“So … basical y you’re saying that my journey isn’t even close to being finished? That there’s stil a heckuva lot more you expect me to do?” My gaze narrows as I try to determine just how I feel about that, mostly veering toward being very much against it.
She nods, her clumpy old eyes never once leaving mine. “You are so close. It is best to keep going from where you now stand. Where destiny is concerned, each step leads to the next.”
“Oh, sure,” Damen says, the sound of his voice startling me in that it’s even gruffer than I would’ve expected. But to Lotus’s credit, she doesn’t react, doesn’t wince, doesn’t flinch, just continues to stand there, observing him with her usual calm. “Sure, we’l get right on that.” He shakes his head. “Sorry, Lotus, but you’re gonna have to give us a little more to go on. Ever and I have been through the wringer and we came out on top, got the one thing we wanted—the one thing we needed to make our lives complete, and now you think you can just show up, toss another cryptic riddle our way, and steer us out of our much-deserved victory celebration and back into more trouble—trouble that you alone have created?” He glares. “Think again.”
“Seriously,” I add, encouraged by his argument. “Why should we even consider doing this? Why can’t you find someone else, one of the other immortals, maybe? Haven’t we been through enough already?”
But instead of answering my question, she tilts her head in Damen’s direction and says, “Damen, is it real y I who created it? Or was that you?”
Damen meets her gaze, but clamps his lips shut, refusing to speak. And when it’s clear he has no plans to address her, I nudge him with my elbow and say, “What’s she talking about? What is it you’re not tel ing me?”
He swal ows, squirms, kicks at the ground, puts it off for as long as he can before he takes a deep breath and says, “She claims to be one of the orphans. Claims I saved her from the black plague over six hundred years ago when I made her drink from the elixir.”
I balk, eyes practical y popping from their sockets as I glance at the two of them. Final y finding enough voice to say, “And? Is it true?”
Wondering why no one saw fit to mention this before. Wondering if this is what she showed him that day when I watched them share a silent communication.
Damen shrugs, swipes a hand over his brow and gazes al around. “No. No way. It’s impossible. She’s making it up,” he says, obviously more flustered than he lets on. Pausing for a moment, long enough to gather his thoughts, sighing loudly as he adds,
“Honestly? I don’t know. I’ve been racking my brain since the day she first told me, but I just can’t recal . It’s her word against my memory and there’s no way to know for sure. Usual y it’s the eyes that give it away, being the window to the soul and al that—but hers are so damaged, they’re completely unrecognizable. She’s not the least bit familiar to me.” He shakes his head, takes a moment to scowl at Lotus, his face softening when he turns back to me. “Ever, you’ve got to remember we’re talking over six hundred years since I last saw these people. And the only reason I didn’t mention it before is because I didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily, especial y when there’s no way to prove it either way. Besides, my only concern is for you—for us—right here in the present, and wel into the future. The past no longer concerns me. Other than Drina and Roman, I have no idea what became of the other orphans. I have no idea where they ended up—”
“But Roman did know,” I cut in, remembering what Haven told me, about what Roman told her, the stories he wrote in his journals.
Damen and Drina may have moved on, but Roman stuck around, kept in touch. Eventual y discovering a way to re-create the elixir, and when the effects began to wear off, sometime around one hundred and fifty years later, when the immortals began to show the ravages of aging, he tracked them al down and had them drink again, repeating the sequence every century and a half, until now. Now that he’s gone, there’s no one to look after them. Not to mention there’s no tel ing just how many he decided to turn on his own. If the number of unrecognizable souls we just released from the Shadowland was any indication, it’s safe to assume there are many, many more.
I study Lotus, wondering how long it’s been since she last drank the elixir. I’ve never seen anyone as old as her, especial y an immortal. Al of the immortals I know are young, beautiful, glowing with health and vitality, physical y perfect in every imaginable way.
Whereas she’s just the opposite—old, weathered, her skin so paper-thin, body so frail, it seems as though the slightest hint of a breeze could tip her right over, break her into a mil ion sharp little pieces.
Damen and I are so lost in thought we’re both caught by surprise when Lotus springs forward and grabs hold of our hands, her ancient eyes beaming brightly as her mind connects with ours, projecting a slew of images I never would’ve expected—images that leave me questioning everything.
twenty-six
Lotus’s fingers entwine with ours, the feel of them dry, cool, but surprisingly strong, as her mind projects a series of portraits, like individual sepia prints, one after another, eventual y streaming and blending into a moving-picture format. Showing a quick glimpse of the orphans, al lined up in a row, looking as they did back then. Damen and Drina flanking one end, Lotus and Roman on the other, the rest gathered in the middle.
Long before she became Lotus, she was a dark-haired, bright-eyed child named Pia, who, not long after drinking the elixir, fled the orphanage with al the others only to be taken in by a family of modest means who, mourning the child they lost to the plague, were eager for a replacement.
She lived normal y at first, having no idea what she’d become. She grew up, married, but it wasn’t long before she realized she was different. Not only could she not bear children, but she couldn’t figure out why everyone around her aged while she stayed the same. A realization that soon forced her to do what al immortals must eventual y do once the subtle questions and curious inquiries begin to grow into rising suspicion, hysteria, and irrational crowd-driven fear—under the cover of night, she grabbed a few belongings and ran, never to return, or at least not for several centuries.
