Derive

  Right as I picked it up and turned to go back to the sitting room, I felt Skylynn’s energy spill into the air. My body tensed all at once as I realized how alone we were, how compromising this situation could be. I cleared my throat and told my body to behave as I turned to face her.

  Her gaze fell to my hands, to the box that seemed to vibrate with raw energy.

  I smiled shyly, then set it back down on my bed and opened the latches.

  “My mother, she does not see words as I do, but she dreams. Her dreams often predict a path, a direction, or even a source of protection.” I cleared my throat. “This was hers. She played this as she carried me, when I was just a child.”

  Skylynn had gracefully approached the bed; her eyes were wide, her lips trembling. In her energy, I could see her recalling the images she had witnessed before. She saw herself playing an instrument just like this.

  I gently picked it up and placed it in her hands. She closed her eyes for a second, breathed in, and without a glance she said, “My emerald love, worry for not, for the music whispers your sacred path and eases the soul’s struggles.” She then turned it over and traced her hands over an inscription.

  Skylynn spoke those words as if she had read them a thousand times over. I read them to myself over and over, trying to remember if I had ever seen this small, nearly hidden text before. I hadn’t. I knew I hadn’t. You could clearly see that the inscription was far newer than the instrument itself.

  My mother’s words. I was her emerald love; that was what she said as she traced my eyes each night when I was a boy.

  I didn’t know what emotion to clasp onto at that moment. Fear wanted to emerge, excitement was a close second, but more than anything bliss was in the air. Each moment that I moved forward with this girl, logic found the proof it craved. No, it was not logical that she knew what was written there, that my mother knew to send this, that this instrument had somehow brought us even closer in this moment of time, yet it seemed to offer proof.

  “Play for me,” I whispered as I moved her long, lavender hair off her shoulder and kissed the tender skin of her nape. She let out a sultry sigh.

  “I don’t know how,” she responded in a whisper.

  I stood behind her and carefully placed the instrument to her shoulder, the bow in her other hand.

  “You do,” I said as my hands moved to glide down her sides. I could feel the flame of her skin under that silk, and it was driving me mad to have this much control around her. To not claim her as mine, forever mine.

  Just as I brushed my lips across her shoulder, she began to play. At first, the sound was crude; loud, then near silent.

  “This is a part of your soul that I would never want to forget. This is what I know will give you strength, will give you the courage to stand up for yourself…it will be your companion if there is ever to be an absence from me.”

  As I spoke, her body lost all of its tension and she began to play. She played with the skill of an artist that had thirsted over this passion for more time than could be remembered.

  I moved to stand before her, to watch her command this sound. Her eyes were closed, her lips just barely apart, her body moving to the sound as if they were one.

  I was envious of that music, of how close it was to her, how at one with her it seemed to be. I found myself easing onto the edge of the bed, lost in the trance of her.

  Songs later, she let the bow moan across the strings once more before she opened her eyes and found me staring at her. She swallowed nervously as she lowered the instrument.

  “How do you feel?” I asked in a husky voice.

  “Connected.”

  I grinned, and her eyes moved to the more predominant dimple of mine.

  She carefully placed the violin in the case beside me. I reached for her arm, letting my thumb caress her wrist ever so slowly.

  “Do you trust me?” I asked, surprised at how broken and deep my voice sounded.

  “You are the only one I trust.”

  I pulled her to me and gently laid her down. My fingertips traced her beautiful face. “Out of all those visions we saw today, I never saw us surrender ourselves to each other.”

  Her brow creased. The very first images had shown us locked in passion, a passion that was so heated that it stirred my body just thinking about it. She didn’t understand what I was saying, and I had no idea how to explain it.

  “I never saw our souls intertwine, I never saw us merge as one…our energy collide.”

  Her eyes grew wider.

  Lust was for the flesh. It was for lovers, too, but soul-to-soul was for those that were made of one; it is a practice that binds souls. If the souls are not indeed made of one, the act will feel empty, barely mock the sensation of meditating. But if they are one, there is not a word to describe the sensation felt in the mind, body, and soul.

  Or so I’ve been told.

  This act empowers the souls. It reunites them. It is felt long after the souls divide once again.

  I wasn’t asking her to do this because I wanted proof she was mine; she knew that. I was asking her to let us do this so I would never be away from her, not completely. I could logically argue that we needed to do this in case we did part, but there was no logic in this desire of mine. I wanted to feel her soul against mine, to truly become one with her.

  I feathered my lips across her cheek, feeling her lashes brush against my face. “We can wait,” I whispered.

  Her chest rose and fell softly. “Lead me there.”

  She lay utterly still beside me, relaxing her mind.

  “Fall deep into your mind, so deep that you feel only your soul, so that it will rise. Let go, surrender to the pull.”

  Part of my everyday routine was deep meditation, twice a day on the spot from where I would one day leave. I knew how to fall back quickly. I knew how to let go. I knew how to raise my soul from my body, my essence, and I could do so within moments. So, I had time to usher her into this deep state.

