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My eyes questioned Drake, but he just smiled slightly and rested his elbow on the arm of the couch. “It’s not that I remember my past lives; I relive them each night. To me...well, this is just a nightmare,” he said, looking around the room.

“Ironic choice of words,” Marc said, turning his head to the side to see Drake.

Drake looked coldly at Marc, his eyes softening as they moved to me. “I didn’t see them through your eyes. To me, you were helping the people here - and I was bringing the light,” Drake said quietly.

“Where are your demon friends anyway?” Marc asked casually, closing his eyes.

“They weren’t mine, you fool; their keeper lurks in the shadows,” Drake said, looking to the dark corners of the room.

I saw a chill run down Perodine’s back; she shook it off and returned to the table. August sat on the arm of the couch next to Landen and stared at Drake. I could feel his curiosity; he wanted to know everything about Drake, what he had seen and learned. “Who taught you to use your energy to protect yourself?” August asked Drake.

Drake took in a deep breath and looked into the flames of the fire in front of him. “I’ve had Donalt’s attention all my life,” he answered.

“Did he ever tell you where he received his power from? Or what he wanted you to do once you found Willow?” August asked.

Drake’s eyes moved to me, and he shook his head no. “I never asked, he never said; I just knew that I was to love her and rule this world and beyond,” he answered.

“Is he the one that taught you to make time stand still?” Landen asked, moving himself in front of me so Drake would have to look at him.

Drake sighed and smiled slightly. “No, my father taught me to do that,” he answerd.

“Livingston?” Landen questioned, leaning back in his seat.

Drake nodded, then looked to the flames in the fireplace. “He said he always wanted me have a way to stop and think before I made choices that would change my life,” he answered.

August smiled and looked down; I could feel the pride for his son, Livingston, come over him. Landen and I both felt envious; that was one lesson we’d never been taught.

“Is is hard?” Landen asked.

Drake stared forward and relaxed into the couch, then smiled slightly. “You just have to want more than anything to make things right; you have to have the best intentions,” he said. Raising his eyebrows, he tilted his head and glanced at me. “Once you have that intention, you send it out through your energy. It has to be strong enough that all the energy around you is shocked into stillness as yours passes by. When you lose your focus, time begins again.”

“How are you forcing your energy at that darkness over and over again and not getting weaker? How do you build yourself again?” Landen asked Drake.

Drake laughed under his breath and winked at Landen before answering him. “My friend, I fear it is from the same place you find yours - only from another time. My dreams...I remember them so vividly that my imagination can take me back to the moment...to feel...feel they way you do when you’re complete.”

I felt like the wind was knocked out of me. Landen’s perfect blue eyes found me; he was jealous, but he didn’t show it to the others. He reached his arm around me and pulled me to his side.

August looked at Drake, to Alamos, and then to Landen. “The dreams were unlocked to protect him, to give him the ability to withstand the darkness for so long.”

“Is that true?” Landen asked Drake.

Drake shrugged his shoulders. “It would be impossible for me to tell you if there was any truth in what I hear or see,” he said, catching my gaze.

I let my eyes fall from his; I could barley manage the pain I saw there. Landen sat at attention and looked at Alamos. Perodine was pointing to the scroll, and the look on Alamos’ face was absolute disbelief. August followed Landen’s stare.

“Are we all on the same page now?” August questioned.

Alamos looked up from the scroll in our direction. “You intend to kill him – you’ve lured us here as a sacrifice,” he said, standing to walk in our direction.

My face turned white as a ghost, and my stomach turned. Drake looked slowly behind him at Alamos, then to his mother, Beth, who had drifted into a deep sleep.

“Kill who? What are you talking about?” I asked, sitting forward and looking back at Landen.

Perodine’s face was full of grief as she followed Alamos to the couches where we were sitting. Alamos stood in front of the fireplace and stared at Drake.

“This family has betrayed you once again,” Alamos said to Drake as he looked at Beth and Marc’s sleeping bodies.

Drake looked unshaken by Alamos’s words. My eyes raced between Perodine and Alamos. Landen let his hand rest on my knee; I knew he was trying to calm me, but it wasn’t working.

“Answer me – who is killing who?” I said louder. Beth stirred but did not wake.

Perodine looked sympathetically at Drake, then to me. “‘The darkness shall consume the blood of Jayda and subdue the power’...it cannot live in Landen...you are his soulmate; Jayda and Obea proved that point once before. It will consume Drake, kill Landen, and then overpower you at the moment Venus and Earth align,” Perodine said carefully as she knelt before me.

I expected Drake to protest against Perodine calling Landen my soulmate, against the idea of his murder, but he didn’t; instead, he looked calmly at Landen, then to me.

August stood abruptly; I was more than sure that he hadn’t realized the details before now. “It said ‘three would stand strong’...we thought it was Jayda, Alyianna, and Willow...it could be the three of them...dying is not an option here,” he augured.

