Parallel (Mortisalian Saga Book 1)

by L. J. Stock

  Alexa gasped and I sat back on my heels and pulled in a long rasping breath. The prophet? The same nymph that had given me my future? The very woman that had all the answers to all of the questions about what I was supposed to do, and who I was supposed to be, was gone. There was never any guarantee that I would have had the chance to talk to her, but the point was, she could see my future, and now she was gone, and my life was an empty book beyond the point she'd set for me.

  I found Acantha's eyes with my own and tried to understand the emotions that were held behind them. She was so good at hiding the pain that I couldn’t read past the fact that she was upset. Was she scared? Worried? Did she know something we didn’t? I waited with a patience I wasn't even aware I possessed, trying to find what she wasn't saying, until finally, she spoke.

  “Daphnis said something to me, Cass. Something important. I just don't understand it, not fully.”

  I knew how hard this was for her. She had been close to many of the nymphs on the island. It was the very reason she'd been there, to protect her friends, her extended family, and her sisters. I hated asking her questions while she was mourning like this, but I didn't have much of a choice. None of us did.

  “What did she say?” I asked gently, nudging her to talk while trying to stay respectful.

  She took a deep breath and looked at Alexa before focusing once again on me. For some reason, she seemed worried about my reaction. I didn't want pity and I didn't want concern. I'd already decided to move on with my future and stop Thánatos any way I could. Now, it was a matter of carrying it all out and in order to do that, I needed to know everything.

  Acantha fingered a stain on her dress as she took a breath. I knew it was coming and I braced myself, believing I would somehow have more insight to my future than the ancient nymph holding my hand.

  “She said: The present is aligning with the future. The two halves have become one. The wrong is right and the path has been laid out with their hope. Looking back will push them forward and seal their fate. Keep them both safe or the dimensions will be doomed.”

  “I'm not sure I follow,” I said quietly, squeezing her fingers as my own disappointment swirled around me. “It sounds like several sentences strung together to make one. Alone they make some sense, but together they're simply a rant.”

  “I know.” Acantha sighed, pulling our joined hands to her forehead. “She was dying, and I had to fight to hear her. I may have got something wrong. I don't know, Cass. I tried.”

  “We'll figure it out,” I replied with more confidence than I felt. I didn't know the first thing about prophecies. Trying to decode them was so far above my skill set, if it were to land solely on my shoulders we'd never get answers. There had to be meaning in the message.

  “The present aligning with the future. Would that mean you're on the right path?” Alexa asked, leaning against the door of the bathroom while watching the two of us.

  “Perhaps, but in what regard? Her training? Or does it work with the two halves becoming one to point out that she has met the man she's supposed to be with?” Acantha asked, looking up from her bloodstained hands.

  “That's how I'd take it,” Alexa answered. “But what she means about the wrong being right... That doesn't make any sense.”

  I thought I knew what it meant, especially paired with the path has been laid out with their hope, but there was no way I was saying it aloud. I'd already invested too much hope into a future that may never happen. There was no way I was going to have it quashed, let alone reveal my secret to them. No one knew how I felt about Damon. No one realized that I'd already invested myself in hope. What if it was all wrong?

  “It makes perfect sense if you know what you’re looking for,” my mother said from the door behind me. “Say the whole thing again, Mom.”

  Acantha retold the new, slightly scrambled prophecy as my mom came to kneel beside me. Rather than facing Acantha, she instead turned to me, her warm hands turning my face so she was looking directly at me. She knew. My mom knew what I hoped and she believed it with almost as much conviction as I did.

  “Can't you see it? I can dumb it down for you, sweetheart, but I know you caught it, too.”

  My chest physically hurt as the idea that Damon could be the one blossomed through my body and burned brighter than the sun as it wrapped around my heart. All those stolen moments and wasted time, when all along he could have been the one that was supposed to be by my side through all of this. I wanted to believe that. I wanted to agree with what she was saying with every part of my heart and soul, but I couldn’t take the disappointment if we were wrong.

  “I can't let myself hope like that, Mom,” I whispered, tears pooling in my eyes. I couldn't say the rest of what I was thinking because it hurt too much. We were supposed to keep the other safe. It's what was said – keep them both safe or the dimensions will be doomed.

  “Yes, you can!”

  I struggled with my own doubts. I wanted so badly to believe the conclusion I had come to – that my mom had so obviously seen. It felt so right to believe that fate had pushed us together so we could be who we were meant to be, but what if I was wrong? What if Damon wasn't the one they'd been referring to? My mom tilted my head so my eyes found hers. They were so clear and so confident about everything. I wanted that same conviction. I wanted to believe and feed off of that hope.

  I let myself think about it more and I could feel the planted seed growing inside of me. It had to be the truth. It had to be what Daphnis had meant. Why else would he be in my life? Why else would I see nothing but him? Damon was my future. I already loved him. I was already convinced he was the other half of my soul. It had to make sense that he was the other half of the prophecy.

  “But this means it was never just about me. It was always about us. It was always about Damon and I.”

  My mom closed her eyes and smiled, but my heart was in my throat. I'd left him behind. I'd left him in Mortisali.

