He pressed a hand to her womb. She screamed. Blood oozed from inside, her heart pumping weakly around the loss. “In thy graciousness,” he pleaded quietly with God, swallowing down panic, “let her stay with me, right or wrong, just a little longer.”
She grabbed his arm. Her eyes flashed up at him, a desperate green slowly leaking of vitality, filled with memories, her final hurrah with life:
She curled into the warmth of his side, a hand resting on her center. “And if she despises penmanship like I did, how shall we curb her resistance?”
Kiren’s chuckle pulled her gaze to his face, the jagged scar, the merriment dancing in his ocean swells. He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
He twisted a lock of her hair around his finger. “We can always ask Edward to make her think she adores penmanship.”
She gasped and slapped his shoulder. “We will do no such thing.”
“He would not be able to convince her regardless. She will possess your determination and my mental steel.”
“You mean your stubbornness?” Alexia giggled. “Then she is doomed for certain.”
Alexia let go of his arm. She whimpered and tensed.
Kiren couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. He’d forgotten how or had been completely disconnected from his muscles. That had been himself in her thoughts—just as he was now.
Alexia whispered, “Save my baby.”
Reality came crashing down like a freezing rain, like all the stones of a castle suddenly slamming into place, like he’d been dropped onto the pinnacle of a tower and could abruptly see the entire valley below.
He clasped her hand. “Our baby?”
She smiled. It flooded his soul with sunlight, the truest moment of sunrise when all doubt washed away with the darkness.
“I will save you both,” he vowed.
Her entire body stiffened, and her grip on his fingers stopped the circulation. “I love you, Kiren.”
She must be delusional, mistaking him for this future Kiren. He brushed a mix of white and near-black hair away from her face, tenderness flooding his soul while he dosed her with strength. She carried his child. All along. He had been callous, terrible to her, and she had only ever loved him—but not him, the him who would be.
“I love you,” he repeated to appease her, startled how vehemently he meant the words. They may only be the seed of something greater, but they nestled at the core of his being, impossible to uproot. How could he not love a woman so selfless she would give up her happiness to save a rag-tag group of Lost Ones? She embodied everything he wanted to be, and more. She was the mother of his child. The person he thought of before closing his eyes and upon first opening them.
His Alexia.
“You are both going to live.” He pressed his palms to her womb and closed his eyes, siphoning the strength from his body, from the pendant, from the world around him. “Live!”
***
Alexia fled to the absence of time and back between surges to catch her breath. Hours turned into days as she fought through pain, terror, and guilt. This was it. Her final day. She hadn’t stopped the Soulless from becoming. She’d failed. Each touch from Kiren was a boon, not the caring caress of the husband she’d left behind, but an adequate farewell. At some point Mae entered and began to assist. She calmed Kiren, and Alexia was grateful to have so dear a friend near in her final moments.
She sat in the absence of time, rolling her thumbs over one another. Grandfather sat in the distance, eyes closed as if sleeping.
“I failed,” she finally said.
One eye perked open. “What were that?”
“I did not stop the Soulless.”
Lester frowned.
“I have burdened the man I love with a child he is not ready for and helped bring the Passionate together with promises of a better life, all while they’re being murdered in the dark. How could I have been so wrong?”
“Hm.”
“And now I will die in childbirth, and the Soulless will be born, just as they were.”
Lester grunted. “Are you all that important then—what the world can’t turn without?”
Alexia swiveled to him, shocked.
“Don’t forget, Sparrow, the world was before you and it will go on after. We do the best what we can in the little time we’re allowed.”
“I am not ready to die.”
“Then don’t.”
She scowled at him. “But how can I prevent it?”
He smirked. “Heal faster.”
Faster. Alexia knew she could speed time, but her mother had warned against it as she couldn’t control the world around her and risked dying in the process. But what if she could do it only for herself—speed only her own clock?
“Is that possible?”
“And much, much more.”
She may still be able to do it, to save the Passionate by stopping the Soulless—but she would have to be strong. So much stronger than the time remaining dictated.
Lester nodded. “You’ve a baby to birth. Go to it.”
***
Alexia screamed and pushed. Kiren wished he could ease her pain, that he could do more than kneel at her side and pray.
“Little more now,” Mae encouraged, poised to catch the infant with gloved hands. Kiren held Alexia’s fingers, brushing sweaty hair back from her face. His skin was stained in blood, her blood, but the only thing he could see was her, the woman he felt certain he was about to lose.
She gasped for air, chin tilted toward the ceiling.
He gasped along with her, unable to adequately catch his breath, like his lungs were being crushed by the weight of what he knew was coming. He’d heard stories of his people and their births. Often either mother or baby did not survive. But he wasn’t willing to lose Alexia, and if she thought she was going to leave him alone with an infant in his arms, she was sorely mistaken.
“Once more,” Mae called, and Alexia bore down. “I have a head!”
Kiren leaned forward, curious. Mae gave him dagger eyes. He backed away and wrapped an arm around Alexia’s shoulders, bracing her up. “You are almost done. You can do this.”
She nodded, lips pinched in determination.
