Soulless (Maiden of Time Book 2)

by Crystal Collier

  “Charles made a minimal wage as a clerk and he was looked down upon by all he had formerly known. I became a blight and shame—the fortune hunting girl who had seduced a nobleman’s son with her charms.” Her pained smile broke Alexia’s heart. “Men of money and breeding heard of our circumstance and began frequenting our benefactor to catch a glimpse of the ‘gypsy child’—that is what they called me.”

  “How awful.” Alexia hugged herself.

  “In course of time, I had admirers, and it was more than Charles could do to keep them from harassing me.” Her head bowed. “I kept the incidents hidden from him, or jumped back to erase them, but when one—” She shivered, her cheeks flaming red. “When one man assaulted me...” Her shoulders curled inward. “Charles happened upon us. He attacked the man, and in the struggle, he snapped the nobleman’s neck.” She glanced up and back down. “We ran to escape a hanging.”

  Alexia could barely find a voice. “He actually killed a man?”

  Dana’s glistening green eyes met hers, brows low.

  Married. They had been married. Alexia bit back tears as they pressed forward.

  “We were chased and hunted, and finally I decided I could make things better. I went back. All the way back.” She rubbed her hands as though cold. “The third time, I insisted our wedding be a secret, so Charles might retain his wealth and status. He agreed, reluctantly. We spent what time we could together without rousing suspicion, and in the course of months, I found myself with child. Charles was ecstatic.

  “Of course I should have been also, but no one knew of our union. To the world I appeared a lewd woman. I returned to Mae’s care and worried. Would this baby inherit my talents? And if so, what would become of me—for there can only be one, one to govern the flow of time.”

  Alexia leaned forward. “And if your child had bourn that power, you would have died?”

  Dana nodded. “My time neared. I felt it coming, and at the end I knew I should not live through the experience.” Again she looked at Alexia, her brows creased. “Cowardly, I tried again, the fourth time.

  “This time, Charles did not want to marry me secretly. He demanded that we openly go to his father or we not be bound. I chose the latter, knowing what the former would mean. I regret that our relationship progressed. He came to me every night, and I could not refuse him.

  “Again I found myself expecting, and this time with no husband to validate my condition. I was shunned by the Passionate. I was turned out and hounded. In his eyes I saw resentment and anger—both consequences of our sins. He stored me in a house with other expectant women until the time came for delivery. I kept thinking I could make it better—like the first time. We were poor and tired, but we were happy. If he chose that path once, surely he would choose it again. But I was mistaken.

  “Each time I returned to the beginning, it changed—for the worse. I became a stop on the road, then servant in his house, then the mother of a bastard child—one who did not inherit time—then a murderer...

  “Finally I conceded. I had dreamed of you so often, I knew you must eventually come into the world, and the last time, the worst time, I stopped trying. I did not have the heart to do it again. I could not make it better.”

  Alexia reached for her mother. Her fingers curled over Dana’s peachy hand.

  Dana smiled at the ground. “Start slowly—seconds, minutes, an hour perhaps, only as far as is needed.”

  “But you have gone back years!”

  “And paid dearly.” She turned up her large eyes. “You cannot control the outcome of altered days, weeks, months, and it will destroy you. Do not sacrifice all, like me.”

  Alexia clasped both hands in her lap. She ached for her mother, the pain she had experienced in trying to make a better life for her husband. Alexia would have done the same. And if anything happened to Kiren... “The Soulless think I can prevent their curse.”

  Dana’s eyes widened, their lively green brimming with terror. She grasped her shoulders. “You cannot. We are given only our lifetime through which to navigate our gifts. You can return to any point in your existence, but to step beyond?” She shook Alexia. “It is not possible.” She blinked away, as though calculating something more. “And even if it was, there can only be one. Do you understand? Only one.” She leveled so they were staring eye to eye. “If you were to step into another time, what would become of your grandfather, of me?”

