“Ten minutes max,” Seth replied, pulling me to the seat and onto his lap. “Sorry for the crappy wedding party last night. I should have been beside you; I should have protected you.”
I tried to smile even as I felt tears building. In the future Kye knew, Seth was fine, but everything was changing. We didn’t know Seth would be fine. It felt like to me that Logan was messing with things again.
“You are not to blame. No one expected Logan to come into the palace. He’s acting a bit too unpredictable,” I added and laid my head on his bare chest. He stroked my hair, which really made the tears want to come out.
“I’ll spend the rest of our lives making it up to you. I promise he will never get that chance again. I will keep you safe.” I wanted to argue that he couldn’t keep me safe while he was off at war, but I kept that to myself. I didn’t need to spend my last few moments with him, for what could end up being months, arguing with him.
“Do you have to go?” I asked. It wasn’t beyond me to plead. I really had a bad feeling about sending him off.
“Yes,” Seth answered before tilting my head up to meet my lips with his own.
Our lips touched; I could taste the saltiness of my tears as they came with the kiss. We were supposed to be safe. We were supposed to start our life together. This wasn’t right. My intuition told me so. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
“Promise me that you’ll never go anywhere near that pool house. If Miller is to be trusted, that’s always going to be a trap. Stay away from it,” Seth told me. I had no plans to head to the future and certainly not the pool house. I trusted Miller, even if Seth didn’t.
“Promise,” I said, as I noticed he was waiting for a verbal reply.
“And promise me you will never go anywhere without both Kye and Ty with you. You need their protection.”
“Wait, isn’t Ty going with you?” Seth couldn’t leave Ty behind. He was Seth’s personal guard. I had been around long enough to have heard the stories how Ty had saved Seth on more than one occasion. I had even seen the scars on both of them as they told of several close encounters with death. Seth couldn’t go to war without Ty beside him.
“He has to stay here now, and I gave him to you to protect you. He agreed to that. I will have to protect myself. He promised to keep you safe.” Seth leaned down to kiss me again.
“Umm.” Someone coughed from a little ways away from us in the garden. “I know you’re busy and all, but your father is getting impatient.”
I pulled back and smiled through my tears. Dee was standing and waiting for Seth.
“I’ll keep him out of trouble, Mari,” Dee told me as Seth stood but didn’t let go of my hand. “And I’ll have him back to you in no time.”
I smiled meekly. Seth leaned down and whispered in my ear.
“Nothing will ever keep me from you. Our fate was written together long before we were born, and Logan can’t change that.” He kissed my cheek and pulled back, dropping my hand.
No matter their confidence, I didn’t feel it. Something felt off. Seth was a warrior and would go off to war often in our lifetime together, but this was just rushed. It had to be connected to Logan. He had to have been the cause behind everything and the only question was: what did that mean? What was Logan planning now?
I watched the clouds pass over me again. I wasn’t in the mood to talk and sat all day feeling the bond weaken as Seth drove farther away from me. I was more certain than ever that this was a setup. What I didn’t know was how Logan even pulled it off. He couldn’t time travel within the borders, and he couldn’t have gotten away quick enough to outside of them, either. How did he start a war he knew would drag Seth away? Without knowing how, I was certain that this was working right into his plan.
Was Seth the one thing he planned to use to lure me to the future? Seth having the last stone was kind of our trump card. If Logan was still searching, we at least had time to figure out what to do. Once Logan realized the stones were all gone, he’d start the next phase. I really didn’t want to see what that was going to be.
“You have to come in some time,” Ty said to me as he sat beside me.
No, actually I didn’t.
“Why didn’t you go with him?” I asked. It wasn’t right to blame Ty for Seth leaving, but who else could I blame?
“I don’t fault you for wanting me to go,” Ty added, trying to comfort me. “I get that I have failed you. I’m sorry you can’t send me away.”
“Go away?” I wasn’t trying to send him anywhere beyond someplace where he could be with his best friends.
“Yes, you’ve tried a few times now to send me off with Seti. I messed up. I get it.” Ty wrung his hands as he spoke.
That wasn’t what I meant when I wanted him to go with Seth. Instantly all my anger toward him was gone. Ty was genuinely upset at the events from the night before.
“It wasn’t your fault. No one knew that Logan would do that. The old Logan would have never exposed himself that easily. This Logan, we don’t know. You could have never guessed,” I replied. I wasn’t mad at him at all. “I just want Seti to be safe, and I know you have kept him safe all these years. I don’t want to send you away.”
“Mari, I’m your guard now, not his. And I’m a crappy one at that. You don’t have to be nice to me. I should have been prepared at the wedding last night. I should have expected something to happen.” Ty was blaming himself, and I couldn’t help but feel bad.
“Ty. It’s okay. I didn’t want you to leave because of last night. I wanted you to go with Seti because something feels off to me. I don’t know, but it’s just a gut feeling. This doesn’t seem right.” I couldn’t explain it more.
Ty turned to me, and his chocolate brown eyes searched my own.
“You didn’t want to get rid of me?” he asked, like he hadn’t just heard what I said.
“No,” I replied with finality. “You have been my friend since the moment I met you. I never want you to leave.”
