Enflame (Book 6) ((Insight) Web of Hearts and Souls) (5 page)

That seemed to enrage Phoenix. He was furious that someone had hurt Landen.

“If you let me see her medallion, I can explain your life plan a lot faster.”

Landen held his stare for what felt like an eternity, then he glanced at me and gently nodded. With shaky hands, I reached back to unclasp my necklace. As soon as the hook was loose, it began to float in Phoenix's direction. At the same time, a small ball of fire emerged from the fireplace. Guided by Phoenix's stare, the necklace floated over the small ball of fire that was centered between us.

The fire lingered under the medallion, causing shadows of its details to dance across the room. A few seconds later, the necklace started to vibrate. I leaned forward, not sure what to expect next. Then all at once a burst of energy pushed through the room.

Focusing on the necklace, I could see the black glass moving, then all at once four rings of energy began to circle it. Details in the black glass that were hidden before started to reflect within the rings of energy that were moving. They looked like planets.

The fire enflamed the rings, then the necklace vanished into the illusions with the rings. It was two universes side by side, and between them was what looked like a wall of water with one bright spot in the center. The rings looked as if they were trying to move more fiercely, but they couldn’t. Half of it was stronger than the other, brighter. The part that was dim looked as if it were slowly easing into the bright part.
I could see hazes around what I thought were planets, lights of energy snaking through them.

“You’re here,” Phoenix said, pointing to the dimmer half of the circle. “But, we came from here,” he said, nodding to the brighter side.

“Where is there?” Landen asked curiously.

“An alternate reality.”

Phoenix spread his long fingers apart, pointing to both sides of the circle. “Two realities existing side by side. Notice the curves of the beams, how on each side they balance above each other?” he asked as his blazing eyes rose to meet mine.

Timidly, I nodded once.

“One side is set further back in time, or ahead, depending on how you look at it. It’s our mirror. Both sides have one. Time is always moving in each reality in its own little loop.” His stare moved back to the illusion my medallion was creating, and he began to trace faint lines of light that were connecting the spheres and four rings. “These are the paths between each reality’s dimension.”

“The String,” Landen acknowledged.

Phoenix nodded once to confirm, then moved his fingertips to point out a dark mass that was on one side of the wall of what looked like water that was dividing the circle and outlining the dimensions. “This is the veil. The Realm is just before it.”

“That’s it?” Landen commented dryly. “Where is the heaven and hell
, the battle between darkness and light? What are you saying? That this is some Ferris wheel we are all on, fighting each other to prevent boredom? What is the point of reaching the other side?”

Phoenix smirked. It was as if Landen’s sarcasm was giving him hope that the Landen he knew was not that far away.

“Heaven is the peace you find in your soul. Hell is what you overcome to get that.” Phoenix pointed to the curves of one of the rings. “Each half circle represents over four million years of life. There is enough room there for you to find any war or heaven you seek.”

“And the other side?” Landen asked, obviously noticing that Phoenix’s attention was on the darker of the two universes.

“Balance...meant to be, anyway. From the looks of this image, they are faring well. We are the ones that are failing. If we don’t figure out how to save this side, heaven’s gate will turn into a wall and the end will be inevitable.”

“Heaven’s gate?” Landen said, cocking his head. “What happened to ‘heaven is the peace in your soul’?”

“It’s what the wall of energy is called by the majority. The other side is not like this. Its basked in light. In peace, balanced souls reside there.

Landen’s eyes were distant. I could sense memories breaking lose in his mind. They were causing a mix of emotion and confusion within him.

“I can open your eyes, if that is what you need,” Phoenix murmured.

Landen leaned forward. “I can buy this. It almost makes sense, but this,” Landen said, letting his sharp stare fall to the image, “doesn’t explain anything I’m going through. So, I don’t have time to care that some gate will turn into a wall. The dimensions on this side are enough for me to handle.”

“This is why you are going through what you are going through. It’s a curse. Eight beyond the sun and the moon. It’s a curse Dane had a part in tricking you into. We have weaved a dangerous web, and the only way out is to undo our past.”

“Explain,” Landen pushed.

Phoenix clenched his jaw before he spoke. “You were my brother. We’re only fourteen months apart. When you were ten, a fever nearly took your life. When you finally overcame it, you believed the hallucinations you saw when you were sick were real. I didn’t believe you until years later when you began to predict life moments, then weeks, before it happened. Years later, at your adamant request, we took you to The Selected.

“The S
elected?”

Phoenix n
odded once. “They live against The Fall, Heaven’s Gate. In the past, all souls passed through that wall, but by the time we left, only The Selected could or would. They are or were the ambassadors and warriors from our reality.”

Landen narrowed his eyes and rolled his shoulders. It was clear he was remembering something I could not perceive. From the humble tone in his emotion, I knew that whomever these selected beings were, he felt honored to have been acknowledged by them.

“I’m fighting a curse from over four million years ago. Is that when this started?”

“
Brother, after all we have been through, in my opinion, I think it started with your birth. You have a fate that neither of us have found the courage to truly understand. There are too many lore’s counteracting one another.”

Landen and I both glanced at each other.
I knew for a long time Landen had felt pulled between the lore of Esterious, and the heritage of Chara, and now, now apparently there was even more worlds or lore’s we had to contend with.

Landen gave his attention back to Phoenix “
If I am from the bright reality, why am I here. What was the plan when we began.”

Phoenix looked away as if it was too hard for him to say.

“
When you were gone, I called Nana, Draven and Aden’s grandmother. She can see like them, and she should be here soon
.”