  Alexia’s mouth worked, no coherent reply forming. Could she destroy her ancestors by jumping beyond the bounds of her own timeline?

  Dana’s hands came together supplicating. “You have your own time. Do not ruin ours.”

  “You said it is not possible.”

  “It is not.”

  Her insides curled from the selfish wish, the guilt withering her heart. She wanted to do the impossible, to save them all.

  “If I cannot go back, then we have no issue.” Alexia shook her head.

  “Good.” Dana smiled. “Now go and learn. Practice your gift, but do not push too far too fast.”

  Thirty-Seven

  Complications

  Birds twittered free from their branches, launching into the sky, the only movement in the still lane. Amos pulled his hood closer, shading himself from the offending sunlight and focusing on the cottage ahead.

  He glanced back over his shoulder. It was too still. He hissed as daylight scraped across his lower cheek, further frustrated by the empty lane behind him. Yesterday he snuck away from the others, found his way across the province, and reached the signal point. He had no indication as to what the signal would be, except that he would recognize it.

  A breeze chilled his skin and he turned.

  Amos froze.

  The child, blonde ringlets, eyes thick enough to be buried in, dressed as finely as any king’s child stood in the lane, grinning. Her delicately gloved fingers clasped in patience, chin high.

  He jerked about, searching for another set of eyes, a body, some evidence that this was wrong. She should not be here. She should have been apprehended by the Kingdom faction and carried off to prison for her betrayal.

  Bellezza grinned widely, but smugly—as though her father had just given her a pony she’d manipulated him into offering. “The victor returns.”

  “What are you doing here?” he hissed.

  “You did not truly believe I would allow you to have it, did you?” Her hands turned over, revealing a canvas wrapped package, and the hairs on his arm stood on end. “After you left me for dead.”

  He could still salvage this situation. Think. Think. “It had to look convincing.”

  Her grin deflated to a flat line, her voice lowering. “What an excellent idea.”

  Cold mist exploded about him. The girl was gone. Fog hovered over him, a suffocating weight muting the sunlight to a hazy orange, the hue of rotted fruit or stench of death, the heaviness of suppressed rage.

  Pain exploded through his chest. Fingers curled about his heart, crushing down with a teasing squeeze. “How about this?” The whisper hovered at his ear. “Is it convincing?”

  Mist curled about his chest in an intimate embrace from the demon child. Misery reddened the corners of his vision. He couldn’t respond even if he wished.

  Her cackle stained the air. “You poor, pathetic sod.” Her wrist twisted.

  White lightning shot through his body. A scream ripped from his lungs.

  “No one crosses me and lives.” Her grip tightened. “But as you cannot die, I promise, your torture will be excruciating, ingenious, and eternal.”

  Amos wished death would present itself and take them both.

  Bellezza screeched, the shrillness burning his ears. She released him and Amos tumbled to the ground, vapor sucking away from his skin. He clutched at his chest. The girl stood, legs wide, shrieking.

  He covered his ears, begging them not to burst.

  Light glistened off the golden tip of an arrow that speared through her palm. The wrapped necklace lay on the ground
at her feet.

  Amos scrambled forward.

  Shadows fell over him. A line of hulking silhouettes walled them in.

  Bellezza tore the arrow out of her flesh, blood staining her satin glove and dribbling down her elbow to drip on the packed dirt. A boot landed over top the pendant, a crossbow aimed right at the girl’s head with another arrow nocked.

  Bellezza dropped the bloodied arrow and burst into nothing. Mist cleared, and a ring of crimson eyes followed the half-rotted hand that plucked the necklace from the dirt.

  In unison, the Soulless turned their backs on Amos and walked silently away.

  He fumbled to his knees, ready to spring after them.

  Pain sliced through his ribs. He gasped and looked down. Blackened blood oozed around the strange dagger protruding through his flesh and spearing his heart. He lifted his eyes to the bearer of the weapon, a woman with a delicate facial structure and crimson pupils. The red in her eyes faded, leaving a piercing green.

