Synergy (15 page)

I felt grief and anger as memories of pleas to the man that was my f
ather
went unheard. I saw myself pray to the goddesses...I pra
yed to Isis, and she responded. E
ach and every time.

“I thought the trembles of the ground were the answers to my prayers
...
that the g
oddess had heard me and was honoring my request.”

Silas’ hand tightened around mine. “Everyone ignored the rumbling ground. They saw it as annoyance, but you’d smile and bow as your eyes gazed and met the heavens.” His eyes captured mine. “The night before August 24th, you told me that you’d rather die than marry anyone you didn’t love. You were praying for an escape from your marriage, and you didn’t care where it came from.”

“I asked you to take me away, but you refused,” I said as I remembered the words leaving my lips.

“You didn’t love me
.
..not the way I loved you. You wanted your independence; not the heart of a man.”

I gazed forward as I watched the memory of our encounter under the stars that last night. Silas was wrong; I did love him then. I’d never taken the notion of love at first sight to be true until I laid eyes on him. I thought he was a gift from Isis, a strong man that could not only love me fiercely, but protect me; a man that respected and adored my independence. As strong as that emotion was, I couldn’t tell him how I felt about him that night. Even today, the words escaped me. Maybe it was because I didn’t want to give him hope that I could love him in this life, or maybe it was because it was an emotion that words couldn’t clearly describe in any language.

“So you refused me out of pride,” I said, feeling anger and rejection that seemed all too familiar.

“I said no, out of love. I couldn’t have given you a life you deserved. In my mind, you deserved all the jewels of the world. A home, a family - I couldn’t give that to you. I told you that I’d always be there, in the dead of night when you needed to speak your mind. That I would make the years of your life as peaceful and pleasant as I could - but you must marry the man your father had chosen for you.”

“I told you Isis would deliver me
...
she would bring me my independence,” I said in a trembling voice as that memory became mine once again.

He let out a sigh. “You didn’t tell me that; you promised me that.”  His eyes met mine, and I saw regret there. “You left me at dawn and went to the temple. I had to fight that day. Just as my victory came and my freedom was earned, the ash climbed out of the
mountaintop
...
the ground rumbled. While others looked on, stunned at Mother Nature’s display, I ran
...
I ran to find you.”

I could see it, the ash, how powerful it was. I was in awe of nature’s display. Rational fear came to the people around me. Some people grabbed what they could and ran from the city, others sought shelter in their homes. I couldn’t make myself go home. I wanted to stay in the temple. It wasn’t long before the ash was so thick that it covered the sun – darkness was born in the middle of the day. Then the hollow rocks began to fall.

The peaceful balance of the city left as terror came. Slaves that were meant to protect their masters began to flee to find their own families, their own safety.

Silas, still in all of his armor, found me on the streets urging women, children, and slaves into the sanctuary of the temple. He tried to get me to go to my father. He told me they were escaping, that he’d promised my father that he’d bring me to the man I was meant to marry. As I argued with him, he picked me up and carried me down the streets.

When the falling rocks became heavier, he put me down, fearing I would get hurt. As soon as I was free, I ran, but he caught me again and forced me to walk forward. We’d almost reached my father’s home. I could see the servants loading wheel barrels with goods and pushing them through the crowded streets. Bodies of those that had fallen victim to the push of the crowd and the falling rocks were along the streets
...
the cries of the children
...
their mothers
...
it was heartbreaking.

I looked up at Silas. “This is my fault! I
must
stop it. Because of you, precious minutes have already been lost!”

With those angry words, I ran from his side, toward the temple.  Tears were streaming down my face as the reality of the moment came to me. I asked to be saved from my
marriage;
I told the g
oddess I would prefer death. I feared that she took my words too literally, though, and now my city was perishing.

As I ran to the temple, women, children, and slaves began to follow me. They knew that I’d al
ways shown a connection to the g
oddess, that when I prayed to her on their behalf in the past, their troubles had been relieved.

When I reached temple, others had to help me open the doors. The rocks that had fallen were at least three feet deep. Just as the door opened, I felt Silas’ strong hand on my shoulder. I turned and looked fiercely up at him. “If you’d loved me enough to take me from here, this wouldn’t hav
e happened. Let me speak to my g
oddess, let me ask for forgiveness – for the live
s of the innocents in this city!
”

“I do love you!” he screamed over the crowd.

His words halted my racing heart. I stared up at him, and in the midst of the chaos I found myself alone with him.

“Then help me pray for our redemption,” I said boldly, still not finding the courage to tell him that I loved him as much as, if not more than
,
he loved me.

             
Silas’ powerful
arms held the door open while he screamed for those on street to follow us. The air was thick with smoke; it was so dark that my lamp could barely light the way to the altar.

A young girl helped me light candles, and I fell to my knees and prayed.  Silas came to my side and knelt down. The only sounds were the coughs of the people that had followed us there. I prayed with every ounce of my energy. I tol
d the g
oddess that I was a fool. T
hat I should have trusted her to bring the man that I was to love to me. That I should have been patient for her to light my path. I promised her that if she would set me free from this answered prayer that I would be her voice, that I would stand for innocents. That I would not fear the men in this world. That I would be the change. I told her that even though I didn’t deserve Silas, I would always cherish
him;
that I would let him protect me, let him be my shield when the world refused to hear the voice of a woman. I asked for a peaceful escape for my city, I asked for forgiveness
...
I asked for guidance.

