Her lashes lifted, slowly. “You block them.”
“I have never attempted such a thing.”
“Visualize a wall or barrier and keep it there.”
It sounded so easy, but how to make sure it held? Had she been inside his head before? “That is how you know so much about me. You,” he swallowed hard, “entered my mind.”
She lowered her gaze.
“When?” It must have been when she kissed him. Perhaps she had been lying all long.
“If you wish to keep me out, you will have to practice.”
Well, she knew most everything. There was no risk of her learning more—unlike anyone else in camp. He kicked at the ground. “Will you help me learn this barricading?”
She blew out a breath, her gaze bobbing to his lips and back to his eyes.
Every muscle tensed against grabbing her right that instant. Would another kiss be as intoxicating as the first? “After all,” he tried to keep his tone light, “we know one another in the future. I must trust you to have given you my name.”
She nodded once.
“Are we physically intimate?” he asked.
The color drained from her face.
That was a yes. Or embarrassment at his boldness. Curiouser and curiouser.
She stiffened. “If you wish to know, you must overcome my barriers and obtain the information for yourself.”
“And so I shall.” Kiren closed his eyes and built a wall of vines in his mind, growing them up in front of his treasured secrets. He kept that mental picture as he returned to gazing upon the woman who made his heart feel like a leaf in the wind. He would manipulate her, fluster her in order to weaken her fortifications. Then he would enter her mind rather than the other way around. This may be easier than he’d thought.
She stepped back and lifted her palm to his. “Resist a sharing.” The distance did little to diminish the fluttering in his chest, and hopefully hers. She attacked.
A battering ram slammed into his wall. The vines shifted and tore. Kiren grew new mental creepers, wrapping them around the ram and trapping it. It shifted, melting into a snake that slithered through the openings. No matter how fast he reacted, she found a way through. He threw brick up behind the vines, and her attack turned to mist, seeping through the miniscule holes of the mortar.
Kiren pulled away. “You cheat.”
She stepped after him. “There is no cheating when you face an enemy. If you cannot keep me out, you are doomed.”
Had she just admitted to being his enemy? Again he wondered what she knew of his fate…but the thought fled when he inhaled. Ambrosia: golden pomegranate. His fingers trembled as he lifted them to her neck. “Again,” he demanded, and this time he blanketed his mind in darkness. She entered and burst into light, illuminating all around her. He tried ice, she brought fire. He attempted water, she infiltrated with an air bubble. Steel, she tossed the contents of a blazing kiln at him.
Sweat dripped down his brow as he stared, panting, beaten.
Alexia brushed the hair back from his face, fingers grazing his skin. He quivered, and not from the effort of blocking her.
“Try fog,” she whispered. “It is fluid, it reflects light, and distance is swallowed up by its presence.”
He pulled the thickest fog over his thoughts and pressed his fingers to her cheek. She seeped into his mind but could find no direction. Up, down, forward, back, she couldn’t claim solid ground.
Kiren grinned.
Her lips touched his.
All thought of fighting ceased. Sunlight was pouring into him, all the happiness he couldn’t have. He greedily inhaled it. The fog dropped. He wrapped her in his embrace, marveling at the rise and fall of her chest in time with his. He pulled her closer, delving into her so fully there was no him or her. There was only bliss. Completeness. One.
And then she was in his thoughts, filtering through whatever she wanted, but he didn’t care. He wanted her there. She belonged inside.
Alexia shoved away, scowling. “You let me in.”
“Yes, I did.”
The anger dropped, replaced by shock. “You cannot do that. There are things I am not meant to know, things you are not meant to show me.”
He blinked quickly but couldn’t wrap his brain entirely around what she was telling him. Things she wasn’t supposed to see now, or things from when they would meet in a distant day? If they were close then, why wouldn’t he allow her in?
“I am sorry, Kiren.” She withdrew a pace. “Your future should not be decided by this past. You must keep away from me.”
Now his head ached for an entirely different reason. Did she want him or want nothing to do with him? “Am I not entitled to make that decision?”
“No.” She stepped around him. “Unless you wish to die.”
He felt like he’d been punched. Was she saying she’d seen his death or knew how it would happen? Is that why she’d kissed him—because she was so relieved he was alive? “You are going to have to clarify that statement for me.”
“When you can beat me, you will have your answer, but this”—she touched her lips—“this cannot happen.”
That sounded like a challenge. He’d always liked a challenge. “You kissed me.”
“To weaken your resistance.” Her jaw clenched. “I should not have.”
“How can that make sense? You kiss me to weaken me, but then insist being attached will bring my death? Why would you do that unless you wish me dead?” Kiren followed after, ready to defy her will and take another shot at breaking through her barrier.
His ears perked.
In the distance, multiple feet, heavy—meaning they were large men or men clad with armor and weapons…near a hundred of them at least.
He grabbed Alexia’s hand. She twisted on him. He silenced her by covering her mouth and leading her back to the heart of camp. He opened his thoughts to her and showed her what he’d heard.
