The man sat up, watching her like he expected angel wings to burst from hiding. “It was an accident, I-I forgot to…” His cheeks reddened. “I-it’s a long story.” He brightened. “But you saved me. You have come to take me home?”
Alexia had assumed his home was a hut in some local village. “Where is it you came from?”
Deamus motioned upward.
Alexia followed his aim to the warming sky, stars fading. “From the stars?”
Both hands disappeared behind his back as he considered her closely. Something in his stare solidified, and he leaned forward, lifting an arm and pointing. “There. Out beyond those lights waits another earth, one where…where we live without fear. Only those with Passionate blood dwell there.”
The idea whirled her head like a top he was spinning just to watch her grow dizzy.
Amos stepped between them. “Tell me about this place.”
Deamus backed away, gaze shifting shyly to the ground.
Alexia touched his arm. “Tell me.”
“The other land was created long ago by a powerful man. There has never been a man more powerful.”
To create an entire world… Alexia still couldn’t quite fathom it. Only God possessed that kind of power.
“When humanity began destroying…the Passionate, he knew he had to stop them.” He brought his fists together and pulled them apart to illustrate. “It would mean separating two worlds. He studied and gathered and worked for decades to make his dream a reality, and at last, he did it.”
Alexia gave him a skeptical frown. “Separated two worlds out of one?”
“I heard me somethin’ like this story before.” Regin scratched his chin. “Weren’t there two sons and some kind of battle?”
Deamus stilled and shifted away as if he’d forgotten about his larger audience.
“Do continue,” Alexia urged.
“A bridge was erected, a bridge of light that allowed our kind to pass over, but the cost of channeling so much power was the man’s life.” Deamus bit his lip. His chin shook and he looked away. Quiet accosted them. Alexia wondered if he would continue when he straightened his shoulders, lips puckered in a frown. “He left two sons.” He gave a quick nod at Regin. “Both studied his arts and followed in his path, but one was tempted and drawn into dark powers, the kind that consume the soul.” A line appeared between his eyebrows. “The other watched over and protected the Passionate—mostly from his brother.”
Alexia glanced up at the disappearing stars and shivered, feeling suddenly very small. “And how do you know of this other world?”
Deamus’s head tilted, hope shimmering in his gaze. “It is my home.”
A shell of silence dropped over them.
Home. That single word shot a pang through her chest, seizing her lungs. Alexia’s brain stuttered. Her vision shifted to a forested place, unique blooms dotting the small clearing where Kiren stood, gazing upon her with the purest love…
Alexia opened her palm and brushed a finger across the hidden prongs of her wedding ring, a coral diamond with five teardrop petals. Amos had advised her to keep the gems hidden, but she was unwilling to remove the band. It was all she had left.
She gripped Kiren’s necklace. She could not be home. Not now. Not ever again.
“The bridge opened again not many years ago.” Deamus made a path to the sky with one arm. “I passed through from that world to this, searching for the High King’s heir, and, and”—he blushed—“became a tree.”
He hadn’t told anyone but her how that had occurred—that he’d been manipulating the world around him without taking precautions for a backlash. She felt quite solemnly she should keep his secret.
His gaze dropped to her hand, the one attempting to loosen the bolt of pain stealing through her chest. “I have been searching for a way to go back. Alexia, you might have one.”
“Me?”
He nodded at her chest.
She pulled her hand away from the charm hidden beneath her bodice, and snapped a quick look between the council members.
“It would be a safe place.” Deamus twisted the hem of his sleeve.
“They might never become Soulless,” Alexia finished for him. She took a cleansing breath. He assumed she could access the power in the necklace to open this gateway, and perhaps she could. She may very well hold the key to another realm.
Regin untied the handkerchief from his neck. “I like this plan. This is a great plan. We should do this plan, thing.”
Lucian nodded along. Mae shrugged.
Deamus straightened to his full, intimidating height and spoke again. “Lucian was describing that world. If he can see it in our future…”
Amos stroked his chin, finally smiling at Deamus. “You think you can open this gate?”
“I…” He ducked and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “If the stars align, and I find the right place to open it from, and I can borrow the strength…”
Alexia bit her tongue. Deamus’s gift was extremely unique. He could borrow energy and shape it into something completely new. He’d done it once in the desert to turn sand into water when there was none, and when a fire consumed all the bedding in camp, he reshaped stones into bedrolls. Both times, the entire camp was left winded and weak for days.
“It will have to be put to the whole.” Amos nodded. “In the meantime, watch the stars and find this place where the gateway can be opened.” He bent and snatched the scrolls Deamus had been safeguarding. Deamus bobbed forward after his treasures, but stopped himself as Amos rose. “The rest of us will find this traitor, and not a word of this escapes our circle.” He shoved the parchments into Alexia’s arms. “You will find us more clues about this person.”
“Of course.” She nodded.
Mist melted over the ruins.
Amos turned. “Ah! And about time. How long does it take to locate one measly friar?”
Warmth licked the tree line, the tangerine of a promising dawn. Alexia’s long-dead but not-yet-born mother had called the sunrise hope. She believed it still—the hope that she would keep the Soulless from existing, the hope that the world would be better because she’d given up her husband, her family, her life.
