Soulless (Maiden of Time Book 2) (22 page)

“You are a prince?” She gasped. “An heir to a throne?”

Rubbing his brow, he gnawed at his lower lip. She wanted to trace the curve of his mouth and draw him back to her, but he was royalty. Should she touch him at all? She was so far below his station—a half-breed and bastard child. He ought to shun her.  

Kiren’s whisper startled her. “They are dead, and their kingdom with them.”

She shivered against the sadness laden in his tone. Not only had he lost his empire, but his family as well. “You blame yourself for this?”

His shoulders dropped lower.

“Please, Kiren.” She caressed his arm. Whether she was worthy of him or not, he needed her. “Tell me?”

His head fell into his hands. “Our parents bestowed the medallions on us. They should not have. They needed the protection far greater than we.”

“We?”

He lifted a staying finger.

“You cannot help that they made their decision.” She resumed her seat beside him. “This is not your fault.”

He gave a mirthless smile. “Perhaps not, but the rest is.” Bending his neck, he picked at the blanket, his voice a resigned sigh. “Father had been ruling for ages, and because of his many powerful enemies, he kept my birth a secret.” The fidgeting stopped, his hands flattening out. “He would have revealed me to the world when I was strong enough to withstand the dangers.”

She slid her fingers over his, but he snatched them away. She flinched, stung.

Kiren wrapped his arms about himself. “I took it.” His head bowed, eyes closing. “Father explained the relic, the seemingly ordinary overturned bowl that would make our home invisible to our enemies, its magical properties shielding us from detection.” He groaned and rose, pacing away from her. “The source of their safety, and I took it.”

Her heart was breaking for him.

“I only went as far as the brook,” he muttered. “If it could hide our home, surely it could hide a frog...”

She went to him, placing her forehead against his back, listening to the tragic stutter of his heart.

“I was only a child. It was an act of curiosity and yet...”

She slid her arms about his waist.

“The roar of fire drew me back home.” His muscles tensed, and she questioned if he’d pull away from her again. She could feel the tremor building from his heart outward. “The flames, the cottage...” He swallowed loudly. “They are dead because of me.”

She nuzzled his shoulder, wishing she could ease his agony.

His chest expanded, his body shaking. “They are gone because of me.”

She pulled him around, cupping his cheek and drawing his gaze. “Did you set the fire?”

His head barely shook.

“Kiren, my dear, sweet, overly-responsible man, you are not to blame.” She brushed the hair back from his face. “It may have simply been the result of an overturned lamp or stray ember.”

He seized her fingers, eyes dancing wildly. “Oh, that I could believe such a possibility, but it was one of our enemies, the man who...” He bit his lip.

“Who what?”

Kiren’s head turned away, eyes closed once more. She brushed over his scar.

“I have a twin sister,” he confessed.

She blinked. “You what?”

A tortured smile crooked his cheek. “She was with me when they died, but we became...separated.”

She pressed on his chest. “Who is she? Have I met her?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I have searched, you do not know how far and wide I have searched, but I cannot reach her.”

Of course he had. How terrifying, to know your own flesh and blood wandered the world somewhere, to realize they haunted some hidden corner you could not penetrate.

Alexia placed a hand over his heart. “Is that why you gather the Passionate? Hoping she will come to you?”

His lashes trembled closed. He captured her fingers, locking them against his breast. “I gather them to protect them. I gather them for you.” A hopeful quiver shook his voice. His eyelids lifted to reveal a hint of sunrise against a beautiful blue sky.

“Me?”

He cupped her cheeks, gazing deep into her eyes like he hoped some recognition would suddenly appear. He exhaled, dimming. “You are my family, Alexia.”

His words struck her like a mallet. She bit her lip. “I will be. But what about your sister?”

“She is protected by a medallion. My parents and their kingdom are gone, and I am not inclined to resurrect the order set in place by my father. It is a heavy burden, one I am not certain I shall ever feel worthy to bear. Not in this world.”

She tried to interrupt, but he placed a finger to her mouth.

“The Passionate are weak, and my family’s enemies still roam this land. It is enough that this war is driving us to unite, something I have long hoped for.”

She nodded.

“One day we shall rise to power.” He gazed into the trees. “But that day is still far distant. For now it is much easier to cling to what is good, nurture what is young and fragile, and pretend I am nothing more than a man in love.”

