Timeless (Maiden Of Time Book 3)
Page 1
Also by Crystal Collier
Maiden of Time Trilogy:
Moonless
Soulless
Timeless
Short Stories:
Through the Portal (Heroes of Phenomena)
The Fourth Wish (Of Mist and Magic)
The Mirror People (Parallels: Felix was Here)
Book 3 in the
Maiden of Time
Trilogy
By Crystal Collier
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by RAYBOURNE PUBLISHING
Copyright © 2016 by Crystal Collier
www.crystal-collier.com
Cover Design by J. Matthew Collier
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, reproduction, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher and copyright owners.
Summary: Alexia races against her own clock and the birth of her child to stop the Soulless from existing. [1. Fiction. 2. Historical-paranormal. 3. Soulless. 4. Wraiths. 5. Supernatural Creatures. 6. Historical Fantasy. 7. Time Travel. 8. Maiden of Time. 9. Passionate and Soulless. 10. Medieval Times.]
ISBN: 978-1-62983-005-6
Dear Reader,
If you have been with me since Alexia first discovered the mystery behind Moonless nights, you may be saddened to discover that in this novel there is no vicious childlike murderess or socially awkward teen who sees through others’ eyes. However, don’t despair. These characters have won such a place in my heart that they deserved their own novella: BELLEZZA.
Wishing you much readerly joy,
- Crystal Collier
For Kaily,
who embraces all things girly
and assures me it’s okay to
be a hopeless romantic.
Time is the enemy.
In 1771, Alexia had everything: the man of her dreams, reconciliation with her father, even a child on the way. But she was never meant to stay. It broke her heart, but Alexia heeded destiny and traveled five hundred years back to stop the Soulless from becoming.
In the thirteenth century, the Holy Roman Church has ordered the Knights Templar to exterminate the Passionate, her bloodline. As Alexia fights this new threat—along with an unfathomable evil and her own heart—the Soulless genesis nears. But none of her hard-won battles may matter if she dies in childbirth before completing her mission.
Can Alexia escape her own clock?
Prologue: 1849
Five-Hundred Years Back, Five Months Forward
Machines of War
Travelers
Awake
Ocean Deep
Earlier that Day
Familiar Faces
Treachery
Without Time
Warped
Descent
Slides
Blocked
Breathe
Open, I Say
Vanished
Seeds of Torture
An Echo of Chaos
Perspective
Mischief
Disappointment
Decided
The Traitor
Love and Blood
Captive
Angels and Demons
Death
Coup
Death Bringer
The Soul Eater
Sealed
Tides of War
Trapped
Return
Capture
Torture
Timing
Will
Unmasked
Shine the Light
Rush
Flight
Stirring the Pot
Angel of Havoc
Almost
Returning
Leverage
To War
Locked Away
Fated
Waylaid
Abandoned
Abandoned
Ulric
New Life
Crossed Swords
The End
Kneel
Forever
Taken
Complete
Wrong
Saturate
Inside
Reaper
Walls of Light
Close
Finale
Ages
Saying Goodbye: 1849
Ever After
Story Extras
Time holds no meaning
to one what is Timeless
Yet fissures the world
to the old and the new
Save them from torment,
save them from dyin’
Come now, Great Maiden,
their fate falls to you.
—Author Unknown
Prologue: 1849
Stars burdened the sky. Kiren breathed in the cool night air, barely daring to shift the winds with his presence. His scent had already been detected. The silhouette on the hill reminded him too dearly of the woman he had adored. The woman he’d let go.
He ascended.
Alexia would have loved the sky tonight. She would have leaned into him, tugged his arms around her and gazed into the heavens, turning that adorable smile up at him, forcing his heart to thunder his love for her. But she wasn’t here.
The breeze died. A chill settled over him, sinking into his skin and leaching out any hope of happiness. He could almost feel the hunger. The Soulless lust.
Kiren silenced his mind and squeezed the chain in his palm, the false medallion. No familiar energy radiated from this charm. It would offer him no protection, but the Soulless didn’t know that. He would exchange it for the real necklace tonight, the one his daughter had carried through the ages and hidden, the same one he’d wrapped around Alexia’s neck before she stepped through time and left him here, alone.
He stopped several feet from the woman, focused on her profile.
Her chin lifted, crimson eyes closing. “This is a surprise.” Her voice was like a toy boat being held steady on troubled waters, ready to tumble into the cascade the instant it was released.
She was starving.
“You look strong, Sarah.” Kiren nodded. “But are you strong enough to battle the hunger while away from scorched earth?”
Her chest puffed out. “I was searching for John.”