“Amos!” She sped away.
***
Children huddled within a ring of adults, everyone in camp packed into a small circle. A small party hurried away, creating a false trail led by Velia. She would mist them away once they’d finished their work. Dead coals smoldered at Alexia’s feet. She held her skirt over the smoke to trap it while Amos built a bubble of darkness over them, a murky, ethereal substance that barely reached beyond the last trembling person. No one moved a muscle or made a noise as knights and soldiers filtered past, scanning the trees as if expecting monsters to burst through them any second. They passed within a breath of the barrier.
One man stopped. His flaxen hair caught the moonlight, the holy crest emblazoned across his chest. He signaled the others on, scanning the ruins with great focus. His gaze pierced into the darkness. Alexia swore he was looking right at her through the barrier. She stopped breathing.
He shook his head and pressed forward.
One of the Passionate sneezed.
Fourteen
Breathe
The knight turned back, searching the blankness. He stepped closer to the barrier, sliding his sword from its sheath.
Alexia tensed. If he crossed through the barrier, their subterfuge would be lost. They would be forced to attack. She gripped her dagger.
The man stood within a fingertip of the murk, searching the black with a piercing stare.
She reached for time, ready to stop it.
“Sir!” a soldier hissed.
The man turned.
“We found a trail. They have fled.”
The man returned his sword to its sheath. “We will follow them.”
Men filtered through the trees, disappearing.
Alexia slumped with relief, and a hand touched her shoulder. Deamus smiled down at her. She patted his fingers. Long moments passed in the bubble before Velia materialized at its center. Amos nodded, and the child of mist burst into a haze, taking two of them with her. The move had begun.
***
The air was impossibly thin. Alexia pushe
d her lungs harder as she trudged across the mountaintop. Vegetation covered the highland peaks surrounding them, sharp inclines framed in late afternoon rays. It had been afternoon when they first arrived, although they’d left the woods in the middle of the night. That was one aspect of traveling from landmass to landmass that never ceased to amaze her—the difference in time of day.
A portion of the mountain had been leveled off and terraced, as if someone intended to build a home and farm in this remote, airless location. Still, she had to appreciate the open sky above her. Willem used his gift to shift the earth, tumbling stones into place about them to block the wind. Others were erecting roofs or were out scavenging for food. They would complete more huts each day, and all things considered, this unreachable spot could be a steady home for her people, if she could just catch her breath.
Zephaniah, the winged man, landed in front of her.
Alexia gasped and placed a hand on her chest, slowing her heart.
“It is your turn,” he offered a hand. He had been flying the children and other women in the company around the mountain to “strengthen his wings.” She recognized his efforts to familiarize them with their surroundings so they understood their limits.
“I am far too great a burden.” She touched her belly and turned away.
He laughed. Arms slipped through hers from behind, elbows locking around her shoulders.
“Zephaniah—”
“My friends call me Zeph.” And he leapt off a cliff, taking her with him.
She screamed. The ground rushed at her, wind tearing at her eyes until tears trailed her cheeks. Large wings swooped above her. His arms jerked tight against her, yanking them to a halt midair.
Her scream cut off. She sucked in a breath before he dove. They swooped steadily down. She grabbed his arms, fingers cutting into him. “Drop me, and I swear Mae will burn you from the inside out!”
He laughed and caught an updraft, carrying them toward the sky.
The mountain range bloomed beneath her. Green. Rocky. Remote. The Passionate dotted the cliffs, ants from this distance. It was breathtaking and so peaceful.
She was still angry with him.
“I have never seen Arik like this.”
Alexia attempted to twist his direction, but it was impossible. She’d heard Kiren addressed by that name in camp. As in the future, even his close friends didn’t know him. “Like what?” she asked.
“Hungry.”
She laughed.
“I am not talking about his near-nonexistent need to eat. I mean how he disappears mentally when you walk by. How he stares. He is mesmerized. What did you do to him?”
I kissed him. Had that been enough to initiate a bond? Certainly not.
His grip on her tightened. “A word of warning—if you do not care for him, you need to send him away.”
That was a clear threat. She was glad Kiren had such a loyal and protective friend. “What happened to make him this way?”
He flinched. Silence. She’d decided he wasn’t going to answer her when he spoke. “He was fifteen when they asked him to lead.”
“To lead what?”
“Us.”
Alexia stilled. She could hardly imagine so immense a weight on someone that young. Zeph flew them over a ridge, out of sight of camp. Scrub brush passed below and he flapped his wings, slowing. Her feet touched down.
He folded his wings and landed next to her. “There were more then, so many more—at least eighty of us. He did his best for two years, but no one could have known what was coming.” Bronze eyes turned to the setting sun.
“The crusaders?”
“They surprised us. We fought back, but we were not organized to clear out and defend like they are now.” His voice softened. “We lost a third. Some were taken. Most died.”
