Derive

  I furrowed my brow at him. I wasn’t even thinking about what Camlin had said. For all I knew, he had overheard that or he read it on my face. Maybe even found it on record.

  My father and grandfather had never really been at complete peace with one another. The distance made sense, though. My father was Hermetic, and my mother was from The Selected; yet, two vastly different points of view are not a matter of point when a couple finds love. My mother went with my father. The invitation for him to live here, to this day, is still open. He declined. He wanted a life with more realism. He wanted his family far from the borders of darkness.

  I shrugged. “I would assume.”

  “Quite curious,” my grandfather mused.

  “What? That the Hermetic are trying to take you down? Me down?”

  “No. It’s just odd that what they say was seen at your birth differs from what is seen today.”

  “And what is seen? No one has told me that I do not need to pass.”

  “You’re crested. You know that you will.” He glanced to his side at me. “And you know you will be at your twin image’s side. You must plot a course, set an intent before anyone can see past that point.”

  “Did Skylynn say something to you?”

  Noticing the change in her name, he quirked a smile. “There was no time for words. I secured her and came to you.” He tilted his head. “Might I ask what she said to you?”

  I almost told him. Every vision. Every fear. The confusion of the emotions I was feeling, but guilt stopped me.

  I moved forward and stared, endlessly searching for Cashton. There was no sign of him. Not one trace of energy that we could track.

  “Found her!” I heard one of my men say.

  I followed where he was pointing, the faint traces of energy. After a few moments, I thought I did see her. She’s small, long, dark hair, and eyes to match. I could see Cashton in her image, only slightly, though.

  The relief was short-lived. She had fallen entirely too close to my twin. They were in the same dimension, on the same continent, same time.

  I tried to remember if I had ever met her, seen her up close. I couldn’t recall a time, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of me, that she didn’t know that I had been teaching Cashton. The risk of her approaching my twin, of thinking he was me, that he could help her find her brother, was too much to ignore.

  I wasn’t setting a course of intent; one was given to me. After meeting Skylynn, after our day together, I would have delayed my passage for as long as I could manage, long enough for her to believe that she was safe, that I would return before she had a chance to miss me. Now it seemed as if my loyalty to The Selected, my loyalty to Cashton and his family, would rush me through that Fall to save them both.

  “All is not lost. We can chart her from this point. We may not be able to see her every moment, but we can surmise her path from the intent we see here,” Tarek said all too calmly.

  “You need to surmise it? Can you not see what has happened? Camlin all but threw her on my twin’s dinner table!”

  “Then his aim is poor.”

  Another glimpse showed her moving away from my twin. Another life for her had already begun, but they were still both on the same current of time.

  “She’s too close to him.”

  “And that could be her fate.”

  “You mean mine. My fate. My reason to go over there and stop him, and somehow find Cashton.”

  “Is that what you feel?”

  I clenched my jaw. No. It wasn’t. “I have seen and felt far too much today to answer that question truthfully.”

  Tarek and I both tracked Cashton’s sister for a moment or two, hoping that perhaps she would be drawn to her brother in some way. As the seconds ticked by, it became obvious that was not to be the case. There was nothing we could really do now but wait, search, and hope.

  Tarek cleared his throat. “The Falcons plan to stay the night here tomorrow. Sebastian said if I wished, Genevieve would return earlier with Skylynn.”

  The sensation of shredding came to my soul.

  “I told them that was not necessary and that you would accompany them all to their manor to ensure Skylynn was safe and that Guardian recovered from his experience.”

  I swallowed, knowing there was a very good chance Skylynn would never see that manor, that there was a clock ticking over us right now—and by the time Guardian returned, that clock would have nearly reached its end.

  “Camlin needs to be dealt with,” I seethed.

  “The only family that can handle the Hermetic diplomatically is the Falcons, with their natural charm. Ensure that they see how important our role is and that you will deal with Camlin.”

  “He killed him. I know he did. Cashton could have never secured his own line, much less his younger, untrained sister. Camlin had to have aided them.”

  “Until you see this, that is an assumption. A believable one, more than likely fact.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “We will not defeat them by slipping to their level. We’re more cunning than that.”

  “What is it with these ice circles? Have you seen this before?” I asked, looking at the four of them now.

  “I have not. Each was made with the last four passages, by the crested souls that have a mark that states a time of compromise.”

  “Four?”

  “Yes. A girl traveled through at the mid-day break.”

  “What do you mean?” How did I not know that?

  “The Allurest stated she must leave this day. It was an urgent demand.”

  Four souls with a crest matching mine had passed today, and my grandfather was all but silent. He’d known this was coming. Had to have.

  “The girl that bears the same crest?” I asked, trying to get him to tell me something, anything. I needed to know what connected me with those others. The family legion was too different; the only common denominator was that our blood all sought balance and that we came from a line of those that did so. Our approach was different, as were our views.

  He laughed quietly. “The girl that was obsessed with her course. Yes, the same mark.”

