Timeless (Maiden Of Time Book 3)

by Crystal Collier

  The words hovered on her tongue. I love you, Kiren. I’ve always loved you. You were the man I dreamed of all my life, the man I thought was impossible until you claimed me for your own.

  “Tell me who the father is.” His brows lowered. “And I will make him suffer for his sins.”

  Her face burned.

  He studied her. “Even if it is not for centuries that I meet him, I will bring you justice. Are you frightened of him?”

  “Nothing frightens me.”

  His fingers slid over top hers, and he lifted her hand to his lips. “Not even me?”

  She knew she should withdraw her hand, but the tender way he held it left her knees weak and heart thudding.

  His head lowered, nose grazing across her neck like he was breathing her in. “Stay with me, Alexia. Believe in me. Be mine.”

  She shook herself free. “Kiren.”

  He growled. “You kissed me and started…whatever this is. Tell me what you want. I will do anything for you. You only have to ask.”

  “I want you to live.” She faced him with tears in her eyes. Extending her hands to him, she whispered, “I need you to live. To lead. To become.”

  He stood back and hissed, “And yet you kissed me—knowing you might die and I would be drawn to you.” His face scrunched up and his jaw muscles flexed, teeth clenched. “Why would you do that?”

  Was that the only reason he pursued her? No words could adequately explain her actions, not without revealing her past. His future. Even that explanation felt too weak.

  “Alexia, answer me.” He spoke like a king. She snapped to attention as she had when Father used that tone. Kiren was past patiently waiting for her to volunteer information. Anger burned in his eyes.

  She had no words for him.

  “Or will you not speak because the only answer you have is a shameful one?”

  She felt like she’d swallowed a frog. It was struggling down her throat, choking the truth within her.

  “That is why you will not let me into your thoughts,” he continued. “You are afraid I will discover the lie you told the others. You had no husband. You wear that ring as a farce and protection. It is convenient that he is gone and you can claim he existed, so now you can have whomever you want. Why not me?”

  The frog hit her stomach and hopped around, pounding her further and further into the ground. He truly thought she had given herself to someone at random?

  “I do not believe you are from the future. You kissed me to gain access to my memories so you might manipulate me.”

  Tears prickled through, blurring her vision. “Coward.”

  His nostrils flared, jaw clenching. “I would not call it cowardice to willingly embrace a woman who has conceived through shame.”

  Her jaw unhinged. Tears welled, but she held the dam, wouldn’t let him know how deeply his words stung. Was that truly what he thought? That he was doing her a service by caring for an otherwise unsalvageable and undesirable woman? He was shamed by her. His attraction to her.

  And she thought perhaps he just cared for her. Loved her even.

  She twisted the hurt into anger. It was the only way to keep him from ripping her heart out. “You are a coward—a man who runs from his responsibilities after a single failure. A man who hides from the people who need him. A man who throws the blame for his failures at those who suffer because of him.”

  “You kissed me!”

  “I wish I had not!”

  He scoffed. “I am a fool for not taking my leave of you, as you continually insist. I deserve better than a harlot.”

  Rage seethed up from her toes. He was not the man she’d believed, but a scoundrel and reprobate.

  Alexia smacked him, hard.

  His head whipped to the side, and he gasped. Her palm stung. It was wet. Had she been sweating? Alexia turned her hand over and sucked in a breath. Crimson liquid stained her skin. Red. Manifesting like the many murders these hands had induced. Her pronged wedding ring faced upward, sharp edges glistening scarlet. She trembled and dropped her hand.

  Kiren turned back to her, blood seeping between the fingers he clasped over his cheek, from the corner of his eye to just above his chin.

  His scar.

  Alexia fell back several steps.

  She was the one who had done that to him. All this time she had wondered, and he’d never answered her questions.

  But this Kiren had deserved it.

  “You have less nobility than a swine,” she whispered, shocked by her own words. But they kept coming, the only thing that stopped her from breaking into tears for what she’d done. “A man so selfish he cares only for himself has no business becoming a king. I am glad that you have given up the pursuit.” Alexia spun and threw the door open. “I am going to save the Passionate, Kiren, and then I will torture you no more.” Because she would exist no more.

  She sped out into the chill of night. Tears coursed down her cheeks the instant she was free. He’d hurt her. She’d scarred him. Forever.

  Kiren was right to keep this part of their history from her. She wished she’d never known it.

  Thirty-Seven

  Timing

  Kiren watched her go, completely stunned. It wasn’t the blood seeping from his face so much as her words: Less nobility than a swine… Selfish…

  Wind snuffed the warmth of his sanctuary, his treasured prison of memories. His personal torture chamber. The past was filled with shame and misery, and his suffering was worthy of it, but how could he have said that to Alexia? Accused her of fornication?

  The flower he’d place in her hair lay in the entry, petals flickering in the wind.

  He didn’t believe she was unchaste. Not for an instant. She was the embodiment of all that was good, and every mention of her child had brought an intense sorrow to her eyes, one he’d just aggravated. She was either a victim or had lost the love of her life and somehow survived.

