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“You chose with a blind eye,” Alamos said, taking in a deep breath. “You can’t feel me, can you?” I shook my head no. He looked to his side at Drake, then back to me. “Have you ever asked your mother why? Why she spoke the words that would keep you from ever knowing that I love you,” he looked at Drake, “that he loves you?”

I felt my stomach turn. My eyes moved to Perodine, but she refused to look at me. I looked back to Alamos; his dark eyes had softened. He wasn’t looking at me; he was looking at the person I was millions of years ago.

“Why?” I whispered just loud enough for Perodine to hear me.

She looked up, and I could see she was fighting back tears. “I had no choice. Alamos had evoked Drake’s dreams...you would have felt his love and the love of Landen…it would have been too much for you to understand,” she said in a low tone.

I felt my cheeks flush with anger and Landen’s hands on my arm, sending a calm through me.

“He deserved to dream, to see her as Landen did...don’t blame this on me,” Alamos said, turning to look at Perodine.

“What was your plan?” Perodine asked him. “For her to be terrified – and then for some evil angel to come to her and show her the emotion of love?”

“He’s not evil,” Alamos said in a firm tone.

“No, but the demons you taught him to play with are – the ones that found her in her peaceful sleep,” Perodine argued.

“If you hadn’t suppressed his emotions – his energy – he would have been able to release her from the pressure they applied,” Alamos argued back.

Perodine shook her head from side to side, glaring at Alamos. “And I suppose that is your excuse for giving him a seductive touch?” Perdoine said, looking from Alamos to Drake.

Alamos tilted his head and looked at Perodine. “Is that not what ‘bad’ soulmates are known for – our seductive touch? I only enhanced what was natural to him,” he said.

“You are an evil bastard,” Perodine said in a low tone. “If I was your soulmate – as you have proclaimed over the years – you would have never had the stomach to hold another woman; you have proved my point more than once,” she said coldly.

“Soulmate or not, I am human, and I have had a very long life; forgive me if I wanted the illusion of love – even if I knew it would only be for a moment.”

“How cruel can you be? You have plotted and planned to take the soul of our child and put it into the body of a daughter you conceived with another woman...you cannot even see how sick you really are,” Perodine said.

I knew what Perodine was talking about. Landen’s body and my body couldn’t be divided, and Drake’s solution to this was for my soul to merge into Adoina. Adoina and her soulmate, Justus, were close friends of my fathers. Their story was the first story I’d ever heard of Chara and Esterious.

“After all these years, having my two daughters as one seems to be nothing more than a small reward for my pain,” Alamos said, walking back to the table.

I stood up straight and took in a deep breath. Everyone was looking at me, waiting for what I had to say. I looked at Perodine, then to Alamos. “Undo it all; I want to feel everyone. I want Drake to forget every life beyond this one. Take everything you’ve done to us and undo it,” I said in a calm tone. The room remained silent. “Did you hear me?” I said louder, my eyes staring at Alamos. “I will feel and he will forget, and you all will see for the final time that nothing you do will take me from Landen. I have sympathy for the both of you – but neither of you had any right to toy with our lives. I am not you,” I said, looking at Perodine, “and Drake is not you,” I said, looking at Alamos. “You should have just left us all alone. Adoina would be alive, and Drake would have had a blissful childhood.” I looked behind me at Dane, Landen, and Marc, then continued, “He would have found unconditional love long before he ever searched for his soulmate. You have not counseled him; Beth is right: you ruined him – sentencing him to a lonely life, just as you have lived.”

I felt Landen stand behind me and his lips on the back of my head.

“
Those words cut into Drake and Alamos,”
he thought.

I knew he was telling me their emotion because he thought I was bringing more harm than good to the situation.

“I can’t help it; I’m sorry,” I said, looking at Drake. I stepped forward and reached for his hand. His touch was just as seductive as it always has been. He looked up slowly into my eyes, and I saw the pain that Landen had said I inflected. “If you forget, it won’t hurt anymore,” I whispered.

He moved his hand to my face, cradling it with his seductive touch. “If you remembered, you’d change your mind; you’d see that we’ve been fooled by our emotions before,” Drake said.

I moved my head side to side. “If we were meant to remember our past lives, it would come to us naturally. The universe has its reasons for that barrier,” I said, moving Drake’s hand from my face and letting go of him. I looked back at Landen and saw the confidence in his eyes that I felt coming from him.

I looked down, then walked slowly to the couch and fell into it. Dane was at my side. Beth followed, and she wrapped her arms around me as I cried quietly on her shoulder.

“Why not?” I heard Landen ask. “Let her feel him; I assure you, it will change nothing.”

“It is not that we do not want to,” Perodine answered. “It is because time moves forward. We cannot change what we have done. It is not a magic spell; it was a choice we made. If it was possible, I would not only do as Willow has asked - but I would take her memories of the nightmares away. All that you have lived through is now a part of you.”

Beth’s arms tightened around me; we were both grieving – grieving for a life that was taken from Drake. I heard August clear his throat, and I looked up from Beth’s shoulder to see him walking to the center of the room; I felt clarity inside of him. His wise eyes looked over Perodine, then Alamos, before looking across the room.

“This has been a very revealing evening,” August said into the room. “I think that now that all of our secrets are out in the open – we’ll be able to move forward.” He walked to the table where the scrolls were laid and looked down at them, then back to the room. “Forgive me if what I’m about to say offends you,” he said, looking from Alamos to Perodine, “but I think you’ve been both played as a fool.”

I could feel that he’d offended Perodine; she crossed her arms and waited for him to go on.

