Chương 50: There Is Only You

With our war council finished, the room fractured into motion. Adrian was issuing orders before he reached the door. Malcolm and Vera spoke quietly about Guild divisions, shelters, and hospitals. Nadia had that distant look in her eyes that meant she was already thinking about old blood, old memories, and the kind of truths that made people lose sleep at night. Rowan slipped into the shadow beneath the table and vanished, apparently deciding that doors were an unnecessary inconvenience.

Aura followed his retreat with her eyes before turning toward me.

"Can I burn something before we leave?"

"I would prefer Ravenport still standing when we return." Aura frowned.

"Something small, then?"

"Your definition of small has historically involved structural damage." She thought about that for a moment.

"A demon cult?" That gave me pause.

"If Rowan finds one worth burning, ask him." Aura's expression brightened immediately, and she hurried after him. Wonderful… I had somehow delegated arson. Akane remained beside me, one hand resting lazily on the back of my chair. Her tails curled behind her with the calm confidence of someone who had just reorganized my life and suffered absolutely no consequences for it. I stood.

"I need to speak with you." Akane's golden eyes softened. Akane's usual teasing vanished. One look at my face was enough for her to understand that I was serious.

"Lead the way." She probably would have followed me regardless, but I needed to be the one who asked. This was not Akane slipping through another crack in my defenses. I was choosing to let her in. That distinction mattered. Naturally, Celeste chose that exact moment to rise from her chair. I turned toward her before she could take a second step.

"Celeste, stay here." She stopped. The playful look on her face faltered almost immediately.

"You're taking Akane somewhere alone."

"Yes."

"And you expect me to simply sit here and pretend that doesn't concern me?"

"I expect you to trust me." That caught her off guard. Celeste's mouth closed, and for a moment the usual dramatics disappeared.

"I do trust you," she said more quietly.

"That does not mean I trust whatever the two of you are about to discuss." Akane made a small sound behind me that might have been amusement. I ignored it.

"This is something I need to handle myself." Celeste studied me carefully. Her expression shifted from suspicion to concern.

"Is something wrong?" The question was sincere enough that some of my irritation faded.

"No. At least, I do not think so." I glanced briefly toward Akane before looking back at her.

"But there are things between us that I need answers to, and I would rather not have half the family hiding behind furniture while I get them." Celeste looked mildly offended.

"I would never hide behind furniture." I stared at her. She hesitated.

"Not if there were better options available." Of course…

"I'm serious."

"I know." Her voice had softened again. That was somehow more frustrating. I could handle Celeste being ridiculous. Genuine concern required considerably more effort. Celeste stepped a little closer, her concern finally outweighing her suspicion.

"From your perspective, Akane has only been back in your life for a short time. But she came here already knowing things about you that none of us did. She stands beside you as though that has always been her place, because in the life she remembers, it was." Her eyes shifted briefly toward Akane before returning to me.

"I'm trying to understand that. I'm trying to believe what she's told us. But you're my mother. I've had centuries with you, and now someone has appeared asking you to accept an entire life with her that you cannot even remember." Celeste's voice softened.

"So yes, I worry about you. I'm your daughter. I'm supposed to." The concern in her voice had stripped away the usual dramatics, leaving only sincerity behind.

"If something about this feels wrong, I want to know." My expression softened despite myself.

"I know." Celeste waited. I sighed.

"And if I need you, I will come find you. But right now, what I need is privacy." Her lips pressed together. Clearly, she did not like it. That did not mean she failed to understand.

"Actual privacy?" she asked.

"Yes."

"No following?"

"No following," I echoed.

"No listening?"

"Especially no listening." Celeste looked toward the ceiling as if mentally crossing several ideas off a list. I narrowed my eyes.

"And whatever you're thinking about right now also counts." Her gaze returned to mine with suspicious innocence.

"You have a very low opinion of me."

"I have an extremely accurate opinion of you." Akane laughed softly behind me. Celeste ignored her.

"What if I only happen to be nearby?"

"You will happen to be left behind when we leave for the Demon Continent." Her entire face went still. I had found the correct weapon.

"You would actually do that?"

"If you follow us after I have asked you not to, then yes." For several seconds, Celeste searched my face. She knew me well enough to recognize when a threat was decorative. This one was not. Her shoulders lowered.

"That's cruel."

"It's effective."

"It's both."

"Then we understand each other." Celeste gave Akane one final suspicious look before slowly returning to her chair.

"Fine. I will stay."

"Thank you." She had barely sat down before pointing a finger toward Akane.

