Anywhere in Time (Magic of Time Book 2)

by Melissa Mayhue

  Doing her best to ignore the misery around her, she quickly threaded her way between the fallen combatants, to push open the great doors and step out into the fresh air.

  “Where do you think to take—” Dallyn’s question cut off with a sharp inhalation of breath when they crossed the plaza and started down the staircase, as if it had only just occurred to him what she planned to do. “You cannot take him to the Fountain. It is forbidden.”

  She stopped only long enough to fix him with a look. “Indeed it is. But our people have rarely been good at refraining from those things which are forbidden to them. It is for that reason that the Fountain exists in the fragile state it does now. Besides, if it makes you feel any better, we’re not taking him to the Fountain. We’re going to put him in the Fountain. Step lively, Captain. We’ve no time to waste.”

  “Wait,” he said, holding her up once more. “You must tell me something first and you must tell me truly. Do you really believe what you said to Reynalia? That it is up to us to set straight the souls that were cleaved asunder in the War of the Long Ago?”

  “Absolutely, I believe this,” Syrie said. “If not us, then who should do it? It should be our life’s greatest calling. Which is why you must hurry. I have finally found my other half and I don’t intend that I should lose him now.”

  * * *

  Patrick awoke, as if from a horrible nightmare, choking and spitting out water. He was drowning!

  But how was such a thing possible? He was supposed to be dying. This much he knew for a fact. He’d felt the weapon used against him slide into the center of the mark on his chest, straight into his heart. Of that there could be no doubt, just as there could be no doubt that only a strike in that exact spot could be immediately lethal to him. It was as his father had always said. The Mark of the Warrior, an honor to bear. A target to wear.

  And yet, once again, water filled his nose and, as he gasped for air, his mouth and throat.

  “Help me pull him out.”

  Syrie’s voice!

  “Patrick? Can you hear me? Speak to me!”

  He fought the exhaustion that prevented him from opening his eyes. Fought the siren call of the seductive black void that beckoned him to remain. Syrie called for him to return to her and he could do nothing but obey. For her, he would gladly give up his seat in the finest banquet hall of Valhalla.

  The buzzing of a million voices filled his brain, a tingly, burning sensation that traveled into his face and down his throat. Pulsing and growing, it flowed through the whole of his body until every single part of him seemed to vibrate. When the foreign sensation reached his heart, he felt as though the sun itself were searing his skin, from the inside out.

  As quickly as it had begun, the sensations ceased and, at last, he managed to open his eyes.

  “There you are! You’ve come back to me.”

  Syrie’s beautiful face hovered over him and, without thought, he reached for her, pulling her tightly to him in an embrace that ended in a kiss. He savored the feel of her, the scent of her, the sight of her eyes drifting shut as he held her. Had it been up to him, he would have held onto this moment, dragging it out into forever, completely satisfied to spend his afterlife in just such a manner.

  But his Syrie had other ideas.

  “It’s done,” she said, rocking back on her heels and offering a hand to help him to his feet. “The Goddess is free and our lives can return to normal.”

  That sounded all well and good, except for one thing. He didn’t want normal. He wanted a life with her.

  The question was, did she want a life with him?

  “We need to talk, Syrie,” he said, determined to find out once and for all how she felt about him. “We need to talk about us.”

  She stilled, her eyes darting to the ground in front of her. “Us?” she asked. “What about us?”

  At least she hadn’t claimed there was no us to talk about.

  “Elesyria!” Darnee, the tall Faerie guard who’d loaned them her cottage in the woods, approached at a run. “The Goddess bids you come to her.”

  For a moment, Syrie’s expression wavered, as if she might refuse. But, as he would expect of her, she turned back toward the Great Hall, accompanying Darnee.

  He followed along behind the two women, back into the Great Hall where they’d battled the High Council and their army. Bodies lay everywhere, both those who had fought for the release of the Goddess and against. Off to one side he saw the body of Larkin, one of the men who’d come to the cottage with Dallyn.