Landen’s glance questioned me. I’m sure my timid stare told him that I was terrified and had no other choice but to look for help.
He reached for my hand, and a calming emotion weaved with his deep hum absorbed me.

His
attention returned to Phoenix. “This is what mind is telling me.” He clearly pushed down emotions that he didn’t think belonged to him, or rather didn’t’ want to belong to him. “They killed our family, but we could still hear their cries. A shaman told us that if we went into the fire, we could pull them free.”

Phoenix nodded once. “We were away, defending our points of view. We abandoned our cause and headed home the second you had one of your visions. When we got there we found our parents’ graves, all of our families, everyone except the girls we were in love with. We had to hide in the woods. Our home had been b
urning for three straight weeks. The town thought evil had seized our family. From inside the house, we heard the girls scream our names. We could see their images in the window, begging us to save them.”

Phoenix hesitated as grief washed over his stunning image. He glanc
ed at me. “You and her had barely spent the cycle of a moon together, but that didn’t matter. You told me you and her were made from one soul.” He moved his head slowly from side to side. “A shaman eased into our camp. He didn’t say anything for almost two days. We thought he was deaf and blind, so we let him be as we debated why the fire would not go out, why we only heard our girls in there. The shaman stood one night, gazed at the blackened sky, then at you. He told you that you were a guardian. That your must complete your purpose in the dark world. He told you the flames would not burn you, but set you free.” His eyes locked with Landen. “You didn’t even question him. You just ran, and I followed you.”

Landen glanced at me, then to the fire. “We did burn. We did die. There was no one in that house.”

“Right, mate. We burned to ash, woke three days later to that shaman performing some ritual over us. He gave us our ashes, then told us we were immortal. He told us that he was not from our world, but the dark reality, one that we were now firmly stuck in with him. He claimed that you were the one that asked him to turn us, in some past.”

“Why would I want to be immortal?” Landen asked so quietly that you would have thought he was asking himself.

“Why would you not? I admit I was mad at you for the better part of two hundred years for dragging me into this, but it makes sense. The only way to survive on this side, to maintain your course diligently, is to be immortal. When you die, all the deals you make are still in play. Your intent is set. When you are born again, you’re held to those notions but do not recall them. By staying alive, you remember, you know who’s playing you. Wide awake forever more. Being immortal is the only way for us to have any hope of returning to our roots. Our only hope of winning this.”

Landen leaned forward, enhancing the glare he was giving Phoenix.

“I’m not immortal now. At least not in that fashion. I changed, you didn’t. Why?”

“Her,” he answered, glancing at me. He held out his hand and the fire vanished. My necklace fell into his palm and with a nod he sent it back to me. I didn’t put it on at first. I couldn’t figure out why I’d always seen the glass as solid black. As the metal cooled, all the illusions it had displayed disappeared. With shaky hands, I clasped it around my neck once more.

“We had to find her again and again, wait for her to be born, for your visions to tell you what dimension she was in, then bargain our way there. It was never good.”

“Why?” Landen asked shortly.

“She was either possessed or taken.”

“Possessed by who?”

“Dane. I told you that. She was always with him. At first we thought it was a good thing because he was taking her away from the guy she was in love with in some form or fashion, but then we realized that guy was protecting her. The last time was the worst, bad enough for you to surrender your ashes.”

Landen leaned back, letting his gaze fall into the fire. I felt rage, heartbreak, and sorrow engulfing him. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that in some past, he’d found me in Drake’s arms.

“The third attempt to turn her into a Phoenix failed,” he finally murmured.

“Right, m
ate. When we burn, we burn to recreate who we are, become new. Innocents cannot burn. Her vessel had never been claimed by a man. You thought because you loved her before, because she was yours countless times in past lives, that her soul would be reborn. I agreed, but we were wrong.”

I felt a pull of energy encase my body, and the next second I found myself in Landen’s arms on his side of the couch. He’d pulled me there with a thought. In his embrace, I felt his energy begging for forgiveness.

All at once I remembered the time I dreamed of him a day or so ago. He told me he would never watch me burn again. I had no idea what he meant then, but now it was all starting to make sense.

“When she did not rise the third time, Dane, as you call him, came to you. He told you that she would never be yours because you had disrupted the flow of life, that she could not and would not feel a pull to you unless you became human. He told you he could do that, throw you back into the cycle, and that the very next life she would be in your arms.”

Landen’s arms tightened around me. “He made me make a deal first.”

“Right. He said that when your soul reached its beginning point once again that you would be tested. By each planet, you would have to prove that she was yours.”

Landen nodded once. That was nothing new to either of us, and we were not afraid of the test before us.

“You took the deal blindly and died before I could utter any sense of reason. Once you were gone, I read between the lines.” He glanced to my necklace. “I figured out that the curse was already in play, but it was simplistic in its creations.
Now, with that last deal, everything is on the line.”

“How so?” Landen asked.

“You lose, in any way, shape, or form what you set out to end will rule forever more.”

“What is on the other side? More dimensions?” Landen questioned, wondering about this forgotten heritage.

“A reality that is prepared to cut this dead limb off, but if they do that, they die. Either we fix this or we figure out how to convince them to give us more time. Evil may not have manifested on that side, but it doesn’t mean that close-minded souls do not exist.”

Landen nodded once, as
if he already knew that in some way. “What I don’t understand is that without some degree of balance, we will all perish, whether it be by darkness or light. Why are there souls that want that? Why is there a war in the first place?” Landen mused, sounding a lot like his grandfather at that moment.