Page 15 of Between Despair and Hope

Warm hands slid around my body, resting on my rounded stomach. I looked down, knowing those hands with every part of my soul. I took a shuddering breath as tears formed on my lashes. It wasn’t him. I knew it wasn’t him, but I didn’t want to turn around. I couldn’t. Instead, I tilted my head back and relaxed in the warmth I knew wasn’t real and let the tears trickle down my face. He held me, pressing a kiss to that spot behind my ear which killed me, and I choked out a sob. Covering his hands with my own, I let myself give into the sorrow and sobbed freely before he slipped his hands out to rest atop mine, his thumbs lightly caressing the backs of my hands. How could someone know him just as well as I did? What cruel person created this illusion? Who would do this to me? I looked at Elora as she rolled over on the bed, a sleepy smile on her face, and screwed my eyes up tight. It felt so real, and I wondered if this was showing me a future I could have had but lost because Rain had been taken.

“I can’t promise the king, but I could give you the babe.” Her voice was pleasant and lyrical, and as Rain’s arms left me, I turned to face her. He was gone, of course, and my stomach had returned to normal. Both of the losses felt monumental. She wore a dress matching the cut of mine, though it was a deep violet. She clasped her hands in front of her, and I saw countless rings on her rich, brown fingers. Her hair was long, flowing past her shoulders, and the black spirals were shining—a cloud of impossible beauty.

“Rhia.”

“Are you not happy to see me again, beloved?” She cocked her head in assessment, a slight frown tilting the corners of her lips down.

“Is that my title or an endearment?” I snapped.

“Can it not be both?” Her heart-shaped mouth turned up into a small smile.

“What do you want?” What she had shown me had been cruel, and I had no desire to deal with yet another god. They’d all made me theirs to use, and the weight was heavy.

Her brows furrowed as she looked at me before she sucked her lower lip into her mouth. “Emmeline, I came to offer you a gift. The last time, I didn’t exactly offer it.” She nodded to my daughter on the bed behind me.

“What do you mean?”

“You were sinking back then, suffering alone, and I heard you. I heard your heart’s pleas. I heard you on the cliff side and blessed you with Elora. And she saved you.” She spoke of the day after the burial, the day after I sent Rain away, when I stood at the same cliff we’d fought on, and my thoughts had gone dark. I’d lost everything, and for a few moments I thought just how easy it would be to fall. I wasn’t sure what changed my mind, but Rhia had heard my heart and intervened. I had known she blessed me with Elora but hadn’t realized why she might have done it. “I’m offering to do it again. Your heart is hardening, and I want to help.”

“With a baby? You think what I need is a baby?” My stomach was in my throat. Was she so out of touch? She truly did not know what my heart desired and craved? “I don’t need another baby; I needmybaby to wake up. I need my husband!”

“Did you know you get your harrowing from me? Do you know how many times it has saved you?”

“No. It saved Elora, not me.”

“The first time was when you shared it with him. When you both were young, and he found you.”

“Shared it with him? I didn’t—what?”

She laughed, a dainty sound. “The bond you two started.”

“We weren’t bonded back then.”

“Not completely, no. But you started it in that cave. How else would he have your divinity?”

“But we didn’t mingle our blood. How could he?”

She sighed. “The Myriad has taken many liberties. Would you like to know how it used to be done? The first ceremony was between Aonara and Ciarden. It’s supposed to be done all at once. Promises of the Mind, spilling of blood for the Body, and the mingling of it for the Soul bond. With time, it’s become muddled.”

“But blood didn’t spill back then—with us.”

“It did.”

I blinked at her, confused, casting my mind back to those heated, fumbling moments. Rhia’s gaze moved downward, a purposeful head tilt accompanying her pointed nod.

“Oh.”

I’d barely bled. Blood had certainly notspilledanywhere. I remembered wondering why people spoke of bloodied sheets as proof of consummation and assumed it was a turn of phrase.

“If that’s all it takes, why aren’t more people bonded by mistake? Especially if the Mind doesn’t require any blood.”

“Most people are not twin flames. Your souls had already begun to entwine. Be grateful for what you started with him that day. More gratitude in general would be nice.” She frowned at me before letting out a long-suffering sigh. “The boy will be the key to waking her, and you will be the key to your husband. As long as everything happens as it should. But in the meantime?” She glanced pointedly down at my stomach. “You haven’t had your courses yet; I could give you a babe.”

I’d been about to ask about our souls—twin flames—and what she meant by that, but her words stopped me. I froze, calculating just how long it had been since I’d been with Rain, and realized I hadn’t bled since right after Elora left for Mira. That had been nearly two months ago. I should have bled twice since then. I deflated, apprehension taking over me. Rain had been on the tonic, and we’d only been together that way a few times, but still. It meant nothing to a goddess, I supposed. “Am I not already?”

“No, dear, you are not.”

I exhaled in relief. Surely, it was the stress I had been under which caused my courses to stall. A thought occurred to me which gave me pause.

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