Imperial ((Imperial) Web of Hearts and Souls)

by Jamie Magee

  “You’re telling me that you found words the moment you discovered this web?”

  “I’m telling you I found words the moment I stopped looking in the past and opened my eyes to what was all around me, what had been there all along. Anger is swarming through me, but it is aimed at myself, not the kings that harmed me. Our lines, our Fated mists, have suffered because I could not move forward and see the signs around me.”

  “There is more. There are words you still are not speaking, words that must be horrid.”

  “Why do you think they are horrid?”

  “Call me crazy, but when the king of anger, the Reaper, and the Creator Himself are in a silent conference about you the secret cannot be blissful.”

  Pain echoed in his eyes. “It is a secret that you will not see or understand until you open your eyes the way I did.”

  “Your eyes were closed when you learned of it.”

  “No, they were not. They were not closed when I went with the Creator to raise you or when He spoke to me after you were taken. They were focused on our tomorrow, on the next evolution of our kind.”

  “An evolution that will never be. The other kings have created pure evil; we have failed as a race.”

  “Stop thinking about the other kings. We cannot control them, but we can control ourselves. It is our future, our calling that needs to be in focus. We have to live the lives we were given, not the lives given to them.”

  None of his words made any sense to me. There was a death sentence hanging above our heads. There was no way to restore our past.

  His hands reached for my arms and squeezed them gently. “Let’s let this debate rest for now. Right now, walk with me as we remember our beginning. Feel those emotions you felt then, and hopefully now…tell me what they are.”

  I tensed again, knowing that he had no idea how dangerous that request was, knowing that it was getting harder and harder to fight them. Each request of his, each memory, pushed me to the brink of a final death.

  “Red velvet. Cream cheese icing,” I murmured.

  A boyish smile that made me melt every time took over his image.

  He let his hand slide down my arm and grasped my hand before leading me in this shop I adored in the most childlike way.

  It was slow. Not many people were in this eccentric little bakery-slash-bar. I sensed that the kitchen was closing and the nightlife the place had was gearing up. Well, attempting to. It seemed as though the downpour had hindered the normal traffic, or maybe it was the day of the week. I remembered from our past times here that sometimes you could barely move in here, and others it was near vacant. Vade had told me that in this dimension the souls worked through the week and only enjoyed the weekend. That always saddened me. It didn’t seem right to find bliss only on a few days of the week.

  Vade led me to the bakery side of the shop. As he went to the register, I walked down the long glass counter that held the most beautiful desserts in existence. I could feel indecisiveness creeping in; though red velvet was my favorite, they were all so tempting.

  All of the workers had stopped what they were doing and were silently gazing at the pair of us. I didn’t really understand why; we were both blending in, our eyes were dulled, and our clothes matched the time and the dimension. I glanced at Vade to see if he knew why, but I only found that alluring smile of his.

  Just to ensure that I wasn’t doing anything odd, I walked to his side as he reached his arm around me. He smiled at the two girls that were staring at him wide-eyed from behind the counter.

  “How can I help you?” the girl said with a pronounced shake in her voice.

  Vade glanced down at me as his grin widened for no reason. “We will take two of everything on your menu…to go. And the largest piece of red velvet cake you have here.”

  “Everything?” the girl questioned, glancing at the girl next to her to make sure she heard that right.

  Vade slid several green papers closer to her. “Everything. And is it possible that you can deliver those delicacies for me?”

  I tried not to smile, not to feel the rush of the past, but I turned crimson anyway as my soul pulsed. In the past I couldn’t choose, so Vade ordered it all. I wanted so bad to consume each piece, but I couldn’t even find room for a single bite of everything. That made me feel horrible, and I didn’t want to waste it simply because I knew what it felt like never to have tasted anything so divine. Like always, Vade had a perfect solution.

  “Sur-sure...yes, sir. Where to?” the girl asked.

  “The children’s home, two blocks over,” he answered, still smiling at me.

  I thought those girls were going to faint with his request; they both blushed and began to tally up the order. The girl tried to hand Vade back some of the green paper, but he waved it off.

  “Wait right here,” Vade whispered to me as he walked away. I assumed he was going to find a table for us in the other room, even though I was sure we could have our pick of them.

  The girls kept glancing up to me and grinning. The other bakers were doing the same as they began to pack up two of each desert.

  Vade walked back in a moment later. Just before he reached me, the cashier had finally gathered her nerve to speak to me. “I swear I have never seen a couple so in love. You are one lucky girl. The air is electric with the two of you—and the way he looks at you...wow...just wow.”

  I gripped the counter so hard that I thought it would break off. What was it today with that word? Maybe if I stopped thinking about my death, it would stop surfacing. Yeah, I’ll do that.

  Vade’s hands came from around me and gently clenched mine, taking the tension from body.

  “Thank you,” he said to the girl in that deep, sensual voice of his. “We are in no hurry. You can take care of the to-go order before you bring our cake to us. We’ll be in there.”

