Chương 51: A Dream Too Familiar

The rest of the day felt lighter, although peace was far too ambitious a word for anything involving my family. Across the sea, the Demon Continent remained impossible to ignore. Four spires were still feeding whatever lay buried beneath that cursed land, and in one week, Akane, Aura, Celeste, and I would be flying straight into the heart of it. Apparently, that was a problem for another day. For Celeste, the far more urgent question was whether Akane had kissed me on the mountain.

The moment Akane and I returned to Vaust Royale, I found her waiting in the private hall with the patience of someone who had clearly been rehearsing questions in her head. She leaned against the wall with her arms folded, doing an admirable job of pretending she had simply happened to be there. Her eyes ruined the performance. They were far too bright.

"So…" I kept walking.

"Whatever you're about to ask, reconsider it." Celeste pushed away from the wall.

"I haven't asked anything."

"You were about to."

"That's an unfair accusation."

"It's pattern recognition." Akane's hand slipped into mine, her fingers lacing comfortably through my own as though the gesture had always been natural between us. Celeste noticed immediately, her eyes widening before I even had the chance to look down. Under normal circumstances, I probably would have pulled away simply to deny her the satisfaction. This time, I did not. Celeste's mouth opened. I pointed at her with my free hand.

"Choose your next words carefully." She inhaled, visibly reconsidered several possibilities, and then smiled with painful innocence.

"Did you two have a nice emotional conversation?" Akane's smile sharpened.

"Yes." I glanced toward her. A mistake… Her golden eyes gleamed with barely contained amusement. Celeste leaned forward.

"How emotional?"

"Enough," I answered.

"Enough for what?" Akane got her answer out before mine.

"Progress." Celeste gasped. I closed my eyes.

"Akane."

"What?" The fox looked entirely too pleased with herself.

"She wanted an answer."

"That was not an answer. That was bait." Unfortunately, Celeste had already taken it.

"What kind of progress? Romantic progress? Trust progress? Physical progress? Did Mother cry? Did you cry? Did anyone confess anything? Did…" I walked past her with Akane still holding my hand, and Celeste immediately fell into step behind us.

"Mother, ignoring me doesn't make me disappear."

"It has worked beautifully in several dreams." Celeste brightened.

"You dream about me?"

"No."

"She does," Akane offered. I stopped with Celeste beside me and slowly turned toward Akane. The fox attempted an innocent expression and failed spectacularly, while Celeste's face lit with enough delight to make leaving for the Demon Continent early seem briefly appealing.

"You dream about me?"

"No."

"But Akane just…"

"She's obviously messing with you and somehow managing to lie with a straight face." Akane smiled.

"Occasionally, you lie too." I resumed walking, and Celeste immediately kept pace beside us like an overdressed shadow. Her questions did not stop, and while I ignored most of them, Akane seemed determined to encourage every single one.

"Did you hold hands first or kiss?" Akane tilted her head.

"Define first." Celeste nearly tripped over her feet. Once she recovered, she tried again.

"Did Mother say anything sweet?"

"Several things." That was generous. I had said perhaps one and a half sweet things, and both had been extracted under severe emotional pressure. Celeste's attention snapped toward me.

"Did you actually admit you like her?" Akane's smile widened.

"She failed to deny it convincingly." Celeste gasped while I looked toward the ceiling for some kind of assistance. It offered none. Cowardly architecture… By the time we reached the upper lounge, Celeste was vibrating with theories, Akane was feeding her carefully selected crumbs of information, and I had accepted silence as the last surviving piece of my dignity. Aura was sprawled across one of the couches in her smaller form, eating candied fruit while observing the entire exchange with sharp draconic interest.

She pointed a piece of fruit toward us.

"Did the fox win?"

"No one won." Akane sat beside me.

"I won a little." Celeste slapped both hands against the back of the couch.

"I knew it."

"You know nothing."

"I know your voice." I looked at her.

"My voice?"

"You have different ones."

"I have one voice." Celeste began counting fingers on one hand.