  “No trouble with her passage?” I knew there had been trouble with the other three.

  “It was silent. Very well masked by the blazing sun.”

  “Then what is it with these rings of ice? Four, just like the ones on our crest.”

  “Sometimes I feel you seek logic where it does not exist. Perhaps those rings simply mark the passage of four souls that are facing their compromise. Their marks alluded to an emotion unique to them: fear, exaltation, shock, and obsession. Perhaps there will be a fifth, a mark of change, one that will wash away trepidation for us all.”

  Fear, what Guardian had spoken of. It would have been nice if someone had come out and said that part of his crest stated that path. I could only assume those other emotions belonged to the other three in some way. I could read between the lines, too; he was telling me that trepidation was in my crest, which made no sense.

  He walked away without another word.

  I strolled along the shore, finding the tethers of energy for each one that we sent on that side. Before adding my eyes to the search for Cashton, I double-checked Guardian’s tether. He was secure. Going strong.

  I had to give Camlin one thing: he wasn’t predictable. I would have assumed that he would have attacked Guardian long before he harmed Cashton.

  I had to find that boy. I had to make sure his sister stayed away from my twin. One glance over my shoulder fed that demand on my soul. I saw their parents grieving, Cashton’s mother clenching his father as she fell to her knees. That family was destroyed. Broken. I would make sure there was a happy ending somehow, some way.

  Chapter Five

  This close to Sirius, nightfall—the twilight of the day—stretches far longer than a few moments; more like a few hours. Night had come. I had been searching for Cashton senselessly, and when I wasn’t doing that I was ensuring his sister was far from my twin.
More than once, I tensed seeing her move close to him.

  Her light did not go unrecognized on that side. I was sure that I had seen Witnesses move close to her, that I could see them watching over her from a distance. Those souls are rumored to come from Sirius itself. Though they had never been in this reality, they defended the souls made of light we sent there. Most of the time, they stayed with them through their lives. That gave me some peace. Not much, but some.

  “It’s so cold,” I heard an angel say.

  I felt her before the words ever surfaced. Slowly, with a pounding heart I turned to see Skylynn at my side. She was gazing at The Fall. I wished that I had not shed that coat before so that I would have it to wrap around her.

  As I pulled her to my arms, I felt that she was not cold at all. Her skin was warm, inviting. She was talking about The Fall.

  “You can see into The Fall?” I whispered into her ear.

  “I felt it. When I was in the water. I felt how cold it was.”

  My arms clenched around her as I remembered the vile evil I’d had to fight to reach her at dawn today. That seemed like a lifetime ago. She shuddered in my embrace. I knew then that I had to ensure that she was strong. That she knew how to defend herself.

  “Can you see into the waters?” Her stare rose from the emerald sea and gazed forward. When she took in a sharp breath, I knew that she was seeing visions. If I needed any more proof that we were made from the same soul, she just gave me that. It was not an easy task to see something that was not entirely corporeal, that was moving as fast as the life on that side.

  “It’s not all cold. There is bliss there. It lingers on lovers’ lips, in music, in sunsets, slow rains, in the laughter of children. You have to see the logic of the evil before you can understand it, before you can choose not to fear it, to worry for your safety.”

  Her hands braced my arms as if she were afraid she would fall in. I didn’t want her to feel that way, so I wrapped my energy around her and moved her to the balcony of my quarters. When she noticed the move, she jolted back.

  “I’ve got you,” I said with a smile as I breathed across her neck.

  “I moved like that before, but not the same. Just before I found you earlier, and just now.”

  “Seneca told me it was a porthole.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “A path you create from one point to another. It takes more energy than moving with vim, and the paths never perish; they are now hallways.”

  She glanced over her shoulder through the glass of the balcony to the door of my quarters. “Then there is a hallway from your room to Seneca’s, and one from your grandfather’s study to the shore.”

  I smirked. “I doubt Seneca will ever use the one you made, but I’m sure Tarek will enjoy a simpler way to reach us if he needs to.”

  “It was just a thought, though. I just wanted to see you. I knew everyone was worried and that you had been gone for so long.”

  My stare drank her in. “I think your soul is calling on powers that you had in those visions.”

  “What happened? What were the alarms for?” she asked.

  “Someone jumped; two, actually. They left for the other side without warning.”

  “How bad is that?” she asked, reading the wretchedness in my eyes.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, glancing to the guitars on the shore. “We are doing all we can to find them, to find a safe way to bring them back.”

  “Coming back is dangerous, too?”

  “Mostly more confusing than dangerous, but we don’t know what they meditated on, how long they intended to stay, so it’s hard to judge when they should return. We always know when to pull except for now. We are just trying to find a way not to destroy what they are,” I said as my eyes moved to those spinning circles of ice.

  “They have to focus on what they want? Is that what you do? I don’t understand the instruments.”

  “Honestly, I don’t either. Something that light and moveable should not have been able to anchor them. It is a focus. The passage over there is a spiritual journey. You have to feel with all that you are that you must go.”

