Chapter Seven A Life Made of Ash
They walked deeper into the Garden of Small Memories, and the trees began to change. Fewer golden lights hung from the branches now. More of the lights were dim, almost grey, flickering weakly like dying candles.
"Why do these ones look different?" Lyra asked.
Maren's face grew somber. "Painful memories fade faster, even here. The Kingdom protects itself as much as it protects us. It does not like to hold onto suffering longer than it must."
Lyra reached toward one of the dim, flickering lights before Cassian could stop her.
The image that formed above it was darker than the others — smoke instead of rain, fire instead of golden afternoon light.
Lyra saw a woman who looked like her, though older, her face streaked with ash, standing in the ruins of a burned city.
Cassian was there too, kneeling beside a fallen wall, blood on his hands, on his clothes, on the stones beneath him.
"You should have run when I told you to," echo-Cassian was saying, his voice raw with grief. "Why didn't you run?"
"Because I wasn't going to leave you," echo-Lyra answered, her voice breaking. "Not again. Not after last time."
"There won't be another last time if you're dead, Lyra."
The image showed the woman kneeling beside him, pressing her forehead to his, both of them covered in the ash of a city that had burned around them.
"Find me again," she whispered. "Whatever happens. Promise me you'll find me again."
"I always find you," echo-Cassian said. "That was never the hard part."
"Then what is?"
He didn't answer. The image flickered and went dark, the dim golden light finally fading out entirely, like it had used the last of its strength just to be seen one more time.
Real Lyra stood frozen, her hands trembling.
"What did he mean," she whispered. "'That was never the hard part.' What's the hard part, Cassian?"
Cassian's face had gone pale, and for a long moment he said nothing at all.
"Cassian," Lyra said again, firmer this time. "What is the hard part?"
"Keeping you," he finally said, so quietly it was almost lost in the golden air of the Garden.
"Finding you was never the hard part, Lyra.
I have found you in every life, no matter how far apart we were born, no matter how the world tried to keep us from each other.
Finding you is easy. It's keeping you alive.
Keeping you safe. Keeping the truth from destroying us both, before we even get the chance to choose each other properly. "
"What truth?" Lyra pressed. "Cassian, please. I can feel you circling around something. What are you not telling me?"
He looked at her, and for one long moment, Lyra thought he might finally answer.
Then Maren spoke, gently but firmly, stepping between them like a curtain falling on a scene that was not ready to end.
"Not yet," the Keeper said. "Some truths need to be walked toward slowly, or they break the person who hears them too soon. Come. There is more to see before that question can be answered honestly."
Lyra wanted to argue. But something in Maren's ancient, careful eyes told her this was not a fight she would win tonight.