"But if she makes you cry, I'm blaming her." Akane's brows lifted. I felt my patience beginning to fray again.

"Celeste."

"I'm only establishing consequences."

"I'm perfectly capable of dealing with Akane myself."

"That's not what concerns me." That made me pause. Celeste's expression had gone serious again.

"You can survive almost anything, Mother. That doesn't mean everything that hurts you has to be physical." For once, I had no immediate answer. The room went quieter. Even Akane stopped smiling. Celeste held my gaze another moment before lowering her hand.

"I will stay here." I nodded once.

"Good." Then I turned toward Akane.

"Come." She followed me from the dining room without another word. Rather than taking the elevator or the stairs, I led Akane through one of the private exits and onto the upper service balcony. The moment we stepped into the open air, I broke into a run, and she kept pace beside me without effort. The world blurred around us. Vaust Royale quickly receded behind us, its black glass and violet lights gleaming against the morning sky.

Ravenport spread out below, dense with roads, towers, harbor cranes, neon signs, and streams of early traffic winding through the city. To anyone watching from below, Akane and I would have been little more than fleeting shadows racing across rooftops. It did not take long for the city to disappear behind us. Concrete gave way to stone, then dense forest as the land climbed toward the mountains surrounding Ravenport.

Most of them bore some evidence of my family's tendency to treat the landscape as something that could be rearranged whenever convenient. This particular mountain had somehow escaped the worst of it. So far. I continued upward until Ravenport had fallen far enough into the distance that even Vaust Royale felt removed from us. There was no logical reason to go this far simply to have a private conversation. The walls of Vaust Royale did not listen. Celeste did.

Given her remarkable commitment to appearing where she was least wanted, distance felt like the safer choice. When we finally reached the top, I slowed to a stop. I settled near the edge of the peak, bending one leg and resting an arm across my knee. Akane sat beside me without much thought. She left perhaps an inch of space between us, which lasted only until one of her tails curled around my side and eliminated it. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

I glanced down at the offending tail before looking at her. A small smile escaped me before I could stop it. Naturally, Akane noticed. Foxes had an irritating talent for noticing everything I would rather they missed. Akane leaned back on her hands.

"So what is up, Helena?" The casualness should have annoyed me, yet somehow it made the words easier to reach. I turned my attention toward Ravenport, searching for the right way to begin. Threats came naturally. Orders were simple. Sarcasm required almost no thought at all. This time… it was different. It meant opening a part of myself I had spent centuries protecting and trusting Akane not to use what she found there against me. I drew in a slow breath.

"I need to know something." The change in Akane was immediate. She turned toward me fully, her expression growing serious.

"All right." I kept my eyes on the city. Looking at her suddenly felt far more dangerous than staring down any army.

"Are your feelings for me actually real?" Akane went still. The wind moved around us while she waited for me to finish.

"Is it possible…" I hesitated, forcing myself to finish the thought.

"That when you look at me, you're still seeing the Helena you lost?" Her tails stopped moving.

"I do not handle disappointment well. Especially when it comes to love." The word felt strange in my mouth, heavy and far too revealing, but once I had said it, there was no taking it back.

"All this attention you keep giving me is working. Your affection, your persistence, all of it. I cannot deny that." My fingers curled slightly against my knee.

"I want it." It was possibly the most dangerous confession I had made in centuries.

"But letting you in like this scares me." I hated the word the moment it left my mouth, but there was no denying how painfully accurate it was.

"I keep thinking that I'll let myself believe you. That I'll trust what's happening between us, only for you to look at me one day and realize I'm not the Helena you lost." My jaw tightened.

"That you fell in love with a memory and only saw her when you looked at me." Akane's breath caught so softly that I almost missed it, but I heard it.

"My family sold me." The old wound stirred before I could stop it. It had not been fresh in centuries, but time had never dulled its edge completely.

"The first people who were supposed to love me chose gold, comfort, my brother's wedding, and their own convenience. I mattered while I was useful. When trading me became more valuable, they traded me." Akane did not interrupt.

"I built everything after that by refusing to need anyone." I gave a humorless laugh.

"Then somewhere along the way, that changed. I ended up with children, a dragon daughter, and a family I would do anything to protect." My eyes finally shifted toward her.

"And you." One of Akane's tails brushed gently against my side, offering quiet comfort without teasing or trying to pull me any closer.

"You're dangerous," I told her. The faint curve of her lips was not amusement. She knew exactly what I meant.

"You're affectionate and persistent. You say what you feel without hiding behind anything. I don't know how to defend myself against someone who acts as though loving me is easy."

