Resonance 4th Edits - Bleeding Worlds Bk 3 (11 page)

“Your mother. Yes, I remember. Can I…see her?”

Gwynn moved closer to Adrastia and waved Allison over.

The child raced out the door to her father. After giving her a brief squeeze, he turned her around to face Adrastia, who crouched down so she could be eye level with the little girl.

“And how old are you now?” Adrastia asked.

“Four,” Allison replied, arm outstretched and four fingers raised for emphasis.

Adrastia’s eyes widened.
Four?
She looked at the girl’s raised arm and saw the markings.

“You’ve already awakened,” she said.

Allison cocked her head and inspected Adrastia. Her hand stretched just enough for her fingers to brush Adrastia’s face, sending electrical stings across her cheek.

“How did you get so old?” Allison asked.

“Allie!” Sophia jogged toward them and scooped the girl up into her arms. “You should say sorry to Daddy’s friend.”

The little girl stared at Adrastia.

“Well?” Sophia tapped her foot.

“I did,” Allison whined. “Tell her,” she pleaded to Adrastia.

“It’s fine. In her own way, she said sorry. Besides, sometimes I wonder the same thing.”

“Well, I suppose you two have a lot to talk about,” Sophia said. “I’ll keep the munchkin busy until Grandpa gets back.”

Sophia swooped Allison through the air, guiding her back to the cottage.

“You’ll say goodbye before you go, right?” the little girl called over her shoulder.

Adrastia smiled and nodded.

“I don’t think she saw you,” Gwynn said.

“It doesn’t matter. She knows. So…an Anunnaki at the age of four. That must be difficult.”

Gwynn laughed.

“You don’t know the half of it. We had to put Wards around the property—she almost fell into the Veil. But Pridament’s been helping us. I’m not sure how, but he’s smuggled things out of Asgard—the Wards, even a Prometheus Circle so she can sleep without destroying the house because of a bad dream. I’d say he saved all our lives.”

“Pridament. So he would be Grandpa.”

Gwynn nodded.

“Good. That’s wonderful. But why aren’t you training her?”

Gwynn’s face fell.

“I can’t. Actually, Pridament’s been teaching me too. Ever since Cain took my arm, I haven’t been able to summon Xanthe, or do anything more than heal aching muscles. Bastard made me an invalid in more ways than one.”

Adrastia grabbed his shoulder.

“Don’t talk that way.” Her grip tightened. “You can’t just give up. Your story isn’t finished yet.”

Gwynn pulled away from her.

“When it comes to Anunnaki, Fallen, Ragnarok, and any other insanity, yes, I am finished. I have a wife and daughter I need to think about. We’ve made a good life here.”

He stared hard into her eyes—his determination bordering on rage. Then he blinked, looking at her like it was the first time.

She turned her head away from the intensity of his gaze.

“Adrastia, look at me,” he said.

She wouldn’t. No, that wasn’t true—she couldn’t. Because he
was
seeing her for the first time.

“Look at me,” he repeated in a tone only a father could know—not unkind, but leaving no room for questioning.

It was possible she was one of the most powerful women in existence—she had certainly lived longer than any other. But some part of her couldn’t resist Gwynn’s voice—as though childhood programmed her to respond to its call. No amount of time or power could overide it. Perhaps every person was wired in a similar fashion during childhood. It would explain why all parents learned to adopt the same tone.

She turned and stared him in the eye. On some level, she did it because fighting her ingrained obedience seemed too hard. On another, she did it to defy him, to challenge him to see her secrets.

Am I a puzzle you can solve?

Gwynn stood a full head taller than her. He bent down, so his eyes were level with her own.

“How is that possible?” he asked.

“I…don’t know what you’re talking about.” It took effort not to look away again. A thousand lifetimes she’d been the observer, the one with the knowledge. Being studied felt like being violated.

Gwynn stood straight, taking her shoulder with his one hand as if preparing to prevent her escape.

“How is it you have my daughter’s eyes?”

Her face fell from his. Tears burned behind her eyes, and a gasp caught in her throat.

