It Was Always You
—ASHáN
The world rushes in all at once. And before I can find my footing in a body that feels too small… she hits me. Her arms lock around my neck, burying her face in my hair.
“It’s you,” I whisper.
“Of course it’s me,” she choke-laughs. “Who else would it be?” Her belly presses against us, a soft warmth that burns through the residual frost of the vision.
A sliver of my shadow uncurls from the rest of me and reaches for her, slipping beneath the hem of her dress, spreading across the curve of her belly the way it has a hundred times.
From the other side of the warmth, Vaelína nudges back.
A small, insistent press against my shadow, awake and reaching.
Hi, míní, I whisper into the place only she and I share. I missed you too.
“You were gone so long,” Eden cries. “I didn’t know… if it was like last time you left.”
I wrap my vorí arm around her waist, pulling her flush against our chest so the erratic rhythm of her heart beats directly against our own.
“I’m back. And I’m never leaving you again.” Anya. “You’re here. You’re actually here.”
She pulls back to look at us, her green eyes shimmering with tears, small hands cradling our jaw.
“Where else would I be?” she whispers, her gaze searching ours. “I couldn’t feel you, Rahnové. I’ve been sitting here for hours… just waiting for the dark to let you go.”
A lump rises in my throat.
Ash? Sage’s voice echoes inside our mind. What’s wrong?
I tighten my grip on her waist.
“Don’t leave,” I breathe against her lips. “Please, don’t leave.”
“Rahnové?” She searches my eye. “Why would I leave?”
Ashán? Sage whispers. You’re starting to scare me.
They’re both reaching into the same raw, overflowing place inside of me, and I don’t have enough of myself to answer either one the way they deserve.
Not now, Sage, I rasp, trying to drown out his frantic whispering before he can dig any deeper into the bleeding edges of my mind.
He recoils. Ash, what did you find out that you can’t say even to me?
I have to tell him first—my other half, the one who lived it, the one who deserves to know three thousand years of truth before anyone else—and I can’t, because Eden is in my arms, wrapped in my shadow, carrying the child we made.
The one person the truth is most dangerous to.
The one person I’d spend an eternity in the void for before I’d hurt.
“Ashán.” She pulls her face away from ours, another tear slipping free.
“I don’t like how you feel right now. You just came back, but it feels like you’re saying goodbye.
” Her hands tremble against my jaw. “Talk to me. Please. Whatever it is, you can tell me. There are no secrets between you, me, and Sage.”
No secrets. Gods. The irony nearly takes me to my knees.
“I’m not saying goodbye,” I rasp, my shadow coiling tighter against her belly in a silent plea. Stay, stay, stay.
Sage paces inside our mind. Ash, please. Let me in.
I reach for him. I’m sorry. I’m not shutting you out.
I swear to you, on whatever we are, I am going to tell you everything.
Every single thing I learned down there, and it’s— My voice cracks.
It’s so much. It’s everything. And you deserve to hear it first, before anyone, but I can’t say it here.
Not in front of her. So I need you to trust me.
For a long moment, there’s nothing. Just the frightened quiet of him.
Okay, he says.
That’s all. Okay. No pushing or clawing for the answers.
Eden presses closer, both hands framing our jaw. “I’m not letting this go, Ashán. Something is different. You’re looking at me like—I don’t know how to explain it. I will not be able to relax until I know what’s going on with you. So tell me.”
Ash, Sage murmurs.
“Ash?” Eden urges.
Eden’s eyes bore into mine.
We were Micah, I tell him. But before Micah we were Therin—three lives, Sage, we’ve lived three lives—
Ash, slow down, I don’t—
Eden, I push on. She’s really Anya. The original soul. The first one we ever loved, over three thousand years ago—she’s the one. She’s the REAL one. She’s who we’ve been searching for the whole time.
He reels inside of us. Our mate is a—she’s reincarnated?
“Ash. Quit ignoring me.” Eden pushes again, shaking us by the jaw, tears spilling down her beautiful, freckled face.
And the woman in the vision. Lumi. This is the one that guts me to say. We chased her, Sage. For two lifetimes. She carried a piece of Anya’s soul, and we couldn’t tell the difference. Lumi is… she’s Eden’s sister—
We WHAT? His voice cracks, horror flooding through every word. We chased her SISTER? For two—Ash, STOP, I can’t—I can’t hold all of this, you’re going too fast, I don’t even—what does this mean, what do we do—
“I know you’re talking to Sage, Ashán. Don’t you dare shut me out. Tell me what it is, what are you two—”
We can’t tell her this now! Sage panics, scrambling inside our body. We need to think. If we drop this on her wrong, she could leave—please, please just give me a minute to—
There is no minute, Sage. It’s not fair to her.
Sage’s don’t fills one ear. Eden’s tell me fills the other. The crushing weight of three thousand years is stuck in my throat, and there’s nowhere, nowhere, to put any of it.
Ashán? Sage pushes.
“Ashán!” Eden sobs.
Ash? Sage pushes again.
“Rahnové?” Eden pleads.
“We’ve done this before!” I cry out.
It explodes out of me. Eden’s fingers stiffen against the bone of my jaw. Sage makes a sound of pure panic and lunges for control of our body, wrenching our jaw mid-word.
Shut up, Ashán, shut up, shut up! He screams. You’re going to lose her! You’re going to make her run! This is not how we tell her!
He throws his entire weight against the back of our eyes, causing our head to snap out of Eden’s grip. He’s like a blind, frenzied animal inside our skull, throwing up walls, tearing down pathways, desperate to stop my confession. Our teeth slam together so hard bone rattles.
Eden stumbles back, her eyes wide as she watches us wrestle with… ourself.
“Sage! Ashán! Stop it. Look at me, please!”
I can’t. I am fighting him with everything I have left, the truth burning a hole in my throat.
She needs to know, Sage! I roar back through the static, my shadows rearing up behind us. If she finds out we kept this from her, we’ll lose her… again.
No! He shrieks, his hand wraps around our throat, completely choking off our airway. Not like this!
We drop to our knees with enough force to splinter the floorboards. Our chest heaves, the two halves of our soul ripping and tearing at the same raw seams until the room begins spinning around us.
She drops to the floor next to us.
“Sage, let go!” she cries out. “Ash, breathe! I’m right here! It’s going to be okay!”
Sage’s hand squeezes tighter around our throat. My words have to claw their way out through the gap.
“Another—” His grip slams shut. I wrench a breath. “—woman.”
“What?” Eden’s face pales. “What woman—”
“We—”
Stop, Ash, STOP!
“—chased her—”
“Ashán? I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” she cries.
“It was always—” Sage hauls the word back down our throat before I can finish it—before I can say the only part that matters.
“Ash, you’re scaring me. Who chased who?”
“Your—” The room tilts. Sage’s gold magic floods everything, and I force the last of my air into the worst possible choice. “—sister.”
“… I don’t have a sister.”
“Couldn’t—” have Anya, never got to meet her—but it comes out gutted. “—couldn’t have her.”
My vision swims as my words land completely wrong. I can’t fix it. I can’t breathe. Everything is going dark at the edges.
“It was always—” I reach for it one last time, the only words that could undo the wreckage of all the others. The dark takes me before I reach the last word.
You. It was always you.