14. Ash
Chapter Fourteen
Ash
I avoided going to the lake and headed in the opposite direction instead. The weather was beautiful, and all the druses and dryads would be at the lake today, including Rowan. I didn’t want to talk to any of them.
Instead, I walked through the trees. The weather shifted the further away from the lake I moved, as if the sun had moved behind the clouds. When I glanced up, I saw that wasn’t the case, but a stiff breeze started and rustled the leaves above me. I shivered when the cold wind pushed into my collar.
“Ah, Ash,” Dolus said when I walked into a clearing.
Despite there not being any trees to block out the light, it was almost like dusk in the clearing. Dolus was sitting on the ground, his back against a fallen log, and he had a pile of stones next to him.
“Join me,” he said when I watched him throw the stones a couple of feet in front of him. He patted the ground next to him.
“What are we doing?” I asked as I sat, looking in the direction he threw the stones.
“I’m trying to get them all in that circle over there. Do you see it?”
“That circle is tiny! And far away.”
“That’s what makes it challenging. What fun would it be if it was bigger and easier to do?”
“Hmm,” I mused. I picked up one of the stones, aiming for the little circle. I missed completely.
“Here,” Dolus said, and he hovered his hand above the ground. A pile of stones appeared, conjured up by his magic.
What magic did Dolus have? What kind of god was he?
“So, tell me about the human girl,” Dolus said.
“What about her?” I asked.
Dolus held up a stone and closed one eye to aim for the circle better. “She’s a pretty big distraction, don’t you think?”
I shrugged. “I could use a distraction. It’s a nice change from spending my whole life asleep so I don’t have to face this shit.”
“Ah. Escape.”
“Facing the problem doesn’t help, and neither does trying to fuck it out of my system. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
Dolus laughed. “I’m going to be honest with you, I like your modus operandi.”
I shrugged. “We have to get creative when shit hits the fan, right?”
Dolus laughed and threw the stone. It bounced just before the circle and landed inside it.
“Nice,” I said, and threw mine. I didn’t even get close.
“So, you’re not all caught up in her? I can sense your bond with her.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, well, that was a mistake. I didn’t mean to be bound to her, that sort of just happened. It won’t last forever, though. I’ll make sure of that. I can’t do another one of those rounds again.”
“Do you mean your past with humans?”
I glanced at Dolus. Clearly, he knew enough about my life to ask these questions, but how much did he really know? Did he know all of it, and did he just want to hear my side? Or had he heard bits and pieces, and he was trying to fill in the gaps?
I shrugged. Dolus was a god, and he wanted to help me. He deserved to know all of it.
“I don’t know what it is about them that draws me like this,” I admitted. “With Ava, I really thought it was love. For me, it was, even if it wasn’t for her. With Lorraine, everything is different. I’m drawn to her in a way I can’t stop, but it’s not like I’m head over heels in love with her. It’s probably just lust.”
“Is she pretty?”
“She’s not just pretty. She’s irresistible,” I said. “That’s why all this shit happened with the bond. I literally couldn’t resist her.”
Dolus grinned and reached for another stone. “Hey, nothing wrong with carnal needs, you know. What makes you want to leave it all behind? Sounds to me like you have the best of both worlds. You’re immortal, so you have more than enough time to pursue whoever you want, and you’re after humans. They die off in no time at all, compared to our lifespan, and you get to do it all over again.”
I shook my head. “It’s really not the best of both worlds. Maybe on the one hand, sure, but after it’s all said and done and they’re gone again—whether they leave or die off from old age—I’m still me, and I stay behind. The skeletons are still in the closet.”
“The humans have the dumbest sayings,” Dolus chuckled.
“Yeah… but I guess they have a point. Some of their stuff is pretty good.”
Dolus nodded. “So, you don’t like being you?”
“I don’t like remembering the past. I feel like I just can’t get away from it, like I’m stuck in this weird eternal repetition, you know? I want to get away from that.”
“And you think giving it all up and becoming something else will change that?”
I shrugged. “I’ve tried everything I can think of. Maybe if I do something else where I don’t have that much responsibility, or where I don’t have to be so tied up in eternity the way I am now, things will change.”
Dolus nodded. “Okay, I get what you’re saying.”
I glanced at him. “Now that you know what I’m saying, what are you saying?”
Dolus grinned widely at me, and the smile seemed almost out of place on his face, it was so broad. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you. This isn’t usually done. We’ll be bending all kinds of rules, and you could get in trouble. Or it could all go to shit and blow up in your face.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, this is the kind of dark magic you don’t want to fuck with unless you have a really good reason.” The more Dolus talked, the more the sun seemed to disappear and the night rose around us. It was crazy because it was still daytime, but I ignored it. I was glued to his words.
“If it’s really what you want,” he added, “I’ll help you with it.”
I frowned. “Despite knowing it’s a bad idea?”
“I’m not the one who’ll do it, you are.” Dolus smiled happily. “I like helping out, you know?”
I nodded. I appreciated that he wanted to help me. If I couldn’t fix things the way I was, then getting away from it all was the next step. Dolus could be the answer I’d been looking for all this time.
The darkness kept falling, but Dolus and I continued to talk and laugh and throw stones together. For some reason, the darkness didn’t bother me that much.
Maybe it should have. Darkness wasn’t a good thing, and if magic could turn dark, it usually wasn’t good.
Turning my back on all this would mean that I couldn’t get what I wanted, and I wanted it more than I wanted the light right now. Everyone deserved a break once in a while, right? I was way overdue for mine. For the first time in a long time, it didn’t only feel like someone was on my side, but that getting away from the misery that my life had become was a possibility. For the first time, I had a flicker of hope.
I was going to hold onto that flicker with everything I had.