She traced the pleats of his suit coat. He was a prince, the heir to a throne, a leader and champion of the Passionate, a healer and friend to all, the eternal possessor of her heart. “You will always be so much more than a man in love.”

He grinned. “And you, so much more than my distraction.”

The Maiden of Time. She couldn’t forget that. Did that place her in the same realm as royalty?

His blue pools wept in a misty morning sadness, his earlier depression weighing over them both. “Judge me tomorrow, when you have digested the information. I would have no secrets between us, Alexia. I would have you for my equal.”

She grinned, attempting to lift the sadness.
His equal
. “Will that make me a princess?”

“If I am ever restored to my parents’ throne, you will be queen.”

Her heart squeezed. She had studied the obligations of royalty, how their lives were dedicated to the people they served, how they were always watched, scrutinized, held to an impossible standard. Such a public call had never appealed to her, not even as a child. What made it worse was that he could read her displeasure. “You know I abandoned my family’s prestige, never anticipating the obligation should again be mine.”

His eyes turned down. “I know, and I am sorry.”

The regret in his frown twisted her heart. She caught his face and lifted it. “Well, I should not mind so much having servants to do the laundry or clean the chamber pots.”

He broke into a low chuckle. 

She pressed her forehead to his and kissed him lightly. Her equal. “I will have you for my husband, no matter how many complications are involved, no matter how many things for which you hold yourself accountable. I love you.”

A bird twittered from a branch overhead, the distant glow of sunrise painting the sky a lighter shade of blue.

Hope.

Kiren grabbed her, eagerly aiming for her lips.

The ground shook. They both stumbled, and Kiren caught Alexia, grabbing hold of the bedpost.

Forty-Two

Infiltration

A chill tickled down Charles’s spine. He halted mid-step and counted to five. It was his imagination. How many days had he spent in this hidden estate, and despite the strange breezes and occasional disembodied whispers, he and that cook remained the only two occupants.

At first he’d felt like a prisoner. After Nelly explained the situation, how his being out in the world would place Alexia in danger, he’d resigned himself to their strange library, hourly walks through the halls, and the occasional raid of the wine cellar. The chatty woman keeping him company would speak of the weather, maintenance about the house, and odd facts of nature, but never a word about his daughter or her soon-to-be husband. The quiet was driving him mad!

Early morning light trailed across the hall, bars of gold against a figurative jail.

Panting rasped in his ears. He spun.

Two shrouded figures stood at the top of the stairs, their robes robbing the hall of light. Ice raced up the back of his legs. He gasped and reached to his hip where a sword would have been mounted in his soldiering days. His fingers wrapped around air.

The creatures turned toward him. One stepped into a streak of light, and crimson pupils pierced through the darkness of its hood.

Show no fear in the face of the beast.

His breathing slowed. In the room to his right he would find furniture he might mangle into a makeshift pike or shard, but to buy himself time he’d have to barricade the door and he couldn’t think of anything substantial enough to keep two grown men from breaking through.

They slunk closer.

The floor trembled. Things clattered over in the rooms, echoing into the hall. A vase crashed. The creatures halted and widened their stances to remain upright.

Blinding whiteness whipped out of nowhere.

Forty-Three

Quake

Kiren caught himself on the bedpost and steadied Alexia. The rumbling faded.

How strange. England had never been prone to earthquakes.

An avalanche of crashes echoed through the branches, a distant clattering. Birds skittered free, launching into the sky like dust motes from a disturbed drapery.

Kiren’s blood froze. This was no freak quake.

Nelly
.

He launched through the trees, stretching his senses beyond the branches.

Shouting. Deep voices. Hissing.

“Kiren, stop!”

Vertigo tore at his insides, spinning him mentally back toward the little woman chasing after him, his match, his perfect other half. He bit down. How was he supposed to keep her safe and rush to his friends’ aid? Why did it have to be one or the other?

“Go back, Alexia,” he called over his shoulder.

“Ripe chance of that happening.” In a blink she was sprinting at his side.

He almost missed a step. “You just jumped.”

“Slowed...time,” she panted.

His fist tightened. She would kill herself from overexertion given half an excuse. “You should not be following me.”

“Then make me stop.”

He grinned. He could do it, but she would find means to punish him later as payment. His smirk dropped as he glimpsed her white skirt. “You are not dressed.”

“I am enough for you.”

He ground his teeth. “Alexia—”

“It was the estate, was it not? That noise?”

