Page 51 of Atlas and the Traitor

Atlas leaned back his head and groaned, not the good kind.

“Make it make sense, Atlas. Neither Deb nor I could understand what Mom was trying to tell us in those letters, other than vague notions of mates and Nature, and Jasper wouldn’t say a damn thing either. He took whatever he knew to the grave with him. Same as Daphne. I need you to explain it to me. Please.”

Atlas turned from the windows but rather than sit on the cushion beside him, he sat on the couch arm facing the bar. “Look at the colors of the ribbons. With everything you know now,look.”

Green and yellow.

Green and yellow.

Robin gasped, dots connecting.

“They weren’t just best friends,” Atlas continued. “My mom, Sybil, and Vanessa worshiped yours. They were her disciples. Willow was the last time Nature and Chaos were joined in one vessel.”

Robin had never been in a tornado, but he figured this mental and emotional whirlwind was what it felt like. “How?”

“Sheer force of will. They’re not supposed to exist in one person, not until the eagle brings peace, but your mother held them as long as she could, until she ultimately succumbed to the most natural and chaotic thing on this earth, childbirth.”

“She knew she wouldn’t make it.” That was why she’d written those letters—the uncertainty of what would happen to her and the magic inside her when she brought Deb and him into this world. And if his father had been anything like him, the guilt would have eaten him alive. Driven him to make it stop so he could be reunited with the love of his life.

Which left Deb and him.

“What happened to the magic? When Deb and I were born?” He swallowed hard and inhaled deep, the memory of wild mustard tickling his senses. “When Mom died?”

Atlas laid a hand on his shoulder. “When she died, my mom and Vanessa channeled the deities into new vessels. But some of the magic was passed on to you and Deborah.”

More and more dots connected.

His mother’s written words aboutwildbeing only one of their instincts. Her coaching on how to use the magic inside them to silence that wild. Her lessons in tracking, in tending the homestead gardens, in using everything nature had to offer, that he and Deb would be uniquely able to detect and manipulate.

“She says in one of those letters that our mates would find us when Nature needed us most. Deb thought that was David and Adam. I thought I’d run from mine, forever.”

“And I thought you two were intended to ground us, a twin for a twin, if Evan and I ever had to hold the deities. There were two of us, so it would be easier to share the load, to balance the forces and keep the peace until the eagle arrived. Until we had lasting peace.”

“But that doesn’t work anymore,” Robin said, shaking his head. “Deborah is gone and Evan’s evil. I looked the devil in the face today, and we can’t let him have Chaos or Nature. Nothing good will come of it, and Pax is still too young.”

“I know, and until tonight, I thought it was me who would have to hold them both instead. After all, it’s what my mother named me.”

“Balance.”

“I was wrong.”

Robin jerked his gaze to his; he hadn’t seen the swerve coming. He parsed back through Atlas’s words, through his mother’s.

Until tonight.

Wild.

Magic.

Peace.

Balance.

More connections, the pieces coming together in a different way to form a new picture that caused Robin’s chest to tighten and panic to swirl in his gut.

“No, no, no,” he muttered. “Deborah was the good one. She was Nature. You don’t want to give me Chaos either.”

Atlas stretched out a hand, cupping Robin’s cheek. “Don’t think so little of yourself.”

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