The Source: Book III of the Holding Kate Series (37 page)

“I don’t know if they were still there or not. I just know that their grandson took his aunt’s place as Amhra’n. They may have jumped back years before, after they had produced their beautiful offspring.”

“Time paradoxes are really confusing.” Mel frowned. “I don’t know how you can keep it all straight, Corey.”

“I don’t. I get just as confused sometimes.” He shrugged.

“So, what now? Would you like to stay here with us?” Corey asked. “We could use a couple more camp counselors.” He flashed his eyebrows.

“No, I have a kingdom to run and Staid has a warband to command. We must get home. My mother is waiting for grandchildren. We should get to work on that.” Starlythe slid her lavender gaze onto her husband.

A flaming expression kindled in Staid’s eyes. He chuckled, jumping up and dragging his wife to stand beside him. “Let’s get home, Chief. We don’t want to worry our people.”

“I can send you back to the moment after you were taken. They won’t even know you were gone.”

“Good, let’s do it,” Staid said. “No time like the present.”

“Well actually…” Corey grinned.

“Aughhh!” Mel and Donnie roared in unison and pelted him with throw pillows.

KATE FOLLOWED A
squire through the palace to the chambers of Queen Tripka. As she entered, the elderly queen turned and greeted her.

“Kate, please come and have breakfast with me.” She waved her over to a table set on a wide mosaic-tiled veranda. “You don’t really want to see the horses, do you?”

Kate shook her head. She lowered herself into the chair across from the queen and peered into her eyes, searching for the warrior Barbie that had been her friend. The lavender color was the only thing that gave a hint of her identity, everything else hid under layers of wrinkles and creases.

“I can see in your eyes that you are having trouble taking all of this in.” The queen crackled out a laugh. “Ask me anything.”

Kate cleared her throat. “Okay, why Tripka? Why didn’t you keep your name?”

“When our sphere landed over the crack of the cove, our equipment fell into the ocean. Trip’s quick reflexes saved me from plunging to the depths below. We knew in that moment we were stuck here.”

“I don’t understand. What equipment? Why did you go so far back in time?”

The queen cocked her head in confusion, then understanding broke across her face. “Oh, I remember. You were taken before we decided to divide into teams. We brought the vaccine back in time. Six teams, male and female were sent back into Ampeliagia’s past with the vaccine to seed it into the population.”

“Vaccine? They found a cure?” Kate’s eyes sparkled with tears. She hadn’t realized how much she had been hoping for the cure until now.

“Yes! The same night you left with Najwa.”

Kate’s eye twitched and she ground her teeth. That was not a name she wanted to hear. She redirected the conversation. “So why did you change your names?”

“We knew that Gregory had technology to monitor the quantum fields and we did not want to raise a red flag. We felt we would succeed better if we weren’t easily tracked. I took Trip’s name and he took mine. Trip Ca of Trip Carson, I changed the C to a K, and he took my Name Taraj of Tara Johnson.”

“Clever.” Kate pursed her lips to one side.

“We found some settlers in the area and merged with them. After a generation the original settlers died out, our children and grandchildren married into their descendants and we began to build Lumisfere. After eleven hundred years we have done quite well, don’t you think?” She held up her hand to include all of Lumisfere.

“Lumi—sphere, illuminated sphere. I see what you did. I would say you have done a stellar job.” Kate gazed over the veranda railing at the expanse of the city, taking in the dragons, the towers, and industry. “When did the dragons come into the picture?”

“We have always had some contact with them, but about four centuries after we arrived the larger group found us. They scattered when The Mother was killed and eventually found their way to us. Some of our children have been able to bond with them, telepathically, and they were so relieved to have contact with the landwalkers again that they settled here and we became dragon riders.”

“How old is Krysallis?”

“She is our last born. Long life has been common amongst our clan. Most will live three hundred years or so, but Krysallis is different. She hasn’t’ aged a day since her 20
^th
birthday, when she first bonded with her dragon. I think they may have something to do with our longevity. Those with dragon bonds age differently than those without. But Krysallis is singular among us. She simply doesn’t age at all.”

Kate’s eyes popped open. “So she really is the first bard of Ampeliagia?”

The queen tilted her head in consideration. “Yes, though it has been a long time since she used that title.”

“Uh-hem.” Kate’s skepticism peaked. She shifted in her chair, moved fruit around on her plate, giving herself time to absorb the information.

“So dragons, huh?”

Tara laughed. “Yes, my dragon slaying days are over. The dragons are the most gentle and civilized creatures I’ve ever known.”

“Did they recognize you from before, when you killed—The Mother?” A surge of emotion welled from a hidden spring deep inside Kate. It overwhelmed and stole her breath. The events of the last twenty four hours chipped away at her shell of control.

“Some of them did, yes. It’s been a grueling and tenuous bond that we have shared with the dragons. We’ve fought hard to keep the peace with them. It took concessions on both sides. Quite honestly, when disagreements arise, I tend to side with the dragons. I find them to be far more affable than humans.”

