“What’s happened?” Cole says, rushing forward, the fear clawing at his stomach.
When no one answers him, his face crumples as he fears the worst, but then Xane says, “It appears we are all fake.”
“Fake? What?” Cole asks, now totally confused. “Is Liv okay?” That is all that matters to him.
“If you think okay is being pregnant with Remiel’s child and stuck in the Dragon Realms until they release her, then yes, she is okay,” Xane says, much to Constantine’s fury.
Corinne turns to Cole, and with a kind smile, she says, “I didn’t come here with news on the Queen. I found it curious when you told me about Tiamat and the Other Worlds. I wanted to find out more.”
“Oh,” Cole says, relief flooding him that at least there isn’t bad news. He turns when he hears Devon with a frown. That was quick, he thinks, as he turns back to Corinne.
“So, what did you find out?” Devon asks.
“That we are all fake,” Xane says again.
Again, Constantine growls at him. “Shut the fuck up,” he says, wanting to pound him into the ground.
“Come again?” Devon asks.
“As I said before, Tiamat is a true immortal. She cannot die. Therefore, the only reasoning we can come up with is that She is of the First World. The ancient one. The real one.”
“The one where Aefre and I got married a thousand years ago,” Constantine adds.
“I don’t follow,” Devon says. “Are you saying that…” He trails off as his mind starts to spin.
“When Her true heir wasn’t born out of a union with Aefre and Constantine, She created another,” Corinne says.
“She created a World?” Cole asks, sitting down. “How, how is that possible?”
Corinne shrugs. “Her Power is limitless.”
“So, She started from scratch and put Other me and Other Liv together?” Devon asks. “That doesn’t make sense. Liv told us what Tiamat said to her when they first met.”
“All lies,” Constantine spits out. He loathes that creature the more he learns about Her. The fact that She is the reason he was made and that he found Aefre is irrelevant in light of everything else She has done.
Corinne looks pained at Constantine’s hatred, but she continues. “And when that failed to produce Her heir, She made another.”
“This one?” Cole says faintly.
“Maybe, maybe not. Fraser’s date was also in the prophecy. Although, now that this theory is out there, it is looking less like a prophecy and more like a timeline of Her failures,” Constantine says bitterly. He really does not like the fact that he wasn’t the one for her in the beginning.
“That doesn’t make sense either,” Devon pipes up. “If he died, that means Liv is in that World doing what exactly?”
“Who said he died?” Xane says. “Maybe he lived, and they once again failed, so Tiamat decided to change his fate and killed him off in this one.”
Oh God. Cole thinks he is going to throw up. This is too much.
“What I don’t get,” Xane continues, “is that if Remiel was “the One” all along, why didn’t She just resurrect him in the first place instead of messing about with all of this?” He gestures expansively.
“Maybe She couldn’t. Maybe it was only ever Liv who could because she is his…” Devon stops speaking as Constantine Vamps out and flies at him over the des
k. He puts his hands up and adds quickly, “I’m just trying to make sense of this.”
Xane nods, accepting that, as much as he can accept any of this. It is far beyond anything he has ever heard of, but he knows Tiamat will go to any lengths to get what She wants. Even if it means messing about with new Worlds, timelines, and the whole sitting around for over three thousand years to finally get it right.
“Err,” Xane says as a horrible thought occurs to him. He goes pale and sits down.
“What?” Constantine asks him. “What now?”