She walked over to the wall to feel the roughness of the wood that was used to construct the cabin.
“Don’t touch anything, you’ll simply die sooner,” the witch cautioned her, but Grace wasn’t listening.
“I’m going to die anyway according to you. Why should it matter how I die?”
“You need to procreate first.”
“Aww, how could I forget that. I’m the last of my line. Unless I have a child, there will never be another Firestarter.”
“The one you say survived,” the witch cackled.
“She won’t have another child, and the other one is no longer affected by the curse. In case you’re wondering, she had a boy.”
“That’s impossible, the curse I placed on your line made sure you would have daughters.”
“I know, isn’t it wonderful. She totally broke the curse and can live her life the way she wants to.”
Grace walked across the cabin to enter the kitchen. She had never seen a kitchen as advanced as what was before her. She didn’t know what most of it was.
“You can manipulate time. Can you manipulate space, also?”
“Yes.” The witch’s eyes flared briefly with hatred.
“No, you can’t. If you could, I wouldn’t be here because you would have made sure Joaquin was never born.”
“I will kill him.”
Grace shrugged as she moved around the cabin. It was a threat with no teeth. The woman couldn’t hurt Joaquin, and they both knew it.
“Why are you here?”
“I was wondering the same question. The more I stand here, the more I understand that if I kill you, the curse will be lifted forever. The bonus, you won’t be able to curse another. Then I think maybe I am here to ask why. Why did you curse my family?”
The witch went to the middle of her living room and waved a hand over the floor. Steam rose and turned into a reflective mirror. The witch was hanging from a cross, and a male was behind her flogging her.
“He thought he was in charge. That he could beat me to get the things he wanted out of life.”
“Was he your husband?”
“Yes, I made the mistake of marrying him. Back then it was like being owned. I was young and foolish and didn’t listen to the older witches around me. I bound my life to his. That meant instead of making him die a horrible death, I had to hang there while he beat me.
“Your family member came along and saw me for what I was, but she still took pity on me and made my husband leave me alone. She took pity on me. A witch. One of the most powerful witches around. I burned with fury that day. Maybe I should have felt gratitude, but instead, I was incensed that she, a mere mortal, led a better life than I did. I cursed her and every generation to come from her womb. That includes you.”
“What happened to your husband?” Grace was still watching the reflective surface where every word the witch said was played out in vivid colors. The woman on the screen could have been a reincarnation of her mother they looked so much alike.
“Him,” she drawled out pure venom in that one word. “I suffered years of abuse at his hands until I got stronger. Strong enough to break the bond I placed between the two of us and then I killed him and every member of his family.”
“You have that all or nothing mentality when it comes to vengeance don’t you?”
“I do, it’s served me well in the past and will serve me well again.” The witch raised her hands and began to say the same words that she said in the reflective mirror to Grace's ancestor.
“She,” Grace indicated the mirror, “didn’t have a defense against you because she was only human. Me, on the other hand, I’m human and cursed.”
The witch got to the middle of her curse and Grace set her on fire.
“What are you doing?” the witch screamed chanting fast to put out the flames, but Grace kept them coming.
Finally, when the shields the witch erected were down, Grace stood over her and smiled.
“I know your name. Your cabin whispered it to me as I stroked it, Annaliese.”
She flinched and hid her face.
“Stand up, Annaliese.” Grace pulled her to her feet by her name. “It’s time for things to change. You’ve lived for years with your bitterness but no more.”
“What can you do? You’re still human; a curse won’t make you a witch.”
“Your right but not all the witches in my world are born, some make themselves into witches. And I know them.” Grace raised her hands as fire shot from her once again covering Annaliese in the flames.
Then she began to say the words she memorized so carefully a decade ago hoping, praying really that one day she would run into the killer of her family. Annaliese screamed as the fire and the words that were sheer magic burrowed beneath her skin.
Finally, Grace staggered and ended sliding down the very wall that betrayed Annaliese by revealing her name.
“It’s done.”
“What did you do?” There was fear in her eyes as if she already knew but was hoping what she imagined was wrong.
“I broke the spell. If I ever have a child, and it’s a girl, she won’t have to worry about becoming a monster at thirty, and the fire will always be hers to control.”
“I’ll just curse you again, if not today, then tomorrow but it is coming.”
“Then curse me now.”
Annaliese stood and smiled; Grace deserved this because she refused to die with all of her other kin. She held out her hands and began to weave them through the air as her lips formed the words for the spell. She got half way through it when the fire erupted through her body, burning her, making her suffer. She watched as her flesh disappeared before her eyes only to be rejuvenated. She dropped to the floor rolling to put out the flames.
“Every time you go to curse someone you will burn. One of the things I learned from the curse was willpower, how to hold myself back. How not to hurt another even accidently. You never learned that lesson; if you had you would have never cursed my family when all my ancestor did was offer you help. You would have disposed of your husband, but not a family that I’m thinking was mostly innocent. You’re a child with too much power. So now I’m going to be the one to teach you restraint.”