  I didn’t need her attention on this. I knew what you focused on, you brought to you—power of attraction.

  “I’m going to change, then I want to show you this palace,” I said as I guided her inside.

  I took my time leading her through the halls of the palace. I don’t think I had ever really walked them at all, at least I had never really noticed them. I always had my gaze toward the nearest window, toward The Fall.

  The artwork on these walls was created by those that had traveled to the dark reality in the past. They showed the troubled times and the positive ones. They captured emotions, images of families and souls. We stopped at each one, and I told her the stories I did know of them; others we simply assumed together.

  There is a massive fountain that centers the palace. The sculpture in the fountain is a man holding a woman in a lover’s embrace. The sculpture is a symbol of creation, of purpose. The lovers unify what my grandfather had spoken of before, light and dark side by side. The man was made of white marble, the woman of dark. The water flowed into a pool of what looked like a night sky, a pool of darkness with lights of energy beaming across the rhythmic flow of water.

  This piece of art was the only one that had ever given me pause on my strolls through here in the dawning hours of the day, the strolls that Seneca had accompanied me on for as long as I could remember.

  I’m not sure where Seneca spent her nights, but I knew it was not at the palace. I never asked because I knew the response would be silence; instead, I became her alibi, and she became my sounding board when we would share those walks. I told her once how this piece seemed epic to me, how each day I stood there and listened for something that I could not hear, but feel.

  Skylynn laced her hand through mine, and her lips parted ever so slightly as she took in the piece. “Her love for him is comparable to how I feel for you.”

  I tensed and locked my gaze with hers.

  “I don’t want to scare you, but…I love you.” She blushed. “That may be the wrong word, though; it seems too weak.”

  I couldn’t speak. I could not fathom how years and years of listless wondering and questioning my path had seemed to click over the course of one day. I feared I would wake any second, wake a stone cold warrior with nothing to hope for.

  “My only fear would be losing that emotion you give without a question, the emotion I felt for you the second you fell from the heavens.”

  My hand broke from hers and slid around her waist, pulling her to me as the other cupped her face and my lips brushed against hers. “You are love.”

  A gaping smile came to her as she leaned up and captured my lips. A split second before that kiss became inappropriate for public display, I heard someone clear his throat.

  She froze in my arms, but I only grinned. I knew who was there. I glanced away from her angelic face to see Lorecan, my first-in-command, standing at a distance.

  His eyes carried a fascination for Skylynn, but oddly the emotion behind them was different, almost fatherly.

  “Is everything well?” I asked, not wanting bad news to fall after that moment I’d just had, but expecting it simply because that is how this day was currently playing out.

  Lorecan walked to our side, his eyes glinting with that out of place emotion. He was my first-in-command because he was just as fierce as I was. He had no lover, no family, and had traveled through that Fall many times. I saw myself in him. Even though I led him, he had numerous eternities on me.

  Not breaking his gaze from Skylynn, he said, “It will be.” He reached for her hand and kissed the flesh there. “You are ravishing. That beauty must, in part, come from your mother.”

  Obviously, Skylynn had a blinding effect on the entire male race. Lorecan could see tracers as I could. Earlier today, he told me that he believed that Skylynn was a new soul fallen from above, that he wa
nted me to believe how rare this gift was, to hold the prize before the battle was fought. I assumed Tarek had urged him to persuade me. The thing was, I didn’t need to be persuaded; I was entranced by her.

  Lorecan’s gaze met mine. “I was simply coming to tell you that I will keep watch tonight, for you to rest at ease.”

  I appreciated the offer, but I would not be at ease until Camlin was nowhere near this palace or The Fall. Lorecan was a valiant warrior, but Camlin was cunning, no doubt there.

  I gave him a nod. He let his gaze linger a bit longer on Skylynn, then dropped his head and walked past us.

  “His energy is familiar,” Skylynn said to me.

  I’d always felt that way about him, so I smiled in agreement.

  There was so much more I wanted to show her before I took her to the dining hall. We moved down another hall of artwork.

  These pieces were more eccentric. I didn’t know the stories behind them, so I made up a few. They were so outlandish that she knew without a doubt that I was teasing, and as if we had done this a thousand times before she added to my tales, made them more insane.

  The stories we created were full of every emotion, even humor. Her laugh was infectious. Music to my soul.

  We lingered in front of one of the paintings of a vast family, at least I assumed they were family; each was faceless, and all seemed to be the same age. There were sixteen in focus, with others lingering in the background. The image had the earmarks of imperialism. I always liked it because it was balanced out into couples.

  “I meant it before,” she whispered.

  I didn’t answer because I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.

  She gazed up at me. “I don’t think you’re supposed to kill him, your twin image.”

  I bit my lip as I let out a sigh. My eyes raced across her image. “He’s a very dark soul.”

  “But so am I.”

  If I were wise, I would have looked in every direction to ensure that no one heard her say that, that we were alone in this hall, but I could not rip my gaze from her.

  “You have not done the things that he has.”