by Inez Kelley
“Time dancers are a myth.” Jana tugged the blankets to her neck, as if cotton and wool could protect her from his words. “They have the same status as dragons or the sandman. Things that aren’t real.”
“They are real,” Darach disagreed. “Very rare, like a diamond along a riverbed, but real. They travel backward through time, usually through their dreams.”
“You’re wrong. You must be.”
“I am not wrong.” The iron conviction in his stance never rippled. “You can dance through time. We should begin.”
“What?”
“Now, in a small, controlled line, I would like you to go backward and see what has been.”
Her hands felt for the mattress blindly, unable to look away from his face. “I don’t know how.”
“Jana.” His words were gravelly with the rasp of intimacy. “We are faith-bound, forged with tears. You must trust me for this to succeed.”
“I do,” she insisted.
“Do you? You will be the vessel on this journey and I a mere passenger there to aid you. But you must trust me. If you do not, we could both be lost to the ripples of time.”
“What do you mean lost?”
“Think of time as a river. It flows one way but leaves a mark where it has been. That river has currents and depths, periods of calm and turbulence. To plow into it recklessly would be foolish. I will guide you, the vessel, but you must trust that I know the way. As you need me, I need you. Neither boat nor oarsman can traverse the changing waters alone.”
The room faded away. Nothing existed except for his words and the growing magic between them. A magic that stemmed not from earth, not from fire and not from wind, but from blind faith. Jana had to believe he would show her how to be this thing. If she didn’t, all was lost.
“I’ll try but I have butterflies in my stomach.”
“Butterflies? You ingested insects?”
Her laugh rang out and she clamped a hand over her mouth to catch it. “No. It’s an expression. It means...” Those butterflies performed a loop when he faced her. “It means I’m scared.”
“Do not fear. I will be with you.”
He took her hand in his, turning it palm up. His right hand lowered and slid into his glove. Jana held her breath as he pointed one finger, one clawed finger, toward the center. She winced but the pain was short lived. A single dot of blood welled. Her stomach lurched.
“This is your constant, the record of your history, your bloodline. All that you are and every generation has been is held within this drop. This shall be our map.”
The tiny crimson droplet held her eyes. Slowly the dizziness left and an undercurrent of power swelled, a magic song she’d been too scared to hear before. “It’s so small.”
“But powerful. Now sleep.”
She tugged her hand away. “I just woke up.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Your powers are strongest while at rest. As a bear hibernates in the winter, I carry the gift of dormancy. I can give you the depths of dreamland in an instant.”
Jana fingered the cotton sheet with her clean hand. “Then what do I do?”
“I will call to you. Focus on me, on bringing me into your dream world. Once there, I can guide you.”
Keeping the tiny spot of blood steady, she slid beneath the blankets, let him tuck them around her and then watched him. He paced, shrugging his shoulders, flexing his arms, loosening his muscles. Argot did much the same when he was preparing to spar with another soldier. She slid her ringed hand beneath the coverlet.
Darach stopped with his eyes closed. A stillness wove into the chamber, silence but with an unheard pulse that vibrated through her. With the breath held tight, he opened his eyes. They shimmered with magic. He sank to one knee beside her bed and held out his hand.
Her fingers trembled but she placed them in his. It should feel strange, this man who wasn’t quite a man holding her hand while she was in bed, but numbness had stolen into her skin. Strong, lean fingers laced with hers, the small blood smear wet between them.
He blew into her face and the scent of minty winter blanketed her. The darkness came.
Black.
Nothing but black.
Echoing, empty, cold black.
Jana whirled, searching for light, searching for a sound, anything. There were no walls, no air, nothing, yet something heavy pressed against her, something thick and damp. Invisible fog. Fright skittered along her skin. She thrust her hand up before her face. but she couldn’t see it.
Fear sent a bitter wash into her throat. She was alone in the darkness. Voices exploded around her, hundreds, thousands, all talking at once. She clamped her hands over her ears to block the roar.