  As the women hurried on ahead of him, Patrick made his way through the others to pause at Larkin’s side. The man’s golden armor had lost its gleam, and a small, dark-haired woman leaned over him, weeping. Next to them stood two small boys, one golden like his father, the other, the elder, dark like his mother. Patrick doubted that either of the children could be more than five or six years old at most.

  “You must do as I said, Anola, my love. Take the boys to Thistle Down Manor, just as we’d planned. This changes nothing of your future,” Larkin rasped, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

  “It changes everything,” she said, her words strangled by her tears.

  “And you, Ian,” Larkin continued, as if determined to have his say before it was too late. “You, my son, must take my place as a Guardian. I’d have your oath, son. Your oath to devote yourself to the protection of the Fountain and of the Mortals.”

  “I so swear,” the older of the two boys said, his dark head bending close to his mother. “I will do as you ask, Father.”

  This scene represented everything Patrick hated about battle. How could any amount of glory count for anything in the presence of such loss and sorrow? He turned away, uncomfortable that he should be intruding on this most private of family moments.

  On the dais, the Goddess occupied a large chair with Syrie kneeling in front of her.

  The sight annoyed him, that Syrie should kneel to anyone, let alone that woman, especially after all Syrie had done for this Goddess of hers. He quickened his steps until he reached Syrie, taking his place just behind her.

  “What will you do next, Elesyria? What would you have of me?” the Goddess asked, her dark eyes fixed upon Syrie. “We both know I am too weak as I am now to oppose you.”

  “Oppose me?” Syrie echoed, her voice holding the same surprise reflected in her expression. “What makes you think you would ever have call to do that? Haven’t I proved myself to you, my loyalty to you, with what I’ve done here today?”

  The Goddess shrugged. “What you have proved is that you are indeed stronger than I am. Even at my best, I will never have the power that you have at your disposal. It would be well within your rights to challenge me.”

  “Challenge you?” Syrie squeaked, her head swiveling from the Goddess to Patrick and back again. “You mean challenge you so that I could be the Goddess? But…don’t you have to be born special, or something?”

  “This is how it has always been done. The strongest among us, the one best able to control the Magic, is the one who ascends to the position of Earth Mother. And you, my dear, were special enough by birth and even more so now by your trial of passing through the Magic.”

  Patrick felt his stomach tighten, like a child expecting to receive a favorite gift, only to learn at the last minute that the gift was being given to someone else. If Syrie chose to become the Earth Mother of all Wyddecol, there would be no room for him in her life.

  “Right,” Syrie said, rising to stand, shaking her head as she did. “All I planned to ask for was to be permanently released from service in your Temple. I want my freedom and from what I’ve seen, you’re as much a prisoner there as you were here. Oh, there are no chains on you in the Temple, to be sure. No tiny, cramped cage, but it’s a cage nonetheless. You serve the Faerie people. You live apart in a beautiful palace, but you must always be available at their beck and call. No, that’s not something I ever see me wanting for myself. As far as I’m concer
ned, you’re the Earth Mother, and welcome to it.”

  A flash of surprise lit the older woman’s face, but it was quickly replaced with the emotionless mask she had worn before.

  “You realize, of course, that if you return to the Mortals’ world, you will live there in danger. Reynalia escaped, likely to join her brother, who was exiled after the last coup in Wyddecol. She will live out her days on the Mortal Plain, bereft of her Magic. That will be my official decree once all this is taken care of.” The Goddess swept out an arm to indicate the devastation around them. “But, on the Mortal Plain, she will seek you out for her revenge. You and those who are important to you. It will be no different here. Though she is gone, it is likely she has followers who would be a danger to you, as well.”

  “Don’t you worry about me,” Syrie said with a bright smile. “Knowing I’m free to go anywhere I want, I think I can find a way to avoid her and all her minions.”