"It is." My head turned sharply. Akane did not flinch.

"It's not easy for me."

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Yes." The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable. It simply settled between us, giving neither of us any reason to rush. The wind stirred through Akane's tails, lifting the black fur and white tips before several of them slowly curled around my back and legs. There was no restraint in the gesture, only warmth. I let them stay. That small acceptance probably told her more than anything I had managed to say. Akane shifted closer until her head rested against my shoulder. For a few moments, she said nothing.

"I understand why you would think I'm projecting something onto you." My chest tightened, but her grip closed around my hand before I could pull away.

"But that would require me to look at you and see someone else." I went still. Akane lifted her head from my shoulder and turned fully toward me.

"I don't." Her golden eyes held mine without hesitation.

"When I look at you, I'm not measuring you against the Helena I remember. I don't search for traces of her in you or wonder whether you'll become more like her." Her thumb moved slowly across the back of my hand.

"You're stubborn in the same infuriating ways. You carry yourself with that same impossible pride. You bury everything soft beneath enough power and sarcasm that most people are too frightened to look for it." A faint smile touched her lips.

"And somehow, after everything, you still become offended when someone notices." I wanted to object, but there was far too much truth in her words to make the attempt convincing. Akane seemed to notice, and the faint amusement in her expression softened into something gentler.

"But those aren't the reasons I feel this way about you. They're simply things I recognize." Akane kept hold of my hand, her touch steady between us.

"You keep talking as though the Helena I loved and the woman sitting beside me are two different people." My throat tightened.

"I've never seen you that way." Akane let the words settle before continuing.

"Your memories are different or missing entirely, but that doesn't tell us how different your lives truly were." Her eyes had begun to glisten, but her gaze never left mine.

"But none of that changed what I recognized when I found you." Something tightened deep in my chest, and for a moment I could not find a response.

"I lost you once," Akane said softly.

"Then somehow, impossibly, I found you again. I didn't look at you and see someone who merely reminded me of Helena. The fact that my imprint was still there, still a part of you after everything that happened, should have been proof enough." I swallowed. Akane leaned a little closer.

"There's only you." The words settled heavily in my chest. I looked away for a moment before speaking.

"You still cannot know for certain what the imprint means." Akane gave a small nod.

"No, not with the kind of proof Adrian would consider acceptable."

"That man requires an unreasonable amount of proof."

"He is thorough."

"He's irritating." Akane's mouth curved slightly.

"Those are not mutually exclusive." A reluctant smile tugged at my lips. She noticed, of course, but mercifully let it pass. After a moment, Akane's expression grew thoughtful again.

"What I do know is that my imprint should not have remained intact after everything that happened between those timelines. Even for my kind, that is not normal. At the very least, part of it should have been damaged." I glanced at her.

"You have a remarkable talent for making reassurance sound concerning."

"That was not meant to reassure you."

"Then you're succeeding." A faint smile touched her lips before her gaze drifted toward the open sky.

"There may be a reason it survived." That pulled my attention back to her. Akane was quiet for only a moment before adding, almost casually, "My mother is a goddess." I slowly turned my head toward her. She continued staring at the sky as though she had just commented on the weather.

"Your mother is what?" Akane looked at me.

"A goddess. She's the deity most beastkin worship. In the oldest traditions, she's known as the First Beast Goddess, though some call her the Mother of Wild Souls." I stared at her for several seconds, waiting for some indication that she was joking. There was none.

"You're telling me your mother is an actual goddess?" Akane gave a small, almost indifferent shrug.

"I did say my family was complicated." Of course she did. Apparently, Akane being a nine-tailed fox that had crossed timelines was not enough. Her mother also needed to be worshiped by an entire race.

"You waited until now to mention that your mother is worshiped by an entire species?"

"It did not come up naturally."

"You told me your people can have magical pregnancies before telling me your mother is a goddess." Akane looked indifferent to the comparison as if they were both carrying the same weight.

"That felt more immediately relevant." I opened my mouth to respond, thought better of it, and closed it again. There was no answer to that which would not somehow make the situation worse. Akane's smile lingered for a moment before fading as the conversation turned serious again.

"My mother fell in love with a mortal human, and I was born from that union. So technically, I'm half divine and half mortal, with enough fox beastkin mixed in to make the whole thing unnecessarily complicated." A faint smile touched her lips.

"Demi-god, divine beastkin, immortal problem. Pick whichever description you prefer."

"Immortal problem seems accurate."

"Thank you."

