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Landen looked up at me, then back down. “No. It’s all symbols and letters, a combination of four languages...it doesn’t make any sense,” he answered, feeling frustrated as he continued to study it.

I took a deep breath and walked closer. This scroll was with our birth charts, the charts that we’d left here for our family over four million years ago. As I let my fingertips run across the edge of the scroll, a familiar rush of déjà vu came over me, haunting me.

My eyes searched over the scroll with Landen and August. I didn’t recognize the script or symbols, which were of every shape, mocking man and animal, water and fire. I did notice, though, that surrounding one of the larger circles were what Iooked like numbers. At the top was a one, to the right and left there was a one, and at the bottom there was a nine: 1119.

“Do you know what these numbers mean?” I asked.

Landen and August leaned in close enough to see the tiny numbers, and August then ran his fingers around the circle. Inside it, there was an illustration of a flower. The flower was not detailed; just a series of dots. Time had faded them, and some were darker than others. I imagined if someone didn’t have an eye for art, they would easily be dismissed as random marks.

“What’s today?” August asked

“Eleventh month, sixteenth day,” Landen answered.

I took in a deep breath and stepped back; I’d been so lost in everything, I hadn’t remembered that my birthday was just days away - that I’d be nineteen. It seemed impossible that the year had slipped by so quickly, without warning.

“My birthday is November nineteenth: 1.1.1.9,” I whispered into the room.

As Landen and August both looked at me, then down to the scroll again, I felt the tension rise and a heavy anxiety growing. I stared at August; he was the one who was full of dread.

“What is it, August?” Landen asked, knowing that it had to be more than my birthday that had him so concerned.

“This circle is Venus. There are nineteen petals on the flower, nineteen stems, and nineteen dots marking the ground they’re growing in. It’s your birthday; that’s when we’ll have to deal with Venus,” August declared.

Landen and I leaned forward and let our eyes rush over the flowers, finding the number nineteen over and over again. August then ran the magnifying glass over the other planets.

“Each of these planets has an image, a coded number, designed within them - and I’d guarantee you that I’d find the twelve-hour difference in the image of Mercury,” August said.

“What are you saying? You just found a map of everything we’re going to face?” Landen asked.

“Not what -
when
,” August corrected. “This is remarkable. I mean, I have a lot I’m going to have to decode, but this may be a way to navigate away from war,” he said as he filled with hope.

Landen and I couldn’t share his joy; we were more focused on the fact that I’d be nineteen in three days – and that something was going to test us. Landen walked around the table to where I stood and wrapped his arms around me; I hid my face in his chest, trying to hide my fear. Someone always seemed to get hurt when my heart was tested. I hadn’t had time to overcome my last experience with Drake; I still struggled with the vision of his eyes full of pain and his argument that I’d been taken from him.

It didn’t take August long to notice that we weren’t celebrating with him. His emotion then returned to dread, and he cleared his throat. “I want to take these to Perodine; if anyone can help me understand the codes locked in this scroll, she’d be able to,” he said to us.

As I felt Libby and Preston’s excitement, I looked up from Landen’s chest to the doorway. I heard a loud knock and suddenly felt concern coming from Ashten, then my father. August walked to the door, but Preston opened it before he could reach it. His blue eyes shined in the dark room full of bookcases.

“Are you ready?” he asked us all.

“Ready?” Landen questioned.

“Wait just one minute,” Ashten said, reaching to hold Preston back. “I’ve already told you not tonight,” he huffed, trying to catch his breath. I imagined that he’d chased Preston all the way there.

Landen slid the scrolls into a long tube, then turned and looked at his father. “We only have three days,” he said, taking my hand and leading me to the door.

“What do you mean? We have longer than that,” Ashten said, following us out onto the front steps.

“We were wrong about the orbit. Every time is mapped out on here; she will help us,” Landen answered. “Where is she?” he asked Preston.

August climbed into the backseat of our Jeep, and Landen drove off in the direction of the passage, not allowing anymore arguments.

August slid in the middle to talk to us as we drove. “I don’t want to concern you, but we may have less than three days. It’s well into the seventeenth day in Esterious, and Delen is in the same time as Willow’s birthplace,” he said, looking at Landen.

Landen tightened his jaw and increased his speed. There was no doubt he was in shock; he thought we had more time, and he longed for the peace in which he wanted us to live. Sensing that I felt guilty for being the reason we had to live through this, Landen reached his hand over and let it rest on mine. He then looked at me and shook his head ‘no,’ reassuring me that there was no reason for my guilt.

