This was the last thing he’d expected when he’d teleported her from the Land of the Dead and into his realm. He was prepared to console her, to vow that the Council would grant her immortality back. He’d ensure it.
But the moment they landed within the walls of his home, she’d forced them apart with her threads and drew out the dagger. She had it with her all along.
He knew. Dammit, he knew what she was doing. He knew, but he didn’t want to stare down the truth.
Ruelle wanted the Himura demigod’s blood to ensure it did not get used on herself or anyone else. She told him so.
Ruelle is lying, and it is not me who she is lying to.
Cassian’s words returned to him, sharp and painful.
Acacius fought against the threads bound around him. It was no use. He couldn’t free himself through physical strength to stop her.
His whole body slackened, and he looked up at her. “I know I am not the one you want.” His voice cracked. “I know you do not love me as I love you, but I will do anything.Anythingfor you. Please, let that be enough. Letmebe enough for you.”
She was all he could think about. The sheets of her bed tousled, the early rose-gold sunlight slipping through her window, her strands spread across his arm, her lips on his, her presence beside him, her words filling him.
Ruelle slowly approached him. A sign that his words had reached her.
She leaned down and kissed his forehead. “I love you, Acacius, I do. There is no question of that. But I must do this, for me.”
His eyes fell shut, her decisiveness stabbing through his heart. The pain stole his breath, and a lump swelled in his throat. “I love you.I love you, Ruelle. We can have a happy life together. Please, allow me to show you.”
“It is not enough.” She guided his chin up with her fingers, meeting his eyes. “You are not the one I long for, Acacius.”
Her words tattered like razors mixed in the blood of his heart, shredding every chamber, every artery, every valve, to slivers.
He wanted to believe their story had never been a placeholder for her. A pawn until she reunited with Klaus. He had gazed into her eyes hundreds of times, but he’d never looked past the surface, never truly delved deeply within them, too terrified of what he’d find.
“You planned it all.” Tears slipped down his cheeks, blurring the shape of her in front of him. “It is why you continuously watched over Naia’s Fate, why you broke apart Cassian and Saoirse, why you threatened to unravel his and Finnian’s threads. You could see it all intertwined and how your life would end.”
“I did.”
Her confession was another cut.
“Then why not use the blood on yourself? You had it in your hands.” His tone was thick with disapproval, of a gut-wrenching rage. He knew the answer, having been with Ruelle long enough to know the complexities of Fate, but he needed to hear the words directly from her.
“It would’ve caused ripples in others’ Fates. Vale was meant to die. Naia was meant to take away my immortality. Just as I was meant to cut my own thread.”
He lowered his head.
One finger at a time, she lifted her hand from his face. “You deserve someone who truly loves you, Acacius. I cannot be that. When I am gone, please do not think of me. Find your own happiness, as I am.”
Acacius stared down at the floor, her bare feet caught in his periphery. Her light skin was dirt-stained and speckled with dried blood. The imperfections were a horrid reminder of her mortality, of the past few hours and how none of it was only a nightmare. The finality of her words was real, and there was nothing he could do.
The tears were endless, dripping like rain from his eyes. This was the end, and he knew it. If she would stay, he would gladly be second-best for the rest of their days, even knowing that he could never fill her heart the way Klaus had.
The idea of her disappearing from his life made it difficult to draw in a breath. Inky splotches painted the edges of his visions. The blood of his pulse throbbed in his ears.
“You have my gratitude for everything, Acacius,” she said, her voice wobbly with her own tears. “Please take care of yourself.”
He sobbed, unable to watch. Everything in him screamed to fight through the threads holding him captive, but a distant part of him wished to respect her desires. The destiny she’d meticulously tracked to arrive on this day.
The slice of the dagger, the tearing of her thread—it was deafening. It echoed in his ears, again and again.
He lifted his chin and watched it play out, slow, unmerciful. The crumble of her knees, the fall of her body, the way her eyelids fluttered closed right before her head hit the floor. Her long hair fanned around her face. She held the dagger in her uncurling grasp, one half of her thread in the other.
No.
