BONDS THAT CAN’T BREAK
Acatalepsy (noun): an ancient Skeptic doctrine that human knowledge amounts only to probability and never to certainty.
DAY 38, HOUR 12
I was covered in ice and it felt like a hug.
The bottom of the bunk above my head was also iced over.
After everything that had happened, weirdly, I didn’t feel any sadness.
I was overwhelmed with gratitude that all three of us had survived against unmistakable odds.
When we’d gotten back to the camp, immense relief had bowled me over.
It was over.
All three of us had beaten horrible odds and lived.
It felt like a miracle.
On top of surviving, for the first time in my life, I had closure over why I’d started suffering when I was fourteen years old.
Most of all, I was grateful that my entire soul wasn’t missing like I’d initially thought. A small piece I could handle. It made it a fixable problem.
I’d successfully processed my grief (I was delusional).
The body draped across me like a blanket shifted, and I grunted as they kneed me in the crotch.
“Are you still crying?” Sadie asked as she sniffled and buried her face in the blankets near my head.
“Uh—yes,” I lied, just so she wouldn’t feel alone.
Sadie sobbed, “Me too.”
“I didn’t notice,” I replied. She’d been wailing for hours straight, and I was concerned about how she was still going.
Her labored breathing was loud in the mostly empty bedroom.
She was safe and alive.
In my arms.
Sadie’s mates and the rest of my legion were waiting for us outside in the blizzard. They stayed away outside out of respect for us—Sadie had also threatened to enslave everyone with her blood if they didn’t leave us alone.
The latter had played a big part in them giving us the room.
“Can I leave now?” Jinx asked from the floor beside the bed. She was wrapped in blankets and had bandages around her head. Sadie was holding her hand, and I had my free hand on her shoulder.
Jinx complained but didn’t pull away from our touch.
When I’d woken up after a restful sleep, I’d had startling clarity that Jinx was as much a victim as the rest of us. She’d been beaten and abused by the leaders for years. She’d lost a leg in the Legionnaire Games, just so I could earn my wings.
Jinx was a pawn as much as any of us.
If I could try to forgive Lothaire for abandoning me as a child, then I could do the same for the woman who’d been tortured worse than any of us.
When we needed her, she’d saved us.
A few weeks ago, I would have spiraled at her revelations and moped. I would have refused to forgive her and would have punished us both.
But I wasn’t an empty shell anymore.
A necklace and bracelet pulsed warm against my skin, reminding me that my soul wasn’t as empty. I was connected to the twins.
There was a bit of color in my life, and the cold didn’t feel as pervasive with my best friend lying in my arms.
I’d slaughtered too many infected. I’d spent too many hours slicing people to pieces because they were unlucky enough to be taken over by monsters. I wasn’t going to cut Jinx out of my life.
It was messed up, but war had given me perspective.
I just wanted the killing, the hate, the violence to stop.
I wanted peace for all of us.
And sun god, for the first time in my life, I understood why I was the way I was. I no longer felt like I was going insane.
Sadie let out a long dramatic wail, and I grimaced as I patted her head. She was taking the death of the twin girls and mutilation of my soul extra hard. I wanted to join her in grieving, but since I had no memories of the girls, I couldn’t find the emotions.
All I could focus on was the three of us were alive.
It was a miracle.
For a period back in that room, I’d been certain that Sadie was going to die.
I’d been a few seconds away from losing her.
Jinx shifted and I patted her head. She gave me a death glare, but didn’t pull away or say anything mean.
For her, that was a declaration of love.
Back in the settlement, after Jinx had finished confessing everything, she’d started to crawl away from us. She’d thought we’d blame her. She’d thought we wouldn’t want her to be a part of our family anymore.
She didn’t understand how this family worked.
We’d all been used. We’d all been mutilated, each of us in different ways. We’d all been treated as pawns.
“So,” I said conversationally. “How do we stop the leaders?”
“I’m going to tear them to shreds,” Sadie said as she punched my pillow.
