Jacob lurched up out of the dark water and crouched on the dark soil next to the pool. He stared down at his clawed hands and took a deep breath, trying to steady the trembling. Deep within the hollows of his bones, he could feel the person that he had been when last he wore this flesh. It was like putting on a familiar suit. There were no memories from his last life, but there were feelings and sensations.
Stretching to his full height, he extended out his wings and cawed towards the sky. This was the body that he was always meant to have, his truth.
Gytha regarded him silently from the tree line. Her shimmer kept her hidden, allowing her to meld into the shadows around her. But he could smell the layers of death that clung to her skin; a cacophony that sang of violence and rage.
"Raven," she said, when he looked towards her.
He nodded. Yes, he was Raven now. Calling himself Jacob no longer made any sense.
"The weave unravels," she stated and turned away.
Raven looked down at the dark waters and for a moment thought that his reflection was still that of a small boy, but then he blinked and saw the creature he'd become. He took his time walking back along the line of white stones, mulling over everything thing that this could mean. Pausing at the iron gates, he considered what he should say to Dipak. He sighed and then laid his hand on the gate. With a great shudder, the ancient trees pulled the gates open for him.
There was no point in delaying it... Raven sniffed at the air, picking up on the familiar dark, musty smell of Dipak. Following it, he found Dipak on a small hill, looking out over the new arrivals in Enaid. Their numbers were growing every day. Sensing Raven's presence, Dipak turned to face him.
Dipak’s breath caught in his throat as he stared at the figure standing before him. His eyes played tricks on him, his mind twisting what he saw with memories too painful to relive. The face, the silhouette, even the way he held himself—all of it felt too familiar, too close to something he had lost long ago. But it couldn't be...
Raven.
The name slipped into his thoughts before he could stop it, and his chest tightened with a bitter ache. But it wasn’t Raven. It couldn't be. Raven was dead. Yet, as the creature took a step forward, the dark gleam of his eyes catching the dim light, Dipak felt the weight of that name settle over him like a shroud. Raven was dead yet every inch of him was now mirrored before Dipak. This was the lover he once held, the lover he’d buried with his own hands.
Dipak moaned, feeling something sliding inside him, shifting and grating against itself in his mind.
“Dipak…” The voice was low, edged with shadows, but there was still a note of Jacob in it. Still, it wasn’t enough to untangle the memories flooding Dipak’s mind. He forced himself to breathe, but it felt as though he were inhaling smoke, filling his lungs with remnants of a life lost.
“Raven,” he murmured, the name slipping out unbidden.
Raven’s memory burned behind his eyes, raw and vivid: the nights they had shared, the whispered promises, and the darkness that had eventually swallowed him whole. And now, here he was again—or, worse, an impostor pretending to be him, stepping into Raven’s place, wearing the same haunted expression, the same burdened presence.
The weave tugged him down, pulling him to go back to the time and place where the real Raven could hold him. Dipak wanted to surrender to the weave and leave this betrayal but a flicker of shadow crossing Raven's eyes made his hesitate, made him wonder. He clung to the present, now curious and needing to know how this could be.
“It’s me. Jacob. I came back because—” The words were careful, as though Raven knew exactly how deep this wound would cut.
The figure before him—Jacob, Raven, both, neither—paused, and a flicker of hurt crossed his face. “Dipak, it’s… I’m not him, not really. I can't remember my last life, just this one.”
Clutching at the belts on his jacket, the weave slid away from him as dread settled in its place.
“You don’t understand,” Dipak whispered, his voice breaking. He could hardly bring himself to look at him. “You don’t understand what you’ve… what you’ve come back as.”
The silence between them stretched, weighed down by unspoken grief. Dipak’s gaze dropped to Jacob’s hands—no, Raven’s hands—hands that, in another life, had been used to tend to the dead, to touch and eat the flesh of the deceased, carrying the terrible compulsion to consume, to honor, to connect to death itself. Dipak had watched Raven struggle with that dark, insatiable hunger, had held him through the nights it tore him apart, had tried to be there through the shame, the burden, and the endless horror of it.
And now that same horror hung around Jacob’s shoulders, lurking in the depths of his dark eyes, threatening to pull him under. Dipak staggered back, unable to bear the thought.
“No.” He shook his head, his hands trembling as he brought them to cover his mouth. “You don’t know what this means, Jacob. You don’t know what you’re taking on.” His voice cracked with the pain, the memories tearing through him. “It… it destroyed him. Do you understand? It hollowed him out. It took everything he was and left nothing but—” He choked, unable to continue.
