36. Cecilia

36

CECILIA

C ecilia sat on the windowsill, her hip pressed against the cool glass. She traced the webbed frost on the corners of the window as she watched the snow swirl outside. The heavy wool blanket around her shoulders slipped and she pulled it tighter, rubbing her sternum.

She was still so unaccustomed to the void where their connection had once lived, finding herself trying to pull on the bond but finding nothing where the light between them used to glimmer.

She was almost relieved to have a physical pain that matched her emotions.

He'd looked at her like he hated her. Rainer had never looked at her like that. He'd been furious with her for fleeting moments, betrayed or hurt, but he'd never looked at her like she was the villain.

She was so lost in thought she hardly registered that the persistent thudding sound was a knock on the door until it cracked open and Xander's voice cut through the quiet room.

"Cece, someone wants to see you."

Cecilia sighed heavily, not bothering to turn and look at him. "I said I didn't want to see anyone."

Xander crossed his arms. "Yes, I understand you're having yourself quite a brooding session. You'd give Rainer a run for his money, but your visitor was quite insistent and I thought you should hear her out."

Raven Whitewind stepped out from behind him.

Cecilia narrowed her eyes at the seer. "Haven't you done enough?"

Raven held up her hands. "I'm sorry that I had to take something from you that you didn't wish to give up. It was brave of you to take on the pain yourself."

Cecilia shrugged. "Not really. It always hurts me worse when he's in pain."

Raven nodded, pursing her lips. "I promised Selene I would look out for you. Can we talk?"

Cecilia wanted to send the seer away—wanted to scream and rage at her—but her birth mother's name on the lips of someone who had known her stopped Cecilia in her tracks.

"Fine."

Xander looked between them. Satisfied that he didn't need to intervene, he started to close the door. "I'll be outside if you need me."

The seer sat in one of the chairs by the fire and gestured to the other. Cecilia begrudgingly crossed the room and slumped into the chair.

"You feel it now, don't you? The loss?" Raven asked. "I have never seen a bond rooted so deeply like that. I wasn't sure I'd even be able to sever it."

Cecilia brought her hand to her chest. Even when she'd died and hovered in between life and death, she'd still felt some semblance of connection to Rainer drawing her back. Now there was nothing.

"You know, there are some who believe even after a severing, a soul bond leaves a trail, a way back to each other," Raven said.

Cecilia perked up, meeting the seer's eyes. "I could get it back?"

"If both of you want it, it will form again, no intermediary like me required. It's a bit like planting cover crops to loosen soil for the main crop. Those roots leave a pathway and if both parties wish to cross it, they can find a way. Unfortunately, I cannot offer a guidebook on how to make it happen and I've never witnessed it firsthand. Your bond grew so strong over time through both of your willingness to share so much of yourselves—finding the way back to each other requires the same."

Cecilia shrunk back in her chair. That was hopeless. She didn't need her power to remember how wounded Rainer looked. He wouldn't be reaching out for their bond ever again. Cecilia was just finally winning him over and it only took a few tearful words from Eloise to wipe out all the progress she'd made.

"I doubt that will be happening," Cecilia sighed.

"You have very little faith in him, all things considered."

Cecilia shook her head, wringing her hands and rubbing her thumb on her inner wrist. "I have plenty of faith in him. It's me I don't trust."

Raven smiled, leaning toward her. "I knew your mother, you know. Knew his mother, too."

"You knew Rainer's birth mother?"

Raven nodded. "Aria Harron. She was bonded to Zelden Novaris, you know?"

Cecilia frowned. "How?"

Raven's violet eyes clouded. "Bonding is as old as the kingdom itself. It didn't start with the Gauntlet. In fact, those who were bonded tended to be guardians of the kingdom. Instead of protecting each other, they protected major points of conflict on our borders. It made it easier for them to communicate in battle if they could feel things from each other. It helped them work against both brute force and magical attacks."

Cecilia stared at her, trying to process the information.

"Aria and Zelden had a soul bond and were quite in love. Unfortunately, Aria had a very difficult pregnancy and a more difficult birth. The healers did the best they could. Zelden was out of his mind with fear and grief when they told him there was nothing more they could do. Her pressure wouldn't regulate, no matter how they tried. Aria made Zelden sit with her and the baby until the end. I think she tried to love Rainer enough in those few moments to make up for the lifetime she knew she wouldn't have.

