The Forlorn (10 page)

“How do you know it’s me? I am just…”

“I was there the day of Agrippa’s birth, I held her in my arms much as I did the child birthed today. I saw the soul as she breathed her first. I recognize her in you.”

Rion slipped an arm around Mara’s shoulder and she leaned into him. “Mara has not been raised in our ways, my lady. There are many pieces of our history she is still learning. She will need time to understand what it is you are saying.”

“Of course. To understand and become of balanced heart with it. It is difficult at times for a reborn soul to find peace in a new life. We shall talk more soon. For today, you have need of your male. And that is what matters. Take your moments with him and cherish, for they are what is truly precious.”

She turned and limped away. No one stepped in her way. Mara studied her as she left.

She was no taller than Mara, and her body was thin and almost frail. Eaudne favored one side completely. And the scar on her arm…she must have suffered so horribly.

It made Mara’s own recent struggles seem trivial. The wounds on her own arms were fading quickly. She’d probably not even scar.

Eaudne had survived something so horrible, and was still there to this day. Apparently doing good and making an impact.

How could Mara do no less?

She had to at least try.

Rion rubbed her shoulder and Mara leaned her head against his chest. He was so strong and protective. Sweet and kind when it mattered.

She dropped her hand to her side, then laced her fingers through his.

No matter what happened in this world, at least she wasn’t alone anymore.

She had her family, and now she had him.

Nothing else really mattered. Her mother would be ok, the boys would be safe and happy, and so would Mara.

And now she knew it, too.

Chapter Thirty-One

Eaudne found her the next morning, while Mara walked around the gardens. Rion was in a meeting with his sister and a few of his brothers, and her mother had taken the boys down to the basement of the Ruling Hall where a small two room school was set up for the children who lived in the Hall. There weren’t many, less than twenty, but everyone thought the boys would enjoy participating, since school had been such a large part of their lives in Colorado.

It was the first time Mara had really been alone for more than fifteen minutes since the birth of the Blacks’ son. She had a lot to think about.

Eaudne was apparently waiting for her. The older woman stood when Mara walked by. “Child, please…sit, talk with me a while.”

Mara didn’t know what else to do, so she sat.

Eaudne patted her knee. “Still so scared. So questioning. Agrippa was often the same way.”

“I’m not her.”

“No. In many ways you are not. Different life experiences, different times. Most reborn souls never know of their previous lives. It itself is a rare event. Most souls do not earn the right to come back to any world.”

“So why me?”

“Only the Four Destinies can really know. I certainly do not.”

And she was Laquazzeana—what exactly
did
Eaudne know?

“How did she die? Agrippa?”

“The Dark Sorcerer. He took all but the Druid Goddess of that line, child. And he took all but a handful of my own children. Agrippa was consumed by the sorcerer’s blaze.” Eaudne held up her scarred hand. “I will tell you no more of how she died. You do not need those images burned upon
your
soul.”

“What does it mean for me?”

Eaudne was quiet for a while. “I do not quite know yet. But there is a reason for so many who were lost that day being reborn. Cassandra is a Nellana soul. Her mate is my own son Kilan reborn. Young Lana the healer, Bronwen, both daughters of my own heart reborn these past one hundred years.”

“Why now?”

Eaudne was quiet for a long while. “I will not lie to you. You know the wars are coming. The Dark Sorcerer killed so many people thousands of years ago. But he promised to return. I have feared these days ever since.”

Just how old was she? Mara couldn’t fathom… “I still don’t know why you think I am Agrippa.”

“I just know, sweet Mara. That is something you will have to take on faith. I do not know your role in these times, or why you were chosen. I do know that you are meant to be here.”

“So what am I supposed to
do
?”

“What you do every day. Live, breathe, love. That is all any of us can. When your destiny arrives, you will know and that is when you will make your choices. Not a moment before.”

It sounded both complicated and simple. “I…”

“Just think on my words. There are no real decisions to be made today. Other than those between you and your male. A fine one, is he. Strong, brave, quick of mind. You should be proud to claim him as yours.”

“We’re still learning about each other. I…I’m not ready for any more than that.”

“And there is nothing wrong with that. In my world, Dardaptoans of old, we would meet our mates—if we had one, as we didn’t always—and would take our time to know each other first. It is just Kennera’s Dardaptoans, those made in the last five thousand years who do things a bit differently. What is it called in the human world? Evolution? When Kennera’s Dardaptoans were first made, they needed their mates for survival. That need has continued to this day.”

“I don’t need Rion.” Did she? He had become very important to her, already. She knew that. But that didn’t mean…

“But you want him. All who look at the two of you can see it. Need will come with time.” Eaudne leveled a look at her. “You still struggle with that.”

Mara thought for a moment. “Maybe I do.”

“Take your time, but remember that each moment you wait is one you are willingly giving away. Every moment with the male you love is one that should be cherished. Every single one…promise me that you will remember that.”

Mara watched the other woman as Eaudne limped away a few minutes later. There was such sadness in the older woman. Such regret and longing. Was it just for the mate she’d obviously lost?

Her mother had the same sadness, didn’t she?

Because they’d lost the men they loved?

Mara stood, suddenly filled with the knowledge of exactly how she felt and what she must do.

