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Chapter 11

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What misfortune it is to possess free will.

Xios

I wish I were playing outside.

Forehead to the glass of my bedroom window, I watch Zahra and Castor laugh and joke and roleplay and snack and battle it out side-by-side against a mob of opposing humans dressed like guards. The hilarity rioting in Castor's whole being can only stem from the insanity of it all.

Fake fantasy and fake fighting. While he is a powerful creature trained in a variety of combats all over the world and all over history.

He has been the deciding factor in the start and end of wars that are still listed in textbooks.

Playing like he is right now is ludicrous.

Absolutely ridiculous.

And absolutely beautiful.

I sigh and peer down at Ash, who's been changed and fed and rocked to sleep. "You're very boring," I tell him. "All you do is eat and sleep and—" I swear. "I wonder at what age you will become amusing." Touching a kiss to his small forehead, I hum a song I learned from one of the movies Willow recommended when she set up her streaming services on my phone.

As I've yet to drag myself all the way into the woods on the other side of Mountain Vale for a Thursday movie night, she insists I partake in spirit.

Sometimes I do. Sometimes I'm too busy teaching my mental health birb app about existential dread.

Being a father is a difficult task, isn't that right, Ash?

Mommies get to have all the fun playing outside in their sexy little outfits while daddies are stuck at home, changing diapers, or making drugs in the basement and telling their little nightmare daughters to stop biting.

In my experience, anyway.

"I'm too young for this kind of responsibility." My brows rise as I sit on my bed. "Oh dear. I said that aloud, so I must at least believe it if it's not true. How discouraging."

Given my personality, I'm liable to teach a child all sorts of things just because it's funny.

Remarkable, really, that Zahra worked through her anxiety about today and decided to trust me with her precious little baby. Who is already her favorite. Even though he just eats and craps and sleeps.

I shouldn't be jealous of a baby.

And, yet, I find myself offended that I struggle with all three of his tricks. The sensory wasteland that is life kind of sucks.

Would things have been any different for me if I'd had the luxury of being eased into the physical plane, rather than dropped head-first into it, fully formed? To exist on its own is jarring. To become all at once without warning, to suffer feelings when there were previously none…

That's truly something else entirely.

"I hope you know how lucky you are," I whisper. "To come into this world…loved and expected and wanted. It's a treasure to be precious just for being ."

Life is a burden, and I resent my flesh.

Suddenly, my ajar door flies fully open to present a dark angel. Cloak whipping behind her, Zahra—with gleaming purple eyes and sparkling makeup to match—sweeps in, locates me, and brightens.

Never…mind.

Life's okay, innit?

I smile, up until the moment Zahra lifts Ash carefully from my arms, presses a kiss to his cheek, and cradles him in against her heart, all but forgetting I'm here. "My baby," she murmurs into the thin wisps of his curling hair.

Frowning, I lock my ankles and lean back on my palms. I really shouldn't be jealous of a baby…yet I wish she'd possess me like that. "How was your live action roleplaying?"

Her eyes spark when they catch mine. "You could have warned me there would be an extra visitor."

"Here I thought extroverts liked people."

She shakes her head, disapproving. "I can like people and want a little forewarning when I'm going to be interacting with a select few."

Drawing my attention off the sight of Zahra cuddling Ash, I gaze out the window at the medieval town beyond. "Well, my apologies. Text me a list of anyone I should warn you about, and I'll see what I can do where it concerns providing you with adequate time to mentally prepare."

"Why are you acting weird?" she asks.

My eyes close. Truly. Isn't that the question? I smile and lie down, rolling over to put my back to my soulmate. "Ash is a poor companion for conversation. I've found myself adrift in my thoughts for hours, which have left me forlorn and jealous."

"Jealous?" she echoes.

"Of Castor getting to play with you outside. Of Ash who you seek out immediately once your company is gone." Releasing a sigh, I bemoan. "Woe is me. I suffer beneath the weight of neglect. No one to play with. No one to hug."

Zahra's dry tone bears no pity. "Boohoo. Why don't you go home and ask Papa Pollux to play with you and give you a hug?"

My superfluous nerves pinch, just like every other time she's called Pollux that. Glaring over my shoulder, I say, "You didn't answer my question. The roleplaying. Did you have fun?"

Her attention drifts off me, out the window, back to Ash. "I wish I knew what Castor wanted. It feels dangerous to admit anything without knowing whether or not I'm letting my guard down when I really shouldn't. Do you know what he's after, or are you in the dark just like the rest of us?"

