Bound by Forever - (True Immortality #3) Page 0,65

hiding her gifts from them, but they discovered her over time. They wanted her to be medically examined but Astra knew she’d end up in a lab somewhere and maybe even eventually exploited by a government. So she killed her parents and … got rid of their bodies … like I did with the abuser at Moscow Airport. Despite the suspicions of her parents’ friends, there was no evidence she’d done anything to harm them, so she was put into the foster care system. She grew close to a girl in her group home, but when the girl became romantically interested in another girl and stopped paying attention to Astra, she used her powers to push the girl down three flights of stairs. The girl ended up in a coma.

There is a long list of antisocial behavior from Astra. I thought perhaps if I went to her and gave her a family, it might help, but Ronan wouldn’t let me. In all honesty, he was right.

When I was seventeen, I got a vision that truly frightened me. The future is never absolute. The smallest decision can affect everything, so the possibilities are infinite. Over the years, I’ve been shown possible futures. Thea, Conall’s mate, endured horrors that none of the rest of us have. I knew if she didn’t trust Conall when he was sent to her, Eirik would eventually find and kill her. Her mating with Conall would change that future, so I tried to push them together. The vision I saw before he left … it showed me multiple possibilities for Thea, Conall, and their pack’s future, and in all of them, I’m pleased to say that Thea and Conall are happy.

With Fionn and Rose, it was much bigger than just one person’s destiny. Fionn wanted to open the gate so he could take his revenge against the Faerie Queen for destroying his life and turning him fae. He would have succeeded in killing Aine and the fae would rush to the human world to take their vengeance. The human world, as we know it, would have ended.

His mating with Rose, however, changed that. His priority became protecting her and thus protecting the gate.

“So you saved the world?”

Niamh smirked. Rose saved the world from Fionn.

“What of Astra?”

If Astra lived, there was a possibility, not an absolute, but a possibility she’d succeed in opening the gate to Faerie. I wasn’t the only fae born with knowledge. She has it too. Astra and I are like two sides of the same coin. Same gifts, visions, abilities … but one of us was born in the light, the other, the dark. She craves power and believes that she can only be truly immortal by returning to Faerie where there is no iron or werewolves … where nothing can end her.

But she also knows there are several ways to return to Faerie. If one of us willingly wants to return to Faerie, then we need four of us to open the gate. Four is a sacred number to the fae. They have four countries, four courts, four seasons, four times of day in which the courts are named for—Samhradh, a country of perpetual sunshine. Colloquially known as the Day Lands and location of the Queen’s royal seat. Geimhreadh, a country of eternal darkness and called the Night Lands. Earrach, the Dawn Lands, and Fómhar, the Dusk Lands.

Four. Four of us to open the gate if one of us is willing.

If we’re all unwilling, our enemies only need one of us. They don’t even need our deaths. They just need to spill our unwilling blood.

“Why do you need four, then?”

Proof that we’re deserving to return to Faerie. That one of us at least feels like we’re one of them, not one of the supernaturals or humans we were raised among.

“And Astra knew this? She has the sight?”

Yes. But I thought she was no longer a problem. A few months after I had the vision about her plans to find and use three of us to open the gate, Eirik found and killed her. I thought she was dead. He thought she was dead.

“What happened?”

He stabbed her in the heart with iron, and she appeared to die a slow, painful death. Niamh couldn’t believe Astra had been able to contrive that. She must have used magic as an illusion. He only thought he was using iron, and she made him see what she wanted him to see. The scary part is that it tricked