Ricochet Through Time (Echo Trilogy Book 3) (38 page)

Kat & Lex

“Hey.” It was Mari. She was behind me, further up the beach.

I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, asking the spirit of the Puget Sound—of the seagull standing sentinel nearby, of the ebbing and flowing saltwater, of the seals barking some ways down the beach—to lend me even a shred of patience.

It wasn’t that I disliked Mari; on the contrary, we clicked. She was on the younger side, less than a century old, and in pretty much any other situation, I thought we’d be good friends. But in
this
situation, being friends with her only set me further apart from the rest of the Nejerets. I’d been born one of a kind, the daughter of incest—a most grievous crime amongst Nejeretkind—and I’d only escalated my differences further when I’d forced my Nejeret traits to manifest by going into the At a couple years too early. Grievous Nejeret crime number two.

Now, thanks to Mari and her anti-At dagger, my ba was completely cut off from the At. Even with the twins’ existence returning ma’at to the universe and stability to the At once more, I would never again enter it. I would never see the vibrant colors of time and space swirling all around me. I would never watch scenes from the past or from the possible futures play out right before my eyes. I would never, not ever, be a normal Nejerette.

I already felt like I didn’t belong, and spending time with Mari, the emissary of the Kin, turned me into a full-blown outcast.

“What are you doing?” Mari sat down beside me on the piece of driftwood. “I hope I’m not interrupting . . .”

“It’s fine.” I set my pen in the seam of my sketchbook and flipped the cover closed. “I was just drawing.”

“Oh? Can I see? I’m a terrible artist . . .”

Shrugging, I handed her the sketchbook. “The stuff you make out of anti-At is pretty good.” Aside from the part where touching anything she made would kill a Nejeret from the soul out.

“That doesn’t count,” she said. “It’s easy to make something pretty when you can just think it into existence.”

She opened the sketchbook’s cover but didn’t immediately go to the page I’d been working on, marked by my pen. She started at the beginning, flipping through pages of ink and pencil drawings, pausing whenever she reached the ones splattered with color from oil pastels or chalk. “These are really good.” She paused on a collage of hands sketched in ink. “Whose hands are these?”

“No one’s.” I reached out and flipped to the page I’d been working on a moment ago. “This one’s supposed to be the At,” I said, tapping the half-finished sketch with a fingernail. “I want to get it right before I forget what it was like.”

Mari closed the sketchbook ever so gingerly and handed it back to me. “Oh.”

And now I’d upset her. It was her fault that I was like this, but it was also my fault—for being a rash idiot—and I knew she regretted having permanently damaged my ba. She felt bad, and now I felt bad for making her feel bad. It was stupid.

“So, um . . .” I searched the gray-blue water for something,
anything
to change the subject. I blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Do you know how to fight?”

Mari shot me a sidelong glance. “A bit. My mom wanted me to know how to defend myself. She said that in a group of people where everybody has exceptional powers, it often comes down to the most mundane skills to set us apart.” She laughed to herself. “There was a girl who used to hold classes for those of us who wanted to learn. So, thanks to her, I know just enough to be more of a danger to myself than to anybody else.”

“Do you maybe want to spar sometime?”

Mari met my eyes for a moment, then returned to staring out at the sea. “Yeah, okay.” She nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Cool. Um . . .”

My phone buzzed, and I fished it out of my back pocket. It was one o’clock, time for the Council to reconvene. Which is why I wasn’t surprised to find a text from Dom, reminding me not to be late for babysitting duties. It was my turn to watch the twins while Marcus locked himself away in the conference room with Mari, Nik, Set, and the remotely present Council members to continue their never-ending discussion of the rogues, the Kin, and the future of Nejeret society.

“I gotta get back to the house,” I told Mari, and she nodded. She needed to head there soon, too.

I tapped out a quick text to Dom letting him know I was on my way, then shoved my sketchbook and pen back into my bag and settled the strap on my shoulder. Fifteen minutes later I was sitting in an armchair in Marcus’s suite, Susie, Lex and Marcus’s daughter, nestled in my arms and a bottle in one of my hands.

It had taken weeks for Marcus to choose names for the twins—we’d just called them BG and BB for baby girl and baby boy until he’d come to a decision—but when he finally did, we all felt his choice in names was absolutely perfect. BG became Susan, or Susie to most of us, named after Lex’s recently departed grandmother, and BB became Syris, named for Marcus and Aset’s father, Osiris. They were good names, strong names, with memorable and significant namesakes.

“Are you ready for it, little missy?” I waggled the bottle a few inches from Susie’s face. “I think this might be the best, yummiest bottle yet . . .”

Nearby, Marcus made a slow circuit around the sitting room, Syris snuggled against his chest. The infant boy hated sleeping; he would fight it with all his might, but once he was asleep, he was out. Marcus had a knack for being able to coax his son to sleep, and I was grateful he was taking the time to do it before he left for the meeting, because baby-charming was a gift I didn’t have.

We both looked to the door when it opened. Aset entered the room, expression grim.

Little Tarset was holding Aset’s hand, her cheeks pink and onyx pigtails askew. The ancient four-year-old broke free and ran straight for me. “Baby!” She was obsessed with the twins.

Marcus headed for his sister. “Take Syris for me. The others are waiting on me.”

Aset crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows. “I’m older than you.”

As Tarset climbed onto the sofa beside me, I looked at Marcus, then Aset, then back at Marcus. Something was happening. Something big and important and really damn tense. The kind of thing that made me want to be anywhere but here.

“What’s this about?” Marcus resumed his slow pacing, snuggling the baby boy close but never taking his eyes off his sister’s face.