“Gregory will be thrilled.” Kate looked down at her plate and continued to push the fruits around in a circle.
Too much! Too much
! The things she thought she knew were upside down. She thought Corey would love her always. That was false. She thought she had Tara pegged; war goddess, dragon slayer. Who was this peace-mongering, dragon lover who sat across from her?

She clenched her fists, fingernails biting into her palms.

“Yes. You must tell me how this came to be. You married Gregory Matthews, Gregorvitch Mattovdzky?” Tara could not disguise the rancor in her voice.

“I am not married to him,” Kate snapped.

“I see.” The queen wiped her mouth and sat back.

“Do you?” Kate began to quake. “Because I don’t see anything! I’m blind and lost and alone. I haven’t been able to breathe in thirteen years. Gregory is the only thing that has kept me alive. He lov—loves me.” Kate glared at the batty old queen, daring her to say something negative about Gregory.

The queen just peered at Kate with a stoic gaze as though she were taking an x-ray of her spirit. Kate could feel the old Kate stretch and press against her prison walls in response.

“Well, I guess it is good that you have found comfort in his arms,” the queen said with such sadness it stifled the anger out of Kate.

“I didn’t say I was comforted by him. Just…not dead.” Kate’s voice cracked.

The queen leaned forward. Hope lit her face. “Now that we are reunited, you can go home.” Tara reached across the table and touched Kate’s hand.

Kate jerked it away. “Home? To what?”

“To Corey.”

“Never!” Kate jumped up and her chair crashed to the floor.

“Kate?” The queen jerked back, shocked.

“I won’t go home and be the pitiful ex-wife who has to watch him and Najwa live happily ever after. She tried to kill me you know!”

“Najwa and Corey are not together. She went off with Dirk and Brashtor to seed the south.”

“Does it matter? He left me, he made a mockery of our love and threw me away.”

“No, he did not.”

“Of course you would defend him, Tara! If it hadn’t been Najwa, it would have been you!”

“What are you saying?”

“Gregory went to the future and saw you and Corey, married and living in my home while I pined away. It was inevitable! Corey was never going to be mine forever. He was always going to betray me!” Kate raged, tears cascading down her face.

“Kate!”

“So don’t YOU talk to me of returning home. I have no home! Corey was the only home I ever had, and he left me!”

A deafening roar split the air and an enormous golden dragon dove down, crashed on the veranda, and loomed over Kate. His bellow blew her hair back. She screamed and hit the floor with her hands over her head.

“NO! Volkomar! She isn’t going to hurt me! She is my friend,” the queen’s aged voice commanded the dragon. He snorted and folded his wings but did not leave. “It’s okay. She’s just hurting.”

The queen moved over to Kate and helped her up. “Kate, this is my dragon partner, Volkomar. We are bonded.”

Kate shuddered as she gaped at the menace hovering over her. She turned to Tara with wide eyes. “But you hate dragons!” she whimpered.

Tara chuckled, reaching up to stroke the face of the dragon. “Yeah, but this old brute softened me up. He has quite a temper as you can see. I was attracted to his stubbornness.”

Kate took a guarded step backward. “See, Tara. Things change. People change. You changed. You don’t know what would have happened between you and Corey. You can’t tell me that you don’t love him.”

“Of course I do. He is my dearest friend, but we have never had anything like that between us.”

“Not yet.”

The queen turned back to her dragon and her shoulders slumped as if she were exhausted. She spoke toward the golden dragon as she stroked his eye ridges.

“Kate, I can see that you have changed too. I cannot say that I like the changes.” Ancient sadness weighed down by the burden of so many years colored her voice. “You have lost the best part of who you are. I can also see that you are tired of my company so I will say one more thing to you, then you may go.” The queen turned to face Kate.

Kate wiped her expression but cut wary eyes to the dragon.

“Corey has never stopped loving you. Najwa lied. He never loved her, ever! At this moment he is scouring the quantum stream for you. What has been years to you has only been hours to him. Gregory has played you. It is not possible to go forward in time, only backward.”

Kate cocked her head at this bit of information.

The queen continued in her wispy voice. “If you leave here with him, I will take that as your decision to stay with him. I will tell Corey you are lost to him forever. It will crush him.”

She took a step toward Kate, straightened to her full height, and the warrior she had been shined through the aged exterior.

“But you need to know something. Corey is coming here. He will be here soon. He is coming here to get us, so we can help him look for you. Any day now, he will split the sky with a screeching sphere.” She pointed to a platform in the distance. “He will come for us and if you are here with us, you can go home to Corey who has loved you for a thousand years.”

Kate held a trembling hand to her open mouth and stared at the old woman. Could it be true? Seismic tremors rocked through her, cracking the shell that she had locked the old Kate in. She felt her crawl out and gasp for air.