There was a long, heavy pause. Cass knew that the gods could see him. He knew that they were watching him cry. He was broken. Shattered.
What could he even say? They were right. He had forced it, he had pushed it.
He had been eager. Hadn’t known the cost. Now that he did, it was too late to regret it.
A gentle touch, soft, kind, and a sigh that held an unbearable kindness washed over Cass.
"Quiet your anger." The god spoke. "Who are we to blame those that cannot see the future the way we see it? Our dear Caspian could not have known what his actions did, and we didn’t know either. Calm your anger, my brethren. Caspian, not everything is lost. You have what the nursery tree told you, remember? He is not gone entirely. We can save him." Cass felt like this was a monkey’s paw. He felt that there was something else here, something he wasn’t seeing, but his tears stung.
"Do I have to make another deal?" Cass asked, knowing he sounded broken. The gentle touch pressed deeper, and Cass wasn’t sure what they were doing, but maybe it was meant to be supportive.
"No, Caspian. You do not need to make another deal. Not with the gods, nor with the demons. You need to speak to Cassian himself." The god’s voice was sweet. "You need to convince him that this is a good choice. That it’s the right choice. The problem arises that...you will change. You will not be the same anymore. Your cycle will be tampered with." The gods’ words washed over Cass and it felt like someone was walking over his grave.
It wasn’t only ominous because a god was telling him this. It was ominous because Cass knew, deep within, that they were right. Cass just thought that he would be the one leaving, not Cassian.
A soft whisper of wind, carrying the scent of cherry blossoms.
"You know as well as we do that two souls should not be in one body for a long period of time. This conversation was bound to happen." They were clearly trying to be gentle, Cass could tell. He could also tell that some of the gods disagreed with this god.
However, they were too powerful for the others to protest their words. Cass felt a small, tiny sliver of hope fill him. He had no idea what would come of this, but he knew that he couldn’t avoid it anymore.
"What do I need to convince him of? How can I even speak to him? What are you asking of me?" It was a broken question from a man who had been doing everything that he could. Everything that he could muster.
A soft wind washed over him.
"You must convince him to merge his soul with yours. You must fully integrate with each other. That is the only way to preserve him. Otherwise, he will be lost. He will be sent to the demon realm for something he had no control over. It is the only way to save him, Caspian. However, you will be altered forever as well. You will not be human alone anymore. You will take on his traits, his characteristics while also still remaining yourself. You will not be able to ever go back."
Cass felt shaken to his core.
It was the worst outcome. The worst thing he could ever hear.
Merging souls? Becoming one?
He knew that could have been an outcome, knew that it was possible, but he had tried to avoid it. At least mentally he had. But one short blunder and now...
"There are no other choices?" Cass asked, desperate. The god who Cass was speaking to was silent for a moment and that was answer enough.
"There weren’t many options to begin with. We weren’t aware of the deal before this, but now that we are...we have very little control over it. It explains why we didn’t have as tight of a grip on his soul as we are used to, why we had to rely on other souls to help. Caspian, you would be the first to do this. It will interrupt our plans going forward. There is a lot of weight to this choice if you make it. There will be no going back."
The words sunk, hard and heavy, filling Cass’ chest. Cass let out a gasp of breath, desperate to breathe, to think, to escape this. But he’d already tried to do that, and it had led back to this.
There was no way to get out of this without doing what they wanted. Not because they had forced his hand, but because Cass didn’t want to leave Cassian alone. Not again. No one had fought for Cassian before this, outside of the nursery tree. No one.
Cass couldn’t abandon him too.
"Are you saying that the others you summoned...they let Cassian die?" Cass asked, even in his shock and terror and all consuming panic, he picked up on what they were saying. Or weren’t saying.
"Yes." Came the quiet response. The short answer echoed around them in the darkness as Cass felt everything inside of him tighten painfully.
"I can’t do that." Cass admitted.
"We know." It felt gentle, kind. "There was a reason we chose you, Caspian. We told you this in the beginning. We are just sorry that this choice came about so soon and in such a shocking way." The way they spoke made it sound like this choice was always going to have to happen and Cass bit his lip.
He was the one who made this harder. There could have been other choices, but Cass was the one who made this be his only choice.
"Okay. Okay. How...How do I convince him?" Cass asked and the next ten minutes was the god explaining what Cass would need to do.