Kye joined us and sat beside me on the other side. Their protection detail was a bit much if you asked me, but I wasn’t about to complain. I wasn’t completely certain why Logan was getting Seth out of Egypt. Was he going to try to take Seth, or would he go after me again?
“What is your gut telling you about everything?” Kye asked. He seemed as in tune with everything around us as I was, maybe even more so.
“That this isn’t supposed to happen. That this war Logan is creating will change things, and I’m not sure if that’s right or not,” I replied.
“And you aren’t just worried about Seti?” Kye searched my face just as Ty had done. Was I that transparent?
“Yes, I’m worried about him, but I’m also worried that Logan is acting too impulsively and changing events that shouldn’t change. What if he messes something up majorly?”
Kye pressed his fingers together. He didn’t reply, and instead watched his own hands.
“If Logan is messing with the events, then yes, this might upend everything,” Kye finally said. He was more serious than I had seen him.
“What does that mean?” Ty asked.
“If Mari’s gut is right, we need to stop this war. She has the power of five stones in her now. She’s becoming more like the goddess. If she thinks something’s wrong, then it probably is,” Kye replied. He looked up to the sky and closed his eyes. “Shit. Here I promised to keep you safe, and now we’re going to have to leave Egypt, and then I can’t keep you safe. Seti is going to kill me.”
“So that means we get to go see Seti?”
“Maybe, but first we have to plan,” Kye replied.
I looked at him and then at Ty. These two were my link to my time traveling. We had been through much together, and I really didn’t know where I’d be without them.
I closed my eyes and felt for the bond with Seth. He was even further away now, but I could live with that. We were going to follow him. I just hoped that he wouldn’t be too mad. Seth worried about me, but I wa
sn’t going to fall for Logan and his tricks this time. This time I was going in with my eyes wide open. While Kye wouldn’t give me details, I already had a good idea of what life would be like if we failed. No more time to worry about that. We were going to win this one.
“So where do we start?” I asked. No time better than the present to work against Logan.
“We need to go back and see first if what Logan said was true,” Ty suggested. “If you really don’t think this is what’s supposed to happen, maybe it’s just a trick to get Seti out of the country. There might not even be a war brewing.”
I hadn’t even thought of that.
“If I know where to go, I can just sneak there and back again without anyone knowing,” I suggested.
Both Ty and Kye turned to me at the same time with the exact same expression of horror on their faces.
“Not a chance,” Ty replied. Kye nodded along with him.
“Then what? What do we do?”
“You send me back in time and let me look into it,” Kye replied when Ty didn’t have an answer either.
My mouth must have been hanging open as he quickly continued.
“You have the powers of the goddess. You can send people through time just like she could; only you use the stones on your arms. You can think of a time, and I can direct it to where I want to go and poof-- I’ll be back in the past in the right place,” Kye explained.
“And what if Logan gets you?” I replied. I didn’t like his plan any more than sending Seth off to a war that I knew wasn’t supposed to be happening.
“I’m still a gatekeeper. Going back to my thirteen-year-old body isn’t ideal, but I can do it if I need to,” Kye replied. He seemed to already being planning it in his head.
“It isn’t safe. Logan is looking for you, just as he’s looking for me. Miller was certain you would be punished,” I added.
I really didn’t want to send Kye alone. Miller was positive that Kye needed to stay away from Logan, and I was just as convinced now that I had met the evil hiding in Logan. Kye was almost as high up on Logan’s list as I was for punishment. How could I convince Kye to stay? There had to be another way.
“No. This is perfect.” Kye stood and began to pace. “Logan is going to expect you to go back and save Seth. He won’t expect me. And he can’t feel me like I can feel him.”
“Or I can feel you,” I added. I sure hoped Kye was right, and that Logan wasn’t just ignoring Kye all the years.
Kye stopped. “You can feel me?”
“Yeah, you feel like my mom and dad,” I replied. That was what gave away that he was my son in the first place. “You make that warm humming feeling inside me. Isn’t that because your family?”
Kye smiled. “Not family. If that was the case, Logan would feel me, too. No, it’s because you love me.” I could almost hear the awe in his voice.
I guess I did love him. He was my son after all, no matter how strange it seemed.
“Do you feel more than just your mother, father, and me?” Kye asked curiously.
I shrugged. I hadn’t even tried. He waited, so I closed my eyes. Slowly I could feel things around me. I felt my senses stretch just like a vine growing in fast motion. It was easy to feel Ty beside me, but as everything stretched, I could feel more. I could feel Dee as he drove the horses for him and Seth. I even felt the tug of time slip, and I could feel my grandfather as he sat in his study in the future I grew up in. One by one, I could feel all the people in my life that I cared about. I was connected to everyone.
“Do you feel people?” Kye asked quietly, trying to keep from disturbing me.
“Yes,” I whispered back. I had no clue what it meant, but things were changing. I was changing. Now it was time to shift things back to the way they were meant to be. It was time to stop Logan in his game to make the world his.
“We need to get the stones from Logan,” Kye finally added.
