Ricochet Through Time (Echo Trilogy Book 3)

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  “Just so you know, I have no idea what to do with this.”

  Re-Nik reached into the chest to pick up the sword. “I had feared this would be the claymore Heru has been toting around for centuries. Thankfully, this is the right one.” He pulled on the hilt, sliding the blade free of the scabbard a few inches. It gleamed like it was made of solid, polished opal. But it wasn’t. It was made of something far rarer—At. “A tad showy for everyday use. I can understand why Heru keeps it stowed away, though it is highly functional. There is nothing this sword cannot cut through.”

  He sheathed the sword and handed it to me. It wasn’t nearly as heavy as I’d expected—not even close to as heavy as it would have been had it been made entirely of steel.

  “Where—how—” I stared at Re-Nik. “You made it, didn’t you?”

  The ancient, literally dual-personality man nodded. “I created it after I saw you last and realized it had to come into Heru’s possession at some point. He discovered the blade in Hatnofer’s coffin nearly a century ago.” Re-Nik stared up at the ceiling and tapped his forefinger to his lips. “I wonder who might have placed it there?”

  “That is so convoluted.”

  “It is what is.” He shrugged. “The timeline, you know …”

  “I thought I heard you two,” Aset said, rushing into the room. “Time is running short, Lex. You must be on your way.”

  I nodded, agreeing completely, but I held the sword out at a loss for what to do with it. Re-Nik stared at it as well, looking equally lost. “Do I just carry it?”

  “You are hopeless,” Aset said. “Both of you.” She strode across the room, took the sword from my hands, and unbuckled the belt. With deft fingers, she slid the end of the belt under the one I was already wearing high on my waist, draped the leather over my shoulder, and buckled it in front of my chest, just over my heart. With the sword belt slung across my torso, the scabbard hung down my back at an angle, awkward, but not uncomfortable. “It may bounce a bit when you walk, but it should stay put, and this way you will not feel unbalanced or worry about the sword belt slipping off entirely. I’ll have a proper harness for you when next we meet.”

  I grasped her hands. “Thank you, Aset.” I looked at Re-Nik. “Thank you.”

  Aset covered my hand with hers. “Yes, yes, and now you must go, Lex.”

  When we hurried out of the house, Francesca and her family were nowhere in sight.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Resting,” Aset said, her eyes opened too wide and not remotely innocently.

  I grabbed her wrist, forcing her to face me. “Did you hurt them?”

  She took a step back. “Of course not! My own brother’s family?” Leaning forward, she winked. “I knocked them out with valerian in their wine. By the time they wake, you shall be gone, as will their memories of you.”

  “But I will be too far away from them.” It hadn’t even crossed my mind that the memory wipe wouldn’t reach them. I was still caught on the part where I was supposed to be leaving. “They will remember me, and Heru … they will tell him, and—”

  Re-Nik touched my shoulder. “No, dear Alexandra, they will not remember you. The twins’ power grows with each passing day, and human minds are far more susceptible to manipulation than those of our people. All will be well.”

  So this was really happening. There was nothing to hold me back now.

  We said our goodbyes, and, numbly, I started along the pathway lined by olive trees toward the road to Florence. A horse would’ve been faster than my own two feet, but riding would’ve put the twins at risk—too great a risk for a little more speed. I walked fast, in a full-on, somewhat waddly power walk, and with each step along the curving dirt road, the reality of the situation sunk in a little bit more. I was leaving my peaceful sanctuary. The respite was over.

  And if I wasn’t fast enough, if Apep-Set reached me before I reached Heru, I wouldn’t have the chance to tell Heru how much I cherished the time I’d spent here, with him. I wouldn’t have the chance to thank him. To tell him I loved him—this version of him—and not just because I loved the man he would be in six centuries. I loved him, as he was, right now. He’d stolen my heart all over again.

