Sacrifice (The Wayward King, The Projector's Mother, and A Prophecy Reborn) (A Fated Fantasy Quest Adventure Book 9)

by Rachel Humphrey - D'aigle

  “We cannot assume one way or another. Not with my son. However, even with the knowledge of the gift, I do not see how he’d be able to stop it. Blood is blood. It’s the most powerful form of magic there is.”

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” Meghan asked. There were a few eye rolls and don’t say that, looks. “It doesn’t work, and we come up with a plan B,” she followed up. “And this is by far, the safest plan we can come up with. It’s a trip through memory lane. All I can do is try. And I want to try.” She peered at Ivan and Sebastien poignantly. She needed two anchors.

  They nodded without apprehension. They trusted her judgement.

  “You’re right,” Ivan conceded. “It is the safest option. And the information we could potentially glean might prove invaluable.”

  “Okay, then,” said Isabella. “I’ll get things ready.”

  It didn’t take long. Meghan’s nerves itched under her skin a little. Nona wasn’t helping any. She was not up for this plan one little bit because like last time, it meant being away from Meghan. Her mind would be traveling through a dream-like history, and she’d be stuck here in the present.

  “But you’ll be keeping watch,” reminded Meghan.

  “Yes. I still don’t like it when our minds lose each other.”

  “It won’t be for long.”

  “It took many long hours last time, and it was just a short period of history you were searching for.”

  “We won’t let too much time pass,” promised Ivan. “Assuming it’s possible to tell?” he aimed at Meghan.

  “Not really. But if we can’t find what we need, or it feels like it’s taking too long, we’ll come back out.”

  “We could always do sessions?” suggested Sebastien. “It is a crazy amount of years we need to surf through.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Isabella said.

  “We’ll see how it goes,” decided Meghan. “Okay, ready?” she asked Ivan and Sebastien. They responded by taking a seat, one of them on each of her sides. They had gotten seated comfortably since they’d be unconscious for quite some time while traveling through the blood history.

  Meghan did the obligatory blood sacrifice to bond her anchors to herself, and stared into the flame, and as before, streaks of fiery lines forged across her skin. She focused all her thoughts around her father, waiting for his silhouette to appear in the flame and tell her she’d connected with his history.

  But it didn’t happen. She focused and focused. Waiting. Waiting. Searching. But nothing.

  “Sorry, I must be more nervous than I thought.”

  “We could wait,” her mother suggested.

  “No. No. I can do this.”

  She breathed deeply, unwilling to give up. She let her mind wander deeper into the flame.

  Still nothing.

  And then, hideous laughter, which filled and echoed around the cave dwelling.

  “What is that?” Ivan asked.

  “I don’t know,” Meghan said. “We haven’t sunk into the visions yet.”

  The laugh got louder and Isabella gasped when a bolt of lightning sparked around the room. Ivan jumped to his feet, palm at the ready for an attack. But the strobe light and laughter made it impossible to focus.

  “Something’s wrong,” Meghan shouted. Something didn’t feel right. Like the spell was starting, but it was way different than the last time. Sebastien grabbed onto her, yelling something she did not hear.

  Aloyna was saying something to Isabella, who was groping through the light bombs. The laughter dissolved into an eerie echo: Fazendiin.

  “Naughty, naughty,” he taunted. “Daddy’s blood is off limits.”

  Meghan got to her knees but keeled over, a painful tug ripping at her insides as if she were being hurled through space. Sebastien gripped her, unwilling to let go. She looked up and caught his gaze, but they were not focused on her, but rather the light bombs throbbing around them, and the light merging, encasing the two of them.

  Ivan tried to get back to them but to no avail. He hit the light shield and bounced backwards. Nona tried as well, but the same outcome.

  “Meghan!” Ivan shouted, but there was no response.

  She and Sebastien were flickering in and out of view.

  “What’s happening? What is this?” He spun to see Aloyna and Isabella pass a knowing glance between each other. “You know. Both of you.” He marched over to them. “You expected this. When does it stop? When do the lies stop?”