His whisper broke through them all. “Call for me, Jana.”
Terror paralyzed her. The echoes grew, pounding inside her head, in her chest, in her blood. They bounced off unseen walls and hit her from all sides. A scream worked from her throat but it was lost beneath the cries and calls of people she couldn’t see.
“My name, Jana. Use my name and draw me to you.” Rich and powerful, even in a whisper, his voice soothed her.
“H-help, p-please.” So cold. So dark. So empty. So loud. Fright ripped all sanity from her mind. “Please, oh God, please, help me.”
“Jana!” The power behind his words were a mental slap. “Use my name and command me. Time bows to you. Master it.”
She had to believe him. Faith-bound, he claimed them. Pinching her eyes tight, she blocked out the voices and summoned him. “I call Darach, my guide. Come to me. Show me the path I need to take.”
In the darkness, he took her hand. She gripped his, digging her nails in, feeling the harsh calluses. He was so solid. Blind and panicky, she clung to his neck. “I’m scared.”
He wrapped his arms around her. One hard palm stroked her spine in an oddly hesitant but soothing caress. He was more than warm. Intense heat washed through her. A granite jaw pressed against her temple and, if she could have trusted her terrified mind, she would have sworn she felt him smile.
His voice, that decadent growly voice, bathed her cheek in a private whisper. “I am here, my charge. I will always come when you call.”
“It’s so dark.”
Firm fingers lifted her chin. “Call the light.”
“I can’t.” Her mind was blank.
“You can. You have all the power in this world. It is your dream, control it.”
Sapping strength from his embrace and calm from his faith, she nodded. Calling light was the first lesson all children were taught at the Endicort Academy. She had struggled with it but she’d learned it, even if she hadn’t used it in ages.
“Like a sun, like a star,
Come near from afar.
Light hear and light obey.
Come and do as I say.
Banish the black.”
A muted light from no source sprang around them. She blinked as her eyes adjusted, using his face as a focus. There was a smile on his lips, a gentle one full of pride. How could so hard a man have lips that looked soft as satin? Would they feel like satin?
He stepped back and squeezed her hand. “Hold fast to me, Jana. We must not part.”
“It’s so loud.”
“Listen. One voice will stand out. Focus on it. There is one who will rise above.”
Jana tried but they were all so deafening. Overlapping. Rapid. It hurt to listen. Then, above the cacophony, a single woman’s voice broke through. Jana had never heard it but recognized it somehow. “I hear one.”
“Open to it, let it grow.”
She let the voice rush into her mind. The others drifted away, fell silent as she listened to only one. Nothing existed in the void except Darach, her and the call of a woman. He took a step back and she followed. They moved as one, as they would on a dance floor, keeping time with the distant conversation. The darkness faded to twilight. It filled with soft fire glow. The last step flooded her vision with color.
It was h
er father’s bedchamber, but not as she knew it. The furniture was in the wrong places and the bed different. This one was shorter than she recalled. On the bed, her sweat-drenched shift bunched around her swollen belly, a blonde woman struggled in the final stages of childbirth. The damp gold hair stuck to her cheeks, and lines of pain carved around her mouth.
“It doesn’t feel right,” the woman panted.
“Again, milady, hard!” Between her widespread thighs knelt an elderly woman working at something Jana couldn’t see.
The blonde tucked her chin to her chest, gripped her bare knees and bore down. Her slender neck showed cords tight with the strain. The muscles in her legs quaked. She tossed back her head and screamed. “Bryton!”
The door burst open and her father flew in. Jana gasped. How young he looked! And his eyes. There was no patch shielding his blinded eye. Both were clear blue and open wide, filled with fear. No white threaded his bright copper hair but a worried furrow wrinkled his forehead. He knelt by the bedside and clutched at her hand. “I’m here, Kat.”
Jana gaped at the birthing woman. “That’s my mother.”
“You shouldn’t be in here, milord,” scolded the old woman.
