Page 29 of Ties of Deception (Tethered Hearts)

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

I t was too hard to keep my eyes open, but at least I could still feel Ethen’s touch. It would be the last thing I’d felt both times. There was a rightness to that.

Constance’s voice sounded distant, panicked. “I…I can’t. I can’t heal her!”

Ethen’s voice was stricken. Angry. And also, too far away, despite his hands on my neck. I wanted him closer. I wanted to tell him that I loved him. That I forgave him.

“What do you mean you can’t? You’re a goddess of life! You’re Ismara’s daughter!”

“I can’t! I can’t do anything! What did you do to me?” Her voice was full of horror.

“I didn’t do anything! Try harder!”

“I told you I can’t!”

I tried to say the words I’d wanted to say for too long before it was too late. “I…I…”

A blinding white light exploded, searing me to the core. Then the pain vanished. Everything vanished. I could no longer feel Ethen’s touch. I was drifting, bodiless, untethered.

Then, all at once I was falling, plummeting, hurtling toward something.

I gasped. My lungs felt strange, achy. I forced my eyes open, and the first thing I saw was Ethen’s face staring at me in panicked bewilderment. I smiled at him and lifted my hand to his cheek. The blood from my wound was gone. I sat up, feeling stronger than I’d ever felt in my life.

Constance and Sebastian were gripping each other on the far side of the room, and their eyes were on something else—somebody else.

A woman stood by the door. She was shining so brightly, I couldn’t look directly at her face. Though, now I looked more closely, I realized she wasn’t standing at all. Her bare feet were suspended in the air, toes pointed like a dancer’s. Her golden hair was longer than she was tall, floating around her as if she were submerged in and entangled with melted gold.

“Ismara,” I breathed. I bowed my head.

Ethen followed suit, bowing his head all the way to the ground. His voice sounded choked. “You brought her back. Twice, you’ve brought her back. Thank you. Thank you.”

Constance took a step forward. “You’re…my mother?”

There was another flash of white light, searing my vision. When it cleared, Constance and Sebastian were both on their knees.

The goddess’s voice was cold yet carried a melodic resonance. “I had hoped to never return to this world. I had hoped that with two bloodlines to sustain the powers of life and death, Ienar and I were no longer needed. We had hoped to leave you to fix your own problems, but things have gone too far. Constance, you were meant to be my daughter of life, but you used your powers to directly cause death. Thus, they are broken. You are not the one we need to counterbalance the power of the Aidis in this world.” She turned to me, and her gaze seared my very soul, laying every part of me bare. “But you, Purity, have fought for life every time, even when you were a mortal. You understand how precious and fragile it is. Now you’re the one I choose to be my daughter since you already bring life to the people. You are the daughter after my own heart. You understand pain, death, mourning, yet you always fight. You understand how powers can be abused, and what it means to have your soul stolen and treated as if it’s not your own. Thus Constance’s powers are now yours, and Constance will be but a mortal.”

Constance cried out in dismay, but Ismara ignored her. I stared at the true goddess, the honor she was bestowing too great for words. “Thank you.”

She drifted toward me, and I lowered my gaze from her brightness. My skin felt like it was heating up. “How will you choose to use this power? Speak.”

I blew out a shaky breath under the heavy scrutiny of the goddess of all life, wondering if this was some sort of test. “I…I wish to return to the Unseen Lands. But that is only part of who I am. I wish to split my time. I want to Bless Atos and the rest of the empire as well as protect the Unseen Lands and the souls who live there. I wish for there to be peace.”

Even through the blinding light I caught the hint of a smile. “Very well. Do as you say, and Ienar and I will go from these lands. Much of our power has been taken, and we wish to rest. It will be your responsibility to raise any Fated Ones, giving them some of your power every time. Otherwise, do not abuse the power of life.”

I bowed my head to the cold marble floor like Ethen. “Thank you.”

“Live now, both of you. And keep the evil of the world at bay.”

A surge of warmth passed through me. Then she was gone.

I stared, the after image still disrupting my vision. I looked over to Constance and gasped to see the body of an old woman lying on the floor. She was thin and the shoulder of her gown had slipped to show her wedding tattoo, which still gleamed gold. Sebastian seemed horrified as he helped her to stand. His own physique was also weaker, his shoulders less broad, and his face drawn and less charming. He didn’t glow as brightly as before.

Now that their age gap was visibly obvious, I wondered if Constance had been using Sebastian all along for her own ends to become empress. Had she married him to have an easy person to control? Everything she had accused Ethen of doing to me? Sebastian looked lost without her strength beside him now, but still he clung to her hand.

Ethen’s hand wrapped around mine, and I tore my attention away from the strange couple, warmth flooding through my body at his touch. I didn’t say anything as I pulled him from the room, tugging him into the corridor where we could be alone together. I was desperate to finally have him to myself.

The moment the door behind us closed, I flung myself into his arms, embracing him hard. His arms wrapped around me a second later, and he buried his face into my hair, holding me so close that nothing but him existed.

I said the words I had waited years to be able to speak. “Ava said I would never forgive you, but I do. It wasn’t your fault, and I never blamed you for your nature or my own decisions. There is nothing to forgive, but I’ll say it anyway, Ethen. I forgive you. I never, ever stopped loving you.” He clutched me even tighter. He didn’t even seem to be breathing.