  A bright light grew, Ivan saw it expanding out of Meghan’s locket. The light encased both she and Sebastien and then, BOOM. They were gone. The room plummeted into darkness.

  In a moment, light returned. And Ivan’s gaze hammered into his mother’s. The woman he’d only recently discovered was still alive.

  “What. The Hell. Is going on? No more secrets!” He’d hit his limit. And finally understood what Meghan must have felt like these last couple of years.

  “You’re right,” said Aloyna. “No more secrets. Sit. I’ll tell you everything.” She was far too calm considering what just happened.

  “All I want to know is where did my sister just go?”

  Nona purred out an angry hiss in agreement.

  “Exactly where she needed to.” Aloyna motioned for him to sit, wearing a compassionate smile. One Ivan was not ready to accept yet. And his mother, his own mother… why did he expect anything less? The woman had faked her own death and left him with his father, who’d died not long after.

  He took the offered seat, but would only listen with a skeptic heart, and mind.

  “What is happening here?”

  Aloyna cast a glance at Isabella, then to Nona, and back to Ivan.

  “Meghan is exactly where she’s supposed to be. I promise.”

  “That did not answer my question.”

  “Ivan, we have finally reached that pivotal moment where the past is catching up to the future.” He looked ready to explode if someone didn’t come clean, immediately.

  “Son,” said Isabella. “Meghan is about to create our greatest weapon in this war.”

  “What do you mean by this?” It was Nona who demanded an answer.

  “Yes, what great weapon? And why can’t she do that here?” Ivan demanded to understand.

  “I will explain all, and I will start from the beginning.” Aloyna shifted to get comfortable. Ivan sighed miserably. This was not going to be a short story.

  “I’ll make some tea,” Isabella offered.

  ##

  The strobe-light craziness slipped away, leaving Meghan and Sebastien in an embrace of hanging on for dear life. Everyone else in the room got blurry and hard to see as this bright light swept over the two of them. It’s coming from my locket, she realized, right as things got even crazier. The light had entombed the two of them like some kind of shell of protection. But from what? Just what did her father have in store for her?

  No, this wasn’t her father. It had started out that way. This was coming from her locket. The one her mother had wrapped around her neck as an infant. The one with the thorns that pricked her skin, now and again.

  And that’s when she heard the voice. She dared take a larger look around herself.

  “What’s going on,” asked Sebastien, shock thick in his throat.

  Directly around them was this silvery shield where all was calm, but outside, it was like pure chaos passing them by. But it was moving so fast nothing made any sense. It was just a series of unidentifiable shadows and movement.

  “You are going to where you need to be.” The voice, it became clearer.

  Meghan gasped. “Who are you?” A woman in white approached, and Meghan recognized her as the woman she’d once tried to wake up. But had been told now was not the time. Apparently, today was the time.

  “I am no one. And everyone. I am magic, in its purest form. And I’m here to take you where you need to go. Do not worry. Your father cannot reach you in here. You’re safe from his grasp.” Her silhouette b
egan to fade. “You’re almost there now. I will see you again, soon.”

  Meghan and Sebastien eyed each other, like, what the heck is going on, and where the heck were they going, and holy hell, I suddenly feel like I can’t breathe and…

  It stopped.

  Everything stopped.

  The bright silvery light was gone.

  The cave where her mother and grandmother and Ivan and Nona were, was gone.

  They were surrounded by earth, below them, and trees around them. A starry night sky, high overhead. Slowly and cautiously, they got to their feet, checking out their surroundings before taking a single step. Meghan refused to let go of Sebastien for fear they might get separated. If they were stuck in some memory, he was her only anchor now. Ivan hadn’t made the trip.

  Meghan stared upward for a moment and drew her gaze down to fix on Sebastien’s.

  “What the heck happened?” he asked her.

