Chương 39: A Soul Left Behind

As my senses slowly returned, the first thing I noticed was how absurdly comfortable I felt. That alone should have concerned me. Comfort and I had never been particularly close. We crossed paths from time to time, usually by accident. A hot bath after a long night, a chair expensive enough to justify its existence, a glass of wine capable of making a duke question his taxes, or Celeste leaning against my shoulder when she assumed I was too tired to shove her away. Softness surrounded me from every direction.

Warm, furry shapes brushed along my arms, curled around my waist, and draped themselves across my legs. Something impossibly plush supported my head, another brushed against my cheek, and a third rested over my stomach with just enough weight to make the whole situation offensively comfortable. That was irritating mostly because I liked it far more than I cared to admit.

Before pride or reason could intervene, I reached blindly for one of the soft things and pulled it against my chest, immediately discovering that it was warm, fluffy, and far too perfect for my dignity to survive. A contented sound slipped out before I could stop it.

"Am I in heaven?" I suddenly mumbled. A light giggle answered me. The sound caught me completely off guard. Soft, amused, and strangely intimate, it slipped beneath my guard with effortless ease and settled somewhere beneath my ribs as though it had always known the way.

"Not yet," a woman answered.

"You still have a long way to go before you ascend that high." My eyes snapped open to find Akane, the nine-tailed fox, filling my vision. For several seconds, I could do nothing but stare at her. She lay beside me on the silver grass, propped comfortably on one elbow while watching me with molten-gold eyes and a smile far too pleased with itself. Long dark hair spilled around her shoulders, fox ears rising through the thick strands and twitching faintly as she watched me. Her nine tails were the real problem.

They had curled around me into what amounted to an absurdly luxurious nest. One supported my head, another was currently trapped in my arms, and the remaining seven seemed to have collectively decided that I belonged exactly where I was. How presumptuous of those tails to decide I belonged there, and even more irritating was the fact that I had no immediate desire to escape them. My gaze shifted from the one still trapped in my arms to the others curled around my body before returning to Akane. Her smile deepened.

"There you are. I was beginning to wonder how long you intended to keep sleeping." I glanced down at the ridiculous nest of tails surrounding me.

"Is this necessary?"

"Very." She said with a light giggle. Her answer came far too easily, but before I could decide whether to argue, the memory of the ruined field returned with uncomfortable clarity. My attention sharpened.

"What exactly did I just see?" Akane tilted her head.

"The field?"

"The field, the destruction, you bleeding, me bleeding, and whatever absurd battle apparently devastated everything around us." Recognition crossed her face before amusement quickly replaced it.

"Oh, that." I stared at her. Her casual tone was already becoming slightly frustrating.

"That was the first time we met." I blinked.

"That was our first meeting?" Akane's ears twitched, and the amusement in her expression deepened.

"More or less. We spent most of that first day trying to kill each other." I stared at her.

"You say that as though it were perfectly normal."

"For us, it apparently was."

"That's not reassuring." Her smile widened.

"Neither of us was willing to give an inch. The battle dragged on for hours because we were both too stubborn to stop and far too proud to admit the other had earned our respect." I glanced across the peaceful field, remembering how thoroughly we had destroyed it in memory.

"And somehow that became romance."

"Eventually," Akane replied, entirely too pleased with herself. She watched me for another moment before the amusement in her eyes softened.

"I'm not actually here with you, Helena… Not yet. What you're speaking to is a shard of my soul. I hid it within Nadia and Rowan for this exact purpose." Akane leaned closer, and one of her tails brushed over my shoulder. The one already trapped in my arms received an involuntary squeeze from my fingers.

"I'm so sorry, Helena, that I wasn't able to protect you in the previous timeline." Before I could respond, her lips pressed gently against my forehead. I did not dodge. More importantly, I did not want to. There was no disgust at the intimacy, no irritation at being touched without warning, and none of the instinctive resistance that normally appeared whenever someone crossed too deeply into my personal space.

Instead, something opened inside me, and with it came a longing so sudden and deep that I barely recognized it. My first instinct was to reject the feeling as something foreign, but that was not quite true. It was mine, but from another life. The emotion had been carried backward from a dead future and settled into my chest with unsettling familiarity, as though some forgotten part of me still recognized exactly where it belonged. I hated how close I came to accepting that.

