The Keepers Book Two of the Holding Kate Series (38 page)

“Kate!”

“I’m staying!”

“Kate, I don’t know how to stop this from here. Maybe if we can get over to the other side, I can get to him.”

“Go! Do it! Save him.” She latched onto the boulder until her knuckles whitened, and peered through the crevice to see him.

“You have to come with me.”

“No. I have to stay here.”

“Why?”

“I need to see him, Donnie. I won’t take my eyes off of him until…” Her face fractured into pain so deep, Donnie knew she would never leave.

“I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“I won’t be alone for long.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Remember, Mel and Tara will be here soon.”

He did remember how they described the coming scene, gruesome. “Kate, you don’t want to be here for that.”

“I have to.”

Donnie ran through the facts he remembered of Mel’s and Tara’s Scriptorium experience. The Kate in the Scriptorium, covered in tattoos, had weird Mohawk hair. Like the Mother had when she went out to Corey and Trip when they were first captured. Something had changed. Kate looked nothing like that, now. The events playing out in front of him were very different. Maybe he could rescue Corey, but he had to hurry.

He squeezed Kate’s shoulder and ran back to the cave entrance. He whispered a prayer for Corey, for the Keepers, and for Kate.

He couldn’t imagine Kate could stand the sight of Corey’s gruesome death and have any sanity left in her. If she stayed on that ledge, she would have an unobstructed view.

The view would change her life forever.

Unless she was already changed.

QUANTUM PERSPECTIVE SOURCE (QPS): COREY CHASTAIN

With the tattoos and mortification complete, they took me into a tunnel that wove behind the scaffolding. We emerged on a ledge overlooking the ravine where the cages and slaves were. The guards pinned me to the wall, locking my head into a spiked cage and ramming my armpits into hooks that pierced my flesh and bore my weight. Warm blood seeped down my sides and between my toes as excruciating pain bit into my shoulder joints.

The slaves all dropped their loads, faces upturned. The wailing began.

First Father Whistleu broke into a moan that rose in intensity. His sons and daughters ran to his side and glared at me. The other Darchori fell to their knees crying out in anger and despair.

“Why? Cianti Todura? Why do you betray us?”

The other slaves that had begun to hope because of the faith of the Darchori, hurled rocks and insults at me.

“False Lord!” they screamed and spat, pulling at their hair and flesh. Such despair, disappointment, and anger I had never seen.

The Keepers scowled as they watched from below. Tara’s anger blistered as her eyes darted around desperately seeking a way to save me from myself. Trip and Dirk held onto her from both sides. They did not approve of my decision, either, but the time for action had passed. They didn’t want Tara to endanger herself in her grief. Eunavae doubled over in anguish and fell to her knees, weeping and rocking back and forth. My heart broke to see my family so torn apart.

This is for you. This is for Kate. This is for your freedom.
I let the words wash through my mind fueling my resolve.

The angry mob raged, no longer amicable toward me. They seemed to want my death hastened.

The Kiarnusk locked the mask cage into place, clamping it over my head. It bore sharp spikes that dug into my scalp. One deep breath or wrong move and the spikes would be driven into my brain. Blood continued to spill from my armpits and limbs.

I brought the memory of my Kate to the front of my mind. I watched her drink deeply from the stream. I traced her profile and watched the reflection of thousands of fireflies in her eyes. As my life flowed down my sides and into the sand far below, I conjured up the memory of our bodies intertwined on our wedding day. I thought of her perfect brow creased in concentration as we spent endless hours studying together. I recalled our thousand years of flight and pure love and learning that the beauty of her face and body couldn’t touch the beauty of her soul. I remembered our mornings in bliss so full of worship. My last kiss to Kate, an act of sacrifice, this moment would buy her freedom and she could spend the rest of her life enjoying the inheritance that I left her. I began to softly sing The Immortal Song and the crowd below ceased their angry jeers and stopped to listen. They dropped their rocks and insults, shoulders and heads and listened to the song of the Thousand Year love as it trickled from my lips while my blood trickled down the face of the cliff.

Then the horror began.

QUANTUM PERSPECTIVE SOURCE (QPS): DIRK JOHNSON

This can’t be happening
. A dozen scenarios flashed through his mind, none of them led to an outcome he could accept. He watched helplessly as the hideous Rhinoguards skewered his friend into the contraption they had all built. He couldn’t stop them. That would ensure the death of everyone under his care, even the locals.

Tara growled and rushed forward. It took both Trip and him to hold her back. Eunavae collapsed to the ground beside them and wailed the most forlorn sound he had ever heard. It ripped into him, the sound of his frustration and anguish made manifest. It drained the life out of Tara, too, and she stopped struggling. She took a step back, gutted as Corey’s blood trailed down the face of the cliff.

When the song began, he strained to listen. The same song Kate sang in the jackal cave, the song of their love. A song every Darchori whispered in their tender moments. It brushed gently over them, and they fell to their knees and wept bitterly. The sudden change gave every slave a moment of pause and sapped their anger. They dropped their stones, abandoned their insults, and just watched his friend fade from this life.

