Chapter 158

A month had passed.

The wounds on my mates’ bodies had healed completely, my white bind leaving no trace of the battle, no scars, no marks. The wounds on our hearts... those were slower. But they too were healing, scabbing over, the sharp edges of grief softening into something we could carry without bleeding.

I still thought of him. Every day. But the thought had changed. No longer a scream of guilt and "what if." Now it was a quiet warmth, a memory of a man who had looked at me with true eyes and chosen, in that final moment, to give me everything he had.

Lorian.

I remembered him now not as a ghost who haunted me, but as a gift I had been given, however briefly. A man who had loved me without reservation, without demand only asked and if I would consider it, without expectation of love in return, holding no grudges as I continue to tell him no. He had simply loved, and that love had been pure enough to die for.

I could honor that now. I could carry it with gratitude instead of guilt.

The morning sun streamed through the windows, warm and golden, chasing away the last of the night’s chill. I sat at the table, nursing a cup of herbal tea that Caelion had prepared, watching my children play in the yard outside. Atlas and Chase were wrestling, their lion forms tumbling through the grass in a blur of golden fur. Levy sat with the snakes. My leopard cubs; Tavren, Kaizen, and Zarek; slept in a pile of spotted limbs in a patch of sunlight.

"You’re smiling," Soryn said, settling into the chair beside me. He held a bowl of fruit, offering me a piece of mango.

"I am," I admitted, surprised. "I didn’t realize."

"It’s good to see." His emerald eyes studied me, searching for cracks, for the brittleness that had been there for weeks. "You’re healing."

"I am," I agreed. "Slowly. But yes."

I watched Syren coil around Levy’s wrist, his emerald scales gleaming, his tongue flicking against her cheek. He was growing so fast. They all were. It seemed like every day they were longer, thicker, stronger.

"Soryn," I said, turning to him. "When will they shift? The snakes? I know the land beasts shift around six months. But the snakes...?"

He took a bite of mango, chewing thoughtfully. "Serpents are different. We take longer to mature, to find our forms. The coilings won’t begin to shift until eight months."

"Eight months," I repeated, doing the math in my head. They were nearly three months old now. "So five more months."

"Yes. And speaking comes even sooner. They’ll begin making sounds, attempting words, around three months. But don’t expect to understand them fully until five months. Their mouths aren’t shaped for human speech. It takes time to learn the shaping."

I nodded, filing this away. "So my land beast babies shift fastest. Then the serpents. And the Mer baby...?"

Soryn’s expression softened, his gaze dropping to my stomach, where the pregnancy was beginning to show in a gentle curve. "I’m not entirely sure—"

"That’s a question for me," Caelion said, entering from the doorway, his hair still damp from his morning swim. He settled beside me, his hand finding mine. "Soryn wouldn’t know the particulars. Serpents and Mer are different."

Soryn nodded, conceding the point with a small smile. "True. I know my own kind. The water-born are your domain."

Caelion turned to me, his sea-glass eyes serious. "The Mer take longest of all. A full year until they shift. And physical speech... not until eight months. Their vocal cords develop differently. They need the water pressure to strengthen them."

"But?" I prompted, sensing there was more.

He smiled, that rare, full smile that transformed his handsome face. "But they can communicate telepathically. In the water. From the moment they are born, they can send thoughts, feelings, images. They speak mind-to-mind with their parents, their siblings. It’s a beautiful thing. Silent and profound."

I placed my hand on my belly, feeling the warmth there, the subtle flutter of movement. "So I’ll be able to talk to this one? Even before they can speak?"

"Yes," Caelion said gently. "Once they’re born. Once you have them in the water. You’ll hear them. And they’ll hear you. It’s the Mer way. They know their mother’s voice before they ever open their eyes."

I imagined it. Floating in the cool water, my baby in my arms, their thoughts brushing against mine like silk. No words needed. Just pure understanding. Pure connection.

"That’s beautiful," I whispered.

