An ache spiked like an ax through his chest as he recalled those grim days.
“Lord Cassian says you have souls awaiting you at the festival,” Nathaira said, her voice like a babbling brook—obnoxiously clement. “They are quite eager to reunite with you.”
He swallowed and transitioned his focus outside of the nerves prickling in his stomach.
Instead, he analyzed the sound of her voice coming in through his hearing aid and how it appeared less automated. Which meant his brain was beginning to adjust. Quicker than the long stretch of days it had taken when he first created the device. He despised feeling so…mortal.
He pinched at the lavender buds grazing his waist as he walked. Not long after their conversation, Cassian teleported him to Nathaira and disappeared. Finnian was dying to know where.
Nathaira glanced over at him, patient for his reply.
He ignored her, eyeing the passing souls, with no intention of indulging the optimistic goddess in conversation.
The souls appeared like normal people—all young, lively. It seemed ironic to Finnian.
They wandered through the fields with an individual constellation crowning each of their heads. Each aura was unique, a landscape of glittering rainbow gemstones.
“These are the Lavender Fields of Healing,” Nathaira told him. “Where we escort the souls when they arrive.”
“I didn’t ask.” He squished the lavender bud between his fingernails, siphoning away its life-force. The crumbled pieces withered.
“This is the River of Eden,” she said as they journeyed across the bridge. Their footfalls echoed along the wooden planks.
Finnian turned his head, peering into the forest of elm following along the bank of the river. Was it the Serpentine Forest? He twisted his neck to follow the river engulfing the Lavender Fields and intertwining with the River of Souls. Beyond the ridges of the field, he could not make out what laid behind the river.
“That would be the Grove of Mourning.”
Finnian shook his head lightly. “What would be the difference between a field of healing versus mourning? Wouldn’t all the souls mourn as they heal?”
She stopped at the end of the bridge and smiled back at him. “The Lavender Fields of Healing are for all souls to process and grieve the life they left behind. The Grove of Mourning is for the deeply scarred souls, burdened by the trauma they endured in their mortal lives, still unready to begin the healing process.”
“If they never move past such trauma, then what happens?”
“They can choose to eat from the Pomegranate Orchard, where the fruit will erase the memories of their previous lives entirely.”
He was aware that pomegranates held significance in the Land of the Dead, but he didn’t know the reason. “Just like that? They forget all their memories?”
Nathaira nodded. “Yes, but the souls have to receive permission from Lord Cassian in order to do so.”
What a fine ingredient the fruit would make for a potion.
Memory-erasing potions existed, but not any strong enough to work on deities. The length and population of their memories were too vast.
Finnian’s fingertips itched to get his hands on one of those pomegranates. To craft a potion capable of expelling the memories of gods. Such a rare item would bring in heaps ofpeople and stir all sorts of chaos in his—well, Naia and Ronin’s—black market.
Though, he couldn’t imaginechoosingto forget Naia and Father. Their smiles, their laughter, their embrace.
His chest squeezed, and it became difficult to breathe. To distract his body from the sensation, he scratched at the curse mark running up his clavicle, turning his attention over the railing and looking down at the glassy surface of the stream. It languidly swept the wraith-like, half-shaped souls in its current. It reminded him of all the times he sat on the bridge’s railing back in Kaimana, Naia at his side. Sometimes they talked, and sometimes they sat in silence, entranced by the River of Souls.
“And what does the River of Eden do?” he asked.
“Those who swim in this river will be reincarnated,” Nathaira replied, her patience never wavering to his questions. “It takes them to the Land of Entity to be reborn under Iliana. The High Goddess of Life and Balance removes any memories of their previous life, but when they die, their cumulative memories are given back from all their reincarnations.”
He scoffed with the image of Ronin Kahale swimming laps in its waters, annoyingly determined to find Naia in his next lifetime.
They stepped off the bridge into a lush bed of pampas grass rippling in the breeze. Nathaira walked a few paces ahead of him, leading them up a small knoll. Once they made it to the top, she stopped.
He came up beside her, peering out at the land.
