Warrior of the Ages (Warriors of the Ages) (48 page)

“What the—?” Kahtar ran. He crossed the yard in seconds and pounded up the porch steps, slamming the front door open and taking the stairs four at a time. Entering her room, he dropped to his knees and slid across the hardwood floor, stopping beside Beth’s lap.

“Love? Why are you crying now?” Stupid question really, so much had happened the last weeks, and then his information dump. Maybe this was her version of hysterical laughter. He’d have preferred the laughter. He leaned his head against her knees.

Beth sniffed. “How many times have you been married?”

Kahtar’s neck cracked he lifted his head up so quickly. Married? A faint ghost of the laughter bubbled up again and he grinned. Beth shoved him away.

“You think it’s funny?”

“Beth! Slow down. You’ve felt my heart, you felt all there is to me. It’s how you knew I’d been around a very long time. How many wives did you feel in there?”

She frowned at him, a little wrinkle between her brows. Her eye makeup had washed into dark outlines around her eyes, the effect strangely becoming. Kahtar reached up and wiped the excess with his thumbs, waiting for Beth to process the idea.

“But how? How could you have never been married?”

“I never wanted to. I never fell in love.” Her fresh tears rolled over his thumbs, and he smiled at her and nodded. “Until now.”

Beth took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

“That is the most romantic thing any man has ever said. I was so afraid you were my grandfather or something.”

Kahtar chuckled. “I promise we’re not related.” Her eyes popped open and Beth leaned forward. Tugging her satin gown up to her ankle, she slid a foot into her fancy shoe, and bent forward to strap it on. Automatically Kahtar helped, lifting her other foot into the mate, and fumbling with the thin strap around her perfect ankle. He glanced up and Beth was staring at him, two patches of bright red on either cheek.

Knowing what she was thinking, he felt his own face flame. “No. I haven’t.”

“Not ever?” Beth sounded incredulous. “I mean didn’t you want to?”

“Of course I wanted to!” he snapped. “I’m a man. Covenant Keepers aren’t big on free love.”

“Still.” Beth continued to stare at him and he knew the red had now reached his ears and hairline.

“Never? Not once?” she persisted.

Kahtar shoved to his feet, and crossed his arms. Apparently embarrassment was still well within his repertoire.

“What kind of gory details do you need, Beth? I’ve never been married and I’ve never been with a woman—nor anyone if that is where your mind is going next.”

“Kahtar!”

“I’ve been around a very long time. It’s not like the thought didn’t cross my mind. Trust me, they all did. I just kept very busy.”

“I could never have waited,” Beth said. Then she flushed. “Much longer I mean.”

“Don’t those shoes hurt your feet?” Again kneeling at her feet, Kahtar changed the subject, focusing on the outrageous glass and silver shoes. It had been nice to have Beth nearly eye level during the ceremony, but human feet were not meant to do that. “Why’d you put them back on?”

“I know you’re into simplicity.” Beth stood, towering over him in her satin dress and heels. “And fashion isn’t a Covenant Keeper thing, but I kinda had my heart set on showing you why I picked this dress.” Beth crossed the room gracefully, the edge of the dress trailing neatly over the floor. She’d managed to save it from a single grass stain. Kahtar rose and sat on the edge of the bed and tried his best to feign interest in the dress.

“It’s good cloth.” He tried. “Natural fibers…hand sewn.” Beth stopped moving and peeked back at him over her shoulder. The dress had absolutely no back, and dipped dangerously low towards her backside. He rubbed a finger over his chin. She really shouldn’t wear stuff like that.

“Yeah,” she said. “But I kinda liked that you could do this.” Beth shrugged one shoulder and the entire dress dropped off in a neat swish of satin, pooling around her. She stood exactly eight feet three inches from him in nothing but a scrap of lace that couldn’t be called drawers by any stretch of the imagination. And the shoes. And nothing else. Watching over her shoulder she mimed closing her mouth by placing one finger under her chin, and Kahtar thought to shut his.

“Kala Empium Fin,” he whispered hoarsely. Beth turned around to face him, smiling shyly.

“I LOST TRACK of days, are you certain it has been an entire month?”

Kahtar chuckled, their hony mone time had evaporated, and September already had the early bite of autumn in the air. Beth stood in the yard with her arms crossed, pleading her case.

“Because I’ve lost the desire to do anything else. Do you really have to go back to work? I’ll make a deal with you. I won’t go back to work, if you don’t.”

Kahtar started to laugh. He’d never laughed so much in his existence as he had the past weeks. Dutifully he tugged Beth over to a fading Rose of Sharon tree and pointed at a faint hint of darkness behind it.

“That, my love, is not fair. You’re not duty bound to run your shop.” Spotting the telltale crease between her brows, he backtracked quickly. “Of course you must follow your heart, and The Mother agreed to let you try, so I’m willing to negotiate options.”

The crease went deeper, so he tried changing the subject.

“You said you wanted to see the Arc, this is your last chance for a week. We get there through that tesseract.” Kahtar dropped his arms around her shoulders for a quick hug. She was deliciously soft and smelled so good. With Beth firmly in his arms, he nudged her into the diamond shape of flat darkness.