  Had the red been an illusion?

  Her short-cropped hair was reflective of Soulless style and near black, but the taint of rot didn’t cling to her.

  He gasped. “Deiliey.”

  She twisted the weapon and he toppled to one side.

  Bellezza solidified in the bushes off the road as the woman straightened and removed her dagger, wiping it on his clothes. She tucked the weapon into her belt and followed after the Soulless.

  Bellezza hazed to the miscreant’s side and felt for a pulse.

  Dead.

  She stared after the woman. There was a weapon that could kill the Soulless. She’d heard rumors, but it was true...

  Thirty-Eight

  Learning

  Sunlight pooled over the drooping line of flowers, the first clear day Alexia had seen all week. She shook her mind clear and eyed Mae, ready to spar, poised on the safe side of the line, rolling pin raised like a club.

  Alexia focused, recalling the instant exactly ten seconds ago when Mae had batted her arm with the kitchen baton. She rubbed the tender skin and called her energies. They bubbled up inside, rising to the surface like a geyser ready to break forth. One of her greatest mistakes at first had been expending too much strength at once. Mae had taught her to envision and utilize only what was needed. Alexia lifted the lid and freed the inner steam. She focused on when she wanted to be in the timeline and reality twisted away—like a curtain being dropped over the present.

  She blinked. Blackness cleared and Mae hefted the rolling pin.

  Alexia tensed and sprung, dodging left, knowing her mentor would fake left and swing right.

  The rolling pin whizzed by. She stilled as Mae hoisted the blunt instrument.

  “Again.”

  Must we? Alexia rubbed her arm reflexively and gasped. It didn’t hurt. Not only that, she didn’t feel ready to pass out. Rather, she felt invigorated, like she’d just taken a quick jog across a room.

  Mae jabbed her in the ribs.

  Alexia wrapped her arms around her aching bones, groaning, and focused again, calling the boiling wellspring to the surface. Three seconds back would do it. She released the energy and willed the change, watching as that curtain blanked out the present once more.

  She blinked, and blackness dropped away like a stone.

  “Again,” Mae said. Alexia leapt back. The innkeeper stabbed the air with the rolling pin. She straightened. “Ah, you have figured it out.”

  “Finally,” Alexia muttered, but she couldn’t help a grin at the pride in her hostess’s face.

  “Now we must practice until it becomes a reflex.”

  Alexia grunted and readied for more pain.

  Thirty-Nine

  Gathering

  Mist pulled together in the thicket where Kiren and Miles had made camp, and Ethel collapsed at Kiren’s feet. He knelt and lifted her up. Her body heaved with the force of panting, limbs shaking. The tang of sweat and copper hit him, the front of her smock riddled with dried crimson blotches.

  “What happened?” he asked. His horse stamped and shook itself, obviously scenting the blood staining Ethel’s smock. Miles uncovered his face and lifted onto an elbow.

  She leaned against Kiren. Salt scented the wind, the saline of tears. “There were too many.”

  “Too many?”

  He, Ethel, and Lester had parted ways three days ago and gone different directions to gather in the Passionate, carefully following Edward’s map of the known persons. Lester took the north and west, being the fastest. Ethel took the South. He and Miles took the road to London.

  Ethel lifted a hand, offering her palm.

  A sharing. It was easier than relating the experience through words. He shot Miles a silent invitation and took her hand. Closing his eyes, he welcomed the vision.

  Ethel pulled herself into a solid state, feet touching down in the muddy lane. She’d been to three villages today and informed the Passionate residents of the gathering. The news was received with a mix of fear and excitement. She’d been welcomed and fed graciously in two households, but the others... She saw one man’s determination to stay in the set of his stubborn chin, regardless of the directive, and she’d actually been chased away from another home at rapier point.

  Despite that, this was the visit she’d been dreading most.