Perodine squeezed my hand to get my attention, and I looked into her green eyes and found the sympathy that I felt coming from her. “Your only defense is to move the knife through Drake’s heart at the moment the darkness consumes him; that’s the only way to protect your life, Landen’s life, the life of the children.”

I shook my head from side to side, and tears gushed from my eyes. I then looked at Drake and saw that he was looking at me; his dark eyes reached in my soul and pulled at my heart. I looked at Landen, who wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to his shoulder; I squeezed him as tight as I could and tried to find relief from the grief that was consuming me.

“This is not the answer. You saw what happened yesterday when Drake was taken from these people: war will erupt if he’s slain – and everyone in Delen will pay the price for this decision,” August said into the room.

“There is no other way. Donalt has been preparing Drake’s body for this moment; he will be capable of immense power the moment he joins him,” Perodine said, standing.

“He’s already consumed him once; he didn’t look any more powerful to me,” Landen said.

As I heard his words, I took in a breath a released my hold on him. I then leaned back and looked at Landen, then at Drake; hope was starting to come back to me.

“What was it like?” Alamos asked Drake.

As he answered Alamos, Drake’s eyes never left me. “I cannot recall the moment he entered me – but I can recall the time he was inside of me. It was as if my dreams had come to reality; what I wanted was mine, and life was perfect,” he said.

“It kept you calm so it could control your body,” Alamos said.

“I suppose, but I don’t want to live a fantasy. If I can’t have what I want in this life – then I’m ready for the next,” Drake said bleakly.

August stood and began to pace, then stopped abruptly in front of Landen. “The looking glass,” he said, looking at Landen. He turned to look at Drake. “Is there another one?”

Drake’s eyes moved to Alamos, and August followed his gaze.

“Do you honestly think that we’ve had time to reconstruct another looking glass?” Alamos asked. “It took Donalt over a year to build the original.”

Landen looked down; I felt him struggle with his intent. He’d told me that he’d never look into the glass, and I knew right now that he’d do anything to protect me from the demon that was chasing me. Landen nodded, but he refused to look August in the eyes; he didn’t want to promise anything to him.

Perodine looked down; I knew I was letting her down. She felt after all this time - all of these lives - I was submitting to the darkness, and she tried her best to hide the frustration she felt.

“I’ll heal him,” Landen said, standing. “Willow will strike him, and I’ll heal him - and all of this will be over,”he said, looking at me.

“This is not a cut,” Alamos argued. “She has to strike his heart – that’s the first place a soul connects with the body. Have you healed a wound of that degree?” Alamos asked sarcastically. Landen looked at Drake and shook his head no, but he still held the same confidence.

“She strikes him, and as you begin to heal him, the darkness overtakes Willow...what’s your priority - his life or hers?” Alamos continued. “His fate is sealed. Once again, the bad soulmate pays the price for loving the one he desires.”

Sunlight peered into the room. I felt the astonishment and fear coming from Perodine and August. When Landen felt it, his eyes looked to the rising sun, and a fear rose in him; at that moment, he felt overpowered.

I watched as the sun rose. I’d seen so many sunrises since I’d found Landen; I knew that it rose gracefully, that you could barely see it climb through the sky. This sun was different, though; within a moment, it was suspended in the middle of the sky. A purple haze reflected below it, and darkness above it. The city of Delen, the wall that always had workers surrounding it, was abandoned. We were alone in this dark world.

Chapter Ten

Perodine turned and crossed the room to the doorway that led to the long hall. Drake hadn’t moved from his seat. He seemed unsurprised by the sun rising in the West (as it did on Venus), and that right now, in theory, the world was trapped in a prison - and the guard that held the key was the devil himself.

I walked slowly back to Dane’s sleeping body. Alamos leaned against the back of the couch and let his hand rest on Drake’s shoulder. Landen and August stared at the sun, which refused to rise any higher in the sky.

Perodine returned with a large hourglass; the top and the bottom of it were made of gold, the bars that framed the glass bowls were made of emeralds, and the sand was black. She sat it on the wide base of the fireplace.

“We will have to watch this and turn it twelve times; can we reason that that is how much time we have?” Perodine said to us.

“For all we know, we have only minutes,” Alamos argued. “This illusion could have begun days ago.”

I felt her frustration; I knew that she had her doubts about the time of day as well. Suddenly, chills spread across my skin, and the hair on the back of my neck rose; I felt something. Drake was staring at me, and his eyes widened as he leaned slowly forward. His emotion caused Landen to turn to look at me.

“Wake him,” Drake said quietly, keeping his eyes locked on mine.

My trembling hand reached for Dane’s knee, and I squeezed it as hard as I could. Perodine, August, and Alamos were now frozen in place, staring at me and Dane, who sat forward abruptly. I didn’t look at him. My eyes were locked with Drake; I felt safe in his gaze. A look of terror, though, was across my face.

“
Calm...be calm...hide the emotion of fear...think of something else,”
Landen thought.

I tried to, but I could feel the cold of the darkness all around me. Every muscle in my body tensed and began to tremble, and the beat of my heart was as loud as drums in my head. I held my breath for so long, I felt dizzy.