"Cold queen voice. Murderous voice. Office voice. I-secretly-care-but-will-kill-you-if-you-notice voice. Celeste-stop-speaking voice." She paused deliberately.

"And now you have the Akane-is-standing-too-close-and-I-like-it voice." Aura pointed at her again.

"That one is new."

"It's developing rapidly." I stared at both of them, and Akane chose that exact moment to lean against my shoulder, contributing absolutely nothing to my defense. Something had changed on that mountain. I had not suddenly cast aside every doubt I carried, and I was nowhere near ready to trust Akane without reservation, but the balance between suspicion and belief had shifted. I wanted to trust her. That was the uncomfortable truth. I believed her, or at least I was beginning to.

When Akane looked at me, I needed to believe she truly saw Helena, not a replacement for someone she had lost. The possibility that whatever existed between us had somehow survived death, fractured timelines, and centuries neither of us fully understood was becoming harder to dismiss. Even so, belief did not erase the fear surrounding it. There were still too many impossible pieces scattered throughout my life, and my own existence had always been one of the largest. I was not a normal vampire.

That much had been obvious for centuries. I had never encountered another vampire outside my bloodline who could walk freely beneath the sun, whose heart continued to beat, or whose body remained genuinely alive instead of resembling a corpse sustained by blood and unnatural magic. My children were the same. We needed blood, certainly, but we also breathed.

We ate when we wished, slept when we chose, walked beneath daylight, loved, argued, sulked, held grudges, destroyed an unreasonable amount of architecture, and apparently built casinos when given enough time and money. Normal vampires seemed to come with rules. My family had spent centuries ignoring most of those rules simply by existing, so perhaps a bond capable of surviving death and crossing timelines was not as impossible as it sounded.

It was simply far more personal, which made accepting it considerably more frightening. By evening, Vaust Royale had begun to settle into something resembling quiet, at least by our standards. Somewhere, Celeste was probably compiling questions for the morning. Aura had returned to the roof after announcing that she was reclaiming her perch from romance. Adrian was coordinating with the Guild; Malcolm and Vera had left for a late defensive meeting, and Nadia and Rowan had disappeared into their preparations.

Akane followed me back to my room, though the thought that it might already be becoming our room crossed my mind before I could stop it. Absolutely not… It was far too soon, probably… The fact that I had even considered the possibility already felt like a loss. Akane suffered from no such uncertainty. She crossed the room as though she had belonged there for years, removing her jewelry with slow, elegant movements and placing each piece on my dresser beside belongings that had been mine for decades.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. She turned and smiled at me, and I immediately looked away. Not out of embarrassment, but strategy. Even so, I had expected the night to be difficult. After everything that had happened on the mountain, I expected my thoughts to sharpen themselves into sleeplessness.

There had been too many questions, too many confessions, and an unfortunate number of tears that I had already decided never needed to be discussed again. Instead, once Akane settled into bed beside me, something unexpected happened. I was genuinely tired. Sleep was actually beginning to pull at me, soft and insistent. Akane noticed.

"You look sleepy."

"I do not."

"You do."

"I'm three hundred years old. I do not get sleepy." Her eyes narrowed with amusement.

"You're blinking very slowly."

"I'm threatening the room."

"With your eyelids?"

"Yes." Akane laughed quietly before pulling me closer. I let her… again… That was becoming a dangerous habit. She wrapped herself around me as if I had been specifically designed for her comfort. One arm settled across my stomach, one leg hooked over mine, and her tails somehow occupied every remaining space. One curled around my waist. Another rested behind my back. Several covered my legs, and one slipped beneath my arm.

At some point, I stopped feeling like a vampire queen and became an absurdly powerful hug pillow. Akane's breathing softened against my neck while her warmth settled around me, and before long, sleep pulled me under completely. When the darkness cleared, I was somewhere else. Not Ravenport or Vaust Royale. A meadow stretched beneath a clear, gentle sky. Green grass swayed around me while wildflowers scattered across the field in careless bursts of color.