  “Of course it has to be a hundred damn degrees out,” I grumbled as I rounded a bend, wiping the back of my hand across my sweaty brow. The river Arno came into sight, and beyond it, walled Florence, the city of lilies. I’d yet to explore it in this time; Heru had deemed it too dangerous—there were other Nejerets in the city, and our kind have long, near-perfect memories. I hadn’t minded spending all of my time in the countryside with him, anyway.

  “Alright,” I said with a huff of breath. “Move your ass, preggo. It’s the final stretch …” It was a mostly straight, slightly downhill shot to the gate now.

  I was halfway there when the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I froze. Was it a warning from the twins? Could they sense Apep? Was he closing in on me already?

  A quick scan of the lanky, leafy trees bordering the road revealed nothing out of sorts, but the tall, bushy underbrush could’ve been concealing anything.

  I moved off to the side of the road and crouched down, tossing the cloak over my shoulder to free my hands and placing my right palm on the cracked, dusty earth to keep me from toppling forward. I closed my eyes, inhaled and held my breath, and listened. My Nejerette hearing picked up everything—every scurrying critter, every flap of a bird’s wings. In the distance, the sounds of the medieval city, the clanking and shouts and creaking, built to a dull roar.

  I exhaled shakily, then breathed in and held my breath once more, focusing on tuning out the far-off cacophony.

  The soft shush of fabric brushing against the edge of a bush.

  I turned my head, honing in on the scattered woods extending beyond the opposite side of the road, slightly ahead of my position. Were he behind me, I would’ve considered making a run for the gate.

  The snap of a twig.

  He definitely wasn’t behind me.

  Slowly, I stood and reached over my shoulder with both hands. My fingers closed around the hilt of the sword, and I drew it in one surprisingly smooth motion. The solidified At rang out as it slid free. I held the sword out before me, hoping the mere sight of it would hold Apep at bay long enough for the twins to jump me further back in time.

  “What a pretty toy you have created, carrier of my sheut,” Apep said using Set’s voice. The quiet words, uttered in the original tongue, slithered over my skin. “I think I shall pry it from your hands after I have ripped my sheut out of you.”

  I could see him now, picking his way through the woods. He wasn’t being careful any longer.

  “Try me,” I said, surprised by the steadiness of my voice.

  He threw back his head and laughed.

  “Lex!”

  At the sound of Heru’s yell, I looked down the hill. He was running, but still so far away. And Apep-Set was far too close.

  My deranged, possessed father emerged from the woods on the other side of the road and stopped, clasping his hands together behind his back. “Is this not exciting?”

  I risked a glance down the hill. Heru was still several hundred yards away. Was he close enough? If I let the twins jump me back in time now, would he remember me?

  Part of him would. But then, part of him had to. I felt like an idiot for not connecting the dots earlier.

  I stepped onto the dirt road toward Apep-Set and grinned.

  This was how it happened … how it was supposed to happen.

  I took another step, feeling the twins’ power welling in my abdomen in response to their closer proximity to Apep. Iridescent flames danced over the skin of my arms extended before me.

  This was why I’d haunted Heru’s dreams for centuries. I took one more step across the road, staring directly into Apep-Set’s horror-filled eyes. Heru was too far away to forget me completely. Because he had to be.

  The vibrant, misty colors of the At burst i
nto existence all around me, and the road to Florence fell away. I hadn’t screwed up the timeline. I’d protected it. Fulfilled it.

  As Re loved to say—it is what is.

  19

  Dust & Bone

  I passed through two more stops in my whirlwind tour of European history fairly quickly—Florence in the fourteenth century, then twelfth-century London, smack-dab in the middle of Richard the Lionheart’s reign—bringing me to tenth-century Scotland, or Rìoghachd na h-Alba, as it was called these days. Once again, I’d concealed parts of my story from Heru initially, specifically the us parts, and once again, he’d puzzled it out—though this time I was strict about practicing restraint. We were as celibate as a cohabitating monk and nun. Who made goo-goo eyes at one another. And snuggled. And shared a bed.

