Chapter 45 There’s Always A Past, Hardly A Future #2
Perhaps the truth is that I don’t know how to love. How to hold someone in my arms and be glad they’re there, instead of fearing how they will leave.
Even now, she lies dead beside me, and I can’t imagine her waking and walking again. In my life, with the way events usually play out, she wouldn’t. This would be the end.
She is the only thing that’s ever defied the tragedy of my existence.
It amazes me that anyone can stand up from this, yet somehow, she’s risen from worse.
She’s risen from me.
Atop my bed, her body bursts into flames. I watch, sitting close to the fire, feeling her warmth. I couldn’t kill her if I wanted to. Even when I did want to, it was impossible to look into her eyes and convince myself to feel hatred.
The fire dissipates, leaving me cold. I stay close, waiting for her as the last flames flicker out.
There’s a pristine tomb of ash left behind.
As I’ve seen before, Desdemona’s hands claw out.
She rises, gasping and reaching for her throat, absently scratching.
The wound is gone now, yet she holds the exact spot it once was, choking.
Fear crosses her face as she dry heaves, as if her mind still believes it’s dying.
I sit beside her, gently holding her hand. “You’re alive,” I whisper. “You survived.”
Her head falls against my chest, her body tucked between my legs. Ash is everywhere, in the air and on our clothes.
My arms wrap around her, one stroking her hair as her breaths come faster and fewer between. “Breathe with me,” I whisper. “Can you do that?”
She nods against my chest, her breath warm as it seeps through my shirt.
“In.” I take a deep breath. “And out.”
Desdemona follows my lead, taking heavy gulps of air. My hands absentmindedly run through her hair as my chin rests upon her head.
She’s alive.
Yet the fundamental truth is that she deserves more than me. I can’t be the only one who remembers her.
It isn’t fair.
Des gulps, wiping her cheeks to catch her tears. She doesn’t stop crying, though her sobs are silent now. I raise my hand gently, asking, “Shall we lie down?”
Again, she nods, and I move back on the bed, leaning against the headboard. She falls asleep in my lap, and I stay awake, watching her.
I count her freckles, I brush her cheek with my thumb, then her nose. Déjà vu is a nasty thing.
Having already lived it is worse.
I know we’ve been here before; I’ve been in awe of her sleeping beauty, her vulnerability, and the way she allowed me to regard it.
Yet, there’s a disconnect between then and now.
Perhaps Des feels it too. She’s gone through so much since; she lived in The Void as an Arcane and watched everyone she loves forget her existence.
She’s not the same girl, and she’s said as much.
Yet no matter what, I have feelings for this version of her now, perhaps more than the one before.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter what I remember about the past.
I gave her my silver wolf once, the last piece of my father I held. It tells me enough about what I felt. She isn’t simply in my heart; she is my heart. And it isn’t a soft or delicate thing. Her hatred pumps in my veins, yet so does her compassion.
The best and worst parts of her in equal measure—her anger and her hope—rip me open and stitch me back up. They take my weak and feeble heart and give it a reason to beat.
And while that silver wolf is certainly long gone, all I feel is grateful she had it. I hope it offered her some kind of solace while she was trapped in The Void.
I gaze at her, though I don’t give in to sleep; I stay up, waiting for danger.
She stayed with me. The thought returns as I trace the back of my hand along her cheeks, damp with tears.
She’s the enemy and the ally, the cure and the poison, my haven and my damnation, all wrapped into one.
She thinks she’s awful—and I agree. She’s the deadliest thing I’ve ever seen. Yet there’s nothing she’s done that I wouldn’t do tenfold for her. She’s bad, but she’s no worse than me.
She’s better.
I’ve done nothing to deserve her, yet I would do anything to keep her.
My eyes never leave her face, even as the world blurs around me, pulling me into the future.
I’m in the throne room as metal falls to the ground, clinking with each bounce before snapping into place in the shape of a star.
With a shudder, the vision erupts—the castle crumbling around me, marble raining down and crushing unsuspecting people.
Then, in the distance, a hand stretches toward me.
Its fingers are splayed, thin trails of blood dripping from each and glinting in the dim light.
It tugs at me, insistent, as if it’s waited through every vision to finally find my grasp.
In the corner, the exploding star glints, capturing my attention.
