Page 17 of Dark Witch Resurrection

Jasmine chuckled. "Before, it was. Now it's only friends. Why?"

Gabi shrugged. "I was just thinking about your induction and who will do it."

Margo shook her head. "Couldn't you have waited a few more days? Now you will have to find someone else to do it."

Jasmine had been thinking the same thing only moments ago, so she shouldn't get angry at Margo for suggesting that she would have been better off using Edgar and discarding him when she got what she needed from him.

"Edgar was fun to be with, and I'll always care about him as a friend, but things just fizzled out between us, and there was no point in dragging it out. It wouldn't have been fair to him if I just used him to induce my transition."

Negal nodded his approval, and Dagor did too.

"You did the right thing," Negal said. "Edgar might be hurting right now, but it would have been much worse if he felt used."

Tears prickled the backs of Jasmine's eyes. "He's a good guy, and he deserves someone who can give him her whole heart and looks at him like he hung the moon and stars for her."

Frankie sighed, a wistful expression stealing over her face. "I just hope your prince will feel that way about you once he wakes up and gets to know you."

"There is no guarantee of that." Gabi winced. "The guy is a celibate priest."

"Was," Jasmine said. "The twins' mother consecrated them to the priesthood to hide them from their people because they looked hybrid, and it was crucial that no one found out. They didn't join out of religious convictions or the wish to serve their people through their spiritual journey. It was just the part they were forced to play."

Jasmine wasn't sure who she was trying to convince, herself or Gabi.

"Still, even if he has no qualms about dropping his celibacy, he might take one look at me and run screaming in the opposite direction."

She'd said that as a joke, but Gabi wasn't smiling.

"There might be another problem," she said. "It is not a foregone conclusion that the prince could induce your transition at all. The Kra-ell don't have that ability. Only the gods and immortals do. Let's hope the prince's venom is as potent as the gods' or the immortals'."

Jasmine nodded as fear and hope mingled in her gut. Gabi was right, and there were no guarantees about anything, but even as doubts and uncertainties coursed through her like a gathering storm, deep down, she knew everything would be okay.

Whether the prince could induce her transition or not, she had to believe he was her destiny, the other half of her soul.

14

THE PRINCE

He was dreaming, his mind a swirling maelstrom of fragmented images and half-formed thoughts he couldn't grasp the threads of, but one image pierced through the fog of confusion, clear as if it was seared into his mind's eye—luminous eyes staring into his as if their owner knew him, knew who he was while he did not.

Could she tell him his name?

Was she the Mother of All Life?

Oh, that was a cohesive thought. A memory. He remembered the Mother. All was not lost.

Had the Mother come to escort him to the fields of the brave?

No. He did not deserve entry.

He had failed.

At what?

He could not remember but felt the failure like a crushing weight on his chest.

If she was the Mother, she came to escort him to the valley of the shamed.

But if she was not the Mother, who was she?