“She claims she’ll know when she opens the barriers between worlds. And that this is what the Fates have in store for her. She is apparently a big believer.”
Nalik’s tone told Jushua what he needed to know about that idea. His reborned brother felt just as negatively about the Four Fates as Jushua did.
Fates had screwed with him for five thousand years. And nothing they’d done yet had convinced him they knew what they were about. “Who goes with her?”
“I do not know. You volunteering?”
Sometimes the reborned retained some of the original soul’s characteristics. Nalik’s smirk was exactly like his brother Kilan’s had been. Jushua had found it just as irritating then as he did now.
“Depends. If duty calls, then I shall meet it.” Jushua walked across the courtyard to where the girl was. His mother was near, he could sense her presence now, something he had started to do within the last millennia. Had his mother and the witch spoken?
He knew his mother had strong feelings for the girl this Loren had been, but would those feelings of affection and guilt transfer to this new day and time? He knew his mother was gathering the reborned around her, and he’d worried for her sanity.
Laquazzeana often went mad, after all. And the knowledge that the children she’d lost so long ago were being returned to her could very well be enough to send her over the edge of madness.
Especially if those children were lost to her once again.
Dekimos was there. It was to his side that Jushua went. Dekimos was quite for a while. When he turned to Jushua there was a resolve on his face that had Jushua immediately tensing. “She goes to Evalanedea.”
“Like Three Hells she does.” That was off limits. No one was allowed to return to his homeland. That was a decree he had made to his own people the day they’d fled. He would never forget those dark days. Every one of the people he’d led had lost most of their loved ones, and everything else they’d ever had.
Dardaptoans had once numbered close to two million. He’d had barely of fraction of that under his protection after that day. And to keep them safe he and his mother had sealed the remaining portkeys that led to Evalanedea with almost all of the powers and gifts that he had possessed.
It had taken five thousand years for him to regain some of those skills.
“How does she think she will accomplish something that has not been done in five millennia? Does she think she is that powerful?”
“She goes. We both know she can open the worlds with little effort. There is a reason for that. And Jushua…I am going with her.”
**
He knew when the witchie first saw him. Almost felt her gaze land upon him. Jushua fought to keep the smirk off his lips.
She most definitely had not counted on him. He strolled up to her.
He had always enjoyed tormenting the witchies when he could. And why not? Life should be full of such simple pleasures.
And he wanted to see those pretty Druid eyes again. See if he could figure out what it was about her that was unsettling him so.
She drew him. He’d wondered long into the night if it was mere sexual attraction—which he’d felt for a few women in the last five thousand years, he wasn’t dead after all—or something more that was drawing him.
Something witchie, perhaps.
No, trust wasn’t at the forefront of his mind when he looked at her.
“What are you doing?” She was a bold one and he admired her challenge. She didn’t want him to go, yet she knew that was exactly what he was planning. What would she do about it? “I don’t remember offering you a ticket on this crazy train.”
He didn’t quite get her reference, but it wasn’t too complicated. “My brother goes, I go. Someone has to watch his ass.”
“I’ll watch his ass, it’s a fine one. But you…you aren’t supposed to go on this trip. Shouldn’t you stay home…with your mother?”
**
Loren knew her words were snarky, but the last thing she wanted was Jushua around. He rubbed her so far the wrong way she was surprised she wasn’t back in Colorado by now.
But he seemed pretty resolute. And he was protecting his brother, how could she blame him for that?
And who knew? A seasoned warrior familiar with where she suspected they were going might just come in handy. “I give the orders. You start arguing, you take a hike, ok?”
“We’ll see how that works out. Now, my darling witchie, where is it we are going?”
She looked up at him—way up, darned giant—and smiled. “Evalanedea. City of Darda, to be exact. I know you’ve heard of it.”
His eyes narrowed and his hand dropped to the weapon at his side. “You think that wise? You know the curse, I am sure.”
“I know it. And I know that I am to go there. Whether you are remains to be seen. And it’s up to you.” She sobered. He deserved to know more than what she was telling him, but she was afraid to reveal too much. Too much knowledge sometimes changed the future, and messed with the Destinies in ways they did not like. “Darda. I know there’s risk; believe me, I’ve had nightmares about it for years. But that’s where I’m supposed to go next. The Four Fates guide, and I follow.”
“Following blindly will just get you screwed, sweet witchie. Don’t forget that.”
“Trust me, I won’t.”
“So you are set on this?” Someone asked from behind the big warrior. His mother stepped around him. “Why must you all go?”
“Because we are meant, mother. Do not try to stop us. This is what must be done.” Dekimos was there, too. When had he arrived?
It was him she’d been waiting for, hadn’t it?
“Do not go,” Eaudne said. Her words broke at the last. Loren fought back the compassion. If Eaudne fell apart, would she be able to do this?
She resisted looking at her own mother, knowing her mother was probably feeling just as much fear as Dekimos’ was.
