes again, I beheld a monochrome room filled with woven objects all crafted of the same set of threads crisscrossing in different patterns.
There was a desk, of all things, with a pair of chairs in front of it and a bigger chair behind, facing away from us. The room was square, with a window in each wall looking out at perfectly aligned rows of glowing, violet trees extending into the distance.
“Please have a seat. You will never accuse me of not being punctual.” The chair behind the desk spun around, revealing the same androgynous creature who had confronted me in the snowy woods three days earlier.
I stepped forward and took one of the seats. Maddie, Willem, and Sandor stayed together while the others moved forward in a protective half-circle behind me.
“I’ve done what you asked,” I said, glancing back at Sandor and Maddie, who stood with their hands entwined. Willem stood just behind them, a stern sentinel ready to challenge Fate itself to take his lovers away from him.
“You have at that, and quite well. I admit I didn’t set you too difficult a task, but it would have been impossible had you not discovered how to command the hounds.”
“Did you know Maddie was the One all along?” I asked.
Fate gave me a sly smile. “I knew it was one close to you. I found her thread tied to the one you protected from my hound before. That one.” Fate pointed a graceful, pale finger at Bodhi. While it regarded him, its eyes narrowed and it slowly stood.
“Does no one follow the fucking rules anymore?” it spat, glancing between me and Bodhi. “When he lay bleeding in your arms, you were not so tightly bound, even with your dragon mark. Did I not explicitly tell you not to accept his gift?”
“I’m not your fucking puppet,” I snapped. “I will take the mates I choose, and if you have a problem with it, we can have a rational conversation about it. You are capable of that, aren’t you?”
“You and your mates upset the balance. But that is something small-minded creatures cannot grasp—the idea of balance.”
“Killing innocent people is what upsets the balance. Are you going to hold up your side of our agreement? I finished your test. Now tell me you’ll leave the bloodline alone.” I sat forward as I spoke, my voice becoming more strident with every word.
But Fate’s attention had shifted from me to something behind me, its expression transforming into a mask of cold fury. I turned to see it apparently locked in a staring contest with Ozzie.
In a blink, it disappeared from behind the desk, reappearing in a shimmering shape right in front of him.
“How did you hide your betrayal of your race, Oszkar West? How long has it been since you broke your link to your One and took another not meant for you?”
My heart thumped and my eyes flew wide. Ozzie had broken his link with his fated mate? I was suddenly dying to know the answer to the question myself.
Ozzie remained stoic, glaring at Fate. “It was not for the reasons you might think,” he said.
“The reasons are immaterial. Your disobedience is all that matters. I control the turul’s fates; you do not get to choose who you love.”
“This was not a choice any more than the one you’d already made for me.”
“Who is it? I must find out so I can decide how to properly punish you. Your grandmother was getting weary of the job, her reliability faltering. You’ll make a fine replacement.”
“Not a fucking chance,” Ozzie bit out. He looked just a little relieved, but when Fate reached out a long-fingered hand and plucked at his chest as though picking a piece of lint off his lapel, he froze. A thread of brilliant silver
light stretched between Ozzie’s midsection and Fate’s fingers, the other end of it fading just past Fate’s grasp.
“Oh, we will discover the one you broke the rules for, and you will both pay. I was too lenient on your grandmother. This time, I think a true example must be made.”
Fate turned away from Ozzie, still grasping the end of the thread between its fingertips. It tugged and Ozzie winced, his expression darkening. He shot a worried look at me, then at Llyr, who slipped around to stand at my side.
“Don’t do this,” Ozzie said, his voice cracking. “You can punish me. I surrender. Just leave off this search.”
Fate merely pressed its lips together and tugged harder, making a sweep of its other hand. More of the thread became visible, stretching ahead and toward me and Llyr.
I stood to move aside to let Fate pass us by, but as I did, Llyr shoved in front of me, pushing me backward against the desk. I craned my head to see, but his big body blocked me almost entirely.
