Page 15 of Fates of Monsters

I cough on a laugh. “I wasn’t going to say that. Or anything like that. I wanted to ask, is there any chance for him? For you?”

She watches me. “I know you are happy with Emerson, but it won’t work for me. There is some irony in the fact that I was kidnapped by witches, tortured, and used by them, forced to marry one who brutalized me too… only for my mate to turn out to be half witch. Even worse, a prince.” There is a sharpness to her tone. “He’s a good male. I’m not saying he’s not, but we would destroy each other. I would destroy him. I’m not good, I’m not full of light, and I hold too much bitterness to let go of the past. When this war is over, I have my own personal war to begin, and there is no way he would be on my side as I slaughter the witches who hurt me. He will protect his people.”

My eyes soften. “I think he deserves a chance to make his own choice on that.”

She waves a hand. “It doesn’t matter. He needs someone that’s just far better than what I am now.”

“Is that what you really believe?” I ask her quietly. “That you don’t deserve him? I hate to break it to you, you do. You deserve the world, Posy. I will say that fate is never wrong, and I know you both so well. I think you’d be really good for each other. That’s what I’m going to say about it.”

“You’re wrong,” she whispers and clears her throat, straightening her back. It’s clear the topic of Lorenzo is over. “Are you sure that you really want to take that sword with you? She will want it.”

“They will respect that I have it,” I suggest instead. Yes, she will want it, but it’s mine. I remember how they loved the sword and the goddess for what she could give to them. I will be giving them something, but I won’t be used and trapped like she was. I’ve learnt from her. “It might be the only reason they listen. I don’t have a choice.” Posy holds her hand up, and the air in the room picks up, a breeze building as I’m honest with her. “If it were just me I had to think of and I was selfish, I’d take Emerson and all my friends, my family, and go to another world with the sword. I’d shut this world away and pretend it didn’t exist.”

“We both know that’s something I would do, not you,” she answers. “I’m rather glad the sword belongs to you, not me.”

She looks right at me as I reply. “We both know you’d come back because you won’t let innocents suffer any more than I would.” Winds whip around us, pulling up her black hair into a wave behind her as she lightly glows. She hasn’t done that before. Posy looks like the daughter of an air goddess in this exact moment, and her power is like a hailstorm, slamming into me, even when she isn’t directing it my way. “Since when do you glow?”

“I’m not sure,” she truthfully answers as the portal forms. “I’ve been practicing my magic, and maybe this is it working better?”

“You’d make a good fae light in the dark,” I tease, earning a glare from her before I walk through first into the prison of the air goddess. It feels deeply wrong to be breaking them out, even considering it, when the goddess died to keep them in here. But she died to save this world, to protect the people, and if I don’t stop Louie, then none of it matters. Everything would have been for nothing, and the Rift people will be the only victor. Posy follows behind me, the portal slamming shut behind her. I stay at her side as we walk through the enormous doors into the living area, where the air goddess herself waits for us like she knew we would come. The thought is disturbing.

She is sitting in a chair, one leg crossed over the other as she leans on her hand. “The wind whispers to me that you learned how to break my brother’s curse and you got a shiny crown, Wyern Queen. I take it that you figured out who you are, after all.” She tilts her head. “How unfortunate, but our deal is not over. Where is the boy?”

“Paxton is never going near you,” Posy snarls. “The pretense is over, mother, along with the deal.”

She watches her daughter as I speak. “The goddess showed me what you did, who you are. Let’s not play pretend anymore. I don’t know what you wanted the boy for, but he is safe and far from you. It will stay that way.”

Air loses the happiness, the smiles, all of it, within a second. The pretense was good, I’ll admit. “Fine.” Her eyes drift over my shoulder and widen slightly. A longing fills them instead. “The sword. Ah, that’s what the wind was whispering to me about. A power back in this world. Give it to me.”

I arch an eyebrow. “You will have to kill me to lay a finger on it.” I wrap my hand around the hilt a bit behind my head. “But I may let you touch it when I run it through you if you dare to come closer.”

Her eyes turn to ice. Brutal icy wind whips around the room, tightening around my throat, making it hard for me to breathe. I push on my own magic, fire and ice dancing around in a hurricane at my feet, spreading up until they cover me and Posy from her view and her power. Posy looks at me. “Stop. Please.”

I let my power go, the ice and fire drifting away in a breeze. Posy steps in front of me, her hands stretched out. Instantly the air becomes warmer, and it stops strangling me. “Your power is reduced in here, isn’t it? You would struggle to kill us.” Air doesn’t reply, but the tightening of her lips gives her away. “Do you want me dead, mother?”

The worddeadseems to echo around them, off the marble floors and great pillars. “No,” Air bites out. “You’re my only daughter. The only child I will ever be gifted. Your father was my true mate, and that means that the only child I can ever have is you because he is gone.”

“Is the story of how he died even true? Or was he running from you?” she asks, her voice biting with anger. “Is that how the witches so easily took me? Because he was already weak and running—”

“No, it was true.” She stops her daughter. “I swear on my blood, on my magic, and on my soul that I told you the truth. Things for me, at least, were different when he was here. When you were born.” She looks away at the empty fireplace. Without a fire in here, it makes this place show what it really is. A prison. “You don’t get to have a second mate in life, in any life, even if you are a god. I didn’t find him; he came to me, which is funny since you,, our child, would be needed to save this world. Paxton is a key, too. His birth is no coincidence.”

“We are not discussing Paxton,” I remind her. “He is not for you.”

“You look like her. The same face. Same way you hold yourself. It’s rather annoying to see her again, but you lack her power. You are powerful enough, but no goddess,” she taunts me.

“Was it worth it?” I bite back. “All that death, using the goddess, all of it so the mortals would worship you as gods. Was it worth it, considering they forgot about you? They all still worshipped her. Always her. You were left as fairy tales, jokes, really.”

Her eyes bleed white, and she stands. “I’m going to enjoy killing you!”

Posy makes sure she is covering me. “Not unless you wish to kill me first. If she dies, so do I. I’ve sworn to protect her life.” She looks over her shoulder at me. “Even if she pisses off powerful goddesses rather than doing what we came here to do.”

I straighten my back and step around Posy. “I want you to fight for me and my mate. The Rift Kings, Queens, and the old god from the Rift are here, along with an army. We are outnumbered. The Wyern and witch cities are the last that stand between them and destroying this world. They have slaughtered millions already.” I pause as she sits back down, her eyes nothing short of calculating. “We need you to fight. We want you to make a vow to fight for us, with us. All four of you.”

She links her fingers. “You want me, my brothers, and my sister to fight for you mortals? For what? For the mortals who forgot us, as you clearly said. They worship the goddess. Why not beg her spirit to come and fight?”

“Because she’s dead. You all know that. We will offer you something in exchange, and it won’t be Paxton or Posy.” She leans forward. “Here’s the deal. We offer you freedom. I will break you out of here with the sword, and you will fight in this war until it is over. You will swear loyalty to both Emerson and me, complete loyalty, bound in blood, and this deal will live through our heirs. If you do anything that is not within the rules of our own court, which includes murdering, enslaving, any of the evil shit you are used to doing, you will be forced back in here by the magic you swear on. You will also be forbidden to hurt any Wyern, fae, mortal or supernatural in anything but self-defense. Do you understand?”

“Freedom, mother,” Posy says. “True freedom. You want to be with me? Protect me? Then you need to take this deal.”

---