My Dearest,

Perhaps the proper way to pen a magical letter would be to open with salutations and apprise you of what I have been doing since I left you. Only, the ache in my heart at how we parted prevents this. Rumination on the comings and goings between the conversation with my father and the one with Lexa feel too mundane in the grand scheme of missing you, which has become the whole of my existence. Truly. I open my eyes to a new night thinking of you and when the day dawns, it’s you in my dreams.

I know you have asked me to ascertain if there is a way to break the godyoke, yet I find myself reticent. I do not like it, as you are well aware from our parting. But I must apologize, Auri, for my frustration. I have only found you. My soul yearns for you. My body longs for the song we sing together. Being apart not only heightens the intensity of the ache of missing you, but intensifies my regret at our angry parting. I think of the second wish, how a lifetime without you was paramount to walking death. Without you, I am incomplete. Now, I wish to gather you in my arms to tell you the truth of what is on my heart. 

I understand your reasoning for wanting to find a way to break the godyoke, that you want the choice to love me on your own terms, but though your logic is sound, the godyoke doesn’t create feelings. Love is in and of itself just love. I believe that two could be yoked and abhor one another or true friendship as equally as love. I am on a mission to prove this to you.

What I know whether the godyoke exists or not, my love, my heart is true.

I ache for you. My heart feels stretched too thin between where you are and where my journey has taken me. 

Yours for always,

Nix

My Beloved,

After we argued and you returned home, I regretted my wish immediately. Isn’t it an irony that within the enchantment, I made my wishes with care and thought, but in the real world, I haphazardly wished the godyoke broken? And after you’d gone, I knew that wasn’t truly my wish. My wish was only to rest in the truth that what we have is honest and real. That each of us in our own selves come to one another of our own freewill, not because we’ve been compelled.

I ask this, Nixus: Is our love honest and true in light of a magical mystery neither of us can solve?

I read your words and feel the fluttering of how I recognize you there. I can search my own heart for the words to recognize the golden threads of my heart tethered to yours. And yet, even knowing that, those  questions linger. What is real? What is magical? What is the truth between you and I?

Please don’t doubt my love for you. I don’t doubt yours for me. Within the depth of my marrow, I know that the love we have for one another is real. I only abhor the lingering shadow of that question that can’t be answered. Wouldn’t it be nice to know beyond that shadow that would stand in the light, confident in the truth of what we share? I would like the certainty of knowing that our love might be stories in the grand scheme of the stars and tethered by a godyoke, but that regardless of those things, we came together beyond it, choosing one another above all.

Come back to me, soon. All my love,

Auri

My Dearest,

You forget I am the Lord of Shadows, my love, and to be blunt, that’s a load of shit. Besides, who can ever know that love is real whether yoked or not? We’re having to discover that for ourselves!

Stars, I don’t like being angry with you, and you are being so stubborn, though I should have known it. Your tenacity is one of the reasons I’m here. I certainly don’t begrudge it except for right this second when all I want is to have you in my arms, and despite my aching heart, I am doing what you’ve asked.

I met with my father and shared my suspicions. He felt it was imperative to ascertain your lineage, but without your mother and father’s help with the matter, it has left a bit of a shadow. This will require a trip to the Hall of Oracles, though I haven’t yet gotten that far. Lexi has insisted on a night out at a demon bar where she says she knows someone. What does that mean? No clue, but I will humor her. Who wouldn’t.

Auri, my heart hurts too much at our distance. I can’t stay angry—choose not to be angry—but I am hurt.

Yours always (even when I’m frustrated),

Nix

My Beloved,

My heart aches in a myriad of ways. First, it’s physical. The godyoke is yanking on the threads that intertwined with you. With you so far away—where is Elcadia anyway?—the strain of it feels like I’m stuck in the dead of winter without the hope of summer. Is it affecting you similarly? 

Second, I hate that I’ve hurt you. Loathe it, Nix. The way I feel about you and the need to be near you is like returning home after time away, I should think, though my experience with this is somewhat limited, and returning home after the spell was tainted with the loss of the memories. Only when you found me in the glen and I remembered, the warmth of recalling the joy of being with you is such a beautiful contrast to the emptiness that came before it. Is this because I love you with this constant hunger, or because of the godyoke? I know it pains you that I ask this question, but I feel the answer is important. What have you discovered?

I confess, I did go to my mother full of frustration and anger. Missing you feels much like I’ve been scraped raw over jagged rocks and what’s left is tender and painful. We fought. It isn’t a surprise considering the stubbornness of my mother. She is an immovable mountain, but she knows about us. The bigger mystery though, Nix: she didn’t seem surprised. Of course, the key was shocking, but the godyoke? To add to my frustration with her, she has remained tightlipped about it, saying, “it isn’t time.”

She makes me so angry.

Even having come clean, I’m still relegated to the cottage. 

Please tell me you have solved the mystery?

And Nix, I will choose you. Always,

Auri

My Dearest,

To answer your question, Elcadia is in Elcadia. I wonder if the better way to describe its existence is as an idea rather than a concrete place, and though I sit at my desk penning this magical missive to you (have they been too burned when you receive them?), it is a true place. When I left you, I merely thought of Elcadia and found myself here. As a physical place must exist in the cosmos for I am here, but my movement to and between and from is formulated with a thought. Perhaps that means it is beyond your ability to find it? I cannot say with certainty.

As for the godyoke, it is with huge regret that I cannot say I have solved our chicken or the egg conundrum. After my visit to the demon bar and a visit to the Great Hall of Oracles of the Elcadian Library, I haven’t discovered any way to break the bond. On the contrary, Auri, what I discovered was story after story about the deep loves of the ancients with respect to the godyoke. Breaking the bond is only through what is called The Fading (and don’t expect me to agree to this with you as it will mean our deaths), and that sounds like torture. It was clear in my discussion with Thema Rosan (a monk within the Theman Order of Oracles) that it is believed the lessening of godyoke pairings has been theorized to be attributed to a significant abatement in our stars. It seemed a bit bigoted if you ask me, but I could see the rationale. The marriage of god to non-god and their progeny. The gifting of immortality which requires giving away starlight. I suppose—as theories go—it could hypothesize why the godyoke has become so rare. But it does beg the question why us? And for that, I will need to do further research. 

Your mother’s stubbornness doesn’t surprise me as I know you. Knowing her and your father’s histories would help significantly.

Auri, I ache for you, and I cannot stay away. I will visit soon. The desperation that infiltrates the spaces in my heart hurts, and I find my despondency can only be answered by renewing the bond when we are together. The alternative (according to Thema Rosan and in an unsubstantiated anecdote by my mother) is that without the regeneration from one star to the other now that we have bonded will result in our fading. I feel faded without you, the torture of pining for you with my heart, soul, and body pains me. So expect me. Look for me on the fourth night from receiving this beyond the hedge. I’ll be waiting.

Forever yours,

Nix

My Beloved,

You have quenched my thirst. You being near me gives me life. I am a fool, I fear, to have sent you away on a fool’s errand to discover how to break such a gift. My heart might burst with joy for now I have sipped our cup. Come back to me. 

Auri