Athanasius's tone turns gentle. "Gather the others. We will kill the mage and then have vengeance."
Taking a deep breath, Moireth licks their lips. "What will you do after you sit on your throne of shadow and blood?" Their eyes narrow. "Don't pussy foot around it, to assume this realm in your true form means you will kill Ione," Moireth tilts their head to the left. "In order to bring the destruction you wish, you must walk this plain in your true body, a sacrifice of your avatar is needed."
"I am aware." He answers coldly.
My heart falls into my stomach. My hands are cold. He'll kill me? No, that's not what he said. He said we'd be together, nowhere in what he said implied that I would die. Unless…I'd be some kind of ghost?
Moireth clucks their tongue. "I don't think you want to do that."
"I don't," He breathes. "I…she is—"
"Hasn't this world suffered enough? Just the way it is?" Moireth finishes.
Athanasius snorts. "You mean to distract me?"
Moireth shrugs.
"Is this your destiny? Favored sibling?" He asks.
Moireth chuckles, low and dry. “Best not let Luciara hear you say that.” They pause, drawing in a slow breath. “Funny thing is…” A slight tilt of the head, a glint behind their eyes. “I don’t make anyone’s destiny.” Moireth taps a finger to their temple. “Like fate, it isn’t something handed down. It’s built—choice by choice. What you take, what you give, what you reveal to another. I’m not the path. I’m the hunger that makes you walk it.” They lean in, voice softening. “So, the question isn’twhatdestiny is. It’swhatyou're choosing. Andwhy.”
Athanasius scoffs. "When this is over, where are you going?"
Moireth smiles. "Caspian wishes to see the stars and realms, I am bonded to him, and so I will take him."
"Do you love him?" Athanasius asked.
"Not the way that you love Ione," Moireth explained. "I have seen his soul in others before him who have served me. It keeps coming back to serve, tied to me so closely, wrapped in the design of who I am like this is the path we are supposed to be on. I dote on him like he…is my child. He sees in me an older sibling, a dear friend. I love him, but not like your raw emotion for your consort." Before he can reply Moireth continues. "Do not say that you do not. I can feel it. You have never threatened one of us before, your twin at that. So, what will you do?" Moireth smirks. "Think carefully."
That's when it happens. I never saw it coming from him. Isn't that how it always happens? A foolish heart that doesn't hear you calling, and just falls? It heeds no warnings, and then you feel like a destitute fool for being wrong.
"I do not love her like that." It's a whisper, and half of me wants to think I didn't hear him correctly.
"We do not lie. It is beneath us." Moireth objects. "You've changed, you bend the rules for her and what is love if not doing the highest good for someone else?"
Athanasius stares at her, silence passes between them. "Go, Moireth, and tell the others to be ready. On the solstice we will move, the mage is weakest then."
"As you wish."
Slowly, I make my way back to my room. Not to bed, but to the bathroom. It wasn’t what he said—it was the silence after. The kind that hangs between people like a thread snapped too suddenly. And in that moment, something inside me folded in on itself. Like paper creased too many times—fragile, softened, worn thin. My chest tightened, not like heartbreak, not yet, but like forgetting how to breathe in a room that suddenly felt too small. My fingers went cold. My ears rang.
As I closed the bathroom door, locking it, I stared at myself in the mirror and tried to convince myself that this was all just a game anyway. I was having fun. But I didn't believe what he said, even though I heard it, that's not what I felt and he was just saving face. But inside, it felt like everything was rearranging itself. Every memory, every touch, every time he looked at me and I thought I saw something real. All of it slipping through me like water I couldn’t hold.
Chapter twenty-two
Sweet Lies
Athanasius
Aftergoingbacktobed, I hear her in the bathroom, the water is running, muffling sound, but I can hear her shuffling about. I lay in the darkness and think about what I said. I did lie. Why? I can't say I don't know, I know why. I wanted to be resolute and I did not want to appear weak. I have no intention of disgracing my true form by walking this realm. Ione is to be the bearer of my will, she will enact my wishes and I will convene with her in the form I have now.
Only her.
I know the sacrifice others have made, but not her. I would never ask such a thing, but why did I say that? Certainly, if anyone, I could be honest with Moireth, but in the past they have always looked for strength and resoluteness from me. To deter now, would be to become someone else, and I have never been that.
Ione exits the bathroom. She takes my breath away every time I see her. I've never been much for pleasures of the flesh, partaking when the need was great, it was offered to me, or I was highly tempted. Around her? I have a need for her moans, her touches, to feel her from the inside like it's ingrained in my psyche. I cannot function without her, and at first, I hated it, now? I cannot think of another way of being. Me, a Primordial with my mind so enraptured by a human.
It has never happened like this before, even whenshetried I was on edge. I was content in her affections, but something was missing. I know now that her so-called love was a farce. I feel nothing like that from Ione, her affections aretrue. The next time I fall in love, psh, I never even dreamed that. No, it was Luciara who said it. The next time, she said I'd know better.