Jinx sighed loudly and shook her head. “I’ve told you both, we don’t. They have an entire institution behind them, and the leaders are insanely powerful. They are more.”
“What does that mean?” Sadie asked with confusion.
Jinx looked back at us, midnight-black eyes wide and haunted. “Some things in life are beatable. Some are only survivable. This is the latter.”
“I don’t accept that,” Sadie said.
Jinx stared blankly.
Her pale features were stark and slightly uncanny. It finally made sense; they were too sharp to be from these realms because she wasn’t.
She was a class six creature.
A trafficked child.
She was a monster soulmancer.
She was my sister, and I wanted to gut the people who’d hurt her.
“Here I opened wide the door—” Jinx closed her eyes. “—darkness there, and nothing more.”
Ice spread across the sheets, and Sadie shivered but didn’t complain.
Sadie trembled against me. “Is that also from Nietzsche?”
“No, a genius named Edgar Allan Poe.” Jinx leaned into our touch and rested her head against the side of the bed. She whispered, “I thought for sure you’d both hate me. I thought”—her voice cracked—“that I’d be completely alone.”
I whispered, “You’re stuck with us.”
Sadie laughed weakly. “We all have our problems.”
Jinx’s face twisted with confusion. “How can you say that? I mutilated your souls?”
Acceptance was a foreign emotion in my chest as I replied, “It happened a long time ago. Crying about it now won’t change anything.”
Sadie sobbed harder and whispered, “I have a confession—once in the beast realm, I enslaved Aran with my blood when she was asleep, and I made her get me food from the kitchen because I was so sore from training, and she doesn’t remember it.”
I rolled my eyes and replied, “Once I found a kitten and gave it to Sadie as a gift, and it kidnapped her.”
Sadie barked with laughter and hiccuped as she remembered how Xerxes had spied on us. The sound was so ridiculous that I chuckled.
“What even is our lives?” she asked between gasps.
“I think we’re lucky,” I whispered, and Sadie looked at me with confusion.
I explained, “At this rate, we probably shouldn’t be alive. But here the three of us are—it’s a miracle.”
Sadie’s lower lip trembled as she thought about it, then she let out a half scream, half sob. “You both are so special,” she wailed loudly.
“You’re ridiculous,” Jinx grumbled, but she reached up and grabbed my frozen hand. Her fingers were heavily bandaged.
“What do we do now?” Sadie asked as she wiped tears from her eyes.
Jinx said, “What we’ve always done.”
“We survive,” I said with conviction.
I pushed Sadie off me so I could sit up. She clung to me dramatically, and I swallowed more laughter because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Something about watching her sob was so funny to me.
Yes. I was a bad person.
Sadie moaned dramatically, “It’s so much work. I’m tired.”
Jinx glared at her.
I looked back and forth between the sister who’d stolen my soul and the sister she’d given it to.
I felt so sun-god-damned lucky.
My soul had been gifted to the one person I was closest to in all the realms. It had made her stronger and helped her survive.
I shuddered to think what Sadie would be without me. I was literally her best friend and the analytical voice inside her head that allowed her to fight well.
Ever had an impact on someone’s life? Same.
“You would be so lost without me.” I grinned at Sadie.
She punched me in the tit, and I yelped.
“Don’t be insensitive.” She sniffed. “This is a very emotional time.”
“Is it really?” I dodged another punch.
The door slammed open, and a towering shadow entered. My adrenaline went through the roof. Without thinking, I flung myself out of the bed and stood protectively in front of Jinx and Sadie.
“Um, sorry to interrupt,” Malum said awkwardly as he rubbed the back of his neck, pink staining his cheeks. “A worker just told us that the High Court is looking for us. They want us all present to debrief in the strategy room.”
My chest deflated, and I looked back at the girls. Jinx’s panicked expressions reminded me of what was at stake.
It didn’t matter how much I hated the High Court; we had to wait and plan.
