Page 63 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part One

I huff. “You know, logically, that it must have been environmental changes or another great war that compromised those anchor points.”

My father raises his hands as if admitting defeat. But his gaze is sharp on me. Waiting. But for what? For me to see something … in the globe?

“Did you and Armin discuss this?”

“Of course. He needed to know how to pull the globe forth.”

“Because it’s important to know that the … energy grid is functioning?”

He doesn’t respond, which tells me I’ve answered my own question.

A staticky energy shudders through the threads encircling the globe. It’s subtle …

I lean closer and catch it again.

The third time, I trace it to its origin.

My heart is suddenly leaden, as if it’s dropped into my stomach, as I raise my eyes to meet my father’s steady gaze over the top of the globe.

“Something is wrong?” I whisper. Forcing myself to acknowledge it, even though I’m navigating another of those urges to flee back into the life that was really all just a mirage I created and hid within. Hid from myself.

“Not … wrong. But unsettled.”

“This is why … this is the urgency.”

“Yes.”

I came back to Waterfell in the hopes of talking my father into giving me a little more time.

I already know I need to choose the Mertons, to bond with the Mertons.

But I need more time to explore the connection between me and Rian, and to …

settle things with Bolan. I know now that they aren’t meant for me.

That their crux, Armin, is dead. But … maybe they can choose a different path?

“How did you not fade?” I ask, changing the subject. “When you lost your soul bonded?”

My father blinks, distinctly thrown by the question. Then he grimaces and takes another sip of his drink. “All the awry who hold the intersection points traditionally have soul-bound mates. Or chosen mates. Often it’s a mixture of both.”

“Because finding your soul-bound mates, if such a thing even exists for you, isn’t easy.”

“I met Natalie when we were very young. The connection was immediately obvious to my grandfather, and he fostered it while also encouraging me to take other chosen. But … I didn’t want to bond with anyone but Natalie.

It’s … the soul bond is intense, the connection is …

” He trails off, glancing over my shoulder.

At nothing, maybe. Or he’s gazing into the past.

“But it doesn’t have to be a sexual relationship.”

“It’s stronger and more … fortifying if it is. The connection can still grow without a sexual component, but it’s a longer process. Decades instead of years.”

“But you didn’t take other lovers, other bonds. ”

“I didn’t. Both Natalie and I were aware that I was our crux, and that there might be other soul bonds for us.

But we …” He sighs heavily, and even after decades, his voice is threaded through with pain and regret.

“When she was taken from me, along with our child, your grandfather was still alive with three of his chosen. I held the intersection point, but they shored me up.”

His gaze flicks to me. “Fading wasn’t an option. And then I had you, Armin, and Anne when your grandfather passed, taking his chosen with him. Eleanor joined us two years later. The bond with Raoul grew from trust and shared life experiences.”

Kidnapping attempts and putting down insurgencies, he means.

My father settles back in his chair, drink in hand again and his gaze on the glowing globe hovering between us. “Why are you asking?”

I shake my head, because I’m still working that out myself. Then I indicate the North American intersection point. Another of those staticky pulses of energy runs from it through the globe, as if in response to my attention. “Tell me, please.”

“Just over two weeks ago, Zaya Gage claimed the North American intersection point,” my father says. “It was all but dormant for three weeks prior to that.”

I blink, my mind racing through everything I know about Zaya, the Gage family, and …

“She’s … she’s the Conduit now?”

My father sets down his drink and leans forward, his gaze sharp and intense. “Zaya Gage is now the Conduit. She is the last living god among us. And she holds that anchor point with no bonded and no close family. She holds it uneasily.”

“But …” I have too many questions, so I just blurt out th e first I manage to articulate. “Bedisa Gage held that point, and she’s … was … young.”

“Older than me, but yes, young for an immortal to die.”

“No one is immortal.”

“The Conduit is Everlasting.”

“Dad,” I scoff. But he just stares at me, unwavering. He believes the god-origin story. “All right,” I say. “How do you know that the Conduit is immortal?”

