Dangerous Lovers

by Becca Vincenza

  Soft piano music was heard instantly. Low laughter reached my ears and warmed my soul.

  At sixteen, when I first came here I only heard memories in this wing; small, sweet, innocent words. As the years moved forward, as I became a young woman, I began to see the image behind that voice I always heard when I was afraid and needed something to hide behind.

  His low laugh stopped me in my tracks. I felt a burning sensation spread through my body. I glanced to the open doorway to my left. He was there. All six-four of him. He was breathtaking. Broad shoulders and the lean body of a warrior. His eyes were a deep gray, and his dark auburn hair was brushed off of his face, yet a few strands reached to his high cheekbones. He was smiling, a warm, alluring smile that he only gave to…her.

  For the longest time, I hated ‘her.’ I was jealous that one of my ancestors had something that I could never have: warmth. But then one day, I saw her face. I saw my face. I saw an image of me in the arms of a boy that I had fallen in love with at a distance.

  As you can imagine, this entire scenario baffled me. My image was right in front of me. Standing within a memory that reflected the original Falcons, yet I was adopted. I stopped trying to analyze how impossible it was that the girl in his arms was indeed me, that my soul was in that vessel, that my soul had loved him once before. I stopped because it didn’t matter—I was in love with him now. And maybe, just maybe, I was meant to be born here. Maybe I had finally found my way home.

  I never dared tell a soul about what I saw in this wing, not even Skylynn. I didn’t want anyone to rationalize it, to tell me I was creating this, that I was only seeing what I wanted to see. I needed this to be real. Even if it was two hundred years ago, I needed to know that at one time I was happy.

  The image of me reached to pull him closer. “Sebastian,” she breathed as his lips met her neck. He kissed her skin slowly as they moved against each other to the sound of music playing in the distance. “They are waiting on you,” she said as she closed her eyes.

  “You’re only sending me away so you have an excuse to play in the snow,” he said as he pulled away from her and traced his fingers across her jawline.

  “It’s a beautiful night,” she said, looking innocently up at him. He burst into laughter, telling her he surely wasn’t buying that look. He picked her up and whirled her in the air before lifting her to his lips. Slowly, he let her down as their gazes locked. “Sometimes I think I built this manor for kicks and giggles, for the girl I love would rather spend her time out in the cold.”

  She smiled. “It’s peaceful.”

  “It’s peaceful because you are so cold that you cannot feel anything else,” he said, raising his brow and tilting his head slightly.

  “When you are that cold, your mind drifts, like a waking dream, and in those dreams I see you, and you are warmer than any manor you could have built me.”

  He grinned as if he had never heard such a declaration of devotion before. “Let me finish this meeting, and we’ll go together.” She stood on her tiptoes and let her lips meet his neck as he let out a moan and pulled her closer. “How about you just promise to keep me warm once the night has met its end?”

  “Always your fire,” he said as his eyes lowered to meet hers and he kissed her lips tenderly.

  Other images ran into the room, all young children circling them and calling out, “Genevieve!”

  Yep, you heard right; apparently, in this past life I had the same name. That fact alone dared me to ask my grandmother about the ancestors in the line of Falcons. I never found a way to come out and ask her if she had heard of a Sebastian, if I was named after the originals. Every time I thought it was the right moment to bring it up, the conversation would change course so drastically that bringing up ancestors or if I were named after someone would have been ridiculous.

  I decided that I didn’t need my grandmother to tell me this couple did exist. I knew they did. The certainty saturated my bones, which allowed me to grasp the belief that in a past life I was this girl, that boy was mine.

  It took days of watching these images to discover those were not their children. Some of them didn’t even live here; they just adored who I was, who Sebastian was. They pulled my image from the room, laughing.

  Sebastian only held his smile until the image of me was out of sight, then his expression turned grim. Worry consumed his eyes. I stood at attention. I never saw the same scene in this wing, so that wasn’t surprising; his mood was.