"I think Zelden tried to love Rainer, too, but he didn't have that same gentleness as his son. He was so broken by the loss of Aria, he didn't know how to love a baby. So he did the next best thing and left Rainer with Maura McKay, a friend of Aria's who hadn't been able to have a child of her own. Some believe that losing Aria is what really brought Zelden down. He didn't have her there at the final battle, and he didn't have anything to come back for in his mind."

Tears burned in Cecilia's eyes, her heart aching for Rainer.

"All this to say that you wouldn't be the first person laid low by a broken bond," Raven said. "But there are many paths you can take and they entirely depend upon how willing you are to pick yourself up and soldier on."

Cecilia scowled at her. "Delightful. Did you just come to tell me about the love of my life's tragic past or was there something more?"

Raven grinned, not at all put off by her rudeness. "Good to see you've got a little fire left, girl. I knew the first time I laid eyes on you that you'd be a force. For what it's worth, your bond made you both stronger."

"I know that," Cecilia snapped. "Now what do you want?"

Raven placed a hand on Cecilia's. "I promised your mother I would keep an eye on you. When I told Selene how things would go for her, and how they'd likely go for you, she wanted to make sure you had someone in your corner. More than one someone, really. The future is a tangle of fate and free will and I have taught myself to see the most likely paths. You've doubted his love in the past—despite his assurance and that of your sister Aelish. You wanted to know that he would love you without the bond. Now you can find out for sure."

"I didn't think it would happen this way—with him having no memory," Cecilia snapped. "I am so tired. I've lost everything. I know Rainer is still alive and I'm so grateful for that, but I don't know how to lose him like this—how to let someone else have him." She shook her head, trying to take a breath around the pain in her chest. "How could I be so stupid before? I should have married him a year ago, grief or not. I was so foolish to push him away because I was so afraid to be loved. All of my hesitation seems so absurd now. I'm going to spend my life watching him with someone else. He'll never remember what we are to each other. Now, he doesn't even want to."

Tears poured down Cecilia's cheeks, dripping onto her dress in a percussive beat. She had learned enough to know that grief was just unspent love, but she'd never spend all the love she had for him. She'd spend her whole life grieving. Sometimes love just hurt, and Rainer had always been worth the pain.

Raven cocked her head to the side like she was reading Cecilia's thoughts. "There are many legends about soul bonds and the boundaries and limits of them, but most people misunderstand how they work. People are naturally selfish. They think that given the opportunity, they will fall into the trap of taking. I can tell even you think that. You think that Rainer has taken some part of you and you some part of him, and that makes you feel tied to each other and unable to know for sure what might exist between you without it."

Cecilia crossed her arms and leaned back in the chair, squinting at Raven through her tears. "Not anymore."

"Ah, but this is wrong. You give to each other. Those parts of him you felt in your chest were given, the same way the seeds you planted in his were gifted. You gave those things to each other. There was no stealing, no accidental theft. A true soul bond only grows into what the two parties allow. You grew love because that's what you gave to each other. You grew trust because you relied on each other. You chose to give the other parts of you that no one else could have. Magic did not require it. It was an exchange the two of you made freely."

Cecilia wiped her eyes. "This is supposed to make me feel better?"

"No, girl. It's supposed to make you feel focused . You wanted to know for sure that he wasn't compelled to love you—that he would have anyway if he could have chosen freely. He's told you so repeatedly, but you didn't believe him. I am telling you now what is true. It's not theft. It's generosity that brings you so close together. "

Cecilia leaned her head back against the chair. "I doubt he's feeling generous toward me now."

Raven sighed. "Rainer McKay left you in those woods alone. Do you remember why?"

Cecilia swallowed hard. "To remind me that I could save myself—that I still had the will to do that."

Raven nodded.

"And that's why you decided to help Vincent?" Cecilia growled.

"My whole life has been about making hard choices that no one else understands, girl," Raven said. "I helped Selene create the Gauntlet. I rode from cave to cave with her and Clastor and Cato and two other witches. But it was only she and I and Clastor who knew that you were there, too. She hid her pregnancy well, but I have foresight. I knew you'd be before she and Clastor did.