All I could see was Fate halting and making another motion with its hand. The thread of light shot through Llyr’s chest and then mine, reminding me of the tethers between the fate hounds and their victims—or the tethers between my family members and their mates I envied so much. I knew I had new links to my own mates now, but was unable to see those any more than I could see my own soul.
“Move aside, satyr,” Fate said.
“It is me you’re seeking.” Llyr widened his stance and crossed his arms. “I’m the one he is bound to. Punish us both.”
Fate’s laugh was a melodic peal tinged with bitterness. “Do you think I’m so blind? I see your blood meld to him, but no, you two are not soul mates. You hold yours in reserve for another. It reaches for her even now. This creature who should have had no soul to speak of now has four pieces, one of which was never meant to be hers. I say again, satyr: Move the fuck aside. You cannot protect her from me, no matter how hard you try. You cannot protect any of them.”
Fate swept its free hand through the air and Llyr toppled over with a grunt, the strange woven substrate beneath us giving slightly when he fell.
I was still processing what I’d just heard—I didn’t have four pieces. I only had three.
Faced with Fate now, I moved to take a step aside, but it bared its teeth. “Don’t move, chimera.” It twisted its hand around the thread of light and yanked. I gasped at the sudden spike of pain lancing through my chest. Tears sprang to my eyes and I brought my hands up, grasping for the thing that pulled at me there, but all I could see was the thread, now a brilliant cord about the thickness of a finger and pulsing with power I could feel deep within me.
“No, you made a mistake. It isn’t me,” I said. “It can’t be.” I shot a terrified look at Ozzie, whose face twisted with agony.
“I’m sorry, Deva,” he said. “So sorry.”
“It is you,” Fate said. “How you hid it from me, I don’t know, but it is definitely you.”
It yanked at the thread again and pulled me close, its violet eyes blazing with icy venom. The pain inside me twisted as it wrenched at the thread, then swiped its free hand through the air. Other threads caught on its outstretched fingers like spider webs, flaring with bright, multicolored light.
Around me, I heard collective cries as all my companions fell to their knees, clutching at their chests. Some of the threads were attached to me, their connections adding to my pain, but Fate also had hold of the ones linking Maddie and Sandor to each other. Willem had fallen to his knees behind them, confused by their sudden pain.
“Please don’t hurt them,” I managed to blurt between labored breaths.
“What will you do to balance this insult, chimera? If I could take your life, that would solve the problem. I would take this fool turul’s life, but he is the one I seek to punish and death would be too easy. Your other mates got lucky when you marked them. I can’t kill them, but I can hurt them, and your precious bloodline too. Tell me how you would bargain with me now.”
“What do you want from me? I know there’s no compromise here, so just tell me. I swear I didn’t know it was me.”
“How could you not know when a lover gives you a piece of his soul?”
“He was never my lover!” I cried. “He never even wanted me.”
My last words came out on a sob. I didn’t understand what was happening. What had already happened at some point that I couldn’t remember? When had Ozzie given me his soul gift? I would have remembered an event that profound. All I remembered were the repeated rejections on the tail end of the few actions of his that had given me hope.
“Please, just take it back,” I said, pleading with Ozzie, then with Fate. “You want me weak. Isn’t that what you want? I will never take another turul’s soul if you take his away from me.”
“What makes you think it’s possible? Once you’ve mated, only death can sever that bond. I would break the tie you have to all these fools, if I could.”
I swallowed, struggling to catch my breath around the agony of the stranglehold it had on my soul. My souls. Three I’d been aware of, and the fourth that must have always been there, though I didn’t know when he’d given it. I shook my head.
“Not to him. We never mated. We never even made love . . .”
I halted when Ozzie’s gaze slipped away. I followed his look to Llyr, the only one of the group not tangled in Fate’s grip. The lie Llyr had told, the one he had maintained, was the truth all along.
“You were never lying, were you?” I asked. He gave me a stricken look and shook his head.