Tears threatened to break, and my words were muffled as I pressed my face against the dip beneath his shoulder. “Thank you. Thank you for waiting for me and coming for me despite everything we’ve been through. Thank you for not giving up on me when I felt so lost. I don’t think I would’ve survived in this body or land without you. But you still saw me despite me not even seeing myself.”

He kissed the side of my head without relaxing the tension in his arms. “Always. I will always come for you if I know that you want me. And you would’ve survived without me. You would’ve found your strength, I know it. I mean, look at you now. Ismara herself came to save you. I always knew I was but a shadow at your side. I have never deserved you. I’m sorry I hurt you yet again.”

I held him tighter. I loved him so much—I couldn’t let him go. I’d endured decades unable to even touch him, however much I’d longed to. And still, he had stayed by my side, waiting and agonizing over how he wasn’t good for me. Telling me time and time again that he wasn’t worth my pain, and that I should choose a mortal for my husband and not a god I couldn’t survive. But nobody in all the world compared to him. And I’d happily endured death itself to be with him.

He seemed to feel the strength of my emotions and tangled one of his hands in my hair, burying his face into the base of my neck as if it were the safest place in the world to hide. I would never—never—let him go again. At last, there was nothing between us. He was mine for eternity. We could finally be happy, and I would no longer have to see the pain in his eyes.

Finally, I pulled back just enough to see his face, though my hands still clung to him. It was like seeing him for the first time in years. Those lines that were so very familiar. The tenderness in his dark eyes. The downward tilt at the corners of his lips which meant he was experiencing a strong emotion. The strong jaw and cheekbones. His hair, which always looked as shiny as silk, whether we were in a palace or trekking through the wilderness.

I widened my eyes to seem innocent. “You can kidnap me now.”

A slightly annoyed frown appeared between his eyebrows. “As I’ve said before. The Aidis doesn’t kidnap…”

He stopped as he read my teasing expression. I suppressed a giggle at his reaction.

He huffed a laugh of his own, though it was hoarse. “Fine. I’ll kidnap you.”

He didn’t give me any warning before he bent and hooked an arm behind my knees and swept my legs out from under me. I squealed as he lifted me high into the air and whirled us around. He gave me a mock-serious expression. “All your attempts at escape are futile. You’ll just have to accept your fate.”

I laughed and entwined my arms around his neck, resting my cheek against his chest. I could hear his heart pounding, smell the leather of his clothes and the herbal soap on his skin. Being surrounded by him after so long was almost too much, and yet not enough.

“Ethen,” I breathed. “Take me home right now. Our real home. I want to see Erebus again. Let Sebastian explain all of this to his mother. Now there will be no more Graces, she will have to treat the ones she has left much better. I can come back and Bless the people later. I’m sure Drusella and Hermon would be happy to keep the villa for us to visit.”

I looked up to see his grin. “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to hear those words.” A thread of caution entered his voice. “Do you remember everything, then?”

I nodded and sighed dramatically, freeing one of my hands to press it to my forehead. “Every last agonizing conversation where you refused to give me even the briefest of kisses.”

He smiled, but the caution remained in his eyes. “I was worried that when you remembered what happened…that it was my touch that killed you…what suffering you went through for me…I was worried you wouldn’t want things to go further between us. Especially after you were framed for the poison...”

His arms relaxed as if to put me down, but I refused to lower my feet and wrapped my arms around his neck again. I snorted. “I went through all that so that things could go further, Ethen. I chose that path—you know that. Ava tried to choose on my behalf by keeping you away when I was dying, but she was wrong to think she had any right to go against my wishes. And this time, Ava gave Constance the poison so she could frame you and you’d leave. I know Ava thought she was protecting me both times, but she was in the wrong, not you.”

He sighed, but his eyes didn’t leave mine, and a vulnerable hope burned through them. “I guessed as much. After Ava visited your rooms that last time, she went missing. She fled somewhere, which made me suspect she was culpable for bringing the nightstar to Atos. I doubt she’ll return to the Unseen Lands now—she’ll be in too much trouble.”

I took the news with mixed emotions, resting my cheek against Ethen’s chest. Ava had been a faithful friend for almost all my previous life and treated me in her own home when I was ill—not to mention, she’d come all the way to Atos to warn me. But she had gone too far again and again. The friendship hadn’t been good for either of us. It was best that we parted ways.

I glanced up and gave Ethen a fresh smile, pushing Ava and difficult thoughts from my mind. “Well, now, things between us can go further, which brings me back to what I was saying about the lack of kisses in my previous life.”

He raised his eyebrows in an earnest expression, then he removed his arm from under my knees, making me fall to my tiptoes, my arms still around his neck. His hands moved down to the small of my back, and he pulled me tight into him. “I’ll make up for it. I promise. All twenty-two years of missed kisses. Now that you’re immortal, I’m never, ever going to let you go. And knowing you, you’ll manage to Bless the whole world, and I want to see every second of it.”

I gave him an unimpressed expression, pulling his head close to mine. “I expect you to make up for them properly. Kisses on top of the kisses I would be getting anyway.”

He chuckled, the sound breathless as if he couldn’t believe this was real. His eyes were round, drinking me in. “I’d better get started now. If you add any more to your demands, we won’t have space to breathe.”

I swallowed, watching his eyes travel down to my lips. My stomach flipped in response. “I don’t want to breathe.”

He opened his mouth to give a response, but quickly gave up, closing the space between us. And he kissed me just as I had craved for a lifetime. No pulling back this time. No guilt or worry. The barriers were finally gone.

It was all worth it.