A man stepped out of the mist, one dressed in a gray friar’s robes, but far too young by her account to be a friar.
Ginger hair fell in waves, framing a profile she had dreamed and loved most her life, one it had broken her heart to leave.
But it couldn’t be.
Soul-stopping blue eyes scanned the camp and landed on her.
Alexia’s heart stuttered and thumped into her throat.
Four
Awake
“You think you can open this gate?”
The entity snapped awake. It shifted in its shapeless murk, bumbling into the invisible walls of its confinement. Hunger coiled at its center. The time had come, and it was ready to be free. After centuries of stasis, it would finally know true power again. The long night was over, and it was ready to rain on the earth like burning hail from the blackened heavens.
Yes, open the gateway, little man.
Five
Ocean Deep
As if Alexia’s thoughts had summoned him, there he stood—the subject of her every dream, every fantasy, every hope. His straight nose, imperial cheekbones, and eyes deep enough to encompass an entire ocean, a blue she’d never expected to see again: the color of the sky right before dawn, the purest azure riddled in specks of light like the fading stars.
Her feet moved before she’d paused to think.
He shouldn’t be here.
He wasn’t supposed to be here.
He told her he wouldn’t be. It was impossible, and yet somehow he must have followed her through time!
Alexia barely contained a happy scream. Her heart thundered through her chest, filling the world with the toll of her happiness. Kiren had found a way. Of course he had found a way. There was no love so full or devoted as his!
His gaze tu
rned to her as she dropped the scrolls, threw her arms around his neck, and pressed her lips to his.
He didn’t kiss her back.
Alexia frowned. Why wouldn’t he kiss her back? Had he come with dire news, something he needed to communicate right away? Or perhaps he too was astonished, still unable to believe they had found one another.
Something snapped between them, and his hands found her shoulders, his mouth molding to hers. She pressed herself more fully into him, and his grip tightened on her arms.
He jerked free, leaning slightly forward, staring into her eyes while he panted, brows low. His wide eyes swallowed her whole in the expanse of his vast ocean.
But it wasn’t love that filled his stare. Confusion. Shock. A hint of fear.
“Kiren?” she whispered.
His mouth dropped open and he shoved her away.
She stumbled to a stop, arms wide to regain her balance.
His mouth formed a rigid line. Jaw muscles flexed as his gaze traveled down and halted on her round center. One fist balled and he took a step back.
She didn’t understand. What had happened to him? Had his memories been taken or altered by the journey through time?
Alexia reached for him.
He straightened up, rolling his shoulders away from her, but something wasn’t quite right. He still smelled of sweetened oak, his frame every inch the man she remembered…except that stubble shaded his jaw.
His jaw.
Kiren was always clean shaven. When she’d asked him about it, he allowed the hair to grow just enough to show her the bald line along his scar.
His scar.
His lovely, white scar that cut from eye to chin.
This Kiren had no scar.
Six
Earlier that Day
Kiren tucked both hands into his sleeves, kept his head down, and walked through the township as if he were on urgent business. He was, just not the kind he wanted anyone learning about.
“Arik, you cannot help people who do not want to be helped,” Zeph said, keeping pace although he’d been dismissed more than once.
“Can I not?” Kiren retorted, thankful for the cover of night at this ridiculous hour—the thieving hour. Zeph had rushed after him without a cloak or head covering, and not only did his nub-sized horns catch the moonlight, but his wings strained obviously at the back of his tunic. Kiren even thought he caught a flick of his friend’s tail.
“It is a stupid idea, and it is going to bring stupid trouble.”
“Like someone mistaking you for a demon?” Kiren asked, smirking out the corner of his mouth. Zeph’s gray-green wings didn’t exactly appear angelic, even if they were made of feathers. “We can always play the holy friar against the monster scenario. Again.”
Zeph scoffed. “I only came to keep you from getting yourself killed.”
Kiren scowled. He didn’t want anyone feeling obligated to him that way, not anymore. No one’s blood was going to be on his head.
“I do not need your help, Zeph.”
“Good. I am not offering help.”
No matter what he said, he was glad Zephaniah had chosen to stay by his side, not just tonight, but in the journey he’d been pursuing. The harpy’s son was only a season older than Kiren, and though he preferred chilly cliff faces and brutal winds, he endured the ground for the truest friendship Kiren had known since his twin sister’s disappearance. Zeph had whisked him out of danger enough times he’d lost count.
They stopped. The wattle and daub walls before them were framed by dark wood and dual balconies on the second floor—the sheriff’s home, the only home in the hamlet with a slate roof.
“Do not expect me to follow you.” Zeph crossed his arms.
“I never do.”
Kiren tugged his monastic robes into his rope belt, gave Zeph a watch-this nod, and leapt, catching the underbeams of a balcony. He pulled himself up the side, dropping noiselessly over the rail. Who needed wings?
Zephaniah rolled his eyes from the ground below.