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small box, then opened it and placed it on her pillow. It was a pearl bracelet. I found myself smiling with him as he glanced at it. He had given the same bracelet to me at least three times. Apparently, I kept managing to lose it in the manor or on the grounds.

  He turned with a sigh and left their room. I followed him down the wide hallway, watching as empty vases began to mock the images of flowers that must have been in place when this happened the first time.

  He walked to his study in this wing; it was just outside the library I adored.

  The fire burning in the stone fireplace was bright enough to reach the vaulted ceiling, but small lamps remained on anyway.

  There was an image leaning over the table, one that I almost thought of as a friend. He was Sebastian’s brother, Guardian. In my walks in this wing, I had seen more laughter than stifle between those two, but lately I could tell their relationship was strained, that Sebastian was worried about him.

  See, to me this was like stepping into a movie. The memories I unlocked here always move forward, sometimes more rapidly than I would want them to. I had been feeling a climax or worse, an ending, coming to these memories for a while now which is why I had been trying to break my habit of lurking here every morning. I thought it would be easier if I ended it. That way, I could only be mad at myself, not at the fact that the life I’d been witnessing for years was officially lost in the past.

  My heart started to hammer as this scene unfolded. I felt the dread creep over my skin. I was dreading what would be decided at this meeting, and I had no idea why.

  Three other men were in here as well. I couldn’t make out their faces, but I could tell by their voices that at least two of them were young like Sebastian and Guardian; one of them sounded older. If I wanted to see them, I just needed to focus on them, but I didn’t want to stop gazing at Sebastian; he was worrying me.

  “It’s been declared,” one of the voices said. “They are closing The Fall.”

  I’ve yet to figure out what The Fall was. I heard both my image and Sebastian speak of it often. I knew for sure it was a passageway, that Guardian had vanished within it and then returned. Everything else they said about it was way over my head. I couldn’t figure out what they meant when they said ‘dark reality,’ ‘our world,’ ‘The Selected,’ or any of the other otherworldly references made. I suppose I didn’t want to figure it out because I didn’t want to accidentally discover that these images I lived for were fiction.

  “That’s ludicrous,” Sebastian bit out. His warm, gray eyes filled with anger.

  “Of course it is, but we very well cannot tell them why,” the older voice said.

  Sebastian’s eyes met Guardian’s. “Have you even suggested to Aliyanna that speaking to the council may stop this?”

  I had never focused on that girl’s image they were speaking of either. She had only surfaced recently. I knew Guardian was madly in love with her, that whenever he returned from The Fall she wasn’t with him, and it was clear he never intended for that to happen. He’d screamed at Sebastian, saying things like, “I wasn’t supposed to die. I have to go back. I can’t breathe without her.” Those words confused me. You would have thought the passage led to some other virtual reality, a game of sorts where he lost his turn and wanted to hit the reset button, get a do-over. Apparently, Aliyanna had appeared here, and the fight over whether or not Guardian should return to look for her took a back seat until this moment, it seems.

  “She is not
speaking to anyone,” Guardian stated evenly as his blue eyes averted from Sebastian’s stare.

  “She can bear witness that the closing of The Fall is dangerous, that we need to send help and not turn our backs,” Sebastian argued.

  “Bear witness?” Guardian mocked. “They will tuck her away, hide what she is from this world. They want nothing to do with darkness. They do not want to hear what we witnessed on that side. Life there is barbaric, cruel.”

  “And what are you doing, brother? Are you not tucking her away?” Sebastian pushed.

  “I’m protecting her!” Guardian yelled as an image moved between the brothers, urging them apart.

  I was completely captivated. Though I’d walked this wing more times than I could count, seen more visions than I could explain, I had never witnessed this strife. I came here today to escape the stress of my life, and I’d somehow managed to put myself on edge.

  This entire conversation was causing my insides to tighten up, making me feel nauseous. I kept glancing over my shoulder, hoping my image would walk in and calm this room down, bring the bliss back to Sebastian, but that didn’t happen.

