A key turned in the front door of the apartment. Alexa froze.
The door opened, then closed quietly.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. They halted briefly before growing closer. Someone entered the sitting room and came to a standstill.
‘Hi,’ said Jackson behind her.
Alexa stared rigidly at the dim figure reflected in the glare of the windows. She saw him drop the unopened mail on the coffee table and shrug out of a winter coat. Still, she did not turn around. He stopped several steps behind her.
‘This is all still quite strange,’ he said finally. A rueful sigh left his lips. ‘I remember what happened in the cave with Cavaleti. After that, everything went blank for a while. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in Boston, a medical miracle in the making.’ His tone turned dry with his last words.
Despite the whirlwind of emotions threatening to engulf her, Alexa’s lips twitched slightly.
‘I had a very long and interesting talk with a guy called Reid Hasley, as well as the two immortals we met in Paris,’ said Jackson thoughtfully. ‘I believe they are related to you in a...strange and distant fashion.’
Alexa remained mute.
‘After I listened to what they said, I told them to pull the other one,’ Jackson continued with a chuckle, ignoring her silence. ‘When I realized they weren’t kidding, I was dumbfounded to say the least. Then, Reznak visited and imparted some more…how shall I say…critical knowledge about what he had found in the caves in the Urals.’
Alexa saw him rub his chin in a pensive gesture.
‘The way I understand it, Hasley told me I’m now officially a superhuman,’ Jackson mused. ‘I asked him whether this included the ability to jump off tall buildings. He told me to stop being an ass. He also said that if I ever decided to try it, to save him and Lucas front row seats.’
Alexa bit her lip to stop from smiling. She had gotten to know Reid Hasley a little in the few days before she left Boston. The former US Marine and Boston PD detective was not a man in the habit of mincing his words. She could see why Lucas had chosen him as his best friend and business partner.
‘I don’t know whether you’ve spoken to Reznak recently, but I also had some crucial information to convey when we were in that cave in Russia. Unfortunately, Cavaleti kinda ruined my plans,’ said Jackson. He took a step toward her. ‘After I was captured by Kronos, they forced me to translate the artifacts they had in their possessions—at gunpoint I might add.’ He paused and she glimpsed the dry grin that flashed across his lips. ‘It was at that time that I experienced what can only be described as an epiphany. Call it that moment of clarity that comes when some bastard is threatening to shoot you in the kneecap. Anyway, I finally grasped the message behind the Emerald Tablet and the Mutus Liber. Of course, I spouted a lot of nonsense to Cavaleti. Not long before you barged into that room where he had me shackled to the wall, I finally told him the truth.’
Jackson took another step. Alexa felt the warmth of his body inches behind hers.
‘The key ingredient to making the Elixir of Life was not the shells of the original immortals.’ His breath stirred her hair as he spoke. ‘It was their hearts. That was the secret to making the Philosopher’s Stone. Despite the fact that the vault where they were stored was not damaged during the attack on Reznak’s lab, Kronos completely overlooked them. The sect never knew of their existence. Needless to say, Cavaleti was pissed.’
Alexa did not dare to breathe.
‘The tablet and the Wordless Book divulged another secret,’ said Jackson, his tone sobering. ‘You see, the power of the immortal races is this. The seventeen pieces of an immortal’s soul physically reside inside their heart. I believe this in turn explains Lucas’s ability to be able to shatter them in a single strike.’
Air left her lips in a soundless rush.
‘Oh, by the way, Anna wanted me to tell you—she’s expecting twins.’
This time, Alexa did not suppress the smile that came to her lips. Her vision blurred.
‘So, is this gonna be the kind of relationship where I do most of the talking?’ said Jackson after a while. ‘Not that I mind or anything, but you might soon get—’ He stopped abruptly.
She had turned to face him.
As she stared at him through a glimmering haze, Alexa realized something momentous.
He was here. He was whole. And he was hers for however many decades they would have together.
His ice-blue eyes once again turned to cobalt. Jackson took her in his arms.
‘Don’t cry,’ he whispered softly in her hair.
THE END
Thank You
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Author’s Note
Once again, writing this book was a complete thrill-ride of an experience. I thoroughly enjoyed the research aspect of King’s Crusade (a bit too much, actually) and thought I’d share some of its interesting “facts and fictions” with you.