“You are their father,” Aset said. “And yet you put the Council first. Your children are more important than the Kin or the rogues or any other Council matter. Syris and Susie are the most important things in the entire world, but you can’t seem to carve more than a few minutes of each day out for them. Why, Heru?” She planted herself directly in front of him. “Why?”

Marcus inhaled and exhaled deeply. “When the deliberations are over . . .”

“The deliberations can go to hell for all I care,” Aset said. “Syris and Susie need you
now
.”

Marcus’s features hardened right before my eyes. I held my breath, hoping my silence would make me disappear.

“Lex needed them.” Marcus’s words were clear, quiet, careful. Cold. “She needed them, and they abandoned her. If they’d never been born—”

“Bite your tongue,” Aset snapped. “They didn’t leave her out of choice. It was just something that happened . . . a reflex. Lex told me so herself.”

“But will she ever tell
me
?” Marcus asked, his features softening and his golden eyes shimmering with grief. “Will she ever say anything to me again? Will I ever see her again?”

“Oh, dear brother . . .” Aset sighed and held out her arms for the baby. “She has the ability and the will to make it back to us. We must have faith in her.”

Gently, Marcus transferred his son into Aset’s arms. “Once the Council has come to a decision on this matter with Mari and the Kin, I’ll step down and you can take my seat.” He stared down at his fussing little boy. “For Lex.”

Aset nodded. “For Lex.”

***

I moved smoothly from one position to the next, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, sometimes blowing out my breath or even grunting, always concentrating with every fiber of my being. Going through Dom’s sets was better for calmness and clarity than meditation. It was impossible to think about anything but what my arms and legs would do next. The poses were becoming second nature, but even so, moving through them required absolute focus. It was, hands down, my favorite thing to do. The sound of the waves rolling up and down the beach only added to my tranquility.

Aset had released me from babysitting duty after a couple hours, and this was my second round of the day. I’d fallen into the habit of running through the sets first thing in the morning and last thing at night. It was late afternoon, so today was turning out to be a three-a-dayer. It happened more often than I’d ever admit, but Dom only frowned when he found me running through the sets in the training room or out on the beach in the afternoon; he never advised me to stop.

At the sound of footsteps on the rocky beach, I spun around, settling instinctively into a defensive position.

“Kat!” Mari hopped over a long piece of driftwood on her way down the beach. “You won’t believe what just happened!” Before I could even think about guessing what she was so excited about, she blurted, “I did it! The Council finally agreed—the Kin don’t have to hide anymore.”

I relaxed my stance, a smile taking over my face. I couldn’t have stopped it if I’d wanted to. “Dude, that’s awesome!” I took three enormous steps and threw my arms around her. “I’m so happy for you! What does this mean? Can you go home?”

Mari stiffened, and a second later, her arms fell away from me. “I have no home.”

“Don’t be stupid.” I took a small step backward and shook her by the arms. “You know what I mean . . . will you be able to go back to your people? I know how much you miss them.”

Mari shook her head, her green eyes gleaming like sea glass. “The rogues are still out there, hunting us . . . hunting
me
. My people have been lying low, staying off the Internet and phone lines as much as possible, but I’ve received messages—several have disappeared. I can only assume the worst.”

“Well, did the Council agree to anything else? Are they going to help you with the rogues?” I rolled my eyes. “Are they going to finally get off their asses and
do
something?”

Mari let out a single, bitter laugh. “So they say . . . but only because some of their people have gone missing, too. It’s the reason they agreed to stay our impending executions in the first place.” Her lips spread into a flat, grim mockery of a smile. “They finally realized that they need the Kin just as much as we need them.”

My hands fell away. “What does that mean? What did they agree to?”

“The Kin has been granted a single seat at the Council.” She shrugged and turned to stare out at the Puget Sound. “Once the rogue threat is taken care of, they’ve agreed to reassess the structure of the Nejeret governing body.”

My eyebrows climbed up my forehead, and my mouth fell open. “Are you serious? That’s huge.”

One corner of Mari’s grim smile curved upwards, turning it into more of a smirk. “Maybe they need us more than we need them,” she said, pride shining in her eyes. “This is the first step toward the future my mom saw. I didn’t believe it was possible for us to work together, but . . .”

I touched her shoulder. “Maybe this is the first step toward eliminating things like
us
and
them
,” I said.

“Maybe, but—” She cocked her head to the side, then looked over her shoulder.

I glanced the same way, my stare sticking on Nik—he stalked down the trail through the woods toward the beach. Toward us. “You shouldn’t be here,” he practically growled.

So it wasn’t Nik, but Re; I hadn’t seen either for a couple days. His arms were covered in zebra stripes of cuts in various stages of healing—likely Nik’s attempt to continue to keep Re subdued.
Failed
attempt, it seemed.

His lips retracted, baring his teeth in an open snarl. “You shouldn’t be here,” he repeated, lips barely moving and teeth locked together.

My heart was pounding, but I managed to keep my breathing even. My body shifted, one of my feet sliding backward on the rocks, just an inch or two, my arms relaxing at my side. It was a casual defensive position, allowing me to be ready for a hundred types of attacks. “There’s plenty of beach to share,” I said, impressed by how even and calm my voice sounded. Inside me, there was terrified little girl begging me to turn and run as fast and far as I could.

Re-Nik reached the mouth of the trail and stepped onto the beach, just the driftwood and several yards separating us now. “You were supposed to die,” he said. “Dom was supposed to kill Mari. The Council was supposed to launch an attack on the Kin living in squalor.” In the blink of an eye, two daggers made of crystalline At formed in either of his hands. “But none of that happened, because Nik has feelings for you. Because he wouldn’t let you die.”

Mari stepped in front of me. “Stop,” she commanded, a black spear suddenly in her grasp, pointed at Re-Nik. It was a good thing she stepped in, because I was currently paralyzed and speechless.