Imperial ((Imperial) Web of Hearts and Souls)

by Jamie Magee

  “No,” I whispered. I had left my thoughts wide open to Vade, so he was seeing what I remembered, feeling it.

  “What else? What else did that dead soul you are thinking of say to you?”

  I cringed. The soul he was talking about had only stayed in the cathedral for one day before he was forgotten by his past life and forced to move on by the Reaper.

  We had kinship because he, too, was abused as a child, he, too, trusted very little, and he regretted not trusting more, not understanding that just because that one soul hurt him that it didn’t mean that all others would, too.

  “You already know.”

  “I also know that the same problem will consume us until we learn our lesson from it.”

  “I did not learn anything there.”

  “Which very well may be why the Reaper could only offer you a reprieve and not a permanent stay.”

  “What, Vade? Just say it. How is this my fault? Beyond the fight, beyond asking the Creator to let me be the example that our kings would follow, and later defending my line, what did I do?”

  “You asked Him to be a solution?” he said as his eyes widened for an instant.

  “I did. The moment I realized that the other kings had not only crossed the line, but also destroyed it. I vowed to Him through my thoughts that I would be the example, that my example would be so powerful that the other kings would remember what they were supposed to be. I told Him to use me as His weapon—and what did that get me? A wretched fight between us, followed by a demanded sacrifice that benched me from this war.”

  “I asked Him, too,” Vade said nearly silently.

  “When? After you told me my way was wrong, that I had to stay nourished and strong?”

  “No,” he breathed. He swallowed his anger. “I asked Him before you were raised.”

  “How could you know then that He would need you to do such a thing?”

  He smirked. “I have lived with these kings for more time than I care to evaluate. I knew it was coming, that they’d toyed with the idea of invoking emotions for some time. I knew once they did that it would begin our end.”

  I stared at him in utter dismay. I knew after I was raised that there were several cycles of the four million year time span that we called eternity. I had no idea how Vade could have seen something that far ahead, or why the Creator had yet to take either of us up on our offer to aid Him.

  “And you still trust Him?” I said finally.

  Vade pointed to the table. “Glory, what did you learn? What lesson are you still missing?”

  “If I’m missing it, how would I know what it is? I learned how to kill misguided Escorts, how to live off the scraps of essence that they had stolen.”

  That wind came back again, moving those petals ever so slightly.

  “Hindsight is always clear, not living through it, which is what you are doing right now. I’m going to be blunt. I have no idea if any one of these words will reach you, but I know one day they will ring true,” he stated evenly as he leaned forward.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I felt my soul seize. Was this it? Was he going to tell me the horrible truth that he and the Creator were hiding from me? Would I finally see how doomed we really were, how our final demise would come?

  I nodded once, trying to reflect the powerful sovereign I was meant to be.

  Vade adjusted the rose petals once more. “When you hit a wall, it is not really a wall at all. It is a clear sign that you have drifted to the wrong path, that the desire in your heart does not match the course you are on, the one you asked to be on, the course He honored. The Creator will remove you from your surroundings and place the lessons you have to learn in front of you.”

  “How to die. Trust me, I heard a million stories on how such occurs.”

  Vade clenched his jaw, a clear sign that I was nowhere near understanding this.

  “The procession of death. The regrets, the ache, and desire to live on. You witnessed that, and there was a lesson there. Every soul that dared to speak to you, there was a lesson there. I would dare say they vanished into their next life not because they were forgotten by the past one, but because the Creator had used them to witness to you what you continue to be blind to.”

  Vade waited for my argument, but I was out of cake and the will to mull over the same words again and again.

  “He wanted you to witness last regrets and hear their perspective. He wanted you to see that so you would return and live your life without any regrets…He wanted you to be grateful for your existence and not see it as a design with only one purpose.”

  “Even if that were true, we failed to provide for Him the one purpose we were designed to create. How or why would He give us more than one?”

  Vade moved his head to the side as he took in a deep breath. “Right, you and I have failed to provide for Him the one purpose He meant for us.”

  Something was odd about that agreement, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

  “As soon as we live that purpose, He will give us more,” Vade said with a sadness I had never heard in the beautiful voice of his.

  “Glad to see that you understand how awful all this is now. We cannot recover our past, heal this race, and restore it to its former glory.”

  The look in his eye told me that was not at all what he meant, but he shelved that pursuit and used my own words to get through to me.

  “You cannot recover your past, but you can overcome it, forgive those who have wronged you.”

  “Are you insane? How could you say such a thing! Those kings will suffer.”

  “Your mother, Glory. Your mother.”

  I cringed as wrath ripped through me. “What about her?” I seethed.

  “Maybe He wanted to teach you that every soul that crossed your path was not meant to hurt you, but to make you grow.”

  I fought back wrathful tears. “She did nothing for me.”