  Heru was fast asleep when I rose one morning and snuck from his bed. I retrieved the gown I’d worn the previous day, the velvet a muted purple that reminded me of the rising and setting sun, and slipped it on over my head. The heavy fabric fell around me, draping over my protruding belly. I gathered up the worked silver belt that I wore with all of my gowns, folding the delicate links over each other and wrapping them in my skirt to mute their noise. It was time for my weekly—or weekly-ish—checkup with Aset.

  Tiptoeing, I slipped out of the bedchamber, inching the heavy wooden door closed slowly enough that the iron hardware wouldn’t clink together. I’d learned the previous times I’d snuck out not to close the door completely. The latching of the mechanism within was a surefire way to wake Heru.

  Aset, Nik, and I always met somewhere new. There was ever a risk of being caught, but as my belly grew, accommodating the twins within, Aset became more and more adamant about meeting up.

  I felt like I was about to explode. I thought it couldn’t possibly be much longer until the twins arrived—an event I was both looking forward to and dreading. Their birth would mean an end to all of this running, this constant looking over my shoulder, this fear that every little nick might become infected or that I might catch some disease that my muted regenerative abilities wouldn’t be able to fight off. I still didn’t know how it would happen, but once the twins arrived, we would return home. Nik had told me as much in the cave all those months ago. I would have the chance to raise my children with the man I loved and, assuming Apep had been recaptured in my time, finally—finally—stop being so damn afraid all the time. I was so tired of being afraid.

  One hand curled under my belly, I snuck along Castle Uaireigin’s drafty third-floor hallway toward the stone stairwell that led to the second-floor landing. I paused at the top of the stairs, taking a deep breath and digging my knuckles into a particularly achy spot in my lower back. The heavy achiness was getting worse every day, cramps on steroids. Just another, albeit smaller, reason I was ready for this to be over.

  Quietly, I made my way down the stairs. At the landing, I turned away from the gallery open to the great hall below and headed toward the servants’ stairwell at the back of the castle. I’d been living in Castle Uaireigin for nearly three months, and I was familiar enough with the servants’ schedules by now to know they’d either be busy in the kitchens at this early hour, working out in the stable yard, or still sleeping, waiting for the sun to rise, the roosters to crow, and their day of servitude to begin anew.

  If I was careful, I could slip down the stairs and behind the tapestry at the bottom, ducking into a hidden passageway before any of them noticed me. I knew I could do it; I’d already done it nearly a dozen times before.

  I’d spent most of the third trimester of my pregnancy here, in the heart of the Middle Ages—the Dark Ages—but it wasn’t as bad as it sounded. I’d grown accustomed to the increasingly simple ways of life as I jumped further and further in time. The simplicity was almost addicting, and the ladies’ fashion of this time was surprisingly comfortable—pretty much like wearing a floor-length nightgown and a robe. And right now, comfort was as important to me as anything. Because I was so damn uncomfortable.

  Over my three previous stops in time, I’d grown moderately proficient with the sword Aset and Nik encumbered me with in Renaissance Italy. I hadn’t been practicing much with it lately; Heru refused to train me when I was so off-balance. Probably a wise decision.

  It was a little disconcerting to dive further and further back in time—back in medical advancement—even as I drew closer and closer to my due date. At least I had Aset. Her knowledge and skill with healing was far beyond that of the humans of this time. Knowing she’d be there when I needed her most was one of the few things keeping me sane in what had become an increasingly insane period of my life.

  I made it downstairs and into the secret passageway without a hitch. Once I was concealed, I paused to press both of my thumbs against the base of my spine. This aching—how did it keep getting worse? I exhaled heavily, hurting and tired. I’d slept horribly the night before, plagued by strange, incoherent dreams on the few occasions that I’d actually drifted off. I hadn’t been able to get comfortable, not lying, not sitting, and standing wasn’t doing me any favors, either.

  “Not much longer,” I said under my breath. It was the most enthusiastic pep talk I could muster on short notice.

