Emanate: Insight Series ((Insight) Web of Hearts and Souls) (8 page)

“The war within me
ceased with the last trial. I’m at peace.”

“No. The war of your soul and ego has just begun.”
His eyes glided slowly across my body. “It’s time to wake up, Sovereign. Because if you do not, you will never ascend to the life plan before you.”

Before I could respond
, the air in the room grew frigid; it was a cold that I knew all too well. The shadows across the wall began to move, and sadistic whispers echoed around us.

Justus stood at attention
, immediately moving to protect me, but before he reached me ash wings invaded my line of sight. Donalt. I never saw his face clearly, but I would know him anywhere. No reflex in existence could have been fast enough to move out of his way. I felt his hand on my stomach. I felt ice soar through me and my breath leave. Something sprayed across my face, and the instant it did Donalt vanished along with the cold, the whispers, the evil I felt in the room.

For a few seconds
, I managed to stand, but then the room began to slide at awkward angles around me. The next thing I felt was the stone floor, the next thing I saw was darkness.

It was quiet, so quiet. Then out of the vast darkness
, I saw something. A small, vague light. I walked forward, trying to reach it, trying to find my way back to consciousness.

Within that light, I saw something familiar: Aella, or rather me. Only now the image was reflecting bright blue eyes. The last time I was knocked out cold by Donalt, I faced an image of myself, along with an image of Nathaniel—I left that deep dream with a curse. A curse of changing the weather with the slightest emotion. I wasn’t going back down that road again, especially since I’d just recently overcome that. 

I recoiled, moved further into the darkness. I
would not openly accept that curse—any curse— again.

M
y image with blue eyes moved forward, and though she gave me no words, she invaded my mind with knowledge. With images of Justus at every age.

The images didn’t stop there. They started to reflect another world, another voice. I saw
a woman with ivory skin and dark auburn hair. She was silent but strong. The scent of warm honey encased me. Her lips never moved, but I clearly heard, “Listen to your First, my precious Fated.”

Part of me wanted to stay and understand this, figure out who she was or what she meant with the words I heard her speak, but then a bigger part of me said to r
un, said that this was a trick. That part won. I was not going back to the pain I had escaped. I was furious that I was ever put through that in the first place.

I ran into the darkness
, and all at once my eyes flew open with a gasp.

Where the hell am I?

It looked like a bar, some kind of tavern. I was in a dark corner in a round booth whose cushions were torn and tattered. It smelled sour. If that weren’t odd enough, the black robe over me surely was. I was dressed to be in public in Esterious, hidden behind a tent of clothing.

This tavern was full of people
, mostly men, but there were a few women in here that looked like they had seen better days for sure. It was almost like I was sucked back in time to the 1800s, Esterious style.

“Sleep well, Sovereign?” Justus said in a hushed voice.

That was when I noticed his arm around me, when I realized I was leaning into him. I jolted away and on instinct pushed the hood on my head back, but he stopped me from revealing my face.

“Where am I
?” I breathed.

“Underground.” He nodded wryly to the bartender
who noticed my abrupt movement.

My eyes dodged away from her
, trying to understand how I was in Esterious, how I was hearing laughter, seeing people at ease in this dark, secluded room. There was even some kind of game going in the corner that looked like a cross between pool and golf. It was clear by the crowd around the four players that heavy bets were placed on the game that was in play.

A waitress that
was showing way too much cleavage came to the table where we sat. She filled the glass in front of Justus and leered at me.

Justus threw
what looked and smelled like a bar of lye soap toward her. “We’ll take that privacy now,” he said sinfully to her.

She seemed disappointed as she picked up the bar of soap
, but she never said a word as she pulled a tin door across the front of our table, locking me in a makeshift stinky box with Justus.

I could hear whistles and
catcalls from the other side of the thin wall, but that was soon stifled as the most horrible music in creation began to play. I could not even fathom a word to describe it.

“Get me out of here
,” I said in a harsh whisper as the walls seemed to close in around me.

“If you had left when I told you to
, we would be in Chara by now. But no, you wanted a history lesson. So now we are stuck here until he gives up his hunt.”

I grasped my stomach with my arms
, remembering Donalt’s touch. I felt disgusting because of it. I wanted the hottest shower in existence to remove not only his memory, but the cold I could still feel in my core.

“What did he do to me?”

“He cast a net. It’s not going to matter in a few days’ time,” he promised, with little effort in his tone.

“A net to do what? Trap me?”

“Trap your offspring. He must be lost in the delusion that you are not as close to his defeat as you surely are. That, or he has confidence that your ego will win your internal war.”

“I told you I won that war. Are you telling me that he cursed any children I may have?” I asked as a sick
nausea absorbed me. I was years away from that life change, but the threat of what Justus had said would stop me cold from ever even considering having a family of my own.

“He seems to have endless back u
p plans. Signs of weakness. He’s losing his confidence. Good sign.”

My day
moved through my mind at a rapid speed. I couldn’t piece it all together. What Justus and Adonia had to do with Donalt. Why she thought that she was harboring the essence of Justus’.

The knowledge that at one time Drake himself planned to
move my soul into the body of that vile being I’d seen sent another wave of nausea through me.