“You’re her,” he nodded toward the cabin. “I’m not sure how, but you’re Allison, aren’t you? I never noticed…well, of course, I wouldn’t, right? Until I had a daughter, how could I know you had her eyes?”

Adrastia sighed.

“You couldn’t.”

“So explain it to me.”

He was fighting back tears. Of course he was, because all the answers to
Why would my daughter run through time?
weren’t good ones.

“I was going to. That’s what I meant when I said Jason didn’t need to know all the answers to why I left you for the Valkyries. I didn’t leave both of you, I left
you.
”

“Fine, but why? Why leave me for the Valkyries, why be my imaginary friend for the first eight years of my life? Why suddenly appear again to turn my life upside down?”

The deep breath she took caught in her suppressed sobs. She’d waited so many years to tell him her story, they weren’t worth counting. But where to start? Why? So many whys. She tried to steady her breathing, so the words came out right.

“Because you told me to,” she said.

His hand slipped away from her shoulder. He took a step back, running his left hand through his hair, and crumbled to the ground.

Adrastia sat down as well, staying just outside his reach.

“See, my father told me stories,” she said. “About Suture, about the bleed throughs, and how the first time he went to investigate one, he was taken by the Valkyries to Asgard, where he met my mother. When the bleed through appeared, I made Zeus put me on that team. I wanted to make sure you would get to Asgard. Because…”
Because I was still naive enough to believe things were going the way they should.
“…Because I knew you would meet Sophia. And I knew the two of you would find some happiness.”

“But that doesn’t last, does it?” Gwynn asked.

Does anything?
she wondered.
Thousands of years—countless generations gone—the only thing that seems to last is me…and Cain.

“No,” she said. “It doesn’t. Eventually, everything falls apart. Mom dies. You die. And I go running through time to try and fix it.”

“Because I told you to?”

“In a way. Your actual words were to kill Cain. You tore a hole in the Veil, unlike any I’d ever seen, and you told me to go. You said you would send me to a time when Cain was vulnerable, when I would be able to defeat him. The only problem was…” she closed her eyes, thinking about the moment she realized her father wasn’t perfect. When she realized his mistake and what it meant. “You sent me back too far. When I arrived, you were just born. I knew for eight years there would be no difference between Cain and the person who would become my father. So I stayed close. My ability is like a better version of Pridament’s trick. I don’t change myself, I just make people see what I want them to, even if that means seeing nothing.”

“And that’s how you were able to be my ‘imaginary’ friend?”

She nodded.

“I don’t even remember how the idea came to me. But it was a way to stay close and make sure I didn’t miss anything important. Part of me even believed I could avoid Cain existing at all. I was so confident that if I acted as an influence on your early life, I could teach you better. I would be the moral scalpel to carve away the cancer that would be Cain.”

She gave a rueful laugh and shook her head.

“I was so stupid. You taught me,
If the universe decides something has to happen, it’ll find a way.
I forgot that lesson. On the day when the world divided, I was in your room while you tried to decide if you were going to run away or not. I whispered in your ear—”

“Go with your parents,” Gwynn said.

“And you did. But I was too late. The version of you who would become Cain already made up his mind to run. I watched your parents drive away with you and felt so proud. I’d accomplished my mission without having to hurt anyone.”

“So what tipped you off?”

Adrastia shrugged.

“It felt too easy. I thought I’d feel something different—a shift in reality. When that didn’t happen, I decided to test my theory. I entered the Veil and listened for your song. After spending so much time with you, as your daughter, and then your friend, I could hear the song of your soul without even straining against the noise of everyone else’s. Once inside the Veil, I learned my mistake. See, the Veil is everywhere and at every time all at once. People, we’re not like that. We move in a linear line through a linear existence. Entering the Veil, I couldn’t hear your song from the future—I was too rooted in the time I occupied. So I expected to hear only one song.”

“But you heard two.”

“I chased after that second song. A billion worlds to choose from. If I chose wrong, I’d never find him in time.”

Gwynn rubbed at his eyes.

“You still showed up too late.”

She wanted to hit him. Yes, she’d made a mistake. But then, he didn’t know all of it. And she didn’t feel inclined to tell him. Not yet.

