Val let herself relax around Arius for the first time that night. Slowly, she lowered herself to lay across the grass like him. Though she let calm settle over her physically, she felt riled up inside. “Why are Tavras and Evalaite soulmates?” she blurted out.

“Nether if I know,” he retorted. “Dysfunctional people still get their soulmates if they keep going back to each other. They might be the only people who can love each other in their own, really messed-up way.”

“Tavras is not dysfunctional. He is perfectly nice—" she started.

“Do not say another word.” Despite the way that she had Keep the Peace over him, Arius’s voice rose in a furious tone.

Val shrunk down into the grass. “I’m sorry.” Of course Arius hated Tavras, so he would not be open to hearing anyone else express their experience with him that differed from his.

It looked like she had hit a wall there, so instead, Val drifted to a hopefully happier point of conversation. “Arius, you said that you expected bad things from your relationship because you were not dating your soulmate. Do you have one?”

“Yes.” He turned his face to the side so that he could stare at her. His eyes had lightened to a dim red, the closest to happy that he had looked all evening.

Their eye contact held for too long. Val blinked away to the stars above. Pointing down to herself, she asked, “Do I have a soulmate?”

Again, he answered with a simple, “Yes.”

In some ways, that tiny piece of information coming from Arius did a lot to comfort her. Val would find love one day. At the present moment though, she simply felt frustrated. She had no idea who this mysterious soulmate was. In the meantime, she had feelings for a man who she was not destined to be with.

“Is there any way to change soulmates?”

“Wow!” Arius said. “You do not even know who your forever partner is yet, and you already want to get rid of him.”

“No,” Val said hastily. “It is not that. It’s just….” There was no point in acting coy with him. Arius could probably sense her feelings for Tavras with Read Intentions or through some other trickery as a god of love. “I like Tavras.”

“I already know this. It is quite unfortunate to say the least. You should give up on him. I am absolutely certain that your soulmate will resent the way that you are obsessing over another man, especially a mean, old god like Tavras."

Val pressed her lips together. While she knew that Arius was right, it felt rather restrictive for her to curb her behavior for a man that she had yet to meet. Was it wrong for her to have a crush or perhaps gain a little experience before meeting her soulmate? Val did not think so.

Out of curiosity, she asked, "Who is my soulmate?"

Arius looked away. "He is someone amazing. I think that I will tell you some other time."

Though she frowned, Val did not care enough to press him on the issue. Instead, she shifted the subject onto him. "What about you and your soulmate? Have you met her yet?"

"Yes," he said but did not elaborate.

Too late in her realization, Val might be treading dangerously close to the sensitive topic of the night. "Evalaite has not prevented you from being with your soulmate all of these years, has she?"

"No, fortunately she did not. My soulmate is young. She just came of age not too long ago."

"I see." Val herself had turned eighteen three months ago now.

Somewhere in the world, there was a young woman around her own age who was destined to love Arius. The similarities to Val ended there. That other woman must really be something to capture Arius's heart and become an equal partner to him.

Of course, that woman had one huge advantage in her development, strikingly similar to the unfortunate deal that she had with Tavras. "Are you going to invest in your soulmate becoming a goddess?"

As Arius returned his attention to her, his smile seemed too warm to be directed at her. "Yes. I am going to help guide her in any way that I can."

She sighed heavily. There again, other demigods had connections and advantages that she would never have had for herself if not for Tavras.

To express this, Val said, "Your soulmate sounds incredibly lucky. I mean, I appreciate how much you are going to help me with getting my documentation sorted out tomorrow," she added with a laugh. Her hand rubbed at the side of her neck, hot from the warmth that Arius shared with her. There, she could feel the sides of her long hair that she had regained thanks to him.

"Yeah, you’re welcome."

A pause held between them. Val could not stop thinking of this other demigoddess and how much their situations were similar or perhaps different. Hopefully, Arius would treat his own young demigoddess better than Tavras treated her. The way that he had regarded her to Evalaite still made her skin crawl.