  My fingertips started at the crown of her head, gently tracing every angelic feature of her face. They slid down and innocently explored her. Though it was tempting, I yielded from turning this into an experience of the flesh; there would be time for that later. I only lightly brushed her chest, her thighs. I knew when she didn’t blush that she was drifting, that my touch was calming her. Long moments went by, moments I used to know her body as well as I knew her lips. All at once, I felt her gaze just behind me. Her soul had risen from her vessel.

  I laid back and stared up at her, at the glow around her. She was a vision, so enticing that I wished I had calmed my mind long before that moment. I knew my stare was hungry, that my body did not want to be put to rest so my soul could rise. It wanted her as much as the rest of me.

  She glided toward me and crawled alongside me. When her fingertips started at my brow, when I felt her energy in its raw form against my skin, a deep groan that no willpower in the universe could hold back escaped my throat. I raised my chin and bowed my back. Next to me, her body, deep in meditation, sighed.

  Her fingertips traced my eyes, caressed my lips, moved to my chest, my arms, exploring me just as diligently as I explored her. She moved at a slow, sensual pace, one that would lead you to believe that we had an eternity to lose ourselves inside each other.

  I closed my eyes and fought with my body, finally winning. My soul rose, and the first vision I saw was her soul exploring my body. Her eyes were filled with a sense of wonder, devotion, and the same hunger I felt.

  My thoughts called to her, and her gaze turned to me. Elegantly, with angelic grace she moved to my side. Her eyes were gleaming with anticipation, and my soul was pulsing as it tried to grasp the belief that she was not a dream, that she was real; she was everything I never knew I needed, but my soul ached for endlessly.

  We were nothing but energy now, only retaining the shape of our bodies from habit.

  I leaned into her and let my lips flutter against hers. The vibration I felt there ca
used both our bodies, which were resting behind us, to sigh and reach for one another.

  The hunger I had for her grew even more because I knew that if she was not mine, we never would have made it this far; we would never feel this emotion, this power.

  My hands moved across her, just barely touching, just barely feeling the energy of all of her. The moans I heard her body make were like a live wire. I was straining to take my time with this, to make it something that no Fall could ever allow us to forget.

  She followed my lead and let her hands move across the surface of my energy, falling deeper in all the right places. It was too much to bear, and my body agreed; behind us, it pulled hers to it. It clenched her body as if it had just exited the throes of passion.

  I let one thought emerge from my soul. “Come to me.”

  And she did. She moved forward and slowly sunk her energy into mine. The merge was exhilarating; I could sense every part of her essence. When we were completely one, no thought could come—it was impossible. Ecstasy. Even that word was weak compared to the way she made me feel. In that embrace, there was no darkness, light, right or wrong, anger, worry, or fear; only bliss...only silence. It was the return to creation. It was the return to oneness. And for me, it was an awakening. It was me understanding for the first time that no matter how much of my own life I had witnessed, or those on the other side of The Fall—I had not lived. I had not truly felt a single relative emotion.

  Life was nonexistent before her.

  Chapter Seven

  It was hours before dawn when we began this dance of passion, this exhilarating ride that allowed me to know her as no other had ever known her, allowed her to awaken me. So when I finally found the will to move us apart, I was confused as to why the window behind us reflected a twilight.

  I tried to calculate the hours we must have remained as one, submerged. At the very least, it was the better part of a day. I silently hoped that perhaps it had carried us past that three-day threshold she seemed to believe was all we had together.

  I glanced to my side to see her stretching her body, the flush of her ivory skin. One glance to me, and she let out a playful laugh, one that was completely satisfied.

  I leaned up on one arm so I could look over her. Those eyes of hers were gleaming a bright blue. My lips found the flesh of hers. The vibration there was even more powerful than it was before; it was that way because my awareness of her was now even more elevated. I smiled against her lips. “We are creating our own path now…” I brushed a lock of hair out of her face. “Perhaps we were only shown those images so that we’d appreciate how precious this is. So we would know that it should not be taken for granted.”

  She gazed up into my eyes. “You are meant for greatness, Aden. Meant to lead so many. I knew that before last night, and now I’m sure of it.”

  Before I met her, I never would have entertained such thoughts, such a grasping, universe-changing fate—but with her at my side, I knew there was nothing I could not do. I knew that because she made me care. She took the black/white view I had of the world and flooded it with the vibrant color of lavender and highlights of blue.

  “We, we are meant for that. Meant for this.”

  She leaned up and briefly claimed my lips. “Now you must play.”

  I laughed as my hands moved down her sides. Playing the drums was the last thing I wanted to explore right now.

  “It empowers you,” she said, trying to remain serious as my hands lost their manners.

  “Right now, all I care about is the story before the story. All I care about is leading your heart to mine.”

  “Already there,” she said, reaching her hand for my chest.

  The palace alarm screeched at that moment. The echo around me felt as if it were a call to death. It was ripping me from the arms of life.