  Damon was the other half of the prophecy. He had to be. He only knew his mother's heritage, which meant that his father was a descendant of a nymph. It wasn't as rare as people thought. It was the combination that was so divergent – earth and air.

  “Damon?” Alexa asked shocked, pulling my attention from my mother’s face to her. “Why would it be Damon and you?”

  I debated on whether or not to say it. I knew there was a risk if I was wrong, but in all honesty, I believed he was the one. It had always been him. I knew somewhere inside of myself that this was the only truth. I couldn't hide how I felt anymore. I didn't care what happened.

  “Because I love him.”

  Saying it out loud was like a bird flying for the first time. My heart soared. Every weight that sat on top of my shoulders lifted, and I knew with every part of my body, mind and soul what I wanted, and I knew, with an unshakable faith, that everything would work out. If Damon was indeed the other half of the prophecy, I could see my future rolling out in front of me. I could see the possibility of children and happiness, of a life together, and I knew I would die to protect him.

  To protect him.

  I missed Alexa’s response to my revelation, because I now realized that I hadn't protected him at all. I'd left him behind, running after me as I took my own life in my hands and leaped into the fire. All of this time he'd been guarding me, offering his life to keep mine safe, and we never knew he was just as important to the freedom of the people, the freedom of Mortisali as I was. Without him, there would be no prophecy to fulfill. He was the other half.

  I released Acantha's hands as I covered my mouth with my own. After all this time, I finally had some kind of solid answer, yet there was no way Damon could be safe in that world. I needed to move and do something. I was almost rocking on my knees in fear and agitation, and I knew it was doing nothing to help the people in this room trust me enough to leave me alone.

  My mother tried her best to comfort me without saying too much, and while I appreciated it, it didn't make me feel
any better. The only thing that could achieve that was to see Damon alive and well in front of me. It was the only resolution to this tumultuous toiling of emotions inside of me. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have run away from him? If I’d stopped and stayed with him, we’d have been together. We’d have faced all of this together like we were supposed to. We were stronger together.

  The silence reigned for a while longer as the four of us worked over what we'd discovered in our own minds. It wasn't until Acantha broke the heady quiescence that I finally snapped out of the endless loop of pictures in my head.

  “Diane, what are you doing here?” she finally asked after the silence had made the air in the room almost too cloying to breathe. The question made Alexa and I exchange glances, but Alexa shrugged, and gave me a look that said she was more interested in what I hadn’t said.

  “Well,” Mom said, finally releasing her grip on me. “Apparently they already knew about Steven and his wife. We were attacked so the girls brought us here. Steven and his family are downstairs if you'd like to meet them?”

  We all stared at her, each of us in different states of shock at her statement. It was typical of her really. She still wasn't good with quiet explanations, and she just spat out what she wanted to say.

  My mom: the master of diffusing situations.

  Home

  Time seemed to stand still as we waited for news from Mortisali. Acantha met the rest of our family and, like it had with me, it took some convincing for them to believe that this young woman was our maternal grandmother. Of course, after that, we were gathered together. It would have been a nice place to be if it hadn't been for my fear for the family members missing from the small scene.

  My head was not in the room, nor was it in the conversation that was going on around me. I sat on the couch, my eyes on the flames dancing beyond the hearth of the fire, my mind on my father and Damon, and my leg bouncing a mile a minute as the agitation clung to me. Were they safe? Was the battle still raging in the palace?

  I didn't know. No one seemed to know. We'd heard nothing, and it was killing me with every tick of the second hand.

  I concentrated on the fire, my body almost drawn to it in my need to find out anything about my family. As much as I knew I needed to protect myself for the good of the future, the new prophecy had said that we had to protect Damon, too. I'd left him there alone, outside the palace surrounded by danger while he shouted my name.

  I knew he was a capable fighter – he’d taught me to be as well – but he had also sworn to protect my father’s life with his, and I knew he would have had no qualms in doing so if it came down to it. None of them would have, which only seemed to make my fear grow further until I felt sick.

  As my need to see my father and Damon grew, so did my intent stare on the dancing flames. I was so focused, I jumped when a log slipped and the flames shot out of the fireplace in a growl.

  “Cass?” Alexa said, leaning over the back of the couch in an attempt to distract me.

  “Huh?”

  “Try to eat something.”

  “Can't.”

  “Try? For me?”

  I turned my head to look at her, and almost faltered. The look in her eyes was a challenge, a pleading for me to see what she wasn't saying. For a moment I sat there bewildered, and then I looked around. Everyone was in the living room, meaning the kitchen was empty, and there was water in the kitchen, water that would take me where I needed to be the most.

  I could have kissed her.

  “Okay. I'm sure I can find something.”

  Alexa gave me a look as I rose. She wasn't comfortable with what I was about to do, but there was also an understanding there. She would do the same for Zander. She would never have been able to stand back and wait as I'd been doing. As much as she knew I needed to be careful, she also knew I needed answers. I needed to protect Damon if there was any chance of ending this.

  I gave her a subtle nod and moved toward the kitchen slowly so as to not draw attention to myself. Acantha was holding Oliver and humming to him. He seemed captivated by her voice. Mom had been telling everybody that it was a trait of water nymphs to sing people into a state of calm. Apparently they'd been mistaken for sirens or something. Had I been paying attention I would have known more.