  She lifted her gaze to the hamlet. The little town had hardly changed a day since she’d left two hundred years ago. They still built with the same shoddy thatching for roofs, and the permanent perfume of cherry blossoms clung to everything. The orchards surrounding the place were in full bloom, a flush of green and red setting off the rural settlement.

  A soft whisper of wind carried past her ear, one she knew. “Hello, Sybil,” she said.

  “Felice.” Her mirror image appeared beside her, except where Ethel’s white hair was neatly gathered in a braid, her sister’s was wild and free, swirling on the wind.

  “I no longer answer to that name,” Ethel reminded her.

  “Casting off your name will not change who you are.” The flatness of Sybil’s tone didn’t surprise Ethel. Her sister knew only one way to be—frank and forthright.

  “And that is where you and I shall never agree.” Ethel faced her twin, arms crossed. She had abandoned so much more than a name when she left this place.

  Sybil twirled a dismissive hand in the air. “If you are not here to resurrect an old disagreement, why did you waste your strength?” She leaned forward, entering Ethel’s space. Fruity tartness taunted Ethel’s nose—the familiar scent she had grown up with, the perfume of a sister she’d snuggled with on chilly nights and turned to after nightmares.

  Sybil’s face fell. “This is not an unplanned visit. You are groveling at that king-lover’s feet and bending to his every whim.”

  Ethel’s toes curled in her shoes. She hated that Sybil uprooted her calm so easily. It was what her sister wanted, for her to have returned permanently, but it would never come to pass.

  “Well, what message have you to deliver this time?”

  Ethel’s visit here was pointless. Sybil and this Breeder community would never join with the others. She may as well be offering hay to a lion. “The Passionate are gathering.”

  Sybil huffed. “You mean to say, the Kingdom faction is demanding for people to gather. I had heard.”

  For all their years apart, her twin had yet to grasp the depth of her commitment to the would-be king. Ethel lifted her chin. “You should come with me.”

  Her sister scowled. “Have you gone mad?”

  She let out a loud sigh. “Whether you choose to follow him or not, he has protected our young and allowed us to thrive in this land.”

  Sybil’s mouth puckered.

  “He cannot do so any longer.”

  Her twin’s eyes widened.

  A shriek carried down the thoroughfare. They both whirled. A boy of six charged through the street as shapes flooded out of the trees, fluttering, black, upright.

  Ethel’s heart stopped. They would no
t attack in the daylight, not when they had no power beyond brute force! The sun still hugged the sky!

  But she couldn’t dismiss what she was seeing. At least fifty bodies charged down the street and swamped into the meager buildings. Passionate burst from the confines like birds between trees.

  She took a stance, prepared to fight. Sybil crouched in her periphery. The Soulless had made a grave error taking on a village with almost twenty full-blooded Passionate. The enemy was out-manned, no matter their numbers.

  Something flashed silver as it whirled through the air and wrapped itself around a man’s neck.

  A chain.

  Metal! They were wielding metal?

  Light flipped toward her. She misted. A dagger sliced through the space, stealing the air from her lungs, but passing through without damage.

  Sybil disappeared.

  Not only were they wielding metal, they had recognized her as a child of the mist—else why would she have been one of the first attacked?

  Reflected glimmers of alloy blinked all through the skirmish. Ethel begged Sybil silently not to do anything foolish. This was no crazed scuffle. Soulless attacked in ranks, sticking close together and focusing on one enemy at a time, their limbs masked from the sun and from the metal they wielded.

  The boy who’d first screamed hid behind a trough. Ethel materialized enough to wrap her arms around him and break into the void. She deposited him out front of the inn on scorched earth.

  “Me da!” He turned on her. “Don’t let ’em take me da!”

  She leapt back through space and perched precariously on a roof. Chaos filled the street.

  Mist broke and bent in the form of her sister, robbing a scythe here, beheading a Soulless there. She popped in and freed the chain from a woman’s ankles, rocking back a second before a blade twirled through her space.