  Patrick took the hand she held out to him and led her back through the carnage out onto the plaza. Fearing what she might have to say, he knew he could delay the inevitable no longer. He had to know.

  * * *

  “What does the world hold for us now?” Patrick asked as they reached a quiet spot overlooking the blessed Fountain of Souls. “We’ve been to the future and we’ve been to Wyddecol. What comes next for us?”

  Syrie turned to face her big warrior, moving close enough to look up into his face before she answered. “I’ve spent my whole life searching for two things. I’ve always believed that finding those two things would bring me the happiness I sought. One of things was a purpose worthy of devoting my life to and, through all of this we’ve faced, I’ve discovered that purpose at last. I know now that I’m meant to bring the souls lost to one another back together again, and I mean to spend the rest of my life doing exactly that.”

  True Love was, as she had told Dallyn, the most important of all causes. True Love could exist only when those souls that were meant to be together found one another and joined. For too long, that process had been burdened by the wanton loss of life and the destruction of the Fountain during the Great War. The Fountain had quickly been rebuilt, but nothing had been done to reconnect that which had been torn asunder. With her new power, she intended to be the one to do something about it.

  “And the other?” he asked, his hands rigid at his side.

  “The other what?” she said, biting the inside of her cheek to keep a smile from her lips as his scowl drew his eyebrows together.

  Patrick was perhaps the only man she’d ever met who could look as sexy when he frowned as he did when he smiled.

  “The other thing you’ve spent yer life searching for,” he said, his exasperation clear in his voice. “You said there were two things. What is the second?”

  “Why, you, of course,” she said, giving up all pretext of keeping him in suspense. “And now that I’ve found you, I intend that you’ll never get away from me, my great, scowling warrior.”

  No, she’d been wrong. The smile breaking over his face now was much, much sexier than the scowl had been.

  “That’s a good thing, then, Elf,” he said, his smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he hooked his thumbs into the belt at his waist. “Since I mean to never let you get away from me again. As far as I’m concerned, it’s only death what has the power to separate us now.”

  As much as she loved the man, he did have his aggravating habits.

  “How many times must I tell you I’m not an Elf?” she began, but paused as a new thought occurred to her. “My big Valkyrie.”

  His brow wrinkled at her use of the name, just as she’d suspected it might.

  “Valkyrie? Yer muchly mistaken in yer choice of words, my wee Elf. A Valkyrie is a female warrior. It’s no’ a stretch to say that I canna believe you could ever mistake me for a woman.”

  His stance, chin lifted, chest puffed out, would have done any strutting peacock proud.

  “True. But no more so than my disbelief that you’d mistake me for an Elf,” she returned.

  “Ach, that one’s easy enough to understand,” he said with a grin. “Let me explain. You or an Elf, both have yer roots firmly planted in the world of Magic. So you can see, to an outsider like me, there’s little enough difference between you.”

  “Really?” Syrie asked, feeling more confident in her plan by the moment. “Well, then. By that reasoning, you or a Valkyrie, both have your roots firmly planted in the legends of Asgard. There’s little enough difference there, as well. To an outsider like me, that is.”

  Brow furrowed, Patrick stroked his chin, seemingly deep in consideration of her argument, though his eyes twinkled with humor. “I see yer point. That being the case, I suppose I’d best come up with a new name to call you by,” he said.

  “You might try using my actual name,” she suggested, a hint of annoyance growing at his obstinate insistence on using anything else. “It’s worked fairly well for any number of years.”

  “Granted, it’s a lovely enough name. But I doona believe that will work for my purposes. It disna carry the ring to it that I seek.” Again that familiar grin broke over his face. “I do have a new one in mind, though. One I’ve been considering for a while now, even before you pointed out the error of my ways. Might I test it on you? To see what you think of it?”