  “I can’t say,” she shook her head. “This is nothing like the last time. Last time, it was like walking through dreams. Watching old memories, like movies. It wasn’t like being bounced through a disco hall, or so loud and chaotic.” She glanced down at her locket.

  “Who was that woman?”

  “You heard what I heard.” Meghan kicked her foot across the ground. “This dirt is quite real feeling.”

  “So we’ve gone somewhere then,” he guessed. “Your father must have been prepared for you to try this.”

  “So much for getting one up on him.”

  “I wonder how far away we are from everyone. He must be vying for time. Wanted us separated from everyone else.”

  “Maybe. He wouldn’t know though, when, or if I’d actually try this. Only that I might. And whatever he was trying to do, I think whoever that woman is in my locket, she intervened.”

  “So we are wherever she sent us?” He reached out and touched one of the trees.

  “It’s not like we couldn’t touch things when I went through my memories before,” Meghan explained. “But it very much had the sense of memory, not real. This,” she knocked upside the tree his hand was on. “This is real.”

  “Okay, so we gotta figure out where we are. Why we’re here. And how to get home.”

  “I agree. And we can probably let go of each other,” she added awkwardly. He still had one of his hands firmly in hers.

  “Oh, yeah. Right.” He let go, and they separated a little. Venturing out a few steps.

  “Listen,” he whispered a second later. “C’mon,” he grabbed her hand again and they swept through the trees until they thinned out a little. Not far away were the sounds of civilization. People. Music. Revelry. Other noises they could not identify.

  “Do you think we should?”

  “Do we have a choice? We need to find out where we are. I could go like a bird,” he grinned lightly. She gawked at their hands, once again wound together. And shook her head.

  “I don’t want to get separated. I know you can transform on the fly, but, let’s just stick together until we know where we are.”

  He wasn’t about to argue. And looked far too happy to hold her hand, which gave Meghan’s stomach another flip flop. Anymore of those and she was going to turn inside out.

  They meandered cautiously through the thinning trees until they reached the backside of a building. They walked along until they came to an alleyway, separating it, and another building. It appeared there was a bustling town just on the other side.

  Meghan stared down it; there was something familiar about this alleyway.

  “What is it?” Sebastien questioned her puzzled stare.

  “Deja vu I guess. Feel like I’ve been here before.”

  They stared down the long alley. Did they go through, see what was on the other side? It sounded like a bustling town, and there were shapes of people walking by from time to time, far in the distance. Perhaps they’d just get lost in the crowd and not be noticed. If they were lucky, Meghan had been here before, and would recognize the place.

  She took a bold step and led the way. Sebastien kept his eye behind them and bumped into her when she came to an abrupt stop a few seconds later. She was staring at an empty and parked wooden cart. Why was this familiar to her? Where had she seen this before?

  “Are you remembering something?” Sebastien hoped. “Recognize where we are?”

  “There’s something familiar.” She blew it off and took them past the cart towards the active town ahead. Only to pop out onto the street, freeze, and feel Sebastien drag her back into the shadow of the alley.

  “People should not be dressed like that,” he muttered loudly. “We land in some medieval fair or something?”

  Meghan peeked out around the corner. Sebastien’s head popped out above hers.

  “This isn’t any fair, Sebastian. You can’t turn an entire town into something like this.” Unless they’d landed in some amusement park or something, but she didn’t see any rides!

  They pulled themselves back in and stood flat against the wall, mulling over the possibilities. Ignoring the one blatant choice, because it wasn’t possible. It was the simplest explanation, but just not possible!

  Meghan shoved her hands outward. “This is stupid. I’m just going to go out there because there has to be a logical explanation.” She marched around the corner right into a girl, around ten years old.

  “Apologies, Miss. I did not see you.” She curtsied, gave Meghan a smile and continued on. Sebastien yanked Meghan back inside the safety of the alley.

  “Holy crap. Crap. Crap. It’s real. We are definitely not stuck in a memory. That girl was real, and she saw me.”

