Luminescence shimmered before her, humming with energy. Its ethereal glow began to dim.
Alexia leapt at it.
Sixty-Six
Walls of Light
Warmth sheered over Alexia, like passing through glass as it scraped at her skin, closing in. She shoved through it.
Her ears popped.
Relief. Calm.
Like being in the absence of time.
Her lungs expanded. Panting hard, she tightened her grip on the sword as strength returned to her limbs. Walls of light encircled her, shrinking existence to a ring thrice as wide as she was tall.
Deamus stood with his back to her—the only shadow in the tunnel of brilliance.
He turned, his grin widening. “Ah, you decided to join me.” It was Deamus’s voice, but it boomed with confidence he’d never had. He must be infested by the darkness.
His features morphed, reflected in glistening waves of light. His overt nose melted down to slightly larger than average. His receded chin broadened as his cheekbones sharpened. His skin warmed to peachy rather than pasty, and she was staring into the assured smirk of a man with perfect teeth. Hair melted from dark blonde to midnight black. His eyes were the biggest difference: pits as deep and dark as eternity, his spectacles crushed beneath his foot. Here stood a stranger.
She’d seen that face before. It gripped something inside her, shortening her breath, but she couldn’t recall why.
Alexia held her sword between them, focused on the bundle in his arms. Corona hadn’t stirred. “Who are you?”
“You do not recognize me?”
She couldn’t decide if the entity inhabited him, but no red glow appeared in his eyes. “Deamus?”
“Yes, that is my name.” He scratched his nose.
“You used me? Used all of us?”
He shrugged. “I could not very well explain that everyone had to die in order to open the gate, now could I?” His shoulders sagged, face twisting in a timid grimace that reminded her of her Deamus, even on this stranger’s face. “…I…I…I need your lives to go home!”
Her mouth fell open. Her airways constricted, this reality too painful to consider. It had been an act, his clumsiness, his bumbling, his endearing need for her. He had been deceiving her all along. She shook her head, conflicted whether to be angry or sad.
“Do not fear it now, Alexia. I always believed you would make a worthy companion on the other side. You may still, even if you did choose him.” He sneered.
That sneer. Memory rushed in, the face she’d seen in Kiren’s nightmares time and time again, the man who stood in the ashes of a burned home, laughing as Kiren cringed with his twin sister, only children in the giant’s shadow. The man her husband feared. The man he hated. The man who took everything from him.
Her breath caught. “You killed his family.”
He waved a dismissive hand, the one not holding her baby. “Death is part of life. If I stopped for every bleeding heart or sobbing child, I would be as noble and dead as the High King.”
Her blade had begun to dip. She straightened it between them and reached for the threads of time. The High King had been Kiren’s father, a title he would inherit one day.
Deamus lifted long fingers in a staying gesture. “I can feel that, Alexia. The energy shifts so subtly, but it whispers to me. I feel everything.”
She froze.
“The babe sleeps, and she will stay that way forever unless I wake her. Let us have a reasonable discussion without you using your powers and me having to make a terrible mess.”
Not only had he deceived her about his nature, but his power. The glint in his eye said he could flick his wrist and cut her thread.
She licked her lips. “Why would you kill the High King?”
“Have you not figured it out yet? I gave you all the clues.”
Thoughts bounced frantically. He’d been there when the gateway opened the first time. It was opened by a man with two sons, a powerful man who controlled the elements.
“You are one of the sons.”
He pointed. “I knew you would reach it eventually. But which one am I, Alexia? Good or evil? Cunning or loyal?”
Cunning. Broken. Wrong.
“Say it out loud. Do not tell me your courage has failed you,” he teased.
If he was so cunning and wicked, why wasn’t he attacking her? He wanted something from her. Or needed. “Give me my baby, Deamus, and tell me what you want. We will figure out how to make it work.”
“Can you give me my birthright?” His voice drooped with mocking sorrow. “It seems Daddy did not think I would play nice with his toys.”
“What do you want with me?”
“You?” His face twisted in disbelief and then softened. “Tut, tut. You mistook my adoration for affection.” He placed a hand to his chest, sarcastically tender. “You are beautiful because of your power, Alexia, not your intellect.”
Her knuckles popped around the sword’s hilt.
“I had planned to bring you with me to become one of my allies. Can you imagine it? The power? A world that is yours to mold?”
The beauty of the land she’d seen had haunted her dreams since he gave her a glimpse. It taunted her now: the world where she could raise her family. The place she had experienced a lifetime of joy.
He extended a hand. “I offered this world to you many times, and you refused. Yet here you are.”
“Because you stole my child.”
He grinned. “I needed her key.” He turned the sleeping Corona to show the necklace looped about the child’s neck. It caught the light.
Alexia’s blood froze.
“It could have been you,” he continued smugly. “You could have been the key and ruled at my side, but I am not great at sharing. Especially another man’s wife. It is better this way.”
“What way?” The words were barely a whisper. Why hadn’t he given her Corona yet? He didn’t need her further.
“The infant is so much more malleable, weak mind and all. Still, you have my thanks for her, else I may have had to blackmail one of you into assisting me.”
