Page 16 of Ties of Deception (Tethered Hearts)
Chapter
Sixteen
I extracted myself from a dinner with the family to celebrate a successful week of petitions, saying I wished to rest. Drusella was so happy with how well the week had gone after all her worrying, that she didn’t stop talking and personally spooned some of every available dish onto my plate. Her goddess was finally working. I imagined the family would be getting much more money now, as well as more sway with the other families in Yienna.
But if I was to help Ethen, I would need to go back to Fierro and live close to the palace for some time. I wasn’t sure what excuse to use or how to break it to the family—especially since every time I had gone in the past, I had come back upset and in disgrace. It would also be Drusella’s worst nightmare—me abandoning the family that had gone to such great lengths to lavishly accommodate me.
Not to mention I would be abandoning the people of Yienna. Just because I was helping Ethen find out what was going on with the goddesses, didn’t mean I wanted to stop Blessing people. If we stopped the souls from being stolen from the Unseen Lands, there would be no more Graces. But then, wouldn’t the ordinary people be the ones who suffered most?
Not to mention that Ethen wanted to marry me and take me away from this island altogether. Was it even possible to Bless people with powers of life in the realm of the dead? Or would the only purpose of my powers be to bear him a child?
Either Ethen or Atos would have to lose me. Where exactly did my loyalties lie? To my new life? Or to my old life that I couldn’t even remember?
Flavia passed me a cup of herbal tea. “You seem distracted tonight, my lady.”
I smiled at her in apology. “I have a lot on my mind. I feel like I’m being pulled in different directions.”
She nodded, accepting it without seeming curious. “I will burn some incense to help you sleep. I noticed some new ones have been delivered today. And maybe a bath would help?”
I agreed and bathed in milky waters bedecked with rose petals before getting into my cotton nightgown and bathrobe. I dismissed the maids but kept the robe on in case Ethen visited. I hadn’t seen him for five days, and every night, I’d gone to sleep disappointed. I had eaten a pomegranate from the basket under my bed every night he hadn’t come, helping me remember that he was real and not some strange fantasy I had been driven to by confinement. When he’d left last time, he’d said he had business to attend to in Fierro—and five days really shouldn’t feel so long to not see somebody. I couldn’t deny that the fruit was delicious, even served by a god of death.
I lay down on top of my bedcovers and closed my eyes, the smooth fruit of the last pomegranate in my hand. I traced my thumb back and forth across the cool, hard skin and smelled the incense wafting on the gentle sea breeze. I couldn’t name the flavor; it was so different from the ones we’d had in the villa before.
A memory flickered at the edge of my consciousness. At first it was just a sense of familiarity as if I’d done these exact actions before. I grasped at the feeling, trying to drag it into focus. The feel of the pomegranate. The smell of incense. The softness of the bedcovers.
I remembered another silk bed—much smaller. A rock skittering across the floor. A burst of excitement and a rush to a window high above the ground. A window I had purposefully left open. A man dressed in black climbing up with a wide smile on his face. The Aidis, who only I was allowed to call Ethen. My chest felt as if it would burst. The memory was so full of joy and warmth and anticipation…and love. I stepped back to let him in and so we didn’t accidentally touch, though I longed to throw myself into his arms. I would have done anything, absolutely anything to be embraced by him. I wanted it more than anything else in the world. But I knew we couldn’t.
I snapped my eyes open, panting as the memory faded. The emotions had been so intense—I had never felt anything like them before. But it had been so, so familiar. Had I truly been remembering what had happened between Snow and Ethen?
“May I come in?”
I leapt off the bed as if I had been caught in the middle of something I shouldn’t have been. The memory of longing for Ethen’s touch was too thick in my mind, distorting my reaction to hearing his voice. My heart thudded alarmingly fast, and the urge to throw myself into his arms still lingered.
“You startled me. You could have at least thrown your normal rocks to give me some warning.” I took a moment to make sure my bathrobe was in place and the ruffled waves of my hair were mostly falling down and not up. “Come in.”
He gave me a strange look as he materialized between the pillars. “Are you all right, Purity?”
I nodded and sat back down on the edge of the bed. “Yes. I…the incense. Do you know what that scent is? Did you leave it here?”
His eyes drifted to the smoking stick on the low table before sharpening in curiosity. “I did. What made you guess? It’s a scent often used in the Unseen Lands. Lemongrass, ginger, and sandalwood.”
I licked my lips. “Was it my…was it Snow’s incense when she lived with her family? In the house she grew up in?”
His lips curved into a wide, excited smile. “It was. Do you remember your house? Your mother?”
