Ricochet Through Time (Echo Trilogy Book 3) (13 page)

“Can’t we just ride Isis together?” I asked, nervous about attempting to command such a large creature.

“We could, but it would slow us down . . . more so, I think, than will your limited equestrian proficiency.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “You strike me as a quick learner.”

I shrugged, unsure of anything at the moment.

Heru crouched before me. “Fear not, Little Ivanov. I will be by your side.” He looked into my eyes, the black-rimmed gold of his irises shining with promise. “So long as you are here, with me, I will not let you fall.”

My throat constricted, and my eyes stung.

“All you must do is trust in me.”

Nausea forgotten, I nodded once. “Always.”

“Lex.” I was being shaken by the shoulder, yanked from sleep. I recognized Heru’s voice through the haze of exhaustion that comes from being jarred out of the deepest of sleeps.

I groaned, curling in on myself. I was so incredibly tired. For days, we hadn’t stopped to rest for more than what the horses’ needs necessitated. Only when I nearly toppled from my saddle had Heru relented on driving us onward. We could afford a few hours, he’d said. He would wake me if there was trouble.

Which meant: there was trouble. Apep-Set was here.

“Lex! We have to get going—now.”

A tear snuck between my lashes and snaked across my temple. “No.”

“Lex, please. The horses are saddled and packed. We must—”

I shook my head and caught his hand, pulling it from my shoulder as I gathered it between both of mine. “No, Heru. Not this time.” I opened my eyes to see his heartbreaking expression. Defiance shone in his stare, the golden hue of his irises silvered by the moonlight, but resignation was clear on his face.

He knew. It was time.

“I can’t do this anymore. The running . . . the never stopping.” I shook my head again, my chest convulsing with suppressed sobs. We’d been at it for weeks. “It can’t be good for the babies.”

Heru gathered me up off my sleeping roll. “I knew this day would come, but I cannot say I’m prepared. I’d hoped for just a little while longer . . .”

“I—I’m sorry,” I cried against his shoulder. He smelled of woodsmoke, dirt, and sweat, and of
him
. His scent surrounded me, soothing my raw desperation as much as his words or gentle caresses ever could. “I—I tried to—”

“I know, Little Ivanov. I know.” He stroked my unkempt hair and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “Do you know how close Apep-Set must be to trigger the time jump?”

I shook my head, fingers clutching the lapels of his wool coat. “Last time he was right in front of me, but that was a couple months ago.” I sniffled. “The twins should be stronger now, don’t you think?”

Heru’s arms tightened around me. “Let us hope, for both our sakes, they need not let him draw quite so close to you this time.” Heru would need to hold Apep-Set off long enough that his presence—and my fear—triggered the twins’ sheuts into jumping me backward in time. He would then need to incapacitate Set, allowing for his own escape. He was the better fighter of the two, always had been, so once I was out of the way, I had little doubt that he would handle the situation well enough. Of course, that didn’t stop me from worrying.

After another kiss atop my head, Heru was back to stroking my hair with one hand, the other drawing slow, soothing circles on my lower back. “Rest now, Little Ivanov. Save your strength for whatever you must face next.”

Not fifteen minutes later, the careful footfalls of someone picking their way through the fallen leaves and scant underbrush to the east of our clearing reached our sensitive ears. I was already dressed in my wool and leathers, my drawstring coin purse tucked safely underneath my jacket. I’d stowed a small stash of dried meat and stale corn cakes, a wooden canteen filled with drinkable water, and a set of flint and steel in the leather satchel slung across my body. I was as ready as I could be for whatever lay waiting in Iceland, my next destination.

I’d never felt less ready for anything in my life.

“I know you’re there,” Heru called out, placing himself between me and the sounds of steady movement in the woods beyond.

The noise paused, my heart beating thunderously in the relative silence. I tried to regulate my breathing, or at least breathe more quietly, but it proved pointless. Every inhale and exhale sounded like a screaming gale to my ears.