“Why?” Ty asked. “She already is starting to get the goddess’ powers. Won’t that just grow with time? Can’t we wait?”
“It won’t be complete until she gets all the stones. Even if Logan is left with one stone, he can still stop us. I was wrong before. We can’t just wait and outsmart Logan at his own game. He’s losing control, and we can’t even begin to understand what to do to counter him. We need to go on the offensive.”
I wanted to agree, but I was still caught in the fuzzies of feeling everyone I ever cared about. It was strange, yet comforting at the same time. I would never feel alone again.
“You need to send me now,” Kye told me, breaking me away from my thoughts.
“Now?” I asked. I wasn’t prepared to do that.
“Yes, now before Logan does anything that could take you from us,” Kye replied. He was eager to leave.
I looked to Ty to help me persuade Key to stay. He shrugged.
“No time like the present,” Kye added, motioning to me to get moving on sending him away.
Ugh. I hated that he was eager to go off on his own. I was already worried about Seth, and now I’d have to sit and worry about Kye.
“Don’t look at me like that. If we do this right, this will all just be a memory, and you’ll blink, and find Seth right back here where he belongs. There’ll be no war, and nothing would have pulled him from you.”
I hoped Kye was right. Everything seemed to be falling out of control, and I wanted to put my foot down and stop it.
“How do I do this?’ I relented.
Kye grinned and took my hand.
“Feel for the tingles like you are going to time travel and push them at me. Since I know how to time travel, I’ll do the rest.” Kye was grinning at me. He was more than eager to go off. I hated boys and their sense of adventure.
I wanted to protest, but knew it was futile. Kye was set on this, and I had a feeling we weren’t going to get much of a chance to think up anything else.
“Don’t leave her side for any reason,” Kye told Ty. “With me gone, there’ll be no way for you guys to know if Logan is around. I don’t feel him, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t show up. Keep her safe.”
Ty nodded to him, and they both turned back to look at me. I really didn’t want to send him away. Whether it was a good decision or not, we needed to do something.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“Ready as ever,” he replied.
I took a deep breath and felt for the tingles. I didn’t want to send him back too far, just enough to stop the stupid war that took Seth away. The tingles built inside me, traveling from my marked arm and into the rest of my body. Before they could take over completely, I quickly pushed them toward my hand that was linked with Kye. I surely didn’t want to end up in another time. The tingles mushed into his hand, and I felt them release as he disappeared. Kye was gone. Now I just hoped I had done the right thing.
Chapter 9
Bring Him Home
I stared at Ty. It had already been over an hour and nothing felt different. We both tried to search our memories, and I didn’t find a single different thought. Everything was the same. We had sent Kye back to change everything and nothing happened. Pacing my room, I tried to keep believing that everything was okay. Kye would get to Seth even if things didn’t work as we hastily planned. I had to keep believing that.
“If something went wrong, Kye would have come back,” Ty tried to remind me for the tenth time.
I knew that much, but I highly doubted, unless something went really wrong, that Kye would use his time travel powers. He was right. Physically, a Kye that was a grown man, trained in the army for the past seven or so year, was more helpful when it came to fighting than a thirteen-year-old Kye would never be.
“I just wish I could invisibly float around like the goddess and check on them. I wish I could see what was happening with them,” I complained as I sat beside Ty.
My head throbbed, and I sighed. I had been so worried about Seth and Kye that I didn’t even notice a headache coming on.
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“They’ll be fine,” Ty said from his perch across the room by the window. I didn’t know if it was more for him or me that he said it, but I didn’t have time to contemplate it. My head throbbed harder.
“I’m just going to lie down and wait,” I told Ty as I felt my mind slipping away.
“Mari?” Ty said as he turned to me and noticed my eyes were falling shut.
What a time to pass out. I had been worrying about everything so much I probably had a sugar low. Ty went out of focus as my eyes closed completely, and the sheets smacked my face, not so gracefully.
Once in my early teens when I had gotten sick from the flu, I passed out from dehydration at school when I refused to miss a day. I told my mother I had to be there for a test, but it was more because my best friend Amy had needed me to ask a boy out for her. I remember asking the boy and then feeling as I just had right now, but something was definitely different this time. I thought everything would fade to black like the only other time I passed out. It wasn’t like that.
I heard things around me. Ty worriedly fanned my face and took my pulse. I let that go as I felt my mind move out into the hallway. I zoomed around the palace instantly and was outside my parents’ part of the palace. I heard them talking.
“Are you sure you can’t just ban him from ever entering Egypt?” my mother’s voice asked. “If he gets word that she isn’t awake, I’m sure he’ll take her from us. She can’t protect herself if she’s not awake.”
“That’s not how my powers work. I can’t keep Logan from coming into my country on foot like anyone else, I can only stop his time traveling,” my father replied.
“Well, that doesn’t help anything,” my mother complained. “He walked right in here and took her, on her wedding night of all nights. Kye told you the only way she can avoid Logan’s fate was to have a child with Seth. How the heck is that supposed to happen now? He’s going hundreds of miles away.”
I pulled back my mind from that one. Was Kye talking to my parents without me? He had hinted that I could change fate that way, but was never as explicit as my parents were.