“All the threads flow through her.”

I tear my gaze from his to frown at the globe. “All the threads clearly flow through the intersection points.”

“Because Zaya is currently residing at the claimed intersection point traditionally held by the Gage family. If she were to travel, another set of threads would shift with her. For lack of a better way to articulate it. As they did with Bedisa.”

My legs abruptly fold under me. I drop into my seat so abruptly it’s jarring. “You’re saying …”

“Yes.”

“But …” I’ve met Zaya Gage. More than once, though mostly during semiformal occasions. Her energy is bright and enticing … but she …

“Zaya is only a few years older than me.”

“Four years, I believe.”

I’m not ignorant. My father would never have stood for either Armin or me being ignorant of what being awry means. Or who the other powerful awry in the world are and how that all functions. But …

“How did Bedisa die?”

“No idea. And Zaya apparently isn’t responding to messages at the moment. I’m not the only one who’s reached out.”

He means the other awry who hold the other intersection points. “Because you all felt it … ”

“Yes. The transference of the intersection point, then the three weeks where the point functioned in an almost dormant state, then the surge of energy as Zaya claimed it.”

“Bedisa died, destabilizing the intersection point …” I murmur. “Just a few days before you came to me and …”

“Yes.”

I’m silent for just a moment. “Why not mention this all before? Why not tell me it all at once?”

My father grimaces, but he answers gently enough. “Would you have been ready to listen?”

I want to say yes. I want to believe that I could have surfaced out of my grief enough to hear him, to understand, but …

I shake my head.

My father offers me a gentle smile, for once not pressing, reinforcing, his superior knowledge. His understanding of my own … capabilities. And not the ones I’m lacking.

The capability I have to … actually fulfill the destiny he needs me to claim.

I inhale deeply, then exhale slowly, my gaze on the glowing globe. “If a living god has trouble holding an intersection point, then … I’ll collapse under the pressure. If I lose you … and if … if you lose me?”

I already feel a constant pressure whenever I wander around Waterfell Castle. My father’s stronghold. I didn’t realize it — or perhaps I simply blamed it on my grief. But that energy is even more acute now that we’ve lost Armin.

Even with Anne, Eleanor, and Raoul anchoring him, grounding him, my father needed Armin. And me.

My father can’t lose me now, any more than I can lose him.

I glance back at the glowing globe, watching that slow pulse of staticky energy. “There isn’t any time.”

“There is enough time,” my father says, seemingly settled now that I fully understand his need for me to take chosen bonds. Even if I still don’t fully comprehend.

“And if another intersection point fails? If Zaya can’t withstand the energy of being the Conduit and hold the North American point at the same time?”

He sighs. “That isn’t something you should be concerned about.”

“Dad! You just shoved this all in my face! How am I not supposed to be concerned about it!?”

“I mean, Mirth, that it is beyond any of our control. Maybe even Zaya’s. I’ve never witnessed the transfer of the Conduit powers.”

“A living god. You truly believe that?”

“Yes.”

“But … what can kill a god? They … in myth and legends they usually … transform, yes?”

“The vessel wears thin, perhaps.”

“But Bedisa was young, relatively.”

“Yes.”

“Then what can kill a god?”

My father looks grim.

I point a shaking finger toward the globe. “If another of these gods awoke, you’d see it here, yes?”

“I believe so.”

I let out a breath.

“But,” my father adds ominously, “only nine gods bonded together and went into deep slumber to protect the world.”

“So … where are the others?”

He takes another sip of his drink, then shrugs. “Vanquished?”

“Everlasting, though,” I murmur.

“Not our purview. Nothing nefarious is currently happening, Mirth. Zaya’s rocky transition is just concerning.”

“I understand.”

“I know you do.”

I draw my legs up to my chest so that I can wrap my arms around my shins and lay my head on my knees, still gazing at the globe slowly rotating over my father’s desk.

