A Foolish Choice

Titus fell silent. I heard him breathing, the bond stronger than it had been before, which I believed was due to me knowing it existed. Of course that complicated removing it, if he made the decision he wanted to be free. As I waited, eyes on the ceiling above me, I couldn’t work out which option I’d prefer he chose. He’d given up too much for me already, but loosing him… I’d accept the pain for him.

Finally, he sighed. ‘If I’m to make this decision, Anne, I need to know what effect it will have on the woman I love.’

‘Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing, Titus.’

‘After Seeing what could happen I have my doubts. This is not something we need to be doing now. You’re a baby.’

‘We have to do it now.’ I didn’t need him close by to see the raised eyebrow. ‘My choices have already changed the bond. Every day that passes has an effect, so it’s now or we wait until Jules returns with the boys, because then there’ll be two of us. Only by then… if you actually want me to potentially fall in love with someone else then there’s no other option.’

Emotions swirled. Jealousy, anger, sadness… when did I find out about Jules? How could I ask him to give up the bond when he’d been by my side for so long? Did I want to fall in love with someone else? Was that the whole reason I’d brought up the subject in the first place? I accepted them, the way I always had, waiting for Titus to work through them, and maybe he would ask those questions. My answers might not help, but at least we’d be able to talk things through for the first time.

‘I can’t do this.’ His voice broke, and more than anything I wished I was there to pull him into my arms, kiss his cheek, try to put his mind at ease. ‘Do what you need to, Anne. Clearly you’ve made your choice.’

‘You’re my choice.’ He didn’t believe me, but it was true. ‘Titus Lockwood, you deserve the world.’ A tear rolled down my cheek. ‘I hate that you gave up your future for me, without me even knowing you did it, and now I do… words aren’t enough. Every life… I don’t know how to say what I’m thinking or feeling. Just that I feel so guilty for… this.’ Mentally, I gestured, another tear escaping, shared pain wrapping round me. ‘Nothing I say will be right, because it’s too late. We should have been able to have this conversation lifetimes ago.’

‘Love, it wouldn’t have changed anything.’ I didn’t believe him. ‘You’re mine.’ There was a possessiveness in his voice I hadn’t expected. ‘Removing the bond won’t make me love you any less, because I know, for a fact, I’d have loved you without it. Anne, I… do you think I cared more you were the Heart? Being with you was a choice I’d made for the wrong reasons?’

How did I even answer? ‘I know I was a child. Whatever you might have Seen you weren’t in love with me. That came later, and, yes, maybe it was a Certainty, but we weren’t, otherwise you wouldn’t have tried so hard to convince me we weren’t a possibility. Had I not made the decision to kiss you none of this would have happened.’

‘Papa hated the thought of an us. He couldn’t accept our relationship becoming what it is, so he tried to make it an impossibility with the vow, which… it was hard for me to fail him, only this… being with you… there’s never been anyone else. Being your brother would have been the worst mistake I could possibly have made, because what I feel… I’ve always worried you’d choose him. The day would come when he’d finally step into Marren Vale, the man you were meant to be with, and I’d lose you, because it was never me. You loved me due to the soulbond.’

Those words broke me, tears streaming down my cheeks, and I breathed in deeply, trying to regain some semblance of control. Fortunately I was a baby. No one expected me to be able to explain why I felt anything, even Titus normally. As he likely already understood them, thanks to the bond, I didn’t need to put anything into actual words, but I wanted to, before.

‘What I feel isn’t the bond, and it never has been. I’ll prove it to you.’

My decision should not have been made when I was so emotional, but I didn’t believe I’d change my mind. Using magics I barely understood I removed the bond, the strength of the power we’d shared far harder to control than I imagined, my belief I’d made the right choice just enough for me to do what needed to be done, although then I saw Jules. His eyes met with mine, and he shook his head. Did he feel me break the bond?

“You are very lucky.” I made a face, not having a connection to make it possible for me to actually communicate with him, because there was no bond between us. “Why did you do that?”

‘For Titus.’

“Do you honestly think he’s not panicking right now? Breaking the bond… Anne, seriously.”

‘Can you hear me?’

“I can, yes, and I’ll need to check in on Titus soon, because this… I needed to be able to tell him you hadn’t managed to shatter your own soul. Anne, you still need the bond. Did you mention that to him, or just emotionally choose to break it, because he didn’t believe you actually loved him?”

‘Leave me alone, Jules. I don’t need your judgement. This is the right thing for Titus. Now I can show him…’ A tear escaped, and I couldn’t wipe it away, not in control of my arms the way I needed to be. ‘He doesn’t have to choose me.’

Jules knelt beside me, wiping the tear away for me. ‘Titus will always choose you, the same way I will, because we love you.” He kissed my forehead. “You silly girl. It didn’t matter to either of us that you were the Heart – we cared about you.”

‘Yes, enough he shoved you into a fire.’