"It is," he agreed. "Each of our children will come into their own in their own time. The lions at six months, loud and fierce. The serpents at eight months, silent and subtle. The Mer at one year, deep and telepathic." He glanced at the kids playing outside, their loud voices carrying all the way into the house. He smiled before continuing. "Our Mer baby will develop differently. No shifting until a full year after birth, but their minds grow sharp and quick. They’ll speak early, think deeply, love fiercely."

I watched them all, my heart full to bursting. So many different kinds of children. So many different timelines, different abilities, different needs. And I would learn them all. I would master each timeline, each milestone, each unique gift.

"Will they all be able to communicate with each other?" I asked. "Eventually? When the Mer baby can speak telepathically, will the others hear them?"

Caelion shook his head. "The telepathy is water-bound. It requires the connection of the deep. On land, the Mer baby will speak like any other, once their voice develops. But in the water..." He smiled. "In the water, they will be the most articulate. The Mer folks think in images, in emotions, in pure concepts. Their inner world is vast and beautiful."

I thought of Caelion, of the way he moved through water, the way his eyes changed color in the depths, the way he seemed most himself when submerged. My child would be like that. A creature of two worlds, like their father, able to bridge the gap between air and ocean, between spoken word and silent thought.

"Thank you," I said to both Caelion and Soryn, reaching out to squeeze their hands. "For explaining. For helping me understand what to expect."

Caelion smiled and Soryn turned his hand, threading his fingers through mine. "That’s what I’m here for. Why all of us are here for. To guide you. To guide them. We’re in this together, Krys. All of us. Every step of the way."

Outside, Levy laughed, a bright, clear sound that chased away the last of the morning shadows. The snakes lifted their heads, their tongues flicking, their bodies coiling in response to her joy. Atlas and Chase shifted mid-wrestle, becoming boys again, their hair tousled, their faces flushed with exertion.

Life was returning. Normalcy, or something like it. The grief was still there, a quiet presence in the corner of my heart, but it no longer consumed me. Lorian had given me my life, and I was choosing to live it. Fully. Completely. With gratitude for his gift and love for the family he had helped preserve.

I placed my other hand on my stomach, feeling the life there, the Mer child who would be born in water, who would speak in silence, who would bridge worlds.

"We’re going to be alright," I said, not just to Soryn or Caelion, but to myself, to the memory of a man who had died so I could say those words. "We’re going to be alright." And for the first time in a month, I truly believed it.

---

The next few days, I threw myself into meditation.

I needed to understand what I had done. How I had touched the black bind, how I had made it manifest, how I had channeled that terrible, beautiful power into my mates. It had saved them. It had saved all of us. But it had also drained me completely, left me hollow, unable to heal Lorian when he needed me most.

I couldn’t let that happen again. I needed to learn control. I needed to understand.

I sat in the center of our chamber, legs crossed, palms pressed flat against the cool stone floor. I reached for the binds. White was there, gentle and healing, familiar as my own heartbeat. The silver bind, the power to give prosperity and longevity. Black was there now too, pulsing at the edge of my consciousness, still new, still wild, but mine. But the blue... the blue remained mysterious. I had carried it since I first mated with my men, felt it connecting us, binding us, yet I didn’t truly understand how to use it, how to wield it as more than just a feeling.

I tried to remember. Tried to feel again what I had felt in that clearing, surrounded by enemies, watching Ravin about to die.

What had it been?

Panic. Pure, raw, animal panic. The certainty that I was about to lose everything. The refusal to accept it. The absolute, desperate demand that the universe give me the power to save them, or I would tear it apart trying.

I reached for that feeling again, digging into my memories, my fears. I imagined losing them. Imagined Aureon falling, Caelion bleeding out, Ravin’s heart stopped, Leon’s laughter silenced, Veylan’s eyes going dark. Soryn life snubbed before my eyes. I imagined it with vivid, terrible clarity, until tears streamed down my face and my breath came in ragged gasps.

I felt it. The edge of the abyss. The moment when hope dies and only will remains.

And then, I touched it.

The black bind didn’t come gently. It rushed into me like a flood, filling my veins with ice and fire, making me gasp, making me scream. But this time, I didn’t let it consume me. I held onto the edges of it, shaped it, breathed into it.

