Page 103 of Ashen Souls

“I will always find you, Avelia.”

Harper pinched the bridge of her nose. “Wow. Subtle.”

“Right after the vow, the ceremony collapsed. Someone slid a blade between my—her—ribs. And while she was bleeding out, they ripped a hole in the air and shoved Daeren inside.”

Harper reached across the table, wrapping her warm hand over my fingers. “They what?”

“They banished him. Into absolute nothingness.”

Harper squeezed my hand. “Well. That explains the trauma, the interdimensional rage issues, and the morally questionable seduction techniques.”

My chest ached. “Even as they dragged him to the edge, his focus never left her. He just watched her die.”

I pulled my hand back, tracing the condensation on my glass. “Avelia wasn't just a stranger. With that face, and the fact that this exact sigil was drawn in my family's hidden journal... she has to be a Nyxeth. My ancestor. The one he lost.”

Our food arrived in a cloud of steam, smelling of rice and hot broth. Harper split her wooden chopsticks apart.

“So,” she said, pointing her chopstick at my coat pocket. “What are you gonna do with a wedding ring that belongs to a banished immortal who’s apparently been searching across centuries for someone who looked like you?”

“I don’t know yet.” I pushed a stray grain of rice across my plate. “But if just touching it triggered a vision like that... maybe its magic can help me figure out what the hell is happening to me.”

She nodded, popping a dumpling into her mouth. “Okay. That tracks.”

We ate in silence. Sunlight warmed my shoulders, and the clatter of ceramic dishes from the kitchen offered an illusion of normal life.

Neither of us hurried to leave. Retreating to Vesbridge’s heavy stone immediately after a thousand-year-old murder played out in my chest seemed impossible. Blackmere stretched out in the bright afternoon sun, and Harper scanned the cobblestone streets with the restless energy of someone refusing to let the day end.

“Since it’s spring break, the weather is behaving, and we’re already emotionally compromised, I vote we explore.” She slipped her sunglasses back on.

A faint smile pulled at my mouth. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

We navigated the town aimlessly, letting the winding avenues dictate our path. We wandered past cramped bookshops, a tiny gallery displaying hand-painted ceramics, and a park where magnolia buds were preparing to bloom. We talked about everything except immortal exiles and murdered brides.

Yet the vision clung to my consciousness.

Crossing a stone bridge above a sluggish canal, my hand slipped into my pocket, my fingers brushing against the box. And suddenly, a dormant detail from the vision surfaced.

He held something in his outstretched hands. Two rings.

Harper caught the hesitation, pausing beside me. “You just had another epiphany,” she noted. “I can tell because your face did that thing.”

“What thing?”

“The one where you look like you’re about to voluntarily walk into danger.”

I ran a hand along the sun-warmed granite of the bridge railing. “There were two rings, Harp. He had one for himself. I only bought hers.”

Harper peered at me over the rim of her sunglasses. “Okay. So?”

“So where is his?” I asked. “When they shoved him into that void... did it go with him? Or did it stay here?”

Harper let her head drop back for a second. “You think his ring is the other half of the connection.”

“If touching Avelia's ring unleashed a memory that devastating,” I murmured, looking down at the dark water of the canal. “Daeren's counterpart has to carry its own history. If I want to know how to stop whatever is happening between us, or how to control it... I need the other half.”

“Well,” she said, resuming her stride. “If we’re already in deep, we might as well keep swimming. Any idea where we even start looking for a thousand-year-old piece of demon jewelry?”

“No.”