Soulless (Maiden of Time Book 2) (34 page)

Seventy-Two

Rubbish

Weight crushed down over Alexia, Kiren’s weight. The tang of blood was thick in her nose, along with dust and a hint of oak.

She blinked her eyes open.

Darkness.

She closed them and heaved upward. His weight shifted, rolling and toppling next to her.

Dull light emanated from the pendant exposed on his chest, a bubble of light that surrounded them both. She shivered where it touched her, its raw power saturating the air. Loose stones trembled atop the arch of radiance, the energy holding the rubble back as if the slightest disturbance might bring it down.

She gasped.

Kiren’s leg was pinned under the stones that locked them into a pinched berth. Blood pooled down his trapped limb and etched random streaks across his clothing—multiple lacerations.

Injuries he’d sustained while shielding her.

She covered her mouth and held back a sob. She brushed a hand over his bloodied and still brow. A weak exhalation feathered across her palm.

“Kiren?” she whispered.

His chest lifted shallowly, eyes closed and unmoving. She placed a hand next to him on the ground, into something wet. Dark liquid stained her palm. The pool spread below him, murky in the light. Lifting his shoulder, she bit back against her lurching stomach. A stone had penetrated several inches into his back. She’d freed it by moving him, leaving a gaping hole right next to his spine.

Her fingers shook. She forced herself to breathe, promising herself all would be well.

He could heal this.

It’s what he did.

He would heal.

She just had to wait.

Alexia held him. “You are going to be well.”

No response.

“Please!”

Rocks shifted above her, dropping down an inch as if the barrier were failing. She cringed.

Pressing an ear to his chest, her heart stilled. His barely beat.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Silence.

“Kiren, no!”

But this didn’t have to be the way it ended. She could go back. She could fix this. Couldn’t she?

She lifted her shaking hands, searching for the sands of time, but they blurred in her mind. Thoughts muddled together in a blinding haze. Her arms collapsed. She wrapped them around him but couldn’t move them further. They wouldn’t heed her command—it was like tugging at a bell rope that had been severed.

Something was happening. She couldn’t draw enough air. Her throat was closing off. Blackness blistered in the corners of her vision.

Her heart stuttered.

This was it—the moment when the bond would claim them both.

She wasn’t ready to die!

Closing her eyes, she thought of her short existence, of all the hopes yet unfulfilled, of the child who would die with her. Perhaps that would be best.

No! She wouldn’t let that happen.

Alexia tensed and leapt out of time.

Seventy-Three

Fates

Sucking in air, Alexia marveled at how powerfully her heart slammed against her ribcage, how her still trembling limbs responded to her requests. The scent of decay and dust had been replaced by nothing, a complete absence of smell.

A soft light pulled her around. Dana sat calmly examining her nails, raven locks loose about her youthful face and a snow-white gown. It set off the woman’s pastel cheeks.

“I made it,” Alexia realized.

Dana nodded. “And welcome back.”

Alexia brushed her own face to verify its solidity. “I was dying.”

Her mother laughed.

Laughed? Alexia wanted to slap the woman. How dare she laugh in the face of such utter tragedy!

A smile pulled at Dana’s cheek. “I almost died several times. It is a part of our existence, and if you wish to live through your experiences, you must steel your stomach against the concept. It will slow you down.”

Alexia blinked at her.

“You can jump from here.” The woman rose to her feet.

Again, Alexia blinked. She could jump through the timeline from the absence of time?

“It is how we cheat.” Dana tapped the side of her head. “Here, you are not set upon by the limitations of your physical body—but you will feel it on the other side. The repercussions are more severe.”

Did she wish to know how severe?

She shook her head. It didn’t matter.

Dana lifted a hand to her cheek. “Knowledge is quite freeing, is it not?” A sadness trembled in her eyes. “I am afraid we shall not have much more time together for me to impart what I know.”

Alexia swallowed. “Why would we not...?”

Dana gripped her shoulder. “Deiliey was right.”

“About what?” She mentally surged back through the discussion she’d had with Corona Deiliey, latching onto the one about going back, way back, to stop the Soulless from becoming. A tear streaked down Alexia’s cheek. “How can I leave him?”

Her mother’s nose scrunched. “That, you will have to decide for yourself. I was speaking of your ability to use his necklace.”