The air carried sunlight, fruit, warm earth, and something faintly sweet that I could not identify. I was lying on a blanket. The area surrounding me was overflowing with bread, fruit, roasted meat, pastries, tea, wine, jars of sauces, and several dishes I did not recognize but somehow knew I enjoyed. When I looked down at my hands, they were unmistakably mine. I knew that immediately. Even so, something about them felt different. It was not my body that had changed.

It was the feeling behind it, as though I occupied myself while carrying emotions and instincts I could not remember earning. My thoughts were still mine. They simply moved through warmth that felt strangely unfamiliar. Grass rustled nearby. I looked up. Akane walked through the meadow. She was unmistakably herself, yet not quite the Akane who had fallen asleep beside me. Her dark hair flowed freely down her back, fox ears twitching beneath the sunlight.

All nine tails swayed behind her, black fur fading into white at the tips as the breeze moved through them. She wore a loose white garment cinched around her waist, softer and far less guarded than the clothing I was used to seeing on her. Then she began moving through the grass in a slow, playful circle, almost prancing. There was genuinely no better word for it.

Her bare feet brushed through the meadow while her tails fanned behind her, and she moved with the carefree confidence of someone who knew perfectly well how beautiful she looked. The sight filled my chest with an emotion so powerful it almost hurt. It went far beyond desire or curiosity. This was love, vast and overwhelming, carrying a certainty so complete that there was no room left for hesitation, suspicion, or the old instinct that measured every possible betrayal and escape.

I loved the fox dancing through the grass with everything I had, and I knew without question that I would have done anything for her. What should have frightened me most was how natural it felt. Akane turned toward me, and the moment our eyes met, her entire face brightened. Then she ran straight for me and launched herself into my arms. She landed with a delighted laugh, knocking me backward onto the blanket as her tails spilled around us in a mass of fur and warmth.

"Hela," she murmured, smiling down at me.

"Give your cute fox some loving." Hela… The name settled somewhere deep inside me with a familiarity I could not explain. No one in this life had ever called me that, yet hearing it from Akane felt less like receiving a nickname and more like recognizing something I had somehow forgotten. That should have unsettled me. Instead, I liked it far more than I wanted to admit. Before caution could return, I leaned up and kissed her.

There was no hesitation, no instinctive retreat, and no sarcastic remark waiting to shield me from what the moment meant. I simply let myself feel it. My arms wrapped around her and pulled her fully against me. Akane melted into the embrace with a pleased hum, her hair falling around us while her lips carried the faint sweetness of fruit. And underneath all of it, I could feel exactly how much I trusted her. There was no question of whether she belonged in my arms. She simply did.

When the kiss ended, Akane rested her chin against my chest and looked up at me with half-lidded, thoroughly smug eyes.

"You're very obedient today."

"I can throw you into the pond."

"There is no pond."

"I will make one." Her laughter carried across the meadow with a warmth that struck somewhere painfully familiar, something close enough to home that I did not know what to do with it. Without thinking, I reached for one of her tails and let my fingers sink into the soft fur. Akane arched slightly beneath my touch before giving me an accusing look.

"You did that on purpose." She looked more amused than anything else.

"Guilty."

"Cruel vampire."

"Needy fox."

"Your needy fox." A genuine smile spread across my face before I could stop it, warm and unguarded in a way that still felt unfamiliar. Akane noticed immediately, and the softness that entered her expression told me the sight meant more to her than she was willing to say. Then her gaze drifted toward the horizon, and some of that warmth faded with it.

"The demon army will attack soon." I ran my fingers gently through her hair.

"So I've heard."

"They're nothing like the nobles you enjoy frightening or the criminals hiding beneath casino lights. When they come, they will come in numbers, like a tide trying to swallow everything in its path."

"Then we break the tide." Akane studied me for a moment.

"Just the two of us?" I met her gaze.

"With the two of us standing together, what exactly is there to fear?" Her ears flicked, and a faint smile touched her lips, though something softer and almost sorrowful remained beneath it.

"True. I know firsthand how hard you punch."

"That's because you insist on provoking me."

"You enjoy being provoked."

"You're impossible."

"You love me." She said with complete confidence that I wouldn't deny it.