"Good," a voice said.

My eyes snapped open, but I wasn’t in the room anymore. Or perhaps I was, but the world had shifted, become something else. Mist surrounded me, thick and white, and in the center of it stood a figure. Featureless. Formless. Just a presence that spoke with a voice that seemed to come from inside my own skull.

"You have finally tapped into it consistently," the voice said. "Not by accident. Not by desperation. But by will."

"I’ve only ever hear your voice, who are you?" I asked, my voice echoing strangely in this place.

"I am what the binds are. What they have always been. The voice of the power you carry."

"The black bind," I whispered.

"Yes. The third blessing. The one that comes only when all else have failed. Only when you feel like you lose all hope will this power truly manifest. It is the blessing of the desperate, the gift of those with nothing left to lose."

I shivered, though I wasn’t cold. "Why does it drain me so completely?"

"Because you are untrained. You are a vessel that has not been prepared to hold this much power. You force it through yourself like water through a cracked cup. Some gets through, but much is lost, and the cup is damaged."

"How do I learn?" I asked. "How do I become... worthy of it?"

"Practice. Time. Sacrifice." The voice seemed to smile, though there was no face to show it. "You are far from perfect, Krys. You have touched the surface of what you can become, but the depths are still beyond you. You must continue to hone the skill. To train your body and soul to channel what you have been given."

I nodded, filing this away. Then I thought of something else. Something that had been bothering me since I first heard the words.

"What did the last blessing mean?" I asked. "For the Azure Sovereign. What is the fourth blessing, truly? What can it do?"

The voice was silent for a long moment. When it spoke again, there was weight in the words, gravity that made my stomach drop.

"The fourth blessing is the most dangerous of all," it said. "If you complete the four blessings, if you truly master what you have been given, your powers will become a danger not just to your enemies, but to yourself. To the natural order."

"What do you mean?"

"The power of the fourth blessing can bring life back," the voice said softly. "It can resurrect the dead. Heal the unhealable. Restore what has been lost. But such power demands payment. The downfall is this: every life you restore, every death you undo, will shorten your own life by five years."

I stared into the mist, my heart hammering. "Five years?"

"Five years for every soul you pull back from the beyond. That is if their vessel is still in this world and has not set in rigor mortis yet. You could also bless the unfortunate, give them the gift of fertility, heal the terminally ill, bring back loved ones. You could become like a god to them, Krys. Resembling divinity, but not quite divine. A mortal with the power of life and death in her hands."

I thought of Lorian. Of the healers who had said he was gone. Of my own exhaustion that had prevented me from even trying.

"Could I have saved him?" I asked, my voice breaking. "If I had mastered this, could I have brought him back?"

"You could have," the voice confirmed. "But it would have cost you five years of your life. Five years you would not get back. Five years your children would not have with their mother."

I closed my eyes, the weight of it pressing down on me. The power to resurrect. The cost of my own life. The terrible, impossible choice between saving others and saving myself.

"What else?" I asked urgently. "What else can it do? What are the limits? The dangers?"

But the mist was already fading. The voice was growing distant, its words becoming echoes.

"Practice," it whispered. "Hone the skill. The answers will come when you are ready..."

"Wait!" I screamed. "Tell me more! I need to know! What happens if I use it too much? Can I choose not to pay the price? Is there another way?"

Silence.

I opened my eyes.

I was back in the room, alone, my heart racing, my skin covered in sweat, my hands shaking. The black bind was still there, pulsing at the edge of my consciousness, but the voice was gone.

I was left with more unanswered questions than I had started with.

The power to bring back the dead. The cost of five years of my life for every soul I saved. The ability to bless the infertile, to heal the incurable, to become something resembling a god.

And the knowledge that every time I used it, I would be trading my life for theirs.

I sat there for a long time, staring at my hands, wondering what I would do when the moment came again. When someone I loved died, and I had the power to save them, but at the cost of my own years.

Would I pay it?

Could I pay it?

The questions haunted me, long after the voice had faded, long into the night, and into the days that followed.