Just beyond it, a crown teeters on the edge of the fractured threshold, a breath away from plunging into the tossing sea below.
I know it will fall, and it doesn’t matter; the hand that’s been waiting for me does.
I run forward, my fingers nearly brush the trails of blood—and then the image falls away like scattering ash.
?
When Desdemona’s eyes flutter open, they’re bright, shining, and red, the way I once imagined the Soul Ruby would look—not the small, dark thing in my pocket. At the thought, I clutch it tightly in my palm and take a deep breath against the compulsion.
I have to find Cynthia.
Desdemona sits up fast, breathing heavily as she moves away from me to the other end of the large bed.
“You’re all right,” I whisper. “Safe.”
She shakes her head, cracking her neck. “Hardly.”
I reach for her, but she shrinks away, running a hand through her hair.
“Thank you,” she says quickly, meeting my eyes, though hers remain distant. “For helping me last night.”
I shake my head, voice low. “Don’t thank me.”
“Why can’t I thank you?”
Thanking me implies there was a chance I wouldn’t have helped. It suggests there was another option—that I had something to choose against.
“Because there isn’t a world where I wouldn’t have helped,” I whisper, unable to stop myself from looking at her lips. It’s the wrong time, yet I think about how she felt against me.
“You sure about that?” Desdemona asks, leaning against the headboard, the mattress squeaking beneath her. “Because I think there’s a world where you would’ve done the opposite.”
Where I would’ve been the one who killed her.
My heart breaks a little with each word. Perhaps that’s the truth of the matter, and all that we’ve been through doesn’t prove anything against it.
Does she know what I was created to do?
How could I ever tell her?
I glance away, and she whispers, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I say. “I deserve it.”
“I don’t want you to beg my forgiveness again—”
“How could I not, Des?” I ask, my tone heavy. “I feel the way I do about you, yet I did what I did—”
“You didn’t know I existed,” she whispers.
“That’s what gets me,” I say. “I should’ve known. My mind was screaming at me to remember. My bones wanted to hold you before my heart did.”
“Lucian,” she whispers with a frown, tears at the corners of her eyes as she shakes her head.
“I don’t want forgiveness,” I say, dragging a hand along my jaw.
“Good.” She wipes her tears away with the back of her thumb. “I was gonna ask for the ruby.”
The Soul Ruby is clutched tight in my palm. As I release my fingers one by one, pain splinters up my arm, as if every bone and ligament is breaking. I lift my hand, wincing as Desdemona takes a breath and moves closer.
She picks up the stone.
“Before I give it to Cynthia,” I say, hoping my intentions will make this easier.
They don’t.
As Desdemona leans away from me, I lean closer. My hands itch at my sides, desperate to snatch it back. The veins along my wrists glow a faint red.
My body is preparing to fight Desdemona.
I look away, dragging a hand along my face. I can’t fight her. I’ll get the Soul Ruby to Cynthia, and this will stop.
When I glance back, Desdemona’s eyes are closed, the stone clutched tightly between her hands. My breaths are jagged, nearly panting, though nothing happens as she holds the stone. She rattles the Soul Ruby between her hands and curses under her breath.
My every breath catches tight in my throat.
“It’s not working,” she says, opening her eyes.
Before I realize it, my hand grips her wrist. The Soul Stone must be returned to its rightful owner: Cynthia.
Desdemona opens her hand, offering it without a fight. “Bring it to her,” she says softly. Yet I can’t release her wrist. “I’ll make another plan.” She presses the stone back into my palm, and the tension in my shoulders eases.
“To get the memories back?” I ask.
Desdemona clenches her jaw, shaking her head. “No,” she says. “Just… figure out how to live.”
I release her wrist, regretting I ever touched her. I’m taking all her hope away and surrendering it to Cynthia.
With my eyes closed, I hold my shaking hand toward her, the Soul Ruby in my palm. “Take it,” I say, my voice rough. “Take it and run.”
I hear her breathing, though she doesn’t say a thing. Her fingers settle on mine, and I’m sure she’s going to do it—take it and run. She should. She has to. Yet her fingers close around my hand, the stone still within.
“We’ll make another plan,” she whispers.
I open my eyes. She’s sitting before me, her hand wrapped around my closed fist.