by Sirena Noir
The woman was much prettier than he remembered. Albeit, not his type. Not that he should have a type. But after three hundred years, Aiden knew what he’d want in a woman if he was ever given the chance to love.
This woman was different. She reminded him of someone else.
The drizzle of rain dampened her dark skin, making it glow. Her wide oval eyes with deep russet irises gawked at him. “It’s you. I saw you, in my bedroom.”
She did see him. And she remembered him. That was a good start. Or bad. He wasn’t sure which. “Who are you?” He wanted to hear her say it. He wanted to hear her name. He had to be right.
She glitched in and out of the layer for a moment, her body there but then not there. “Sabre. My name is Sabre. Who are you?”
“Well, Sabre. I’m Aiden. And I’m curious, how can you see me?” He cocked his head to the side, watching as she glitched further.
She stiffened. “I’m dead. It didn’t hurt at all. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Aiden raised a brow at her. He’d been around a ton of dead people, and she most certainly was not dead. “Try again.” He was amused at her answer, but not enough to laugh out loud.
She squinted at him. “What? I don’t know what you mean. I’m dead.”
“Yeah, I’m not buying it. Look,” Aiden grabbed her arm, holding the solid form in his grasp. “If you were dead, I couldn’t do this. Not yet anyway, that’s what the resurrection is for. You are most definitely not dead.”
She looked confused. Her eyes knit together in worry. Or was it pain? Aiden wasn’t great with emotions—especially female emotions. “I… I don’t know…” She stumbled on words to say. Tears welled in her eyes. “I had hoped that maybe I would find relief from my pain.”
“What are you talking about? You don’t look injured to me.” He raked his gaze over her slender body and made sure there was no wound or anything else causing her pain.
“I don’t fit in. And it hurts.” Her breathing hitched. She held up her hands to show him. “It hurts clear down to my fingertips. Every inch of my body screams in agony while I have to go on pretending that everything is okay.”
I just want to die.
Aiden winced. He hated hearing those words, even if they weren’t meant for him. He shouldn’t be spying on her thoughts, but it was almost as if she threw her thoughts at him. He heard them without trying. “Why do you think you don’t fit in?”
“Because I’m different. I can feel too much. I feel things other people can’t. I’m a freak.” She motioned half-heartedly toward her form with a wave. She looked away as if ashamed.
“You’re gorgeous. Most humans lack something. You don’t lack that glow.” Aiden softened his voice. He may not know what it was like to feel other people, but he knew what it was like to not fit in. “You’re a lot like someone I know. So you can’t be too different.” He wasn’t sure he should tell her about his brother. “So, tell me, how did you cross the layers without dying?”
Sabre shrugged. “I don’t know. I was waiting for the bus, my heart was heavy. Heavier than it had been in a long time, almost like the first time I saw you. I think it was that old woman. She has so much grief and sadness in her that I couldn’t take it anymore. I tried, really I did, but… It hurt so bad. And then, you were here.”
“I’ll be… You, my dear, are an empath.” Flickers of the prophecy raced through his mind. The blood of beauty and the torment of the sword will control the layers of darkness… Aiden’s heart raced. She was the other girl. She was the sword. And her pain, or torment, was what brought her to his layer. She could jump layers using her pain.
He grabbed her by the upper arms and shook her. “Don’t you understand? This is great. I finally know why you are calling to me.”
She leaned back away from him, eyes wide. “I don’t understand.”
Aiden let go and began to pace. He wasn’t sure how much time he’d have with her. He needed to make it count. He couldn’t kill her just yet.
No. He couldn’t go to Outer Darkness now. He needed to find his mom’s key to the small box resting against his back and tell Chase that their mother, Elana was still alive. He couldn’t do any of that from Outer Darkness.
“Sabre.” He stopped pacing long enough to talk to her. “You are an empath. My brother is one as well, so I’m fairly familiar with your powers. You feel so much pain like you don’t fit in, because you don’t.”