"I have only ever heard your name until now." My voice came out quieter than intended.

"Akane, right?" She smiled, and it was devastating.

"That's correct." The name moved through me again, but this time it did not feel like a memory being stirred. It felt like recognition. Something inside me answered to it before I could stop it, and that surprised me more than I cared to admit. Looking at Akane, I could suddenly understand how she had become dangerous to me in another life. It was not simply because she was beautiful. Beauty was common enough.

I owned paintings, jewels, casinos, and several children capable of turning a ballroom into a spectacle merely by entering it. Akane was different. She looked at me with the certainty of someone who had already seen everything I kept hidden beneath sarcasm, pride, and violence. There was no hesitation in her gaze and no effort to ignore the damaged parts of me she had already come to understand. She knew them. More importantly, she had chosen me with them included.

That realization settled somewhere uncomfortably deep, pulling at an emotion I wasn't ready to name because doing so would make it feel far too real.

"This shard will remain attached to you until the day we meet again," Akane explained.

"Think of it as a beacon. No matter where you are, it gives me something to find."

"A beacon."

"Yes."

"You placed a tracking spell inside my soul." Her smile turned wicked.

"You were exceptionally difficult to find the first time."

"I don't remember consenting."

"You liked it in the future."

"That's not a legal argument."

"No." Akane leaned closer.

"But it's a romantic one." I should have been angry. Instead, my heart, useless organ that it was, performed some irritating little flutter that I absolutely did not approve of. Akane's expression softened again.

"This shard also carries some of the strongest feelings I developed for you during the year we spent together. Not all of them. Giving you everything at once would be cruel, especially when you have no memories attached to those emotions." Her tails shifted around me, drawing me a little closer with infuriating gentleness.

"Accept them slowly. You do not need to understand everything yet. Just understand this much." Her golden eyes held mine.

"I love you and I will find you again, Helena, so please wait for me." Something tightened in my throat. I disliked that too.

"I know enough about your past to understand why you keep your heart guarded," she murmured.

"I know what was done to you, what it cost, and how much of yourself you had to bury just to survive." Her fingers brushed a loose strand of hair away from my face.

"But I will reach that part of you eventually," she promised.

"You don't have to force anything. This is only the beginning." I had no immediate response. Whatever composure I had managed to gather around her was slipping faster than I cared to admit. Mesmerized was probably the closest description, though I would rather bite through my own tongue than ever let Celeste hear me use that word. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

The longer I remained with Akane, the easier it became to understand how another version of me had allowed her so deeply into my life. I could already feel the beginnings of that same pull now, and the woman in front of me was not even truly present. Something restless stirred within me, and for one unsettling moment, I wondered if it could actually be butterflies. Absolutely not… That sounded far too harmless for whatever was happening inside my chest.

Warmth tangled with anticipation, longing, uncertainty, desire, curiosity, and something dangerously close to hope until the emotions blurred together into something I could no longer neatly separate. Akane watched me with satisfaction, the knowing curve of her smile making it obvious that she understood exactly how thoroughly she was unsettling me.

"Helena." The way she spoke my name narrowed the world around us.

"Do not worry yourself too much over the spires." I blinked. That, at least, returned some of my senses.

"Do not worry? Your messengers traveled through time to inform me that a demon lord kills me in roughly a century."

"Yes."

"And my children die with me." The warmth in her eyes dimmed.

"That's also true."

"And your advice is not to worry?" Her lips curved faintly.

"I'm telling you to move carefully, not to sit here worrying yourself into paralysis. There's a difference."

"Barely."

"If I had been beside you during the final battle, we would have won." There was no playfulness in her voice now.

"That is the truth. We were both too confident in our strength and too willing to separate because each of us believed we could handle our part of the battlefield alone." Her fingers curled slightly against the grass.

"We cannot repeat that mistake. When the demonic threat finally comes, we face it together. No matter how capable either of us believes we are on our own, we stay at each other's side." Her golden eyes held mine without wavering.