  “Cass?” Liana called quietly, separating herself from the group, her hands around her pregnant belly. “I never said thank you.”

  “For what?” I asked, my voice barely audible.

  “Saving our lives. I forget how selfless you are sometimes.”

  I tried to hide my wince at that. I wasn't being selfless right now. In fact, I was being selfish. My need to see whether my father and Damon had survived was making me disregard my own safety. If the fight was still ongoing, I was putting myself right back into the center of the battle. It was a risk I needed to take for my sanity. I wouldn't, and couldn't, sit there for much longer wondering what was happening.

  “Don't be silly. You're my family, Lee.”

  “But you took a risk.”

  “And it was worth it,” I replied with a smile. “You're important.”

  Liana offered me a smile and reached for my hand, squeezing it. “You want me to come with you? I make a mean sandwich.”

  I smiled, the guilt settling in again as I turned over my plan in my head. “No, I can do it. I'm not even sure what I want to eat.”

  “Call me if you need me?”

  I nodded and smiled, catching Alexa's eyes over Liana's shoulder. There was no interpretation needed for what she was telling me. I was running out of time. I squeezed Liana's hand one more time and backed away toward the kitchen, turning at the last moment before stepping inside.

  I wasted no time in pouring water into the sink as I toed off my shoes. My eyes searched the backyard to make sure no one would alert anyone before I was ready. Grabbing my shoes with one hand, I stuck my other hand in the water and thought about Damon with everything I was.

  As the darkness from beyond the window enveloped me and swallowed me whole, my consciousness caught up slowly. I heard the gentle running of the river at the same time as the ice-cold water danced over my feet and ankles. Within seconds, I'd made the connection. The closest water source to the palace that hadn’t been tampered with was the river.

  Great. I was miles away from where I needed to be.

  I used my toes to navigate my way to the banks of the river as quietly as I could, my feet growing colder by the second, sending shivers through me. I would have just given up and gone back to the farmhouse if it had been about anything other than Damon and my father.

  My desperation was what spurred me forward, and as I escaped the cold water onto the bank of the river, I pulled on my shoes between steps, stumbling into the grass. Each of the individual blades sent nefarious sensations through my fingertips as it rustled against me. I tried to get my bearings in the inky darkness that ate everything, and finally found what I deduced had to be the direction of the palace. The faint light was a beacon in the distance beyond the trees.

  I took off at a dead run, my feet systematically pounding against the earth, the grass parting with each of my strides. The farther I ran, the harder my breaths came, the oxygen sawing into my lungs before they released it in heavy pants. I pushed myself harder than I ever had before, my arms and legs finding a rhythm as I tore through the field toward the trees that hadn't seemed that far away when I'd started out.

  The trees eventually started to rise above me, blocking out the few stars there were, as I forced my way through the aches from not having warmed up. The closer I came, the more my eyes adjusted to the darkness. My heart pounded as the shadows in the trees suddenly started moving, pulsing and shifting.

  Latros.

  Skidding to a halt, I caught myself and ducked into the tall grass, concealing myself in the long stalks as my mind processed the obstacle that was ahead of me. I hadn't even thought about the enemy when I'd landed in the river. I hadn't thought through
that they had to have come from somewhere. That they had their base in the small copse of trees to conceal themselves made perfect sense and it should have occurred to me sooner. Only, I hadn't been thinking about that.

  Trying to catch my breath, I let my head process the scene ahead of me. If I wanted to get to the palace, I had to pass through this small line of trees so I would be on the grounds, and then all I had to do was get through the next large, open field to make my way to the building. The meadow, though graced with long grass, was still exposed, but that was a risk I would have to take. If I could get through the trees without being spotted first.

  I moved slowly, heading parallel to the trees until I could see no movement in the deep shadows, and started warily toward the darkness of the narrow wood. Keeping low in the grass, I headed closer, ignoring the trembles in my arms and legs, while all of my senses were attuned to the trees blocking my path to the palace.

  I straightened when I got close enough, slipping in between the tall trunks carefully, my feet kicking out cautiously to find an unobstructed path so I wouldn’t alert anyone to my presence if they were lingering. My gaze moved through the insidious darkness, looking for any sign at all that I wasn’t alone. I could hear the movement deep in the small forest and hoped that the lingering latros weren't blocking my path. Moving from one tree to another with as much stealth as I could manage, I kept my breathing shallow. The unmistakable sound of swords in scabbards echoed through the underbrush and wrapped around me, my only companion in the darkness, and it wasn’t a welcome one.

  I wasn’t sure if they were heading back to the palace or retreating. They could just as easily have been sending another wave to attack or pulling back and tending to their injured troops. I just couldn't tell, because the sounds they were making gave nothing away. Not that it deterred me. I continued on my course, easing through the thicket toward the glow of orange that I hoped were the fires set for the accession, and not the alternative, which was a camp fire for enemy troops. I'd ridden out to the river on plenty of occasions with the baron, but never once had I made the trip in the dark, and my mental compass was not my strong point.