“No, Deva. I never lied to you.”
Turning back to Ozzie, I said, “But you did lie. How did you keep this from me? Why?”
“To protect you. At first from Meri, and then from this.” He glared at Fate.
An agonized cry tore from my chest, propelled by a pain even greater than the twinge from Fate’s hold. “You lied to me about it all this time? But I loved you. You had to know—my song. All those moments. Oh, Sweet Mother, what did you make me forget?”
42
Deva
Fate loosened its hold a little and my feet hit the springy ground. It looked between me and Ozzie with interest.
“You truly never knew he’d given you this gift? And you will relinquish it to preserve balance?”
In that moment, the answer to at least one of our problems came to me. This was my chance, and though it destroyed me to say it, I knew I had to.
“I know he doesn’t want me. Please, give it back to him so he can choose a mate he truly loves. I love him too much to tie him to me if he doesn’t feel the same. Set him free of me so he can choose.”
Fate’s eyes blazed with wicked glee as it glanced between the two of us. I wasn’t sure it would work. It had to see through the request, which was so blatant anyone else must have caught it.
In my ear, I heard a whisper of, “Good girl.” It was Llyr’s voice, but it didn’t ease my pain at all. He had to have known. His first betrayal had been nothing but the truth, I realized, but this was his true betrayal. Last night when I’d asked if Ozzie would ever give me a soul gift, he’d lied somehow.
Then the stark truth of what I’d asked and his subsequent answer crashed into me like an avalanche.
Llyr had not lied. He had never lied. Ozzie would never give me what I asked because he already had.
I was too fractured by that understanding to hear when Fate said what we were all waiting for. It released the threads of all my friends, but tightened its hold on my link to Ozzie.
“Yes, I think I like that offer too much to say no. I want you broken, chimera. Fragmented and unable to be whole. I will return this turul’s soul, untethered. Let him wander the earth alone and see how he likes being lost without a predetermined fate. See how he likes having his blessed choice.”
With that, it yanked hard on the thread. I screamed at the wrenching sensation within me. Llyr cursed and reached for me, wrapping his arms around me to hold my shaking body st
ill.
“Stop,” Llyr yelled. “You’re killing her!”
“Nonsense, she can’t be killed. She’ll only wish she were dead.”
Something tore free and the pulling sensation ceased, my body falling back against Llyr’s hold. All I saw was a brilliant eddy of silver light spinning at the end of a thread like an enormous flower-shaped hurricane.
Fate held the thread a moment longer, admiring the piece of Ozzie’s soul that I’d never even known I had. Then it released the thread and the fragment snapped back to its owner with a brilliant flash of light.
I blinked to clear my vision, and when the spots faded, there was an empty space where Ozzie had knelt a moment before, and an equally empty space within my soul.
“Now we can get on with business,” Fate said, its demeanor shifting back to its previous formal tone as it moved back around its desk.
“Let me remember,” I said. “Can you do that? Let me remember what he did to me so I can hate him properly.”
Fate’s eyes gleamed. “Are you sure you want that? Hate is so destructive. So chaotic. Wouldn’t you prefer to hang onto what little structure you still have? I apologize for upsetting your balance. And I will concede that you might need a fourth fragment to be able to complete the next task I have for you. You have my permission to take one more. Just keep your promise to never accept another turul mate.”
I gritted my teeth. “Thank you, Fate, for giving him the freedom to choose. For giving them all the freedom to choose. To maintain balance, of course.”
Fate’s eyes widened. It started to voice an objection, but nothing emerged from its open mouth. It slowly stood again, releasing an ear-splitting yell. “Trickery! You will pay for this. The entire race was mine to control!”
“Not anymore, we aren’t.”
It was Sophia who’d spoken, and I turned to see her coming through the group with a haughty look. The emptiness within my soul ached when I looked around, but Ozzie was nowhere to be found. Where could he have gone?
Fate's Fools Box Set Page 81