One day, she will see me. Fate has to know how.
She’s the one that gifts us our mates, after all.
Fate’s denis deep below where the harbingers live, a steep cavern with a dozen twisting coves extending in every direction. No one knows where all the paths land, aside from Fate, but each season’s harbingers have a separate entrance. I assume some must go to her private quarters. Maybe some reach other ethereal beings like herself.
“I wondered when you’d come,” Fate’s silvery voice echoes through the chamber.
“You’re Fate. I assumed you’d already know that.”
Strings of flowers and leaves, branches, thick icicles, and beams of light fall from the ceiling, each element unique—as unique as the floor beneath us, carved to look like the dial posted on our tower in Nivea’s city center. A watercolor pool swirls on its own at its center, and I stare into it, mesmerized. Fate sits on its edge, dress draped along the ground, stirring her palm within its rippling rainbow.
“Contrary to what you may believe, I cannot foresee everything.”
“But you hold on to the strings?”
“More like tip the scale.” She points toward an oversized one situated in the corner with small stones of different shapes, shades, and sizes piled on either side. Her rose-gold brows tighten while her arm is submerged in pinks and greens and yellows. “There have been times when I’ve even been surprised.”
Her expression lifts as she sits upright and unfurls her fingers, showing me a tiny lavender rock, jagged at its edges and shining under the dim light. Clutching it tightly in her fist, she grabs her skirt to hold it off the floor with her free hand before waltzing with a few twirls that spin her glittering, rainbow-hued dress out from her. It’s gauzy and matches the colorful swirls painted across her skin and peeking through her hair. Her body is nearly camouflaged by the streaks aside from her bare, unmarked, rose-gold feet. She leans over, blue and emerald strands of hair falling in her face while she assesses the perfect spot to place the stone within the pile. Lifting her arm, she repositions it a few times before moving her hand to drop it.
“Would one of those times when you were surprised happen to be when I was punished for breaking our rule?”
“In some ways, yes.” Her brows knit in concentration as her delicate fingers stick the stone between a large blue and a sharp golden rock. Sighing, she sweeps herself in graceful paces in my direction.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
She halts midstep, multicolor eyes swirling with an emotion I can’t place.
“I want— I need to know why you gave me a mortal mate.”
Her lips purse. After a beat of silence, she sits down and pats the spot next to her on the ledge. “I don’t know if that’s wise.”
I sit next to her, half tempted to touch the whirling colors within the pool. I’ve never come to Fate before. Not for anything. I’ve been grateful for my immortal life, and I don’t want any special treatment.
Not until now.
“Please. There’s something missing, something nagging at the back of my mind, and I think it has to do with my memory being wiped the last season I was out there. When I was punished.”
“Yes.” She averts her gaze, but I place a gentle hand on her shoulder, waiting until she turns to face me.
“There’s something in the back of my mind—a memory I can’t seem to recall,” I begin, pointing at my temple for emphasis. “I’m sure whatever it is, you and my fathers hid it from me with good reason. Whatever got me benched last winter.” I qualify that sentiment because I don’t want her instantly on the defensive. “But my mate… She’s out there. There has to be a way for us to be together, otherwise you wouldn’t have connected our destinies, right?”
“It’s a bit more complicated, Jax.” Fate stands and turns toward me, then uses her pink-and-purple splashed fingers to crook my chin up to meet her rainbow gaze. “It wasn’t our ideato erase your memories.” She pauses, as if weighing whether to continue. “It was yours.”
“What?” I rear back from Fate’s grasp. “Why?”
“You’re here for answers. I’m not unwilling to give them to you, but know that the truth of the past won’t change who you are or what she is.”
“She is mine, mortal or not,” I growl out, the force of its reverberation shaking flowers and leaves down from the ceiling. An icicle shatters on the floor.
Fate winces, waving it away and tossing a new one up, as if it didn’t happen. Her face softens. “You truly wish to rescind your request to withhold your memories?”
“Are they tied to her?”
“Yes.”
“Then I rescind my request. I need to know.”
“Once I return them to you, it cannot be undone.” Her glittering eyes convey that this is the last time she’ll ask.