There have been several Battles of Narva. The one featured in the prologue of King’s Crusade is the November 1700 skirmish, which saw Charles XII, the young Swedish King, defend his lands against the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great. The city was eventually captured by the Russians during the second siege in 1704.
The tombs that Dimitri Reznak uncovered in the Eastern Desert mountains in Egypt were said to be the precursors upon which subsequent Egyptian dynasties would base the sarcophagus. This is obviously fictional. In 2002, archaeologists discovered the world’s oldest sarcophagus on the Giza plateau in Egypt. It is thought to be 4,500 years old. The final resting places of Crovir and Bastian and the wall of scrolls in the second cave were inspired by the burial chamber of Tuthmosis III, an Egyptian king of the 18th dynasty, whose tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings, opposite Thebes (modern Luxor), in 1898.
Alexa King’s trishula birthmark and sai daggers were inspired by the three-pronged spear used by the Hindu deities Shiva and Durga, as well as two gods of Greco-Roman mythology, Poseidon and Neptune.
The Mutus Liber, or Wordless Book, and the Emerald Tablet are two of several alchemical texts claiming to outline the process of making the fabled Philosopher’s Stone. The latter is thought to be either a substance that could turn base metals into gold or a potion that could grant immortality; hence, it is also known as the Elixir of Life. A copy of the fifteen color illustrations of the Mutus Liber can be found in the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Alchemy and Rosicrucianism both exemplify the concept and principles of Esotericism. Notable historical figures thought to have been Rosicrucians include Leonardo Da Vinci, Napoleon Bonaparte, Rene Descartes, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. The Rosy Cross or Rose Croix symbol of Rosicrucianism can also be found in Freemasonry, for example in the Knight of the Rose Croix, the 18th degree of the Scottish Masonic rite.
According to ancient scriptures discovered in the 14th century, Guru Rinpoche, the lotus-born Second Buddha, was invited to Tibet by King Trisong Detsen during the 8th century AD and was thought to have been responsible for introducing the doctrines of esoteric Buddhism to what was then the Tibetan empire.
The underground cities of Kronos in the Ural Mountains were inspired by Derinyuku, a vast underground city in Cappadocia, a historical region in ancient Central Anatolia, Turkey. Derinyuku is thought to have been built between the 5th and 10th century BC and is one of several large underground cities that has been discovered in Turkey.
A lot of this research material is on my website, as “Extras” under the “Bonus” section. I also regularly feature the music that inspired and accompanied many of the scenes in the books under the “News” section.
Acknowledgments
To Kat, Wendy, Lorraine, Shaheel, Steve, and Svein, my fantastic beta-readers. Without your precious feedback, this book would not be what it is today.
To Glendon Haddix, for coming up with that stunning cover and for always being such a pleasure to work with.
To Liam Carnahan from Invisible Ink Editing, whose thoughtful critique helped produce a hopefully more exciting read. Thank you for helping me cull those dastardly adverbs and pauses!
To the wonderful Ashley Chen, the brains behind FireStarBooks. To Pragya Sharma from Reviewing Shelf, Orchid from The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia, and Jessica Reid from Read My Breath Away who all won a paperback copy of Soul Meaning, the first novel in the series Seventeen, through FireStarBooks.
Other Titles by AD Starrling
Soul Meaning* (Seventeen Book One)
*National Indie Excellence Awards Winner Fantasy 2013
*National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist Adventure 2013
*Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist Action-Adventure 2013
*Hollywood Book Festival 2013 Honorable Mention General Fiction
Greene’s Calling** (Seventeen Book Three)
**Due for release 2014
About AD Starrling
AD Starrling was born on the small island nation of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean and came to the UK at the age of twenty to study medicine. After five years of hard graft earning her MD and another five years working all of God’s hours as a Paediatrician, she decided to return to her first love, writing. King’s Crusade is her follow-up novel to Soul Meaning and the second in the award-winning supernatural thriller series Seventeen. She currently lives in Warwickshire in the West Midlands, where she is busy writing the next installments. She still practises medicine. AD Starrling is her pen name.
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http://www.adstarrling.com/
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