She stepped forward. “Deamus, give me my baby.”
“Come with me.” He took a step back, toward the light, the infant cradled close. “It will be better if you do. For her.”
Alexia’s windpipe closed. He wanted to take her child to this other world and keep her as a pet or slave? “Why do you want her?”
“Your lack of foresight is appalling.” He sneered. “I will not meet any resistance with her by my side. She is, after all, an heir.”
“Just take the key.”
He clicked his tongue. “You know I cannot. Only the High King’s bloodline can carry it. She bears the key for me. I will give her to you.” He clutched the child tighter. “And in exchange for the babe’s compliance, you will be given a palace, servants, jewels and fine food, everything you could desire, but—”
Alexia braced for it.
“—you will have to sever your bond. Otherwise you will die when I kill your husband.”
She rubbed sweaty palms on her robe. “There is no way to break the bond.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
That wasn’t true. There was one. Bellezza had proven it time and time again. Alexia’s throat caught, the air far too thin. “You want me to kill my husband?”
He grinned charmingly, if one could call a snake’s grin charming. “You bonded yourself to my enemy. I warned you against it.” He shrugged as if she’d decided to eat dung instead of berries and was experiencing the resulting discomfort.
“Why?” The sob caught in her throat. “What has he ever done to you?”
Deamus waved with his free hand. “He stole my birthright, of course. He stands between me and the heritage that should rightfully be mine. Oh, and he trapped me as a tree for years. Not forgiving that one lightly.”
Kiren had offended him merely by being born. “You want this other world—why not simply take it?”
&
nbsp; He laughed. “I do not want this other world. It never should have existed. It is a perversion.”
“You wish to destroy it?”
“Once I have secured a stock of your kind to feed my cravings, yes. I will cross back over to this world and watch that one burn.”
She straightened up, taking notice of the shimmering walls which had begun to thin.
He paced around her. “Choose quickly. That annoyance you call a husband will soon be dead, and here you are, safe with me…so long as you choose to break the bond.” He waved a circle in the air. “His sun is setting, Alexia. Kill him now and raise your child, or say goodbye.”
Her heart seized. She closed her eyes. Deamus held all the cards. She must obey, or leave both her husband and baby to a worse fate. And what would become of the Passionate? If this mad man could open the gateway whenever he pleased because she aided him with Corona, he would destroy the one bastion of wholeness and peace that remained for the Passionate: this other world. A whole world. There had to be another way!
She kept the weapon between them, letting her shoulders drop. “How do I know the gateway will remain open long enough for me to return?”
He shrugged. “It only makes things easier for me.”
“That is no assurance.” She tucked her sword in her belt and extended her hands. “Give me my baby. I cannot wake her without your assistance, and your spell will destroy my husband whether I kill him or not. Either I die and she remains by my side, or I return with her and the chance to live. You only have to return and snatch her from my lifeless fingers if I fail.”
Deamus tapped his chin. “You make an intriguing proposal. Will she return? Will she not? How else will she try to betray me? Will she sacrifice her child’s life simply to stop me?”
Her cheeks heated with rage. “You have beaten me, Deamus. You have beaten all of us! What more do you want?”
His brows shot up. “Baiting me with anger. That is a good tactic, but,” he tapped the side of his head, “I am quite certain I made our differences clear. Kill him and return.”
She bowed her head. “I will have to manipulate time to keep from being drained while I…”
“Yes, you will.” He was back to grinning. “Go to it then.”
He lifted his free hand.
Alexia yanked the threads of time and lunged forward.
Sixty-Seven
Close
Energy smacked Alexia’s blade, but she held firm. Inside time. There he stood, a minion of the moments. A spinning shard in the carousel of possibilities. No match for her.
Alexia circled about him and lifted her babe from his arms. She stared into her little one’s face. The infant slumbered on.
She had to get Corona far away from here. Far from him. If only Alexia could hand the babe to Grandfather outside of time and stop Deamus for good!
For what she must do, she couldn’t keep Corona. Alexia had to say goodbye.
She relived again that reality where she and Kiren raised their child. It was so beautiful. So right. But within time she saw a hundred possibilities. Keep the babe with her, and she would fall in battle with Deamus. Return the infant to Kiren and the recently turned Soulless, and they would both be claimed by the hungry wraiths.
Kiren had a war before him, fighting off the starving Soulless. He would escape. He would even save the other Passionate, including Mae. She saw it. But it would be close.
There was only one option.
Velia’s daughter. She would take their baby to safety, but be injured by falling out of the mist while crossing paths with Deiliey—a man who nullified Passionate gifts. The girl would lose her memory. Deiliey would find them both, infant and girl on a snowy mountain ledge. His presence would counteract the spell on her child, suspending it only as long as he was near. Velia’s daughter would travel with him and the babe, searching for Corona’s parents until many years had passed. Until Kiren found them. Until Mae absorbed the spell on Corona.
It was the best of possibilities.