Folding her arms, she thrust her hip to the side and raised a brow. “Well, don’t sugarcoat it for me, tell me like it is.”
He grinned. “Don’t worry, I’m not one to, what did you say? Sugarcoat it?” He held his arms out wide. “I’m just a big barrel of tell you like it is.”
She rolled her eyes at him. Her body glitched in and out of the layers again. It wouldn’t be long before she would return fully to the earthly plane.
Aiden knew he was losing her. She was losing some of the pain and she’d be going back to her layer any moment. But he couldn’t let her do that until she knew how to protect herself from other loreans—and his brother. “Tell me, Sabre, I bet you can feel everything, even someone else’s deceit.”
She swallowed hard. Her fingers were digging into the flesh of her arms as she stood there. “What are you getting at?” She stood tall, but her voice wavered, letting Aiden know he had hit where he wanted.
He tentatively reached out and touched her cheek. “I want to kill you, but so do others like me.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and took a step back. The glitches came faster now. “But, you’re an angel. Angels don’t kill people.”
He pretended to ignore her statement, lowering his hand. If she only knew everything an angel did, her vision of celestial glory would be ruined. Loreans were able to choose their agency as well as a human. Choice was not something only given to the mortals, it was given freely to every living being—angel included.
He stepped forward, grabbing her arms. “Listen to me, if you feel yourself getting overwhelmed, where the pain is unimaginable again, do yourself and me a favor. Imagine you’re in a bubble.” He was glad he could remember when his mom had used a shield on him and Chase, otherwise, he’d hate to think of what would happen to her if the Others found her. Although, it would be better for Chase to help teach her how to keep it up and use it to protect others. Right now, he was satisfied Sabre could create one big enough to help hide her when she was the most vulnerable.
She thrust her jaw forward. “Why should I trust you? You want to kill me. You said so yourself.”
Aiden chuckled. “Yes, but luckily for you, my brother doesn’t want you dead. So, if you place this shield up, no one can find you.”
She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, thrusting her hip to the side. “What if this is a trick? Why would an angel want me dead? I thought angels were good?”
Aiden went rigid. He was a good angel. He had white wings and half a prophecy on his back. “So many questions, yet we have no time for any of them. You’ll be gone soon enough, don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
Aiden didn’t have to pry inside her head to hear her thoughts. She was flinging them at him faster than he could catch them. But he smiled, because the main theme was that she believed him and she would use her shield.
Now he just had to figure out a way to find her again. If her shield was up, he wouldn’t be able to locate her either. He’d worry about that later, Right now, he was satisfied that no one else could track her down.
A bus rumbled down the road and Sabre dissolved from his layer back to Earth. She looked around wildly for him. “Aiden,” she called out, but she couldn’t see him.
He smiled, knowing, that he had found his way to end the prophecy. He just needed to find that key first. Then he’d come back for Sabre. With the key and the girl, how could his brother deny the truth? He was so close to ending it all.
Chapter Seven
Walking the old roads of North Carolina hadn’t jogged A
iden’s memory in the least. He knew that’s where he and his brother had been raised, but couldn’t remember anything else. After a full day of searching, he made it to the beach.
He picked up a rock and tossed it into the surf. The water rolled up over the sand, teasing his feet. Nothing worked to rid him of his self-given task. His mother’s necklace was somewhere. He just had to find it. If only he could remember where their house was located. He hadn’t wanted to remember that house of horrors in a long time. Once their mother had died, they had experienced starvation and loss more keenly since then any child should have.
Aiden hadn’t even had an inkling of a desire to look for his old house before now. The house was loaded with memories he didn’t ever want to relive. Memories of Hawthorne and the pain he inflicted on the twins. Memories of his mom were there too, but they hurt too bad to dig up. It was easier if he just let everything from his past go.
