“It’s still blind fate.”
“Which makes it powerful. If something is meant to pull you from this moment, then it will.” And with that, he pulled his glasses to his eyes and turned and left the room.
I closed my eyes and thought, “Are you okay?” knowing Willow could hear me from where she was, basically just above my head.
“Yeah. Libby is calming me down.”
“I’m going to take a shower down here. I’m only a thought away.”
“K.”
I only offered a glance to Brady before I grabbed the clothes my mother had laid out for this night. I stormed into the shower, trying to let the scalding water ease my tension, knowing it was reflecting in the air., that my warriors could feel it.
I had just finished shaving when Brady opened the bathroom door and leaned into the frame.
“Was it harder than you thought it would be?”
“What?”
“Telling her about this.”
“She has no anger. I would say I got off pretty easy.”
“Did she fear it?”
“Not like I thought she would.”
“That is a good sign.”
“Brady, she is trapped in that vessel. Her soul only peeks out now and then. This is dangerous, and you know it.”
“What brings it out?”
I was pulling on my shirt and hesitated as he asked that question. “Me.”
“Right,” Brady said as he turned to leave my sight. I cursed under my breath. I hated how he could argue with me with only one word and end up being right.
I started to tell myself that I could do this. No matter how this went down, I could shield her. How bad could this be?
As soon as that thought came, Phoenix appeared in front of me and all I could think was Dammit.
Chapter Seventeen
~ Landen ~
“What?” I asked as my heart thundered. He would not be here unless he knew I was walking down the wrong path. This would not be the first time Phoenix had appeared just in time to save my ass; hopefully, it would not be the last.
“How fast can you fortify that barrier?”
Not what I wanted to hear. All systems in Chara were about to be in limbo until Willow and I walked this path. “No idea. Why?”
I could feel rage pulsing off him. If there was one thing he could not stand, it was being controlled, and right now he felt condemned for some reason.
“Remember how we could see three moons from the roof of the palace right after our little release in The Realm—right after Justus appeared and all that?”
I nodded once. That wasn’t a baffling moment for me. We had released enough souls from The Realm to weaken the power that Esterious was feeding off that it made sense that the atmosphere would be clear enough to notice the reflections of other dimensions.
“Those weren’t reflections, mate. They were Chara’s moon, and the moon in that little dimension you said you hung out in, along the moon of death.”
“How do you know this?”
“I’m resourceful. Donalt only needs one powerful release of energy to collide all three. You’re breaths away from having a few billion dead souls marching around your bright little paradise.”
“I thought we had a plan for that?”
“Yeah, the plan was for Drake to stop time, but not stop it from happening. When it blows, it blows.”
“How much time?”
“I don’t know how much. It’s the dead of night over there. Drake kept his word. He stopped time when the first explosion went off and has been holding it for a while. I don’t know where he’s getting his willpower from, but I doubt he can hold it much longer. I literally just figured this out about the moons. Drake doesn’t know. Sent a call out to Draven.”
“Drake should be able to sense us,” I stated evenly, knowing that ever since the four of us touched the table—since our energy somehow acknowledged each other—I sensed the other three, at least when I wasn’t distracted by another more powerful emotion, meaning Willow’s body and soul merging with mine.
“Right. I think we both know there is a reason Drake would have turned off that connection.”
That wasn’t a hateful remark. He meant Drake was doing what he said he was going to do to: put his girl first. I didn’t have time to even process this.
“Well, someone needs to knock on his door, don’t you think?”
“Sure, sure, and tell him what again? That all hell’s about to break loose? That he’s going to be drowned in energy-thirsty Escorts as soon as he loses his hold on time?”
“We have to control the energy.”
“That’s a new plan.”
“What was yours?”
“Well, I was hoping you and your little fire people could fortify the barrier to your world, then that would only let the unoccupied dimension be ransacked with dead. I didn’t know how to protect Esterious, though...abandon ship came to mind.”
“Are you and Draven not dealing with the dead?”
“Mate, there are two of us. Count the girls, and you have four against billions; we are a bit overloaded here.”
“If he can release the explosions slowly, my rampart soldiers can weather it. That is all I can promise right now. They can’t leave here. Hell, Chrispin and Marc are pushing the limits now by not being here.”
“What’s your timeline?”
I felt my arms burning. My shoulders. That dagger on my chest. “For all I know, seconds.”
Grief hit his stare. “Mate, you sure you can’t stall this? We kinda got a lot going on right now.”
“We do, and you are giving me every reason to stand up and defend my borders from Creator knows what.”
All at once, it felt like someone had punched me in the gut. I felt nauseated as hell and dizzy. I wasn’t the only one; Phoenix bowed forward, too. “What the hell, mate?”
My first thought was of Drake and Draven, that something had happened to them, but before I could utter a word my biggest regret and dear friend appeared in front of me: Skylynn. Tears were streaming down her face, and she was so pale I almost thought I could see through her.
“I need you.”
“No time for this, Skylynn. The man’s about to unite his soul, and his dimension is breaching—among other things.”