I hum and rest my head against my arm, staring at the wall. "He's after revenge." How, exactly, he's going about achieving it, who knows? I'm sincerely not concerned. After all, I'm an outlier in the emotional combat betwixt Pollux, Castor, and Cael. What they do hardly concerns me. My only goal in all this is standing behind me, upset, confused, tormented with worry.

"He really thinks you're his friend."

I bristle and roll over, sitting up. "What makes you phrase that so strangely?"

"You're in this Villain Protection Program helping Alana, who is aligned with Cael. Meda's your sister, and her father is Pollux. It doesn't make sense that you'd actually be helping Castor get revenge against them." Her purple eyes narrow, so different from their usual, sharp green. "Right?"

I watch her for several moments, taste the unbearable flickers of duress thickening in the air around her. They're a tease that I could take in an effort to fill the aching hole in my gut, if I so dared. I already know she wouldn't give them to me if I asked, but that is the wicked advantage of being a yamachichi.

I am not actually compelled to ask anyone for anything.

That I do anyway is a courtesy.

In all honesty, I can take whatever I want from anyone, so long as I have a scrap of leeway. Which otherwise means, so long as I am stronger than they are .

Holding myself back from wrestling away whatever I want is a mere side effect of my origination being in someone as kind as Alana. Either that or it's a paltry trait of having had Pollux involved in the early moments of my existence. His kindness is also very much a disease.

Leaning forward, I murmur, " Helping is a strong word to use in either situation, snowflake. Friends aren't obligated to help each other with anything. I am a neutral party in a game I did not start and likely will not end. I value my relationships across the chess board, and I am willing to intercede on the behalf of those I care about in an effort to create the path of least pain. I am Castor's friend. Presently, I am the most important person in his world. I crave that kind of relationship. So while, no, I will not help him hurt anyone directly, there are a grand many things I will do if that secures my position at his side."

"It hurt Pila when you took a sapling from the dryads." Spite laces Zahra's tone.

My eyes roll as I let a twisted smile curl my lips. " Please . She overreacted."

"She was an expecting mother," Zahra snaps. "You scared her."

"Yet she survived, and her baby survived."

"You're being insensitive. Losing that sapling was like miscarrying." Tears well in her eyes. "Do you even understand that? Do you even understand how terrifying it is to—to want so desperately to be a mother and have something happen where you fear you may not be able to be one for either years or…or ever?"

Ash whimpers, writhing in his bundle, and Zahra freezes, shifting her attention to rocking him. A teardrop falls onto his skin, rolling down the gray flesh, and she swears, swallowing hard as she wipes it off. "I'm sorry, baby. Mommy's being loud. It's okay…"

"I in no way threatened Pila's chances, Zahra. I promise you that. I knew what I was doing, and I'm not going to agonize over having done nothing more than scare her." I stand, spread my hands. "Are you going to lash out at me about the events that have allowed you to be a mother as well? Are you going penalize me for my actions because you're conflicted about what's right and what's wrong?" I let a cool smile stretch my lips. "Does my peace and confidence offend you while you're struggling to find it for yourself? I trust my judgment. And if I change my mind someday about what I've done, I will make amends as they are due. For now, if you believe I deserve to be punished, know I shall suffer eternally with the knowledge that in granting you—my precious soulmate—your heart's desire, I have made myself obsolete." Lowering my hands and letting my smile erode, I murmur, "I shall live knowing that even if you come to love me someday, I will never have been everything to you—not even for a moment."

"Isn't wanting so much a little greedy?" she hisses.

"Yes. But I do not know how to be full, and I fear anything less will not be enough."

She says nothing for many moments, eyeing me with a distant sort of concern that leaves me feeling as raw as her emotions appear to me. In the quiet, I fear I've portrayed myself in darker lights than she may ever forgive me for.

I can tell—by her actions and her emotions—that being a mother is important to her. If she perceives that I caused the kind of suffering and fear she could never forgive, I will never be able to come back from it.

Her gaze drops to Ash as he settles again, and she frees a tight breath. "I had fun."

My chin lifts.

"Castor is literally the stupidest goofball I have ever met. What in the world is wrong with him?"

I smile as my prickling nerves ease. "I think he's gone a bit mad from the isolation."

"Makes sense." Her lips purse. "Do you know what happened? Cael and Pollux don't seem like bad people. I can't picture them abandoning Castor for something unimportant if they were friends once."

"Sorry." I close my hand into a fist. "I don't have any details, but you're not wrong. I'm not prepared to suggest any of them are blameless. Conflicts among people who are good at their cores rarely wind up one-sided."

"Is Castor good at his core? Wouldn't Cael or Pollux be able to sense that kind of thing? They've both got some of your emotion prowess, don't they?"