"If we stand together, we win." I studied her face. Beneath Akane's confidence and unwavering certainty, something far heavier finally showed through: the regret she had carried from that lost future, deep enough that even time had failed to dull it.

"I'm sorry I cannot stay with you much longer," she whispered.

"But know that part of me will remain with you through the shard. My real body is still healing."

"Where?" Her smile became apologetic.

"I cannot tell you."

"How convenient."

"It's not because I don't want to. This shard simply doesn't possess everything my true self knows. I only know what she placed within me." That explanation was convenient, mildly annoying, and probably true.

"If I had to guess, since I am still part of her, she simply doesn't want to appear before you while she is weakened."

"Why?" Akane's ears flicked once as a rare hint of embarrassment slipped into her expression.

"She is afraid you might think less of her." I simply stared at her before a short, disbelieving laugh escaped me.

"She sent two people backward through time, hid a piece of her soul inside them, warned me about a demon lord, and planted what amounts to a tracking beacon inside my soul, yet somehow she's worried I might judge her for being injured?" Akane's smile returned, with warmth that made the whole exchange feel far more intimate than I was prepared for.

"Yes." I stared at her.

"That's incredibly stupid."

"She knows."

"You know."

"I'm her." I narrowed my eyes.

"That somehow made it worse." Her laughter came easily, light and genuine, with some of the embarrassment leaving her expression as she looked at me.

"I missed you." Those words and her expression were difficult to ignore. The admission settled between us with more weight than I expected. There was no teasing in her voice now, no confidence sharpened into playfulness. Just affection, plain and unguarded. That made it harder to dismiss. I held her gaze a little longer than necessary, and something in her expression eased as though she had been waiting for exactly that. No answer seemed necessary.

Akane's tails curled more tightly around me as the world surrounding us gradually began to thin. Sadness entered her eyes as the edges of the world began to fade around us, and although she quickly composed herself, the disappointment remained.

"Our time is almost over." I glanced at the silver grass dissolving into light before returning my attention to her.

"Then apparently your soul shard has terrible timing." A laugh escaped her, though it lacked some of its earlier playfulness.

"Helena." Something in the way she spoke my name made me stop. I met her gaze as she leaned closer, the tails surrounding me tightening slightly as though reluctant to let me go.

"So…" I barely had time to wonder what she intended before her lips met mine. The kiss was gentle, and warmth spread through me at once, carrying an intimacy my mind could not remember even though some deeper part of me seemed to recognize it instinctively. Before I could fully grasp that feeling, Akane began to pull away, and the loss of her closeness struck far more sharply than I expected. Then everything vanished.

Her face dissolved into white as the memory collapsed around me, and my body reacted before my thoughts could catch up. I shot upright with enough force to collide with whatever had been directly in front of me.

"Ouch!" Celeste's voice immediately pierced the air.

"Mother! Why did you have to hit me in the head? I was only checking whether you were still breathing." Reality returned in pieces. A cold mountain wind swept against my face. Black stone pressed beneath me while the nearby fire burned low, carrying the distant scent of ash and sulfur. Hands steadied my shoulders as familiar voices surrounded me. Celeste sat directly in front of me clutching her forehead with both hands as though I had inflicted a mortal wound.

Considering she was a vampire, whatever damage I had caused would disappear within seconds. Considering she was Celeste, the complaining would probably survive until morning. Adrian knelt beside me with one hand braced behind my back. His expression remained controlled, though the tension around his eyes betrayed how worried he had been. Vera hovered nearby while Vesper stood behind her in humanoid form, crimson wings partially spread like a protective barrier.

Malcolm remained just beyond them with his sword drawn; scanning the ridge as though he expected the mountain itself to attack. Aura had both hands tangled in my coat. Her violet eyes were wide and suspiciously glassy. Several feet away, Nadia and Rowan remained pale and shaken from the turning, their attention fixed on me with the kind of alarm my collapse had clearly left behind. I blinked several times as awareness settled fully back into place.

