Chapter Thirty-Three: The One of Truth

*

The thought of returning unsettled Aiden. Leyla’s soft hands constantly reminded him of at least one source of drama he didn’t want to deal with, though more than likely multiple people would need the same talking to due to her being a Valkyr.

For all he cared, anybody who had a problem could stuff it where the sun don’t shine. Before even reaching the damned city he’d killed himself to grow in hopes of sheltering the group who’d come with him.

The possibility of having so many more people show up at the rate they had never once crossed his mind in the beginning, and by the time he looked back to see what had become of the place he put so much work into, he barely recognized anything.

Even his sister.

Deep wariness made his steps sluggish. He dragged his boots through the dirt, scuffing up the ground in his hesitance.

Why did he need to go and talk to all of them? There were enough who knew his duties to take over, even if his lot had to be spread across a dozen people to make things work. The numbers were there.

Stopping in place, he looked at Leyla and frowned.

“What is it?” she asked, stepping close and resting her hands on his chest. Her soft fingers lifted his chin and guided his eyes to hers. “You can talk to me.”

“Yeah,” he said unconvincingly, wincing at the hurt that flashed through her eyes. “Sorry, I—I’m not sure what’s going on right now. I just…”

“Nothing makes sense anymore, right?” She shrugged. “Did it ever really make sense in the first place, or is that a lie you told yourself to get by? Does anything you’ve done or promised to do truly matter more than what you do right here, right now?”

All the faces of the people who counted on him flashed through his face, and some of them he knew had lost their lives following him. He felt like he owed them, but really, how much of himself had he already given?

And how much more would they need him to give?

“You say these things too casually,” he muttered, lifting her hand from his chest to his cheek. “I’m not someone who gives up, but I don’t feel like the fight I’ve been fighting relentlessly is one I’m needed for anymore.”

“You’ve lost your purpose, the thing that drove you,” she stated matter-of-factly. Shrugging, she placed her other hand on his face so both held him there then gently, intimate in a way they hadn’t been before. She brushed his tousled hair out of his eyes, the unkempt mess making him feel like a homeless person. “You owe them nothing.”

“But—”

“You owe them nothing,” she repeated, kissing him softly once more. She shook her head when they parted. “You didn’t choose to become a Candidate, and you didn’t ask for the responsibility of protecting all of them. It’s not your job.”

He hated to admit that she sounded reasonable. Nothing she said was inherently wrong. It was just that he’d been driven by the need to do anything and everything he could in order to grow Zion as a bastion of hope for humans.

In doing so, he’d far overshot his goal and now didn’t know what to do.

“I guess the only thing I really need to do to move on is complete the Destiny Quest. After that, my Patron requested I go—” His face sank as he realized the implications of what Khione required of him and what that would mean with Leyla.

“Go where?”

“The gods stole something from him,” he absentmindedly explained, avoiding the question entirely. “I need to retrieve it.”

Furrowing her brows and puffing out her cheeks made her look like an angry chipmunk, and he couldn’t stop a small grin from tugging up the corner of his lips.

“Tell me!” she demanded while pouting. When he stared back at her blankly, she dropped the cute facade. A predatory glint flashed through her eyes. “Who do I have to obliterate to make you smile?”

Oddly, the seriousness in which she posed the question made him smile. “If you look like that, I might actually tell you, and then you might actually convince me to bring you.”

“Aiden.”

She rarely said his name without adding some kind of formal honorific. The informal way she said his name in her husky voice with an undertone threatening violence made his blood sing in a way he didn’t know how to comprehend.

Covering his face to hide a smirk, he cleared his throat and schooled his face. “Let’s go. We need to finish my Destiny Quest to claim the Gate Hub before we can even think about where to go next.”

“Aiden…”

Three steps. That’s as far as he got before he one-eightied and walked back towards her, eyes hard and jaw set. “Halla.”

“S—see, that wasn’t so h—hard,” she said, wiping away a stray tear.

He took her shaky hands in his. “I’m not asking you to go.”

“I want to.”

“You don’t have to.”

“But—”

“I heard you the first time.” He looked up at the sky. “When did everything get so complicated?”

“Probably around the time some random entity from the Upper Realms decided to make you its plaything,” she supplied unhelpfully. “But if they hadn’t, I never would’ve met you, so I’m not too stirred up about things being the way they are now. Too easy to lose yourself in the past if you don’t remind yourself to live in the present.”

