Page 85 of Ties of Starlight

“That was—” She shook her head, cutting herself off as she stared at the canvas. “I must have done something—Not the point.” She turned back to face him. “Yes, I vaguely recall her talking me through it. She would have said anything to ensure Olaug and I finished the rituals. Her people needed Adastra to be as strong as possible since we were their allies against the alchemists.”

“Well, do you think maybe she was so invested that she did something else that would have caught you and Olaug in this cycle of coming back?”

“Not that I remember.” Idonea tightened her grip on the journal in her hands, the tension across the bond rising. “And why would she?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you would.” Nyrunn’s eyes darted back down to the notebook in his hands as he flipped through more pages. Nyrunn paused when he came across a gap he hadn’t noticed before.

“Well, Idon’t. So you should just leave it be.”

He ran his fingers through the gutter, feeling the edges of pages that had been cut out. He looked up. “We can reach out to the current queen of Venefica—”

But then the journal was ripped out of his hands as Idonea’s voice tore through him. “I said to leave it!”

Silence fell over the tent, and Nyrunn couldn’t believe it.

Idonea’s face went ashen, and she closed her fourth life’s journal. The necklace on her collarbone glinted in the starlight.

She didn’t need anyone to figure out how to break the curse. She already had.

“How long?” Nyrunn whispered.

“How long what?” But her emotions on the other end of the bond betrayed her feigned cluelessness.

He narrowed his eyes. “How long have you known how to break this cycle and stop coming back?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” Idonea laughed, but it was breathy and fake as her anxiety hummed. Her fingers brushed her necklace before she clutched the journals to her stomach. “How could I have possibly figured something like that out? I told you, when I finally manage to get this perfect, it'll break.”

How had he not seen it? She’d been saying it right to his face this whole time, and he’d been blinded by his foolish hope that he could give her everything she’d been chasing and maybe it would be enough.

“You mean, when you finally get exactly what you want.” His voice went frigid as he stepped closer, hand gesturing at her. “When everything is perfect according toyou, then you'll break the cycle. Not a second before then.”

Her refusal to meet his gaze was answer enough.

“Don't make me ask again. Answer me.”

Idonea opened the journal right to the seam of the missing pages and she whispered, “It was my fourth life when I figured it out and left the instructions for my future selves. I still don’t fully understand the witch magic the queen used, but I know what to do to end it. I was going to do it in my fifth life—everything was going so well—but as you know, the last two lives I didn't make it to the Constellation Pool.”

“And even though you will this time, you're not going to. Even though you have the chance to end this miserable cycle, you're not going to. Because this life is just a way topass the time until you get another chance to torture yourself trying to win the love and loyalty of a creature you are never going to be good enough for!”

Idonea threw the journals onto the bed. “What does my next life matter to you? You'll be dead! Why would you care what happens?”

“Why would I care?” Nyrunn’s voice cracked. What did she think this was all for? “Do you still know nothing of me? How can you expect me to spend the rest of my life knowing my wife, sleeping beside me, is just using me? How can you expect me to be alright with the woman who pledged to be faithful to me is spending the years waiting for another man? One who said he could not even stand to suffer her?”

“What more do you want from me?” Idonea’s voice rose as did her turmoil on the other end of the bond. “I have promised you that I will do everything I can to be a good wife to you, to be a good queen, at your insistence, even though I can’t promise I won’t hurt you the way I hurt him. I gave you an out! You can still take it, and I will happily disappear and then you’ll be safe.”

Nyrunn’s voice dropped to an icy whisper as he stared at her in the starlight, unable to even think of the possibility he loved her. “How can you be so obtuse?”

Idonea lifted her chin. “I've lived more lives than you can imagine.”

“And yet you are still naive and foolish.” He scoffed. “You've only been trying because you don't have a choice. This life, our marriage,me... it’s all just the next obstacle you have to clear as you try again and again to write the story you want to no matter what anyone else wants. You're selfish.”

“I am trying to finally be happy with my soulmate.” Idonea’s eyes were filling with water, andhe didn’t understand how she could be so stubbornly holding onto something that was tearing her apart. “That's fate.”

“If it were fate, you wouldn't be seven lifetimes in and married to someone else!” Nyrunn stepped closer, stopping right in front of her, staring down into her vivid blue eyes. “Face it. You're trying to rewrite destiny again and again until you get the one you want. And guess what? You never will.”

Idonea shook her head, agony flaring in their bond, but he didn’t know if it was his or hers. “You don't know anything.”

“I know that a man who loves a woman doesn't leave her at the altar. He doesn't repeatedly cheat on her. He doesn't spit on her affection for him. He doesn't insult her appearance or disparage her character. Tell me, what has he done to be so deserving of your loyalty when he has never once been loyal to you?”

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