  “We have to come up with a plan. It cannot all be dark. We have to show the council light is still present there. Can you show me light?” the older voice said.

  Guardian stood up, glanced at the other images that I could not make out, and nodded his head. All at once, a necklace that was lying on the table began to vibrate. It wasn’t apparent to me whose it was, but I was almost sure it didn’t belong to the image of Genevieve.

  I gasped as a ball of fire emerged from the fireplace and met the necklace as some unseen force pulled it up.

  This was too unreal.

  The fire and necklace vanished, and a sphere of light formed. What looked like a waterfall divided the circle. One side was bright, the other dim, and sphere were present on each side. It almost looked like a comparison of two worlds side by side.

  Guardian pointed to the darkest point on the dim side. “We were here at first, we moved away from there,” he said as his fingers traced white lines that led to less dark areas. “It’s not all dark, but it will be if I do not return. Evil is breeding there. People are losing hope. If we turn our backs on them, it will only be a matter of time before that evil finds the power to breach The Fall and our way of life will forevermore be changed.”

  “Which is why they are insistent that they want to close The Fall,” the older man countered.

  “If they close The Fall, they are going to close me in as well,” Guardian said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “You’re not returning. I already spoke to The Selected. They are aware of the damage you have seen,” Sebastian said as he stared at the sphere before him and his eyes filled with sadness.

  “And what did they say about it?” the older voice asked.

  “It’s been taken under consideration.”

  “Meaning nothing,” Guardian said, as if he knew that it was pointless to try and reason with anyone.

  “It means that they agree that engaging with darkness is not the right thing to do,” Sebastian countered.

  “But ignoring it is?” Guardian shook his head, trying to calm himself down. “Look, I get it. I understand that you think that taking in the damaged souls and building them up before sending them back is going to heal that reality. It makes sense. But that is what you feel called to do, not me. I feel called to the front lines. I know the best way to end this is for me to walk right up to the bastard that is causing all this trouble and quickly ensure that he is returned to his Creator.”

  “I cannot imagine what you endured there, the sacrifices you must have made. I respect that, brother. I do. And you know I will not think twice before standing at your side if you were truly threatened. But you’re not. You were born here. You’re an original. For some reason, you have developed a craving for senseless trouble.”

  “It’s not senseless. I’m the way I am for a reason. I’m meant to stop this at its core, before it can spread and threaten everything.”

  “At what cost? Your life?” Sebastian asked Guardian.

  “I’ve died too many times to be afraid of death.”

  “In that reality, not ours. Why don’t you try reaching at least one eternity of life on this side before you decide to throw your existence away?”

  “I’m a Falcon. My blood demands that I bring change, balance,” Guardian spat back.

  “Compromise,” a younger voice said.

  “Indeed,” the older voice said. “You two have never disagreed on anything beyond this. We cannot move forward until the two of you are in agreement. Sebastian, you do not want Guardian or Aliyanna to return to the dark reality, and Guardian, you do not want to take Aliyanna to the council to bear witness. We all know that allowing Guardian to pass through The Fall with the threat of it being closed is not something we can easily accept.”

  They both nodded.

  “I propose that the two of you go to the council. State your case. If that fails, then we will partner with The Selected to find the safest course for Guardian to do as he feels pulled to do.”

  “Father,” Sebastian stated.

  “It’s the only course of reason now,” the older voice said, pointing at Guardian. “He respects you enough to let you exhaust every option, for you to do whatever you feel is necessary to keep him safe, but if it truly is his fate to be there, circumstance will demand that he return no matter what we may or may not do.” The older man paused. “The council is stating that the oracles have relayed that The Fall must close, that only the chosen can pass through. You have to convince them that you are the chosen, that your soul has stated as much. Then we will have no fear for Guardian and Aliyanna—for if they fail, they will send an army to carry them home.”

