Everlasting (The Immortals #6)(52)
Ultimately growing so advanced in her studies, she became known as a celebrated miracle worker, the most sought-after healer. The name she now goes by, Lotus, stemming from her ability to make that beautiful flower bloom right from the center of her palms, simply by closing her eyes and wishing it to be so. An act she was capable of not just in Summerland, but also on the earth plane back home. Determined to settle into a celibate, solitary existence, but fate had other ideas, and it wasn’t long before she met someone and fel in love. Real love. True love. The kind of love which, despite several husbands, she’d never experienced before. The kind where she built enough trust to confide the truth of her existence, tried to convince her lover to go to Roman, to drink too, to become like her, so they’d never suffer the pain of losing each other. But he refused. Chose to grow old. And when the day final y came that she knelt beside his deathbed, fretting at the simple gold band he’d placed on her finger, he promised to do everything within his power to not reincarnate. To not return to the earth plane. Stating he’d much rather wait for her to find a way to reverse her immortality, so that she cold someday join him in the great hereafter. He left her on her own to grow older, then older stil . Her body eventual y becoming so decrepit, she prayed the sheer exhaustion of keeping it going would ultimately convince her breath to stop coming, her heart to stop beating, so she could meet up with her lover again—but stil , she lives on.
She continued her studies, continued to search for a way out, ultimately discovering the solution only after she’d grown too old to make the trip.
Though she refused to give up. With the longheld wish of her reunion final y within reach, she spent the last century tracking down al of the remaining orphans, revealing the truth of what she’d remaining orphans, revealing the truth of what she’d learned, hoping to convince one of them to make the journey—to bring back the chance at a new lease on life.
Life as it was intended to be.
To provide them al with a sort of do-over—a second chance to make a ful y informed decision as to whether or not to keep going like they are. Unlike the time when they were too young and scared to realize the consequences—when they al rushed to drink without a second thought.
Drina refused her flat out. Roman laughed in her face. While the others simply shook their heads, gazed upon her with great pity, and told her to go away.
Damen was the last on her list—her last hope. Until she saw me.
“I thought it was enough that I found a way to release the souls and reverse the Shadowland, but, as it turns out, there’s stil more you want me to do.” I glare, shake my head, and yank free of her grip. My fingers slipping past the thin gold band she wears on her left hand, feeling remorse for the loss of her loved one, but unsure what I’m supposed to do. “You put me through al that hel , when al along that wasn’t even the journey you had in mind—you had something else planned for me that whole entire time!”
“Each step leads to the next,” she says, her voice far calmer than mine. “Everything you have experienced in this life as wel as those prior has prepared you for this moment. Each decision you made has landed you here. And while you have accomplished so much—there is much left to do. The journey is long and arduous—but the reward is too great to miss. There are many who await you—
await you to release them. You are the only one who can do so. This is why you keep reincarnating, Ever. You have a destiny to fulfil .”
I squint, realizing with a start that’s the first time she’s ever used my real name, or at least my current real name. Usual y she cal s me Adelina, or just points as she sings that demented song of hers. And I can’t help but wonder what more I could possibly be expected to do after al that I’ve already been through. Surviving a past life I never realized I’d lived, nearly drowning in the River of Forgetfulness, nearly getting burned alive in the desert of two blazing suns, freeing the lost souls of the Shadowland and restoring it back to the splendor of Summerland. After al that, I’m just not sure I’m up for any new chal enges. Not when everything Damen and I have been striving for al this time is final y wel within our reach. Al we have to do is head back to the earth plane, col ect the ingredients, whip up the antidote, give it a shake and a swig, and the happily ever after is ours.
“Only you can bring back the truth. Only you can find it,” Lotus says, the words spoken plainly, simply, bearing no signs of begging or pleading.
“Locate what exactly?” Damen asks, making no attempt to hide his exasperation.
But Lotus is immune to our outbursts. From what I can see, she cycles between two moods—
veering from slightly forlorn, to calm and serene.
“The Tree of Life,” she says, her gaze directed at him. “Only Ever can find it. Only Ever can bring back its fruit. The tree is evergiving.
Its fruit provides enlightenment—the knowledge of true immortality—the soul’s immortality—to those who seek it—as wel as reversing the false, physical immortality of those who’ve been fooled.”
“And if she doesn’t go? If she turns her back on you, on al of this, and returns to the earth plane, then what?” Damen’s brow rises in chal enge.
“Then it’s a pity. Then I have misjudged her. Underestimated her. Then she wil not realize her destiny and many wil suffer. Yet it is her choice entirely. I can only ask, she has the free wil to decide on her own.” Lotus faces me when she adds, “Do you stil have that smal pouch that I gave you?”