“Time has helped, and I have forgiven him.” I wasn’t surprised by the truth in Jules’s voice, because he was always going to, understanding the soulbond long before I even knew it existed. “You have until you come into your power, Anne, What you’ve done… I didn’t want to send the boys out into the world alone, but now I don’t think I have a choice.”

‘Explain to them, and him, I did this out of love.’ I studied Jules. ‘This can’t be easy for you.’

“Are you able to recreate the bond?”

‘Please stop worrying. I wouldn’t have done what I did if I wasn’t certain I could recreate the bond if it was necessary.’

For longer than I expected Jules stared at me. “If?”

‘We both know the soulmate isn’t the solution, Julian. He wouldn’t have been if the soulmate bond was stronger. None of the bonds are enough, because they’ll constantly weakened by my magic, and we can’t go through the ritual again. Our souls are too scarred.’

“None of?”

‘I see bonds too.’

“Other soul mages have also seen bonds, Anne, but the soulbond was carefully hidden, the soulmate bond technically didn’t exist, and no one, since me, has been able to see anything more. I told the boys, because Sebastian… he was panicking, worried there was no way to help you.”

‘So they might have told Titus, although I don’t know how it would have come up.’ I nodded. ‘Him knowing isn’t really a problem, but… is that bond the same as the others?’

Moving, so he was sitting rather than kneeling, Jules stroked a hand over the top of my head. “Not exactly. Both the soulbond and the soulmate bond amplify emotions, but if you don’t feel them they don’t create them. At least I don’t believe they do. Titus… it’s hard for him, due to the bond, which… only you could have done that. I tried, but Thaddeus was far stronger than I expected.”

‘Did you ask him?’ Jules shrugged, which was more than enough of an answer. ‘You cared about him too.’

“Titus was my oldest friend, Anne. I knew the damage the soulbond might do to him, and with the vow… I tried my best, for both of you, because I never wanted anything bad to happen to either of you. Even Thaddeus came to realise the vow was likely to cause Titus to break entirely, but I think your relationship held him together, which is why I need to talk to him soon. The last thing we need is for your decision to cause that instead.”

‘He knows me.’

“Yes, but you’re both in a complicated place emotionally right now. I need to be able to tell him you understand what you did, and that you are willing to have the soulbond recreated if it becomes necessary, because I don’t think telling him about the other bond will help right now. Plus there’s the twins.”

‘I know, but I’m not worried.’ Jules raised an eyebrow. ‘The boys will be fine, even if they aren’t our sons, and, yes, I know Seb’s inherited some more unusual magics. Fortunately he isn’t a Heart.’

“Anne…”

Gently, I wrapped my hand around Jules’s finger. ‘I am certain of that. For now. Jules, Seb could be a Heart, if something were to happen to me. That I will do everything I can to avoid, which is part of the reason I needed to do this.’ Looking into his eyes, letting him feel my certainty, I gave him a smile. ‘When I walk into the birthplace of magic it will be with the right person by my side. Being the Heart… it’s a responsibility I wish I didn’t have, but I will make the best choices I can, which means giving Titus a chance to make his decision without the bond weighing him down. For so long he’s been following a path Thaddeus created for him, and I want him to have a chance to free himself from that if he no longer wants to be my protector.’

“Only he won’t ever say that. You’re his everything, Anne.”

‘More importantly he’s mine.’ Saying something like that to Jules was hard, I saw the flicker of pain in his eyes, but he needed to understand, especially if he was going to share my words with Titus. ‘We’ve been though so much to get to where we are, and that… I wanted to give him a chance to grow up without the soulbond. I almost wish I could have taken his memories too.’

Jules stared at me. “Did you think that when you broke the bond?”

‘Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking. Titus said he thought I’d choose my soulmate due to the soulbond being the reason I was in love with him, and I reacted badly, because it wasn’t. Breaking the bond was an emotional decision, so I could have been thinking anything when I did it.’

“You know better than anyone how dangerous emotional magic can be, Anne.”

The worrying part was the fact I had the strength to actually take Titus’s memories, and that… I closed my eyes. I had the other connection, which might be enough, if I used everything, but if he didn’t remember me I might cause more damage. What had I done? Breathing slowly, it was still only a possibility, I focused on Jules once more, who stroked his hand over my head again, doing what he could to calm me.

‘Don’t go yet. I know if I didn’t take his memories he’s going to worry, but he knows you, so he’ll just assume you’re checking on me.’

“I’ll stay a little longer.” He kissed my forehead again. “One way or another everything will work out.”

‘Easy words to say.’ I squeezed his finger. ‘What do I do if I took Titus’s memories, Jules?’

“Fortunately, although it may not seem it, you know almost everything important.” I studied him. “There may be some things you didn’t have a chance to talk about, but I don’t think it’s anything I can’t help with.” Sighing, he raked his free hand through his hair. “How complicated it is depends on how you exactly how you took his memories, because you’re the Heart, and that… I’m not going to lie, Anne., because there is a chance they might be gone for good.”

