I knew grief as well as he did. Maybe that was another reason we bonded so easily. I had lived in this place for a time when I lost Gabby, and I tasted it again when Samkiel died, drowning and burning in my pain. I was no stranger to grief. We were intimately connected now. Grief had formed us both, and I realized there had to be more to the story of Gathrriel and Vvive. I started to ask him what happened, but a familiar voice stopped me.
“You do not belong in this world anymore, Gathrriel.”
Gathrriel’s head whipped around, and I saw Reggie standing between the man who had taken over my body and the small, sleeping city.
“How peculiar.” Gathrriel’s head tipped to the side. “You are one of the creatures that bore three faces, yet now you wear one.”
Reggie. My heart swelled, but then dread swooped in. He could not fight against Gathrriel.
“How are you able to walk this world?” Reggie asked. “Could Asheroth not hold you?”
I felt Gathrriel smile. “I owe this world blood, and they will have it.”
“Not with her,” Reggie said, clasping his hands in front of him. Warmth and exasperation filled me. Here he was, once again, trying to save me. Gathrriel, however, did not care. I felt the heat curl in his palm and through his mind. I knew you couldn’t kill a fate, but he seemed more than willing to try. His eyes flicked toward the town behind him, and something like desperation floated across his skull and mine. Were we running out of time? How long could he hold me like this? Whatever it was, it gave me hope, and I fought back even harder.
“If you hurt Reggie, you dick,” I said, my voice viciously cold and filled with the promise of death, “I will burn you alive.”
“Hmm,” Gathrriel said out loud, but his voice ricocheted in my head, his words directed at me. “Is that the fate’s name? You keep him like a pet. It’s deplorable.”
Reggie watched us, and I saw the moment he realized I was still inside and fighting. Relief flared in his eyes, and a brief smile curved his lips. Fear stuttered through me.
Reggie, I swear to gods, if you try to fight this thing, I’ll kill you myself.
“She fears that you will try to stop me. I can feel it.” Gathrriel tipped his head and studied Reggie. “Does fate wish to fight me? For her? What’s your relation to my fledgling?”
“None of your concern.” Reggie said it so carelessly, as if he wasn’t staring down a beast as ancient as time itself. I adored him for it, regardless of whether it was false bravado or taught arrogance from being around Samkiel and me.
Don’t be a hero, you idiot, I practically begged, even though he couldn’t hear me. I couldn’t watch Reggie be hurt. That would break me.
“Ahhhh.” Gathrriel drew out the word, nodding. He felt everything I did right here and now. “So she does feel for you. Deeply, it seems. Is it love? Love is the only thing that would compel a fate to challenge me with such arrogance.” Gathrriel’s head cocked to the side, and pain seared my mind. It felt like he was raking his talons across my brain, looking for the answers. “No,” he finally said. “Not intimate love. Familial love. You care for her as a parent would a child, and she you. A false father, it seems.”
I blinked here in this trapped area of my mind. I had never said the words out loud, but I had often thought them to myself. Reggie had been there when I so desperately needed a strong word and a helping hand. He never judged me, only wishing to guide me, teach me, and help me. He was the closest thing I had to a mentor or father. My chest clenched. I always said he was family, and I fucking meant it. From what I could see, Reggie made no move to confirm or deny. Outwardly, he didn’t respond in any way, but I felt the way Gathrriel recoiled in pain. Whatever flicker of emotion he felt was gone in a second.
“It is forbidden,” Gathrriel said, with no hint of malice. “You damn yourself.”
Reggie’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Many things are said to be forbidden.”
“You will pay greatly for it. Trust me, the universe does not take kindly to its rules being disregarded.”
What did that mean? I had no idea what they were talking about, and Reggie seemed unconcerned, but I desperately wanted to know what was forbidden.
“As you have? You venturing past the veil is forbidden, no matter the vengeance you wish to seek for the wife and child stolen from you, Gathrriel,” Reggie said.
A growl ripped so violently from Gathrriel that I felt my throat burn from the force of it. Fire erupted from him in a harrowing blaze, thick, intense, and coating the area where Reggie stood. The trees cracked and burned, the leaves turning to ash from the intensity of the flames. They were far hotter than anything I could produce. Branches snapped and fell, smoke clogging the air.
Reggie no longer stood where he had, his voice now coming from behind us. Gathrriel spun.
“So it is true,” Reggie said, still his usual eerily calm self.
“My rage knows no bounds, fate, my anger unquenched. Perhaps I shall begin my vengeance with you. Cut out your tongue for the words you so carelessly toss at me.”
“I do not wish to fight you,” Reggie said matter-of-factly, his fingers running across a low-hanging leaf. “I am merely a distraction for the one who loves her even more than I.”
Gathrriel saw the flames and smoke and stopped his advance. “A beacon,” he growled, his teeth biting at the words as he turned toward the burning forest around us. He snarled, his ego bruised as he realized he had been tricked by fate.
Relief flooded me. I could feel Samkiel streaking toward us, closing the distance from wherever he had been. The air shifted, and curiosity rippled across Gathrriel’s mind. He was no longer the most powerful being here. Gathrriel snarled, his rage at being denied flooding both of us, making it hard to separate his emotions from my own. The closer Samkiel got, the more I felt Gathrriel fade. Pain shot across my skin as if he were trying to claw his way to the surface to fight whatever was pushing him away. Then it all stopped as if a switch had been flipped.
Smoke obscured my vision as Gathrriel’s presence dissipated from me. I didn’t feel him leave, too consumed by the presence at the center of the storm rolling toward us. Air rushed across my skin, my own skin, and I reveled in the touch of the cold night air as the ground rushed toward my face. Arms of muscled steel caught me mere inches before I ate dirt.