She wandered. Remarried—more than once. Determined to stay in each place, with each husband, for as long as she could until the constant need to flee became so unbearable she determined it emotional y easier to live on her own. Eventual y growing to abhor her immortality, seek ways to reverse it, wanting only to rejoin the natural order of being, to live like everyone else.
She traveled. First to India then on to Tibet, where she studied with mystics, shamans, gurus, a whole host of spiritual seekers and guides who showed her how to purify her body and cleanse her soul, but couldn’t help her reverse the choice she made al those years ago when she was too young to understand the consequences. The irony of her studies being that she’d unknowingly succeeded in strengthening her chakras to the point where she’d rendered herself completely invulnerable, immune to the one thing she sought above everything else—the release that only death can bring about.
Ultimately growing so advanced in her studies, she became known as a celebrated miracle worker, the most sought-after healer. The name she now goes by, Lotus, stemming from her ability to make that beautiful flower bloom right from the center of her palms, simply by closing her eyes and wishing it to be so. An act she was capable of not just in Summerland, but also on the earth plane back home.
Determined to settle into a celibate, solitary existence, but fate had other ideas, and it wasn’t long before she met someone and fel in love. Real love. True love. The kind of love which, despite several husbands, she’d never experienced before.
The kind where she built enough trust to confide the truth of her existence, tried to convince her lover to go to Roman, to drink too, to become like her, so they’d never suffer the pain of losing each other.
But he refused. Chose to grow old. And when the day final y came that she knelt beside his deathbed, fretting at the
simple gold band he’d placed on her finger, he promised to do everything within his power to not reincarnate. To not return to the earth plane. Stating he’d much rather wait for her to find a way to reverse her immortality, so that she cold someday join him in the great hereafter.
He left her on her own to grow older, then older stil . Her body eventual y becoming so decrepit, she prayed the sheer exhaustion of keeping it going would ultimately convince her breath to stop coming, her heart to stop beating, so she could meet up with her lover again—but stil , she lives on.
She continued her studies, continued to search for a way out, ultimately discovering the solution only after she’d grown too old to make the trip.
Though she refused to give up. With the long-held wish of her reunion final y within reach, she spent the last century tracking down al of the remaining orphans, revealing the truth of what she’d learned, hoping to convince one of them to make the journey—to bring back the chance at a new lease on life.
Life as it was intended to be.
To provide them al with a sort of do-over—a second chance to make a ful y informed decision as to whether or not to keep going like they are. Unlike the time when they were too young and scared to realize the consequences—when they al rushed to drink without a second thought.
Drina refused her flat out. Roman laughed in her face. While the others simply shook their heads, gazed upon her with great pity, and told her to go away.
Damen was the last on her list—her last hope.
Until she saw me.
“I thought it was enough that I found a way to release the souls and reverse the Shadowland, but, as it turns out, there’s stil more you want me to do.” I glare, shake my head, and yank free of her grip. My fingers slipping past the thin gold band she wears on her left hand, feeling remorse for the loss of her loved one, but unsure what I’m supposed to do. “You put me through al that hel , when al along that wasn’t even the journey you had in mind—you had something else planned for me that whole entire time!”
“Each step leads to the next,” she says, her voice far calmer than mine. “Everything you have experienced in this life as wel as those prior has prepared you for this moment. Each decision you made has landed you here. And while you have accomplished so much—
there is much left to do. The journey is long and arduous—but the reward is too great to miss. There are many who await you—await you to release them. You are the only one who can do so. This is why you keep reincarnating, Ever. You have a destiny to fulfil .”
I squint, realizing with a start that’s the first time she’s ever used my real name, or at least my current real name. Usual y she cal s me Adelina, or just points as she sings that demented song of hers. And I can’t help but wonder what more I could possibly be expected to do after al that I’ve already been through. Surviving a past life I never realized I’d lived, nearly drowning in the River of Forgetfulness, nearly getting burned alive in the desert of two blazing suns, freeing the lost souls of the Shadowland and restoring it back to the splendor of Summerland.
After al that, I’m just not sure I’m up for any new chal enges. Not when everything Damen and I have been striving for al this time is final y wel within our reach. Al we have to do is head back to the earth plane, col ect the ingredients, whip up the antidote, give it a shake and a swig, and the happily ever after is ours.
“Only you can bring back the truth. Only you can find it,” Lotus says, the words spoken plainly, simply, bearing no signs of begging or pleading.
“Locate what exactly?” Damen asks, making no attempt to hide his exasperation.
But Lotus is immune to our outbursts. From what I can see, she cycles between two moods—veering from slightly forlorn, to calm and serene.
“The Tree of Life,” she says, her gaze directed at him. “Only Ever can find it. Only Ever can bring back its fruit. The tree is evergiving.
Its fruit provides enlightenment—the knowledge of true immortality—the soul’s immortality—to those who seek it—as wel as reversing the false, physical immortality of those who’ve been fooled.”