“Eaudne, the Fates…you know they guide us this day.”
“There have many nights I have damned the Fates, and until my sons return to me safely, until you do, I will continue to do so.”
“Mother,” It was Jushua who spoke. Eaudne looked at him. He had his hand on her shoulder and she leaned against him. Dekimos was the one who stood apart. “We both know that things come full circle. If Deki says this is where we must go, then we go. He will not go alone. Neither will I. And neither will she. But we all must go.”
Loren’s mother wrapped her hand around Loren’s. She wanted to throw her arms around her mother and cling. Like she had when she was a small girl and the nightmares would come. Her mother would hold her, and make everything go away.
But no mother could do that for her now. “We need to get going, if we’re going to do this…”
“At least take some men with you. Take an army. Anything.” Eaudne pleaded.
“That would put us in even greater danger. The Wolden mercenaries have invaded Evalanedea, and patrol all borders. We would not make it into Darda with an army,” Dekimos had a pack on his back and a sword on his hip. His eyes were bleak. We need to get going. It is dark in Evalanedea now. We can go, find a place to wait, then travel farther by daylight.”
“And how do you intend to get there? We broke the portkey path thousands of years ago.”
“I do not need it.” Loren released her mother then looked at her one more time. “Mama, I love you. Stay here, stay safe. I’ll be coming back for you. I promise.”
Her mother raised her chin. Her eyes were wet but her words were firm. “See that you do. If not, I’m grounding you for one hundred years. Got me?”
Loren looked at the three other people nearby. Mara stood trembling in the cool wind. A tall man Loren had met the day before stood at her back. Jade and Becca were side-by-side, their guys on either side of them.
The people who loved her most.
Would this be the last time she ever saw them?
Doubts hit her, and she almost turned aroun
d and ran back to her room.
But…if she didn’t do this, what would happen? To her, to them and their families? Becca’s children were beautiful, they deserved a safe place to grow up.
And what she was supposed to do was change the course of a war, wasn’t it? Hadn’t that been what she’d dreamt for years?
Dear Fates what was she supposed to do?
Go forth. Trust.
She almost swore she heard a voice, a familiar one, answering her question.
And the answer she’d received was the right one.
She looked at her mom one more time. “I love you.”
“I know.”
Loren held out her hands and opened the barrier between Relaklonos, the Demon world, and Evalanedea. She heard the surprise from those surrounding her who had not witnessed her gift yesterday.
Eaudne was one of them, as was the black woman standing next to Eaudne. Loren did not know the woman’s name, but her wild laughter and her waving at Loren shocked her.
If she hadn’t had a greater purpose she would have questioned the woman.
But as it was, she grabbed the two men by the hands and with a simple command and pull of her power, she yanked them all through from one world into the next.
Chapter Twenty-Two
For some reason it wasn’t an instantaneous trip between Relaklonos and Evalanedea, like most travel between worlds. Instead she was able to look at the space around them and see a multitude of blurred images as they passed through them. She could see the two men with her in sharp detail, but the worlds they traveled through were blurred.
Dekimos was yanked away from them, and a good fifty feet separated them.
But Jushua was there. He reached for her as the world around them spun even faster.
Loren reached back, needing the connection to someone tangible.
He pulled on her arm until she was close enough to wrap in his own. She clung to him, taking in the earthen smell of man instead of the sulfuric burn of the changing worlds around them.
He was so darned big, he probably could keep her safe from whatever—if he wanted to.
She hadn’t forgotten it was Jushua who held her.
Finally they landed in Evalanedea and Loren swore her arm snapped again, the same place Barlaam had healed the day before with a magic brew of demon blood. She cried out.
Jushua was there. “Are you hurt?”
“Landed on my arm. I’m ok. It’s broken, but I’ll heal. Deki?”
**
Jushua looked around the darkened hill. It took him a moment to spot his brother walking up the east side, picking his way over rock and dirt. “He comes. Let me see your arm.”
“I’m fine. Where are we? Can you tell?”
“Backside of the Heirche, I believe. Dear Fates it smells just like…”
“Home.” Her words were soft and for a moment he heard the voice of the young Nelanora she had been.
It had him feeling a bit more tenderness for the witchie.
“Give me your arm. I am not a great healer like my mother or brother, but I do have enough skills to lessen some pain.”
“I am fine. And Deki can help.” She didn’t want Jushua to help her, didn’t want him to touch her for some reason. Why? What was it about him that made her so damned aware of him—how he looked, how he smelled, how he sounded—when she wasn’t that aware of his brother? The one who had meant so much to Nelanora so long ago?
What were the Fates doing to her?
She stepped away.
“We need to find a safe spot to wait out the night. To make a plan of some sort. Figure out what to do next.”
“Sure. We’ll do that.” His words were quiet and she wondered for a moment if she’d hurt him by refusing his help.
“Jushua? Thank you, by the way. For the offer…and for coming with us. I having a feeling this is exactly what the Fates intended.”