"Are you interested in dating her right away? I don't mean right after your break-up but once you feel ready, will you ask her out?"

"I don't know yet," Arius stated. "That is something that would be weird, coming out of the blue. It will have to depend on how dense she is, if she notices my intentions or not."

Listening to him, she hummed along softly. “Hm.” Val heard him all right but also disagreed with him. “You seem to have done a great job in simplifying my life. It would be weird for you to go complicating another situation purely because you wanted to skirt around talking to your soulmate.”

“Yeah? Then tell me,” Arius said with a glint in his pinched eyes. “You are a young demigoddess. How would you react if I told you that I am your soulmate?”

A sudden weight settled over her chest. Val could not give relationship advice to a god of love. If he wanted insight into a young demigoddess’s mind, she did not want that responsibility. “I don’t think that I would be a good representative for your soulmate.”

“I am just asking what you personally would think.”

“Fine, then. Honestly,” she started, “I think that I would take it. Like, I don’t know you all that well, but you do not seem that bad. I hope that you are a nice guy anyway,” Val added with a nervous laugh. “There are plenty of things that you have going for you. Arius, you are seated second on the Pantheon. You are the favorite son of Suvier. You are the one god of war and apparently a god of love too. Last I checked, those are some great attributes for a boyfriend. Plus, you’re handsome.” Did she just say that?

Arius smirked at her since he must already know how handsome he was. Though he looked smug about it, he did nothing to interrupt her.

Val tried to bury her weird remark in a list of other things. Alas, she had run out of good things to say about him so the random stuff they had in common started to tumble out of her mouth. “You like dogs. You hate sea serpents. We are both good stalkers apparently. Wait, sorry! Those things are specific to the two of us.”

A good-natured laugh peeled from his lips. “It’s quite all right, Val. Maybe you are not as dense as I thought that you would be.”

“Huh?” After she had given him so many compliments, Arius just had to give her an insult in return.

“Val, I’m your soulmate.”

“What?” Now she understood why he just called her dense. Val fully deserved it. Had she been talking to Arius about herself this entire time? Of all things, she broke into a fit of giggles. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“No,” Arius said slowly. “I literally just asked you if you would take this positively, and you said that you would.”

Flabbergasted, Val had a difficult time in finding any words to say. “I was trying to give you advice for some other demigoddess, not me!”

Arius huffed out of disbelief. “I cannot believe that you gave me such bad advice. I literally asked my soulmate what I should do about my soulmate.” One of his hands reached up to the nighttime sky above. “What did the Weaver do to make all of the stars align against me tonight? I just can’t win.”

“Stop being so dramatic,” Val snapped. “I am just surprised and have no idea if I should believe you or not.” Something dawned on her anew. “You really are my stalker!”

“Yes, we established this already. I only stalked you for one day, and you stalked me too. We’re even.”

She pouted her lips. “Are you sure that your ability even works? I mean, Tavras and Evalaite cannot be soulmates no more than we could possibly be soulmates.” Some part of her still wanted to have that chance with Tavras. Old feelings died hard.

“Yes,” Arius reiterated. “I have seen fated pairings come to fruition time and time again. For us immortals, they last until one of us dies.”

Away from Arius, Val stared off at Foofy who decided to lay down a bit away from them. Against the cold of the outside, he panted from all of the heat that Arius must be giving him.

“It just makes no sense,” she insisted. Presently, she wondered if she had somehow fallen asleep in her room despite Tavras and Evalaite’s screaming. It would not be too far of a stretch of the imagination to have a trippy dream about Arius after he had given her that hair regrowth potion.

“It makes perfect sense. Let me tell you who you are, and maybe you will see why fate has us bound together.”

A lump slid down her throat. On one hand, she did not want to listen to Arius’s nonsense, but more so, she wanted to learn about who she truly was.