Chapter 47
FORTY-SEVEN
AARETH
“You know I wish I could just remember, don’t you?
” Ashley stood in front of Aareth with her two-handed mage sword in a sheath on her back.
The pommel peeked over her right shoulder.
“But ever since I was resurrected, I’ve been told what to think.
From my time with Leah Noble, to my service beside Doctor Livingston and The Order, I’ve always been told what I should do. ”
“I get it.” Aareth was only rehashing a conversation they had already had. Still, he needed to try one more time. “And I can go with you while you figure this out. I can give you the time you need, just don’t ask me to stand by and do nothing.”
“You won’t be doing nothing.” Ashley smiled, jerking her head toward Azra. “Your friends need you, and if you haven’t noticed, there’s a war brewing. I’ll try to figure this thing out as fast as I can. It would be a shame if I were to miss a perfectly good fight.”
Aareth understood she was trying to lighten the mood, but all he felt inside was a large, black hole sucking in any joy that he could ever feel again. “And what if you don’t come back?”
“Well, I guess you’re just going to have to trust that I will.”
She had never looked more beautiful, standing in front of him with the open gates of Azra to their right and the sun setting behind her.
His heart was tearing inside of him once more, tears of sorrow and frustration pooling in his eyes.
Soon they spilled over, snaking their way down his cheeks and into the stubble on his face.
“Before I go, I need to tell you something.” Ashley’s own brown eyes were beginning to fill with salty tears of her own. “I’ve started remembering things. Not a lot; just some memories that feel more like dreams, but I know they’re real.”
“That’s good news.” Aareth swallowed hard. It felt like his Adam’s apple had somehow tripled in size since he had started crying. “If you can start remembering things now, even a few things, I know the rest will come.”
Ashley nodded. She licked at her dry lips. The way her own hot tears fell from her face, Aareth knew whatever she was about to say next could not be good. What had she remembered?
“Aareth, I know … I know that I loved you.” Ashley’s voice broke as a new wave of tears fell from her eyes and down to the ground below. “I know I was madly in love with you, because we had a baby together.”
Confusion was followed by a pain Aareth had never felt before, like someone had ripped open his chest and removed his heart. Numbness, anger, shock were all vying for the top spot of his emotions.
“I … I remember I found out the morning I died.” Ashley was looking at the ground once again, her voice breaking but not giving in to the tears that continued to splash at her boots. “We were parents, you and I. I thought you should know as soon as I remembered.”
Aareth fell to his knees, while thoughts of what they could have had together as a family flashed across his mind, the ‘what could have been’s’ of sharing in the joy of raising a little life of their own.
What his son or daughter could have been.
What was stolen from them from the men who had killed his wife.
Ashley joined him on her own knees. There were no words. She grabbed him around his wide shoulders and they knelt together in the dirt in the last rays of the sun.
“I’ll come back to you. I know I will.” Ashley didn’t let him go. “I just have to do this on my own. Our story isn’t over, not by a long shot.”
“I’ll be waiting for you.” Aareth grabbed Ashley like he never wanted to let her go. “I’ll wait for you until the end of time.”