I looked away and massaged my forehead, searching for anything else. “Not quite. I wanted to touch you, but I couldn’t. And…you gave me pomegranates.”
I glanced back when he was silent and saw him nodding with encouragement, waiting to see if I had more. When I didn’t speak, he came to sit on the bed beside me. “You loved pomegranates. They were your favorite fruit. And in the Unseen Lands, they symbolize love and faithfulness.”
“Is that why you’ve given me pomegranates here? Hoping that I’d remember?”
He gentled his voice, as if still nervous that he might startle away some revelation. “I wasn’t thinking about your memories—more that, even with a different body, you’re still the same person. I wanted to give you what you liked to eat. The scent was also one of your favorites.”
The need to touch him itched under my skin. As the memory retreated further into my mind, I started to wonder if the urge was actually coming from the here and now…and the realization that I had missed him more than I liked to admit. Not to mention the tender way he was looking at me right now.
“Did…did you two ever embrace?” I regretted the question as soon as it left my lips. It felt too intimate, like I was intruding on two other people’s private moments.
Ethen was silent for a long moment, looking out at the gently stirring curtains between the pillars. He brought one knee up and rested it across his other leg, leaning back on the bed. “When you were mortal, interacting so closely with a god of death was dangerous for you. Even brief touches could shorten your lifespan. We agreed to touch after a year, but only through clothes, like shoulders and arms. And…we didn’t risk going further than that.”
I stared at him, trying to imagine what that had been like. “So you never even…kissed? Held hands? Embraced? Even once?”
He shook his head with a half-smile that somehow managed to carry a lifetime of sorrow. “Even the small touches made me worry. Not to mention, we probably spent far too much time together to be safe. But you insisted, and I…gave in to that much.”
A tremble entered my breath. “You said before that the woman you had promised to marry was stolen from you. So were we not married?”
He winced and shook his head. “We only took the vows to become Fated. It would have been too detrimental to you for us to live together. And…after what happened to my father, I knew you might not remember when you woke up. I wanted you to have a choice. However, some Aidis in the past married their Fated while they were still mortals. Some waited until they were immortal and could no longer be harmed by the powers of death. It’s simpler that way.”
My chest constricted. I didn’t want to ask more about a topic that was clearly so fresh and painful for him, but I needed to know. “How long did she…did I live for?”
His smile dropped completely. His face was barely shielded agony, his voice soft. “Forty-seven years. And I fear I’m to blame for such a short life. As I said, we spent a lot of time together. I’m sorry. You always said you were eager for immortality so we could get married…but I think you’d always assumed you would retain at least some of your memories through sheer determination. And your death…it was still so real. What you went through…”
The pain on his face broke my heart. I reached out and touched his arm. “I’m sorry you had to experience that—to go through all of that pain after waiting so long. It must have been hard.”
He nodded. Then his half-smile returned, a mask of bravery. “I would do it all again, though. The waiting. The boundaries. I can still wait. I don’t want any of this to make you feel rushed.”
I looked away, my stomach dipping at the look he was giving me, and happiness and sadness made a confusing mix between us. He had just been through so much when I remembered so little. It seemed cruel.
I tried to lighten the conversation. “How old are you?”
“One hundred and thirty.”
I blinked in surprise. That was…old. But I supposed if we were both immortal, that was barely any time at all. “When did we first start courting?”
“We met when you were twenty-five.”
I added up the years in my head. “So you have been waiting to kiss me for over twenty-five years?”
He huffed a half-laugh. “I suppose I have.”
I winced. “Well, that puts a lot of pressure on it then.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe, we could start with just holding hands? When you’re ready, that is. That is also something I’ve been waiting for twenty-five years to do. And it’s hard for either of us to do it wrong.”
I ran out of words. Instead, I nodded and turned my hand palm up. He studied it for a moment, then carefully laced his long fingers through mine. His callouses brushed the soft skin of my palm. Then his grip became firm and warm and strong. That ache and longing in my chest for contact eased, and a small part of me—so far away, it felt like a faint echo—wept tears of joy.
My heart was thudding so hard, I didn’t dare to meet his eyes, so I continued staring at our entwined fingers. “Do you care that I look different? You must miss being with the real Snow. And I imagine I don’t act completely like her either since we don’t have the same memories or experiences.”
He squeezed my hand in reassurance. His voice was rough and earnest. “I would recognize you in any form, in any lifetime. I’m sure of it. Even if we weren’t Fated, you are still you. Nothing else matters.”