That made sense. Within the collective consciousness of the Soulless, she would be able to locate her husband on moonless nights.
He waved back the way he’d come, to the inn, to scorched earth and the safety that neutralized her hunger. “Walk with me?”
She followed him.
“Alexia has not returned,” he said softly.
“Mmm.” The trembling in her voice bordered on despair, but she straightened her shoulders and turned ravenous, crimson eyes on him, eyes that had once been a buoyant olive. “I think she was meant not to return here.”
Kiren swallowed hard. Alexia’s final words echoed through his mind, driving the desperation that could not be quenched: “No matter when I am, I will always be yours.”
The woman who so resembled one of the Passionate faced him. “Why have you tracked me down?”
“I am leaving. Leaving for good.”
She faced him fully, a quirk in her brow.
“When you find your husband, tell him I am sorry, for everything.”
“You are going after her, into the past?”
He bit down, grinding his teeth. If there was any way to save his Alexia from her fate, he would do it. He didn’t care that his necklace was missing. He’d have it. Tonight. If it was possible, she would be restored to his care.
One
Five-Hundred Years Back, Five Months Forward
The ground exploded next to Alexia’s foot. She stumbled backward, her broken-sword-turned-dagger clasped tightly in one fist as she scanned the horizon through raining debris. Men writhed across the beach in rawhide jerkins or white tunics bearing red crosses, the chaos of clashing metal like the roar of hungry lions.
Lions. The symbol woven into the enemy’s armlets and stamped upon their wooden shields—an emblem that marked them as King Edward’s elite killing force.
Lovely. Now the enemy had a catapult. Not that their sheer numbers weren’t bad enough. On a ship beyond the war-torn beachfront stood the wooden monster that had launched a boulder and scarred the earth next to her.
A jolt in her womb brought her hand up, the babe within pounding to break out and join in the battle. Soon. Very soon her child would enter the world, and her chance to save the Passionate would end. “You will have your time, little one.”
Alexia’s mere nineteen years were far too few to be with child and centuries away from her husband and home, far too few for her to be in the midst of a war. She clutched the pendant dangling around her neck, heavy metal too dull to hold any monetary value, and focused on the power stored within, pulling at its strength. Golden energy trickled into her fingers, like being filled with sunlight. The world around her slowed.
Weapons crept toward their intended targets, and battle cries thrummed, a rumbling bass.
Five months ago she’d discovered this raggedy band of talented people like herself, the Passionate. Unlike the powerful sub-society of Passionate she’d left behind, these were vagabonds and nomads, a struggling force who gathered others like themselves and fled to safety. They were more suited to living in holes and caves than behind four walls. Many had been rescued from noblemen who enslaved them and used their talents for gain, which brought about the current conflict: too many of the rich had lost their precious prisoners. They begged King Edward to send the Knights Templar—his witch hunters—after their slaves.
Alexia stepped through the slowed conflict, her burlap skirts pulling against her swollen womb like chainmail made for a giant. Dirty faces twisted about her.
Always dirty.
Her own hands were covered in grime, the nails corroded black. What she wouldn’t give for a bath in Father’s estate!
But Father’s estate had not been built yet, and it would not be for another several hundred years. The best she could hope for was a warm rain or chilly river. At least to staunch the smell.
A white haze curled off to her left—one of the Passionate who could transport people across the globe in an instant through mist. Velia. She wrapped herself around a child and would fade to nothing in a heartbeat. The woman had been frantically clearing their band out, carrying them one by one to safety—an effort that would cost her days of sickness and exhaustion.
Alexia was the diversion, along with others who could fight back. She and this battered band had evaded the king’s forces for so long, but somehow they’d been tracked to this remote island.
She dragged past another distraction—Amos. Pitch spilled from his fingers, creating a cocoon of midnight that blinded the enemy. Chocolate-hued hair hung to his shoulders, copper skin glowing in the gloom.
With his ability to summon darkness, he had hidden Alexia and their band many times over the months they’d been allies. He was the leader of the Passionate, and a powerful one at that. It was strange working with him. She drew a hand across her neck, remembering how he had slit her throat in the future, how Kiren had saved her with his healing gift.
Kiren.
She bit down and pressed forward.
One battle at a time.
Alexia reached the water. She had done this only once before, and despite her sweating palms, she stepped onto the near-still swells. Water seeped around her foot like thick clay. The glassy waves reflected her countenance—which she would be able to see if not for her oversized paunch. The waves led to an ocean far deeper than she could breech, and she had never learned to swim.
She hurried forward several yards. A rope ladder dangled from the side of the ship, solid as stone in her grasp.
