Kamila always ended up going back to Belius when she knew that the Camellia was about to die. She went there hoping that she would endure watching its final moments and find the strength to move on, but she would just renew the imprint and start over.
Looking at the withered flower was already hard, doing it with all the pressure from three years of memories from her apartment weighing on her was nigh-impossible.
'At first, everyone but me thought that this cheap-ass thing was a betrothal gift.' Kamila thought while picking up the badly hammered green painted scrap metal that comprised the Camellia's stem.
'Then, while others forgot about it, I started to hope that Lith would give me another. A perennial Camellia as a proper betrothal gift. Yet I knew that it would never happen until we managed to bring out all the unspoken words left between us.
'Back then, I thought that saying "I love you" was the hardest thing in the world, yet hearing about Solus was much worse. Did he ever really feel something for me or was it just another lie?'
Her mind spun until she became dizzy from remembering both Lith's words before she left the tower and Jirni's words about how similar the choice that Kamila had to make was to Orion's.
Jirni's parallel between her own situation with her husband and Kamila's with Lith had struck a nerve, planting the seed of doubt in the ear of her fellow Constable. Kamila had mulled over the words of her mentor and of her ex-boyfriend so much that she had trouble sleeping.
'Gods, why is this so hard?' She clenched the green stem with all the strength she could muster. 'All I have to do is to either stand still for the next few minutes or just leave the apartment and come back later to pick up my clothes.'
Yet she didn't move from the spot, her hands refused to let go of the Camellia and close it inside the chest until it was too late.
Kamila knew that the moment she let the flower's enchantment die, everything would be over for good. There would be no second chances, no miracle forgiveness, just feelings turning into memories.
It would be the final step before moving on with her life, yet she still had too many doubts that kept her from making up her mind.
'I can't stop thinking about Jirni's words.' Kamila thought. 'She is right about Lith. He didn't lie to me to hurt me, only to protect me, just like Jirni did with Orion. If Lith had told me about Solus, I would have never given him a chance and both our lives would be ruined now.
'Yet his relationship with Solus is so unique that I don't know what to believe. I am certain that he was honest with me when he said there's nothing romantic between them.
'On the other hand, I could also see from their memories how close they are and how the difference between love and friendship is paper thin.'
Another petal of the Camellia fell off, leaving just three of them.
'If I were to take his words at face value, doubt would slowly eat at me from the inside, making me question what they do whenever they are together. I don't want to let jealousy ruin the best thing that ever happened in my life but I won't live in the shadow of another woman either.'
Kamila stared at the now two remaining petals of the Camellia, using them as an hourglass to make up her mind and find the strength to do what had to be done.
'I fought too hard and too long to keep my relationship with Lith. I'm not going to act like a coward now and let everything slip out of my hands out of inertia. The last time we met, he told me that if I wanted to learn the truth about him and Solus, I had to call the Firstborn Banshee and ask her about their encounter.
'I don't know what she's going to say, but before making the final decision, I want to trust Lith one last time. The Camellia can wait another week. No matter how much I suffer, the sun will always keep rising.'
She was about to imprint the stem again when two things happened at the same time. The second last petal fell off and one of her tears fell on the dying flower. As the petal faded into nothingness, the Camellia came back to life.
A blue double layered flower comprised of the water element bloomed, replacing the fire one before she could even send a single spark of mana through her hands.
'Was that a sign from the gods or did my tear carry enough of my mana and willpower to renew the imprint?' Kamila thought in amazement as soon as she realized that it wasn't just another trick of her imagination.
In theory, only a mage who had mastered tier five magic could imbue their spells with willpower and control them once the mana had left their bodies. She was no mage, yet the pleasant coolness of the Camellia was a testament to her determination.
Kamila had stopped believing in the gods back when she was a teen and her parents wanted to marry her off to a complete stranger in order to make some money. Thanks to Lith, she knew enough about magic to understand that the only hand guiding her fate was her own.
She took the rebirth of the flower of a sign, but not as one sent by fate or gods so much as from the depths of her heart, showing her what it truly desired.
Unwilling to waste one more second, Kamila took the mystical business card holding the Firstborn Banshee's rune out of her dimensional item, bringing it near to her communication amulet to add it to the many already on its surface.
She had brought the card with her ever since Lith had given it to her the day of Quylla's funeral, but until that moment, she had hoped to sort out her feelings without the need to ask advice from Ilthin, one of the most powerful beings on Mogar.
The Kingdom was still at war with the undead, making it hard for Kamila to trust any of them, and she was afraid that Ilthin might lie to her just to get in Lith's bed. Banshees had a bad name not only because they fed upon the unfaithful, but also because they spared no effort to seduce someone in order to turn them into a potential meal.
During Lith's stay in Lightkeep, Ilthin had already hit on him and fallen prey to her predatory instincts to the point of unwillingly putting a Charm on him.
Back then, Kamila had laughed at the story, but now it scared her to death.
She was afraid of learning from the Banshee that the reason for her interest was that Lith had already been unfaithful.
'I have no reason to trust her words and she has no reason to be honest with me.. Heck, if I was in her shoes, I'd tell Lith's ex anything to push him to cross the line.'