  She was right. He ran away because he was selfish. Gave up leading the Lost Ones because he was selfish. Turned his back on any hope of returning home to the Neitherlands because of that selfishness. Lashed out at her because of selfishness.

  He tore at his hair, willing himself to cease existing.

  Restraint. Kiri, his sister, had always said his impulsiveness would haunt him.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face, the fingers coming away slick with blood. He scowled and went to clean up. The entire way and back, Alexia’s tear-filled eyes haunted him, not broken because of the trials she’d endured, but spilling because of him.

  He lifted the paints in the corner of the church and cleared her image from his mind by purging it onto the wall, exasperated by the futility of his art. What purpose did it serve? To deepen his wounds and keep the past fresh? Even the flowers he cultivated for his rare inks brought him little peace. Flowers he crushed for these memories. Destruction for torture. He was determined to spill the paint out back and never waste his efforts again…except he couldn’t misuse the blood of so many living things. Reluctantly, he dipped his fingers again and finished the scene—the woman who tore his cheek and called him unworthy.

  She had been right. He understood that. At her back he outlined a gateway of light, the only way to a safe haven for all of them. Whether he wished to be a leader or not, he owed his people enough to fight. And he would.

  Perhaps it was time to try again. Condemning himself to marriage and fatherhood was an excuse to keep from trying. The wrong course. The cut across his face said as much.

  Kiren exited the church and aimed straight for the spot where everything had begun.

  The gateway.

  ***

  Alexia scrubbed her hand in the stream, determined, desperate to get the blood off. The blood that would never come off. Fifty suffering creatures flashed before her eyes, the sword clutched in her hand as she murdered them again and again and again. Men in armor dotting a mountain side, crushed by the debris…

  She cried out and picked up a stone, scraping
the blood free, scraping until the skin was gone, scraping until her fingers were too numb to continue on.

  Kiren. She had scarred Kiren, forever.

  It was her.

  She collapsed into her folded arms, weeping for the dead and lost. For the misery she’d caused. For the child she’d brought to this age, only to leave her defenseless and alone. For the father she should be drawing near her child, the one who despised her and the little one within her womb.

  She curled around her torn flesh.

  ***

  Alexia woke with a start. The stream gurgled by next to her, but darkness saturated the land. She’d fallen asleep. Her hand ached…

  But her heart ached worse.

  She returned to the church as stars blazed above, knowing Kiren’s appearance in camp would herald her shame and they must resolve this conflict. All would see what she’d done to him, an action she could hardly explain. She needed to apologize, to beg his forgiveness, to find a way to heal this.

  The church was dark. The door was locked and no one answered her knocking, though her raw fist throbbed in the aftermath. She knocked again, harder. Nothing. She pressed an ear to the door, listening for a single creak, an exhaling of breath, anything.

  Chirping insects filled the silence.

  He was gone.

  She turned for camp. Perhaps she had missed him and he’d already joined the others around the fire. Perhaps he had made a villain of her in the eyes of the Passionate. Perhaps he would exact his revenge by revealing her perceived treachery and ruining her reputation.

  The bushes rustled.

  Alexia stopped.

  An invisible weight pressed her shoulders. The hairs of her arms stood up. She turned.

  Crimson eyes watched her from the shadows—the hungry leer of a predator. She didn’t dare move a muscle. Not even to breathe. Alexia brushed mental fingers over the flow of time, prepared to jerk it to a halt. Not that it would help.

  She had no idea how to fight this thing, but whatever it was, she must. The weight at her hip—the dagger that could dispatch the Soulless—felt leagues away. One movement, a hundred breaths, a thousand seconds too far from her grasp against an enemy uninhibited by time.

  Feet crunched through the underbrush from behind. She whirled, ripping the dagger from its sheath, ready for an attack. Deamus skipped toward her, his face alight with joy. He halted at her weapon.

  She turned back, but the eyes were gone.

  He cleared his throat and swung his arms, weakly mimicking his delight of a moment ago. “I have found it.”

  She blinked. “Found what?”

  “The location of the gateway!”

  Alexia’s fingers squeezed into a ball. She glanced back at the darkness she’d felt watching, but the ominous presence was missing. Deamus had attempted to open the gateway twice, and this enmity-suffused presence had appeared around the same time. As much as she wished to dismiss the children’s story of souls being eaten, she’d begun to believe it held a seed of truth.

  “Your enthusiasm is astounding,” Deamus said, voice flat.

  “Is it safe to open the gate?”

  “Safe?” His jaw flapped. “It is safe on the other side—safer than being hunted by armies and invisible monsters.”

  Of course it was. Or at least, she hoped it was. The others would be jubilant at the prospect of this new world, and with the Passionate gone, the Soulless would never become. But the society she’d known would cease to exist. Kiren would never become the man she loved.

  She forced a smile. “That is incredible news. You can finally go home.”

  His head tilted. “And you will go with me.”

  She nodded, but her stomach twisted. “You think we can garner the strength to open the gateway?”

  “There is a way, and I know what it is.” A grin broke his face and he threw both arms around her. His lips touched her cheek, and she pushed him away.