"Yes." It came out like flowing water. The word left me with effortless certainty, and somewhere beneath the surface of the dream, that certainty shook me far more than anything I've ever experienced. Akane's entire expression brightened, her smile opening with such immediate joy that it almost made the meadow feel warmer.

"Say it again." She begged.

"No."

"Hela."

"Why?" I had no real intention of refusing her. There was simply something far too entertaining about watching Akane beg for it. Her ears dipped slightly.

"Please?"

"You're shameless."

"Only with you." I kissed her instead, and Akane accepted the gesture as a victory. When I finally pulled back, she traced one finger slowly along my jaw.

"I only enjoy fighting the one I love. Otherwise, it becomes boring." I stared at her.

"Are you some kind of masochist?"

"Only romantically."

"That's not any better."

"It's more specific." She kissed me several times in quick succession, each one playful enough to make resistance feel pointless. When she finally pulled back, something quieter settled over her expression, thoughtful and almost secretive.

"One day, I will take you with me."

"To where?" Akane smiled.

"To ascend, of course." I frowned.

"Yes, but ascend where?" She pressed one finger lightly against my lips.

"That's my little secret."

"Secrets are dangerous."

"So am I."

"Akane." The playful edge disappeared from her face, replaced by something so deep that the meadow suddenly felt too small to contain it.

"Just know that I have no intention of ever letting you go. We will be together for all eternity." A genuine giggle slipped out before I could stop it, so unfamiliar that some distant part of me almost recoiled at the sound. Yet the Helena lying beneath Akane seemed completely at ease, simply brushing a strand of dark hair from her face and smiling up at her with effortless affection.

"Whatever you say." The ease of it felt so familiar but, at the same moment, foreign. Then a whisper drifted across the meadow.

"Look… They're doing it again." Celeste… Of course it was Celeste. Apparently, even an impossible dream could not grant me a few uninterrupted moments with Akane. The fox went still beside me, and I slowly turned toward the source of the voice. Across the meadow, Celeste crouched behind a cluster of bushes that concealed absolutely nothing, wearing an expression of exaggerated seriousness. Aura sat beside her. Celeste leaned toward her and whispered with all the subtlety of someone addressing half the meadow.

"They keep going off by themselves and leaving us behind." Aura frowned.

"I want Mother's attention too. It's unfair that Akane keeps stealing all of it." Akane dropped her forehead against my shoulder and laughed. I sighed.

"Do they understand that our senses are far better than theirs?" Akane asked.

"Whispering from that distance does absolutely nothing."

"What makes you think Celeste does not want us to hear her?" Akane lifted her head, eyes sparkling.

"Fair." Then she kissed me again. Celeste immediately burst from the bushes.

"I saw that!" Aura stepped out beside her and pointed at us accusingly.

"I also saw it." Akane answered with a lazy wave without even bothering to break the kiss, and a laugh escaped me against her lips. Then my eyes opened. The meadow was gone. Darkness filled my bedroom, broken only by the faint glow of Ravenport filtering through the curtains. I remained still for several seconds, staring at the ceiling while my heart raced far faster than it should have. Akane was wrapped around me, naturally.

Several tails circled my waist and legs, another rested over my shoulder, and her arm lay comfortably across my stomach while her body pressed against my side. She truly did enjoy wrapping herself around me. Normally, waking to find Akane wrapped around me would have earned at least some irritation. This time, it did not. I turned my head and found her golden eyes already watching me. Akane was awake, and for some reason, the sight made my breath catch.

"A dream?" she asked softly. I hesitated before giving a small nod. Akane studied my face for a moment, but she did not press me for an explanation. I swallowed and reached for the safest part of the dream to share.

"Even there, Celeste managed to interrupt my good time." Akane blinked before breaking into laughter, and the sound loosened the tension that had been tightening in my chest. A laugh followed from me before I could stop it. Celeste… Across timelines, dreams, memories, and whatever divine interference had tangled itself into my life, she remained impressively committed to being a nuisance. Akane shifted closer.

"That does sound like her."