We had to pretend we didn’t know.
We had to survive.
Jax pushed into the room behind the blushing king, he looked over Jinx like he was making sure she hadn’t gotten injured while in the bedroom with us (a very real possibility).
“Are you okay?” the towering shifter asked with concern as he reached down and hugged her like she might break. The golden chains in his long braids tinkled as he held his sister.
Jinx hugged him back. “I’m fine. Sadie and Aran are being weird.” She inhaled and rested her head on Jax’s shoulders like she was taking strength from him.
Sadie made a face at her.
I blew her a kiss.
“I don’t care what’s happened in the past.” Jax’s expression was serious as he stared down at Jinx. “You’ll always be my baby sister,” he said fiercely. “I will always stand beside you protectively.”
Jinx sucked in air shakily.
“I need to hear you say it—please.” His voice cracked.
“You’ll always be my brother,” Jinx whispered. “You’ll always be there for me.” She gently kissed his cheek.
They continued to embrace for a long moment, then they pulled apart. Jax draped one arm over Jinx’s shoulder and the other over Sadie’s. He nodded at me as they left.
I tipped an imaginary hat.
Warmth dethawed another portion of my heart.
Dick was projected onto the screen. The cloaked man and Lothaire flanked him on either side.
Lothaire stared at me and mouthed discreetly, “I heard what you did.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “Good work, daughter.”
Pride swelled.
“There were no foot soldiers left,” Knox said grimly as he stood at the front of the room and gave the battle report. “None survived.”
Holy sun god.
My smile slipped.
With everything happening, I’d forgotten about the rest of the battle.
I lifted my head and locked eyes with Sadie, who also looked stunned. The rest of the men looked resigned. They’d already known.
“You’re telling me,” Dick said harshly, “that all the soldiers stationed on the perimeter are dead. All of them?”
Knox nodded. “The twenty of us who went inside are all that remain. The academy, shifter, angel, and assassin legions are all that are left.”
“How?” Dick spat.
Knox swallowed thickly and said, “There seems to be a large group of infected that rushed outside as soon as the battle began. It was not a handful like usual, it was dozens.”
“Why the change in behavior?” Dick’s eyes narrowed, and his tone was poisonous. “Where did they go, soldier?”
“I’m not sure, sir. It’s our belief, however, that it wasn’t that many and the war is over. We’ve wiped out most of the ungodly. The last ones can be eliminated as they’re found.” Knox bowed his head deeply and stepped back from the screen.
Dick stared down at where he’d stood with disgust on his features.
I inhaled fortitude and lifted my head high. “I know where they went,” I said.
Dick’s head snapped up.
It took every ounce of control I possessed not to flinch as he looked at me.
The angels turned around and glared.
Lothaire nodded at me, like he was encouraging me to continue. He believed in me.
His approval gave me strength.
I took a deep breath.
“In the battle, we found another map of the realms,” I said calmly. “However, this one contained a key—the red Xs on the mountains by the third valley are villages. It’s likely that the last stronghold of infected is located there.”
Silence.
The room exploded in murmurs. In my peripheral vision, the angels gave me death glares. They wanted the war to be over, and so did I. But I wasn’t going to pretend the threat was eliminated when it wasn’t.
This war would haunt me for the rest of my life.
I needed it over.
For good.
Once I left this sun-god-cursed realm, I was never coming back. The corrupt High Court would have to drag me kicking and screaming.
“How many infected are suspected?” Dick asked.
My heart thumped erratically in my chest as I thought about what he’d done to Jinx. What he’d done to all of us.
He was a leader, and we were his pawns.
I wanted to snap his neck.
Ice spread across my fingers, and I tucked them behind my back as I stood at attention.
“Unclear, sir.” I kept my eyes dead and expression blank. “Most likely a large number. There were multiple Xs on the map.”
The angels murmured to one another with discontent.
“There are only twenty of you left.” Dick enunciated each word like he was thinking. “And because of the peace accords, we can’t recruit additional soldiers.”