One more surge and the infant was free. Kiren watched in awe as Mae twirled and slapped the tiny thing on the rump. Its mouth opened in a wail.
“Do you hear that?” Kiren asked. “That is your baby.”
But Alexia wasn’t listening. Her head drooped back, mouth cracked open, skin pallid. Kiren shook her. Her head wobbled, uncontrolled.
Fifty-Six
Crossed Swords
Leofrik kicked the final man aside, leaving three unconscious and bleeding men on the floor.
A battle cry came from behind. He turned and lifted his blade, arms weak from dispatching the three assailants. A heavy blade slammed into his, knocking him back a step.
Ulric’s clenched teeth caught the torchlight. “I could make you great.” He whirled in and swung again.
Leofrik barely deflected the blow.
“A knight of your own realm. Rich.”
Another jab. Leofrik blocked, jolting his weary arms. He held his ground.
“All you have to do is bring them to me.” Ulric slammed his weapon down, catching Leofrik’s blade in a cross. “We will be more powerful than you can imagine, more than even the holy Church!”
The sword raked free. They circled.
“What is your response to that?” Ulric asked. “Two powerful men shaping the world in their image. You and me.”
It could be his—the power of these immortals. He’d seen through Velia’s mind how Ulric had controlled her, even against her will. She’d had to obey, even if she fought his orders. An unwilling but obedient slave. How much good could he do with the gifts he’d seen exercised while in their camp? Cloaking darkness. Putting people to sleep. Inflicting pain. Altering time.
Leofrik ingested the reality. It was one he’d been facing since the moment he glimpsed Veli
a, first felt her vulnerability in his carefully laid trap. How amazing it had been to transport an army across continents without the use of ships or coin! How fantastic to feel the freedom of being anywhere in the blink of an eye. He could conquer the world.
But Velia was dead. She’d spared his life, then sacrificed her own for him—even after he imprisoned her and forced her hand. Despite her mental enslavement to Ulric, she’d found the power to defy him, enough to keep her people from being captured, even while having to obey him. She wanted only one thing: freedom for her child.
Leofrik saw his opening. He caught Ulric’s retreating foot with his own and tripped him, throwing the nobleman on his back. Ulric’s weapon clattered across the stone.
Leofrik pressed his sword to the man’s neck. “You are not worthy to lead.”
Ulric grinned. “So kill me. When word of your betrayal reaches your fellows in Jerusalem, they will come after you themselves. You will be hunted for slaying me. Hunted, punished, stripped of your title.”
Instead of wielding a sword with the Church’s backing, he’d become a criminal. Leofrik cringed at the truth. He hadn’t anticipated surviving this, but he just might. Now that he’d met Velia’s child, he wanted to live. He wanted to care for her and protect her among her kind. She would be his own daughter.
“It is a price I will have to pay.” Leofrik readied to thrust.
Inky coldness seeped up from the floor. It lapped over his feet in waves of blackness and gushed into Ulric’s nose, mouth, and ears. The nobleman’s body shook, eyes rolling back in their sockets.
Leofrik backed away, terrified of being tainted. The smoke disappeared into his enemy, and the man rose to his feet, his skin a shade grayer. His eyes popped open, glowing a vibrant crimson. He grinned like a jackal. The very essence of evil saturated the air, so thick it clogged Leofrik’s throat.
Ulric snatched up his sword. His voice echoed with a timbre far deeper than the man’s. “Face me, knight.”
Fifty-Seven
The End
“No! Alexia, no.” Kiren felt for a pulse. It was fleeting, slowly dimming. “Stay with me!”
No response.
Kiren delved, following the flow of blood as it stilled. All was in proper order, the organs intact, her wound from earlier adequately healed, but her heart continued to slow. And then he felt it.
A subtle jolt—an electrical surge that counteracted her hearts efforts, strangling the muscle. He traced the energy to its source and his eyes popped open.
The medallion.
It couldn’t be worn by anyone except his direct bloodline, and Alexia no longer carried his child.
He tore the necklace from around her neck and Alexia gasped. Her heart thundered again in his ears. She reached up and touched something on his cheek, something wet. Tears.
She smiled and leaned into his embrace.
***
Tiny fingers slipped through Alexia’s as she marveled at the little wonder in her arms. A tangle of fiery hair curled from the babe’s scalp, her nose so petite, her mouth open as her head shifted.
Alexia laughed. Her baby. This tiny wonder had come from her, and here it lay, the most incredible thing in the world.
Kiren knelt beside her, gazing in awe at the bundle. He had done she-didn’t-know-what to help her heal, but she felt amazing, even more amazing from the astonishment and unbridled love in his wide eyes as he examined the child. Mae had exited for fresh water, leaving them alone.
Kiren knew now. Perhaps she should have kept the truth from him, but it was too late. She was not going through childbirth again just to keep him from realizing he had a child.
He touched the little girl’s face. “What will we call her?”
We. Her heart jolted at the word. They were a we at last. She wanted to name her Sarah, but doing so felt like conceding that her sister was dead for good. No, their child needed a name that reflected this moment, the crowning change brought to both her parents, the most amazing thing Alexia had ever done. She knew the name before she’d even considered it, for she had met her daughter in the future. “Corona.”