“Guardian,” she pleaded as she braced my shoulders then knelt before me, gasping with tears. “Please. Please. He’s dying. He’s dying, and so am I. Please—you are not this cruel.”
A fainting feeling came over me. I could swear the floor had dropped fifty feet, then rose. Phoenix was no better.
“What the hell is going on?” he growled.
“We were looking for three more kings. I think I found one.”
“You gotta be kidding me?” Phoenix said, glancing at Skylynn at my feet. “Sunshine is going to love that.”
It wasn’t a far-fetched idea that Aden could be one of the seven kings. He was not only Draven’s twin, but light that opposed Skylynn’s darkness. Not to mention that my very vague memories told me I knew him on the other side of The Fall, that I was honored to know him.
I pulled Skylynn to her feet with a thought. “Where have you been?”
She shook her head, not finding the words, and that was when I saw the dried blood on her hands.
“Where?”
“Esterious.”
Phoenix and I locked eyes. We both knew time was stopped in Esterious right now. How could Aden have been hurt? I had every reason to trust and not trust Skylynn right now. I mean, really? My ex basically pulling me from Willow’s side in some desperate cry—asking me to save someone that I knew I was in debt to for more reasons than I could grasp in this chaos?
“Echo. It’s in the echo. It’s bad, Guardian,” Skylynn pleaded.
The pain in my gut was agonizing. I know I was sweating at this point. I couldn’t gather my thoughts, but I understood what was happening with little effort.
“Drake held time for too long. Eve
rything is building behind it. Whatever was supposed to happen there is going to fly forward as soon as he lets it go,” Phoenix said with another grunt. He’d managed to push the pain down; not me. The time I’d spent in the Radiance, along with the ceremony, was making me more sensitive to this pain.
And now that I thought about it, Marc and Chrispin more than likely were not back because time had been stopped in Esterious. They were frozen in time, which would not be good if I were pulled into that ceremony.
I grunted. “Send Draven to tell Drake to let it go slowly, then get every ally we have to back up this side of the Veil.” I glanced at Skylynn. “I can’t fix it until it really happens, and we can’t stop it.”
“Why not?” she pleaded as Phoenix vanished to do as I asked.
“Intent was set. By him or someone else. It’s going to happen.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what death felt like, but it had to be close to this. My body felt like it was ripping in two. I felt the burns of the flames, along with a pain that Aden didn’t even know he was going to have yet.
“Why are you in pain? What do you need?” Skylynn asked with wide eyes as her hands moved across my shoulders. I winced, feeling the burn.
“Tomorrow.”
“What?”
“I need it to be tomorrow.”
She was utterly confused, and I didn’t have the mental power to just explain that I wanted this day over with. This pain over with.
“You’re not dying,” she all but yelled.
Her desperation was a mix of emotions. Part of her didn’t want to think of me being out of her life again—which made no sense—and the other part of her knew I was the only one who could save the boy she had fought tooth and nail to love.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on.” Right as I said that, I felt my body rock forward. Drake had released time. In his world, everything would feel normal, as if it were flowing at a natural speed, but because I was somehow linked to him and firmly in a different world, different time scale, I felt an unexpected rush. It was not helping me balance at all.
“Time is moving,” Skylynn gasped as she began to tremble.
I sent a mental command to my warriors to guard the rampart, telling them to expect a push of energy and to push back. I felt their dismay. They were confused. They knew just as well as I did that we had other things planned for right now.
My father and Brady stepped back into the room I was in just in time to see Skylynn reach her hands for my face, trying to get me to calm down.
I felt an insane burn roaring through me. I wanted water. I needed water. I wanted to dive deep and hard into the coldest water I could find. Right as my soul started to pull me there, Skylynn stopped me, using more strength than she should have had. She was pulling out all the stops.
Brady and my father tried to pull her off me right as Willow descended, carefully carried in her father’s arms. Surely, she was feeling the same pain, the same burn.
“Hell no! No, no, no, no!” Skylynn roared as a veil of light surrounded me and I vanished from the eyes of the woman I would die for. I vanished because Skylynn had stolen me. She was powerful enough to do that in my weakened state.
A second later, I found myself surrounded by damp walls. A dark passage.
“What the hell did you do?” I tried to yell, but it was only a rasp.
“You would drown, you idiot. If you went in that water, you would have drowned. He dies, you die. You are connected. I don’t know why or how, but I know I’m right.”
I didn’t care if she was right or wrong, all I could see was Willow’s eyes in my mind, the way she looked at me as I vanished with Skylynn.
I tried to move myself back, but I was hitting a wall. A wall of Skylynn’s energy.
“Don’t glare at me. I’m saving your freaking life, and his, too. I will explain it all to her. I will grovel at her feet, beg for forgiveness, but I’m saving your life, Aden’s, maybe even hers.”
The burns on my arms were so painful that I couldn’t breathe. Skylynn spoke something over me.
“Not helping.”
“Wasn’t for you.”
“Right. Aden,” I said with a smirk. Skylynn had always had a one-track mind.
“No. Willow. I told her. I let her see. I pushed it to her.”