We sat like that in silence and the seconds seemed to rush past. Neither of us wanted to break the spell we were under, bringing us close and uniting us as one, while the confusing emotions of past and present crashed down around us. But nothing could break the warm fuzziness that occupied my chest. Nothing could overwhelm the comfort from his hand.
At last he sighed, breaking the moment. “I’ve been in Fierro, in the palace. If you still want to go ahead with your plan to join the contest, we need to move quickly. The empress has written to the list of people she wishes for Prince Sebastian to consider as his bride, and she has invited them to join her in four days. If you wish to enter, you need to be there, and you’ll need to do something that forces her to consider you too.”
I ran a finger over my bottom lip. “But I need an excuse to go back to the palace. Nobody expects me to ever set foot there again, and Drusella would be devastated if I leave just when petitions are starting to work well. Not to mention I won’t be able to Bless the people of Yienna.”
Ethen squeezed my hand once more. “You can’t take on the weight of the whole world all at once, Purity. We need to focus on our goal and then do what we can.”
I stared down into space, saying the words I’d worried about ever voicing aloud to him. “If we stop Graces being born, everyone here will suffer.”
“Not necessarily. We need to find out the whole story first. If what is going on is wrong, we have to stop it. We can find other solutions to help the people of Atos. Graces are immortal, remember, and there are currently almost forty on Atos. If the system was made fair, those that remained could still Bless the whole island if their attentions were redirected.”
I thought about it for a moment longer. If people were being reincarnated against their will but given happy lives of luxury—was that so bad if it made a whole country prosper? The Graces couldn’t even remember their past lives.
But then I thought of Serene and what she must have faced. The monster Charity had become. The way goddesses were so vulnerable and forced to believe whatever their families told them. The unfair way they used their power to Bless. And then Ethen’s comment about Grace’s souls being destroyed…
I looked at the god who was watching me quietly, studying me. “What happens to goddesses when they’re retired?”
He looked away with a sour expression. “I’ve had men watching this for the last two years. They simply disappear. They never leave the temple where they attend the retirement ceremony. We’ve searched for them even beyond Atos and Hassia, but they’re never seen again.”
I shivered. Did that mean they were being killed? Or locked up beneath the temple? I rubbed my forehead. Things just seemed to be getting more and more unpleasant while the stakes grew higher.
He pulled our entwined hands onto his thigh and used his free hand to trace my fingers as if to memorize every curve. The gesture was so distracting that all of my other questions fled. “I have arranged an excuse for you to visit Fierro, if you’re willing to go ahead with our plan. But I want you to know that, if you prefer to stay here and focus on Blessing the people of Yienna, that is also fine. Both are important.”
I pressed my lips together. “No. I’ve decided to do this. I can’t know this much and not know the rest. You’re right. If the Graces are being treated in an immoral way, things shouldn’t continue like this. I want to help you.” It would also be a good excuse to get to know Ethen properly and truly see what he was like when it wasn’t just me and him in a calm villa.
He nodded and ran a fingertip over the edge of one of my nails. I didn’t move an inch, transfixed.
He tilted his head, his eyes still on my hand. “I have arranged for Drusella to receive a proposal for Priscilla. Drusella is currently eager for her daughter to make a good match, especially now you have elevated their social standing. A very influential family in Fierro is about to ask Pris to join them for two months in the city to be a companion for their daughter. They also have an eligible older son. Pris would meet a lot of people through this arrangement as well as be out of her parents’ hair. Drusella and Hermon will leap at the opportunity.”
I frowned. “What has that got to do with me?”
He grinned. “The condition of the letter is that you accompany Pris for the first week. They say they would like to meet you. Though you will be allowed to stay at Drusella and Hermon’s villa rather than living with their family.”
My frown didn’t drop. “How did you arrange this?”
“I’ve lived here for three years now. I’ve made connections. They owed me a favor of a slightly embarrassing nature and will be discreet about it.”
“But a week won’t be long?—”
He squeezed my hand. “If you pass the first test and the empress lets you become a potential daughter-in-law, there would be absolutely nothing Drusella and Hermon could do to bring you back to Yienna until the empress is done with you.”
I let out a long breath. It sounded like he had thought of everything. I was really doing this. In four days I would be plunging straight into the thick of their games.
“You can always change your mind,” Ethen murmured.
I stood, releasing my hand from his. “No, I’m ready.”
And on a sudden urge, I strode to the little bird stuck it in its tiny cage so it could sing songs to those around it and unlocked the door. When it hopped onto my hand, I took it to the pillars and lifted it up to the moon. It spiraled into the gardens in a smudge of crimson, singing pearls of excitement into the night.