“Are you sure you’re the same Fallen Valkyr I met a week ago?” he muttered, shaking his head at the insightful perspective. “In all seriousness, what do you want from me, Leyla?”

“Entertainment,” she said, holding up a finger and then continued to do so for each thing she listed off afterwards, “companionship, affection, sex, attention, excitement, intimacy, trust. From you, I only want to experience a life worth living before The Immortal Father drags me to the depths of Halla for my eternal punishment.”

The urge to promise her the world and all the things she wanted along with protection from Kyriall and her doomed fate became overwhelming in a matter of seconds. He didn’t promise those things to her, he couldn’t even if he wanted to.

“The only thing I can promise is to be who I am, wherever that may take me. If that means defying all the gods of Halla and the Upper Realms, then so be it. But at the moment, I’m nothing more than a bug in their eyes,” he said sadly, frowning deeply as a familiar feeling of helplessness mixed with an unhealthy dose of hopelessness to create a nasty concoction of negativity.

“Stop worrying about me. I don’t know what kind of girls you’re used to having around, but I’m not that fragile.” She pecked the side of his cheeks with her soft lips and started dancing through the forest, heading in no particular direction.

Graceful movements flowed equally as graceful leaps and bounds, reminiscent of a professional ballerina or figure skater. She hummed a melancholic tone with powerful notes, and the sound echoed off the trees.

Something flitted from out of his peripheral, and he reached into his pocket for Silver only to realize birds he’d never seen before flitted around in the air above Leyla. They streamed towards her by the dozens from some unknown depth of the forest.

All of them echoed back the powerful yet melancholic tune, covering every inch of branch space to watch over her performance.

The way her wings made her glide through the air and her flowing cape trailed behind mesmerized him, the hints of violet highlighting all of her movements. She wielded her scythe as if participating in some battle dance, fighting against some invisible foe with movements too beautiful to be choreographed for true combat.

Nonetheless, she mesmerized him, leaving him breathless as her ephemeral dance brought her towards him. Her hand reached for his, and he nervously took it.

Everything changed the second he did. Silver and violet replaced the grays, greens, purples, and browns of the forest. The birds on the branches above became something more, something he wished to understand but couldn’t quite grasp the concept of yet.

“Look at me,” she said, her voice sounding as if it echoed through the chamber of time. Past, present, and future. All versions of them needed him to look in her eyes and get lost in the dance.

So he did.

Never having danced before, he expected to last all of half a second before tripping and falling on his face, but something guided his movements and kept them flowing just as gracefully as Leyla’s.

When he tried to question how such a thing could be possible, her words echoed in his mind as if she’d spoken again, yet her lips didn’t move. “Look at me, dance. Let the magic take you.”

The last of his resistance drifted away in the past version of himself, lost in the chamber of time. All that mattered in that moment was Leyla and her magical performance.

Each note cascaded, hanging in the air in a subtle, soft hymn.

Violet and darkness, silver and blue. The Essence of their being, the depths of their soul, all of it revealed Truth in that timeless symphony.

Silver and violet, blue and black.

Distinguishing one from the other became a chore of futility as something resonated from deep inside the deepest depths of his chest.

“You are mine, and I am yours,” a promise echoed there, an amalgamation of silvery-black, violet-blue. “Two Becomes One as souls collide indefinitely, infinite.”

Everything made no sense and too much sense all at once. In every version of his being, he accepted that truth and welcomed the warmth of that violet-black as part of his silvery-blue.

“An ancient pact, power rivaling that of the Primordials forgotten to time, enacted purely. And as such, I am yours, and you are mine.”

Something clicked in place as the song and dance climaxed, its beautiful tunes of immemorial secrets and destined desires stolen by the twisted, wicked strings of Fate.

“Your Truth is my secret to carry in this life and the next, forever and always.”

Unprompted, his silvery-blue soul welcomed in the other, responding, “And in this coupling, eternity bows before us. The One of Truth, we beseech you to Bless this Rite and sever our mortality.”

You know not what you seek.

But I will not reject your request.

With this, Two Becomes One.

I will be watching you, Trinity.

All around them, reality shifted as a hand wrapped around their colliding souls. The One of Truth pressed a single finger in the space of resistance between, sending soothing ripples that eased the point of resistance.

The moment The One of Truth enacted his will, his Blessing sank into both of them as they merged, Two Becomes One. The Rite completed, and their mortality severed.

What does that even mean?