Lothaire looked worried.
“All of you will RJE to the valley and hike to the mountains. You’ll eliminate the last ungodly, and this war will be over. We can’t give them time to escape. You’ll go tomorrow.”
Rina gasped.
The corner of Dick’s lips pulled up in a sneer, and he turned to Malum. “Since you’ve found all your mates, you’ll activate your powers to ensure this battle is won. You’re the kings of the sun god for a reason—prove it.”
Malum made a noise of disbelief. “But, sir—”
“We’ve paid for your therapy,” Dick said harshly, “and we’ve been informed that you’ve been practicing—is that not true?”
“It’s true,” Corvus said. “Howev—”
Dick interrupted, “Then it’s decided. Good luck, soldiers.”
The screen went dark.
“See you tomorrow on the battlefield,” the angels sneered at me as they left the room.
From their tone, they thought this was my fault.
Sadie and Jinx both turned to me with worry.
“You guys go ahead. I need to speak to my legion.” I tried to sound reassuring, but I shivered with nerves and ice spread across the floor beneath me.
They reluctantly left the room.
Seven men stared at me expectantly.
“Um, you two can also go,” I said to the demons.
Vegar rolled his eyes and sat down in a leather chair. “No, thank you,” he said. “We’ll stay here where it’s safe.” Zenith nodded as he sat down next to him.
“It was an accident,” Malum mumbled petulantly, referring to the bathroom he’d destroyed in a fit of rage. “No one got hurt.”
Vegar scoffed. “We’re staying.” He turned in his chair to face Zenith and gave us his back, a clear dismissal.
“Whatever.” I stomped out into the raging blizzard, and five men ran to surround me.
John threw his arm over my shoulder and tucked me against his side as he turned to protect me from the harsh snow.
Luka wrapped his hand around my curls and leaned close. “Are you okay?” he whispered, dark circles stark under his worried eyes as snow gathered on his lashes.
“I think so,” I said honestly.
He pressed a soft kiss onto my forehead.
Like personal guards, Scorpius and Orion fell into protective positions in front of me. Malum walked behind me, his flames shedding warmth that fought against the icy wind.
They formed a wall of protection.
When we got back to the sleeping barracks, Scorpius dusted snow off my hair while Orion helped me out of my coat.
Malum knelt at my feet and pulled off my combat boots, and I opened my mouth to complain that I could do it myself, but he gave me a death glare. “Let me serve you. Your leg is still healing.”
“It’s healed.” I smacked my leg to demonstrate and nearly threw up. It burned with agony.
Malum grabbed my wrist. “What the fuck? Don’t hurt yourself.” His eyes widened like he was panicking.
“Let me clarify,” I said calmly. “It’s almost healed.”
“No. It’s not.” He dragged his hand over his shaved head and breathed shallowly.
I accidentally (on purpose) kicked off my combat boot straight into his gut to show him how well it worked.
“Don’t hurt yourself!” Malum barked with concern as he caught my boot.
Yet again, he missed the point.
The twins grabbed the blanket off my bed and wrapped it around my shoulders.
When they were content that I was warm, the men stepped back.
Malum raked his hands down his face and paced. “Fuck, what are we going to do? Arabella fell asleep every time we tried to have her stop us. The ungodly seem mostly immune to fire, and there’s still a chance we could kill the angels and assassins.”
He was spiraling.
“Or they might be fine and we’re worrying for nothing,” Orion whispered. “At least the infected would die.”
Luka played with one of my curls. His attention was fully on me, and he acted like the other men didn’t exist.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t do the same.
“We could always just kill them all,” Scorpius said dispassionately. “Who cares if the angels or assassins die?” He smirked like the idea excited him.
I grimaced. Sometimes I forgot how cavalier he was about other people’s deaths.
It was creepy that I didn’t find it disturbing.
The men looked around like they were waiting for someone to come up with a solution, and my stomach plummeted as I thought about everything I’d learned.
