Synergy (14 page)

I moved my head from side to side. “You’re not kissing me
...
I don’t need another reason to fight with Draven.”

“Are we fighting?” he said smugly.

“Stop it. You know we are. Why did you tell him that you’d kill
him if he came near me in T
he R
ealm? You have no right to say something like that. You’ve made him terrified to love me.”

“I told him no such thing. I only assured him that I wouldn’t allow him to hurt you there – that I’d stop him. He made me promise that.”

“After you described in utter detail what he could do to me, I’m sure that’s when he made you promise that. That’s when you promised you would end his existence.”

He glanced at the moon again. “You know, if you wanted to die so you could be with me again, I would almost understand -
-
but that’s not the case. Even if it was, I wouldn’t let you die
...
I refuse to watch that again.”

“I don’t want to die. I want to help him. Save him. I want to free the shadows. I want to heal the dammed. Fight for the weak
-
- and that’s extremely difficult if the two of you are always standing in my way.”

“No one’s standing in your way,” he said firmly.

“What do you call it the
n? Draven not wanting me in T
he R
ealm. You with all your secrets. I feel useless. I refuse to feel that way. I am who I am for a reason – both of you need to understand that.”

“We understand. You don’t.”

“Then tell me.”

“Close your eyes.”

“If you kiss me, I’m leaving.”

“If I kiss you – you won’t be able to leave,” he said boldly.

For the first time, I felt fear at his side, and I was regretting that l listened to my mom and tried to find a comfortable place between him and Draven.

When he saw my expression, sadness filled his gaze. “I’m not going to kiss you – promise.”

I let out a deep breath and closed my eyes.
When he took my hand
I felt the calm his touch always had.

“Remember your dream,” he whispered.

I let images of the screaming people
...
the rocks falling from the sky
...
the innocents that followed
me
all of it come to mind. I coughed as the memory of the toxic air came to me.

“What happened before that ash, Charlie?” he asked. “When did your eyes meet mine for the first time?”

I let his words linger in my mind. A gasp escaped my lips. I understood clearly for the first time that this dream was in the past, not in a dark future. Understanding that I found confidence, I began to open my mind, to let lost memories of
a
past life ignite
with
in it.

The dream moved backwards at lightning speed. The terror left, and happiness was on the faces of the people around me. The air was pure. I could smell the salt from the waters close by
...
I could see the stars. They were so clear that there wasn’t a single light that would cause them to vanish. This city was in a past that I’d only read about
...
it reminded me of Rome.

I s
aw myself tiptoeing down a wide
stone hallway, listening intently for anyone who may still be awake. My confidence grew
as I assured myself
that
the late hour had given me the solitude I wanted. I stepped into an open room. A large pool was centered
with
in it – it was a bathing pool, but it wasn’t one that I was supposed to be in. It was the one for th
e men. I felt my rebellious soul
want to bathe there, even though I knew it was forbidden. I also knew that even though no one would ever know that I dipped into this pool, I’d won. I’d stepped out of the boundaries set before me, something I tended to do often.

I couldn’t see the entire pool; just the center where the moonlight shined. I unclasped my white gown and let it fall to the stone floor. The air was warm, as warm as the hottest summer day, but a night breeze threatened to bring chills to my skin. I stepped forward and slowly descended into the warm water.

A smile came across my face as my heart raced. I knew at this point that if I
were
caught, there would be no words to explain wh
y I’d boldly disobeyed
. I glided f
orward, deeper into the water.
I let my face fall under, then held my breath and swam
forward;
trying to catch the moonlight I could see waving through the water. I rose for air, flinging my long, dark hair behind me.

The moonlight I’d been chasing had moved forward like it was an illusion that couldn’t be truly captured. I fell below the water once more and chased the gleam. I rose from the water, finding myself just on the edge of the moonlight.

Just as I began to swim forward, I heard, “
A light that beautiful can naught
be
imprisoned
.”

Panic swept through me as I tried to place the young man’s voice. I frantically looked from side to side, from corner to corner. Then from the darkest, furthest corner of the pool, I saw an image move toward me.

“Yet, you should know that. I doubt any one man could capture you,” he said innocently.

“Should I scream for my father?” I asked, furrowing my eyebrows in the direction of the image, blocking as much of myself as I could with my arms.

“I don’t know who would be in more trouble: me or you. I should be here
...
should you?” the strong, young, bold voice asked as it moved closer.

When he reached the point where the light showed his face, I saw Silas. He looked more real than he did today. I could see wounds that had barely healed on his arms. His eyes lacked the glow they had now, and his hair and skin were darker. In this image, I didn’
t know him. My heart was racing -
my breath was short. I wanted to know him – this breathtaking stranger I’d found in my father’s bath.

“Who are you? This is my house. Do you often stalk women in the dead of night?”

“Do women often bathe in the dead of night in a bath for men?”

“You aren’t from here,” I said as I stepped back with each step he took to reach me.

“No,” he said quietly, halting his approach. “Listen, I’m going to turn around, get my clothes
...
maybe you should do the same.”