Grace picked herself up and walked out the cabin feeling good. She could have a brand new life, a life with Joaquin. Sadness hit her in the heart when she thought of him. Would he die here because he had cared enough to come here with her and give her a second chance at life?
She didn’t know, and her heart ached because at that moment she understood the one thing she had been avoiding.
Chapter Thirteen
The Trailx was late; Joaquin had been walking around and talking to the pure Sudir for close to seven hours, and now The Trialx would want him to judge them. He wasn’t too happy about the situation he found himself in. Elise was heading his way, and she had her father by the hand.
“Hi,” she said in her much too happy voice. “This is my daddy; I wanted him to meet you.” Then she turned and skipped away going to play with a little boy that Joaquin thought was Stevon’s son.
“Hi.”
“Hi, I’m Joaquin.”
“Joaquin, I’m Nathan.”
Joaquin lifted a brow and looked at him. “The group I am with thought we should blend in. We also move a lot, so no realizes we aren’t aging.”
That made sense, Victor and the rest of the Arbrin/Matra had made Newburg a great place to live, and since most people living there were others, there was no need to move around or pretend to age.
“I’ve only run into a handful of Arbrin/Matra across the years. How are the rest faring?”
“Considering we are on our own without any real direction. I’d say we get along well.”
He nodded it had to be different living with the king of your people directly. The rest of the Arbrin/Matra knew there was a king; they even understood if they brought trouble to the species they would be found and dealt with but they didn’t have
any direct contact with Victor.
Joaquin would have given up all direct contact with Victor but he was seeing things from Nathan’s point of view, having to move constantly and pretend to age wouldn’t be a life he wanted to live.
“Have you ever considered moving to Newburg?”
“How many of us can settle there and how many Sudir will follow? Can I bring my soul-bonded? Would it be safe for her there? Would the king condone such an interaction and what would happen to my daughter? Would the reactions of the Arbrin/Matra be any more accepting than those of the pure Sudir?”
“Is your child’s biology working against her?”
Nathan looked at him not pretending that he didn’t understand what was being asked.
“Can we take a seat?”
Joaquin nodded and followed him to the edge of the gathering where there were seats around a table that wasn’t in use.
They took a seat while Nathan took a deep breath. He looked over the fields lined with flowers that the children had been tumbling in until his eyes closed and his head dropped.
“I thought we were going to lose her.” His voice came out strained as if he were reliving the memories as he spoke. “She was so little, and it was obvious to both her mother and me that our different biological make-ups were killing our daughter. Her body almost felt like it wouldn’t stabilize no matter what we did with her. Everything was up in the air here. We thought we would have to run sooner than I was prepared for and it was certain that within days she would die.”
Nathans' voice cracked, and his shoulders dropped. A world of pain was opening up before him, and just the thought of what they had gone through was enough to bring him to his knees.
“What happened?” He needed to know the answer. Was it a drug some special ritual what had saved Elise’s life and her parents with her.
“We fed her a special diet, and that helped.”
Joaquin nodded, he had been on a special diet as a child he remembered his mom feeding him and smiling telling him it would make him grow stronger, but he was still at odds with himself although he hadn’t been when he was younger. There had been no division of his soul as a young male.
“The true key was acceptance.”
Joaquin’s head popped up allowing him to stare into Nathan’s gaze.
“It seems strange, doesn’t it? It’s not logical or scientific. It doesn’t feed off our abilities; it’s just right. When we accepted who our child was, and we accepted our love, she began to thrive. It was like we somehow passed our acceptance onto her. I can’t explain it, but that’s how it happened.”
“So you're saying that all I have to do to stop myself from tearing apart and dying horribly is to accept myself?”
“No,” Nathan looked around at the blue of the sky and the children who were playing tag once again before he looked back at Joaquin. “I’m saying you’re not dying.”
Joaquin watched as Nathan got up and went to find his soul-bond. He sat there for a long time before he finally did what he was dreading, giving himself an internal exam. The last time he did it he knew his time was almost up.
He closed his eyes and looked deep inside of himself. He watched as his blood circulated throughout his body and his heart pumped with a nice steady beat. He checked out kidneys that should be trying to shut down and finally he withdrew from himself just in time to see The Trialx and Voyager walk into the gathering.
Everything stopped. The children stopped running and laughing. They gathered around their parents. The pure Sudir stopped, they held their children tightly as The Trialx walked through their midst until he was standing in the center of them all.
Voyager looked bored until he threw Joaquin a smile and changed his form to look like his mother.
Joaquin’s heartbeat kicked up as he watched the form of his mother walk through the Sudirs. She fit in perfectly these were her people, but she stopped to talk to Nathan then hug him. A smile curled his lips because that’s what his mom would have done.
“Joaquin.” The Trialx called him. His voice demanded Joaquin present himself.
