“I think—in some strange way—I’m contagious,” said Kahtar, his hoarse voice cracking. “Because you came back. Thank ilu in heaven, you came back.”
Beth tore her eyes away from Dianta to look at him. His broad shoulders were hunched, and for once he looked his age. Ancient. She saw grief and fear in his eyes. Had he been afraid he’d lost her? Why? He’d abandoned her. Hadn’t come when she needed him most. His doppelganger had used her. Ruined her. Destroyed her.
Unable to move, Beth stared at him. He wasn’t contagious, he was insidious, and he’d walked away, abandoning her. He’d shunned her and left her alone in the veil with that monster!
Under her stare Kahtar flinched. He dropped her gaze but didn’t move away.
Where were you? Where were any of you? She wanted to scream, wanted to rage, wanted to get up and scratch his eyes out. Returning her gaze to Dianta’s trembling face, Beth tried to shove all other thoughts away. All that matters is she’s alive.
Again Kahtar’s face moved into view and her head shifted as his arm slid her closer. “You’re safe now. It would be better if you allowed yourself to remember. You don’t need to be afraid here.”
No.
Kahtar, who so often knew what she was thinking, whispered, “Yes. We are nothing without our hearts. You have to feel, to remember, to heal. Your heart can heal from this.”
No! You don’t know!
“I do know,” Kahtar spoke as though she’d said it in second voice, but she hadn’t. There was nothing she wanted to say to him.
Old Guard and Welcome Palmer circled the bed, their hands touching her, but she couldn’t feel them. She startled when Kahtar continued, “Do you think in all my years that I haven’t been violated? My heart destroyed? In more ways, Beth, than most minds could comprehend.”
Allowing her eyes to focus on his, Beth saw tears in them. Somewhere deep inside her heart she felt his tears and it made her angry. Where were you? Nobody came! I called! I screamed! A sob tore through her. She couldn’t feel it with her body, but she heard it, and in her heart she felt it; pain, a ragged burning pain, consuming her heart—fear, loss, fury, filth.
Old Guard and Welcome were at the foot of her bed, holding her legs in their hands and rubbing them, silent prayers moving their lips, but Beth felt none of it. She focused her anger at Kahtar. He didn’t come! No one came!
Tears slipped out of Kahtar’s eyes, and his lips trembled not unlike Dianta’s. “Welcome has already tended to Dianta. She’ll be fine, and so will you—eventually. I’ll help you.”
Beth felt his warm breath touch her face, and it made her angrier. She tried to shout at him, to rage against his abandonment, to curse the Old Guard for theirs. All that came out was a grunt.
Kahtar swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I failed you. There is no justification for it. The veil should have been safe. I don’t know what happened. None of us do, not even the Old Guard. In all my time I’ve never seen this. It should have been impossible and yet it happened. I am so sorry I failed you.”
Beth managed a dry scream, low in her chest. Welcome Palmer’s face replaced Kahtar’s.
“Don’t upset her right now. This can wait.”
“No, it can’t,” Kahtar argued.
“Send Dianta out at least,” said Welcome and Beth realized her tiny daughter lay on her chest—but she couldn’t feel it, not the body or the heart. Another dry sob ripped through her.
“Beth needs to be with our daughter right now! She needs to be with me!” Kahtar tilted Beth so she could see nothing but him. Closing his eyes, he leaned forward and kissed her. At least Beth thought he did. She couldn’t feel it, but his head bent at that position and he stayed there too long, blocking her vision. She growled, and he backed away.
“I’m sorry. I thought you were gone forever.” His entire face crumpled. “Oh, Beth, I’m sorry!” Tears ran from his eyes and Beth heard Dianta sniff in sympathy and hiccup a small sob.
Somewhere in her heart a vein of heat lighted, feeling their fear and relief. Beth shied away from it, not wanting to feel anything because of the filth that now slimed her heart. Nothing could purify what Kahtar’s doppelganger had done to her, what she’d allowed him to do. She glared at Kahtar for making Dianta cry.
He seemed to understand and kissed their daughter, glancing at an Old Guard who had come to stand by his side. The man gave him a meaningful look.