Raven—Jacob—moved closer, his face a mixture of sorrow and determination. “Dipak, I had to. I… I didn’t choose this lightly. I knew… I knew there would be consequences, but if I hadn’t changed, I couldn’t have connected with the Verdant. We would have lost everything.”
“Then you should have let the Verdant go,” Dipak hissed, each word filled with anguish. “Do you know what it was like watching him die by inches? Do you know how it felt to see him waste away, consumed by the very thing he tried to fight?” His voice dropped, trembling. “And now… I have to watch it happen again?”
Raven—no, Jacob, he forced himself to remember—recoiled as if struck, his expression darkening. For a moment, he looked away, the line of his jaw tense. “I thought… I thought you would understand,” he murmured, voice tight with something that almost sounded like guilt. “I thought you, of all people, would know why I had to do this.”
Dipak clenched his fists, his heart throbbing painfully in his chest. “I do understand, Jacob,” he whispered, his voice rough. “That’s why I’m so afraid. Because I can see what this is going to do to you. I’ve lived it once. I lost him because of the hunger, the curse. And now, I have to lose you, too?”
Raven took another step forward, his hand reaching out, hovering in the space between them, as if he wanted to close the distance but didn’t quite dare. “To embrace death is to understand the cycle of life,” he said, his voice wavering. “But for now, I’m still here. I’m still… me.”
Dipak let out a hollow laugh, a sound devoid of mirth. “Are you? Because all I see right now is a ghost. A ghost of someone I loved who died and left me to live with his memory." Dipak turned away from Raven and wrapped his arms around his chest, pressing hard against his breasts. "And now… now I have to watch it all happen again.” His voice broke, his eyes filling with tears. “I don’t know if I can do it, Jacob. I don’t know if I can stand by and watch you fight this all again.”
Raven clenched his jaw and tipped his head to the side, but he didn’t move away. He held his ground. "I will fight whatever I have to. We have no choice. This is the form that Rachan and the Life Tree have chosen for me. I must believe that Gaia has given me this with purpose. I will fight the hunger and the darkness."
Dipak shook his head, his body tense with grief and frustration. “You don’t remember what it’s like,” he said, voice strained. “You don’t remember the toll it takes. Raven, you tried to resist it in your last life, too. He swore he wouldn’t let it consume him. But in the end, he had no choice. It was in his blood, in his bones. It tore him apart. And it’ll do the same again."
Raven's hand finally settled on Dipak’s shoulder, his touch grounding, though it was almost unbearable to feel it, to feel that warmth that reminded him so painfully of the past. “I’m sorry,” Raven whispered, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry for what I’ve put you through, for making you live through this again. But I promise… I’m going to fight it. For you, for me… for him. I owe us that much.”
Dipak’s throat tightened, his heart aching with a deep, relentless sorrow. He wanted to believe him, wanted to cling to the hope that maybe, somehow, Raven could avoid the fate that had claimed him in his last life. But he’d been here before. He’d seen the resolve, the determination, only to watch it crumble as the hunger took hold, leaving nothing but a hollow shell of the person he’d loved.
He took a step back, breaking free from Jacob’s touch. “I can’t… I can’t watch this,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t lose you that way again.”
Raven's expression wavered, the light in his eyes dimming as he took in Dipak’s words. For a moment, he looked as though he were about to argue, to insist that he wouldn’t succumb to the darkness the way the other Raven had. But he saw the pain in Dipak’s gaze, the anguish that lingered there, and his shoulders slumped.
“I understand,” Raven said softly. “I know this is more than you should have to bear. And if… if it becomes too much, I won’t blame you if you can’t stay.”
Dipak turned away, swallowing hard against the grief that threatened to choke him. He felt Raven's gaze on him, heavy and sorrowful, and he forced himself to take a steadying breath. Dipak looked up at the sky, imagining that he could look into the realm of the gods. Why did it always have to be this way between them? Every mortal life he lived, tangled up with this other soul, had been filled with so much suffering.
All he could do now was hope that somehow, against all odds, Raven could avoid the fate that had claimed him before.
“I just… I don’t want to see you die like that again,” Dipak murmured, barely daring to hope that it was possible. And as he walked away, leaving Raven alone in the shadows, he clung to that fragile thread of hope, even as a deep, aching fear settled in his chest.