“You came to ask me for more time to make your decision.”

“I did.”

“What is your quandary?”

“It doesn’t matter now. I understand what the … choice I have to make is.”

“And what is that?”

“The Mertons, I suppose.”

My father frowns. “The Mertons?”

“Noah is awry. And I assume you’d be happy enough with their …” — I wave my hand— “… political standing and other qualifications.”

My father snorts, as if that sort of thing doesn’t actually matter.

I narrow my eyes at him.

He actually grins. Asshole.

“So you’re in love with Noah Merton? Isla? Archie?”

“What? No.”

“Ah … infatuated? Attracted?”

“I’m not discussing any of that with you,” I say primly.

“So that’s a no.”

“You just said the connection doesn’t have to be sexual!”

“No, you said that.”

I huff.

A knock sounds against my father’s door, indicating that the sealing spell doesn’t work from within as it does on the other side.

My father rises from his desk, crossing around and toward the door.

He touches my head lightly as he passes.

A prickle of his energy runs over my skull and down my neck. I shiver.

My thoughts whirl, but I gaze at the revolving globe without trying to untangle any of them. Just for another moment.

“Mirth,” my father says from the doorway, “I need to step away. I’ll see you at breakfast, and then we’ll discuss this … choice of yours further.”

When he says ‘choice,’ it’s layered with what might be … derision? I would have thought that the line of Merton would have been my father’s first choice as well. Even if he isn’t a fan of Lord Merton at the head of that line.

“Fine,” I murmur, not lifting my head from my knees. “Breakfast.”

“Give me a moment,” my father says to whoever is at the door. Then he clears his throat.

I twist to glance over my shoulder.

“Mirth …” His gaze is remote, thoughtful. “It’s clear to me, and has been for a very long time, that you and Armin were bonded on a level beyond just being siblings.” His gaze flicks to the marble urn on the mantel, then quickly away. “That became even clearer when Armin died.”

“You think we were soul bound?” My chest aches, mostly in disbelief.

“Why don’t you? You must feel it.”

I shake my head. “The … list. I wrote that list. That Anne gave to you.”

“Ah. She didn’t give it to me. Simply informed me after the fact.” He clears his throat again, uncharacteristically hesitant. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have pushed forward with the matching event after that.”

I frown, not seeing the connections he’s making, but understanding that those connections are different than mine. “I thought, after I realized it wasn’t a dream or hallucination … I thought that list might mean something. It does, but just not … with me included.”

“I don’t follow.”

“My name wasn’t on it. But Armin’s was.”

A murmured question comes from whoever is standing in the hall. It must be one of his chosen, as no one else would dare interrupt my father. I’m guessing it’s Raoul, if it’s urgent enough to interrupt a second time.

“You will explain all of the conclusions you have drawn at breakfast,” my father all but commands. “Get some sleep. Then we will discuss your plans.”

I nod. He rakes his gaze across my face again. But after another moment of uncharacteristic hesitation, he nods, then leaves.

The globe fades as if it’s tied to my father’s essence, and the farther away he is, the less he fuels it. Or maybe it has to be called forth and held with intention. It doesn’t matter now. I’ll learn all of that in time.

I’m not sure how long I sit, curled in the chair with only the ticking of the grandfather clock and the crackle of the fire for company.

With the ever-present, though currently muted, roil of the intersection point underpinning me.

When I finally unfold my legs, I don’t move for the door. Instead, I cross around the desk, pull out a sheet of linen paper and a black pen from the top drawer, and write my father a note.

I have something I need to do.

Please give me a few days.

I’ll keep my phone on me and will call when I’m ready .

I cap the pen, leaving the note on the desk.

Then I cross to the mantel, steal my brother’s ashy remains, and prepare to do what should have been done over six months ago. What I need to do before I can step into Armin’s role as best I’m able.

To step into the next chapter of my life.

Keep reading for a preview of Mirth, Part 2 and to download Mirth and Rian’s sexy selfies!