“I’m missing a piece of my soul,” I blurted because apparently, I was in the mood to trauma dump.
“What?” Luka asked as he stared at me. “We told you we don’t thin—”
“I confirmed it. I have sources,” I said quickly before I lost my courage. “I’m missing a piece of my soul. The High Court took it from me when I was fourteen.”
I left out the part about Jinx taking it and giving it to Sadie, because some things in life were personal.
Knowing the men, they’d probably get jealous.
There was a long pause, then Malum went up in flames. “Who did this to you? I want names. Now.” Scarlet exploded from his mouth.
I pushed my pipe between my lips and closed my eyes as the first drag of enchanted drugs calmed me. “I’m not sure,” I lied. “We can worry about that later.” It was partially the truth because I didn’t know who the other leader was.
Luka moved closer, his features contorted in pain.
All the men stared at me like they were grieving for me.
I shrugged because I honestly wasn’t that upset about it. A part of me had always known something wasn’t right.
I no longer felt crazy.
Chuckling awkwardly, I said, “I always had a feeling I was a soulless bitch.”
No one laughed.
Tough crowd.
“We’re the lost princes from the Olympus realm,” John blurted, and darkness glittered around him and expanded. “We kept our identities a secret from the realms because we struggle with our—people skills.” He glanced over at Luka. “Our powers form a portal to the underworld, the maximum-security prison run by our father, King Hades. We’re not supposed to tell anyone. Ever. It’s a family secret.”
I blew out a puff of smoke. “I know. You already told me you were the Princes of Darkness?”
John frowned. “But we didn’t tell you we were from the Olympus realm. We didn’t explain who we were—or what we could do.”
It hit me. “Oh my sun god!” I exclaimed. “Is that where our truth journals are from?”
“What?” Luka asked.
Orion nodded and whispered, “I think so.”
John flashed his dimples and punched my arm. “Really. That’s all you have to say?” My bicep went numb, and I lost feeling in my fingers.
I punched him back with my good arm as hard as I could, and he laughed.
“And I’m the Queen of the Fae Realm. What do you want—a medal?”
John grinned at me and ruffled my hair. His smile slowly dropped as he stared at me.
“Are you really missing a piece of your soul?” he whispered.
I nodded.
He looked horrified.
I took a deep breath. “That’s why our soul bond is corrupted. The betrothal jewelry probably sensed I was broken and tried to forge the connection to help me. It’s probably what overrode the bond sickness. I’d assume it’s corrupting your souls or something, but I don’t know.”
I expected the twins to recoil with disgust.
Both took a step closer.
“So we’re helping you,” John said with awe in his voice.
They both looked at me like they were enraptured and not at all disturbed by what they were learning.
“We’re never letting you go,” Luka said with steel in his voice like he could read my thoughts.
Malum breathed harshly, “So you’ve been mutilated?” Both Scorpius and Orion looked at him with concern.
I stopped breathing.
My heart beat erratically.
This was what I’d been waiting for; these were the consequences that had my thoughts racing and fear filling me ever since Jinx had revealed the truth.
I’d known it was coming.
“Yes.” as I pushed my shoulders back and sized up Malum. “Which means I’ll never be your perfect Revered. I probably won’t be able to help you control your fire in any way. I’ll corrupt you—just like I corrupted the twins.”
I paused. “I’m useless to you.”
Molten silver flashed.
Scorpius made a harsh noise under his breath, and Orion’s eyes widened. A muscle in Malum’s jaw jumped.
“Is that so?” he exhaled, and fire came out of his nose.
“I’ll never be your perfect Revered,” I said softly. “You don’t have to pretend anymore. I know I drive you crazy.”
Malum transformed into a creature of bronze and malice. “You’re right,” he said.
White teeth flashed.
My heart stopped beating.
It was a cold, dead, useless thing in my chest.
Malum smiled cruelly. “We don’t have to pretend anymore.”