I nodded nervously and waited for him to turn, then I dove under the water and swam as fast as I could to the stone steps I’d used to get into the pool. With shaky hands, I pulled my gown on and squeezed my hair, trying to get out all of the water.  I walked hastily to the stone pillars that led out of the bathroom, not wanting to be seen in there with a man, not wanting anyone to think that I’d lost my innocence with this stranger.

I wanted to run to my room, but I couldn’t make my feet work. The desire to know
whom
th
is breathtaking stranger was
holding me in place. I needed to know if he would tell my father I was in there, if I could trust him.

I felt him moving closer to me and glanced over my shoulder. The sight of his strong body left me breathless. I knew I didn’t know him. I’d never seen him before; no one this beautiful lived in this city.

“Name?” I said shortly.

“Silvanus.” He smiled. “Julia, correct?”

I nodded. “How did you know?”

“I’m a guest of your
father’s
...
I suppose you would call me a guest.” His eyes moved slowly across my body. “Though he spoke of your beauty, he did not capture it properly.”

I looked at the abrasions on his arms and took in the sadness of his eyes. “What happened to you?”

Before he could answer, my pounding heart caused me to lose the hold on that memory, and I found myself back at the park, leaning against the oak tree with Silas next to me.

“Julia
...
I think I like that,” I mumbled as I looked away to hide the blush in my cheeks. Though I couldn’t remember most of my existence, I doubted that any other moment could be as revealing as the first time I met Silas.

Silas laughed under his breath. “I loved that name. You carried it for over a thousand years. You thought of changing it more than once, but those dark eyes could only belong to Julia.”

“Why were you hurt? Where were we?” I asked, gazing into his eyes, regaining my composure and slowing my heartbeat.

“Pompeii,” he whispered as his eyes fell from mine.

“The city of ash,” I breathed,
as my eyes grew wider. I remembered writing a report on that city when I was in eighth grade. I was always so far ahead of my classmates that my teachers would give me additional assignments to keep me stimulated. I chose that city. I don’t remember why. I just remembered the grief
I felt as I wrote the report.
My history teacher was so taken by my words that he suggested to my mother that I should travel to Italy to see the ruins. I told my mother that that was the last place I wanted to see, that it would be t
o
o heartbreaking to see the molds of the ones that lost their lives there.

“I see Charlie knows her history,” Silas said as he stretched his legs out before him.

“A little, but I don’t know why you looked hurt. Why you were a stranger just days before my nightmare began?”

“I was a G
ladiator.”

“A criminal?” I asked in an unbelieving tone, suddenly understanding why h
e’d so fearlessly fought those E
scorts before: he’d fought like the warrior.

He slowly moved his head from side to side as he locked his jaw and sadness filled his eyes. “No
...
I was mistaken for my brother in Rome, forced to fight.”

“You brother never stood up – told them they were wrong?”

He nodded once. “He did, but I told them he was lying.”

“Why?”

“He had a family. A wife. Children. His crime was petty. He only stole food he needed, and he paid it back when he could.”

“So you were a sacrifice?”

He moved his head from side to side. “Even though my brother was older, I was built differently. I was stronger, more of an athlete. I knew he wouldn’t survive one battle. I’d already won three before he discovered that I was mistaken for him. By that time, I’
d become a favorite. If I’d
denied that I was him, they would have forced us both to fight, fight each other to the death. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

“How did you end up in Pompeii?”

There was a chilling silence before he finally spoke.
“Your father bought my freedom. He visited me in my cell. He told me he saw innocence in my eyes. I thought it was a trick to get me to confess that I wasn’t my brother, so I tried to act tough, but I didn’t fool him.”

“Why did he want to buy you?”

As Silas’ eyes stared into the distance, I watched every emotion ripple though his outwardly calm composure. “He didn’t want to own me; he wanted to set me free. He told me that he dreamed of me before he saw me fight, that the Goddess of Venus wanted me to live in Pompeii. He traded land and goods that he’d won in Rome for me. On our journey to Pompeii, I told him I’d pay him back, but he insisted that the land and goods were given to him by the goddesses and that I couldn’t pay him back.”

“So you were free in Pompeii to start a new life?”

“I was asked to fight once. To kill a man that wronged your father. Once that fight was over, my freedom would be given to me, a home would be given to me, and I could seek a wife.”

“Did that fight ever happen?”

He nodded. “On August 24th.”

“The day of the eruption
...
how long did I know you before that?”

“Seven days,” he answered quietly.

“Was it a good seven days? How come I feel like I was mad at you?” I asked as flashes of time I couldn’t grasp echoed in my thoughts.

“I’d like to think it was
a
good seven days
...
at least they were for me.”

My heart began to race as the memories became more vivid. I saw myself sneaking off to meet him by the pool each night. During the day, we acted as if we didn’t know each other. I was even rude to him when my father introduced him to me.

“We met in secret,” I said as I closed my eyes tightly in an effort to see the memories more clearly.

He nodded. “You were seventeen. Your father had tried to wed you three times before, but each time you found a way to talk him out of it. You would uncover secrets about the men that you knew your father would despise, but you’d come to the age where he felt he could wait no longer to give you to a man. You were to marry a man that was a stone maker, an architect. He was a widower, twice you
r age. The only reason you had to not marry
him was that you didn’t love him, but that reason wasn’t good enough for your father.”