"That was not praise."

"I accept it anyway." I turned back toward Ravenport, trying to absorb yet another impossible truth about Akane. At this point, learning that she had a divine mother should not have surprised me. This was the same woman who had survived the collapse of an entire timeline, broken the laws of reality to reach this one, and somehow dismantled centuries of emotional defenses I had thought were untouchable. Ordinary parents would have been the more surprising revelation. Akane's expression grew thoughtful.

"There have always been things in my life I could never fully explain," Akane said.

"Blessings that appeared when I needed them most, warnings that came too perfectly timed, and coincidences that felt far too deliberate to be chance." Akane's expression grew more somber.

"When I broke the laws of reality to send Nadia and Rowan back, I didn't do it entirely on my own." My attention snapped back to her. Her ears lowered slightly, and for the first time since she had begun explaining, uncertainty entered her voice.

"I asked my mother for help." For a moment, I simply stared at her.

"You asked a goddess to help you break reality?"

"I wasn't calling on a goddess, it was my mother." The distinction silenced me. Akane looked toward Ravenport, though I doubted she was seeing the city anymore.

"I had already lost you. The world was collapsing around us; Nadia and Rowan were barely alive. I knew what I was attempting should have killed me, and even if I survived, there was no guarantee the spell would work." Her voice tightened.

"But I couldn't stand there and watch the last pieces of our family die with me." I felt something twist painfully in my chest.

"So I called to her... not as a demigod asking something of a goddess, but as her daughter. By then, I had nothing else left." Akane fell silent for a moment, her gaze distant before it finally returned to me.

"And she answered." The words carried enough weight to quiet everything around us. I studied her expression.

"How?"

"I don't know exactly." Akane shook her head.

"That's the problem. Gods cannot simply descend into the mortal world and change whatever they please. There are laws that restrict how much they can interfere, ancient laws that even divine beings are forced to obey." Her gaze hardened slightly.

"The more directly a god interferes with mortal affairs, the greater the consequences. Power does not exempt them from those laws. If anything, the stronger the god, the more dangerous the backlash can become." I studied her face.

"And your mother still helped you." Akane met my eyes.

"Yes." There was no hesitation in the answer.

"Whatever it cost her, whatever rule she bent without completely breaking it, she did something. I know she did." Her voice softened again.

"Because Nadia and Rowan should never have survived that spell, especially after their bond with you had been completely severed." Her gaze dropped. Akane closed her eyes.

"I believe she shielded part of the spell long enough for Nadia and Rowan to survive the crossing. Maybe she stabilized the path. Maybe she saw something I could not." Her next breath was slower.

"Maybe she saw how broken I was after losing you and did something more." My throat tightened, and it took a moment before I could force the question out.

"You think she sent me here too."

"It's highly likely." Akane opened her eyes.

"You arrived in this world centuries before Nadia and Rowan. If my spell had brought all three of you here, you should have arrived together or at least around the same time. That alone tells me my spell cannot have been the beginning. So either something reached you first, or a path between the timelines had already been opened before I cast anything." The implication settled heavily in my chest.

"And when I sent Nadia and Rowan through," she added, "my spell may have simply found that path and followed it."

"I cannot contact my mother whenever I please. I'm not some child knocking on her door until she answers. Gods do not respond easily, and when they do, there is always a cost." Akane turned my hand gently within hers.

"So I cannot promise you that you're the same Helena with missing memories. I cannot prove my mother moved your soul before Rowan, Nadia, and I crossed over. I cannot prove fate looked at what happened to us and decided, for once, to be merciful." Her voice dropped almost to a whisper.

"All I know is that when I found you again, every part of me knew you." My vision blurred before I could stop it. Damn it. Akane noticed immediately. I turned my face away, but her hand found my cheek before I could hide the tears. Her thumb caught the first one beneath my eye, only for another to follow a moment later. Traitors… Every last one.

"I held your dead body," Akane whispered. The words struck harder than anything she had done during our fight.

"I held you while the world ended around us. Your blood was on me while your children screamed and the sky burned above us." Her tears gathered now, catching the sunlight.

"I was broken, Helena. Completely." Her forehead lowered until it rested against mine.

"That's one of the reasons I needed so much time after coming here. My core was cracked. The backlash from the spell had hollowed me out." Her voice weakened.

"But more than that, I was afraid." The admission was so quiet I nearly missed it.

"You?" A sad smile touched her lips.

"Me."

"What were you afraid of?" Akane's thumb moved slowly across my cheek.