Alexia placed a hand over her abdomen. “Do I already carry his child?”

Unnervingly green eyes met hers. “I do not know.” Dana lifted both hands, as though to pray. “A warning: What’s done is done. You can only alter your own actions, not those of others, but if you do decide to go, we shall not meet again.”

Alexia scowled at her. “You are speaking of the earthquake or my future child?”

“Escape the caves and jump back when you are ready.” Dana nodded and paused. “I wish you would not, but if you do go back, he will find a way to survive. My father is a master like no other.”

“I will miss you.”

Dana smiled. “Save your husband, Alexia.”

Seventy- Four

Alternate Paths

Alexia seized the moment before the quake and pulled herself toward it, like latching onto rising dough and dragging herself across the room as it stretched, hoping it wouldn’t tear before she reached her destination.

Blackness clipped at her vision. A growl echoed off stone. Rot assaulted her nose.

Deiliey zipped past Alexia, aimed for the exit. Alexia dropped to one knee, the world twirling in snatches of white and black.

Kiren called her name. Warm hands cupped her cheeks, the heat of his breath caressing her skin.

She blinked the weariness away. There was no time to be incapacitated. No time!

She grabbed his arms. “We must leave. Now!”

His mouth dropped open, but he nodded.

The ground beneath them trembled. Gravel vibrated across the floor.

“Nelly...” he whispered.

Alexia grabbed his face. “Take me to safety, please.”

A war battled in his eyes, contradicting waves that fought for dominance.

“Die if you must,” Deiliey called, and slipped out the door ahead of them.

They rushed into the gloomy halls as another tremor shook through their feet. Kiren paused. Alexia pulled him onward.

Stones crashed behind them. Fissures shot up the walls. Dust rained down. Lamps sputtered. They sprinted through the blackened halls, dragging their fingers along the unevenly ridged walls for guidance.

Light gleamed ahead, not the radiance of lamps, but daylight. Alexia ached to feel it on her skin.

Rock tumbled about their feet. A crevasse split the ground, widening with every second. She stepped wrong, slipped on the broadening ridge and crashed into Kiren. He threw one arm around her, sure footed.

The ceiling above them shifted like the boiling of water.

She shrieked.

The ground before them ruptured, like jagged teeth in a stretching mouth, opening to swallow them whole.

Kiren lifted her off her feet, leaping across the broadening gap. He threw her forward and she skidded over the brink of the far ledge. He smacked into the fissure wall, fingers scraping for purchase. She grabbed his arm.

Booms carried down the collapsing corridor, the billowing cloud of gray rushing after them like a grinning smoke of death.

His eyes met hers. They were too late.

Seventy-Five

Power

Alexia’s brain shrieked.

A trickle of heat seeped through Kiren’s grip, a golden power that waited to be seized. She inhaled it and pulled with all her strength.

Her brain lit up like a bonfire.

The approaching cloud slowed. Rock groans dulled to a low-pitched buzz. The air about her stilled.

She turned to Kiren. Ripe lot of good freezing time would do her but make him more impossible to move!

He gasped.

She blinked back into his eyes, startled. His mouth hung open, Adam’s apple bobbing.

How was this possible? She could not drag others out of time, could she?

Her gaze landed on the pendant, the glow, its power tingling through her arm from his. Was it possible to share power and use her gifts for him? Whatever the case, she wasn’t going to waste this chance. The muscles at the back of her neck began to knot like a fisherman’s net.

Kiren stepped onto a falling boulder like a stair, rising higher. She backed away, as he cleared the ridge, keeping her grip on his arm.

“By all that’s holy, my clothes feel like stone.” He clutched his throat. “And why is it so hard to breathe?”

“The joys of my world.” She laughed. 

Pain burst from behind her eyes, a migraine worthy of a giant. She toppled. Debris rained down, the roar of collapsing stone deafening.

Kiren looped an arm around her waist and shot forward, shoving her to safety.

Sunlight blinded her.

Boom!

The day disappeared behind slate-colored fog. Alexia landed hard on her side, wind knocked out of her, stunned by eerie silence. She tried to draw air. Her muscles refused to work.

Again.

No air.

She rolled over, and her lungs flexed. Dust flooded into her nostrils and throat, catching between her teeth. Choking, she clambered to her elbows and knees and coughed. Her limbs shook. She collapsed and covered her mouth, drawing in clearer air.