Kahtar frowned, returning his full attention almost rudely from the Old Guard to Beth. He shifted his arm beneath her and said, “Can you tell me what happened, love?”
Beth dared him with her eyes. He continued, not meeting them, “What we’ve gleaned makes no sense. I think the men who attacked you were from another era. They scanned like seekers from the 1840s. Time travel doesn’t exist, although we’ve long known it’s technically possible. Even if they somehow came from the past, we still don’t understand how they got into the veil. What I’ve always told you about veils has always been true, is true. No one can enter uninvited. They open only to a heart that belongs there. This makes no sense.”
Beth stared at him in silence.
The Old Guard waited beside Kahtar, as though listening for her answer. Beth didn’t care. Where were they when she needed them?
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask if you saw who killed those men?”
Kahtar’s sorry did nothing to assuage the cold fury building inside Beth, or the despair clawing at her.
“There are many veils in the village. Beth, it’s my duty to keep this clan safe. Help me to keep from failing anyone else. Your answer could save someone from the same fate—or worse.” At the sound Beth made, he said, “Yes, there’s worse. There is always worse. You can believe me about that. Dianta is alive, you are alive, and I thank ilu for that. You have every right to be angry, but it is my duty to find out what happened—as the Old Guard have reminded me. Whoever killed those men saved our daughter. Her injuries were fatal. I need to know if someone from the clan was involved in this. It had to be a Covenant Keeper to heal her, someone who cared about Dianta, if not you.”
No! He didn’t care about anybody! He laughed! Beth couldn’t get the words out.
“Only Honor entered the veil after you, and he was seen arguing with you before this happened.”
Beth tried to speak, but it came out as dry gasps.
“Honor doesn’t have the strength to kill like those men were killed, and despite the shunning my heart says he’d have protected you with his life. But he was the only one there who could heal. Somebody healed Dianta, tore those seekers apart, and left you to die. That is an unpardonable crime. Honor’s so guilt ridden he won’t defend himself! He will only say that it’s all his fault.”
“Oopid!” Beth managed, and Kahtar made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
“Yes, Monroe’s stupidity is the one thing you and I could always agree on. But this could cost his life. If you saw anyone else—even if you only caught a glimpse, I need to know what he looked like.”
Beth’s voice came out dry and primal, like an animal trying to speak. “Oo!”
Kahtar ran his left hand over his head. “Me? Do you mean my coloring or that he was big?”
“No,” Beth grunted, at last getting her dry tongue to obey. “You brother.”
“I don’t understand what you mean. I don’t have a brother.”
The way he said it didn’t feel like the truth.
“You do. Must. Hear me. You do. You must have forgot.”
Kahtar’s face went white, and the room went silent. The Old Guard stopped working on Beth’s legs and shimmered brightly. In a blinding flash of light many more appeared, crowding the room. The one standing close to Kahtar grabbed onto his shoulder and jerked, and they vanished.
Without his arm supporting her shoulders, Beth’s head dropped onto the table, but she couldn’t feel it. Colorful lights danced in her eyes as though from a camera flash. Welcome Palmer moved swiftly to catch Dianta before she slid all the wa
y off Beth’s chest, his green eyes wide and wondering. Beth closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see them.
BEING YANKED AWAY from Beth’s side, felt like claws being scraped over Kahtar’s already bloodied and wounded heart. If she never forgave him he couldn’t criticize her for it. He’d promised her much, and none of it had proved true. He’d sworn the veil was safe. He’d promised her his heart, then withheld it and shunned her. Abigail had been right. The truth of his betrayal hit like a spike into his heart. I betrayed the only heart ilu has ever joined to mine.
“Take me back to her,” said Kahtar, but the Old Guard ignored him, moving across dry leaves inside the veil to congregate with others of their kind. For a brief moment Kahtar considered flickering back under his own power. Surely they knew he could, though he had never flaunted the ability.
One of them turned to look at him, his black gaze expectant. Kahtar stomped across the grass to join them. The bodies of the seekers had been taken away. The Old Guard solidified as they moved across the sloping cabin yard, looking like glowing giants from a seeker movie.