  “I’m just gonna come out and say it,” Sebastien stumbled out the words. “I think, somehow we went back in time.”

  “And that doesn’t make us crazy at all. Because that is not possible. And yet…” she threw her hands outward motioning crazily to the town, which screamed, history! The past!

  “Okay, um, let’s just say we have, gone back in time,” Sebastien continued. “Why? And how? And how the hell do we get home? And just what year, is this?”

  Meghan’s head flipped back to the empty cart they’d passed.

  “Oh my God. I know where we are. When we are,” she corrected.

  “And?”

  “About a few hundred years ago, I’d wager.”

  “Um. Okay. I’ve seen some crazy kinds of magic, but this is…”

  Meghan breathed out. “We have come back to the time of the Stone War, Sebastien. When Aloyna was first cursed into the glass. And she was working with Jasper to stop my father.”

  “How do you know?”

  She pointed back at the cart. “I saw that cart get blown up. And Jasper and Aloyna were in the alley, talking. About the fake, made up prophecy.”

  He blew out a ragged exhale and plunked back against the wall.

  She joined him a second later. “So now what?”

  “Still trying to wrap my brain around the whole back in time thing.”

  She glanced down at her locket wishing she could ask the woman inside just what she was doing here, and how they’d get back home?

  “We’re here for a reason, Sebastien. I guess we just have to… go out there and find out why.”

  “Okay. Yeah. Um, we’re not exactly going to fit in. But that, I can fix. As long my magic still works here.” He took another peek around the corner and investigated more closely, the typical clothing of the day, and came back to Meghan. “Ready?”

  “Yup. But, you know,” she stopped him. “Make it look good.”

  He laughed, and grinned. “I would never dream of doing anything, but.” It was funny how some things didn’t change.

  In a single inhale and exhale, and wave of Sebastien’s hand, they’d both gotten a wardrobe change.

  “I really need to learn how to do that,” she told him.

  “I can teach you. Some other time, when we’re not stuck in the past.”

  “Yeah, one problem at a time.�
�

  “How’d I do?” he asked her.

  She glanced down at herself. It was a deep red, form-fitting tunic that fell down her back but stopped at her stomach. It clasped in the front with black buckles. She had black pants on underneath and tall boots with matching black clasps.

  “If we ever get to dress up for Halloween again, I’ll let you magic me a costume.”

  He chuckled. “Ready for this?”

  “Nope.” She stepped out anyway. And just as Sebastien made it to her side, she stopped and froze. It appeared they were not going to make it very far without stopping. Meghan’s gaze fixed on the two people hurrying in their direction.

  “Wow,” muttered Sebastien. Meghan’s mouth just hung open.

  The pair cast Meghan and Sebastien a curious look but stepped right by, clearly in a hurry to get somewhere. Their gait held a sense of urgency. But then the woman stopped, glanced to her side wearing a curious expression, and spun around. Her gaze searched Meghan up and down. Her companion did the same only after realizing he was suddenly bustling along, alone.

  The woman approached Meghan, a confused look in her eye.

  “I smell you,” she muttered. “But I don’t know you. Why do I smell my blood in you?”

  Meghan stammered over a few non-sensical words. The woman’s companion came up alongside the woman.

  “Aloyna?” he questioned. It was Jasper Thorndike. And her grandmother.

  “Who are you?” Aloyna ordered quietly, like they were trying not to draw too much attention.

  The only words that came to Meghan’s mind were, the truth.

  “I’m your granddaughter. From the very distant future. And that doesn’t sound like a direct ride right to the looney bin.”

  “I have no grandchildren.”

  “She did say the distant future,” Jasper responded, as if the idea was not at all preposterous.

  “I only have one son.”

  “Yeah, that’s my dad,” she tried to make light. “I wasn’t raised by him,” she clarified abruptly.

  Aloyna lifted a brow. Jasper gave her a shrug that only she understood the meaning of. Her grandmother sighed.