She kissed her baby’s cheek and snuggled her close, not ready to surrender her precious bundle. Tears spilled freely. “Oh my child, you will not remember me, but I will never stop thinking of you. Forgive me, my Corona. When it is safe, your father will find you. I promise.”
She stepped through the walls of light into frozen time, past stilled bodies, past her husband who knelt on the ground, yelling desperately after her.
He was the one who had called her name.
She lingered, wishing to smooth away his fear, but she couldn’t.
The girl hid in the trees, eyes wide with terror. Velia’s child. Mist curled off her disintegrating arms. Extreme passions could bring out Passionate gifts prematurely, and this child had certainly been through more than her share of horrors. She was going to disappear, but before she went…
Alexia stopped next to her and touched the girl’s cheek. Take my babe to safety.
She hugged her little one close once more, inhaling apple blossom and rubbing her cheek across the infant’s soft skin. Even having said farewell, she couldn’t let the child go.
I must.
Alexia slipped Corona into the girl’s arms, securing her dagger into the baby’s bundle—a weapon to fight the Soulless. One to keep her safe.
Her heart tore, a piece remaining in that bundle. “I will find you again one day, my little one.”
Her cheeks were slick with tears, but she didn’t wipe them away. It was time to go. She returned the way she’d come, halting at Kiren’s side. She crouched and pressed a kiss to his brow.
“Goodbye, my Kiren. I will save you. I will save them all, somehow.”
Alexia faced the tunnel again and took a deep breath.
She was ready for this. She could do this. It was time.
Sixty-Eight
Finale
The air burst from Kiren’s lungs, the desperate cry tearing from the inside out, but it didn’t change how her body lay on the ground, littered among the others.
His wife. His family. His life.
His knees smacked into the ground. Strength leeched from his core, flowing into the vortex of radiance, robbing the last of the power stored within his medallion.
Light exploded.
Kiren shielded his eyes.
Death touched his skin, searching for its next meal. He shoved backward, further, further, away from its reach and scrambled to his feet, sprinting blindly away.
Kiren stopped at the tree line and turned back. A single form stood in the midst of the devastation, skirts twirling about her in the wind, both fists lifted and clenched.
He gasped.
He could feel it—the earth crying out to him, shrieking as it bled into her. The vortex had been consumed by the same being.
Mae.
Her fists dropped, chest heaving.
Kiren stepped toward her, crossing an invisible line. The emptiness in the air hit him like an arctic gale. There was no life. Emptiness. It was dead. All of it. The earth, the connection, the gateway.
Thirteen decimated bodies littered the ground, little more than skeletons. Unmoving.
Something told him he should be able to locate Alexia, but there was a void. A nothingness. Her body had simply disappeared. Gone.
Mae turned to him, her eyes wide and searching. “Who is there? Who is it?”
He stopped right in front of her. She looked through him, squinting as if trying to break through a barrier.
“Mae.”
She jolted backward. “I cannot see you. I cannot see!”
He placed a hand on her shoulder to steady her, expecting the hungry demons to latch on and suck him dry. They never came.
“What did you do?” His voice broke.
She straightened up. “I took it all. I stopped that monster from consuming everything and everyone. It is inside of them now…” Her eyes dropped to the ground as if searching for the fallen Passionate.
“What monster?”
“The dark
ness.”
“You trapped it inside them?”
“As Alexia instructed me.”
He swallowed hard. “And Alexia?”
No reply.
An egg lodged in his throat. “Where is she?”
Mae’s head shook. She reached out and caught hold of his face. “I can touch you. I am not hurting you and I can touch you!”
He backed away, shaking. Alexia was gone. Completely gone. Not even her body remained. It was as if she’d never existed at all except for in his mind.
A glint of light hit his eye from where the portal had been. He hurried toward the glint and crouched.
A sword lay in the blackened soil, its red-wrapped handle accented by the blood staining its edge. Leofrik’s sword. The one Alexia had carried.
He cradled it to his chest, holding in the scream, the wail, the mad laughter that was bubbling up. This was what remained? He ripped both hands through his hair. The torture, the fighting, the desperate hope, and this was what remained!
His mouth fell open and a shout tore from his lungs. It stole every ounce of air. It deflated him until he was a lifeless lump on the ground, panting.
A blackened corpse shifted next to Kiren’s foot.
He twisted toward the movement.
Another twitched.
That wasn’t possible! The thing was dead.
Its skeletal hand dropped over his ankle. He shoved away and got to his feet. “They still live?” He glanced at Mae.
Her lips were pressed tight. “They will always live.”
“What are they?”
“The Soulless.”
Sixty-Nine
Ages
Kiren and Mae fled. As soon as they crossed the ring of deadness, scorched earth, Mae’s gift returned.
They gathered up all the Passionate they could find and set out for a new home. Kiren’s heart was heavy, but he held in his hands the promise that Alexia would return. The sword. The only conclusion he could reach was that Mae’s hunger had consumed his wife’s body. One moment she had been lying on the ground, the next, an explosion of light and everything was dead. He wasn’t willing to consider the other possibility, one that featured blood on a silver blade.
Timeless (Maiden Of Time Book 3) Page 27