Turning his scan on the grass, Kahtar couldn’t sense any information. Facing the cabin he swept his scan across the ground in the other direction, but it too produced no evidence. It looked as if someone had used their gifting to scorch the vegetation, burning away every clue it might hold. Come tomorrow morning it would show. This grass would shrivel and die. In the spring it wouldn’t return. It had all been killed and even the soil beneath it emptied of life. Nothing would ever grow in it.
“Is it like this everywhere?” asked Kahtar, but none of the Old Guard responded. Solidly they continued to search with their black eyes focused on the ground. Who would do such a thing?
Someone had wanted to cover their tracks. Despite the giftings of both warriors and Old Guard, there was now no way to know who else had been in the veil.
“ARE YOU GOING to explain?” The Mother sat across her kitchen table from Kahtar, her hands wrapped tightly around a mug of tea and Kahtar had no doubt it was to still their shaking. For the first time she looked truly afraid of him, and it made him sad.
“How can you expect me to explain the unexplainable?”
“So you have no idea how your wife came back from the dead?” Anwyn let go of her cup to press fingers against her forehead, closing her eyes.
If she thinks it’s tough to say those words, I wonder if she can imagine trying to answer them.
“I don’t know what to think. Nothing makes sense.” Anwyn pressed both hands against her head. “The entire clan is going berserk. People are terrified.”
“Don’t you wonder why that is?” said Kahtar.
The Mother dropped her hands to glare at him.
There you are! I was worried for a minute.
“What are you saying?” she said.
“That we witnessed a miracle. That we should be rejoicing, but I seem to be the only one feeling that way. That maybe the clan is terrified because they’d rather Beth stayed dead.”
The Mother swallowed, her ivory column of neck moving.
You too?
“People don’t come back from the dead.”
“Well, it happened at least once before,” said Kahtar, and waited.
“Are you seriously comparing Beth to the Christ?”
For once Kahtar couldn’t hold her gaze. “Of course not, but it has happened to us now, so apparently it is possible. I can’t assuage the clan’s guilt over the way they’ve treated Beth—nor would I if I could.”
The sigh coming out of Anwyn sounded ancient. “Stick to the facts, Kahtar. Beth died, murdered by seekers inside your veil. Honor is facing a death sentence for killing them. Now Beth is, somehow, alive. Should I send someone to check the seekers’ bodies? Should I consider that they’ve somehow come back to life, too? If so, has Honor committed no crime? No. Of course he has. Despite the outcome now, he did what he did.” She put a trembling hand over her eyes.
“Honor is no friend of mine or Beth’s, but he didn’t kill those seekers. Nor did those seekers kill Beth. Honor wandered in after the fact and he’d assert his innocence if he wasn’t finally aware of how awful he’s treated Beth.”
With a wave of her hand The Mother dismissed the subject of Honor Monroe. “You know it’s impossible for seekers to even get inside a veil. I won’t get into the fact they somehow moved through time! And there are monkeys in your veil? It all fits together only in its madness. I’m having trouble wrapping my head around all this, but it did happen, and one thought keeps whirling to the surface of my mind.” She waited, and eons of obedience at last forced Kahtar’s eyes to hers. “If no one had saved Dianta—would she have come back to life like Beth did?”
“I don’t know,” Kahtar responded honestly. “It doesn’t make any more sense to me than it does to the Old Guard.”
“Welcome sent word that the unborn babe is now viable, or she will be in time.”
Joy sparked in Kahtar’s heart. “How much time?” He wanted more than anything to return to Beth’s side.
“Does it matter? Kahtar, I’m going to ask you a question you will not like. Keep in mind who I am. I have to ask this.”
Kahtar steeled himself.
Anwyn hesitated, then plowed forward. “I don’t think anyone in this clan has ever asked you why you’re physically different than every member of your family. Since your parents died so long ago, I think most of the clan has never given it much thought—until now. Most of us assumed you were a love child, but Jacobson assures me that genetically you are Constantine. I’m going to ask you, Kahtar, for your honesty. Do you have any idea why you look different than your family?”
“I wish I knew. None of any of this makes sense to me!” Kahtar said truthfully.
