Chapter 55 Same Old Nightmare

Chapter 53 The Future is Sealed

JULIEN

It took him a moment to take in her words. They didn't fully make sense to him.

"Eveet?" He asked, watching Celestine's reaction. "Eveet will send me to the Wastes?" He all but scoffed.

The Wastes were a dreadful, uninhabitable place where the wind was violent and the water was scarce. Rock and sand were its only scenery, and it was the last place someone of his kind would ever want to find themselves. Its location was a thing of myth, and the place itself was something Julien had always had an issue even believing existed.

Celestine's face never wavered, and it sent his heart into his stomach. Her readings have never been wrong.

"Yes."

"And how is she supposed to do that?" It was incredulous. His father had searched for the location of the Wastes for decades. He was the only one in their entire Coven who even knew where they were. Supposedly.

Whether or not they actually existed or his father gave up looking, he wasn't sure.

"Ah, ah. I don't think I shall tell you." Her tiny child's voice tinkled in the air with humor.

"Celestine." He breathed her name. "Don't come here and think to mock me. I'm not in the mood for it today." It was true. He'd been through too much recently and wanted to keep his mind on better things. Like the day he would wed Eveet.

"Ohhh." She exhaled the word as she moved in closer to Julien. Reaching up, she trailed her cold little fingers across the skin of his arm. When he looked down at her, she was pouting. "Come now. I don't mean to mock. You know how these things can go. If I had my way, I wouldn't be here either, but... As it is. The prophecy's magic binds me to follow through when certain actions have signed the binding to the future."

His brows creased in confusion. He hated it when she spoke of anything regarding prophecy or the future. It was always in riddles and made little sense until long after the event had already come to fruition.

"What action?"

"Your fathers." She paused and pulled her hand back so she could dig at her nails. "I'm sure you already know, but I was just out visiting your lovely bride. I'm sure she sends her regards."

A chill slid down his back, and his body went tense. He'd known that she was the Mambo visiting Eveet, but for her to say it so bluntly made him feel like she was planning something else. Something he couldn't stop. Her brain, although that of a child, wasn't ignorant. She had her own plans for the future, but he wasn't sure what they were, and that unknowing made him uneasy.

She kept talking, ignoring his reaction. "Did you know that she's recently visited her uncle? The brother of Margaux." Another pout pushed her bottom lip out for just a brief moment. "My sweet, sweet Margaux."

Julien stayed quiet, but he understood very well the malice that was bleeding off of Celestine in waves. Margaux was her pet in a way. She'd followed her over from France because of her love for the mortal. Julien wasn't sure exactly how they had come to have such a relationship, but Celestine had looked at Margaux like she was her child. Had his father not stepped in and used Margaux to try and manipulate events, Julien was sure that Celestine would have turned Margaux by now. As it was, his father's meddling had wound up killing the woman.

It strained their family's relationship with Celestine, and now any information that comes to them from her about their family's prophecy isn't given freely. That was the reason she was here today, or so Julien assumed.

She continued talking, ignorant of Julien's musings. "You should know, she knows of our kind." She paused, and a little smile pulled the edges of her lips up a moment before she continued, "Although, had he not told her, she would have found out eventually."

At that, Julien's eyes widened in surprise. Was she talking about the fact that he'd planned to tell her about vampires on their wedding night?

He ignored the comment and asked, "What else did her uncle tell her? And why are you here, Celestine? What do you have to tell the Lafittes?"

She bristled, her shoulders moving up and down a few times. It was a habit she'd picked up over the years that gave away her discomfort. She looked away, towards the marsh along their estate. "I don't know what all they spoke of. I just know that she's aware of our kind's existence." She turned back to him and continued. "And you're right. I'm here only because I'm bound by the prophecy. Due to my own choices, I've mingled with its outcome and therefore must also give your family the same amount of assistance."

"Does that mean you've assisted Eveet? So she is the one from the prophecy?"

Celestine's face squished in on itself for a brief moment, but it was gone so fast that he thought he might have imagined it. "It means..." She paused, forcing her point. "I'm here to help."

He crossed his arms and stared down at the child-like woman. With a shrug, he said, "Then help."

She bristled once more, and a deep frown creased her chin. Then, with a quick, frustrated exhale, she said, "There were three possible outcomes to the prophecy that was born to me. One: She married into your family and became one with you. Both families would prosper. Two: She would die, and both your families would fall to ruin. Or, three: She marries her protector and the Lafittes' name dwindles into nothingness as it's absorbed into hers." She turned and spat on the ground. After licking her lips, she turned back to Julien with glee in her eyes. "Because of your father's own mingling, he's forced the third option to be the only way forward!"

She cackled loudly into the sky. "Because he used and killed my Sweet Margaux, he forced Eveet into herself. Into her own mind. He closed off her heart. She will abandon the betrothal. Your family will fall, and it's all because he couldn't help but try to control the outcome."

She pulled her chin into herself like she was going to strike out, but instead she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply.

Julien had no words. He had no idea how to respond. Celestine and his family hadn't always gotten along, but he'd thought they'd still shared some form of partnership.

Only, that wasn't what had rendered him speechless.

Eveet doesn't wish to marry me?

The thought that the woman he had obsessed over for most of his life, the person he saw a future with... didn't want him.

After exhaling, Celestine opened her eyes once more and met Julien's cold blue ones. "Worry not, Julien. I don't hate you. I hate your father. That is why I'm here. Your family will fall, but your future... is full of love. Hardship beforehand? Absolutely. But so much love afterwards."

After saying those words, she disappeared.