  Everyone gave him a quick nod and went about their duties as if they knew he was a king and they wanted to honor him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked softly, glancing to the cashiers, then to me as we walked away.

  “Yeah…just trying not to think of my death.” His eyes questioned me with a deep pain. “What?” I asked shyly.

  “Nothing,” he said as he pulled me to him.

  In the next room, there was only one other couple and they were in the back booth. The stage was dim, only highlighting a young girl and a pianist.

  As we entered, the piano began. By the time we reached the subtle dance floor, the girl began to sing. Her voice was soulful, full of vast emotions that her youth could not have possibly have witnessed. An old soul with a divine gift, that was what she was.

  Vade pulled me against him and swayed with me to her angelic voice. At first his hands gently hung on my waist as his forehead leaned against mine, but with each powerful word that girl sang his hands began to move. They reached to caress the outline of my face, traveled down to my collarbone. I couldn’t look into his waiting eyes...I had to keep mine closed...I had to hold in the sighs that wanted out with each movement of his fingers. I felt his hand on the back of my head. He kissed my forehead before he pulled my head to his chest, my body against his, and slowly moved his hands across my back.

  The room filled with the scent of roses, so much so that I had no doubt that very soon the others in this place would sense that there were supernatural beings in their presence.

  One song ended and another began. I wanted to hear the words so badly, but I had to block them out when they shaped words that we were not allowed to feel.

  Each time I tensed, he would hold me tighter, send more of his calming energy through my soul.

  “One more song for the generous lovers that have given us all something to hope for,” the singer said into the mic as I heard a subtle clapping. I opened my eyes to see that every worker in this place was leaning against the wall, watching us dance in this near dark room. Our cake was sitting on a table in the corner with one candle and two forks; someone had placed rose petals around
the plate.

  The song that began was just as sweet as each one before it. Her powerful voice shaped each word with a command that only a gifted soul could feel. These words were easier to hear; they spoke of a couple that was completely addicted to each other, a couple that lived on the edge of fear that they would lose each other.

  As it ended, Vade pulled my chin up just as his lips framed mine. I heard howls and cheers from the staff and blushed as I kissed him through the smile that was threatening to take his kiss away from me.

  I couldn’t figure out how we had captured their attention so easily, what they found so resoundingly refreshing within us. Maybe it was because it was a slow night and they had nothing better to do.

  Vade led me to our own private booth as everyone else left the room.

  I pulled one of the rose petals to my nose and breathed in. “Maybe we should take this to go, too.”

  My words brought a sinful blush to his image as he reached for the fork and offered me a subtle bite. “I think I would have fainted if the girl I brought here long ago had said that to me.”

  “If that shocks you, then you don’t want to know what I was thinking when I died the first time. My mother was screaming at me to repent, but in my thoughts I committed every sin I could think of with you in my mind.”

  His eyes grew wide, first with anger, then with disbelief. Vade despised the likes of my birth mother as much as I did, and the idea that I would have thought such things back then was more than he could understand.

  “Every sin,” he mused to himself as he took a bite of the icing.

  “They were only sins because she thought they were. They were acts I wanted to feel with you.”

  His eyes rapidly moved across my image. “All this time, and we are still discovering each other.”

  I glanced away, knowing that he had no idea what internal battle I fought, that the girl in rags still existed.

  “Acts,” he mused, taking one more bite.

  “Do not turn my words,” I playfully scorned. “There were emotions with those acts.”

  “Which are...?”

  I moved my head from side to side once. “You are relentless.”

  “A good trait?”

  “For a king, yes.”

  “I’m not royalty right now. Neither are you. We are us.”

  “Good for us, too.”

  He reached across the table and moved our hands so our rings would connect. My side of the eternity ring was feminine, his side was regal and powerful, yet they fit together perfectly. “I would chase you across eternity,” he whispered.

  Humans speak of eternity as something that can never be reached, but as a sovereign I had witnessed a thousand eternities in my existence, with Vade at my side and in my heart. That time with him was so blissfully consuming that I knew that it would take an infinite amount of eternities to even come close to satisfying the raw hunger his essence gave me.

  After Xavier had told me how deadly that one word was, I fought with my thoughts, my core feelings, and had to reshape them. I needed to do that now because even though in the Veil I thought of our last fight constantly, I also thought that my only regret was not expressing to him what he was to me.

  Of course, in my mind those words were shaped into a carefully plotted argument that I would have used to hurt him as badly as his absence had hurt me. I wanted to recreate that fight and prove my point more clearly, prove that obviously I cared about him and my line more than he did. I wanted to redo the fight not to make up or create peace, but to bring him agony. I hated myself for that. I really did, especially knowing that his thoughts were not even close to being as dark as mine.

  Come to think of it, the word that I feared to say because it was so sacred, because it was my duty to protect those that felt it, could not even come close to the emotion I felt for him…no word could.

  “I’ll let you catch me,” I said playfully.

  “Not without a fight. I understand the Reaper had to kick you out.”