“Doesn’t it, Kahtar? You have no clue why your wife, like Dianta, and I’m going to assume the unborn babe too, now has your eyes? Did you think we wouldn’t notice?”
Kahtar put both his hands on the table. I owe her an honest answer to this. “I really don’t know why. When Beth opened her eyes it was the strangest moment of my life. Obviously whatever is going on somehow comes from me, but I don’t understand what it is. I wish I did. At least, I think I do.”
“Is there a reason you think you wouldn’t want to know?”
“What if it’s something terrible? What if there’s something dark and twisted that I carry like a disease, and I’ve given it to my family?”
Anwyn looked paler than normal, almost whiter than the woolen Grecian gown she wore. Before she could reply, the door from the mudroom swung open and Abigail Adit huffed in, somehow privy to Kahtar’s last comment. “You mean like a genetic sexually transmitted witches’ curse, Kahtar? Sometimes I think you’re special needs.”
Kahtar looked at the little redhead and fought back the inappropriate urge to laugh. Abigail’s eyes twinkled, and she looked at The Mother and winked. Anwyn’s perfectly sculpted lips twitched faintly.
“If you carried a disease,” Abigail added, “I think that Welcome Palmer or Silas Jacobson would have rooted it out by now. Evil is always a choice, not a genome. You know that.”
Sitting back in his chair, Kahtar relaxed. That is true. All of a sudden exhaustion weighed on him as though gravity had increased tenfold. When was the last time I slept?
“When was the last time you slept?” Abigail mirrored his thinking, and Kahtar had a feeling that it wasn’t a coincidence. “Where will you even sleep now?”
“You’re right, Abigail, and you do look like you could drop, Kahtar,” The Mother agreed. “Of course returning to your veil isn’t an option. It’s obviously not safe. Unless you’re accompanied by several Old Guard and investigating, I don’t want even you to go back there. It sounds like there is no evidence to find anyway.”
“Looks like you’ll be living in the Arc now,” said Abigail, and Kahtar’s heart sank. Why don’t I ever want to live in the Arc? He fought to keep the frown off his face, but one glance at The Mother
and he realized she didn’t want him living in the Arc either, and she wasn’t as successful at hiding it.
“But first Beth is going to need you,” Abigail said. “So I guess you’ll be living at Cobbson for a while, and then you’ll both have to move into the Arc. Maybe you could stay here with The Mother for a while. Anwyn, you’ve got the space, don’t you?”
“No,” said The Mother. “When Beth recovers you can live at her shop. It’s safe enough for her there, especially if you stay with her. I’ll address what to do about her parents when my head stops pounding.”
Relief shot through Kahtar. That would work. He glanced at Abigail and she winked at him surreptitiously. She orchestrated this!
Abigail winked a second time.
BLOODY DETAILS—REMEMBER NOVEMBER
“I’M NOT IMMORTAL,” said Beth with conviction. Thanks to whatever drug Welcome had injected into her veins that fact floated to the forefront of her consciousness. It took her far away from what had happened inside the veil, far away from anger at Kahtar and worries about immortality or mortality. Beth’s head swam freely, her thoughts sliding pleasantly, dark and filthy memories forgotten. “I’m definitely not immortal!”
Kahtar, sitting next to the hospital bed with his head resting near hers, stirred.
“It’s the truth, Kahtar. I’m not immortal. Just because I regenerated from being dead and now have your eyes too, doesn’t mean I’m immortal.” She paused, but Kahtar didn’t look up. “Wake up! Did you hear me?”
“I hear you.” The comment, muffled against a pillow, sounded sad. He lifted his head and tried to smile at her, avoiding her gaze.
“How come you never believe me? Look, my eyes aren’t even really all that much like yours.” Beth managed to heft a hand mirror with her left hand. Unable to really control her muscles, she ended up smacking herself in the face with it. “Glad I couldn’t feel that,” she said from beneath it.
Kahtar took her hand and positioned the utensil so she could see her eyes. Widening them for study, Beth could see flecks of her normal blue in there. “Seriously, look at my eyes. I’m still in there.”
FOREVER The Constantines' Secret: A Covenant Keeper Novel Page 18