Slowly, he made his way to the pier. The wooden planks creaked under his weight. He stared out over the ocean, painfully aware that he may never find the key. But, without it, how would he open the box and prove to Chase that their mother was still alive?
He wasn’t even sure he could do that with the box. He had no idea what was inside. It could be empty for all he knew, but without it, he didn’t stand a chance at persuading Chase to end the prophecy. If he could just get Chase to work with him, there was nothing they couldn’t succeed at.
Standing at the end of the dock, Aiden felt alone, and empty. The vastness of the sea weighed him down. His limbs grew heavy.
The waves rolled in over the sand, ruthlessly embracing the pier’s legs buried under the ocean’s surface. The salty air burned his lungs as he stood on the wooden dock watching the water. Cold droplets from the sea crashing against the pier sprinkled his long white duster, soaking past the cloth to his skin.
He closed his eyes and pictured Chase and himself as kids, running up and down the beach with their mother, watching protectively from her sandy spot sitting on a blanket. It was one of the few memories Aiden allowed himself to keep. It was one of the last he had of his mother.
Shaking his head, he needed to clear his thoughts. He couldn’t let memories drag him down. He was on a mission and couldn’t afford to fail.
Turning his back to the sea, Aiden strolled past beach goers along the pier. If only he had Chase’s eidetic memory, he could find their old house, get the key, and be on his way.
Maybe… Maybe Aiden didn’t have to have Chase’s memory, maybe he just needed Chase.
Aiden hadn’t seen him since they were separated on the dock, after Chase gave Madison all his power. That still angered Aiden. It would be harder to find the girl with his brother’s shield around her. But, that also meant that Chase was without his shield. That might make him easier to find. But it would require energy. Lots of energy.
The last time he called out to his brother, he had been left drained for hours. Trying to cross through the layers, even in his mind, was something he had never heard of other loreans doing. So there was no guide book or class he could take at HALO to prepare him for his little experiments.
Looming ahead, a pale blue water tower looked over the resort and beach.
Lifting his wings, Aiden pushed down and rose above the ground, reaching the top of the tower in three full beats. Up high, looking over the crowded town, Aiden settled down on the lip of the railing going around the bowl of the tower. His wings hung over the edge. The ocean breeze rustled through his feathers.
Closing his eyes, he lifted his face to the sun and its light. It never worked, but he always tried. He tried to ignore the heat and the glaringly bright light in his eyes. But nothing happened. No burst of energy. No gradient rays of power. When would he accept that he was darker than he was light?
Frustrated, Aiden lowered his head and gripped the railing, leaning far forward to allow his eyes to focus on the ground, without the sun blinding him. He blinked a few times and then a soothing sensation of rejuvenated power washed over him. It was everything he needed and had wanted, but it didn’t come from the sun. It came from the shadow of the cloud crossing the sun.
He chuckled lightly at his conundrum of a life and relished the feeling of the shadow on his skin. What other light lorean would get a high out of a shadow? Probably none. If he even told anyone, they’d probably send him to a healer. Not that they did much. Although there was a rumor there was one healer who could do just about anything.
He doubted she could help him change his source of power.
Besides, she was just a rumor. And even if rumors were true, she lived in Cynnistear, in a place that Aiden couldn’t reach.
Aiden soaked in the power from the last seconds before the cloud revealed the sun in all its glory. It wasn’t like the strength he got from being around Chase, but it felt good to be renewed in his power. Even if the shadow was fleeting, it worked.
With Chase’s shield down, Aiden might have enough energy to find him. Maybe even to talk to him. It was worth a shot. He needed to find that key. And, Chase was the only one who could tell him where they used to live. Provided the house was still there after all this time.
Keeping his spot on the tower, Aiden closed his eyes and focused on his brother. His mind leapt through layers. It was like he was there in North Carolina, and yet he wasn’t at the same time. Trees, rocks, rivers… all warped passed him as his mind sought out his brother, searching for their connection.
