Page 226 of May: Bloom & Bane

Arteus glides his scales over my shadow. “Therin never met Anya. Not once. She left on the scout’s path so Naya could stay safe in their village. Therin found the only sliver of Anya’s soul he could, which just so happened to be inside of Naya, and he locked onto it.”

“But why jump after her? Why did she jump?”

“She did not.”

The words knock the wind out of me. “What happened on that cliff, Therael?”

Arteus goes rigid against me.

“You have to understand what Therin was first,” he says quietly. “What you were. There are only a handful of true bonds, like yours, in all of existence. They are not a fondness. They are not a man choosing a pretty face from a crowd. When a soul like yours brushes against even a fragment of its bond, it begins to come apart, every thread straining toward its missing piece. Completion is the only thing it was created to want.”

The cold thing in my chest goes still, listening to a description of itself.

“That is what Therin felt the day he met Naya—not a crush. Not love. His soul began to unravel toward the sliver of Anya Naya carried inside her.”

The cottage. Micah crawling through the snow, shredded, and still reaching. Not obsession. Unraveling.

“Therin met Naya first,” Therael continues, “before Caelen ever came home from the warrior’s road. Therin and Naya worked side by side in the scribes’ temple. They grew close, and she—” He pauses. “She cared for him, too. In the small, hopeful way of someone who does not yet know her own soul is spoken for. For a little while, Therin let himself believe the unraveling meant she was his.”

“And then Caelen came home…” I say.

“The moment he walked through the temple doors, Naya’s soul knew its true mate. Their bond sealed in an instant; there was no mistaking it, and no standing against it. Naya loved Therin, but she was bonded to his twin.

“He couldn’t let go,” I whisper. “Could he?”

“He couldn’t,” Therael says. “Not because he was weak, or cruel. But because his soul was still unraveling, and a soul mid-unravel cannot simply choose to stop. He watched the woman he loved fall into a bond with his own brother, and every thread of him kept reaching anyway. It simply did not know how to do anything else.” He exhales slowly. “It came to a head on the cliff. The brothers fought—Therin unable to release her, Caelen unable to bear his mate being pulled on. Two souls in agony, grappling too close to an edge. And Naya, caught between them, was shoved by accident.”

My breath catches.

“And that is why he jumped. Therin saw what his wanting had done, and threw himself off after her. To beg the gods for a chance to take it back.”

Therael’s eyes find mine. “And before you ask, Little Reaper: no. Naya and Caelen no longer pay for that cliff. They are Andrik and Lumi now. They sealed their bond once Andrik figured out his own riddle. They are eternal and whole. Of all the souls tangled in this long sad knot, those two have already found their forever.” The faintest warmth emanates from him into the dark. “Let that be the one thing tonight that does not hurt.”

“So who was Anna?” I ask. “You’ve mentioned that name several times. Anya, Anna, Eden—all one soul.”

Therael’s expression shifts into something unreadable.

“Anna was the soul’s second turn,” he says. “Anya, reborn. The same true mate you have always reached for, returned to the world a second time so that Micah might finally find her.” He studies me, and Arteus hisses quietly, leaning more of his weight against my shadow. “But something went… wrong in the return.”

“Wrong how?”

“When the deal was struck to bring Therin back into the world,” Therael says. “There was a cost. There is always a cost. Souls are not moved across the veil for free. It is something Damon had to fight tooth and nail for—literally.”

“... Keep going.”

“While paying for the bargain, something was… displaced—a ripple, set loose in the weave of time.” The frost inside of his veins starts to blacken. “The soul that should have returned to walk beside Micah came back into the world late. Sixteen years behind schedule.”

It takes a moment for his words to land.

“How old was Micah?”

Therael hesitates.

“Therael! Tell me. Now!”

“... Thirty-two.”

“Sixteen years late?” I shout. “She was a child! How was he ever supposed to understand what was happening? That the gods would bond him to someone half his age? We never would have thought to look at her. We are monsters, Therael. Not men.”