Page 7 of Fated (Lords Of Time)

GRACE, ANGEL, AND DEVIL

Eris wakes from her rest, her mind a troubled weaving of all the lives she’s met in her dreams. She untangles herself from the fabric so very carefully as to not cause any further damage to those around her.

She rises from the floor and in the main room she warms fresh water over the open pit for a meal.

Outside the world is warming, or maybe it’s cooling— she’s no idea whether it’s dusk or dawn only that the light coming through the windows and cracks is that soft quality that creates a liminal edge to reality.

Time, however, is of no importance in her world, its only importance is the work she’s doing. She senses that the longer the threads are separated the more difficult it will be for her to reconnect them, and more difficult for the souls themselves to reconnect.

She feeds the brood, shovels down some hearty oatmeal and tea and heads back to the well.

* * *

A child. Eris sobs uncontrollably when she finds her.

Lost in time— so young, so vulnerable. She almost leaves her there, with this mother she’s connected to, but when she finds the corresponding thread and the confusion of her soul match…

she knows this correction is necessary— but it will also be painful.

She holds the misplaced child and sees how beautiful the girl’slife is supposed to be, but also how confusing it becomes because of what Eris has done.

She sees the angel, her match, her rescuer, her foil.

So beautiful with his golden hair and so desperately lost by his deep love for someone he cannot ever truly have.

Not in life, not in public, not before their God as they understand it.

Destined to always be naught but friends in the eyes of the beholders; bosom chums, travel companions, but never lovers, never husbands, never partners in a true marriage.

“Ridiculous.”

Eris wishes she could bring them forward from the Victorian era and its laws, and ways of thinking, somewhere they could live freely and happily.

But that sort of power is well beyond her.

What they need to survive the trials is each other, and she took that from them.

She feels the blinding happiness they ultimately find with each other and knows she must continue.

She concentrates on them again, pulling the thread closer and preparing them for the future they were destined to have. She cuts the threads and reties them.

Then… in quiet sorrow, she feels the thread as it beats against her fingers.

Three heartbeats meld into one, and Eris finally sees the path that the girl opens for these two boys, how they find their purpose in each other, and a place to live their lives as a family, all three of them living their truth because of the existence of the other two.

It’s beautiful, unfathomably precious, and Eris understands, once again, the power of the connections she’d severed.

Celeste and Calder and Quinn’s stories can be found in the illustrated novels: The Trouble With Grace

and The Spare and The Heir.

These are two full-sized novels one with a Happily for Now and one with a Happily Ever After. You should read The Trouble with Grace first for the entire story of the throuple.