  In the dark passageway, I paused to secure the silver belt around my “waist” before carefully picking my way over the scattered, discarded pieces of stone and wood that littered the floor. Most of the castle was newer, but this part was old, even now. I was curious to find out, once I returned to my time, whether or not it still stood, either as a functioning building or as a discarded ruin. I thought it might be slightly heartbreaking if I discovered that there was no remnant of it at all.

  Soon, the passageway angled downward, carrying me toward the system of tunnels and catacombs that ran underneath the castle. I took the rightmost fork, which would spit me out through a locked iron gate into the gardens behind the castle. Assuming I had a key, of course. I smiled and touched my belt. It was a gift from Nik and Aset—each link was actually a locket chamber holding a key crafted from solidified At to this or that part of the castle and grounds.

  It was still quite dark when I emerged into the gardens, and chilly, but not cold. It was the peak of summer here, disorienting when I considered it was winter back home.

  I passed between rows of onions in the bountiful kitchen gardens, then between rows of leeks, then rows of herbs on my way to the walled garden beyond. It was Heru’s private sanctuary, where he forbade any but himself—and me—from entering. The garden’s decaying stone walls reached a couple feet overhead and were covered almost completely by vines that seemed to both support it and work to pull it down. Within, the garden was overgrown, only a few clear spaces where the plants had been tended recently, but the plants weren’t the focal point of this particular garden.

  Every few feet along the interior walls, the vines were pulled to the side, a living curtain drawn away to reveal breathtakingly beautiful plaster friezes displaying life in ancient Egypt. The first time I’d seen them, I’d been so stunned that the words tripped over themselves as I told Heru about the passageways under the garage on Bainbridge. The scenes depicted—they were so similar. It was so him.

  There was one frieze, the one displaying the goddess Hathor and the god Horus—Hat-hur and Heru—as divine consorts. The first time Heru showed it to me, he explained that she was a memory from a dream of a time long ago. I’d touched the side of his face and told him it was not a dream.

  Though I’d been here many times before, this would be my first time meeting Aset and Nik in Heru’s secret, walled garden. I pushed the door open with a grunt, the old iron hinges groaning and the wood creaking.

  Aset and Nik were already there, Aset standing before the mural of the couple Heru and I used to be—would be—were—and Nik sitting on the ground, his back against a mossy boulder at the center of the garden. Aset turned partway, watching me enter over her shoulder.

  I offered them a quick smile, then turned to push the
door closed. I relocked it before stowing my key back in my belt. Turning around, I made my way into the heart of the garden.

  Aset met me with outstretched hands, grinning broadly. “And how are you on this morning, dear Lex?” she asked in the original tongue, leaning in to kiss first one side of my face, then the other.

  I pulled back and met her eyes. “Well enough, I suppose. And you?”

  Aset gave my hands a squeeze. “Oh, you know us. We are as we always are …” She released one of my hands to place hers on the crux of my belly. “It shall not be too much longer, I think. Perhaps one more month.”

  My shoulders slumped and I let out a sound that brought to mind a mooing cow. Which, coincidentally, was pretty much what I felt like.

  Aset laughed, a tinkling, chime-like sound. “When the time is right, it will happen. Not before, and not after.”

  “But why is now not the right time?” I whined.

  Again, Aset laughed, and Nik joined her.

  “I hate you both,” I said, sharing a friendly smile with first mother, then son.

  “Nonsense.” Aset swatted my arm. “You adore us. Now, come, let us begin your examination so we might return you to my brother before he notices you were ever gone.”

  Nik stood lookout while Aset took care of the poking and prodding and looking and listening, at least where my body was concerned. He leaned back against that mossy boulder and listened with all his might, hearing everything going on beyond the garden’s walls. If anybody was approaching, if anybody was even coming close, we would know.

  “I fear it is almost time,” Aset said, kneeling beside me while I readjusted my dress’s skirt on the ground around me.

  I paused and looked at her. “But you said another month …”