I sway slightly in the folding chair, the tequila bottle dangling from my fingertips. The fire has burned down to glowing coals, their deep red glow mesmerizing. I lean forward,my drunken mind fixated on the way the embers shift and shimmer, as if they’re whispering something I can’t quite hear.
Just like the wood, everything I’d built with Ben had been reduced to this—ashes and dust. I huff out a bitter laugh and lift the bottle to take another swig, surprised at how light it feels.
Frowning, I peer into the neck like it might hold some secret answer, but instead all I see is the last dregs sloshing in the bottom. With a shrug, I let it drop to the ground, the remaining liquor trickling out in a thin stream.
“One for me, and one for my homies,” I slur, the words tumbling out before I can stop myself.
The tequila buzz makes me think of that song. Or at least, I think it’s a song. I dig my phone out of my sweatshirt pocket, debating if it’s lyrics or maybe a movie quote. My thumb hovers over the display as I squint at my lock screen—a selfie I snapped in front of the guesthouse back in Migdhari. Behind me are the woods, dark and endless, where I saw those damn eyes.
The memory tugs at something deep inside me, sharp and insistent. It sparks a wild energy I can’t contain. The solution floats to me like a whisper on the crackle of the fire. For once, I don't overthink. I’ve always been a planner, the one with lists and backup plans. But not tonight. Tonight, I’m done thinking. It’s time to act and damn the consequences.
After all, that’s what everyone else does. Why not me?
“Do it Dah–hiccup–lia,” I say, cheering myself on as I giggle at hiccuping my own name, and open the app without a second thought.
Chapter Five
Eryon - Earlier
Iwalk the criss-crossing tunnels, my footsteps hollow in the silence, my breath a whisper against the stone. The air is thick with memory, the shadows stretching long with ghosts.
The light that one small human brought into my life—brighter than fire, wilder than any storm—has only made the darkness sharper. The loneliness deeper. The cold, more cutting.
I should not have let myself bask in her light, but I couldn’t stop following her, a moth to her flame. For centuries, I have been stone and silence, ice and duty. She is fire, burning through the cold, thawing things within me that should remain frozen. I shouldn’t have allowed her to thaw my icy heart. But the warmth felt too good to stop.
So, I seek the one thing that endures, the only thing time cannot take—my past, carved into stone, preserved in the silence of the mountain. The beginning greets me first. These are the oldest carvings, the stories passed from claw to claw, from parent to child. The tale of our kind, immortalized in rock.
I know every line by heart, as familiar as my own hands. Ihave traced these stories a thousand times, let my fingers follow the rise and fall of each carefully drawn stroke. They used to bring me comfort, but tonight, they are a dirge, a deep wail of my soul.
I move forward, past the birth of my kind, the moon goddess and her daughter, and the teachings of my ancestors. Past the carvings of generations before me, of duties fulfilled, of lives that had purpose. The further I go, the fewer the images become. The lonelier they become.
Until at last, I reach the ones I carved myself.
My life, drawn in the stone. I stop, eyes shut tight, chest caving in. My breath catches as my throat closes around the weight of what I already know I will see—the simple lines that could never do justice to my greatest joy.
My touch finds them even without my sight, a trembling finger ghosting over the delicate curves of the figures before me. The strong, steady form of my mate. The smaller, fragile one nestled between us. They were not only my greatest joy, but they are also my deepest failure.
I drop my hand. I am unworthy to touch even the drawings of them.
The wind outside howls through the mountain, sending a faint, keening whistle through the tunnels. I let it carry through me, stripping me bare, breaking apart the walls I have spent centuries fortifying.
I have told myself, time and again, that my dharma is enough. That my duty will keep me whole, that I exist for the mountain and all within its shadow, for their protection.
But here, in the darkness, with the ghosts of my past carved before me—I know the truth. The mountain cannot hold my grief. Even if it swallowed me whole, even if I let the earth and stone take me, even if I buried myself beneath ice and time—it would not be enough. I turn from the walls, from my past, from my failure.
And I flee.
I run, fast and hard, feet slamming against the cold hard stone as the muscle of my legs burn with the exertion. But no matter how fast I run, the wailing winds chase me like ghosts and I cannot outrun the pain. Lungs bursting, I push myself faster through the tunnels, through the cold, but I still cannot escape the weight of history pressing down on me.
So I escape to the place where I keep one of the few things that can help me on the nights like this. I wipe away the thick dust on the old, fragile bottle with unsteady fingers.Rakshi,the moonshine of the mountains, is strong enough to warm even my kind. Strong enough to burn the past away.
I should not wash away their memory like this. But I do. Because once again, I am weak. My freshly thawed heart brings the long dead feelings bubbling back to the surface. The reminder of all that I have lost then, and all that I have lost again with her departure, is too much for even a monster to bear.
The first sip burns, but it is nothing compared to the ache in my chest. Nothing compared to the quiet, gnawing hollowness of nothing. So, I drink again. And again. And again.
At last my feet carry me to the secret springs without thought, without direction. I sink into the heat of the water, but it does nothing to comfort me tonight. I tilt my head back, watching the stars wheel overhead, the slow, endless churn of time indifferent to the things it has stolen from me.
I pick the bottle up, surprised to find it half empty. The world blurs at the edges, and I welcome the haze, welcome the slow erosion of thought, of pain, of them, of her.