“Of course I’m here,” Set said. Or rather,
Apep
said. His accent was much as I remembered it the last time I’d heard him speak, with Carson’s voice rather than Set’s—very British and very proper. “Can you not feel her—the power of the sheuts radiating from her . . .”

“Power that will never be yours,” Heru said.

Apep-Set chuckled, the sound sending goose bumps cascading over my skin. “You amuse me greatly, cousin. Accept the reality of the situation. I am here. It is over. You’ve lost, and I’ve won.” His silhouette became visible, moving between the barren, moon-shadowed trees.

Heru turned partway to glance at me, his eyebrows raised in question.

I shook my head and pressed my hands against my slightly protruding belly, the baby bump undetectable under my layers of clothing. Nothing yet from the twins, not even a stirring.

“I’ve won
everything
,” Apep-Set said, continuing his gloating diatribe. He stepped over a fallen log and into the clearing, then paused to take in the scene. “How quaint.” He was maybe thirty yards away, far too close for my liking.

With his next, cautious step toward us, my heart rate doubled. Not a second later, I felt a fluttering sensation within, closely followed by a roil of nausea and a cramp that bent me nearly double. I hugged my middle as tendrils of misty At surrounded me, glowing with every color of the rainbow. They grew more robust, curling loosely around my legs and arms, my torso, and lastly my head.

“No!” Apep-Set yelled, launching forward at a dead sprint. “
Noooooooo . . .
”

In a blink, Apep-Set and Heru were gone.
I
was gone.

The world lurched, and a moment later, an orchestra of stars burst into existence all around me, a brilliant, blinding symphony of light. I dropped to my knees on cold, jagged rock. I leaned forward, holding myself up with one hand, and emptied the contents of my stomach over a cliff. When there was nothing left to bring up, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and sat on my heels, staring out at an ocean far darker than the dazzling night sky above.

It was done. I was in Iceland, and Heru was gone, waiting for me to find him once more.

Surrounded by the cold solace of the infinite universe spreading out above the sea, I buried my face in my hands, hunched in on myself, and let myself cry. Zero shame. I’d earned this, damn it. Because I was exhausted, and now I would get to do it all over again.

“I see her. There!” I barely heard the words—spoken in the original tongue—through the whip and roar of the salty wind and the crash of sea so far below. “Hurry, Nik! We do not have much time.”

“Oh, Lex,” Aset’s voice was gentle as her son scooped me up like a small child trembling from bad dreams. My reality had become the stuff of bad dreams.

I bounced a little as Nik carried me away from the cliffside, but I didn’t mind. His heat seeped in through my leathers, and I soaked up the warmth. Moments later, I was tucked into a cocoon of furs and thick woolen blankets, thawing my icy fingers over a crackling fire while Aset fussed around me, pinching me here, prodding me there. They’d set up a small camp in a barren dell not far from the seaside cliffs.

“You have not been receiving adequate sustenance,” Aset said, her tone clearly disapproving. She spoke to me in the original tongue, as our respective accents and versions of English were different enough to make communication in that language difficult.

“Mother, you are wasting time.”

“Ah, too true, my son.” Aset extended her arm behind her, to where Nik was crouched by the fire, feeding a few small pieces of wood into the flames. “Hand me a horn of broth, then start packing. We must leave this place soon.”

“Wh—where are we going?” I asked between chattering teeth. “And where exactly are we now? And when?”

“Oh, dear Lex.” Aset handed me a large horn cup filled with a steaming broth, the rich, herbaceous scent making my mouth water. “We are in Iceland—the Látrabjarg cliffs—and it is March of the year 1624.” She brushed a grimy chunk of hair out of my eyes. “Unfortunately, Nik and I must be leaving you soon, for we dare not test the reach of the twins’ memory-blocking power.”

I shook my head, my eyes opened wide. I must have heard her wrong. They couldn’t be leaving me alone here . . . not yet. “Heru—I have to find Heru.”