For half a second, I considered being disappointed that the memory had ended, which was alarming enough on its own. Then I felt it. Akane's shard was still there. A remnant of her soul had settled somewhere within me, close to the strange inner space where the six bonds rested behind my ribs. Unlike those connections, however, hers carried no weight and placed no strain upon me. It did not depend on my life, pull at my strength, or burden the bloodline in any way.

It simply remained, carrying the unmistakable presence. Akane had called it a beacon. I still preferred to think of it as a tracking spell embedded in my soul. Both descriptions were probably accurate.

"Mother?" Celeste was still rubbing her forehead.

"Are you awake? Fully awake? Do you know who I am?"

"Unfortunately."

"Who am I?"

"An irritant." Every trace of worry vanished from her expression.

"She's fine." Adrian released a breath. Aura immediately lunged forward and wrapped both arms around my waist.

"Master." I looked down at her as she squeezed harder.

"I'm fine."

"You fell."

"That's true."

"Your eyes were glowing."

"They do that."

"You didn't wake up when Celeste yelled." Adrian's expression tightened.

"That's considerably more concerning than glowing eyes." Celeste nodded vigorously.

"Exactly."

"I'm fine." The sharper tone finally quieted everyone, allowing me to turn my attention back to Nadia and Rowan. Their bonds had settled completely, strange remnants of another timeline somehow restored into something stable and whole. Beyond them, however, I could still feel the boundary with absolute certainty. Six bonds… There would be no seventh.

"I cannot take any more children into my bloodline." The statement settled over the camp with enough weight to silence everyone. Nadia lowered her eyes while Rowan swallowed. Celeste's expression softened, and Adrian gave a single nod as though my collapse had already confirmed what I told them earlier.

"The bond has reached its limit. If I attempted to create another, the connection would become strained and possibly unstable. Whatever damage followed would not affect only me. It could spread through everyone linked to my blood." Vera reached for Malcolm's hand, and his fingers closed around hers. Aura frowned.

"So no more siblings?"

"No more blood children." She considered it for several seconds before a faintly satisfied look settled over her face.

"That works for me." Celeste reached over and flicked one of her horns. Aura immediately snapped her teeth toward Celeste's finger.

"Later." I waved my hand, stopping both of them. They both froze. Adrian continued studying me.

"What happened after you collapsed?" Everyone's attention turned to me as if I had a story when I was unconscious. His instincts are insane. I rose carefully and brushed the dust from my coat. Celeste immediately shifted forward to help, but one look stopped her. She raised both hands and retreated half a step, which by Celeste's standards was an impressive display of restraint.

"I saw a memory." Nadia's breath caught while Rowan leaned forward.

"A memory from the other timeline?" Vera asked.

"I believe so." Celeste's eyes immediately brightened.

"Of Akane?" I should have lied. Unfortunately, everyone already knew enough to make denial pointless.

"Yes." Celeste made a sound no respectable person should ever make during what was technically still a war council. I ignored her.

"There was also a fragment of Akane's soul hidden within Nadia and Rowan. When their bonds reconnected with mine, the shard transferred to me." Celeste stepped closer, practically vibrating with curiosity.

"What did she say?"

"No." Her smile faltered.

"No?"

"I'm not telling you."

"But…"

"No."

"Mother."

"No."

"I have supported this romance from the beginning."

"It has been one day."

"And I have been unwavering."

"You have been unbearable."

"That's part of my charm."

"Debatable." Celeste clasped both hands beneath her chin and leaned toward me with shameless curiosity.

"Please, just one detail. Was she beautiful? Did she tell you she loved you? Did she kiss you, or did you kiss her back? Did you blush? Are you blushing now?" I stared at her long enough that her eyes widened in sudden realization, and a delighted gasp escaped her before I could stop whatever conclusion she had already reached.

"You're not denying any of it."

"Celeste."

"She kissed you."

"I told you nothing."

"You also did not deny it."

"I will throw you off this mountain."

"You are definitely blushing."

"I do not blush."

"You emotionally blush."

"That's not a real thing."

"It is with you." Aura's head snapped upward.

"Akane kissed Master?"

"No one said that." Celeste pointed at me.

"Her refusal to answer said everything." Smoke curled from Aura's nostrils as her violet eyes narrowed.