“How or why did that woman have your
essence? Why was she frozen in death? Did you know they were planning to put my soul within her at one time?”

“I didn’t. You did.
You told me of those plots.”

“Stop it. Start talking
, or tell me how to get home.”

After a deep sigh and curious glance over me
, he spoke. “From what I understand, as soon as Donalt understood what I was to you, he planned to harbor my essence and control your second coming. Adonia didn’t run home to see her father against my will. She stole my essence. I followed. I had no idea Livingston would follow, or that Beth would. I’d told Livingston point blank that Donalt was staking a claim on his son and he needed to run far away. But I suppose Adonia had some kind of womanly bond with Beth; she had told her she was carrying a child. I can only imagine when Beth heard that she was quote-unquote ‘trapped,’ she went to the rescue thinking of an unborn child, as any young mother would do.”

He leaned back against the sour, t
orn cushions. “Adonia was played as all mirrors are. When she arrived at the palace with her prize, she was immediately placed in suspended animation. Livingston and Beth tried to free her. They were attacked. I tried to stop it, yet, apparently, my time to become dormant had arrived.”

“You didn’t see that coming?” I mocked.

“I did. But like a fool, I thought Livingston would listen to me. That he would have at least ensured his soul mate would have remained behind. But he didn’t. And I was out of time. Fate had its say, Sovereign.”

“I heard a different story. I heard Adonia convinced Livingston to take her h
ome—that she was trapped, then he came to you and told you. Beth went because she was from Esterious and knew she could lead them to you.”

“Same facts
, different order. He told me he took her—that she was trapped. I knew what she had done to me. What she had. I left. They followed.”

“What is the deal with the essence?”

“Adonia used magic to take my essence from my belongings.”

“How could you tell something like that?”

“Everything felt new.”

I gawked at him like he was
a fool.

“You know what I’m talking about. How
a new bed feels different, a new chair, clothes. We leave a mark everywhere we go, a deep one where we go every day. While I was fighting—staying as far away from her as possible—she stripped me.”

“Is that why you struck her?”

“Exactly why. Because my essence was within her, your soul would have easily taken her as a host.” He glanced away. “Donalt knew if you bypassed him completely and took his reign that he could strike her vessel with my essence within it. Because I am your First, you would have been weak enough for him to get one last blow in.”

That maternal feeling was firing off in my soul once more
. Somehow, I knew without a doubt that the blow Donalt would have given Adonia would have killed Justus—which was crazy; he was already the walking dead.

I needed to figure out what this ‘First’ business was all about, but I wasn’t going to ask him, not yet anyway.

I wanted to thank him for saving me from two different ways that Donalt had planned to take me out, but my pride stopped me. Instead, I told myself: one, my soul would have never been put in that vessel; and two, no blow to Justus should hurt me. I didn’t even know him. He may look twenty, might be some kind of walking God, but as far as I cared, he was a stranger, apparently a black sheep from my father’s past.

That was a tough lie to swallow, but I choked it down.

“I didn’t feel anything when you struck her, so obviously you prevented nothing.”

“Because I can end my essence. If anyone else had dared to do that
, you would have felt something.”

“All right
, fine—I give. Let’s play this imaginary game for a moment. What is a First? Why on Earth would a blow to you hurt me?”

I saw a glint move across his stare. “A First is the first bein
g created from the sovereign’s essence. Basically, in a way, I made you a sovereign, just as the first child gives the title of mother to the woman that carried it. My job, duty, is to protect you. To help advise you on how to protect the line of Escorts that we will create. You protect me. I protect you.”

“All right, funny. Real funny.”

He raised his brow to question me.

“I’m aware I have dark energy in me. One of Landen’s friends, Phoenix, explained that all to
o well to me. I don’t need you showing up and telling me that I am creating exactly what I’m set to destroy.”

“Well
, good, because that’s not what I’m doing.”

I furrowed my brow at him.

“You’re not ready to hear this, or understand it. You’re not ready for what Chara needs you to do, what the Creator needs you to do. You won’t be until you learn to listen.”

“I heard that
lesson, too. I heard every word you said.”

“Heard
,” he repeated as he looked away.

I let the silence linger for a moment
, taking in deep breaths and trying to ‘listen,’ but I couldn’t shut my mind down. None of this made sense.

“How long do we have to stay here?” I asked, trying not to breathe in the foul odor of our little box.

“Those tears I threw
on Donalt would have enraged him, caused him to send out a call to all in his command. The strings are blocked right now. They will give up soon enough.”

Tears? I wasn’t even going to ask.

“Do you have any idea how furious Landen is going to be when he figures out I’m gone? That I’m here?”

“Not under his command, yet.
”

“But you’
re under mine. Get me out of here.”

“No. I am not under the command of
your ego.”

“Quit saying that.”

“Then let your soul out of its cage. It will definitely make what is coming at you easier.”

“Which is
?”

“I don’t want to spoil the surprise
,” he said, mockingly raising his brow.

“How is this
Esterious?” I asked as I heard laughter from the other side of the wall.

“This is w
here the warriors come to blow off steam.”

“Oh
, so now they have warriors, too? I thought the bad guys were the priest?”

“Do you think that people like Alamos fight on the front lines? No.
They find poor, blind souls to do that.”

“So the warriors are permitted to laugh?”