50. SOPHIE
Sophie gasped awake, water spilling into her mouth. She coughed roughly as she tried to find her bearings. The smell of flowers filled her senses and the bright moon shone above her.
Holy shit.
The four beings of the Stagnum De Memoria stood by the pool. Their skin had hardened to stone and their breathing, non-existent. They were freaking statues.
Sophie’s mind was reeling. She pulled her left arm out of the water, examining her tattoos. The ones she mysteriously received on her eighteenth birthday. The ones that were in truth, her soulmate bond seared into her flesh by the Fates themselves. The one that she shared with Ash. The one that swirled from the crook of her elbow all the way down to her finger to form a key.
Sophie wanted to vomit. She wanted to scream. She wanted to shout and rejoice all at the same time as the truth of her past finally set her free.
Sophie sobbed as she rushed out of the water, her chest heaving. The evening sky pooled with moisture. A storm was coming, Sophie could smell it in the air but that didn’t stop her from running from the Pool of Memory and drying herself with a whip of her air mana.
She tossed all her clothes back on, making sure the letter she had written for Ash was safely in her pocket.
Sophie needed to find him.
Sophie sprinted to the hedge maze like a wild cat, bouncing left and right with a fiery urgency. She collided into her mother with her words already spilling out into a tumbling mess. “Mum, I love you. I get why you needed to do it.” She pressed a kiss to her mother’s cheek. Danna looked outright frazzled. “But our conversation can wait. I need to find Ash. I need to find him now.” Sophie was practically vibrating, and she probably looked equally crazed. Her hair was undoubtedly knotted. Did she even put her shirt on the right way?
Sophie placed another kiss on her mother’s cheek before sprinting toward her mother’s arion. “I’m taking Spirit, SORRY MUM!” Sophie shouted behind her.
“It’s fine. Just ride safely!” Danna called out.
Sophie sprinted to the pearl-coated arion, jumping onto its back like a crazed banshee. With two quick clicks of her tongue, she leapt up in the air, pulling the arion by its reins. She barely knew how to ride one but for Fates’ sake, she didn’t give a single shit.
Sophie careened through the air like it wasn’t her first rodeo.
Ash was her soulmate. And she painfully, carelessly even, slapped on a clean slate clause since her return. He knew they were soulmates. He’d always known and yet, why didn’t he tell her? Was it because of the boundaries she’d set on him, prior to knowing her truth? And holy fucking shit, they’d reunited before, when she was eighteen. Years of not seeing each other. Years after being ripped apart, they reunited and neither of them managed to figure it out until it was too late. Oh, the suffering Ash must have felt. To have known that his long-lost friend was alive, that she was his soulmate and not being able to find her again until . . . now.
Sophie pulled Spirit to an abrupt stop, sliding off the horse in a way that would have her legs aching tomorrow.
The heavy rain that hung in the air poured down from the sky. Sophie was sopping wet, but she did not care. She ran up the steps of Ash’s villa, pounding on the door. Her hand pulsed with ferocity on each impact.
“Ash, it’s me!” Sophie shouted above the pouring rain. No answer. Maybe he was in his library.
She laid a palm on his door, sending out her mana in search of his. Nothing came back, though she felt Cal’s presence.
Sophie propelled herself over Ash’s hedge and into his backyard. Lightning struck above and the storm angered. She ran into the cover that would lead to Ash’s bedroom and opened it for Cal to come out.
The hellhound came barrelling out the door, jumping up to lick Sophie.
“My boy!” Sophie squealed. Her pup. The hellhound she’d saved in Faery. The hellhound that she made Ash promise to take care of. And look at him now; nine years old, big, strong, smart and kind. Sophie could almost cry. Ash had kept his promise to her this whole time.
“Where’s your dad?” Sophie asked the hellhound.
Cal did his adorable spin before he pointed toward the north.
“The training ring?” Sophie asked.
Cal whimpered. A no.
“The waterfall?”
Cal shot out a puff of smoke from his nostrils before jumping around in excitement.
“You’re the best!” Sophie bent down to kiss his noggin, earning herself a few licks to the face. “We’ll be home soon, okay? You know where the food is. Stay inside. It’s too wet out.” Cal obeyed, running back into the bedroom.
Sophie launched herself back over the hedge and sprinted for the waterfall.
The rain was unrelenting. It was pouring down in droves so much that she could barely see ahead of her. But Sophie knew the path. She had walked it what felt like hundreds of times.
Sophie ran hard and fast. The beat of her feet almost matching the pace of her heart.
She needed to feel him. Touch him. Tell him most of all how he made her feel. He was the moments just before the fall of dusk and the rise of dawn. He filled her with anticipation, excitement and awe. He was everything that mattered to her. The truth of it all made everything fall into place. It made everything make sense. Sophie could finally stop her search for the other half of her soul because she’d already found him. It was Ash.
A dark figure appeared in front of her, closer to the waterfall.
Sophie tried to shield her eyes from the onslaught of the rain.
“Ash!” Sophie shouted above the cacophony. She was already crying. “Ash!” But he didn’t answer. Sophie stopped in her tracks. That wasn’t Ash.
A firm hand from behind her, pressed a cloth to her face so suddenly she didn’t have the time to react. The smell on the cloth was sharp enough to send her eyes rolling back and her body limp.
Fuck.