  I playfully squinted my eyes at him as I took another bite of my cake. I swear, there was not a more blissful taste in all the food that had thus far been created.

  I was sure Rasp had told him how cruel I was. That, or he had watched my reaction from the springs.

  “I didn’t kill Rasp.”

  “A peace offering from the Queen of Wrath,” he teased.

  “I couldn’t any more than you could have harmed Silas, or even Mazing.”

  “How did that go?” he asked as he reached his finger that was covered in icing to my lips. As I devoured that sweet taste, I almost forgot his question.

  “Not good. He thinks he will die if he returns with me.”

  “Why is that?”

  Damn it. I was trying to avoid the word of the night, not bring it up again.

  “As far as you know, has there ever been an Escort that was a Witness as well?”

  Vade swallowed nervously as his eyes shifted away before returning to me. “I think it is clear that the past will serve as no clear reference when it comes to our lines. Fated Escorts of ours have not only risen to their fight, but joined with lights.”

  I now knew the purpose of his wary glance. “Do you think they will create the metallic energy that you dreamed to create?”

  His eyes slowly danced over my innocent image. “I know that they will protect it,” he said in a near ghostly whisper.

  I would give almost anything to see the thoughts and emotions he was shielding me from. “Silas states that his emotions for the girl in question, Charlie, are a necessary evil.”

  That statement made Vade smirk with pride. “That is a different approach, I suppose.”

  “I know he does not have a deep rush for this girl, but he does care for her. I think he would regardless of the predicament they are in, but nevertheless he feels he must have this war of hearts simply because she is a light and the one from your line, Draven, pulls from her. Charlie rose him to what he is, saved him from the grasp of Xavier, and now if she falls, so does he.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I’m sure there is more. All I know is what I just said, along with the fact that he feels that he must end evil. Silas is protecting someone more than that girl...maybe his army. The Witnesses with him were young.”

  I glanced up from my cake at Vade; every part of him was rigid. He was staring at me, waiting; waiting for what, I do not know.

  I rushed over what I said in my thoughts, what I had discovered since I had been back. Then it hit me: Vade had told me Silas was protecting something, something that was precious to Vade, to me.

  “What is it? What does he guard?”

  He just stared, no words. I balled my fist and held back the urge to hit the table.

  “Vade, you better tell me. He is glorious, and it would bring me great sorrow to end him, but I will if he continues his threat against your line. Tell me now what he is guarding.”

  Nothing.

  “Vade. I am obviously close to what this secret is that you have with the Creator. Tell me before I make a tragic mistake. How can you trust Him so dearly? How can you know without a doubt that if I remove Silas from the equation that what you deem precious will not be harmed?”

  “You are waltzing all around it with closed eyes. I do trust Him, because He has never failed me.”

  “Has He not?” I was deeply offended. I adored my Creator, I really did, but He was gone. He left when the other kings betrayed Him. He left me in that Veil, took Vade from me.

  “No, He has not. He has never left you or lost faith in you or me,” he stated evenly, successfully keeping all anger out of his tone.

  “I really wish I could see it that way. I’m full of rage. Lost and blind. There is no way out without loss. Have you seen the evil the kings have created? How it lacks any real essence?” I questioned.

  “I have, along with the mists and petals they have abandoned, the ones that have no idea who they are, who seek to rule a Realm that can neve
r be ruled by one, for it was created for all.”

  “Then tell me why in the hell He left me in that Veil? Why our race was ripped apart? Why it has come to this?”

  “If I tell you why, the lesson would be lost on you.”

  “You are the only teacher I trust.”

  “You should trust Him,” he said with a sigh.

  “We are suffering from communication issues at the current moment,” I bit out.

  At that moment, the lights dimmed a little more and wind that should not exist blew the rose petals across the table. The pattern looked sporadic to me, but Vade read something within them.

  He reached his long fingers to them, adjusting two jagged lines that they had created and the cluster of the pile that they had escaped from.

  “What did you do each day there?” he whispered, glancing up to me to ensure that I was staring at the rose petals.

  My imagination took over for a moment. “Beyond guarding The Fall, I…I watched the procession of death.”

  The petals slightly resembled the path those regretful souls would travel down before reaching the throne of the Reaper.

  “What did you witness in that procession?”

  “Regret.”

  “And how did that make you feel?”

  “Horrible. Those souls were focused on their regrets. They had cherished material items and forgotten the ones they cared for, thought that time in their previous existence was infinite. They wanted to freeze time instead of moving forward and trusting that they would find those souls again.”

  “Is that all they regretted?” he pushed.

  I thought back over the random conversations I’d had with the dead. They were not like the one with Cowboy; he was calm, at peace. He was more than rare, he was a singularity. He was the only one I’d met like that. The others not only held regret, but a tinge of anger. Now at the end of their path, they had discovered that the people they thought had harmed them or hindered them had done no such thing. They had done that to themselves by not letting their wrath for them go. One even told me that he lived his life looking back and not forward, and he would give anything to live it again with his eyes faced forward.