A jolt of energy surged through him, but it was almost painful. Aiden forced his mind to slow down and focus on the power. It was Chase. But something was wrong. Not on Aiden’s end, but something was wrong with Chase. The shift left a bitter sensation over the boost of power.
Aiden stood up and leaned against his perch atop the tower, holding on to the railing, keeping his eyes shut, refusing to break the connection. He was so close.
“Chase,” he called out in his mind.
Come on brother, where are you?
He waited for an answer before trying again.
Aiden still couldn’t locate him, but a faint whisper floated through the layers. “Aiden.”
At least Aiden could hear his brother. He’d continue searching for him, knowing that they could talk. “Chase, where are you?”
“I wouldn’t tell you,” Chase’s voice was strained and heavy. A slight echo rang in Aiden’s ears as his brother talked.
“Brother, I need to know where our old house was. Do you remember?” He couldn’t let on his desperation for the answer. He couldn’t. If Chase knew what he wanted, he would never give Aiden the answer. Their goals were too far in opposition.
Chase breathed heavy, even in Aiden’s mind. “Of course, I remember.” He paused, a small groan floated on the air between them and the layers. “Why do you want to know?” He sounded as if he was in pain.
Aiden worried, searching harder, faster. He had to find his brother. Something was definitely not right. Then a vibration, almost like their connection rattled next to the rock facing. He smiled and placed a mental hand against the cold rock. Being close enough to his brother gave him the power he needed to see inside the mountain.
His mind’s eye had to go through layers of purple amethyst crystals until he finally found what he looked for. A cave.
Crystals lined the ceiling and walls where a trickle of water ran down near the back. The inside was muggy and the dampness made the air heavy.
Chase lay on the ground. He was trying to sit up, his arms bracing his body as he pushed. Every inch of him shook with the effort, and his breathing was labored.
Aiden wanted to reach out and help him up, but he couldn’t.
“Get up, Chase.”
His brother shook his head, using even more of his energy. “It’s too late. I don’t think I can come back from this.”
“Enough. If you let yourself die, then you’re ending the prophecy, I can handle that, but can you?” He’d never admit that the death of his brother would be the wors
t thing that could happen to him. Even though they hadn’t been together in centuries, at least Chase was out there, alive, walking around. If he died… Aiden would have to follow. They could be in Outer Darkness together.
Aiden would use the prophecy against Chase, if that’s what it took to get him to live. He couldn’t imagine his brother dying. There hadn’t been a moment in this lifetime he ever thought he would live in any layer without his brother living somewhere, too.
Dull eyes shone up toward where Aiden was, even though Chase couldn’t see him. “Shut up. You don’t know what I’m going through.” He hung his head again, his chin trembled.
“You’re right. I wasn’t stupid enough to give some human the blood from my wings, essentially, handing over the part of you that makes you an angel.” Aiden’s frustration grew. He was never as good at compassion as his brother. Or Tristan. He stomped over to Chase and squatted down. “Tell me again how that was a good choice?”
“I kept her alive.” Chase strained through every word.
“Are you kidding me? Quit lying. You know you’re still transfixed with the humanity side of yourself. When will you accept this lorean lifestyle?” Aiden’s disgust dripped from him. If Chase had more power, he’d be able to feel it from so far away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Chase turned his head but only minutely.
“Yeah, okay. Let’s pretend that’s true.” Aiden curled his lip, cringing. “Ugh. Get outside before you die.” He wasn’t using his calm voice Dara had taught them, even though he probably should in this case. But, then again, he didn’t do a lot of things he should.
“I can’t. Even if I could, I’m dark, remember? I’m a Cynnistear lorean.” Beads of sweat rolled from every pore on Chase’s body. Even his shriveled wings had a glisten.
“Shut up and stop being stupid. Get in the light, Chase.” How in the last three-hundred-years had Chase not figured out that darkness wasn’t his source of power? Or had he, and right then he had just given up? Aiden regarded his brother with curiosity.
