by Emma Slate
Thane picked up the golden cage and threw it off the bridge. Six pairs of white wings sprouted from the sides. They flapped faster than a hummingbird’s and shot up into the mist.
“Where did it go?” I asked, my neck craning up, still trying to see the cage, but it was gone.
“Back to Heaven. To be used again.”
My mouth curled up in humor. “Immortal recycling. You guys are good for the environment.”
He doffed a non-existent hat and smiled, “Just trying to do our part, ma’am.”
Chapter 59
The next few days were a blur of weighing souls.
For thousands of years, every soul that passed on went to Heaven, regardless of whether or not it should have been there. Now that the angels were cleaning house, so to speak, we were quite busy. Well, Thane was busy. Gabriel, along with a legion of other angels and Auri, filled the courtyard with golden cages. Thane had servants load the golden cages onto wagons and then bring them to the door of the bridge. I offered to help, but he told me it wasn’t my duty. We’d gotten into a few heated arguments about my responsibilities. He wanted to pamper me and begged me not to overexert myself. Concern over me and for our child bordered on annoying. I didn’t need to be kept in a bubble of relaxation and boredom.
Since he refused to utilize my help, I spent my time in the archive room. There were endless shelves of books and scrolls for me to dig through. I wanted knowledge—about this world that I hadn’t even known existed—and probably would’ve continued being naive about if it hadn’t been for Thane. I wanted to learn everything as fast as possible; it didn’t matter that I had all of eternity to do it.
Thane would leave our bedroom before I’d even awaken, and he’d come to bed long after I’d fallen asleep. One night after about a week of our incessant routine, I was propped up against the headboard, a tome on my lap about the creatures of Purgatory, when Thane entered our bedroom.
His eyes flashed in surprise. “You’re awake.”
“You’re exhausted.”
Thane’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I can’t keep up with the demand.”
“The souls are backlogged.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you being cute?”
“Trying.”
He tromped over to the bed and fell forward. “There’s also one soul that refuses to move on.”
I frowned. “That’s odd. Has that ever happened before?”
“Not that I can recall. It just…hovers there. Waiting. For what, I have no idea.”
“I can search the archives. See if that’s been written about,” I said. “Though I’m still not really sure on the cataloguing system, so it might take me a while.”
“I’d greatly appreciate it.” He scooted up the bed and wrenched the tome away from me and set it aside. He buried his head against my stomach and wrapped his arms around me. “Anything yet?”
“No.”
Apparently Guardian children were mentally connected to their mothers. So far, the tiny seed was quiet, slumbering, growing. When I reached out to my spiders, they pulsed back, letting me know all was well. But there were no words yet. No clue if it was a boy or girl.
“So weird,” I murmured, leaning my head back against the smush of pillows. “Still processing it all.”
“Are you happy, Poppy?” He lifted his head so he could look me in the eye.
“I am.” I cocked my head to the side. “Are you?”
“Yes.”
“But?” I pressed.
“But…my brother’s death is weighing on me.”
“Ah.” I nodded. “I understand. I think we’re both trying to find our places after all that has happened. A few months ago I was a college student. I was human. I was—”
“In love with a human.” He smiled gently. “You can say it, you know. It’s true.”
“You loved another,” I reminded him.
“Jealous?”
“Jealous would be the wrong word, I think.” I paused. “As you said, we get to spend eternity together. But there were others. Who changed us. Who came before. The past is never really the past, is it?”
He made a noise but didn’t answer.
“We’re doomed to having the same fight over and over again,” I said, injecting a note of brevity into my voice. “I guess even immortals fall into certain patterns of behavior.”
“Who says we’re fighting?” Thane asked.
My hands sifted through his silky strands. “I suppose we’re not really fighting—but there is something we have to discuss.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m not useless.”
He lifted his head again. “I know that.”
“Do you?” I murmured. “Then why won’t you let me help?”
“Help with what, exactly? Loading cages onto wagons? Why would you want to do manual labor when you don’t have to?”
“No, I mean”—I sighed in frustration—“I feel…ineffectual, okay? We haven’t spent any time together. You haven’t shown me the fortress yet—”
“There hasn’t been time—and you’re pregnant.”
I gasped, feigning shock. “No. Really?” I threw his hands off me and climbed out of bed.
“Where are you going?” he demanded. He rolled over onto his side and peered at me in curiosity.
“I don’t know—a run. Maybe I’ll change into my spider form and go exploring.”
He collapsed onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “What do you want me to do, Poppy? Ignore my duties to tend to you?”
“Tend to me?” I snapped. “I don’t need to be entertained. I don’t need every moment of your attention. This is what I didn’t want. To be sitting around waiting for you.” I shook my head. “This is what I meant about having my own life—my own hobbies and enjoyments.”
I looked over at Thane, wondering why he hadn’t answered me. He was asleep. He’d fallen asleep mid-fight? Really?
Rolling my eyes, I turned to the door. I was awake, my mind was on, and I wanted to walk and contemplate how the hell I was going to occupy my time for the rest of eternity.