It was a tunnel of dark with veins of light decorating it, but their feet never actually touched the ground, and there was no feeling of movement, though something deep in the psyche understood they were moving. Then it was gone, and they were standing on crabgrass like any yard in Ohio.

“That was amazing.” Beth looked back at the medallion of darkness. “If I ask how that is done, how comprehensible would the answer be?”

Kahtar held tightly to her hand and paused to kiss it, wishing he could negotiate a longer hony mone.

“Quick and relatively painless because I don’t know. Abigail, she’s one of the clan’s Elders, is gifted to make them, and it is a very rare gifting. I’ve only known of a handful of women who could do it in all my time.”

“Are we inside the Arc?” Beth looked towards shimmering rows of Old Guard. There were hundreds of them flickering in the bright morning light.

“Not yet, tesseracts can’t penetrate the Arc. We enter through the doorway here.” The smallest niggle of doubt stirred in Kahtar’s chest.

Beth has Seeker blood.
He glanced at the Old Guard who shimmered like a row of light around the entrance to the Arc.
Surely they would stop me if it weren’t possible.
Part of him wondered, though, if the Old Guard were waiting to see what would happen too. Kahtar’s heart sank a bit.

“What?” Beth asked, sensing it. Then she was distracted before receiving an answer. “I can feel it! I can feel the entrance. It feels like silent music.” She pulled her hand from his and patted the air in front of the opening to Cultuelle Khristos’s Arc. “It’s very welcoming and familiar, like I’ve felt it before!”

Not once in Kahtar’s entire existence had he even heard of a Seeker penetrating an Arc. During their hony mone this thought hadn’t bothered him. The entire month had been a high of bliss that scrambled his thoughts and tossed his rigorous schedule into disarray. They’d loved and laughed, thought only of each other, eaten when they were hungry, and slept only when exhausted.

Like a moth to a flame, Beth continued to run her hands over the Arc’s vibrating entrance. She tucked her hair behind her ears and leaned forward to feel it against her cheek, delighted as a child. She looked diminutive in flat slippers and a plain, soft gown, carefree. Kahtar had been feeling almost carefree himself, until this moment.

Several Old Guard solidified to watch them enter, justifying his suspicions. Beth grabbed his hand and slid through first, melting from view. Before he had time to experience anxiety, he was pulled through with her. Standing inside the Arc, Beth stared in stunned amazement. She wobbled and he quickly put out a hand to steady her. She gaped in wonder at the sensory overload inside.

Inside the Arc, September didn’t exist. Cultuelle Khristos called this Caeaur, the time of blue and gold. An ocean of yellow grasses waved in the flat meadow where paths snaked out in several directions. The air crisp and so crystal clear it seemed as though one’s eyesight improved instantly. The sky so blue you could taste it, to Kahtar it tasted like joy. The only sound was the rippling grass and the waves of the Great Lake in the distance. Trees several feet thick towered at the edges of the meadow like skyscrapers, a doe wandered nearby, blinking at them without fear. Beth’s eyes riveted on a large shape in the distance and widened with disbelief.

“It’s a mastodon.” Kahtar pointed out the large elephantine shape lumbering towards the lake.

Beth didn’t move and Kahtar grinned, certain life could not be more perfect. He rubbed a hand over her back as he explained.

“When Arcs are built they go to a set point in time. The animals that belong to that time are in the Arc. Come on, we take this path.”

Still ingesting the scenery, Beth leaned far back to look up at the enormous trees and he had to take her hand and tug her. She tripped along beside him, gawking.

“It’s like the Garden of Eden!” she whispered.

“Well, I wouldn’t know that for certain,” he whispered back, “but pretty close I think.”

“Is this what the world used to look like, Kahtar?” Beth stumbled along the path, staring in wide-eyed wonder at the trees and plants, breathing deeply of the pure air and pausing to run fingers over thick wildflowers in every shade of blue.

“Close, the air inside Arcs is clearer and the water sweeter than the outside world has ever been, as far as I remember. You can drink out of the lake in here, or eat the fish raw and it’s all good.”

Kahtar wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed the top of her head.

“We’ll explore later. Let’s hurry. I want to show you the cave before everyone is gone.”

WINDING DOWN A narrow passageway, Beth went first. Behind her, Kahtar had his hands on her shoulders, his strong heart surrounded hers and she soldiered forward to meet Cultuelle Khristos in their own world. Inside The Cave, as Kahtar called it, it took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darkness and then the flickering light. Her husband’s capable hands guided her forward, over the smooth path. The scent of cave greeted, and though it was the smell of damp underground, it was pleasant, like rich earth, cool stone, and clean water. Sound came next, opening up all at once when they turned a corner, it hit Beth like something physical. Thousands of people, voices and laughter reverberated off cavern walls, water gushed and gurgled and the echo of movement was amplified in the enormous echoing space. The pleasant feeling inside the Arc was stronger in the cavern. It felt like the touch of thousands of happy hearts were drifting near hers.