“He was just falling into the Veil, yes. And I followed him.”

“So, if you knew for certain he would be Cain,” Gwynn said, “why didn’t you just kill him?”

Weakness. It always came back to the same dichotomy—so strong, and yet too weak.

“I couldn’t do it. I’d watched him since he was an infant. I knew he was a good kid at that point. When I left the Veil and found him, he was so frightened.” She shook her head. “Just a lost, scared little boy crying for his mom. I couldn’t take him home—I didn’t know how. In my entire life, I have only seen you and Cain be able to create a path through time. And even then, I’ve only seen each of you do it once. All I could do was protect him, teach him, and hope I could change his destiny.”

“And what about Asgard? Did you think maybe I wouldn’t
want
to lose my arm?”

“That didn’t happen to my father. In my father’s past, Woten was a force for good who died at Cain’s hands. The reason the Valkyries took him to Asgard was because Woten discovered Cain was hunting him and took him to Asgard to keep him safe.”

“But Asgard itself is evidence of Woten’s evil. He displaced all those people, forcing them underground to make room for his grand vision of a collected world where he ruled as a god.”

“You have to believe me, the Asgard I knew wasn’t like that. Somewhere along the timeline, we changed things. Maybe it was something I did, or a world Cain or his followers destroyed, but something changed. I didn’t know until I was trapped in the bleed through. When the Tethers shorted out, I knew something was wrong.”

I’ve always been focused on one thing, missing the bigger picture. It was how Cain changed before I realized. It was how Woten became the villain without me noticing.

She stood up, brushing her skirt. She’d talked almost long enough. Brandt and Caelum would be ready to make their escape soon—she couldn’t fail them as well.

“You know the truth,” she said. “I can’t expect you to understand what I’ve been through or why I’ve done the things I have. I can only say I did them because I thought I was doing the right thing. When I’ve been in doubt, I tried to imagine the path you would take. I’ve made mistakes, too many for saying sorry to suffice. But while you judge me, I’ll remind you I’ve spent the last seven years in the Veil—which to me felt more like a thousand years—fighting Cain so you could find some peace. The trauma of your awakening when you were eight stifled the sound of your song from the Veil. It kept you safe for almost ten years. But that’s not true any longer. Cain is free. He will come looking for you. He can hear your song. I came to warn you.”

“But that’s not the only reason you came, is it?” Gwynn asked. “You went to Jason first, meaning you needed something I couldn’t give you—something you wanted to have before you found me. So why else are you here?”

She reached her hand to him. He stared at it, seemingly both frightened and curious at the same time.

“You won’t react,” she said. “I learned the danger from that, remember?”

He brought his hand up, hesitating a few inches from making contact.

“Why
did
that happen?” he asked.

“A reaction of colliding with something from your future. I tried to bring out your full potential by touching your soul with the memory I had of you. But only you can find your path. That’s why in the park all I did was sing your song, to help you find your way.”

He took her offered hand, and she helped him to his feet.

“So,” he said, “what’s the rest of the story?”

“Walk with me. I have an appointment to keep, so I need to walk past your wards.”

He continued to hold her hand as they walked down the slope toward the boundary.

I was wrong
, she thought.
I’m not preprogrammed to respond as his child—I just want to feel this connection again. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t kill Cain all those years ago, we’re the same—orphans lost in time, wanting nothing more than to find our parents.

“Do you know what the Fallen’s purpose is?” she asked.

Gwynn nodded.

“Pridament said they destroyed worlds as a sort of… holy mission. They thought the multiple worlds and copies of themselves were sinful shadows of the truth. By destroying those worlds and themselves, they believed they could find the source of existence, maybe even God itself.”

“As I fought Cain in the Veil, we witnessed its transformation, saw pathways to worlds destroyed and then the Veil itself segmented by the Bifrost fragments. When only nine worlds remained, it struck a memory within me regarding Norse cosmology. I thought if the multiverse now resembled the Norse system, and Elaios believed we’d entered the time of Ragnarok, maybe it was time to give serious thought to the prophesy.”