Page 158 of Dissection of Immortal Hearts
Did Renenutet just tell her that the solution was to hide for a day?
“Why won’t you tell me their names?” Amelia asked.
Renenutet’s glossy curls caught the light from the chandelier as she shook her head. “Because you can’t bear the energy of their activated forms.”
So Renenutet was concerned that Amelia aimed to use the power of the relics for herself. “I don’t want to activate them. I want to understand them.”
The silence stretched once more, and it was clear Renenutet wouldn’t reply. Amelia lowered her gaze to the table. It seemed pointless to insist. “May I ask one last thing?”
“Of course.”
“The previous Oracle told me that the Sacreds and the Oracle attract each other, and that’s why Mikhail Korovin, as the owner of the ring, was in love with me. Is that true?”
“Well, since we’re talking about love…” Renenutet snapped her fingers and filled the glasses to the brim with wine. “The Oracle was our guarantee that we could find the Sacreds in case we needed them. Yes, that’s why they attract each other. Not the Oracle andthe ownersof the Sacreds. If the ring did anything forthis man, it was to remove what was preventing him from seeing his love. That’s what the ring does for its owner. It removes the barriers you hold because of anger, aggression, or whatever else poisons your heart.”
Amelia held her breath. Her heart was about to jump out of her chest. At last, she had confirmation that what had happened between them wasn’t just in her mind. “But after he lost the ring, he didn’t remember me…”
Renenutet took a thoughtful sip from her glass. “Perhaps the ring erased his memory of the time with you, to protect him?”
“To protect him from me?”
“To protect him fromthe memoryof you. If he was in a situation where it tortured him.”
Amelia fell silent, the image of Mikhail’s helpless body in the laboratory rising in her mind, bound, forced to die four times a day. Even now, the memory made her ache. “But does that mean he loved me?”
“A heart can either love or not. Barriers can only stop physical passion. In true love, there are no excuses.”
Amelia wasn’t sure she fully understood Renenutet’s words. Still, they didn’t help her with Mikhail.
Renenutet gave her a condescending smile. “It’s good for you to know which wells are dry, so you don’t search for water there. Especially while you’re wearing my necklace around your neck.”
Amelia raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“The only way for you to defeat Preni is byactivatingthe Sacreds. Something she wouldn’t expect, because she knows you’ll die immediately.”
It took a while for the words to sink into Amelia’s mind. “So, the only way to defeat her is… by sacrificing myself?”
Renenutet’s gaze lowered to the necklace around Amelia’s neck.
***
Amelia
A blink, and suddenly, she saw an infinite city of black marble and gold spread out before her.
A blink, and she was lying back in bed.
Amelia stepped onto the floor, still dressed in the same clothes she had worn before meeting Renenutet. She splashed her face with cold water and headed down to the restaurant. To her surprise, Mikhail, Callan, and Presiyan were talking like three old friends, with unfolded newspapers on the table in front of them. They were probably checking for unusual news from the human world.
“What’s the date today?” Amelia asked. Without waiting for a reply, she grabbed24 Hours, a local newspaper, from the table and read the date in the top corner. June nineteenth. “Is this today’s paper?”
“Yes,” Presiyan said.
“Is everything all right?” Mikhail asked her.
She took a deep breath. “I was on Surat, the planet of the humanids. And I spoke with Renenutet and her husband, Sobek.”
Presiyan’s eyebrows shot up to the ceiling, Mikhail frowned as if he’d eaten something bitter, and Callan’s faint smile warmed her.
