“Because your generational trauma starts here, Fable. It must end here too.”
Her eyes falter, dropping to her sneakers on the floor before fresh tears coat her cheeks. “How do you read me so well? It’s as if you are me.” Her tone is more accusatory than romantic.
“The road between stitching the soul together and utter ruin is threaded with the finest silk. Some people are easily caught in the web, lost to time and pain and struggle. Others, like you, are able to thread the needle and come out whole on the other side.”
“So, this is the other side?”
“Life and death are what you make of it. The people you impact and the ones who impact you are the threads that separate the two. Every moment is a trial. Will you come out more complete or less when you stack the moments together at the end of the journey?”
“Wait, wait. No, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying some people live their entire lives like they’re already dead, and some live each moment like they’ve died a thousand lives and have no fear of the next second in time. Life and death, two sides of the same coin, yet some people get them mixed up so completely. Which are you, Fable?”
“I-I don’t know.” Goose bumps race up her skin. The familiar chill that’s always in the air around here has finally settled into her bones. Her eyes fall. “I don’t know what to think or believe anymore.”
“Don’t do either of those things. It’s a trap. Just. Feel.” I cup her neck with my warm palms. “Do I feel real to you?”
She nods quickly, eyes falling closed.
“We’re as real as it gets, Fable.”
Alder
“I’ll love you for a thousand lifetimes even if it kills me in every one.”
Her eyes cling to mine. “Like Alaric and Olympia?”
My eyes fall closed a beat as I process her words. Finally, I say, “We are them. Our blood beats the same.”
“Does that make Olympia Aberdeen my ancestor?”
I thread my fingers through her shiny golden hair. “You’re still not asking the right questions.”
She doesn’t reply, only drops her eyes to my chest and buries her face in my shoulder.
“Each lifetime’s fate repeats itself if certain lessons aren’t learned.”
“Like déjà vu.”
“Exactly. And the more heightened the senses, the more aware you are of the game.”
“So, life’s a game after all, then,” she sighs with a wry tone.
“And death.Everythingis. What’s the point if there aren’t consequences, skills, and life-and-death decisions to make? High-stakes is the only way to play, but not everyone agrees with me.”
“Keats?”
“Keats has played his hand close to the heart. He’s good. Too good for me. But then, most are. But that’s why I needed you to read, Fable. The more lifetimes you live in one, the further you advance in the game, the closer you come…” I pause, thinking over my next words.
“The closer I come to what?” Her voice is soft, breathy, maybe even scared.
My heart rattles as I say the next words. “The closer you come to me.”
“So, the legends are the destination?”
“And the journey.” I nod, relieved to feel her relaxing in my arms the more she understands the differences between us. She’s felt them all along, but her senses are still too dull to identify them overtly. Now, she’s as close as she’s ever been. “At some point, we all have to learn the lies we tell ourselves to sleep at night. For some, the reveal unravels them into madness. For others…” I brush a lock of hair behind her ear. “Others finally fly.”
“So…if Olympia and Fawn are my ancestors and our blood is the same…that means I’m reliving their fates on an endless loop until I…learnwhat?”