The coughing stopped almost instantly. I looked behind me to see the people who had followed me
lying
across the floor as if they were sleeping peacefully. My eyes felt heavy. I was exhausted. I felt Silas
’
arms go around me and pull me to his chest. He laid us down beneath the altar, and I closed my eyes as I listened to the calm beating of his heart.

T
he dream began then. I saw the g
oddess in all of her wonder, all of her power. In the dream, I saw the entire world, places I’d only heard of.
Great cities, small villages, land
that had yet
to
be discovered. I saw a darkness linger near innocence. I never heard the words or the command of my path, but I felt it. I felt her tell me that now I must save more than my city; I must save the light in this world. I must be
the face that the innocents see
at the moment the darkness comes for them, that I must pull them into the light that they were.

Silas was at my side in that dream. I watched as his chest swelled with pride, as his eyes filled with gratitude for the love we felt for each other, for the passion we felt for the weak. The dream was near endless, blissful.

When I finally opened my eyes, I felt the last drops of rain on my warm skin. I
rose
up to see us lying across ash. Pools of water reflected the purple sunset. I stood quickly, trying to understand where I was. I found Silas next to me and shook him violently to wake him.

We had no idea where we were. My city was gone, and panic consumed me.

“How?” I asked breathlessly as I forced myself to focus on the reality I was in now, as I let a past that I no longer wanted to remember fall into my growing memories. “How were our bodies unharmed, sleeping above the ash?”

Silas stretched his arm around me and pulled me against him, allowing his calm touch to absorb me.

“We never understood the how,” he said quietly. “We awoke on ash that had buried the city. There was nothing left. From the clear sky, we knew days had passed. When we traveled to the closest city, we discovered that almost twenty years had passed since that day. That Pompeii was barely a memory.”

“So what are you? What was I? A ghost?”

He was silent for a moment as he tried to find a way to explain it to me. “I don’t think there’s a word. ‘Undead’ would be the closest in any language.”

“We just didn’t die? We just kept living?”

“Yeah, it took us a while to understand that. We were never tired. We would only sleep when we wanted to dream, when we
wanted to seek advice from the g
ods and
g
oddesses
. Hunger
never came. Dirt
wouldn’t linger on our bodies -
-
it would just fall away. Our eyes glowed, so much so that often we didn’t make eye contac
t with anyone.”

“When did this war with darkness begin? When did you find a hatred of Escorts?”

“Immediately,” he said as he moved his arm from around me. I knew he was upset that I didn’t have more questions about the time we loved each other, the words we said to each other then. My focus was still on how to bring peace to Draven. “But it’s not like what you see now, shadows and whispers. It was more about feeding those that were hungry. Ensuring that artists and free minds were protected while they followed the call of their soul. We had many battles, and each battle would force us to flee to another city, to change the way we looked, to start over.”

“Why?”

“I would always fight for you, for anyone who needed me to, and when a blade did pierce my skin, blood didn’t come. The people around us would see us as evil, a ghost, witch, even as demons. The fact that we couldn’t die caused rational minds to see us as the darkness we were fighting. We had to run.”

What happened this morning flashed through my memory, how painful it was when I was dying. I understood what Draven was saying before. He wasn’t telling me that I would face all of the times I’d dodged death before; he was telling me that I would feel what I began to feel this morning, that I would I die a thousand deaths. I still didn’t understand, though. I didn’t understand how I got here, how I w
ent from that life to fighting E
scorts, to meeting Draven for the first time, dying for him, being born in this life, what we were fighting now, or how it all connected. Though my eyes were open to what the nightmare was really about, that I knew now that it wasn’t Draven behind that door, I didn’t understand what my mom was saying, how I connected to those boys Bianca had, how Draven
connected to that p
rince.

“When did we figure out what we were? When did the battle with the Escorts begin?” I asked
.

He didn’t answer me.

“Silas, I’m asking you for a reason, and it’s not just to save Draven. I’m almost positive that I’ve provoked the devil himself. I have to protect Monroe. I have to figure out how the people I thought would help me now need my help -
-
if it’s even them. How to do what everyone thinks I can.”

“You have to remember if you’re going to help.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“Aren't you afraid that if you remember, you’ll know how much you love me? That you see that the love you think you have for Draven can’t compare to what we had? Are you willing to take that risk to help people you don’t even know?”

I felt my stomach tying itself in knots. A thousand scenarios rushed through my mind. I told myself that my mom would never lead me into something that would take Draven away from me, that regardless of what I remembered, I walked away from Silas and into Draven’s arms. The question was not if
I would
stop loving him as I dove deeper into my memories; it was if I were prepared to live with the guilt, to feel that goodbye to Silas, for it not to be some past life, but a part of me now.

I held on to the idea that those people that I didn’t know, the on
es which
needed my help, were people that could help stop this, they could help find balance in this world. That if that was Landen with Bianca, that Willow would die with him, that the devil would find victory in that moment.

I nodded. “Open the door, Silas.”