  He frowned.

  “Go,” she encouraged. “Tell Amos. You are going home!”

  Happiness returned to his face.

  ***

  Alexia searched the underbrush, hoping to find evidence of what? An inky cloud? She needed some way to track it, but it left no trace.

  She returned to camp slowly, pondering. Deamus’s eagerness for this other world turned over and over in her mind. It sang to her: a place where her child could grow without fear of being chased. She loved the idea, but no such utopia could exist.

  Utopia. The book had not even been penned. Oh how she missed reading!

  Part of her had been dreaming about this new world, and part reasoned that there was no such thing as a perfect world. Surely this new place posed just as many threats or challenges as her current one. She would die in childbirth either place. At least Kiren would eventually know his child if Alexia remained here. She owed him that.

  Embers remained of the fires. Dawn would warm the sky shortly, and though she searched every face in the camp, she found no Kiren. Zephaniah lounged among the others, chatting contentedly. He met her gaze, his sharpening with suspicion, but he didn’t rouse himself to question her.

  Had she done it then? Frightened Kiren away? Condemned herself?

  All because she couldn’t bear to tell him the truth.

  But he couldn’t handle the truth—as he’d proven when she’d first allowed him into her memories.

  Zephaniah was here. Surely he wouldn’t go anywhere without his best friend. He, at least, had something in the world worth remaining for.

  Thirty-Eight

  Will

  Kiren stopped in the clearing. He hadn’t been here in years, not since Kiri disappeared in the middle of the night and he’d returned to try the gateway. It was as he remembered. Mostly. A slight slope to the ground, moss and weeds blanketing the earth between cottonwood and elms.

  Wind blustered through, ruffling the ground cover and carrying a hint of rain. The chill scraped over the raw flesh of his face. He pressed a hand to it, agonizing over what he’d said to Alexia again, the accusation that rang false the instant it left his tongue. The hurt in her large eyes. The betrayal and force of her blow.

  His skin still burned where her golden ring had raked his flesh. And it wouldn’t heal. It didn’t matter how he concentrated his energy on the wound, either he was subconsciously fighting to keep the pain—because he deserved it—or traces of gold had infected his lesion, making it impossible to mend.

  Guilt squirreled through his gut.

  Enough with this. It was time to open the gateway home and set things aright. Deamus said it could be done, and if that was even the slightest bit possible, he had to try. He’d failed the Lost Ones before, but if he succeeded, tonight he could atone for his errors by granting them access to his home. They would join his subjects on the other side. They would be his subjects.

  Including Alexia.

  His stomach contorted at the idea of bringing her to his world. Even if she forgave him, she could never be his queen. The eyes of all nations would be on him and expectations would wall him in like an elaborate prison. His companions from this world may attest to her purity, but she would be jaded and looked down on as power hungry or morally questionable. The whole world would see her. The whole world would judge her. They would question his wisdom and perhaps even his honor for choosing a companion whose virtue was in doubt. He couldn’t do that to her.

  Stepping through the gateway was the same as letting her go.

  Perhaps he needed to. Alexia had inspired him toward this action, which may have been her purpose all along, the reason God placed her in his path. It didn’t matter that the thought of losing her scraped his insides raw.

  Kiren inflated his lungs, pulling in more air to compensate for the crushing weight on his chest. Back home. To a kingdom torn apart. To a waiting sister. To his father’s throne. Not to the woman he’d allowed far too close to his heart.

  He lifted the medallion from around his neck, the key between worlds. He reca
lled playing with the charm as a child while it hung around his father’s neck, never guessing its importance. Kiren had been three years of age when Father slipped the chain free and looped it about his son. “Keep this safe for me, little prince, and never forget your duty.” It was Kiren’s proudest moment. He hadn’t known until too late that the charm might have saved his father’s life, that it was given to him out of love and not because the king believed Kiren could protect anything.

  His arm shook and he steadied it. He had neglected his calling for a time, but he would make it right. This must be done with certainty. Today he would return and save the beings of both worlds from a war that would tear them to pieces.

  “Open for me,” he commanded with all the conviction of a king.

  The sky rumbled.

  Clouds trembled overhead and darkened.

  Kiren turned the pendant toward the black and pooled the energy into his fist. He aimed the current upward. “Open!”

  Lightning snaked through the clouds. It flashed overhead. Thunder boomed, deafening him. Wind gusted into the clearing, tearing at his tunic.

  Power rippled through his skin, launching upward, a beam of light.

  Kiren gasped. This was going to work! Home was only a breath away. He could already feel the freshness of the air, the energy that saturated the very ground, his sister’s rib-crunching embrace.

  Kiri, I am coming.

  Crack.

  Power slammed his chest. Light burned his eyes.

  Kiren crumpled to his knees. A pike had been shoved through his torso. A pike of energy.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  He pounded one fist to his chest, gasping and sucking for air, leaning on the ground.

  He gasped.

  Air entered.

  He landed on his elbows, panting. He turned to the sky. Clouds thinned out, lightening and calming. The night sky mocked him with the distance between him and his destiny.