Insight (Web of Hearts and Souls #1)(104)

“Is Drake dead? Is this over?” Chrispin asked, standing ready to find him at any cost.

“Perodine told us they’d bring him back,” I answered.

“You saw her?” August asked, smiling.

“She only wants to help us. We can do today what we couldn’t do then,” I answered.

August smiled widely and knelt before us. “Do you know now why you chose to stay and not return?” he asked.

I looked up at Landen and felt his bliss. “We do, a child, our child,” Landen said, looking intently at me. The emotion between us was moving everyone in the room.

“The power has to have the two of us, we couldn’t leave her behind, and she couldn’t come with us,” Landen continued.

“Her?” Ashten asked.

“Libby,” I whispered, still staring at Landen.

The room was still, and all at once they understood Libby’s bond with us.

“Is it over now?” Clarissa asked.

“No. She said that there are eight beyond the sun and moon, and that there are more trials ahead,” Landen answered.

I closed my eyes and lay on Landen’s chest, too tired to worry about the next time that I or we would be tempted. I felt the others find their way to their feet, wanting to move past this revealing morning.

“Ashten and I are going to take the girls home. You all need your rest,” my father said.

“I’ll go, too. Olivia wants to say goodbye to her family,” Chrispin said.

“We’re going, too. I want to see my family,” Dane said.

They all left silently one by one. I felt Landen carry me up the stairs, and thunder clapped as he laid me on our bed. I opened my eyes as he settled next to me. Quietly, we lay side by side, staring at each other. Lost for words, we drifted to our place, hiding from the grief that awaited us when we woke. Landen never asked what happened when I was alone with Drake. It would have been too painful for the both of us.

In our waking hours, the next few days went by in a haze as mourners flocked to say goodbye to Livingston. My parents, along with Landen, and me went to Infante to mourn Monica’s loss with my friends. Everyone was given the space they needed to digest all that we’d been through.

Today, Chrispin and Olivia are to return home to be celebrated. My mother hosted this celebration, letting Aubrey ease into her life with a new little boy. Landen spent the day with Marc and Brady, and I helped Felicity and my mother set up the party. As I critiqued the bouquet I’d just made, my thoughts took me away to the dark images that Drake had shown me, and a shiver ran down my back as I wondered where he might be. My mother must have been watching me; I felt her concern as she put her hands on my shoulder to comfort me.

“Willow, I want you to understand that love is the most powerful thing in this universe, and it will be what you’re going to have to call on again and again, but you’re going to see your way through this.”

I hugged my mother tightly and buried the dark images deep in my memory, only to be used as a weapon against Drake’s touch. I stared at her for a moment, taking in everything I’d learned since I found Landen.

“I just don’t understand it all. Doesn’t it bother you about Libby? I mean, I just can’t comprehend it,” I said, almost to myself, wanting to remember something about another life just to make this all make sense.

“Willow, take comfort in knowing that no matter what life you live, you’ll always have the ones you love the most near you. That’s how I see it,” my mother said, smiling.

I breathed in and wondered what other roles she’d played in my life.

I dressed for the party at my mother’s, remembering how nervous I was going to my own celebration, not knowing my family.

The minutes passed by too slowly. When I walked down the stairs at the end of the banister; I saw Landen was waiting for me. His smile went through me, bringing a unique light to my eyes, and I fell in his arms, welcoming him after a day of absence.

We took our place in the crowd and cheered as Olivia and Chrispin were introduced as one. We raised our glasses, soaking in the harmony that this dimension had bore. Landen took my hand and escorted me to the dance floor, where we danced, lost in each other, thankful that for the first time, the spotlight on our love had dimmed and given way to a new one.

Across the floor, I smiled as I watched Chrispin and Olivia. Brady took Felicity’s hand, and Dane and Clarissa swirled past us all. Watching and smiling were my parents, alongside Rose and Karsten.

Above everyone in the room, we could feel an overpowering peace. Looking to the source, we saw August standing with Ashten and Marc. We approached them, grinning. Seeing our attention being taken, others surrounded August. He looked across at each of us, then down to Libby and Preston.

“Libby and Preston asked me to bring them something. At first, like a fool, I doubted their words, but I listened to my heart and brought you this little one,” August said, staring down at Libby.

She smiled proudly up at him, jumping in place. August then opened his bag and uncovered a long branch with light green and pink blossoms and handed it to Libby.

“This branch comes from a beautiful Willow tree that’s now in Donalt’s center court,” August announced.

The crowd gasped, then everyone leaned in to look closer at all the color the branch had on it.

“It seems it grew overnight, and each time they cut it down, it grows just as tall and faster than before,” August proclaimed.