I felt something warm resting against my throat and reached up to touch it. The pearls were back around my neck.
No doubt in my mind that my spiders were male and had the same twisted sense of humor as Thane.
But I was no June Cleaver and this ended now.
Chapter 60
The door silently glided open, and yet I still checked to see if Thane would suddenly wake up. He didn’t. In fact, he rolled over, grabbed a pillow and hugged it to his chest.
I’d never been an idle kid. Even though I’d never been athletic or into drama club, I was always doing something. It usually involved a big, heavy book and a library. It probably made sense that I’d holed up in the archive room. I was comfortable there.
I wandered down the hall and into the throne room. The torches were lit, and I stepped up to the throne and sat down in the seat that was relegated to me. Maybe my issue all along was my failure to process. The speed of my life recently was giving me whiplash.
My hands crept across my stomach and rested there.
Maybe I hadn’t wanted to deal with everything—because if I did, I would realize I didn’t recognize my life or myself. I loved Thane, and I had chosen him, but what was I—
“My Queen.” A servant appeared from the hallway shadows.
I jumped, startled.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was wondering if I might get you anything.”
“Oh. It’s fine. I don’t need anything,” I assured her. “What’s your name?”
“Ragna,” she supplied.
“Ragna,” I repeated with a nod.
Not only was I having a hard time adjusting to being idle, I wasn’t sure how to deal with my new title and an overall lack of privacy. My every need, every wish, was seen to.
The young woman was dressed in black silk and gold anklets. Her face was pleasant, and she didn’t seem at
all upset about finding me wandering about the castle late at night.
“Did I disturb you?” I asked, almost as an afterthought.
Ragna looked surprised and then quickly concealed it. “You cannot disturb your servants, my Queen. It is your right to be tended to.”
“My right?” I stood from the throne and walked down the steps, hating that I’d physically stood over her. “I don’t deserve to inconvenience you, queen or not. Just because I’m Thane’s mate.”
The servant woman’s brow furrowed. “We don’t serve you because you’re the Guardian’s mate. We serve you because you have earned our loyalty. You freed the Guardian, and you defended him on the battlefield. You died for him, my Queen. And you came back to him—and to us. We serve you willingly, and each of us has the power in this realm to choose whom we serve. We are not slaves, but voluntary servants.”
“I never thought that was the reason”—I paused—“that you served me. For the record, I hate that word.”
She smiled. “In our realm, it is both an honor and a privilege to serve you, my Queen. Anything I can do for you, I’d be glad to do.” Her eyes dropped to my stomach. “It is our turn to protect you. Protect you and your child.”
“Good news travels fast,” I muttered.
“The Guardian is quite overjoyed at the news. As are we all. We’ve waited a long time for him to return. We’ve waited a long time for him to be happy. And now he is.”
I grasped Ragna’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you. This has been…” I trailed off.
She squeezed my hand back and then let it drop. Ragna disappeared into the shadows, but I knew if I called to her, she’d come.
And suddenly I didn’t feel so alone.
I left the throne room with the intention of heading back to bed. But when I passed the door that led to the bridge, something made me stop. I turned to face it. Out of sheer curiosity, I placed my hand on the door. My handprint glowed silver, and then the door skated open.
I looked down the hallway, both directions, expecting to see guards or Thane rush from our bedroom. But it was clear that I hadn’t triggered some silent magical alarm. I inhaled and stepped through the doorway. The door closed behind me.
“This is weird,” I whispered. My voice carried across the mist and smoke as my feet marched toward the second doorway. No way this would work a second time, I reasoned. So I placed my hand on the door, not expecting anything. Yet it opened, too.
I squared my shoulders and walked across the cobblestone. The mist and smoke cleared enough for me to see the edge of the bridge—and the gold soul hovering in the air.
“You must be the soul that refuses to move on,” I said. “I wonder why.”
The soul shook.
I frowned. “Can you hear me?”
It shook again.
“No. You can’t be cognizant. It’s not possible.” Then again, hadn’t my soul been aware when it was leaving my body?
Silken tendrils peered through the mist and curled around the soul. I watched the silk harden, crack, and then turn to nothing. The soul remained in place, unblemished, unchanged.
My spiders thrummed with the answer, and I took their offering. Words flew off my tongue, words that only belonged to the Guardian. I chanted them as I stood on the bridge, staring at the golden soul.
The soul pulsed, its outer rays shooting off. I thought I was destroying it from the inside out, telling it to go to the afterlife it belonged to. But it wasn’t dismantling, it was rebuilding, rearranging. And when the soul was no more, in its place was a golden face.
A face I knew well.
“Hunter,” I breathed.
Chapter 61
The face smiled. Pure. Happy. Peaceful.
“Hello, Poppy.”
My hand lifted, and my fingers itched to touch the visage. But it was floating out of reach. “What are you—I don’t understand. You’re supposed to be in Atlantis. Aren’t you?”
