Chapter 171
ATASHA’S POV
1 day before the testing
“It’s been two days,” I muttered, turning the fae stone in my hand. “Why can’t I get it right?” Frustration tightened my voice. Then, I looked toward Elder Agape and held the stone out to him. “Are you sure this is even going to work? I mean-”
“My lady, please, have some water…” Grace hurried to my side, pressing a glass into my hand before turning toward Elder Agape. “Elder, perhaps it’s time for a short break? There are snacks prepared downstairs. I’ll call you when the Lady is ready to continue.”
I set the glass down and rubbed my thumb over the cool face of the fae stone again. It sat dead in my palm- no pulse, no heat, no stir of light. Just a pretty lump that refused to answer me.
The last few days replayed in pieces. Cassian had refused to let me leave his side after Violet.
Since then, I’d been honest with Cassian,about the night I absorbed one by accident, about the way it bled into me like water through dry earth. And the possibility that I might be a fae just like what the elder said. This prompted him to have the Elder teach me how to use fae stones.
He brought Elder Agape to the northern gates himself and told him what he wanted.
We’d been at it since dawn two days straight. Elder Agape laid out stones by “temper,” he called it, sleeping, listening, and answering stones. I never got past sleeping.
He showed me the holds, the breaths, the little commands you make in your head. “Impress a pattern,” he’d said. “Stones follow structure.” I impressed patterns until my fingers cramped. Yet, the stones did nothing.
Grace tried to be gentle. “Breathe,” she said. “Drink.” “Sit.” I sat, and all I could think was that time was running toward the testing while I was staring at rocks.
“Maybe I really can’t do it,” I said finally, voice low. “It hasn’t been proven I’m a fae. Maybe that first time was just a fluke.” Maybe it has nothing to do with being a fae and has something to do with the fact that it was a corrupted stone.
By now Grace knew what we were attempting. Cassian had placed her on me like a shadow, if she had to guard me, she needed to know the shape of the danger. She didn’t flinch at the word fae anymore.
“You should stop thinking about Violet. The testing already had you on edge,” Grace said. “You’ve been sleeping in pieces since Violet. Eat, breathe, then try again.”
I nodded. Since that day, I have not seen Violet, but Grace assured me she’s doing well with Sister Veris. “Give me a moment alone?”
Grace searched my face. “Are you going to be all right?”
“I will.”
She hesitated, then dipped her head and left, closing the door with a careful hand.
Silence immediately settled inside the room. I dropped onto the couch and leaned my head back, eyes tracing the lines in the ceiling plaster. Grace was right about one thing, the testing had me on edge. Not the fire and crowds part, I could handle the noise. It was the way Cassian flinched when the Stone of the Goddess was nearby. It was the way he endured the pain that I was supposed to feel.
Elder Agape said that what happened between the mate-bond could be… unpredictable. “Dependent on lineage, on the stone’s age, on intent,” he’d muttered. Which meant he didn’t know.
I closed my eyes and forced a slow breath.
Then something in the room shifted.
I immediately opened my eyes and found Cassian standing at the window, one shoulder against the frame, the winter light behind him. I stiffened without meaning to.
“When did you-” The rest caught in my throat. I couldn’t answer my own question because the bond had gone strange again. Blurry. That was the only word for it. Some hours it felt like it always had, a warm thread I could find with a thought. Lately it slipped like fog, there, then veiled, like someone had drawn a curtain between us.
Elder Agape had a name for it when I asked: “Gating the bond.” He said old pairs learned to turn parts of themselves down, pain, anger, fear, so the other wouldn’t carry it. You could mute it, reroute it, even hide entire moments if both wolves were strong enough. Cassian had started doing it as if he’d always known how.
“You’re masking again,” I said.
His mouth tipped, not quite a smile. “You were working.”
“That didn’t answer the question.”
“Long enough to watch you argue with a stone.”
I grimaced and looked at the table where three more sat in a neat line under Agape’s cloth. “They’re not arguing back.”
He pushed off the frame but didn’t come closer. “Agape says you’re forcing it.”
I let out a sigh. This was already something that I expected. I knew that the Elder would tell Cassian
everything, including this. “I know.” I turned my head away. The testing would be happening in a day and still, I can’t do anything to stop the pain from hurting Cassian.
Goddess, I wasn’t even sure if this was all going to work. I wasn’t even sure that being able to control the fae stone could change everything. Frustration bubbled inside me.
“What does it feel like?”
“Like a door that won’t even rattle.” I rolled my shoulders. “When I heal, it’s easy. Pain stands up and yells. I just push the other way. This-“I held up the stone. “-this has no edge to push.”
“Then stop pushing.”
“That’s what Elder Agape said.”
“He’s old. He’s earned the right to repeat himself.”
Pursing my lips, I met his gaze once again. “What if… the elder is wrong?” I asked, “What if… I am not a fac after all?”
“Only a fae would react to that stone.”
“What if it was a fluke?” I asked. “I was in the middle of stress and… perhaps the stone must have reacted to something aside from me being a fae.”
Or worse, what if… I only reacted to a corrupted fae stone because I myself am corrupted?