  “A new name?” Syrie asked, her jaw tightening as she determined not to argue with Patrick, no matter how much he provoked her. “Oh, do tell. I can hardly wait to hear what you have come up with this time.”

  “Good. I’ve been thinking wife has a sound to it that pleases me. Trips right off the tongue, it does. What say you? Does that one please you more than the other?”

  For one of the few times in her life, Syrie found herself close to speechless. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m no’ saying anything, my love. I’m asking. And I think my meaning is clear enough,” he said.

  “Is this your own barbaric way of proposing marriage to me?” she asked, leaning into him and placing her hand on his cheek.

  “I suppose it is,” he answered, at last wrapping his arms around her as she’d wanted all along. “Until death do us part.”

  He dipped his head, covering her lips with his, and she had only a moment to wonder if the dousing he’d taken into the Fountain of Souls just might take care of that whole death complication for them. But then, the kiss deepened and she was lost, her mind drifting in that great, soft place where only Patrick could take her.

  Chapter 27

  “I still can’t believe I’m really here.” Ellen laced her hands in her lap, shaking her head. “Everyone thinks I’ve lost my mind in dropping everything to travel to Scotland just weeks before my wedding.”

  “Everyone?” Syrie sat in the backseat of the speeding car next to her friend. “Even Robert?”

  “Especially him,” Ellen said with a grin. “But, unlike everyone else, he told me I should do what I thought I needed to do. He even made sure my passport application was expedited.”

  “Good for Robert,” Syrie said, grateful to hear that bit of news. “I’m so pleased that you’ve come. I’m just sorry Rosella decided against coming with you.”

  The grin faded from Ellen’s face and she dropped her eyes to study her hands. “I know. But she and Clint are determined to keep their distance from all that—” She cut off what she’d been about to say, her glance darting toward the driver before she continued. “All that, you know, business.”

  Yes, Syrie knew what she meant. All that Faerie business. All that information Ellen had taken so well when Syrie had finally explained it to her.

  “I understand how they must feel,” Syrie said. “And I’ll respect her wishes. I just hope they both realize that you can’t very well keep your distance from something that is a part of you. It will be passed to her sons and her daughters. There is no escaping what you are, no matter how you might want to be something else.”

  “Nonetheless, they wa
nt to try and, as you say, we need to respect their wishes. It’s part of the reason they decided not to wait to get married.” She paused for a moment, the smile returning to her face along with a glint in her eye. “Well, that and the baby they’re expecting.”

  “No!” Syrie exclaimed. “That’s so wonderful for them. They’ll be excellent parents, I’ve not one single doubt.”

  “I’m sure they will,” Ellen agreed. “When Rosella shared her good news, she said it was for her child that she felt the need to bury her heritage. She asked me to let you know that she will always remember you and Patrick, but she hopes you’ll understand how she and Clint feel and not try to contact her again. With a family to think of, she wants to put all those things behind her.”

  “I’m sure she does,” Syrie agreed, her heart heavy with the knowledge that what her friend wanted was next to impossible. “Don’t get me wrong. I won’t make any effort to reach out to her again. I wish them all the best for success. But there are some things in life you simply can’t put away from you. As I said, even if she manages to avoid the pitfalls that await someone like her, what she is will still be there. In her blood. A part of her very essence. A part of her children.”

  “You’re probably right.” Ellen shrugged, looking away and out the window at the passing countryside. “Still, at the very least, she’s extraordinarily happy right now. Being a new wife and a soon-to-be mother suits her well. She’s known from the first what she wanted and she’s quite clearly found it. Selfishly, though, I will miss being her friend and basking in the glow of her happiness.”

  “With your wedding approaching in less than a month, you’ve your own happiness to enjoy. Right?” Syrie asked, studying her friend closely.

  This was the reason she’d asked Ellen to come here. Perhaps this was the time to tell her that.

  “We’ve arrived, Mrs. MacDowylt,” the driver said, pulling off the road and into a long gravel drive.