"Unfortunately." I found myself staring at Akane longer than I meant to, while pieces of the dream still clung to me with unsettling clarity: her bare feet in the meadow, the way she had thrown herself into my arms, the absolute certainty of my love for her, and those promises of ascension and eternity. Then there was the name. Hela… As it settled once more in my thoughts, Akane's smile slowly returned.

"Do you see something you like?" I blinked and turned my attention elsewhere.

"You're not unpleasant to look at. I will admit that much." Her grin widened.

"Is that so?" I realized what Akane was about to do a moment too late as she leaned closer, her lips brushing near my ear.

"Hela." The name, combined with the warmth of her breath against my ear, sent a sharp jolt through my entire body. I went completely still, and Akane noticed the reaction immediately. The teasing faded from her expression.

"Is something wrong?" I should have lied, and every old instinct urged me to do exactly that. But the dream had left me too unsettled to shape the truth into anything convincing.

"I'm not sure." Akane waited. She did not tease or press for more as I stared up at the ceiling.

"I dreamed about us." One of her tails shifted slowly against my leg.

"And?"

"You called me that." Akane fell quiet for only a moment, but the pause lingered just long enough for me to notice.

"Hela?"

"Yes." For perhaps the first time since meeting her, Akane's expression became genuinely unreadable. Then it softened.

"Do you dislike it?"

"No." Obviously I didn't… It felt almost too intimate coming from her. The answer came much too quickly. Warmth entered her eyes. I cleared my throat.

"Not at all. I simply found the coincidence interesting."

"Coincidence" was such a useful word… safe, sensible, and conveniently respectable, the sort of explanation that could hide uncertainty behind a polished surface. Akane leaned forward and pressed a slow kiss to my cheek, letting the warmth linger even after she pulled away. Then she settled against me again as though she had not just unsettled my thoughts with two simple syllables.

"I will use it carefully."

"You use nothing carefully."

"I can learn."

"You told me that yesterday."

"I'm still learning." I looked down at her. She appeared peaceful, or at least she wanted me to think she was. Akane was exceptionally good at performing with ease, but something in her eyes had changed when I mentioned the nickname. The change lasted only a heartbeat, but I had seen it. Whether Akane truly knew something, merely suspected it, or was simply holding onto hope, I could not tell. I chose not to ask. And for the moment, I kept the rest of the dream to myself. I kept the rest of the dream to myself.

The meadow, the picnic, the way kissing Akane had felt so effortless, and the depth of affection that had filled me with a certainty I could not explain all remained unspoken. I also left out our conversation about ascension, along with the strangely familiar sight of Celeste and Aura appearing there as though they belonged to a life I had once known. Perhaps none of it meant anything, or perhaps it was pointing toward something I still did not understand.

Akane had entered my life like a storm, tearing open doors and shaking foundations I had spent centuries believing were immovable. Of course she had found her way into my dreams. My mind could easily have assembled the meadow from her stories, my growing affection, old fears, and Celeste's relentless interruptions. It was a reasonable explanation, and one I could almost convince myself to accept. I closed my eyes and held onto the simplest explanation.

Whatever I had seen, however vivid and emotionally intrusive it had felt, it was still only a dream. At least, that was what I kept telling myself. Beside me, Akane's breathing slowly evened out as sleep reclaimed her. Almost instinctively, she drew closer until her body and tails surrounded me in a familiar cocoon of warmth, holding me as though distance itself were something she refused to allow. I should have felt confined. Instead, I felt safe, and that truth settled deeper than I was ready to admit.

Somewhere along the way, accepting Akane completely into my life had stopped feeling impossible. There was more I could no longer dismiss: a bond that should not have survived death, a dream carrying far too much familiarity, and a name no one in this life had ever given me. Hela… When Akane whispered it into my ear, something deep within me stirred, as if a part of myself I had never been able to reach was finally opening.

I remained awake long after Akane drifted back to sleep, listening to her breathe while that single name continued to turn through my thoughts. Dreams were supposed to be meaningless things, fragments stitched together from memory, emotion, fear, and imagination. That explanation should have been enough to put the matter to rest. No matter how firmly I called it a dream, something inside me knew better. It felt like a memory.