Chapter Two

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Who says your life ends only when your heart stops. It ends even when there's a celebration around you.

Family and strangers standing and wishing you well. Familiar music filling the room. Your father's hand crushing yours.

Or perhaps they were right. Because my heart had certainly stopped. I was a corpse walking the aisle. My parents knew about my dreams. I was too young, too overwhelmed to keep it to myself. But perhaps it would have done them well if I had remained quiet. Now they knew I believed there was someone for me, someone I had been in love with for six years and lifetimes before that...someone I may never have the chance to meet now.

My gaze is lowered, and my visions begins to blur. My whole mind fills with the sounds of all my hidden emotions rattling their cages, desperate to escape.

Don't cry, Alanna.

It was easier said than done. I was a crier. I cried if I was happy, sad, angry. I cried if I saw a sad movie, a happy movie, someone cutting down a tree, a beggar on the streets.

And today, when my life lay before me in shambles that crushed under my feet with every step I took, I was forcing myself not to shed any tears. I drag a deep breath in and blink them away.

The music feels foreboding.

I hadn't picked out my dress.

I hadn't planned my wedding.

My father had barely paid for it. We were that broke.

He did everything.  The man I was to ...

I swallow. I can't even think it.

My heart begins to beat faster, my breath starts to heave out of me.
I couldn't even think it. How would I live it? How could I live with anyone that wasn't him? Living beside him. Sleeping beside him. My stomach roils. My thoughts spiral and drag me down deeper.

"Alanna."

I snap out of my thoughts and look at my father. Panic flurries through me.

No. No.

It was the end of the aisle. This was where my father would leave me. I look up at him and I can't control the look in my eyes. Help me.

I have my mask on before anyone could see, but my father had. His face crumbled and he leans forward and presses a kiss to my forehead.

"God bless you, Alanna. May you only find happiness all your life." He says and with that, he takes my hand from his and gives it...

He gives it away.

My hand falls into the grip of my... into his...

He takes my hand in his and leads me to the altar. I hadn't even looked at him. I had never laid eyes on this man. And suddenly, my life was in his hands. My gaze remains on the floor as I walk. When we reach the altar, someone turns me to face the groo—

My stomach spasms in pain and nausea at the word.

My gaze lifts and snags on the boutonnière on the lapel of the suit of the man I stood opposite. My brows furrows. It was a single lavender rose. I hear words begin to be spoken, but all my thoughts narrow to that one rose.

A memory wiggles free from my otherwise firmly closed drawer of dreams.

He was holding out a flower to me. I look at him funnily, but I'm taking it from him.

"I'm not really a flowers kind of girl." I'm telling him, but I caress the lavender petals of the rose reverently. He had given me a lavender rose.

"But you're a symbolism kind of girl." He says to me.

My heart stutters as I meet his gaze, "What does this symbolise?" I ask, holding up the flower delicately before cradling it between my hands once more.

"Love at first sight."

I return to my reality, staring at the rose. Of all the flowers in all of this world... why this one? My eyes snap up to the man I was—

My eyes catch on ice blue glowing eyes of the Yade I was to be wed to. And I think not a single other thought.

I drown in his eyes, in water the colour of his irises that swallow me whole. I'm surrounded by warmth and sunlight filters through the surface. I fall into a trance right there.

And I see a memory in wake.

I was walking towards a pyre. The pyre of my husband. It burned to the sky. Hollowness was deep within me, my only source of balm that this would end soon. Something chimes against my heavy skirts and I realize I wore bangles. I walk in a haze, burning on the inside as much as my husband burns on the outside before me.

I step into the pyre and close my eyes in relief.

We were together once more.

I return to my senses and realise that streams of tears were now pouring from my eyes. The man before me, the Yade, was the man from my dreams. I hungrily take him in. He was tall. Taller than me. Lean, but muscled beneath his suit. The colour of his skin like all Yade was dark as midnignt. His shoulders were strong and broad. His nose long, sharp and just about flaring at the sides. His cheekbones were high and defined. His jaw cut sharply and his eyes..

I drag in a breath as a sob almost slips past my lips.

His eyes were the same. Different, but the same. I would recognise those eyes anywhere. No matter what face or skin they wore.

In this life they were ice blue with the designs typical but unique to each Yade. Their own version of fingerprints. His irises were swirled with interlocked designs too intricate to decipher. My heart fills with emotion and I see the designs begin to churn. He was feeding. From me.
My heart bursts and spills from my eyes.

Images of all the faces I've remembered, as unclear as they were, all coalesce into a single form and he stands before me in the flesh.

It was him. A sob leaves me and I reach a hand out for him.

My fingers touch the material of his suit as happiness and joy that I couldn't contain brims within me.

"Ms. Livingston?" I'm gently called.