Gritty earth passed below her fingers. Where was Kiren?

She crawled toward the cave entrance on bruises, biting the side of her mouth against the stab of sharp stones.

“K—” She coughed. “Kiren!”

Her fingers grazed something soft and warm. She reached back and found knuckles. Searching the rubble, she uncovered an arm. She brushed the wreckage away. Alexia followed his arm to his shoulder, neck, and face. His head was turned to the side, breath stirring the dust, one of his lips sliced.

The cloud of dust began to settle, thinning as sunlight filtered down over them.

Debris had turned his hair gray and dirt layered his skin, but he was alive! She threw her arms around him, cradling his head to her chest.

Tears slipped down her cheeks and streaked over his dirty brow. He was alive! She was alive! They’d done it.

He moaned. Dust shook free. One of his legs disappeared at the knee, trapped beneath two crossed boulders.

“Shh, now,” she whispered. “Stay still. I will find help.”

A shadow fell over them. Alexia tensed, ready for battle, and turned to the silhouette. Raven hair glimmered in the sun, dust thinning to reveal the concerned face of Regin, the
sleeper
.

He frowned at them and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Over here. I need help!”

Shrill voices mixed with gravelly ones and the crunch of feet. He stumbled away.

Kiren’s eyes fluttered open, the purest sea, sprinkled with white ripples of brilliance, shimmers of sunlight that filled her heart with purpose.

“Hello,” she whispered.

He coughed, hacked, and groaned.

She pressed a kiss to his brow, tasting dirt, and brushed the hair back from his face, knocking grime loose. Alexia cradled his head, unable to contain her smile. “You look horrid, and yet you are the most wonderful thing I have ever seen.”

“Horrid,” he wheezed, coughing out a puff of dust. “You say the sweetest things to a man who has been grazed by death.”

“You should grow accustomed to it. From what my mother says, it is our lot in life, those of us who travel through time.”

His cheek dimpled, stretching his scar. “We did, did we not? Together.”

She nodded and lifted his hand to her lips.

He reached up and looped his finger through a ringlet, pulling it forward. Black and white strands of her hair curled together. He slid a thumb over them, wiping at the coil, but the lock did not change color.

She met his gaze, shocked. He smiled. “I think I like this.”

Shuffling feet kicked up more dust. Alexia twisted.

The sleeper returned carrying a thick tree branch. Several others appeared behind him, a couple children, captives from the Soulless prison. Regin shoved one end of the branch beneath the stone crushing Kiren’s leg and braced the lever across another rock.

Three others joined him. “Don’a touch me now,” he warned and took his place. “Wee bit o’ trouble we’d have haulin’ yer sorry hides away if ye all plunk off to slumber.”

The others chuckled and positioned themselves.

“With me now, lads!”

They all heaved and the stone rocked aside.

Gashes cut across Kiren’s leg, his trousers speckled with blood, but no bone protruded.

“Can you move it?” she asked.

He lifted his chin toward the sky, eyes closed. “Not yet.”

She kissed his dirty cheek and he slid a hand into her hair, trapping her there.

He pulled her closer and pressed a tight kiss to her mouth. “Never leave me again.”

She looked away, guilt prickling across her skin. She understood what he meant, that he believed he’d lost her when Deiliey attacked, but she couldn’t tell him she was debating their dauther’s words—not after so close a scrape with death. She traced his torn lip. “I love you.”

“Always and forever.” Energy prickled at her skin from his fingertips.

Regin cleared his throat. “Hey now, stop makin’ the little ones squeamish.” He wrapped a skinny hand about her sleeve and hauled her up. Two others hefted Kiren up—the teenage girl and a bone-thin man. Kiren steadied with a limp.

Behind him, the world had collapsed inward like an empty bowl.

Alexia gasped. The depression was large enough to encompass her father’s entire estate grounds. She covered her mouth. How many souls had been trapped beneath the debris? And did they still live—buried in stone?

Her fists tightened. “What has become of the Soulless?”

Silence filled the air.

She whirled on Kiren. “You said, ‘
Nelly
.’”

“God rest her soul,” Regin muttered.

Kiren’s head bowed. “We must go.” He pointed to the setting sun. “If any of them were outside the compound, they will be returning.”