Maybe as he judged his people, he was also judging himself. If that was the case he didn’t hold out much hope for them. He took a deep breath before he stood and went to face The Trialx; it was time for this to be over.
“At your service,” he gave a deep bow. The Trialx was not laughing. Oh well, he shrugged his shoulders, right now it was about his amusement.
“I have come to find out your answer on whether they live or die.”
Joaquin felt his hands clench as the power that resided inside of him tried to flow. He always thought coming to the trials would be about power and control, but this had nothing to do with his power or his control over that power. Judging these people felt darker to him because it dealt with who he was down to his DNA and once again he thought of Grace and how he begged The Trialx not to kill her.
He couldn’t save his Grace although he had tried. Why should he save them? Stevon was holding his son in a tight hug as if this would be the last time it ever happened. Elise was standing between her parents her bright eyes focused on him because she trusted him. As far as she was concerned, they were the same.
Stevon had pleaded for Elise and her parents’ life when he hadn’t pleaded for his son’s life, and Joaquin knew he wanted to. His eyes looked over the crowd, many of whom he had spent some time talking with. He learned enough to know they all weren’t innocent, and several had made some mistakes that cost them as individuals as well as a group.
“I have come to a decision.” There was a collective gasp as heads lowered accepting the decision of death they saw in his eyes.
“My mother, Quay, maybe some of you remember her?” He watched as the original nine that were still alive lowered their heads. “She faced death to bring you here to Earth. It’s not your original planet, but it is the place where you have grown, survived, and thrived. She saved your lives and gave you a chance to create this community.”
He walked through the crowd until he was standing in front of Elise.
“Elise, take your parents and go stand by the barn.” He watched as she led them there. “Who deserves to be saved? I was sure in the beginning none of you deserved that. You left my mom to die when she sent out a request for aid and then you left me to fend for myself and not one of you cared.”
He walked to Stevon and took his son out of his arms. “Go stand by Elise and her family.” The boy looked at his dad, and he nodded his agreement hugging him one more time.
“Then Stevon asked me to spare Elise’s life and that of her family. That request made me wonder about the children. All children seventeen and younger go stand by the barn please.”
No one made a sound but shoulders shook, and parents clung to each other as they got their final looks at their children. Tears ran down faces. Joaquin hadn’t realized the Sudir could even cry until that moment.
“I had to ask myself a question as I watched the children play. Should everyone die for the crimes of a few? Wouldn’t it only be right and fair to give the race a second chance? Then I thought of the people you put out of your community and wondered if they were dead, and if so, would your deaths give them some matter of satisfaction.”
Joaquin turned to face The Trialx. “They deserve to die, but if we killed everyone that deserved to die there would be very few beings left on the Earth. My mother would ask for leniency because she believed we make mistakes and we learn not to repeat those mistakes. I am going to ask for leniency for them.”
“Why? Give me one good reason I should let them live.” The Trialx’s voice boomed out, the sky went dark, and the clouds swelled with water waiting to release their burden.
“Elise,” Joaquin called to her. “Come stand by me.”
She dropped her father’s hand and ran to Joaquin giving him a big smile.
Joaquin smiled at her and then his form change. He no longer looked like the Pure Sudir around him he looked like Nathan. He look
ed like his father, nothing but pure Arbrin.
“Come play with me, Elise.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. Everyone watched as she blurred before she finally stabilized and she looked like the Arbrin she was.
Joaquin turned to The Trialx. “The first female Arbrin to be born on the Earth. She will one day have daughters that will be female Arbrin’s.”
The Trialx nodded, and no one questioned Joaquin. Very few people are born with the ability to speak only the truth and to hear the truth in the words spoken to them. When Joaquin changed forms, there was no way for him to hide the ability. Once again Joaquin changed his form until the Matra stood in his place.
He looked over and smiled at Elise. “Come play with me.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. Once again her form blurred making her mother gasp until she was solid once again. Before them stood a female Matra.
“The first female Matra to be born on Earth. She will be the mother of others and through her life, both the female Arbrin’s and the female Matra’s will thrive.”
The Trialx dropped to his knees and opened his arms. Elise looked at her parents who nodded before she walked into them. He held her tight, and then he glowed passing along power that she would one day grow into.
“Elise is the reason you should have leniency; she is the first, but she will not be the last. If you allow the people to live.”
“What a strange turn of events. Many years ago you condemned Joaquin to death, and now he saves your lives. Take this opportunity to learn to be more than who you are now.” The Trialx turned to look at Elise’s parents. “I would like to come back later and spend some time with her. Will you allow that?”
Nathan opened his mouth only to have his soul-bonded place her hand over it.
“Yes.”
With a smile, The Trialx disappeared taking Joaquin with him.
Chapter Fourteen
Joaquin found himself standing in front of his apartment building with the doorman looking at him strangely.
Joaquin's Saving Grace (Alien Mates Book Five 5) Page 8