Chapter 228

#Chapter 228 – Astral Mate Victor heaves a huge sigh of relief, running a hand down his face, and I can feel the reprieve running through his body. I beam at him, scootching closer, glad to be able to see and feel the tension leaving him.

It’s real. It’s all real.

I mean, we knew that it was. That’s what we’ve figured out here in the woods, in the past few days together. That despite the label that the world had put on his and Amelia’s relationship, and despite the fact that our connection didn’t have the same kind of label – at least, until now – that what we had was real, and true, and important.

So, it doesn’t really matter that it has a name. Not truly. We don’t need it.

But damn, is it nice to have a word to put to this incredible thing between us.

Victor opens his eyes and looks evenly at the woman, who sits patiently in her little nest, smiling at both of us.

“Please,” he breathes, shaking his head a little from side to side. “Please, can you tell us more? What on earth are astral mates?”

She chuckles a little at this, pulling a shawl from some corner of the her little seat and wrapping it around her shoulders. “Well, it’s precisely not of this earth, of course. That’s the important thing.”

Victor just keeps shaking his head in wonder, waiting for her to tell us more. I, too, sit eagerly, biting my lip to keep from interrupting with questions of my own. Because, of course, I have a million.

The woman raises her hand, swirling it in the little dust motes, mumbling a few words to them.

Apparently following her instructions, the little motes begin to organize themselves, creating a stunning dome over our heads and creating – of all things – the shape of constellations above us.

“Ohhh,” I can’t help but murmur in awe. It’s just so beautiful.

“Most mates,” the woman continues simply, “are terrestrial. Of the earth. Their bond comes from the fact that their bodies are made for each other, perfect matches.”

Victor and I nod, understanding. This is what our traditions told us growing up – that those who found their mates were lucky enough to find the person it seemed was made for them, as if shaped from the clay of the earth and molded to fit together perfectly.

“But sometimes,” the woman says, her eyes shining a bit as she looks at us, “two people are born at precisely the right moments in the universe, the stars and planets aligned just so at their birth.” She waves her hand again so that the cosmos presented above us begin to turn, showing us the movement of the constellations, the planet, the individual stars.

“When it happens just right, it so happens that the souls that forms in their bodies – not simply the bodies themselves – are perfectly aligned to each other, as well as with the universe.”

At a snap from the woman, the motes disband themselves, dissolving into the chaos of their usual movement, but still filling the little grove with a steady golden glow.

“It’s incredibly rare – perhaps once in a thousand years – but that is what you two are to each other,”

she says quietly. “Two souls made for each other, lucky to have been born at the same moment on earth, lucky enough to find each other. Or,” she c***s her head the side, studying us, “perhaps inevitably drawn to each other. I imagine that you met by accident, yes?”

Victor and I look at each other, then, and I blush a little. It’s true that I went to the ballroom that night looking for a distraction, but from the moment I saw him at the top of the stares, it was like a moth to a flame.

“Yes,” Victor responds, looking me over and then turning back to the woman. “Fate has had a way of pushing us together.”

“Not fate,” she says, raising a crooked little finger and waving it at each other. “Your souls. Drawn together. Like magnets.”

I smile up at my mate then, the word humming and singing through me.

Mate. Mate, Mate! I sing to him, in my head. You’re my mate, Victor. You’re stuck with me now.

Oh no, he replies, rolling his eyes at me, pretending a despair I know he doesn’t feel. Now I’ll have to feed you, and train you, and take you for regular walks –

“None of that!” The woman says, clapping her hands together and drawing our attention back to her.

“You have the rest of your lives for sickeningly-sweet private conversations. But we have more to discuss, and my time runs short.”

“Why?” I ask, frowning at her even as I lean forward eagerly. “Do you have to go? Why can’t you stay?

We have so much we want to know –“

“Because my dear,” she interrupts, smiling at me kindly. “I, too, am not quite of this earth. My time in this realm is borrowed time; it is only at midnight that our two realms fully touch.” She points westward then. “And the earth continues to turn. We must press on, for you are dying.”

I go pale, then.

Honestly, I shouldn’t have – but I did forget. Or perhaps didn’t forget, but thought that in finding her…

“Didn’t we do it, though? Didn’t we find you? Aren’t we healed?” Victor asks the question echoing inside of me, and the woman laughs in response.

“No, darling, no,” she says, smiling kindly at us. “It’s not quite so simple as that. Your astral pairing has allowed you to share your souls with each other, to give strength from one where it was lacking in another. But two souls cannot feed on the strength of one for long. No,” she says, shaking her head.

“You must be refreshed.”

“How?” Victor asks, frowning at her, frustrated.

She shrugs a little. “You must close the loop, my dears. Consent to finish it.”

“You were once separate,” she says, holding her two hands apart to demonstrate her point more clearly. “And then, you became one, became tied.” She brings her hands together now, clasping them tight. “You must find the balance between the two, though – make peace with the liminality of it all. Be at once separate, who are together.” She makes her hands into two fists then, still pressed together, but distinct from each other.

I feel Victor’s frustration beginning to build, matching my own.

“But –“ I say, leaning further forward, shaking my head. “How do we –“

She shakes her head, interrupting my question. “It is not for me to instruct you. I have come here to guide you, not to fix you. It is your work to be done, not mine.”

I sit back on the seat, then, chastened. It’s true, I suppose. I do want her to fix it, to finish it, to heal us and have it be done.

But I started it. I’m the one two tapped into whatever it was between us, who started this so I could heal him. I could have just let him go, as horrible as it would have been, but I chose this instead.

So, it’s my job to bring it to an end.

I steel myself now, determined to do it. The woman smiles at me, pleased, but then she flinches suddenly, as if she hears a noise. “The time – it is short, my darlings –“

I stand up, the thousand questions still on my tongue. Victor stands with me, a hand on my arm, holding me back. “Let her go,” he says quietly.

The old woman smiles at me though, just at me. “He is right, your mate,” she says, holding my gaze.

“The forest has taught you everything you need to know.”

“But no!” I cry, shaking Victor’s arm off and dashing towards her, grasping her hand. “Wait, please!” I cry out, holding onto her hand. “Please – my children –“

Her voice is faint, then, as she begins to fade. I hear an echo of her final reply, but I’m sure that it’s for my ears alone. “The children of astral mates,” she whispers. “Are always quite extraordinary…they bring peace to the world…”

And then, the woman is gone. A flash of light, and in her place is only the wolf.

She gives a happy little yip and jumps down from her seat, rubbing herself warmly against my legs as she goes. Then, without a backwards glance, she lopes off into the forest – fading from our vision and perhaps from the world.

As she disappears, the motes of magic scatter, leaving Victor and I again alone in the moonlight.

“Well,” he says, coming close to me, doing his best to smiling down at me though I know that he, too, is disappointed that we’re not yet done. “Mate. What do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” I respond, my eyes filling with tears as I press myself against him. Because we did everything we were supposed to do – we found the woman –

And we still weren’t healed.