“Something’s wrong.” Her mother gasped, fisting his tunic.
Her father’s mouth worked but no sound came. He darted a glance at the old woman then stroked her mother’s cheek. “It’s all right.”
“No, I feel it. Something’s wrong.”
A mutter jerked Papa’s head toward the old woman. “What? What is it?”
“A foot. The child comes backward.” The midwife grabbed her father’s arm, tugging his hand down to the top swell of her mother’s abdomen. “Push now, milady and don’t stop. You push with her, milord. This babe needs born this minute.”
“Oh shit,” he swore then swallowed. Her mother never turned loose his tunic but her face took on a rigid strength. The midwife dipped a shoulder, as if reaching inside, and her mother winced.
“Push now!”
She bore down, Papa pressed his palm and the midwife shifted. Jana’s nails bit into Darach’s hand. Hard thumps of her heart racked her ribs. The cycle repeated three times and then her mother screamed. Her head fell back between her shoulders and her body went limp. A fragile sniffle then a weak cry filled the room.
“A daughter!” The midwife crowed.
Papa blew out a short laugh. “A girl?”
“Most daughters are girls, milord,” the midwife said, chuckling. She wrapped the baby in a toweling cloth then handed it up into his arms. “Here, take her to Olma while I tend to your wife.”
Papa turned to her mother and dropped a quick kiss to her forehead. “Love you.”
“Bring her back to me.”
“That’s me,” Jana breathed as her father accepted the squirming infant.
The marvel shining on his face made her breath hard to find. He walked across the chamber to a skinny girl Jana hadn’t noticed. The girl was familiar to Jana, though no wrinkles had set in and her hair was glossy brown. Olma was now the castle midwife, gray-haired and time-aged. She took the baby from her father and laid it on the wash table, quickly wiping the blood and mucus away. Her brisk rubbing pinkened the baby’s skin and increased her crying.
“Crying is good for her, milord, never worry. It’ll make her lungs strong. How will you call her?”
“Jana. Jana Karet. It means sweetest joy.”
“A good name.” She handed the now diapered and swaddled baby to her father.
His hands shook and tears slid down his cheeks. He kissed the tiny bald head. “Hello, Jana.” Jana’s throat clenched watching her father greet her as an infant. “I’m your papa. We’ve been waiting for you.”
Maybe the newborn yawned, Jana couldn’t see, but her father’s face broke into a wide smile. “Tired? I suppose being born is an ordeal. And you did it backward. Choosing your own path already? I’m going to have to be on my toes to keep care of you, young lady.”
The elderly midwife was just straightening the blankets when he crossed to the bed. Her mother’s face shone with exhausted happiness as he put the baby in her arms. He gingerly sat beside her, a tease plain in his voice. “Meet the young lady who has been causing your heartburn.”
“Oh, Bryton.” Her voice was filled with awe. “She’s beautiful.”
Tears blinded Jana and she used her free hand to wipe her eyes. The love on her mother’s face astounded her. Her mother dropped kisses along the baby’s head then pulled one thin arm from the blanket and kissed a small, fisted hand.
“You’re both beautiful,” Papa whispered, stroking her hair.
“Are you sorry it’s not a boy?”
“A boy?” Papa scoffed. “Who wants a boy? There are too many boys in the castle already. This little one knew exactly what we needed.” He traced one finger down the baby’s cheek. “A girl who already has the High Captain wrapped around her tiny little finger.”
“Oh, we are in trouble then.” Her mother laughed.
The sound fell on Jana like petals from a cherry tree, light and soft. Her parents cuddled on the bed, a tender moment she should have felt guilty for intruding on but Jana couldn’t tear her gaze from her mother’s face. She could see herself in the curve of her jaw and the shape of her lips. The painting Papa had kept did not do her justice.
“That’s my mother,” she whispered again.
“Yes,” Darach said. “This is part of your bloodline, your thread through history. This stop is a good beginning but you could go back further, see your mother born, her mother, her mother’s mother.”