“I couldn’t find my way. I was lost for a while, and then I came here.”
“How?”
He cocked his head to the side. “Because of you, Poppy. You are still holding on to me.”
“You’re saying I stopped you from going to your afterlife?” I whispered. “I didn’t know…”
“A part of your heart still holds mine, I guess.” His gaze was unrelenting yet calm. “You look happy.”
“I am.” My eyes dropped from his to stare at the cobblestone.
“Why do you look as though you feel guilt about your happiness? You did what you were supposed to do, Poppy. You freed Thane, you saved the world, and now you get to live happily-ever-after.”
“At what cost?”
“You would’ve spared me. If you could have. But that wasn’t my destiny.”
“Your death weighs heavily on me,” I admitted.
“Of course it does. You have a conscience, a good heart. But you feeling guilty hurts us both. Let it go. Let me go.”
“Where will you go?” I wondered. “Atlantis? Heaven?”
“I’m not sure.”
“And yet you seem remarkably calm about it. I wish I could be as cool as you when it comes to the unknown.”
He smiled. “Life is full of unknowns. You can’t prepare for everything.”
My hand absently strayed to my stomach, and because he was Hunter, he noticed.
“So it’s like that, is it?” There was no anger, no hurt, not even resignation in his voice. It was just a statement.
“Are we really speaking? Is this your soul personified?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Are you here to give me absolution?”
“No. Only you can do that for yourself.”
I sank to the ground and crossed my legs. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this.”
“You keep looking for reason and logic. Emotion is neither of those things. You live in a different world now. You are the Guardian’s queen. You can change form from one body to another in a world that is full of magic. And yet you still cling to the idea of a human self. Why?”
He wasn’t the first person to ask me that question. I frowned in thought. “I’m immortal now. What if I lose my sense of self? What if I lose everything that I am because over time I forget what it’s like to be human?”
“Of course you’ll forget what it’s like to be human. And you should forget.”
“How can you say that?”
“Do you think becoming immortal means you won’t feel as deeply? You won’t feel the losses as deeply? Tell me why you’re so determined to punish yourself?”
It was rhetorical, but I answered anyway. “I chose Thane. In choosing him, I abandoned my family—and you. I chose him above everything and everyone I have ever loved.”
“But you chose love, Poppy. You chose the right love. You chose your soul mate.”
“Every choice has a repercussion,” I pointed out. “By choosing Thane I was put in a position to kill you.”
“In choosing Thane, you also chose to save the world. I wouldn’t feel guilty about any of that.”
“Poof! I feel better,” I remarked in bitterness. “We saved the world. At what cost? Your life?”
“Many died. Many you didn’t even know and never will. My death hits you harder because I once meant something to you.”
“You’ll always mean something to me,” I vowed.
“Maybe. But remember that immortality will change you—forget the long life part. That’s a given. Even humans have memories that fade. Is it not the same for immortals?”
I thought about Thane and the women who’d come before me. I thought about the woman he’d once loved, that if circumstances had been different, Thane would’ve been with her. He would’ve married her. They would’ve had children together. Who knows what would’ve become of Xan.
And me. What would’ve happened to me?
Hunter’s family served Thane. Would I have married Hunter? Would our children have served Thane
?
“Don’t get lost in the what-ifs,” Hunter said, obviously reading the expression on my face. “Live your life, Poppy. Raise your children. And don’t feel guilty for not feeling guilty.”
“But I do feel—”
“Do you?” he pressed. Again, it wasn’t anger that tinged his voice but probing curiosity. “Do you think you’re supposed to feel guilt for taking my life? That’s so—”
“Human?” I interrupted.
“Let me go. Truly let me go. Or I’ll stay here forever, trapped, unable to find the peace that you want me to find.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Who’s playing the martyr card now?”
He laughed and it caused a tremor of emotion to well up inside of me. If I loved him the way I claimed, then he was right; I needed to let him go. And in letting him go, maybe I’d find the absolution I was looking for.
Because that was the true crux of it all, wasn’t it? I’d held onto him to punish myself, but in doing so, I punished him too. I didn’t want him to suffer. He’d suffered enough because of me.
I searched the deepest parts of my psyche, wanting to find the thread that still bound us. When I saw our bond in my mind’s eye, I pictured a pair of shears and cut the link, a thin silver tendril no thicker than a hair.
A wave of a relief crashed over me as I felt my heart shift and rearrange, filling the space with joy and clarity now that the anguish and guilt were evaporating.
“You were always worthy of me,” Hunter said, even as the golden visage was fading.
“I’m honored I had your heart. Even if it was never going to be forever.”
The edges of the mirage crackled like fireworks on the Fourth of July, and then fizzled out.
Hunter’s smile was the last thing I saw before his soul departed for another plane. Which plane I didn’t know. But one thing I did know: Hunter had found his peace.
And I’d found mine.
Chapter 62
The magic torches were dim when I entered the bedroom. Thane had rolled over onto his back and at some point stripped off his clothes. He always slept nude. No complaints on my end.
