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No, we did not.
“But we have enough.”
There was comfort in knowing that no one would interrupt these stolen moments. A heavy, long breath left me as I looked up through the blossoms to the pinpricks of sunlight. Then I looked down at the diamond. It was warm against my palm, and I could feel it pulsing.
“See the large rocks there, in the center?” Ash pointed to the ones the water lapped against. “As long as you don’t go too far past that, the water will only come to about your shoulders. Beyond that, it does get deeper.”
Tears rushed to my eyes once more, and I blinked them away. Gods, he was so damn thoughtful.
Swallowing, I turned to him. Half of his face was cast in shadow. “How are you feeling?” I glanced down at the diamond. “About this?”
Ash tipped his chin back. “Honestly?” He turned his head. “I don’t know.” His brows knitted. “It’s hard to even think about—if he’s aware in there, knows what is going on outside the diamond.” His jaw flexed, and I hoped—gods, I prayed—that he wasn’t thinking about where The Star had been positioned and what Eythos could’ve seen beneath him. “What it could feel like being trapped in there?”
“It’s…it’s unimaginable.”
He swallowed. “Yeah.”
I glanced down at The Star. The milky light inside had calmed—or at least was no longer zipping back and forth. “I think he’s aware.”
“What—?” Ash cleared his throat, briefly looking away. “What makes you think that?”
“It’s just a feeling. Like maybe the embers of life recognize his soul or something. I don’t know. But the way that light inside moves? It changes speed, becoming…almost frenzied. Now, it’s calm.”
“That light is a soul.” He looked down, almost as if he were finally letting himself do so, and then stepped in closer. His blood-streaked chest rose with a deep breath. “I still don’t feel anything, but that’s what a soul looks like—a good soul. A pure soul would be more intense—a brilliant, blinding white light.”
The light in the diamond—the soul—seemed to float close to the surface of the stone. I wondered what Kolis’s soul would look like.
Gray like the Rot, I imagined. But then I wondered what my soul looked like. My gaze lifted to Ash’s. “Did you know that I wasn’t truly Sotoria?”
His stare met mine. “I couldn’t be sure, but I assumed that what Holland and Penellaphe believed was correct.” His forehead creased as his gaze dropped to the diamond. “When you kept insisting you weren’t her, I did search for an additional imprint of a soul in you, but I never sensed anyone’s presence but yours. That could simply be because your soul is stronger or it’s what I fixated on.”
I had no idea why I was flattered by the fact that he’d fixated on my soul, but I was.
“But it also never mattered to me.”
My breath caught then.
“I didn’t care if you were only Seraphena, or if you had, at one time, been known as Sotoria.” A strand of his hair slipped forward, coming to rest on his cheek. “It didn’t matter to me. You were always Seraphena, no matter what.”
I…I’d been right when I’d thought it hadn’t mattered to Ash either way. Pressing my lips together, I felt tears gathering in my eyes again, but I fought them back. I had to because they were a mix of love and sorrow and because they reminded me this wasn’t fair.
And that unfairness threatened to shatter any calm I’d found.
“Can I…?” Ash cleared his throat again. “Can I hold the diamond?”
My heart ached. I’d never seen him look or sound so vulnerable. Uncertain. “I don’t know if you should.”
His gaze shot to mine. “Why?”
“I saw things when I touched The Star. I think it’s also how I know this is where your father’s soul has been trapped.” I smoothed my thumb over one of the points. “I saw how it was created and…how your father died.”
The muscles in his shoulders bunched and tightened. “What did you see?”
I wanted to ask if he really wanted to do this, but I knew the answer. It was the same as mine would be. I would need to know.
So, I told him.
I told him everything except for the part about his mother. I just…I just didn’t think he needed to know that. And then have to process the possibility that his mother had cared for Kolis, maybe even loved him once, only to be slain by him. Perhaps that wasn’t my decision to make, and I was wrong for keeping it from him, but I couldn’t see how having that piece of knowledge would benefit him. Maybe if we had more time, I would tell him everything I’d learned beyond what I saw in the diamond, even the claim that Eythos had killed Sotoria—something I wasn’t sure was entirely true and didn’t know the circumstances of.
