Imperial (Insight #8)(69)
“She thinks her father is Donalt. I can’t let her think that.”
“Look at her, Glory. Do you think she does not know the truth?”
Monroe’s eyes were intently on me. It was hard to tell.
“There are more reasons than her transition. This web, these spells that the other kings are twisted in, that our Fated are fighting, it all ties together. We have to use caution, we have to think of the future and the moment we are in—for I have yet to figure out how tangled we are.”
“Donalt has openly claimed her,” I bit out.
“And that is his demise. Those words were his own death sentence. The other kings will plot to take her, and when they do they will destroy themselves as well.”
“I’m not letting my daughter stand in the midst of that war.”
“She is the end of that war, Glory. Why do you think it took her so long to fall? She was walking with the Creator. She is the only one that can clearly see the web we are each in…and she is telling you now to wait.”
I shook my head no.
“Listen,” he whispered.
I heard no words, but I did feel a message. “She is telling me to become stronger.” I questioned her with my eyes. “Why?”
“Glory, in all truth you are still in the care of the Reaper, and you have only lived moments without your armor of wrath…”
“Seven—she is saying seven. Is she one of the seven?”
“No…you are the queen of the seven, the one that paved their path, the one that will shield them now.”
“What? No. She is saying seven lights, or seven couples in balance with light and darkness. I’m too excited to understand her.”
He reached for my face to urge my eyes to him. “You are my light, and your energy is as bright as the sun. That is how we created her.”
“I’m the Queen of Wrath. I know how dark my energy is. How dark my soul is,” I argued.
“That darkness comes from two sources. One will never fade, as it is a part of me. The other part…comes from you, from a past you have not yet overcome. Instead of using it as a gift, you divided yourself. You will guide the seven that will restore not only our race, but also our reality to the point where The Fall will open and all souls can travel through once more.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Seven kings, seven lights. I was the only king that sought to rise above what I was, sought to grow illumination, so instead of having a light fated to destroy me I was given a light that was fated to love me. The others have lights that will fight them, destroy them. In the end, if I do not falter, if you do not falter, together we will guide the seven new kings and queens of deadly emotions. We will be the warriors that protect our daughter, all those she will bring forth.”
“But our Fated are fighting Donalt and Xavier—right?”
“In a sense, each king will be brought down by a Fated connected to the pair of us. Once that defeat is in place, they will rise to be the next sovereigns and we will guide them.”
My head was spinning. How did I go from the weakest sovereign to the one that would lead the demise of the kings that stood against me?
“I love you,” Vade whispered, stealing an innocent kiss from my lips before speaking again. “Monroe needs you to be strong, needs you to come to life fully, to overcome your past and rule without the armor of wrath, but the gift of emotions. She wants you to do that now so that when her transition is over we can be together.”
I moved my eyes back to the stream. Monroe’s dark eyes were still peering up at me. She nodded once.
Without hesitation, I mouthed the words, ‘I love you.’
A beaming smile came over her innocent image. All at once around us, in the sweetest, most innocent voice, I heard those words from my Monroe. From my daughter.
Vade’s arms flexed, but he let his energy fall so we could hear it more clearly.
“We are going to prevail, Glory. We are holding the winning hand, and the other kings have no idea that we have even been dealt in. They will end each other with their own hand, karma in its simplest form. They planned to force us into destroying ourselves; now, they will in turn destroy themselves.”
Monroe stood from the field she was in and waved, and as she did I saw a ring, the symbol of eternity, facing me.
I sent my thoughts to her, and a wind circled the field of flowers, picking up every single purple petal and carrying it to her. The petals swarmed around her as the children with her danced and laughed. The springs faded at that moment.
I warily looked down. “You tried to tell me…I see that now. When I look back over all our time together, you tried to tell me everything. You spoke clearly and calmly, you held an immeasurable amount of patience in your soul, and like with the Creator I never heard you. My anger and wrath have caused me so much time, so much time that I will never recover.”
That ghost of a smile he loved to use was threatening his precious lips. “We appreciate it all the more now. If this life were given freely to us, we would not see each other or her the same way. Easy come, easy go. I wanted it to be hard as hell to get you to fall in love with me because I knew once you did, you would forever be mine.”
“Forever, Vade. Forever.”
His eyes fell to my lips just before his lips claimed them. I felt my soul pulsing, wanting to get closer to connect core to core, but I couldn’t do that right now. I had to ask for my life back.