Kingsmen surged around the catapult in slow motion, loading it with another large boulder as she topped the deck. This was more than Edward’s force. These men had been sent by the allied kings and Church to destroy the abominations, but their secret agenda was to capture all Passionate.
Killing for no real reason.
Alexia took a deep breath of crypt-like air, the heaviness that settled in improper time. Now to draw the men away from the catapult so she could dispose of it. She dropped Kiren’s pendant, releasing the captive minutes.
Time leapt back into sequence.
Four soldiers jumped and shrieked at her sudden appearance. Swords flashed in the late afternoon rays, bloodied by the sinking sun.
The men rushed her, and she slowed time once more, stepping past them. Next to the machine of death, she eyed the thick ropes and splintering frame. If only she had the gift of fire.
And then she noticed the wheels. Mounted at the cusp of the ship, all the catapult needed was a good shove. She sliced the securing ropes with a single swipe of her dagger. The added pressure once time resumed would do the rest.
Alexia backed up several steps and charged, releasing time a little more with each step. The momentum of her time-inhibited dash added force. She slammed into the catapult with her shoulder. The wood groaned. Wheels squeaked. The machine grated forward.
She doubled over, her body protesting the movement with an intense tightening as she lost her grip on time. Her child should not make an appearance yet. Not for another eight weeks. She needed to be careful.
Men shouted behind her, turning, befuddled. Their swords shook. She faced them full on, challenging the lot.
Hiss.
She stopped time completely and whirled.
An arrow hung, mid-flight, only inches from her chest.
She huffed. How incredibly unkind.
Alexia stepped away from the deadly tip and squinted through the sprawling limbs on the beach.
There.
A bow dipped as the frozen archer reached for another arrow from the quiver at his back.
She took hold of Kiren’s pendant. Warmth flooded into her fingers, filling her with strength, and she crossed the water once more. This was war. Death was expected, but to target the only woman in sight? And one with child? She halted before him, slipped her dagger beneath the bowstring and released time. It snapped.
The man jolted backward and landed on his rump.
She crossed her arms and spoke in old English. The words sounded odd to her, a language she’d practiced with Mae in the future, preparing for this time. Even after months of using them they felt clumsy, but the meaning was what mattered: “Were you aiming for me?”
Crash!
The catapult broke the water and launched a wave over the side of the ship, sweeping three soldiers overboard into dagger-like splinters.
Would it knock one or two of them unconscious? Would they drown? What if one was speared through? She groaned. No more. She would not be the cause of anymore death.
Alexia gathered her strength and reached back through time, into the past five seconds, bracing for the toll it would take. Blackness flashed before her as the world reset. She held time still and stood several seconds, allowing her body to ease into this moment. She did not like going back in time. It was dangerous. Traveling more than a couple moments could alter reality forever, but she had done it when necessary.
The catapult dangled over the edge of the ship, ready to break the glassy swells.
Alexia grabbed the three men. She released the seconds to a sl
ow draw and pulled her enemies to safety. A weight hung at the back of her brain, the exhaustion from manipulating time. Satisfied the wave wouldn’t take the men to their death, she let go of time.
The catapult splashed down.
The soldiers stood dazed, water lapping at their feet. One gasped and lifted his sword. Her weapon’s hilt felt natural in her grasp, ready to respond to the threat, but the world shifted in her mind.
She faced a horde of Soulless, their eyes crimson, talons extended to tear the flesh, their hunger insatiable. They had come to take what mattered most to her: Her love. Her soul.
She blinked the vision free as the blade flashed toward her throat.
Alexia ducked. The sword sheared off a strand of curled dark hair. She fell back. Kill him, her inner voice shrieked. He would do the same to you and all your kind. Protect them by eliminating one more threat.
It was true. He would come again and again because he believed his cause was just, or because the king’s pay supported his family. His hunger was no different than the Soulless.
But she couldn’t take a life.
Never again.
She was here to undo all the mistakes of her past, the future, to stop those murders from ever happening and save her dearest sister, Sarah, from succumbing to the worst of fates.
Alexia yanked time to a halt, the air thickening around her. Her clothing dragged at her limbs.
The babe lurched within. She was pushing too hard and the child was warning her. The last thing she needed was to begin labor in the midst of war…and forfeit her life. What she really wanted was Kiren—his peaceful alternatives and confidence. His compassion and steadiness. His ability to read others and guide them toward the best solution. But she had none of those, only her ability to stop the minutes or alter time.
She faced the soldier’s threatening weapon, seized his arm, and released time. He jumped.