“We’re fighting darkness – not a man; a darkness that does not know the limits of time. Looking back over you lives, it is easy for me to see how it weaved itself into you. It never had a doubt that Aliyanna belonged to the two of you, or what her purpose was: to kill it. I would even guess that it helped you find the passage to the string – knowing it would take four million three hundred and thirty two years before she would return.” August paused as his eyes moved across the room.

“A lot of damage can be done in that amount of time; it was just too perfect that Drake was born here,” August said, looking looked at Alamos. “a boy that had the path you’d lived in front of him. Both of you were so consumed by your own past that you didn’t see it moving closer, closer and closer to the children – and now it’s upon us, the moment of truth. We need to put the anger and resentment behind us and find a way to beat this demon.”

Drake walked slowly over and sat on the couch across from me. As he stared deep into my eyes, his emotion was strong enough to cause Landen to turn and look at him. Inside Landen, I felt a remorse for Drake that I’d never felt before. Landen turned around and walked to the table, and Marc followed. I felt Perodine move all of her emotions down deep into her soul. Alamos followed the others.

“What are these books of?” Landen asked Alamos.

“Once I discovered your kind – the travelers – I asked them to bring me any knowledge of darkness, of a dark person living in immortality. These are the ones I’ve collected over time.” Alamos opened one of the books and flipped through the pages.

“You find a common story, a leader of many who turned dark. In most cases, it was moved out of the body it possessed with simple words,” Alamos said.

As I looked in his direction, I could feel hope building in all of us. Alamos must have sensed it, too; he looked around at all of us and shook his head no. “Every word I found, I said over Donalt; I thought if he died then I’d be released from this life. None of them worked; in fact, one time he caught me speaking them. His laugh bellowed through the wings of the palace. He said, ‘Those words are for my children; they cannot hurt the father.’ I assumed he’d gone mad at that point and resumed my role at his side, counting the days down.”

“Do you know where the knife is?” Perodine asked.

Alamos nodded yes. “You’ll need both Landen and Drake to retrieve it. The stone will not move unless the hands of the good and bad soulmate touch it at the same time.” We all looked at him, full of astonishment. “I said the words when I discovered that they were both in this life; my intention was to give reason to spare Drake’s life throughout the course of all the planets,” he said, defending himself.

“Did you read somewhere that I was a killer?” Landen asked bleakly.

“I can’t see everything in your chart. I also can’t put limits on a man who’s defending the woman he loves.” Alamos looked across the room at Drake. “I find it hard to believe that you’re both still standing.”

As he heard those words, Drake closed his eyes. I imagined that Alamos had encouraged him to make a final division between Landen and me, and Drake had declined. The new respect for Drake that I felt inside Landen told me that, more than likely, I was right.

“Where is it?” Landen asked, looking back at Alamos.

Alamos nodded his head in the direction of the observatory. “In the center of the pool, you will find a stone that is set deeper than the others. Beneath it, you will find a stone box; the knife is inside there.

Drake looked across to Landen. “Let’s go,” he said, standing.

Landen nodded and looked at me, and I stood to follow them. Beth stood and went to the doorway that led in the other direction; I felt her intent of finding them dry clothes. Landen and Drake walked side-by-side. Standing behind them, I felt divided; I loved Landen with every ounce of energy that I possessed, but I couldn’t help feeling a deep sympathy for Drake.

I could feel how uneasy Marc was. Dane let his hand rest on the small of my back. As we entered the observatory, I felt the chill of a November night in the air; I could only imagine how cold that water must be.

Alamos came in behind us and walked to the edge of the pool, then pointed to the center that was over fifteen feet away. “The water will get deeper; that’s how you’ll know you’re close,” he said, looking at Drake.

Landen and Drake slid out of their shoes and pulled their shirts over their heads; chills ran across both of their perfect bodies. As Drake rubbed his arms together to stay warm, I saw his tattoo. In my nightmares, it was of a dragon - but now it had been altered; the dragon now curled around a majestic willow tree. It didn’t matter that it shielded the dragon - I knew it was there. It was a grim reminder of the horror I’d always felt.

I moved my hand to cover my tattoo, my ankh, which Drake had marked with a star. My fear caused Landen to look in my direction, and when he saw me covering my wrist, he looked to Drake’s arm. Landen’s attention didn’t go unnoticed; everyone - including Drake - was watching me. Drake moved his hand to cover his arm from my view, then walked to edge of the pool and moved his legs over to wade in.

Chapter Nine

Landen walked to Drake’s side and moved his legs over the edge. As they waded forward, the water grew deeper; it was just over their waist when they reached the middle. I saw them look at the water as they moved their feet across the bottom of the pool.

“The water will get deeper than that when you get to it,” Alamos said across the pool. Drake waded to his left, and the water rose to midway on his chest. “Here,” he said to get Landen’s attention.

Landen waded in Drake’s direction. When he reached him, Landen nodded, and the two of them merged in the water. Seconds moved by, and the water suddenly grew still; I felt my heart begin to race. I could feel Landen’s frustration and anger. They both emerged at the same time.

“Move it to the left, and I’ll pick it up from the bottom,” Landen said to Drake.

Drake nodded, and they fell into the water again. In that instant, the water turned white; it was glowing, lighting the entire room. Landen and Drake came from the water at the same time, and Landen was holding the box. They were both taken aback by the glow around them. The water began to dim, and images of our family appeared on the surface; you could hear their cries as watery images of hands stretched out of the water. The room began to roar. Dane wrapped his arms as tight as he could around me, and Marc dove into the water to Landen’s side. A dark shadow appeared over them. Drake raised his hand and pushed a force at it. When his energy reached the darkness, the sound was as it was before: as loud as thunder. It vanished into the night sky, and the water returned to darkness. The cries of our family echoed along the stone walls.