“But that’s the catch with the Four, isn’t it? Everything that happens can be lumped under their doing. They are damned good at taking away the freedom of choice, after all.”
No one said much of anything else as they hiked over the first small mountain. This was one area she as happy to let the brother take charge of.
Jushua and Deki quickly found a spot and set up a decent camp where they’d be somewhat secluded from any prying eyes.
Jushua had a fire going within minutes and Loren set about making camp with the provisions brought from the other world.
They’d wait out the night, then start the rest of their journey when dawn broke.
In the meantime, she had a lot of thinking and figuring out to do.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The fire put off just enough heat that Loren most likely wouldn’t freeze to death, but she had her doubts. Evalanedea was far colder than she would have ever imagined.
Probably because of the belief that all Dardaptoans hated the cold. That was just true of Gaian Dardaptoans, not Evalanedean like Jushua. She’d expected something like Florida; this definitely wasn’t that.
He seemed fine in the cold. He’d even stripped down to his waist and fished in the stream. It had to be less than fifty degrees and he laughed while he did it.
Even Deki smiled.
There was so much tension between the two of them, did they realize that? It worried her. And neither of them deserved to be hurting as much as they were. If she knew what it was between them, maybe she could help somehow.
Instead, she kept to the fire, cooking the fish Jushua tossed her like a present. He was so damned proud of himself, she didn’t have the heart to tell him that her father had taken her fishing dozens of times before he died. Granted, she’d not been in fifteen years, but this wasn’t the first time she’d seen fileted fish.
Even if the fish in this land was unlike anything she’d ever seen before.
She looked at him again. He hadn’t dressed himself after fishing, claiming to want to feel the air of his home upon his skin once again.
It was her home, too. But then again, it wasn’t.
Sometimes she had a damned hard time reconciling the woman she was now with the girl she had been five thousand years ago.
How was it for Deki or Jushua? They had lived all this time with the memories of that day. Guilt, failure, fears—that had to plague them, didn’t it?
It did her. And it was compounded by the knowledge that she’d loved and lost so many loved ones, so many families since then herself.
Deki stayed off to one side, leaving her and Jushua almost in complete privacy. Why was he doing that? Didn’t he know that she’d welcome his presence?
She’d dreamed of him often, though she’d known that he was not meant for her this lifetime. And she knew he realized that; how could he not?
And she knew that was something else that had to hurt him.
He wore his pain for all to see.
Except…Jushua. He laughed and joked, teased her and teased his brother. Much like he had all those millennia ago.
She found it just as irritating now as she did then. Some things, at least, were constant.
It was a long couple of hours before night fall.
Finally, though, it was past time to find their bedrolls. The next day would come early and she had no idea of what it would bring.
They put her between them, moving her bedroll between theirs. She wasn’t closest to the fire—Jushua took that position and it took her a moment to realize he was guarding her from attack on that side.
Dekimos took the position furthest away, protecting her from the world behind him.
“You sleep first.” Jushua told his brother. “I’ll wake you in a few hours.”
“And me?”
“You don’t worry about it. This is something Deki and I have decided between us. You need to be as rested as possible.”
She tried to protest.
He held up a hand. “No. If this is the destiny that you say it is, then we do our part by ensuring you can do yours.
That means you sleep, we guard. And forget you not, you are mostly human. You need more rest than we.”
No matter what she said, he ignored her. And Dekimos just remained quiet, watching the two of them with that sadness in his eyes.
Finally, Deki held up a hand. “Loren, rest. Trust us, trust me in this. Allow us to do this for you.”
Shame and guilt had her complying.
She listened to the sounds of the night around them, the crackling of the fire, and the sounds of the two men breathing nearby until she fell asleep.
**
“She’s stubborn.” Jushua said to his brother once he felt the witch slip into the slumber. “Argues against everything.”
“She has always been that way.”
“You were close back then, weren’t you?” Understatement, he knew. It was obvious the way his brother felt about her, did Deki realize that?
“Yes. It is no secret between us. She was the mate I was supposed to have. That changed when she was killed. When I was.”
He hadn’t known; why hadn’t he known? “Does our mother know? The girl does.”
“Yes. Mother knew. It was why she kept a close watch on Nelanora. To keep her safe. Her parents…they were not the most attentive to the younger children. Not like ours were.”
“No. They were not.” They were wonderful parents, but like so many of the Evalanedean rulers of old they believed in leaving the rearing of children to servants.
But their mother had been born a peasant and had married up significantly. She’d raised every single one of her children from birth to age of adulthood. And had taken pride in that. More, she had loved them. Jushua would never doubt that. And now that she’d found Deki and Kennera again, he knew they remembered that love, too. And that they too would do anything to protect her.
“I cheated death that day. Cheated the Fates. I should not be alive today. I know this. And at times I think the loss of my mate has been my punishment.”
The Witch Page 7