"That I would finally find you, and you would look at me as though I were a stranger." My chest tightened painfully.

"I did."

"Yes." The sadness remained in her eyes.

"And it hurt." Then the corner of her mouth lifted.

"But you threw me into a mountain shortly afterward, so I felt considerably better." A quiet, tear-soaked laugh escaped before I could stop it, doing absolutely nothing for my dignity. Akane looked far too pleased with herself.

"Ridiculous fox."

"Your ridiculous fox." I didn't deny it, and something in Akane's expression softened at the silence.

"When I tell you I love you, I know how it must sound from your side. Too soon, too much, like I placed the word in your hands before you had even decided whether you were ready to hold it." I closed my eyes for a moment, letting her words settle.

"For me, this didn't begin when I found you here. I loved you in a dying world, lost you, grieved for you, and somehow crossed everything that should have kept us apart, even time itself, with whatever help my mother was able to give." Her voice trembled slightly before steadying.

"Then, after all of that, I found you again. Alive, stubborn, beautiful, and every bit as impossible as I remembered." My eyes opened, and I gave her a pointed look at that last part, which Akane wisely chose to ignore.

"Surrounded by children you insist are exhausting even though you would burn continents for them." I had no argument against that either. Akane smiled through her tears.

"My Helena is definitely you." Something deep inside me finally gave way. I had managed to hold most of the tears back earlier, but this time there was too much behind them, and no amount of stubbornness was enough to keep them contained. They came quietly, carrying all the anger and fear I had spent so long refusing to show. Akane wiped them away without a single teasing remark, which somehow made it even harder to regain control. Then she gently cupped my face in both hands.

"I swear I will not break your heart." I wanted to make a joke, to tell her my heart was far too stubborn to break. Part of me still wanted to pull away, rebuild the walls I had spent three centuries hiding behind, and retreat into the safety of the person I had always been. But I didn't. I stayed exactly where I was, and Akane's voice trembled as she held my gaze.

"I will protect you for as long as I'm alive." A smile found me… soft and entirely beyond my control.

"I hope that's for a very long time." I couldn't help but add. Akane's eyes widened slightly before a warm, unguarded smile spread across her face.

"I will hold you to that." Her tails gathered more tightly around us. I let them. Below us, Ravenport glittered beside the sea. Even from here, the city was alive with engines, towers, horns, voices, monsters pretending to be civilized, humans pretending not to notice, and all the strange lives that had gathered beneath my name. Above us, the sky stretched impossibly bright, while questions neither of us could answer remained between us.

There was a goddess, a broken spell, my death in another timeline, and the life I had somehow lived here without those memories. Finding the full truth would probably require a conversation with a certain deity. In that moment, I decided I didn't need a definitive answer. Akane never looked at me as something that needed to be explained or compared. To her, I was simply Helena. The thought still frightened me, but there was something deeply precious in being seen so completely.

I reached up and gently touched one of her ears, and the effect was immediate. Akane's expression softened as her eyes drifted half-lidded.

"Careful."

"I'm experimenting."

"With dangerous magic?"

"With you." Something wicked crept back into her smile.

"That's my Helena." I rolled my eyes. Then, because I was apparently determined to ruin what remained of my reputation, I leaned forward and kissed her. There was none of the desperation of our first night together or the hunger that had followed that morning. This kiss was slower and more deliberate, carrying a promise I was not yet ready to put into words. Akane returned it with careful restraint, as though she understood how much the moment meant and refused to push it any further than I was willing to go.

When we finally parted, she settled against me without leaving even a sliver of space between us. My gaze drifted toward Vaust Royale in the distance.

"Celeste is probably vibrating." Akane blinked.

"She actually stayed?"

"She wants to go to the Demon Continent more than she wants to spy on us." Akane considered that for a moment.

"A relief, I guess." I sighed.

"One week." Akane's expression sobered.

"One week."

"Then we cross the sea."

"And make them regret everything." That earned a faint smile from me. I looked back toward Ravenport.

"This time, we go in together. Whatever happens on the Demon Continent, we do not make the same mistakes that destroyed the old world." The humor left Akane's face, replaced by something fierce.

"We won't." There was enough certainty in those two words that I believed her. The wind moved around us while Ravenport stretched far below. In one week, we would leave it behind and fly toward the Demon Continent, carrying all the danger and uncertainty that waited for us there. But I would not face it alone. Akane remained pressed against my side, her hand in mine and her tails curled around us. For now, that was enough.

Sitting beside her above Ravenport, I felt something I had denied myself for three hundred years finally begin to return: hope.