“You feel her?” I asked with a pant. “Is she in pain?” I knew that shadowed souls could push into the thoughts of others, sense them for a moment or two. I knew that all too well because that was how Skylynn had roped me into her life in the first place. But then again, I wasn’t complaining at the time.
“Not as much as you.”
A cool breeze washed over me. Skylynn was doing that.
“How fast is time going to move?” she asked, clearly not knowing if she could keep me alive long enough to heal Aden.
“I don’t know. Not like I have a watch.”
“How did you and Phoenix feel this? Because you were in the Radiance?”
I nodded weakly, knowing that the energy there may have had something to do with it. But I was sure a lot of it had to do with the fact that Drake had kept time stopped for so long. I’m sure he was probably feeling this, just as Draven was, but they would only feel this stomach pain. I could deal with that. Hell, I doubt I would even wince if that was all. My issue: the flames. This mark was pulling me. Ending my life. If there was one thing I was good at, it was bad timing.
I cursed Donalt in my head, finding a way to blame him for this, too. We wouldn’t have had to stop time if he had not plotted against us. Not to mention that someone was about to take down Aden. He did this. Rage. I felt that. I was going to rip that ghost to shreds the second I got my power back. I was so sick of this.
I heard the rustling of feet running toward us, a painful grunt, then everything turned green for an instant.
Skylynn gasped and pulled me with all of her weight and her energy toward something, but it was useless. I was dead weight at the moment, and she had exhausted all her powers.
This was the end. In a cold, dark passageway in a palace that I’d been groomed to hate. It was almost ironic.
Then out of nowhere, the air was saturated with the heavy scent of mint laced with burning honey. I struggled to get my eyes open. Skylynn was clawing her way into the dark abyss, trying to reach what was surely Aden groaning in agony. Above me was a massive man, no older than me. His shoulders were broad, and his eyes were like ice, cutting through the darkness.
He held no expression in his stoic image as he reached his hand down for me. I don’t know why I trusted him, but I did. In the back of my mind, I was reaching to grasp Drake or even Draven’s hand. On contact, I felt a volt of energy soar through me. It didn’t take the pain away, but it gave me a second wind. When I hit my feet, he said, “Guardian,” very calmly.
“And you are?” I asked, pulling my shoulders back.
“Rasp.”
It was a reflex. My eyes grew wider. I had searched for this boy when I was a Phoenix. He was the King of Anger’s First, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why he was here now.
“Heal,” he said, with a nod to the darkness.
There were bodies all over the ground. The only one with any life left was Aden’s, and I felt his pain as if it were mine. Skylynn was now pinned against the wall; a girl with long dreads was holding her there. “Be still,” she said coolly to Skylynn.
I dropped to my knees by Aden. I doubt he recognized me or understood why I was there. I was the only one he was letting his eyes meet, which said a lot considering the amount of raw power both Rasp and this girl with the dreads were emanating.
“Madison,” he said to me.
“One thing at time,” I breathed as I let my hands settle on his stomach, not even having to question where he was hurt. I felt my mind, body, and soul at war. Healing always took me back a step. It never wiped me out, but I was never up to par right afterwards. The thought of Willow usually brought my energy back instantly, but ri
ght now the last image I had of her was those green eyes full of pain and betrayal. If I healed Aden, I was putting her at risk because I would never recover from this pain; if I didn’t heal him, I was still going to be putting her at risk. So, I went with the decision I could live—or rather die—with: I pushed everything I had left into Aden, taking away his pain. I sighed as I felt the relief from the pain that had taken a back seat to the burning sensation throughout my body.
I collapsed at his side. Aden was weak, but healed. I wasn’t strong enough to restore him the way I had been able to do with others in the past. It was a miracle I was able to do what I could.
Rasp looked at the girl with him. “What now?”
The girl, who was rank with the smell of warm honey, looked over me. “You have to go. If she sees me, the emotion barrier will come down. I’ll take care of this.”
The only ‘she’ that girl could be talking about could be my Willow. Rage engulfed me as I started to pull the pieces together. This girl was the reason Willow’s emotions were jacked up, the reason she could not hide behind anger, which was fine because right now I had enough for the both of us. No one crosses my girl. Before I could utter one curse at the girl with dreads, though, she vanished, along with Aden, and of course Skylynn followed.
I’d crawled to my feet and was now eye-to-eye with Rasp. This enigma that could have helped me clear up a lot of crap when I was a Phoenix was now right there.
“Your timing sucks.”
“I need your permission to carry you home.”
“My permission?” I balked. “Your buddy didn’t need my permission to play games with Willow’s emotions.”
“Mazing did as she was told, just as I am.”
“Oh, so you aren’t helping me out of the goodness of your heart?”
He smirked. “You’re not one of ours.” His words were as cold as his stare. “Yet, I would be honored to serve with you if given the leeway.”
“What the hell is going on, man? Why now?”
“We are aware now.”
“And the mighty King of Anger was not aware before?”
“Do you not have an honorable woman waiting on you?”
The King of Anger had sent his First to guide me back to Willow, to ensure that the ceremony of flames commenced. The freaking King of Anger. A man—or God, rather—that ruled side by side with Donalt.