  I barely let my lips meet Skylynn’s before I vanished from my room so I could peer out the oval window in my sitting room. With the millions of thoughts racing through my head, the regret of not putting more passion behind that bleak kiss or gazing more longingly into her eyes slammed into me. For all I knew, I would never see her again.

  Seneca pounded on my door, and I pulled her in so she could watch Skylynn. After securing the door, I glanced over my shoulder to see that Skylynn had rushed after me.

  “It’s okay. Stay right here. Trust me,” I said as I vanished, not sure how many of my words she’d actually heard. I took comfort in the fact that if she did create another porthole, Seneca would follow. That someone would know exactly where she was—not that I couldn’t feel her as if she were next to me. Her energy had elevated me. I knew it had. I moved far too fast, thought my actions out before I understood them.

  I could not fathom how or why we could have been breached again, who would have dared to cross that sea—especially knowing the fate of Cashton and his sister. More had happened in the last few days at the palace of The Selected than had ever happened in my lifetime.

  My vim soared me to the shores. I was the first to arrive. The first to witness betrayal—this treason.

  Camlin was on the shore. I was seriously questioning how long Skylynn and I had been lost in one another at that point. I had no idea how he could have made it back here so swiftly.

  I watched his hand drop the thread of energy that connected Guardian to our reality. I saw The Fall ripped open, against its will, without the balance of the sun and moon.

  The waters were bubbling, the ground was rumbling, and that fool Camlin looked like a child who had just heard his first ghost story, with wide eyes, open mouth, and a trembling stance.

  “What did you do!” I bellowed as my eyes searched the waters. Even though they were violent, the ice circles remained intact.

  Darkness was invading. Shirking beings that had no hope of ever taking a corporeal form were racing through the water. I had no way of knowing if Guardian’s line of energy were broken or whole, if this fool Camlin was indeed strong enough to pull him violently from the life Guardian was living within.

  I had to dive, and did so with my next stride. I had plowed a path through the dark abyss, killing every damned soul I passed, trying to reach the vine of energy that connected to Guardian. Seconds after I entered the water, I knew that my men had reached their post. I could see their energy not only extending my path, but also ensuring that no one could harm me.

  Finally, I saw what I thought was Guardian’s body. He was limp in the water, still wearing whatever clothes he must have just died in on the other side. From the tears in his pants and shirt, I knew it was a violent death, and even more rage for Camlin absorbed me.

  I grasped Guardian and soared back through the water, through the safe path that was made for us. Seconds before we reached the surface, Guardian came to life, roaring under the water and slinging punches at me.

  The surface was more chaotic than under the water, and no one knew I had him, that he was alive; they were too busy trying to defend us.

  Rage may have been fueling Guardian, but I still had far more strength than him. I pulled us up on the bank. My path to him and back had put us on the far side of the shore, near the point where sand instead of marble took over.

  We rolled across the sand, and I dodged as many of his punches as I could as I tried to read his tracers to see how badly Camlin had hurt him and his life plan. Guardian only had half the time he’d asked for. He had been robbed in the most tragic way; the fierce stare in his eyes told me he was well aware of that fact. He was struggling to understand where he was, what had happened.

  “Where is she?” he roared.

  “You’re alone!” I harshly whispered, cupping his mouth with my hand, using my body and vim to pin him in place so I could figure out if I had any chance of saving his mind.

  I was staring at the tracers of his energy, the flashing scenes of his past; so much had occurred in such a short time, and each second he was losing these memories. I had to find a way to anchor him to them. A way to stop the madness tha
t would steal him away.

  “Aliyanna, that’s her name.”

  He stopped fighting me. Trusting him, I let go of the hold I had on his mouth.

  “No,” he said weakly under his breath.

  I wasn’t surprised he had said that—he was confused; that was the first name his girl had. No doubt, not only was he ripped from a life where she had a different name, but in that life he had not had the chance to discover any of his past lives—or even us—through his dreams. He had just found her. I had to take him back to the beginning. I had to seal that. That was the only way he would ever have the simplest chance of retracing his steps and discovering the life plan he’d had before he left these shores.

  “Say the name,” I demanded. Under my hands, I jolted a rush of vim into his body. I had to shock him back to this reality. Out of the nightmare he was living in now.

  He whispered it to himself, and in a second’s time his eyes expanded and he rose, clasping his head. Memories were invading him. He was grasping that first life. He knew who I was now.

  A growl left him as he crawled to a stand, then raced back toward the water. My vim reached out for him and slammed him in the sand next to me.

  “Listen to me,” I grated through my teeth. “She is lost to you now. A dream that has ended.”

  “The hell she is!”

  There was something in his stare, something in his energy that sparked a familiarity in me. It took precious seconds to realize what it was—I was seeing myself in him. I was seeing the determination I had to protect and provide for Skylynn, no matter what my reality said or thought about it. He felt the same way. We were in the same war, but on different battlegrounds.

  He was doomed. I knew he was. There was no one, not even Tarek himself, that would allow him to go back this soon—or even by some slim chance, if that girl followed him, allow her to live with us. She was born of darkness. Born to live in that reality, not ours.