QUANTUM PERSPECTIVE SOURCE (QPS): TRIP CARSON

“Tara, the Rhinoguards aren’t even minding us anymore,” Trip whispered as they stood at the bottom of the scaffolding shielding their eyes from the sun, watching Corey’s life ebb away.

“Why should they? If Corey does this we are free. If he doesn’t we are dead.” Tara already sounded dead. Her eyes, glazed and red, stared at the stripes of blood seeping into stones of the cliff wall. Her chest rose and fell as she panted for reason as much as air. Trip understood that she just could not fathom Corey’s decision to give his life for Kate, the betrayer.

“Tara, when you watched this from your Scriptorium, where were you?”

She turned a flat expression onto Trip. “Don’t you mean where was she?”

He couldn’t confirm her suspicions. It would just make her angry to think that he still held out hope of Kate being controlled by that friggin’ dragon.

“Twenty paces from the exit to the upper corridor.”

“Show me.”

She swiveled and gazed up at Corey one last time, turned to Trip and nodded.

“Come on,” Trip whispered to Dirk and helped Eunavae up from her knees. As they made their way out of the pit, Trip noticed the crowd of slaves stood still or sat weeping. They had counted on the Cianti Todura to lead them out of bondage. They didn’t expect him to give his life for their oppressor.

Trip did.

He knew Corey would sacrifice himself. From the moment Corey realized Dagan and the Mother had targeted him, Corey hatched this plan. They slipped into the corridor unseen, rounded a corner and ran into Donnie.

“Donnie!” Eunavae’s forlorn face cracked, and she threw herself into his arms.

“I don’t suppose you mud covered, painted blue monkeys would be interested in your jumpsuits would you?” He set Eunavae down and held open his backpack. It bulged with extra jumpsuits.

“How did you get these?”

“Back at camp. They left all of our stuff there. I only took a few things from each pack. I didn’t want to alert them to my presence.”

“Smart.” Dirk wriggled into his pants.

Trip had completely forgotten about being naked, modesty had been beaten out of him in the arena. Now that everyone else had clothes on, it felt weird to be standing in the nude. He grabbed one of the remaining jumpsuits.

“So you know about Corey?”

Donnie nodded. “Where are you headed? I thought you would be looking for a way to rescue him.”

“We can’t rescue him until we know if Kate is a traitor or if she is captured. If we rescue him and she dies, well I don’t want to be the one to tell him that.”

“Kate is on the upper ledge.”

“Yeah, we figured, since Tara saw her up there in the Scriptorium.”

“No, I left her up there. She didn’t seem like a traitor. I found her chained to a wall, sobbing over Corey. She’s not painted up like Tara and Mel described.”

“Yet,” Tara spat. “I bet she insisted you come down here, alone, didn’t she?”

Donnie’s face turned red. “Well, yeah, but—”

“She is the Mother! When are you people going to see reason! All of you.” Tara’s fiery countenance radiated the heat of her argument.

“When we see it for ourselves,” Trip said flatly. “Not a minute before.”

“Fine! Then let’s get up there and you can witness her betrayal with your own eyes.”

“Don’t you want to rescue Corey?” Donnie pointed in the opposite direction.

“Yes!” Eunavae agreed. “I don’t care if Kate betrayed him or not. I just want him out of that—”

“Kate called it the Traptor.”

They all turned and stared at Donnie. How did Kate know its name? They built it and didn’t even know it had a name.

“Really? Kate called it that.” Tara crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t suppose she told you how she knows that.”

“She said Dagan told her.”

“Really, Dagan told her.” She cocked her head to the side and pierced Trip with a sarcastic stare. “Dagan, the dragon who collaborated with the Mother in my Scriptorium. The Mother who looked just like Kate.”

“We are wasting time,” Eunavae growled. “Come on Donnie, let’s go get Corey.”

“I’m coming with you two,” Dirk stated.

“I’m going up there for Kate.” Trip pointed to the corridor leading up.

“I’m going to kill me a dragon.” Tara pointed up.

“If the sphere comes, we will be separated,” Donnie cautioned.

“If the sphere comes, it comes.” Dirk zipped his jacket. “Let’s go.”

Tara and Trip moved into the corridor and began climbing to the plateau. Trip listened until Dirk, Donnie and Eunavae’s footsteps could no longer be discerned before he broached the subject with Tara.

“Tara, I wish…” He didn’t know what to say. He loved Kate. He loved Tara, too. But Tara didn’t need him the way Kate did.

Tara stopped and put her hand on his lips. “Trip, don’t.” Her lip trembled.

A moment passed between them, almost as if they were back on the platform in the Darchori forest, together and in love. Her eyes pooled with deep longing as she gazed into his. Trip loved this woman. He loved everything about her. Strength, beauty, character, integrity, Tara embodied all of those and more. He loved her but didn’t deserve her.