Page 77 of Ruled By Fate

“And you never use this power for yourself?”

He tapped his sunglasses, grinning.

“You know what I mean. You’ve never manifested a fancy car, or a beach house, or chocolate? I mean, come on. You must at least be tempted, right?”

“In Elysium, there is no need for material things. No one wants for anything. There’s nothing to desire.” He paused for a moment, staring at the sea, as if those two things might not be quite the same. “Well, nothing material,” he amended. “What I wanted to manifest, as you say, was not possible.”

She proceeded forward cautiously, not wanting to close him off. “Like what?”

He let out a quiet sigh. “When I was a child, I wouldn’t wish for cars or candy bars. All I wished for was to know my mother. To have time with her.”

“Oh.” Brie gazed out at the waves as well. “I know what that’s like.” She swirled her ice cubes thoughtfully. “What if such a thing was possible?”

“How do you mean?”

She touched her pendant. “What if… what if the barriers between life and death… what if they aren’t so set in stone? What if it’s possible to bring someone back from the dead?”

A peculiar look shadowed his face, draining it of all color. He weighed his words carefully before deciding to speak. “Such things have happened before. Of course, only God can summon a person’s life force back from Heaven or Hell, but a handful of mortals — only a handful in the whole of human history, mind you — have performed resurrections as well.”

He took a deep breath but held her gaze. “As I told you before, there aren’t enough Elysians to be there to ease everyone’s suffering in their final moments, or to transport every human soul who passes on right away. Sometimes, humans have to wait before moving on to the next realm. So, on rare occasions, when a person’s life force has not yet been shuttled from one realm to the next, and they come into contact with a powerful being or force, their energy is drawn back to their bodies. They’re resurrected.”

She tried her best to understand this, struggling to keep an even expression like his. “When was the last time it happened?”

He leaned back thoughtfully, armed with more centuries of divine trivia than she was willing to contemplate. “Something like this? Something involving more of an artifact than a bestowed power? Not counting Jesus, and not counting his disciples, because they were themselves imbued with the power of Christ—”

“Cameron.”

“It was when the corpse of a random Israelite was thrown into the tomb of Elisha and accidentally touched his bones.”

“So…”

“About a thousand years before the birth of Christ.”

Brie sat there, stunned.

And then again yesterday, in the Daya Memorial Hospital morgue.

“You’re going to make big waves where I come from,” he said quietly, thinking the same thing himself. He deliberately cleared his expression. “Whenever it is that you decide to come.”

So even angels can be passive-aggressive. She fought back a tiny grin. Good to know.

His face brightened suddenly. “Ah! Pancakes.”

She was still getting over her shellshock as the giggly waitress unloaded a tray with eggs Benedict for her and a tower of blueberry pancakes with butter and maple syrup for him, along with another glass of iced orange juice.

“Enjoy!” she tittered as she headed back to the kitchen.

He looked down at his breakfast with a decided lack of confidence and picked up the small, white syrup pitcher. “Am I meant to drink the—”

Brie snapped out of her reverie. “No, you pour it over the pancakes. Then cut little bites, like this.” She demonstrated on her eggs as he meticulously copied her movements.

Before they could actually eat, she stopped him. “Cameron?”

He paused, a fork halfway to his mouth.

“Everything that’s happened seems so rare and unlikely,” she said haltingly, “even in your world. Is it wrong for me to delay our trip to Elysium until we know more about what’s genuinely going on? Even if there’s no immediate danger, is it wrong to want to stay and live my life?”

He put the fork down. “Brianna, everything in your life has led you to this moment. Yes, it’s all exceptional. I’ve certainly never seen anything like it before, and I’ve been around for a long time. But I have to believe that this is happening to you — you, out of everyone in the world, you, out of everyone in history — for a reason. If you think that staying is the right thing to do, if you think this is the place you’re supposed to be, my instinct is to trust you.” He regarded her gently. “You have a beautiful heart, Brianna. I am inclined to have faith in it. And in you.”

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