He finds my lips again, warm, deep, then he pul s away and says, “And Jude?”
“Jude or Heath?” I lift a brow. “You do know they are one and the same?”
He nods, having figured that out.
And not sure exactly which part he wants me to explain, I say, “He insisted on joining me, and for some reason, Lotus al owed it. Said the answers he sought would be found there.”
“He loved you then too, didn’t he?” Damen’s mouth pul s down into a frown as his eyes stare into mine.
I nod.
“And the rest—did you see it? Al of
it?”
I take a deep breath and nod again.
Damen sighs, tries to turn, to pul away, but I won’t let him. I keep him clutched tightly to me.
His eyes pul ing down at the sides when he says, “No wonder Jude keeps reappearing in my life. He’s trying to keep us apart, but not for the reason I thought. He must recognize me, sense who I am, knows innately what I am. That I later succeeded where I first failed, ensuring my own immortality before going after yours.” He shakes his head. “Al of this time, for al of those lifetimes, without even realizing it, he was trying to stop me, trying to save you from me. ” He rubs his chin, looks at me wearily. “I thought I would die from the pain of losing you. I wanted to die. And trust me when I say my death did not come soon enough. I was left hol ow, a shel of a man without you.” He swal ows hard, swipes a hand across his eyes. “Heath begged me not to prosecute against Ava and the twins, or rather the people they were then. And when he couldn’t change my mind, he begged me to take him instead. He never forgave himself for bringing them to me. Never got over the guilt. Having summoned them as much for himself as he did for me. He couldn’t bear to lose you. Would do anything to keep you around even if it meant having to watch you marry me. But, when you died in spite of our attempts, he was quick to accept what I stubbornly resisted. What we did was wrong, unnatural, something best not attempted. He understood that; I did not. Neither in that life, nor the one that fol owed, where I eventual y found a way to finish what I’d started.” He shutters his eyes, musing at the fol y of the last several hundred years. “Did you see the rest of his life? Did you see what became of him?”
I shake my head.
Damen sighs, his hands warming my arms, gaze distant when he says, “He retreated somewhere far away, died alone, stil a fairly young man. I’m afraid my karma is more of a mess than I ever could’ve guessed.”
Not knowing what to say, I don’t say anything, but that’s okay, since Damen speaks in my place.
“So what now? Do we wait here—see if Jude or Lotus reappear? Make our way back and try to make amends for the deeds of prior lives we can’t real y change? It’s your cal , Ever. Your destiny. Your journey. I won’t doubt you again.”
I look at him, more than a little shocked by his words, knowing how much he likes being right, being in charge; most people do.
But he just lifts his shoulders and says, “Isn’t that the whole point? Isn’t that why you keep showing up in my lives? To teach me about grief, to teach me to feel it, to accept it, but to not try to outwit it. To lead me out of the dark and into the light—to show me the real truth of our existence—that I’ve had it wrong al along—that the soul is the only immortal part of us. Isn’t that why al this has happened, why you and I can’t find true happiness, why we keep facing obstacles that are impossible to surmount? Isn’t this why we find ourselves here now, because I got it al wrong and managed to mess up on such a colossal scale?”
The silence gathers around us. Damen absorbed by his past, while I’m left speechless by his words. Eager to move past it, not wanting to dwel here for long, I’m just about to tel him that I have no idea what could be next, that his guess is as good as mine, when I see a smal boat anchored by the shore, anchored right alongside us. A boat that appeared out of nowhere, wasn’t there less than a second ago.
And knowing there are no accidents here, no coincidences of any kind, I grasp his hand in mine, and start leading him toward it, saying, “I think we’re meant to go for a sail.”
twenty-two
I settle onto the seat, busying myself with rearranging the velvet pil ows at our backs as Damen slides in beside me. The boat is long, painted a dark glossy red with gold ornate swirls marking its sides, narrowing into a curving crest at both the front and the back in a way that reminds me of the gondola Jude and I once manifested in the Summerland version of Venice. But with no oar, no motor, no way to steer or guide ourselves, we’re at the mercy of the river. Left with no choice but to sit back and hope for the best.
The boat pul s away from the shore, drifting deeper into the water just seconds after we board, fol owing the current, giving no hint as to what might be in store. Damen slides a protective arm around me as we peer at the passing scenery, the way the river widens so swiftly it’s not long before we’re surrounded by nothing but deep dark water, the banks we once stood upon reduced to a slim speck of gold on a distant horizon.
I lean into Damen, wishing I could do something, say something to erase the hint of worry that plays at his brow, to ease the regret that burdens his heart. Seeing the way his eyes widen, the way he sits up higher, on ful -scale alert, as he looks al around and says, “It’s the River of Forgetfulness.”
I squint, vaguely remembering him mentioning such a place once before. Saying something about the soul taking a trip down the River of Forgetfulness before it’s reborn into the next life. That the purpose of that particular journey is so we don’t remember what came before—that we’re not meant to remember the lives we’ve just lived—that each incarnation offers a new journey of self-discovery, a chance to right our previous wrongs, to balance our accumulated karma, to find new solutions to old problems.
That life is not meant to be an open-book test.
Remembering how Lotus recently said something similar—that man’s fol y, his penchant for making the same mistakes over and over again, can be blamed partly on the river—and taking that as proof that Damen is right. It’s exactly what he thinks. Though it’s anyone’s guess where it wil end.
“Are we going to relive them all?” Damen asks, voice betraying a deep-seated reluctance, bearing no desire to ever revisit those painful early days he lived back in Florence, Italy.
But before he can get too bogged down in the thought, I look at him and say, “No. It’s a test. We have to do whatever we can to not let ourselves forget al that we’ve learned. Lotus came to me just before you arrived, she said knowledge is revealed when we need it, which means we need to hang on to al we just saw. We can’t forget a single moment. I’m pretty sure we’re gonna need it for later.”
“It’s a lot to hang on to.” He frowns. “The river is tricky. And other than the fact that I’ve made a mess of the last several hundred years
—that I owe Ava and the twins big time for taking their lives—what would you suggest I choose to concentrate on? There’s a good chance that when we get off this ship and go back to our normal lives we won’t remember any of the things we’ve just experienced.”