She wanted him, and needed to tell him exactly that.

Chapter Thirty-Two

She found him in a small sitting room, one that was lined with bookshelves stuffed with ancient texts. He spent most of his free time there, studying. He had notebooks spread out in front of him. He had to have brought them from the human world.

The sign of something so normal to her made her certain of what choice she was about to make.

He looked up when she entered the room. His expression immediately turned worried and he stood. “Mara, love, what is it?”

“I don’t need you. I can live without you. Even here.”

His face tightened and he lifted a hand. “What are you saying?”

She didn’t want to hurt him, at all. She took a deep breath and gathered her thoughts a bit better. She met his hand with her own, and laced her fingers through his. His was so strong and warm. “I’m saying I don’t need you, but I want to know you. I want…to try.”

His face relaxed and some of the visible tension left his shoulders. He slipped his free hand behind her back and shifted her closer.

Mara let him. “I…think…if I was to be with any Dardaptoan guy it would be you. And I want to take the chance.”

“I’m here. And I always will be.”

Mara stood on tip-toe until
she
could brush her lips against his. Of course he would be there. She trusted him to, even after only knowing him a few days.

Rion
would
always be there. She knew that, and had realized it when she was with Eaudne. He would be there. And that was what she had been counting on.

And could count on forever, no matter what this strange world would bring.
Rion
would be there.

Coming December 2014

From Calle J. Brookes &

Lost River Lit Publishing

Book Thirteen of the Dardanos, Co. Series

The Witch

The town was destroyed, no one looking at it would think any differently. The main hall, what had once been the resort and home of the ruling family had been burned until little remained of it but ruins. She’d visited it—once—when her closest friend had married into the ruling family.

Now she did not know where Jade had ended up, and worry for her friend was utmost in her mind. But there was nothing she could do—if she did not follow the path that had been outlined for her so many millennia ago then a lot more lives would be lost than just one.

She’d always known her path would be one that touched on darkness.

Each and every time she had been reborn with the knowledge that in one of her lives she would be called on to bring forth evil.

For if evil was not reborn, then it could not be defeated.

Right now, and for the last three thousand years, the evil had been merely waiting. Holding itself together until lives were born that would unleash it.

Defeat it.

But that defeat was not written in stone, either. And that was what Loren Nellana was counting on.

Somehow, people had been born who could fight that evil.

But first she needed to find them.

And when she’d awakened that morning, in the bedroom she’d grown up in she’d known exactly what it was she was supposed to do.

Her mother had wept. But she had understood—her mother had known from Loren’s birth that something waited for her daughter. And she’d taught Loren to understand what sacrifice would be. What it would look like someday.

Her mother walked beside her in this city of ruins. Loren didn’t know why she was so surprise that her mother had chosen to leave the safety of the life she had known in Denver, but her mother had. She had to be terrified—her mother was not Druid. And had been born human. She knew so little of what Loren was. But her mother had the gift of foresight, something that rare humans did. Her mother had known and acted accordingly.

But how was Loren to keep the person she loved more than anything safe in a world unlike any they had ever known. If Loren was even able to open the walls that separated the Gaian—or human—world from that of the demons.

That was her ultimate destination. The people she was searching for waited for her there.

The dark sorcerer waited as well.

Did anyone else realize that? Weren’t their prognosticators among the demons?

Loren would be the first to admit the demon world was one she knew very little about. She had been only to one other world Levia, and that was when she had been a very young child and her father was still living.

He had been a high Druid, one of the priests of the goddess Nelciana. He had died when Loren was seven, and no one knew what had happened to him completely. Loren had always wondered…

Her mother was so alone.

Loren worried for her.

But now she had to push that worry aside. There was far too much for her to do now.

Chapter Two

Jushua’s sword clashed against his brother’s. Dekimos smirked at him. “You have learned little, Jushie. I can still defeat you.”

Jushua thrust again. Once, when they were young the taunting name would have maddened him. But Dekimos had been lost to him for more than five thousand years, along with most of their other siblings. Only Jushua’s twin had survived the dark sorcerer’s attack.

Dekimos had been felled, but because of his great healing gifts his soul had managed to forge itself together again within months of the attack.

It was only in the last four months that Dekimos had been returned to him. Jushua took his brother’s return as the gift it was.

Still…

That did not mean he—as the youngest male of the original Dardaptos line—wanted his older brother to defeat him in sword play.

It was a matter of honor.

He forced himself to concentrate—to show Deki—the brother more at home healing than killing—how much sword technique he had developed in four thousand years. And it somehow seemed wrong to him that the greatest healer his Kind had ever known should pick up a sword.

Dekimos had long practiced passivism. But that had changed the day Deki was murdered by the sorcerer.

Jushua would die to protect the man he fought now. Never again would his brother face that dark threat.

Never again would Jushua be forced to leave the fallen body of one of his siblings behind. Not like he had before. He had been at his brother Kilan’s side when his brother had charged the dark sorcerer. When Kilan had fallen protecting his Rajna, his brother’s mate. Jushua had tried to protect Kilan, but his brother had known he was dying. Kilan had looked at him over the body of the already gone Rajna and made Jushua vow to protect the rest of the family.