"I dislike Akane."

"You have never met her," Vera reminded her gently.

"She touched Master."

"In a memory," Malcolm pointed out. Aura frowned harder, while Adrian rubbed the bridge of his nose. Rowan laughed despite everything, while Nadia smiled through the last traces of tears on her cheeks.

"Lady Akane would adore this." I turned toward her.

"Do not encourage them." Nadia immediately lowered her head.

"Sorry, Mother." The word struck differently this time. It no longer sounded like Nadia reaching for something she had lost but like a simple truth that had finally been restored. The bond stirred warmly in response, and the faint smile on her face told me she had felt it too. I barely had time to process that before Celeste, naturally, proved she was nowhere near finished. She leaned forward, still wearing that infuriatingly delighted expression.

"Mother, this is historic. You cannot seriously expect me to ignore it."

"I can expect many things."

"You finally found someone who could kiss you and survive."

"That did not happen." Her eyes narrowed with immediate suspicion.

"So she did not kiss you?"

"No."

"Not even once?"

"Never." Celeste studied my face far too closely, clearly searching for the smallest crack in my expression. I gave her nothing. At least, I hoped I gave her nothing. Somewhere within the soul shard, warmth stirred faintly enough that I could almost imagine Akane laughing at my expense. Traitorous fox… Before Celeste could launch into another round of questions, I turned my attention toward the Demon Continent and cut the conversation off before it could gather momentum.

"We are finished discussing this."

"We have barely discussed anything," Celeste protested.

"Exactly. That is the appropriate amount." Adrian rose beside me, his attention shifting away from Celeste's interrogation and back toward my condition.

"Can you continue?"

"Yes." He studied my face in silence, clearly unconvinced. I allowed the inspection for roughly three seconds before my patience began to thin.

"Adrian."

"You lost consciousness."

"And regained it."

"That does not answer the question." I exhaled.

"I can continue. The bonds have stabilized, the soul shard is not placing any strain on me, and physically I feel no weaker than before."

"Are you certain?" Vera asked.

"Yes." Mostly, when it came to physically, I was perfectly fine. Emotionally, someone had apparently reached into my chest, set half of it on fire, and then left me with instructions to wait for her. That was irrelevant to strategy, or at least I intended to treat it that way, as I turned my attention back toward Nadia and Rowan.

"You will both need blood soon." They nodded. Their new hunger was already stirring, faint but unmistakable through the bond. Surprisingly, both were handling the sensation well. Then again, they had already experienced their first days as vampires once before. That thought remained ridiculous. My attention shifted toward Celeste.

"Stop grinning." She straightened innocently.

"I cannot."

"Try."

"No." I stared at her. Her grin widened. Eventually, I surrendered because apparently even immortality had limits. The fire had burned low by then, its glow barely holding against the night wind sweeping across the ridge. Below us, the first spire remained dead, thin smoke still curling from its ruins, while the second waited somewhere ahead with four more beyond it. Beneath all six rested the creature that had once killed me, still feeding on whatever power the remaining spires continued to force into the earth.

Yet that was no longer the only presence I carried with me. Somewhere inside my chest rested a fragment of the woman who had apparently loved me enough to reach backward through a dead future just to make certain I would eventually find her again. Akane… I wisely kept the name inside my head. Celeste would somehow hear it otherwise. She possessed terrible instincts for nearly everything except detecting my discomfort, where she displayed the talents of a prodigy.

I looked over the family gathered around me and considered just how thoroughly absurd my future had become. Six children were now bound to my blood, Aura remained possessive enough for an entire brood of dragons, and Vesper continued judging the world from Vera's shoulder. Somewhere inside my chest, a fragment of Akane's soul rested like a quiet ember.

"Let's take a short rest, and then we scout the second spire." Celeste raised one finger.

"And afterward, we discuss Akane?"

"Absolutely not."

"At breakfast?"

"Still no."

"During the flight?"

"Especially not."

"What if I disguise it as a strategy discussion?"

"I will know." She leaned toward Aura and whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear, "We're discussing Akane during the flight." Aura answered at the exact same volume.

"I will complain." I stared at both of them, feeling helpless.