When the silence around us finally filters through my conscious, I slowly drop my hand away, staring into the gaze that looked down at me with an intensity I recognised.

I say my vows. I had not even heard him take his.

My husband slides the ring into my finger and I beam up at him, tears still trailing down my cheeks. He just watches me with that stare of his that reached into my soul, as I slide his ring around his finger and then trace it reverently with one trembling index. When he starts to take his hand back, I let it slip through mine hesitantly.

We are declared man and wife.

I assume that we had not been asked to kiss to be sensitive to our being strangers. Five minutes ago, it would've been a blessing, now...there's nothing I wanted more than to kiss my husband and seal our vows.

So, that's what I do. I lean up, lay one hand against his cheek and press my lips against his. I  lean back, my own cheeks colouring as the crowd begins to hoot and cheer.

I settle back on my heels, trembling at the electricity that had shot through my veins the second my lips had touched his. I search his eyes, to see if he was as affected as me. But he was turning, taking my hand—that I willingly surrender to him—in his and leading us back down the aisle.

"Wait, Kri." It's the first time I've said his name. And it feels like...warmth rolling off my tongue. Centuries of intimacy.

He turns to look at me and I can barely breathe when I meet his eyes.

"My mom and dad..." I trail away as his eyes flit behind me and rake the crowd that had gathered to send us off. He looks back at me, intense icy blue.

"I want to take you home." He says.

His voice is low, smooth and rough. His words clench my throat and something deeper inside me.

"I will only be a minute," I say, then add, "I promise."

I let him see that I mean it. There was no where else I would rather be. Not even with my parents. He slowly releases his hold on me, one finger at a time, gaze on mine.

"Bal." Kri says, flicking his eyes to a large Yade who had appeared at our side as soon as we stepped out and was ushering the crowd aside to lead us safely through the din of lights and shouts.

I grin, pointing at my husband.

"Time me." I tell him, then gathering my skirt, turn back towards the crowd. People try to reach out to me, saying sweet, kind words that I appreciate. I smile at all of them, glad the large Yade Bal was there to keep them all away, as I push through to my parents. I can see their hands raise as soon as they spot me.

"She's there, Hellen! Come!" My father pushes aside one of the many witnesses of the event to reach me, my mother in tow.

"Baby," my mom starts, reaching a hand to my cheek. Her gaze glistens. I shake my head and grab hold of her hand.

"It's him. Mom." I look at my father, "Dad. It's him!"

Confusion flickers on their faces before shock wipes it clean.

Understanding, then relief follow. My mother closes her eyes as tears rush and my father stares at me.

"You found him?" he asks, stumbling over the words.

"I found him." I say, my own eyes begin to swell with tears. "I found him."

For the second time that day, my father's shoulders cave in and he covers his face and begins to weep.

My mother startles, before her face softens and she takes my father into her arms.

She looks at me, her gaze watery but clear as she nods at me.

"Be happy, Alanna." She says, her voice like lightening striking me, "The Lord knows you deserve it."

I wrap my arms around them quickly, and press a kiss to each of them. A fierce kiss.

"Thank you." I whisper, before turning away and racing back to my...to my husband.

The crowd parts and he waits near a car. Flashes of light and questions spoken, yelled, thrown at me. But nothing wavers my gaze from the man that waits for me. As soon as I'm close, he takes my hand that I was already reaching out and opens the door for me.

I lift my dress and slide into the large spacious seat and turn to look at my husband as he follows me in. The door closes behind him.

I wait, staring at his profile as the car purrs to life. The vehicle glides out smoothly. My husband remains staring out of the window, pensive, his elbow on the arm rest and fingers curled over his mouth. His ring glints in the dim lighting inside the car.
My whole being floats in a cloud of bliss.

"Kri." My voice sounds loud in the silence.

He turns, his gaze finding mine. In the darkness the glow of his eyes is evident. Mesmerising. My breath rushes out of me.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" I ask him.

On its own my fingers reach out to brush his jaw. Static flows through my fingers and I shiver. His gaze remains on mine as he turns a little, his jaw moving past my touch.

"Tell you what, Alanna?" he asks me.

My fingers in the air freeze and I search his eyes. His gaze is cool but intense. I drop my hand back to my lap and my gaze dips to the rose on the lapel of his jacket. I swallow and I hear the beat of my heart in my ears.

"Why a lavender rose?" I whisper. I lift my eyes to meet his.

His head tilts a little even as his expression remains smooth.

"It is part of tradition, isn't it?" he asks me.

Dread pools in my veins. He hadn't understood my question. If he had known...if he had known he would have understood what I meant. I swallow.

"Did you choose the flower?" I ask him.

"My sister did."

For the second time in a week, my entire world comes falling to the ground around me.

He didn't remember me. He had no recollection of us.

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