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Caldris

Estrella stumbled into her chambers. Her face was bewildered, and she appeared half-drunk. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, her exhaustion written into every part of her face.

I abandoned my pacing, rushing toward her to catch her in time for her to collapse. Her emotions were too intense to understand, her confusion and terror potent.

“Estrella, what’s wrong?” I asked, lifting her into my arms. I’d felt her panic—her fear—after she’d been summoned by Mab, but there was never any pain to accompany it. None of Mab’s usual tricks.

I settled her back on the bed, draping my body alongside hers and trying to chase away the chill that seemed to cling to her skin. The iron collar lay against her throat, whatever had happened that night condemning her to the suffering of it once more. She stared up at the ceiling, her eyes almost unseeing. If her chest hadn’t risen and fallen with her strangled breathing, I might have thought she lingered at death’s door.

“Min asteren,” I murmured, cupping her cheek and turning her gaze to mine.

“The threads,” she whispered, her bottom lip trembling as tears gathered in her eyes.

“What about them?” I asked, running my nose along hers.

She sighed, wrapping her arms around me finally as she returned from that cold place that seemed to claim her when things got rough.

“The Primordials used them to create the world. That’s how they channel magic, Caldris,” she said, shaking her head from side to side as her features twisted. “Mab thinks I’m a Primordial.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head sadly. “That isn’t possible. I spent centuries of life feeling youdie.You cannot possibly be a Primordial. When a Primordial leaves this plane, their magic follows. If you were a Primordial, whatever magic you channel would not have returned with you. It would have been lost to this world, because it isn’t channeled from the world around you. It comes from you, and you would not have that magic any longer.”

I leaned over her, begging her to see the truth in my words. The death of a Primordial was a rare, tragic thing, but my mate could not be one of them.

“Then how do I see the threads?” Estrella asked, her voice laced with confusion. She went on to explain how Mab had come to learn of her ability to see the threads, to the choice she’d given my mate.

To be married to a man who was not me… Mab was foolish not to know that I would burn everything to the ground. She would have no choice but to kill me, because there wasnothingthat would stop me from protecting Estrella from the torment of that.

Mab saw glimmers of them, but I didn’t know another God who did. I’d never realized she saw them, never knew she could even hint at the power of the Primordials or that the threads were how they functioned. My own parents had both been Gods, with my magic being the unusual consequence of a mate bond between two Gods.

As if I was meant to exist, crafted by the hands of the Fates themselves.

I wondered how much of that related to my mate, how much of it might have been the way they seemed to maneuver her through time and space. She’d always been meant to be here, and even though she was suffering at the hands of the one woman I wanted to murder more than anyone, I had to wonder if she wasexactlywhere the Fates wanted her to be.

If whatever was coming would be the change for the greater good. If it would be the driving event that finally freed all of Alfheimr from Mab’s clutches.

“Mab will not allow us to complete our mate bond if she can find ways to get around that vow,” I said, wrapping my mate in my arms.

She turned to her side, facing me as she turned hazy green eyes up to my blue. I wished I could chase away the fear that lingered in them, to remind her that she was capable of anything and everything if she only put her mind to it.

“Because she fears you’ll break your bond once you’re stronger,” she said, nodding as she sank her teeth into the corner of her mouth in thought.

I could practically see the gears turning, see the way she thought over the turn of events and searched for a new solution. The problem solver in her wouldn’t just let things lie, instead determined to manipulate and change until she had her desired outcome.

“It was never about me,” I sighed, the realization forcing a scoff from my lungs.

All my life, people and Fae alike had feared me and treated me as a terrifying God. All my life, I’d been told of the things I could achieve if I could only be freed. I was who I had to be in order to stand at Estrella’s side. In order to reach her and protect her, to guard and guide her on her journey.

“I am here for you. I am here to help you reach your full potential and to giveyouthe boost you need to fight. Mab will not stop us from bonding to keep me complacent. She’ll do it to keep you controlled. She’ll do it to keep you small when you are meant for so much more.”

“Stop,” Estrella murmured, her expression shutting down as she reached the end of her tolerance.

She might have come a long way since her escape from Mistfell, but she was still the girl who didn’t dare to act on her dreams. She was still the one who was beaten if she didn’t behave exactly as they told her to. She didn’t dare to dream in splendor. Instead, she chose to tailor her dreams to her reality, managing her expectations. She limited herself before anyone could ever tell her no.

“I am going to love every moment of watching your journey, Estrella Barlowe,” I murmured, touching a thumb to her tense bottom lip. It softened in response, allowing me to lean down and touch my lips to hers. “And when you’ve finished molding the world to your desire, I’m going to have a portrait of your creation hung on the walls of Catancia. I’ll make you stand before it, make you look at what you’ve done—and I will be the first of many to tell youI told you so.”

She closed her eyes, pressing her forehead to my chest as she hid her face from me. A lesser being would buckle under the weight of all that pressure.

But Estrella would rise like the stars in the evening sky.