  “You expect me to leave Genevieve here alone, to care for this home and all those who have sought refuge here? Without protection?”

  I was so sick that I leaned forward on my knees. I kept shaking my head from side to side, knowing I did not want this to happen, that I feared this decision for reasons I could not understand.

  “We’ll protect her. We’ll never leave her side,” the younger voice said.

  Sebastian stared forward at the floating sphere before him. “And what are we to do if they do not listen?”

  “The two of you are gifted speakers. Our name has long been respected. I have no doubt that you will prevail. If you do not, then we drop our alliances and aid The Selected. Work with them to find peace. I would believe their seers far easier than the council’s.”

  “Why must we do this now?” Sebastian said with a clenched jaw.

  Guardian looked away. “It feels wrong to stand here, brother. Aliyanna and I both feel that way. We started something over there, and I need to get back to it. Every minute I stand here equates to years over there. If we wait any longer, everything I began to repair will be in ruins. You don’t have to speak to anyone. I’m prepared to tell you goodbye. That alone should tell you how serious I am when I state I have to go back, with or without permission from this family, that council, The Selected, or God Himself.”

  Sebastian stared in the direction of the images I could not see. “You don’t leave her side. Ever.”

  Silence engulfed the room.

  Sebastian said, “Dawn,” then turned to leave.

  This is the end I had been dreading. I knew. I just knew. They would never return.

  This must be what my night terror was forecasting: not the death of the life I did have, but the death of the life I wanted to live again.

  The images vanished around me, and I stood there in cold silence, trying to understand even the smallest part of what I’d overheard. Even though it was the first time I’d overheard something like that here, it all sounded so familiar somehow.

  I turned to leave the study, and at a slow stroll I made my way down the hall to the bedroom.

  I heard Sebastian and Genevieve’s voices on the other side of the door
, her comforting him, telling him that she would be fine. He must have heard the doubt in her voice because right then I heard him say, “Apart or together, I am always going to be right here, Love.”

  As I listened to those words through the closed door, I felt a burning flame in my chest.

  I opened the door, fearing I would never see his image again. I saw him with his hand on my image’s chest. “I’ve got you, Love. I’m never going to let you go,” he whispered as he pulled her lips to his.

  I held my breath and closed my eyes, grieving for this moment. When I opened them again, I saw him holding my image in a passionate embrace, the pearl bracelet on her wrist as she wove her fingers through his dark auburn hair.

  The grief was too much. I knew—I just knew I could not stay here and watch the next scene, the one where he would walk away from me.

  All at once, the memory before me vanished and I heard a deep howl of wind coming from the direction of the dome room. Everything started to vibrate, then purple flames encased the walls.

  This was too real.

  I ran from that wing. I ran as fast as I could, wanting to forget everything I had heard and seen that day. The second I was off that wing, silence reigned. With my chest heaving, I turned to look over my shoulder, not seeing anything beyond a wing that no longer had life within it, past or future.

  A heavy weight consumed me. I felt dreadfully alone for no reason at all. It was worse than the way I felt when I lost my family, and that says a lot. It also says that I only felt this bad because I was holding on to the past instead of living the life I was in. I needed to change that. I really did. I had to learn to dare to feel the way those memories told me I was capable of feeling. I had to figure out how to help others get past my icy shield.

  I found myself racing toward Gran’s room. That was the name I’d always called my grandmother, simply because when I was little the formal word was too hard. It stuck, and now all seventy-seven of us call her that.

  Since her stroke, she had been bedridden. Speech and feeding herself were acts she could no longer accomplish on her own. Of course, no expense was spared when it came to healthcare and doctors. I knew she was miserable—locked in a prison that she desperately wanted to escape. Lately, she had been slipping away, sleeping longer than usual, not eating nearly enough. Rasure had me blocked from the room for the last three days. My brother Ben came over yesterday and forced her legally to let me see Gran. By the time he told me the good news, it was late at night and I knew she was asleep.