  Vade reached for my hands, and with his touch I found a deep breath. “Right, very right on a physical level. But she did do something: she showed you hell, so now you appreciate bliss. With her, you saw the darkest hours of life, and that gave you the courage to face any and all evil…unfortunately, she also taught you to search for the negative, caused you to believe that every word spoken to you held false truths, that every path led to doom.”

  “What does this have to do with anything?” I asked as exhaustion crept into my voice. This was one topic I hated to think about, much less remember clearly.

  “It has everything to do with this, with us. You have to recognize this, how self-destructive it is.”

  “It is not. I am the sovereign of wrath. I know the emotion, therefore I can easily relieve it from others.”

  “And I am the King of Anger. I understand my emotion, but I do not dwell on the emotion and use it for negative intent. I do not seek it in the beings around me.”

  “I do not seek it.”

  “You do. Right now, this instant, you are looking for it, looking for something horrible between my words or the Creator’s lessons—and there is nothing.” He glanced down at the table, then to my eyes once more. “You have to find trust. When you do, you find gratitude…and a host of other emotions.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I trust you. And I am grateful for you. I thank the Creator each day for you—for every moment.”

  “Not fully…to the extreme that He believes you will feel one day.”

  “Well, next time you talk to Him, tell him I miss our little talks. That I am a little blind right now.”

  Vade’s eyes were full of agony, and I had no idea why. I suppose that he was right before: I didn’t see the lessons of the Veil or the ones I was living through now. I could only hope that he was also right in stating that I would understand them one day.

  “Out of cake,” I said in an attempt to change the subject. “Want to go on another joy ride?”

  He stood from his seat and held out his hand for mine. I took it, holding his stare. Around
us, the little shop vanished. I expected to find his car once more, but I was wrong again; instead, the most enticing scent absorbed me: night blooming roses.

  We were in a garden, one that he created for me, that held every single flower known to creation. The grass was as soft as silk, and the moon hung so low that you could swear you could touch it. There was no wind, and it was not cold or hot; the air was pure, and vibrating with his essence.

  I doubt I could choose a favorite first with him, but the night when we fully claimed each other would always rank among the most memorable.

  He was just as scared as I was, even though he didn’t show it. His hands were steady, powerful, and extremely careful with me. Each caress was tender and offered a pause, a chance for me to tell him I was not ready.

  I was more than ready, so ready that I had to hold myself back, that I had to force patience. Before this first, each time we were alone and he would ask me to talk about how I was feeling, how I felt about him, I developed the habit of changing the subject physically. A kiss, a simple touch, anything that would keep me away from saying the truth, to distract him.

  During this first, he urged a slow and steady pace. He told me later that fevers were raw and physical; rushes were a sensual dance between souls. He was very right about that.

  To this day, I still use a touch to distract him, something he had already called me on once tonight, but I had learned this dance as well.

  I let an innocent yet seductive smile come to my lips.

  “Look familiar?” he asked as his fingertips reached for the strap on my dress and traced the cloth there.

  “Vaguely,” I said in a deep, sensual whisper.

  “A lot of emotion in this garden.” With a glance from him, the bed we had shared countless times before manifested. It was solid white; a canopy let lace sheets rain down around it.

  “Agreed,” I said as I inhaled the scent of roses; it was not coming from the garden, but from him.

  “I always thought that I felt more than what you say to me here…am I wrong about that?”

  My hands reached for his chest and slowly slid up to his shoulders. I stood on my tiptoes. He made no effort to lean down; he was waiting on my answer. I pulled his head down and kissed him before he had a chance to move away. He was under my spell now.

  The tension left his body as his kiss became more powerful, graceful. He picked me up and wrapped my legs around him before carefully lying us down.

  The classic battle of tenderness with aggression began as the scent of roses encased us.

  The first time this occurred, I was nervous, terrified that something or someone would wake me up from the bliss of his presence. I couldn’t understand why or how he could look at me, touch me with such wonder and admiration. The stoic King of Anger recognized and embraced the fragile being I was with such care and grace.

  Vade knew I’d been hurt, that my heart was black, yet more fragile than glass. It had been shattered so many times that it dared not believe that it had finally found its way to safety, for it knew that any and all bliss was extremely short-lived, and the pain you received for it was never, ever worth the experience.

  With every deep velvet word he spoke, every smile and gentle caress of my skin, he polished the darkness away, slowly revealing the real me, the one I didn’t even know existed. In the end, all that remained was a small crack in my black glass heart, one that wrath seeped through, one that never fully allowed me to forget who I once was.

  I hated that crack, that weak girl I was in my mother’s care. Because of her, that dark time in my life, I always had my defenses up when it wasn’t warranted. I always looked for negative intent in the words that were spoken to me, which was the reason that Vade and I fought when we did. I started every single fight, pushed him to the limits of any control he could be asked or expected to have. That crack led to me being too stubborn to tell him I had to face Xavier. It led to the absence we had both suffered.

