Chapter 58 Searching For My Lover
Lorenzo’s POV
The sky looked different here.
The air was colder, heavier, the kind that crawled into your bones and brought back memories you didn’t want to remember. My boots sank into the muddy sand as I walked deeper through the path that used to be my home….. a village I once swore never to return to. My hometown from my past life.
But here I was again, searching for the ghost of a girl I failed.
Delilah.
Her name alone tightened something in my chest.
Gideon walked beside me quietly, giving me space even though I knew he wanted to ask questions. His footsteps matched mine, steady, loyal, patient.
The only thing that remained the same after all these lifetimes was the wooden houses, they were older now. More fragile. Some of them broke down entirely. But their shadows felt the same. Heavy. Judging. Haunted.
Just like the very day I ran back and found her dead.
I clenched my jaw and exhaled hard, the memory came back again not giving me space to think properly.
“Boss,” Gideon said quietly, “maybe the next place will give us something. You’ve searched half this region already.”
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
Because deep down, I already feared the truth,
I had been searching for lifetimes, yet I still didn’t know where she was. If she was alive. If she had found another body. Another world. Another life.
If she still remembered me.
The thought made my chest pull tight.
We approached the first shrine, a small mud hut with old markings drawn across the entrance. A fat candle burned inside, sending out smoke that almost choked us. The seer inside was an old man with milky eyes with a voice that sounded inhuman. Entering here feels like a solution already or maybe I was assuming.
I told him everything.
How Delilah had died.
How the villagers unjustly killed her when they found out she was pregnant without getting married first.
How I had avenged her death and managed to come back to earth, immortal.
How I watched the only woman I ever loved turn cold in my very hands.
And how her spirit vanished into smoke before my very eyes.
The seer listened. But his answer was the same as the last ten before him.
“Spirits return if they choose,” he muttered, shaking his head. “But her path is clouded. I see nothing.”
We walked out.
Gideon glanced at me. “Boss….”
“Don’t,” I snapped. “Let’s go.”
We visited another shrine.
Then another.
And another.
Each one more disappointing than the last.
Some said Delilah never reincarnated. Some said she did, but far away from here. Some said she might have returned as a spirit with no memory. Others said the bond between us was cursed, and she would always slip out of my reach.
By the time we reached the twentieth shrine, the sun had already begun to set. My shirt clung to my back with sweat. My hands shook faintly, and my jaw ached from how hard I’d been clenching it.
Still no answers, nothing, empty.
Gideon slowed his steps. “Boss…. we don’t have to continue today. We can rest.”
Rest?
How was I supposed to rest when the only person who ever loved me, truly loved me, was somewhere suffering?
Maybe in hell.
Maybe stuck between worlds.
Maybe crying out for me every night like she did in my dreams.
I ignored him and kept walking.
The next shrine was different. Older. Darker.
Built into a cave opening with roots wrapped around it.
Gideon sensed it too. “Boss….. this one feels different.”
It did.
It felt like a place spirits passed through. A place that existed between worlds. The air wasn’t warm or cold, just wrong. A low hum vibrated through the ground under my feet.
Inside, the cave was lit by a single bowl of blue fire. A woman sat cross-legged before it. Her hair was white, her skin cracked, but her eyes.
Her eyes were painfully clear. Too clear.
Like she could see through my skin and straight into my soul.
“You have come far,” she whispered without looking up.
Her voice was so soft it echoed against the silence. “You seek the girl who died with your child.”
My heart stopped.
Gideon stiffened beside me.
I stepped forward slowly. “You know her?”
“I know her pain,” the woman said. “I know her screams. I know the way her soul shattered when those knives pierced her body.”
I swallowed hard.
The imagination flooded my mind. Their torches, their rage, the way they must have screamed at her….. sinner, curse, shame to the land.
I could still feel the moment I shoved her, desperate, hoping something, anything would pull her back to life. I remembered the warmth leaving her body when I pulled the knife from her chest, the blood spilling faster than my hands could stop.
And then the day they buried me right beside her, after the last ritual was completed.
All the horror of that day lived inside me, clear and cruel. Yet her face refused to appear in my mind.
“I’ve searched everywhere,” I said, my voice rough. “I need to know where she is. I need to find her. Tell me how.”
“She is not gone,” the woman murmured. “Her spirit returned long ago.”
My heart slammed painfully.
“Where?” I demanded.
The woman lifted her face, her eyes glowing faintly.
“She came back….. with another name. Another body. Another life.”
I blinked so hard that my vision almost blurred.
Another life?
Another identity?
So she had reincarnated?
“She is near you,” the seer said softly. “Closer than your own heartbeat. You see her every day.”
My lungs froze.
Every day?
My mind jumped instantly back at home. The places I have been to the people around me down to the closest person I have been with.
No.
It couldn’t be. No.
The woman continued, her voice so calm it was terrifying.
“She has been calling for you. Crying for you. She is in pain. Suffering. Trapped between who she was and who she is now.”
My throat tightened.
I saw Delilah falling in my dreams.
Heard her scream my name.
My pulse hammered wildly as I stepped closer.
“Who is she?” I breathed, my voice barely holding together. “Tell me her name.”
The cave went silent.
Completely silent. Even the blue fire stopped crackling.
The woman’s eyes shifted, slowly, painfully until they locked onto mine. Something heavy darkened her expression, like what she was about to say would tear everything apart.
“I cannot give you a name,” she whispered. “But I can give you a path.”
My chest tightened.
A path?
“To find her,” she said, “you must search among the ones who walk behind you. The ones you teach. The ones who you have been protecting.”
My heartbeat stumbled.
The ones I teach?
My students?
Someone under my protection?
She continued, “The one you seek….. she was saved by your hands long ago in this lifetime. You met her when she was still broken. Still searching for purpose. You gave her a place. A name. A direction.”
My stomach dropped.
Someone I saved and saw everyday. My eyes widened. I just hope it is not who I’m thinking of.
“Who?” I whispered again, almost shaking now. “Who is she? Tell me.”
The seer lowered her head slowly.
The cave suddenly felt stuffy. The air got thicker.
My pulse roared in my ears.
Finally, the woman looked up, her voice barely above a breath.
“She is…..” She paused. A long, tense silence fell between us.
Gideon shifted, holding his breath.
“She is….” Another pause, then she closed her eyes. “I have told you all I can.”
My chest collapsed.
“What do you mean that’s all?” I snapped, stepping forward sharply. “You said she’s alive. You said she’s near me. You said she’s suffering so who the hell is she?! Tell me!”
The blue fire suddenly flared, like it was scared of my voice.