“And if she doesn’t go? If she turns her back on you, on al of this, and returns to the earth plane, then what?” Damen’s brow rises in chal enge.
“Then it’s a pity. Then I have misjudged her. Underestimated her. Then she wil not realize her destiny and many wil suffer. Yet it is her choice entirely. I can only ask, she has the free wil to decide on her own.” Lotus faces me when she adds, “Do you stil have that smal pouch that I gave you?”
My eyes narrow, my lips part, I’d forgotten al about the little silk pouch she handed me at the beginning of the journey, and after al that I’ve been through, I doubt it’s stil with me.
I snake my fingers into each of my pockets, eventual y finding it wedged deep into the corner of the righthand back one, the last one I check. It’s crumpled, total y squashed and crinkly, but stil I retrieve it and dangle it before me.
Her face lifting into a smile as she says, “Do you remember my words when I gave it to you?”
I squint, searching through the cluttered contents of my mind. “You said, ‘Everything you think you need is in here. You decide what that means.’ Or something like that.”
She nods. Grins. My attention claimed by the large gaps in her teeth when she says, “And so, with that in mind, what is the one thing you desire most—above everything else? Right now, at this very moment, what is it you want?”
I hesitate. Stare at a smal patch of grass at my feet. Aware of Damen’s gaze weighing heavily upon me, wondering why I won’t say it, why the delay.
The same thing I wonder as wel .
I wonder why the word won’t come—why it feels like such a struggle, when it’s the one thing, the only thing, we’ve sought al this time.
Lifting my gaze to meet Lotus’s, I fight to push the words past my tongue. My voice wooden, perfunctory, devoid of emotion, when I say, “The antidote. I—rather we, have the recipe, but we stil need to col ect the ingredients, attend to al the moon phases, and …
whatnot…” I al ow the words to trail off. My heart hammering, my stomach jumbled in knots, my fingers twitching wildly as Lotus’s eyes travel between Damen and me.
“And so it is.” She nods, as though it is done, and when the gesture is met with two skeptical stares, she adds, “Please. Look inside.
You wil find it contains everything you need to make this antidote of yours. Including a very rare herb that wil be difficult to find back on the earth plane. And yes, al of the moon phases have been accounted for.”
Content to leave it at that, she starts to shuffle away, stopping only when I cal her back to me and say, “You’re joking, right?” I dangle the tiny pouch, knowing there’s no possible way it could ever contain al the items Roman included in that long grocery list of his. It’s too smal . A list like that would require a completely stuffed duffle bag, or two.
Lotus stops, steeples her hands at her chest, and says, “Why don’t you empty the contents and see?”
I frown, kneel onto the grass, pul ing the strings as I tilt the tiny bag on its side. Unable to do anything but gasp when a slew of herbs, crystals, and tiny glass vials of liquids tumble out. Having no idea where they could possibly be coming from—the bag contains far more items than it could ever logical y hold.
“It is al there. Everything you need to proceed. Just fol ow Roman’s instructions and the life that you dream of is yours.” She stops, looking at me when she adds, “Or is it?”
I gulp. Struggle to breathe. Staring at the bounty al spread out before me—a generous heap of hard-to-find, complex ingredients I’ve been searching for al of this time—the answer to al of our problems right here for the taking.
And yet, even though I know I should be happy, if not completely ecstatic, I can’t seem to stop her words from repeating in my head, can’t dampen the doubt she raised when she said: Or is it?
“Something wrong?” Her rheumy gaze
moves over me. “Have you changed your mind? Is there something else you’d rather have?”
“Ever—” Damen drops to his knees right beside me, wil ing me to face him, to say something, to offer some sort of explanation.
But I can’t.
How can I explain it to him when I can barely make sense of it myself?
He’l only get angry.
Won’t understand.
And, on the surface at least, I can’t say I blame him.
But this goes so much deeper than that. This harks back to the journey—my destiny—the very reason I keep reincarnating.
And suddenly I know. Suddenly, I’m thoroughly convinced that drinking from the antidote is just another distraction—it’s not the answer we’ve truly been seeking.
In the end, it won’t solve a thing.
Won’t solve the one thing that needs to be solved more than anything else.
Sure it wil al ow us to be together in the way that we want—but that’s al it al ows. It’s like slapping a Band-Aid on a big gaping wound
—it does nothing to heal the damage of what’s already been done.
It does nothing to change the fact that we’re on the wrong course.
Once we realize how we’ve cheated ourselves out of the lives we’re meant to live by choosing physical immortality over the immortality of our souls—the antidote is no longer the issue.
If Damen and I are truly going to be together then we’l have to reach far, far deeper than that. We’l have to admit that our problems didn’t start the day Roman tricked me—they started several centuries earlier when Alrik couldn’t bear to lose Adelina—then culminated when he reincarnated as Damen, perfected the elixir, and changed the course of our souls forever.
If Damen and I are truly going to be together then we’l have to release ourselves from that path, we’l have to reverse the choices he made in the past, we’l have to pay off that huge karmic debt by making this journey to the Tree of Life, obtaining its fruit, and offering al the others a chance to release themselves too.