“So I can see the birth of anyone in my bloodline?”
“Not just a birth. At all points in a human life, a mark is made, an impression in time that can be explored.”
The rustling of the midwives cleaning up sounded behind them but Jana kept her gaze on her parents. “So how do I see the beginning of the heartmate bonds?”
“That cannot be seen through your blood unless a member of your line was there at its creation. We must use royal blood for that journey.”
Olma strode straight through Darach, her body never even slowing. Jana jumped. “She walked through you!”
“Here we have no solid form. We cannot be seen. We’re only observers in this time. Nothing can touch you, nothing but me. I hold you, Jana. You are not alone. Can you feel me holding you?”
She tightened her grip on his hand. “Yes.”
“My hand, guiding you on this journey, is all you will feel.”
Jana turned her eyes back to the bed, to the new parents getting to know their infant. “You’re wrong. I feel so much more. Her voice. I knew it, somehow. And look at her. She loves me, Darach. Papa always said she did, and I believed him, but now...now I see it.”
“Love,” Darach murmured. His face softened as he studied the tableau of a forming family. “I think now I understand. This room overflows with it. I feel it surging from you and it echoes, even through time. A powerful force, this love.”
Papa had his arm around her mother, their newborn nestled between them. “Papa looks so happy. I don’t remember him before he lost his eye. I’ve often wondered... No wonder Mama fell in love with him. And my mother...” Emotion cracked her voice. She blinked her damp eyes and faced him. “Thank you, Darach. This is the best gift I’ve even been given.”
His brows rose. “I did nothing. You see by your own power.”
The scene began to fade and Jana tried to cram as much as she could into her mind. Her mother was tired and spent but a radiant beauty shone from her face. The look she bestowed on the infant was full of wonder, amazement and absolute joy. Jana clutched at it, held it tight to her heart.
The impression remained as the black swallowed the bedchamber. Stifling a whimper, Jana pressed her free hand to her mouth. Her palm felt the smile that ached along her cheeks.
“I wish I could have stayed longer.”
“Your purpose was met. The sights you see answer a
question. You must have wondered about your birth, and those questions lingered in your mind.”
“I did. Papa’s told me the story but I’ve always wondered about my mother.”
“This dance brought you joy.”
Jana nodded. “More than you will ever know.”
The darkness and voices came again, loud, overpowering, daunting. Jana gripped Darach’s hand. “Now where?”
“Is one voice louder than the others?”
Closing her eyes, Jana shut out the magic illuminating them and listened. A man’s laughter rang out and she nodded. “Yes, I hear one.”
To an unheard tune, they danced, he leading and she following. Her eyes remained closed, trusting him to guide her. His steps were sure and steady as he directed her toward the voice that grew in intensity. Something in that laugh made her stomach lurch. She opened her eyes and stared directly into the face of a two-footed snake.
Anic Muscon’s dazzling display of white teeth and dimples had once made her heart flutter. Now it just left an itch on her skin like dried soap. Her muscles stiffened, her lips pressing tight. She’d thought she loved him. She’d been very wrong and paid the price with her reputation.
She met his eye with steely calm but he walked right through her. Knowing exactly what was happening, Jana turned slowly, reluctant to relive the humiliation again, reluctant for Darach to see her disgrace.
“I don’t want to be here.”
Darach’s gaze held only curiosity. “Why? You were drawn to this moment. There must be something here you should learn.”
“Nothing, there’s nothing here I want to—”
“Hello, Jana.”
The mocking welcome silenced her as she faced Anic and the memory of herself.
“Anic.” The weakness in that greeting shamed her and her spine straightened.
“You’re looking well.” His lusty gaze tripped from curl to hem, lingering on her breasts. “Why don’t you let me walk you back to the library?”
“I don’t need your company.” She brushed past him, schoolbooks clutched to her chest and her eyes glistening with tears she’d refused to shed. A group of underclassmen, all male, stood outside the library doors and erupted into snickers when she tried to wedge through.