Cassian wasn’t gone. The gods were the reason that he was still there, but frayed. Like the nursery tree said. Several of them were needed to keep a hold on him, to keep him here, but they would not be able to summon him like they had that one time. It would also mean that Cass’ observation of his sister would have to be delayed.
Cass accepted that as an outcome of a choice he had made.
Cass would have to take advantage of the time after his heat where the connection to Cassian was the strongest to speak to him. Like always. However, the gods would amplify his connection to Cassian to help them speak for longer. Cassian might also not look like himself when Cass spoke to him. He might be transparent, thin, or sickly.
The gods weren’t as versed in the spirits of mixed children as much as they would like to be. Especially children mixed with demons. Cass wanted to get mad at them or blame them, but they sounded so upset by the outcome that Cass couldn’t bring himself to criticize them when he was the reason they even were in this mess.
However, the gods knew that they could force their two souls together, but it would result in the more dominant soul taking over the body. They would lose the second soul completely. The only way that they would be able to not harm the other was if the other soul agreed to the blending. Agreed to being the weaker of the two souls.
Cass might still be able to speak to Cassian in moments of great emotion, but he would truly become a secondary personality to Cass. This was because Cass was the stronger soul. He always had been.
The moment Cassian agreed to allow Cass to take over his body, his soul had been reduced to allow Cass to fill up the extra space inside of him. Cass didn’t allow himself to mourn that thought, and instead focused on what he would need to do.
He needed to convince Cassian that it was the right decision to merge souls. He needed to be the one to come up with a good argument. Otherwise he would lose all of the memories of Cassian entirely, no matter what the gods had agreed to with him. If a soul was gone, there was nothing else they could do about it.
He might be able to retain partial memories, probably the ones closer to when he had passed, but anything from his childhood would be gone. Cass would be dazed, confused, and it would almost be like the first few months here were completely gone. Cass would have large gaps in his memory, he would be frustrated and annoyed, and it would be difficult to complete the mission.
Even as the god said that, there was a hesitancy to their voice. They knew that Cass wasn’t doing this so that he could retain his memories, he was doing this so that he could keep Cassian alive.
Cass was worried that he might not be able to sell it. That he might not be able to convince Cassian that joining souls with him would be worth it. While Cass had been plucked out of his world and ’selected’ to be the one to fix this world, he didn’t actually think he had much to offer outside of a potty mouth and a lot of righteous rage over how he had been treated. He was very worried that he might not sell it to him, but he still made sure to get the information on what he should do after he convinced him.
The answer was simple.
Cass needed to get to the temple as soon as he finished his conversation with Cassian. In fact, he should instruct the saint to bring him here as soon as he fell asleep on the final night of his heat. Cass knew that was when he normally spoke to Cassian, and the gods knew it too.
Cass gulped, worried, scared, panicked, but he knew that this was something that he needed to do.
The gods assured him that they would be able to keep Cassian here for that long. They just couldn’t assure him that they could keep a hold of him for the extra month that it would take for his next heat to come around so that he could convince him then.
They didn’t like admitting their shortfalls, but again, there was a reason that they had called Cass here. The demons had a greater hold, which was why they weren’t able to hold onto Cassian longer. It was a horrible truth, but one that Cass needed to be reminded of.
Cass listened, absorbed, asked questions as he needed. He didn’t think that he was normally allowed to speak to the gods for as long as he was, but the god overheard Cass’ thoughts and chuckled.
"You, my dear, caring Caspian, are an exception. We were careful because we were treating you like the other souls in our protection, but you continue to show your strength, even when you are unwell. All will be well. We have faith in you, and we have faith in Cassian. Despite what you think, we do love you all without question. We just...get a little frustrated sometimes." The god said, a soft sigh washing over Cass. "Now, you should go back, Caspian. The saint seems especially worried, along with the dragonling. Please assure them that it would be against our own principles to hurt you."
Cass wasn’t sure what that meant, but he didn’t need to think about it too hard. One second he was in the darkness, and the next he was staring up at the vaulted ceiling of the main temple.
"He’s awake!" Came the cry and Cass felt his eyes fill with tears and spill over. Now he had to tell everyone what he had done, and what he needed their help with.
Apparently, telling Taniora earlier was practise for now.