Alexia absorbed it, heartbroken for her friends.
“He could not heal them all. He could not save them. Many of them blamed him for not taking precautions. Some left. A few even threatened his life.”
She could imagine Sarlic being one of those, and who wouldn’t fear his ability to inflict the deepest pain? Her poor, dear Kiren.
“He tried to put them back together, but he was beaten. Something in him died the day we were massacred.”
Alexia touched his arm.
He met her gaze. “He abdicated and took up friar’s robes. I went with him, obviously, and we have been wandering, healing people while he heals. Being here is hard on him. They remember. Some still blame him. He still blames himself.”
She nodded.
His head bowed. “Some have even said things. It tore him to pieces, being with them after it happened. He feels it every day, and I worry it will be enough to destroy him. If you do not care for him, you need to tell him to go.”
She smiled sadly.
“He would kill me if he knew I told you.”
“Then I suppose we will not tell him.”
A smile tugged at his cheek. “We should return.” He looped his arms through hers again. “Break his heart—I promise you will regret knowing me.”
Fifteen
Open, I Say
Deamus stopped in the open field and scoured the stars. They weren’t aligned as they needed to be, nor did he occupy the grounds where the gate originally opened, but if he waited any longer, the gifted ones might be dead or captured. This would have to be close enough. He had to see if he could make it work, for everyone’s sake. He’d been guiltily siphoning trace amounts of strength off the Passionate for almost half a year, and that should be enough to power his experiment. All he had to do was command the elements and release the force caged in his chest.
He shook out his arms, placed both feet firmly on the ground and gazed into the heavens.
The Neitherlands.
Home.
It wasn’t that far away.
Lifting both arms, he opened his mouth. The right words spilled out—a language even the stars had to obey. The language of his father.
Night air stirred.
He loosened the power from his core, unraveling it like a ball of yarn.
Pollens popped from their blooms. More energy. The heavens rumbled and swirled. More! A bolt of lightning flashed out of a clear sky. MORE!
He freed the trickle to a stream.
Light burst overhead, a crack of sunlight in the darkened firmament.
It was working!
A yank at his chest jolted him upward. He’d come to the end of the string, the riverbed run dry. It wasn’t enough.
He needed more.
The universe demanded more!
Life eked out of his limbs. The gateway would take everything, all he couldn’t give it. His life!
His skin wrinkled and shrank.
“NO!” He severed the incantation, ripping the wild spell free. Light swirled in the sky like a whirlpool and blinked out.
He collapsed.
Wind died. Pollens dropped to the ground. They landed on his trembling limbs, dusting him like the snows of failure as he lay, unable to wriggle free from the fatigue.
Sixteen
Vanished
Leofrik stood before Ulric’s war room, waiting again—only this time he was in no hurry for the confrontation. He didn’t understand what had happened. Every detail played out again in his mind:
The spies returned to the hill where he waited, anxious to have this done.
“There’s at least two score of them, but they do not have many weapons,” the boy reported. “Many are children or women.”
Leofrik’s gut twisted at the idea, but he would follow orders and then voice his concerns with the king before returning to his usual post. If these people, these creatures, could access the devil’s power, even children and women were a threat. “Where are they stationed?”
The spy cleared the moss, baring a spot of soil. He drew a finger through the dirt, making a circle and plotting out where the majority of the creatures rested. Unsuspecting. That would make things easier
.
Leofrik gave assignments—one deployment to approach from the west, one from the east. They would surround the group silently and have them captured before anyone could react. It was perfect.
But what should he expect when going up against peasants?
They marched on the camp, silent as death. Only moments before he and his men entered the site, the fire disappeared. Like someone had blanketed the sun. It was there one instant, gone the next. They found nothing but trees and bushes. Not even the remnants of a fire.
They followed a set of footprints, only three escapees unless they’d all been careful enough to step in the footprints of the previous fugitive. The trail died a league away. Boot marks ended in nothing—like they’d been carried into the sky or disappeared.
He made the men search the area all night, but come dawn, there was still no hint of life. In the full light of day he discovered the scorched pit where a fire had burned, but they’d been over that land again and again, and no one was there. Either his spies had been deceived, or these creatures were an unholy foe who could channel the very powers of Satan.
The door groaned open. Leofrik held steady.
“Come,” his lord demanded.
***
The verbal reaming he received trumped all others. Leofrik was ready to be done with this man. Far too ready. He spread a map in his bedchamber and scratched a charcoal dot on the location of the camp he’d infiltrated. He placed another dot on the island the creatures had inhabited. Another in France. Another in the desert oasis. One in the mountainous caverns. What did all these locations have in common?
Water.
All of them had a water supply.
Too many water supplies in the world to take that approach. He’d been right on top of them. He wasn’t going to overtake an entire camp of witches while they had many powers to pull on. He had to come at them a different way.
Timeless (Maiden Of Time Book 3) Page 7