He clenched his lips, focused on the careful placement of his feet. She jogged at his side, eyes straight ahead, brows low. He wondered how she had the energy to keep up with him until she blurred in his periphery. He was out pacing her, and she kept taking breaks, then catching up with him.

Such a strange reality.

The trees thinned and he reached out to slow her, scanning the horizon. Where there should be a building, sky met his view. Rubble covered the ground.

He swallowed.

Alexia’s jaw hung open. He waved for her to stay as he moved forward. Dust covered the ground like powdered snow, layered in a wide circle well beyond the collapsed timber and stone. Decades of work in ruin.

He snapped to attention, scouring the grass for signs of passage.

There.

Dusty footsteps converged at the east end of the grounds. He hurried over and bent to trace the debris.

Nelly had been here, just before a struggle. Or Charles.

The tracks bled away south in snowy prints. Two grooves lined the trail, likely the drag of unconscious feet.

Captured. One of them was a prisoner—like so many missing others—and would become a feast on the next new moon.

He would stop them this time.

Kiren followed the confusion of prints, trying to discern which of the two had been taken, but it was useless. How had they discovered the location of his house? Granted, Ethel had not been here to obscure it with the mist, but the only way they could have known of its location was if...

Miles
.

They must have gleaned it from Miles the night they learned of so many Passionate hiding places. How many had been taken because of that single night?

He glanced back at the rubble, his chest constricting with tightness.

If Charles hadn’t escaped, if instead he lay buried somewhere in that mess... Kiren couldn’t swallow the lump.

A hand landed on his shoulder.

He whirled. Alexia jumped back.

He slowed his breathing and reached for her. Her fingers slipped between his, tightening and pulling him closer.

“Kiren?”

“I have failed again.”

“You have not—” Her mouth remained open, eyes widening, fixated over his shoulder.

He turned.

Two scarecrow forms stood on the edge of the clearing, their ragged cloaks flitting in the wind like the black flames of a dying world.

He threw Alexia behind him. They couldn’t taint anyone, not in the daylight, but they would attempt to overpower him or injure them both, and what if there were more of them in the trees?

The accursed sprinted across the distance. Alexia grabbed his arm and stepped forward, assurance and steadiness filtering through her grip. She met his eyes. Urgency flashed in her depths, and a warning:
Go to safety
.
Meet me back here when you have help.

She vanished.

Kiren whipped toward the Soulless and gasped. Alexia stood behind the creatures.

He blinked his eyes clear.

“You!” she yelled. The Soulless stopped and turned. “I hear rumors you are searching for the Maiden of Time.”

Kiren tensed. What was she doing? He raised a hand, begging her silently to stop.

She lifted her chin. “Here I am.”

Their heads swiveled, leaning one direction, then the other.

“What are you waiting for?” she called.

They turned on her. She blurred, appearing half a second later at the edge of the trees.

He stared, unable to move. He knew she had the potential, but seeing her use her gifts with such strength! How had he found himself a companion so gifted, one who put even him to shame?

She blurred and disappeared entirely. He wanted to go after her, but she was right. There was nothing he could do for her, and Ethel would be waiting by now. He sprinted back the way he’d come, shame filling him with every step. He should be the one protecting Alexia, not the other way around.

A strange bubble formed in his gut. It wouldn’t settle, and it irked him.

They were not equals. She was his better—in every way. Why should that bother him?

Ethel waited for him at the designated spot, mist whisking off her arms and hair in a nervous haze.

She rushed forward. “Where is she?”

“The wooded estate.”

Her eyes shot wide and she seized his arm, instantly sucking him into the cloud. His feet touched down over the uneven rubble of his demolished house. Ethel was gone before she’d fully materialized. She appeared a second later, holding Alexia’s arm.

Kiren threw his arms about Alexia. His mind screamed the number of things that could have gone wrong. He would never put her at risk again.

Never.

Ethel’s shoulders slumped, her knees crunching into the snowy debris. “The Soulless are not far.” She reached out, and Kiren caught her elbow before she toppled over. Dark rings hung beneath her eyes, skin a gaunt white.

“Do you have enough strength?” 

“I do.”

Kiren frowned. She was getting old, and the strain of recent days had been so great.

Ethel looked him right in the eyes, head bowed knowingly.

He took Alexia’s hand and nodded. The world faded into mist.