"You are a lot like her, small and fierce and loyal. Selene had very high hopes for you, but most of all, she hoped that the wisdom of human love would guide you—and she was right. She hoped you'd be an embodiment of the principles of the Gauntlet. Wisdom to know that power is best when shared. Memory of our mistakes so as to not make the same ones again. Magic to restore peace and prosperity to the kingdom. You want to know why I'm here? There's still something unsettled in you; it was what unsettled your mother when we created the power trapped in the Cave of Longings. Go ahead and ask."

Cecilia wanted to ask so many things. "How could she let me give something up? How could she when I had no real choice?" she asked, all the hurt pouring out in a hiccupping sob. She could not call up this pain when she had nothing with which to anchor herself.

"At least you're asking the right questions. Exchanges do require consent. Whatever is traded must be given freely."

Cecilia threw her hands up. "But I didn't have the option to opt out. Once I walked into the Cave of Longings, I could not stop the exchange. If I hadn't accepted it?—"

"Your soul would have been rendered from your body," Raven finished. A faint smile ghosted over her lips. "Makes you wonder?—"

Cecilia barked out a disbelieving sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "That! That is all you have to say? That exchanges require consent? Then why didn't this one?"

The seer paused, a maddening know-it-all look in her eyes. "Perhaps you should have paid closer attention in history classes."

Cecilia frowned. She could not recall ever learning about a magical exchange that was made without consent or how it worked out. She sighed and tipped her head back. The person who would know was Rainer and now that he didn't remember anything and hated her, he would not be the most reliable resource.

The seer stood and kissed Cecilia's cheek. "Selene was a woman of strong convictions, just like you. I bet her memories from the Gauntlet caves felt like home to you."

Cecilia placed her hand over her heart. The caves had felt like home. When she had access to her memory magic, she would call them up when she was sad and watch her mother's hands walk her through a spell, relishing the feeling of seeing, tasting, smelling, sensing what her mother did at that moment in time. But when the memory faded it always reminded her that she'd been robbed of the real thing and forced to settle for scraps of memory. Now she wished for so much more. She wanted to ask her mother so many questions and not be placated for asking the right ones. Raven was proving to be as cryptic as Cecilia's godly siblings.

"Selene would be happy to see you stand up for what you believe in. I must head home to Olney. I've done what I came here to do. I've delivered a message to the handsome king and now I must go. This is more excitement than my old bones can take."

Cecilia cocked her head to the side. Though she knew the woman had to be centuries old, Raven didn't look much older than forty. "That's all you have to say to me?"

Raven pursed her lips. "I've said plenty. Now, I know you're hurt and angry, but I need you to remember this next bit."

Cecilia glowered at the woman.

"You won't be trapped here forever." The seer's eyes clouded over and her body went rigid. " Come and find me when you've reached dry land and the spinning won't stop ." Her voice was airier, frailer, and the moment after she said the words, her eyes sharpened and she grinned.

Cecilia shook her head. "What does that mean?"

Raven smiled. "Just another stitch slipping into place. You'll know when the time comes. You have this well in hand."

Cecilia held up the Unsummoner bracelet. "How do you figure? Between this and your cryptic rambling, I am not better off."

The seer laughed. "I'll see you soon. Remember—when you reach dry land and the spinning won't stop."

Raven crossed the room and opened the door to reveal Xander standing in the doorway. She patted him on the shoulder. "Don't look so serious, Your Grace. It will all work out."

Cecilia watched her go, torn between fury and helpless frustration.

Xander lingered outside the room.

"What do you want?" she asked, staring into the fire.

His footsteps crept closer and he lowered to his knees in front of her chair so she couldn't avoid his gaze. His hazel eyes were full of compassion and hope.

"I'm sorry you're hurting, but I want to tell you what you've bought with your pain." He took her hand in his. "Raven gave me the answer. We have him, love. We have all of Vincent's supporters. Raven confirmed that Corin is an ally and that means that we can put the plan into action tomorrow. That's where I've been. I sent a message to Evan and his reply came back almost immediately thanks to the new servants he installed in the castle. This time tomorrow—at the wedding, this will all be over."

Cecilia wanted to feel triumphant, but she settled for simply feeling ready for vengeance.