His eyes met hers, smile slipping. “How can you place that burden upon such a tiny thing?”
Alexia timidly slipped a hand onto his forearm, unable to meet his gaze. “She will not have a burden to bear so long as her father lives.”
He hissed in air.
Quiet.
A long silence.
She finally looked up at him. His brow scrunched inward, eyes worried. He swallowed loudly.
“You will become a worthy king, a man of the people.”
He opened his mouth to protest.
She lifted a hand. “That is not fair to you, but regardless of how you feel about it”—she tickled the little one’s cheek—“Corona bears your heritage and your blood. If you refuse the throne, it will fall to her.” Alexia wrapped the babe a little tighter. “When I am gone—”
“You are not going anywhere.”
She sighed. “If it will ease your burden, I shall place her in someone else’s care.”
“No.” He trailed fingers through the baby’s twisted locks. “She is mine.” A vein in his neck pulsed, his jaw flexing and loosening. “You both are. I will raise her, and so will you.” His eyes burned into her, brows low, daring her to counter his statement.
She gave him a weak smile. “I should rest now.”
He took the child from her arms and rose. She felt like she’d been robbed. Whatever precious few moments she had with her daughter, this may be it. She didn’t want to sleep. Didn’t want to let the infant go. But her body weighed like bricks, her eyelids leaden and drooping.
Darkness claimed her consciousness.
***
Kiren held his sleeping baby girl, astonished that anything so small and perfect could exist. Flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, and terrifyingly vulnerable. He cradled her closer and paced slowly across the old barn. His boot smacked something. It skidded to a halt three steps before him.
The pendant Alexia had worn.
It was his. From the future. It made sense now. She had carried his child, his blood, and thus she’d been able to bear the thing, but the instant his child was no longer within her, the medallion had attacked. Now it was a hazard—two of the exact same necklaces? How could it even be possible? He felt that one should melt away and cease to exist, but it remained, staring up at him.
Corona wheezed. He glanced down at the infant, so dangerously defenseless. The necklace. The baby.
He crouched and wrapped his fingers about the cool metal. A subtle energy tremored through the chain. Kiren wrapped the links over the child’s head.
The necklace shrank.
He blinked twice, forcing his eyes wider. It was no mistake. The chain had become tiny, just right to fit around the infant’s neck. Rightly so. It was hers now.
Fifty-Eight
Kneel
Leofrik hefted his sword between the entity-possessed Ulric and himself, every muscle in his back and arms burning in protest. “What are you?” he asked.
The thing laughed. “Fear.” It stepped forward. “Hate.” It advanced again. “Malice.” Another step. “Chaos.”
Leofrik backed away and hit the wall. Cornered. This was the thing that had taken control of Sarlic and claimed Velia’s life. This was the true enemy.
The monster swelled the air around him, not just inside the possessed lord. “I am the hunger that consumes men to destroy, the rage that turns women on their children, the force that hovers without, waiting to control all. I am eternal. Unending. Unstoppable.”
Unstoppable. Leofrik doubted that. Anything could be stopped—even time. He needed to figure out this riddle, to win a few more moments for his brain to work. “Where did you come from?”
Ulric-non-Ulric grinned, his crimson eyes the thing of nightmares. “The in-between.”
“I do not understand.”
“The lock is broken. The worlds will merge once
more. The Unnatural cracked the seal, my prison, and now I will reign over this earth until it is only fire and ash.”
Possessed Ulric stopped right in front of Leofrik. The air stilled. The world chilled to a winter’s night. Hope bled away from him in waves. This was it. The creature would consume him and exert its will through him.
“What do you want of me?” Leofrik choked out.
“Your service.”
“In helping you destroy the world?”
“It is destroyed. You cannot see it now, but you will.”
No! He would not give in to despair! Leofrik shoved his blade upward, through chainmail and straight into Ulric’s gut.
Ulric/the entity calmly looked down at the weapon protruding from its belly and back up at Leofrik. Ulric’s body dropped.
A cold wind washed over Leofrik, and then came the night.
Fifty-Nine
Forever
Kiren worried over Alexia as she slept. She woke only to feed her baby, and then dove back into a leaden slumber. He cleaned the old barn while she rested, dosing her with energy every few minutes. He paced. He held the baby. He ran through all the reasons she slept through three straight days, and could quantify none of them.
Mae stopped in to report that Amos and Regin had returned to camp, pleased with their campaign. They carried word that Lord Ulric had been slain and the castle raid was blamed on a rivaling Baron.
Now people were preparing to depart for the gateway Deamus insisted he could open. Though part of him hoped, Kiren knew it was impossible. And even if it wasn’t, he had to be here for Alexia.
He listened to Mae’s updates with half a heart, budging only to accept food from Zeph. Alexia’s body healed far too rapidly. Kiren wished he could claim her rapid recovery as his doing, but he was not the master behind it. Mae didn’t know how to substantiate the rate at which Alexia was mending either, but she affirmed that her dear friend had “healed in a matter of days what normally takes six months.”
Timeless (Maiden Of Time Book 3) Page 24