“No, dear Lex.” Aset’s warm amber eyes glowed with sympathy in the firelight. “You will not be in this time for much longer, anyway, certainly not long enough to reach my brother.” She took a deep breath. “Something went, well, not wrong exactly, but . . . your last temporal jump fell a bit short of Heru’s location. Perhaps the twins overreached.” She shrugged. “There is no way to know, only that this is where we were meant to meet you, according to this,” she said, holding up her wrist with the At bracelet.

“It is what
is
,” Nik said, his eyes rainbow moonstones in the firelight; Re had taken over.

I stared at them, not blinking and far from understanding. “What are you saying?”

“Heru is not here on this distant isle.” Aset smiled, like doing so might help me process her meaning. It didn’t. “So you must see now that you cannot remain in this time for much longer.”

Heart thudding in my chest and breaths coming faster, I alternated between looking at Aset and looking at Re-Nik, hoping something in their compassionate expressions would explain exactly how I was supposed to get myself out of this tangle. Because this was one hell of a whoopsie.

I swallowed roughly. The broth that had smelled so appetizing only moments before now turned my stomach. “And Apep . . . ?”

They exchanged a veiled glance.

“He must be on his way here now.” I studied their faces, not understanding their hesitancy to respond. “That is why you have to get going, right?”

“No, Lex.” Aset’s features filled with pity and something that looked an awful lot like wariness. “Apep may have sensed the presence of the sheuts you carry, and it is likely that he is already heading this way, but he will not reach this place for weeks.”

The meaning of her words was lost on me.

“Apep is currently in Paris,” Re-Nik said. “Because your brief presence in this time has created a barely perceptible time anomaly in the At, he has had no way to prepare for your arrival by making a preemptive voyage here. Unfortunately, this time you are on your own.”

“Then . . .” I looked at Aset, searching her gentle amber eyes. “How am I supposed to leave?”

“A leap of faith, dear Lex,” Aset said, light and shadows dancing over her features, making her expression impossible to read. She placed a hand on my wrist. “You must force the twins to make their next jump back in time. It will not be pleasant, but, as Re says, it is what
is
.”

“Which means
what
, exactly?”

She cleared her throat. “You must leap, as I said.”

“I do not understand . . .”

“Off the cliff.”

I stared at her, not blinking, not speaking. I was barely even breathing.

“You must give us some time to make our departure. We will leave you the broth and the fire and the furs to keep you warm while you pass the time. It should not be so bad. Nik and I have already seen you in your next destination, so rest assured that you will survive this.”

“You—you want me to jump off the cliff?”

“Yes.”

I pointed up the hill. “
That
cliff? The one with the jagged rocks and crashing waves at the bottom?”

“Yes.”

I pressed my lips together, a million things to say but momentarily struck dumb.

“But you will want to change into this, first,” Aset said, handing me a leather-wrapped bundle about the size of a pie box. She placed it on the ground between us. “Within, you will find a shift and a gown suitable for your next destination. The gown is simple but well-made and will allow you to blend in.” She laughed softly, but it sounded forced. “You would certainly stand out in your current attire.”

“And then I jump off the cliff.”

“Yes, Lex. You change, and then you jump off the cliff.”

“I see.” I turned to the side as my stomach heaved, but thankfully nothing came up. I’d already lost it all over the edge of the cliff.

The damned cliff.

***

I stood on the edge of the precipice alone, the stars’ bright glow dimming as the edge of the horizon grayed, a harbinger of the approaching morning. My midnight woolen skirt flapped around my legs. The stone beneath my feet felt like ice, numbing me from the ground up. My hair whipped in every direction, dark ribbons with a mind of their own.

I couldn’t do it.

Far below, the ocean waves taunted me, crashing against the cliffs relentlessly. They would withdraw, revealing the poorly concealed rocks jutting up from the ocean floor, only to surge forward once more, a writhing behemoth waiting to consume my broken body.

I couldn’t jump.

My heart was in my throat, and my lungs were filled with panic instead of air. My pulse whooshed in my ears, accompanying the mocking waves so far below.

I couldn’t do it this way, looking over the edge. Taking a single step. Falling.

I turned away from the cliff and marched back several yards. Bowing my head, I curled my fingers into fists and took a deep breath. Then another.