‘Right when he was fixing his relationship with Seth and Sebastian.’ I was such a fool. ‘Can I give them back?’

“Anne, you’re asking questions I don’t have answers to right now.” He lay down beside me, in a position that meant I could still hold his finger, needing him in a way I hadn’t before. “Before you start getting stressed out about this I see Titus, and work out whether you did let your emotions get the better of you. Then I might be able to tell from his soul exactly what you did. If you tore them out…”

‘Jules…’

“Sugarcoating things isn’t going to change anything. You need to be prepared for the worst. Titus may never be the man you loved, Anne.” I couldn’t stop the tears then, but Jules was right, which was what hurt the most. “What you did… I understand, truly, because I always wanted you to be given a choice too. Hence the fire. Back then Titus wasn’t in control of the soulbond, and it’s the reason… you know, don’t you?”

‘The scar told me I was right to suspect, I didn’t want to ask for the story right then.’

“He might never want to tell you.” Jules sighed. “It wasn’t due to her telling you he was in love with you, although that didn’t help. After that… Phoebe tried to kill you.”

‘Phoebe what?’ I rolled to look at him, shock making it easier than it had been. ‘Surely I’d remember that.’

“Love, she didn’t get close enough to do any actual harm. Titus made certain of that. He Saw what was coming, so he did what he believed was best, because she wasn’t going to stop. As far as she was concerned you were in her way.”

‘What would have happened if she succeeded?’

“Nothing good.”

By the time Phoebe disappeared I’d already had the boys. Sebastian… I breathed in deeply. It hadn’t happened… thanks to Titus. Yet another thing he’d done for me, and Seb, without me knowing about it. Jules gently stroked my cheek. Looking at him, thinking of the times I’d brought him up with my sons, because I’d never been able to forget him. He was Titus’s friend, not mine, but after magic changed Marren Vale he’d looked out for me the same way Titus had.

‘Thank you. For being here.’ I squeezed his finger harder. ‘Even though I don’t think I actually deserved either of you.’

“You never asked to be the Heart, Anne. Being there for you made sense.”

‘Even after what Titus did?’

“Like I said, it was more the soulbond than Titus. He didn’t have the kind of control necessary to keep it from taking over in that moment, fear of any harm coming to you getting the better of him, and I can’t hate him for it, because I think I’d have done the same thing if I was in his position.” Jules sighed, touching his nose against mine. “Especially then. We were dealing with so much. The fire. You. Our own relationship.”

‘I assume you both knew.’ A flicker of worry as he looked at me. ‘There’s no recriminations, Jules. We all understood, in the end, why they made the choice they did, even though it hurt. Your father was the one who saw it, right?’

“Papa noticed his own soul first.” Jules stared into the distance. “So did I, but I kept hoping it wasn’t what I thought it was. Taking Mama’s place was one thing. Both of them… in the end there was no other option. Little by little their sanity was fading, and Thaddeus Saw what could happen if they didn’t make that choice, so they picked what they believed was the better future. I was there to say goodbye, doing my best to mentally prepare myself for the conversation I needed to have with the girls, only to end up in an argument with Titus, because he was worried I’d try something he didn’t approve of, especially as I had Thaddeus’s seal of approval.”

‘What do you mean?’

“He knew about the possibility of the two of you being in a romantic relationship. I assume Titus told you how Thaddeus felt about that.” Nodding, I closed my eyes, feeling sleepy once more, which was probably for the best. “Thaddeus asked me to accept the soulbond, only Titus wouldn’t give it up. More than once he said ‘no one can look after Anne the way I can’, and I don#t think he was wrong about that. So Thaddeus asked me to be there to step in if it ended up being necessary.”

‘Like you were going to do now.’

“Yes, because I love you enough to do it, Anne.” He stroked the hair off my face, even though it barely existed. “I give you my word if something has happened to Titus’s memories I will do what I can to help you fix it, and if that’s not possible I will go into the birthplace of magic with you if you want me to.” Gently, he kissed my forehead again, the magic swirling around us. “Should I tell the boys?”

‘Come back to me first, even if I’m sleeping, Jules. I need to know. Then, yes, if I’ve broken their father I need you to tell the boys.’ Sleep further away once more, I felt the tears slip down my cheeks, Jules wiping them away. ‘I don’t want them to go looking for my soulmate.’

“He might be the better choice.”

‘Jules, please, I need them to stay close. If anything bad happens to them out in the world I’d never forgive myself. Unless Titus does have his memories, because then we need the soulmate here, so he can be certain of my choice.’

“Whatever you need.” He stroked my cheek again. “I’ll be back as soon as I know what the situation with Titus is. Try to rest, love. No matter what we will find a way to deal with it.”

Although I wasn’t entirely reassured I breathed in deeply, hoping when Jules returned he’d have good news, and I hadn’t broken Titus entirely, in either of the two ways it was possible I might have. Not that it would necessarily be good news for him, his words returning to me. He’d chosen me, like Titus, and that… I couldn’t help wishing they’d never had to.