I chuckle, daring to move a step closer to my beautiful, rogue soulmate. "Yes, some . Pollux knows fears. Cael dissects brokenness. He can feel Castor's anger, his malice, his hate, all the things that have left him shattered. Cael has lost all kindness for Castor over whatever happened." I take another step toward Zahra. "Pollux, on the other hand, feels Castor's anguish, his terrors linked to loneliness. They were closer, as far as I've come to understand, because what Pollux can sense leaves more room for mercy."

Zahra's eyes lift when I'm a mere foot away. They meet mine. And…I think the purple's growing on me. If it were mixed with her usual green, her eyes would reflect the Northern Lights. And it would suit her too well. "What do you feel in Castor?" she asks.

"Pain." Cautiously lifting a hand, I pinch two fingers around the hem of her hood and smooth it down toward her chin. "Hurt people hurt people, Zahra. We give what we experience ourselves, in a desperate effort to connect to someone else in this uncertain world. When we aren't self-aware enough to manage the implications of our actions, we do it subconsciously."

Her gaze flicks toward my hand as I draw it away. Stern, she puts a foot of distance between us and mutters, "Aren't you a little young to have come to these kinds of conclusions?"

I close the distance between us again, locking my hands behind my back as I do. "Am I?"

She regains the distance. "Less than a year old, I'm told."

"That rhymed." I lift my foot.

"Stop cornering me. You're going to wake Ash again."

I put my foot down. "You're tired, snowflake. Why don't you retire early tonight? We can talk more about anything worrying you in the morning."

Sighing, she nods, bids me goodnight, and leaves my room.

In the vacuum of her absence, I turn myself toward the window just in time for Castor to materialize out of the dust. Rolling my eyes off him, I go back to my bed. "You're still blond."

"Am I not always blond?" he asks.

I lie down, back to him. "I consider you more devoid of color ."

He hums, and his weight settles by my feet when he sits.

"How much did you hear?" I mumble, folding an arm beneath my head, removing my phone from my pocket, and opening up my Finch app to check on my little birb.

"Oh. Enough."

"How embarrassing."

His low laughter, for some reason, makes me smile.

I change my little birb's outfit from his day clothes to his PJs and give him his toothbrush. "Did you have fun playing pretend?"

"It was a riveting experience." A pause. "I quite enjoy the company of your soulmate."

My smile widens, and I turn my attention toward him. "She's cute, isn't she?"

"Certainly entertaining. When do you plan to take her humanity?"

I roll to my back and look at the ceiling. "I don't know that she wants me to right now."

"The star nymphs are masters of disguise, even without contracts to bring other powers into her solar system. It's likely why she entertains so much dress up. She'd retain her ability to walk among her horde of children at that school of Kass's, should she so desire."

She would so desire. I don't think anything could rip her away from her kids. "She's much too attached to her lies for me to so much as broach the subject unless I offer a means for her to retain the falsehoods."

"Well, we both know there are ways for a star nymph to maintain such abilities…however difficult it may be to find and coerce them into acceptance." Castor angles his face ever so slightly toward me. "Shall I make myself more of a threat? Allow you to appeal to her desires for stability and control by implying that becoming fully fae would grant her access to magic she may use to protect herself and the baby?"

That would be positively evil.

Nevertheless, I consider it.

Am I okay with manipulating my soulmate in such a devious manner?

I mean, obviously.

I have already attempted something far worse.

Without gaining everything else on top of her humanity, however, she may hold a grudge against me for the deception. And, without humanity weighing her down, that grudge may be quite eternal.

There are limits and lines I shouldn't cross, things I want that I can't achieve through schemes.

"It would be for her own good," Castor notes. "Humanity does little for those so marked by our kind; even our brighter seelie kin suffer."

"For her own good or not, some things should be her choice."

"You'd allow your beloved to stroll toward her demise?"

The idea of that alone twists my heart. "She's a Christian. The freedom to stroll toward one's demise is a foundational part of theology and likely very important to her. Removing free will turns God into a tyrant, idly watching His creatures destroy themselves with no reason not to intercede on every account."

Castor barks a laugh. "My, you fancy yourself able to play God? You'd have the strength to continue in her absence should the threat of her impending doom steal her from the mortal realm?"

Probably not.

But some bridges we must cross when we reach them, and some burdens we must bear in silence.

"Castor."

His head tilts.

"Do not try to help me with this."

Standing, he dusts off his outrageous outfit. "Fine. Should your opinion change, let me know."

"Appreciated."

Without another word, he's gone.

And I'm alone. Again.

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