Shutters had been fastened, barring the window except for patterned slats that allowed for ventilation. Curtains obscured Kiren’s view beyond. He stilled and listened: one set of lungs in the room, the heartbeat at a steady, slow pace. He stretched his senses. The next room over housed a snoring sleeper, someone of significantly larger proportions. He’d found the right room.
Kiren pulled the shutters back and pushed the curtain aside. Anyone else would have had a difficult time picking her out of the dark, but there she lay, the young woman with ochre hair. By all appearances, she was the picture of innocence. A perfect specimen…except for where one leg ended in a nub. He pulled himself through the opening, a tight fit, and grimaced as floorboards creaked beneath his feet.
She stirred.
He took the three steps between them and hovered over her. It felt wrong, being in her room, watching her sleep, but this was the only way this would work.
He’d be quick then.
Deep breath. He rubbed his hands together and placed one on her shoulder where the blanket and her chemise had slipped free.
The pulse beneath her skin called to him. Circulating blood took him down, through the chambers of her heart, lower, to the pinched spot in her thigh where a leg had never fully developed. A thin limb dangled off her knee, impossible to use. He could work with that. Her father had been carrying her down the street when Kiren met them. The man had brushed Kiren aside when asked to see the young woman’s malady, and she had hooded her eyes with the shame that befell all with such physical imperfections. But when Kiren said he could heal her, her gaze had flashed up at him, a hopeful, begging thing, snuffed out by her father’s gruff laughter. “And what price would I have to pay for such a miracle?” He had shoved Kiren into a wall and continued on.
Angry as he was at the cynical man, Kiren had compassion on the daughter.
Grow, he told the leg.
Her blood flow increased. The cells in her withered limb bloomed and doubled. They thickened in muscle and tissue, stretching to match her other limb. Bone lengthened and broke off into the correct pieces, tied together by forming sinews. Strength drained through Kiren’s fingers, his arms trembling as power pulled at his core. He breathed deeply, clenching his teeth.
The girl’s mouth popped wide in a scream. He threw a hand over her mouth, muffling as much noise as possible.
Skin smoothed. Hairs grew. Toes stretched outward. Nails pressed through the flesh.
The girl jerked away from his touch.
Kiren released her, panting.
Eyes met his in the darkness, a gaze full of awe, full of gratitude, full of wonder. Her mouth opened and he pressed a finger to her lips, silencing her. He’d done what he came to do, now it was time to make a speedy escape before he was discovered.
Kiren backed away and the floor groaned. He cringed and glanced at the door.
The young woman sat up. She lifted her new limb, flexing the toes and flattening them. She opened her mouth.
“I was never here,” he whispered urgently. “Go back to sleep. This is all but a strange dream.”
“Are you an angel?” Her eyes danced, chest heaving like she was about to cry or scream. “However can I repay you?”
Kiren angled toward the window, suppressing a twinge of annoyance. Do not get me caught? “Sleep.”
She slid her legs out of bed, rubbing her hands down them and breathing heavily. Her feet smacked the noisy floorboards.
He clenched his fists.
She shoved upward and teetered forward, stumbling, arms flailing. Kiren leapt forward and caught her. He opened his ears to the rest of the house, certain her clumsiness had awakened someone.
“You are too beautiful to be of the cloth.” Her breath warmed his chin.
Kiren froze. Her lips curled in a demure smile, wide, insistent. It was not uncommon for women to like his appearance, but he’d never landed himself in this precarious a circumstance. He laughed uneasily and let her g
o, backing up a step.
Noise from the next room pulled his head up.
“I know how to reward you.” She threw her arms around his neck and yanked him to her, slamming her mouth into his.
Whoa. How had that happened?
It took him all of three seconds to process how dangerous this was—not just to his physical health if someone should bust through the door, but to his deeper core. He was not going to be bound to a woman. No way. Never.
He tore himself free and stumbled backward, slamming into the wall next to the door. The floor moaned under his feet.
And the door flew open.
Zeph had been right. This was a really bad idea.
The sheriff’s nightshirt caught the window light like a bulbous onion. He froze in the doorway, fixed on his daughter standing on two legs.
“With my fondest wishes.” Kiren bowed and ducked under the man’s arm out the door. Fingers scraped at his robe, but he twisted and dodged, smacking into the wall of a narrow hallway and bouncing off. Miraculously, his feet were still under him. He kept moving, sprinting down groaning floorboards.
Feet pounded the timber behind him. “Stop!”
Nope. That wasn’t going to happen.
Kiren hurdled a stair rail and leapt for the floor. He landed hard, jarring his teeth and rattling his brain. The man above him growled and thundered down the stairs.
Kiren stumbled forward, focused on the gleam of moonlight between curtains. All he had to do was get to the other side, and Zeph would fly them both away to safety. Of course that would mean he could never come to this township again, but he couldn’t change that now.
All for a leg.
“Stop him!”
Movement in the shadows. Kiren zagged, startled by the arms reaching for him.
Of course the sheriff had a servant. He should have known.
He twirled around the shadowy figure, rolled back to back, and dove for the window. Shutters burst open, scraping his shoulders as he laughed.
Timeless (Maiden Of Time Book 3) Page 3