  Maybe that was the lesson I was supposed to learn in the Veil...maybe that was what Vade was trying to tell me at that shop.

  I did trust Vade. I did have gratitude for him. He had saved me, more than once. I suppose that was why I was so focused on this war of lines. I was trying to repay the favor, save him.

  I let the thoughts of my past and the dark future slip away as I focused on his touch, on how his skin felt against mine. We held each other for hours, sometimes tenderly, others more aggressively. We found ourselves laughing, feeling emotions that were so powerful that they nearly stilled us as we stared into each other. More than once I had to close my eyes, demand that tears that were of bliss but mocked weakness retreat.

  We held each other like it was our first time, as if it were our last, not taking one moment for granted.

  Now, lying in his arms and staring at the low lying moon, I began to pull myself out of the bliss we were in, this manifestation around us. I had to; there was a war waiting on us, one that had waited for far too long.

  “You know what I don’t understand?” I said quietly.

  He waited for me to go on.

  “Why did the Reaper allow the dead to be trapped in the Veil, for those souls not to be brought to him or given the chance to move on? Was it because the line before him was so long that he did not notice, or was it because he was not powerful enough?”

  “Don’t,” he whispered.

  I propped my chin up on my arm across his chest so I could look into his eyes. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t bring that war into our bed.”

  “Just trying to understand,” I mumbled.

  He reached for my head and gently caressed my hair. “Listen to understand.”

  “I’ve been listening for some time now. If the Reaper protected me as you say, offered me his cathedral as a school for the Creator, then I will repay him. The dead are precious to him, and on my way home I saw how he had been robbed. As soon as I get Silas situated, that is where I will focus next.”

  I thought that was a plan that was full of grace and gratitude, but the look in Vade’s eyes told me it wasn’t.

  “Any closer to getting those words you are looking for?” I asked, almost sure that the reason he didn’t think it was a good idea was that he knew it would all be for naught.

  “The question is, are you any closer? What has this night given you, made you remember or feel for the first time?”

  “Everything. I don’t know why the Creator is waiting on me. By now, He should know that I do not do well with analogies, that I need bluntness.”

  “We always forget the lessons we are told, but never the ones that we learned through experience.”

  “Right,” I breathed. “I have to go back for Silas.”

  He nodded once.

  “No words of advice? No telling me to tread carefully so he can keep his guard?”

  “You will know what to say, what you have to do.”

  “Are your Fated as stubborn as Silas is? Did they doubt you when you went to them?”

  He grinned. “Very stubborn, but I haven’t gone to them.”

  “Why not?” I asked, furrowing my brow.

  “The time is not right. They are working together. I will continue my watch.”

  “They need to hear you, know that they are protected.”

  “Ah, but they fight harder and discover more when they pave their own path. Donalt and Xavier have plotted to use them against me, but they underestimated the fight in each of my own.”

  “So not like you,” I mused.

  “They are not like any other before them.” His eyes were full of bliss.

  I leaned forward and gave him a slow, subtle kiss as I manifested my warrior clothes to my body. “Go make sure they are okay. Silas had no idea that Xavier was a king; if he mentions that to the others, they may falter and think they cannot find a victory.”

  He smiled. “I really don’t think they know how to falter, at least not for long. They think they are in a war of hearts, not a w
ar of humanity; souls will hesitate when fighting for masses, but not for their rush.”

  “Truth,” I said as I blinked back the dreadful onset of weak tears. “Wish me luck.”

  “I will listen closely,” he said as a regal suit appeared on his body. I stood, giving him room to do the same.

  He reached to kiss me once more, and I decided to be playful and start a passionate kiss that would have landed us right back in that bed—but I vanished from his arms just as that idea took hold of him, just as those long arms reached down for my thighs and moved forward.

  Grinning and still blushing, I appeared in the springs. One glance at the evil that was infecting The Realm took that grin away. I let out a sigh and reached for the water to call forth the image of Silas.

  “Forgetting something?” I heard Mazing say.

  I glanced to my side to find her there. “I haven’t left yet, have I? Are we over our fight?” I asked, glancing around, looking for Rasp.

  “No, not entirely. He blames me; that, we agree on. What we don’t agree on is the why.”

  “The why?”

  “He thinks I was too wrathful to see his future intentions of becoming a fever for me.”

  “Future?”

  “That is what I said, you can’t plan a fever. I told him as much. I told him we would have never been more than friends.”

  “So he is hurt.”

  “Nope. That tells not only me, but also him that he had seen whatever he wanted us to be, as some kind of contract—arranged. He is mad at me for breaching an invisible agreement and the result of that. Nothing more.”

  “Did you leave here? Find what you were looking for?”

  She hissed before she spoke. “Yes. Colton’s scent is everywhere, but he is nowhere. I cannot find that godforsaken Cadence petal anywhere. Rasp thinks she must be close to Fielder, that is why she is hidden.”

  “That, or she is mirrored.”

  “Oh, how I wish.”