That name…
Adira takes a step back, looking at her with disbelief. It's impossible. She can't be Amara. He killed her with his own hands. He stares at her, trying to find any similarity. But he can't see it.
"Oops!" Kresi pats her mouth, pretending to be sorry to him. "I said it wrong. I am not Amara. I have her soul. I don't have any memories of that life. You look like you had no idea. Is it that surprising? You did kill me when I was Amara, but you didn't destroy my soul."
But he heard that Noras destroyed Amara's soul.
The woman who was his first love and his first wife... The same woman who betrayed him and commanded him to kill her… that cruel woman has been reincarnating as his harbinger for more than ten thousand years. She carried his heart -- the same core that she used for controlling him.
"My soul was quite compatible with your heart." Kresi scrutinizes his face. He looks so pale. She wonders if he will collapse because of the shock. It's ridiculous that he had never thought about what happened to Amara's soul. "Isn't this ironic?"
"If you are lying, you will wish for death every day," Adira warns her with a frosty tone. He's been treating her kindly because she was his harbinger once.
She gives him a mild smile. "What will you do if I am telling the truth?"
If she's really Amara, what will he do? He doesn't know how to answer that question. Should he kill her again? Though he can understand why Amara did those things, he did love her once. He trusted her more than he trusted himself. Betraying him because she lost her lover… That vicious woman had never loved him. He storms out of the cell. Noras has a lot to answer.
***
Ari pats the child's head. It had taken some time to soothe the child since he found out that the gods wanted to kill him. She stares at his face with a heavy heart. Honestly, she didn't expect Adira to be like that. Why does she still have to explain her feelings to him? She had stopped seeing Kyo and Adira differently.
If it was meant to become like this, it was better they only had a platonic relationship.
"They are preparing for the trial," Ril' Yah informs her quietly and gives two envelops to her. "Here's your and Ai's summons."
She opens the envelope and reads the summon. On the back, there's a list of the names that are being summoned for hearing. In the list, she sees other familiar names -- Mirai, Pebby, Raye, Gabriel.
"Kresi?" Ari widens her eyes. "How did they…?"
"God Noras must have found her soul and brought her back to Iravan," Ril' Yah tells her. There's another ominous presence behind them, waiting for the right time to strike. If things go wrong, someone will get hurt. It could be Ai, Ari, or Kresi. "If she takes her sins back, you will be free."
"I see." Ari folds the paper. She hasn't figured out how to save Ai. "Is there no way to use my powers of Renasir?"
"You can't use it because you can't channel Ehr." Ril'Yah takes her hand and presses her two fingers on her vein. "Even if you can channel it, giving a true name to a soul is different from giving a runic name to someone. You need years of training. The gods won't take a risk."
Ari takes a deep breath. She's going to stop this nonsense. There's no way that she will let an innocent child die. "How do I channel the ehr again?"
"You need to become a part of this world." Ril'Yah grins at her. "Marry the dark god and become an immortal with his help. The other way is having all the gods approve you as a part of this world. I don't think that Cina would approve of you though. The last way is to leave this body and enter a body that will help you channel the ehr."
"You want me to die again?" Ari frowns at her. "I don't want to steal someone else's body again."
"You wanted to know how to channel ehr again." Ril'Yah puckers her lips, swaying her body toward her. "Bride of the dark god, you should go back and marry him. He has the ability to make you immortal."
Ari becomes silent, not wanting to talk about her relationship problems with a kid. Maybe she and Adira need a break. He doesn't understand her anyway. Is it because she's from a different world? Is she the only one who finds everything illogical in this world?
"He didn't make his first wife immortal." Ril'Yah says to her with a light tone, "They had been married for a long time."
His first wife? Ari wrinkles her nose. Well, she had been married once too. It was a super short marriage to Tristan. Adira killed him. She exhales. She can't blame him for killing her family and Tristan. Why is her life so complicated?
"The Dark God met her again." Ril'Yah taps her chin playfully. "Would he marry you now? He did love Amara a lot."
"What did you say?" Ari looks at her, surprised. Amara died more than ten thousand years ago. How could that woman appear now? "Who met whom?"
"God Adira met Amara's reincarnation," Ril'Yah replies. She chuckles when she sees the surprise in Ari's eyes. "Not everyone knows this, but Amara's soul was chosen as the soul that would be reborn again and again as the harbinger of the dark god until she returned it to the Dark God. It's not like God Noras had any choice. There was no soul that was compatible with the heart of the dark god. In fact, you are the second soul that could hold the dark heart. Isn't it amazing? Both of you were Dark God's wives once."
In the palace of the god of light, Adira clenches his jaw when he hears a similar explanation from God Noras. "How could you do this, Noras?"
"I had no choice." Noras had no plans of hiding it for long. Kresi was already dead when he woke up in the world. Then, he found out that it was Ari who saved the world. "She held your core for a long time. That's why the dark heart was harmonious with her soul."
"It was Amara's darkness that corrupted the dark ehr," Adira yells at him.
"We couldn't give the heart back in your body because it would have controlled you instead of you controlling it." Noras feels tired suddenly. "The corruption in the dark ehr was uncontrollable. So, we needed someone to carry it until another solution could be found. I removed Amara's memories from her soul with my own hands. Later, she always lost the memories of her lives whenever she was killed by the Renasirs. It was a way to prevent her from controlling the dark core."
If she was killed by Renasir Mayaeira last time, she wouldn't have remembered her life as Kresi Mirin. But she was killed by Aeline instead. That is why Kresi never forgot her life.
Adira fists his hand and punches Noras' jaw. Noras hisses in pain, but he doesn't retaliate. If they start using powers, it would become another war. "Adira, I only did what was necessary back then."
Kresi had asked him what he would do if she was telling the truth. Adira didn't want it to be true. Now, he doesn't know what to do. He had already killed her once. Then, she was killed again and again as his harbinger. "You shouldn't have brought her back."
"Even if I had let her go, she would be paying for her sins in this world," Noras explains. The stinging pain in his jaw makes him wince once. Did this dark god have to punch him this hard? "I only made it easier for us."
"It is not easy for me to accept that she carried my heart for ten thousand years." Adira whispers, "She doesn't even remember."
There are questions that he wants to ask her. There's no meaning though. Asking those questions is akin to grabbing a thorny branch of the tree when he is fully aware that it will only hurt him. Her betrayal had hurt him tremendously. There was something else that hurt him more.
It was the moment when she asked him to kill her. He had to do it because it was her command. She died before his eyes with her blood on his hands. He hated her because he loved her.
Noras observes the pain emerging in Adira's eyes. "Do you still love her?"
"I still hate her," Adira admits. He's been telling himself that he didn't hate Amara. However, the memories had rushed back in his head after seeing Kresi. She was cruel to him until the end. She was also punished for thousands of years. Now, he doesn't know how to face the girl who has Amara's soul.
It seems like bringing Amara back was a bad decision. Noras lets out an exasperated sigh. Though he was worried, Noras was also a little relieved when he found out that Adira had another mortal. He summons a vial in his palm. "I kept the memories of her life when she was Amara. I will let you decide what you want to do with it."