Chapter Two

Once we reached Delen, we could see that all of the palace lights were burning brightly; people were lining the streets, anxious to see what had brought Perodine back so abruptly. As we walked through the large iron gates, flashes of the storm came to me, then an overwhelming emotion of grief flooded me. The girl kissing Landen...the pain in Drake’s eyes as I hurt him once again...those memories were worse than any nightmare I’d ever had.

The front doors were open, and a young woman dressed in black was standing in the shadows; she intended to lead us to Perodine. Inside the place, we grudgingly climbed eight flights of stairs, then turned down a short hallway that led to a vast open room. In the center of the stone room, there was a square pool; stars from above reflected in the dark water. Perodine was standing near the center of the pool; the water was clinging to her waist. She waded carefully backwards, and as she moved, the water grew more shallow. She was wearing black slacks and a black T-shirt. I’d never seen her so informal; it made her seem more real, approachable. She was studying the reflection of the stars, and I could feel her anger, frustration, and absolute dread.

August walked in front of me and Landen. When he reached the pool, he quietly slid his shoes off and stepped slowly in, trying not to move the stars on which Perodine was focused.

Landen and I cautiously walked to the pool, anxiously watching them, wanting any help we could get from the stars above.

“Perodine,” I said quietly. She looked up as if I’d screamed her name, then noticed August in the pool for the first time. Around her neck, I could see dark bruises - as if she’d been severely choked by someone. “Who hurt you?” I asked, horrified.

As she held back tears that wanted to surface, her eyes seemed to turn to glass. She then waded through the pool toward me, filling with absolute defeat. As she leaned across the edge and put her hand on my face, her eyes carefully studied my every feature. “I’m afraid, my child, that he is more powerful dead than he ever was alive,” she whispered to me.

I felt as if the wind was suddenly knocked from my body, and my heart pounded in my chest.
What did she mean? Donalt was a ghost, a demon?

“He’s been planning this for millions of years,” she continued.

“Planning what?” Landen asked, terror consuming him.

Perodine let her hand drop from my face, then slowly turned around and sat on the edge of the pool. August was now quietly studying the starry reflections.

“He knew all along where Guardian’s soul would be born, where you’d be born. He orchestrated this entire dilemma - just so he could return again,” Perodine answered. “I’m such a fool.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said, sitting down next to her.

“I just don’t know why I didn’t see it in the stars,” Perodine said, letting her face rest in her hands. I put my hand on her shoulder, and so did Landen; together, we tried to give her a sense of calm - but she refused to succumb to the emotion.

“Absolute genius,” I heard August say in a disgusted tone.

Perodine looked up from her hands, and August waved her over to see the reflection he was studying. She approached carefully. August began to point to the water, and as Perodine studied the stars, I felt an anger come over her with an intent of revenge.

“What do you see?” Landen asked them.

“In the stars, I saw conflicts in Willow’s path; a man, darkness keeping her from you. I thought it was Drake - but Donalt weaved his intentions alongside Drake, hiding himself,” Perodine said, shaking her head and smiling - almost deviously.

“I don’t understand,” I said, looking around at all of them.

“When I saw danger in your path, I thought it was Drake. I never thought it would be Donalt; I’d already considered him dead, and I never considered the idea that he’d linger between lives,” she said, looking around the room in the dark shadows. She let her anger overturn her fear, then glared into the darkness.

“How can he take the power if it’s her heart?” Landen asked, bewildered.

“I’m afraid he’s had four million years to plan - and I’ve had only moments to understand it,” Perodine said, concentrating on the stars again.

She reached for a towel, wrapped it around herself, then led us to a doorway. On the left, it led to another vast room; two of the walls were books from ceiling-to-floor, one was a wall of windows, and in the center of the third was a large fireplace. Two doorways framed either side of it, leading to more of the palace, and three couches framed the fireplace. A large round table was in the center of the room, circled by six chairs, and books and scrolls were open all over it. As Perodine walked over to it and began to clear a space for the scroll we’d brought, we followed her, eager to get her interpretation.

“We knew that Donalt had the most trusted stargazers of that time study the heavens above at the time of your birth; we knew that it held the path of all of your lives. The night you were pushed into the string was the night you intended to steal it,” Perodine explained as she moved open books from the table to make room for the scroll. “I never knew if you had it or not; I think I’ve looked for it every day for the past four million years,” she continued, reaching for the scroll.

As Landen handed it to her, his eyes met mine. Perodine then gently unrolled the delicate cloth; if she could read this, our lives would be told to us before we had a chance to live them – which was something that everyone and no one wanted. I could feel disappointment coming from Perodine.

“What is it? Is it the wrong scroll?” I asked.

“No, it’s the right one - but it’s been altered,” she said as she leaned in and looked closely at the symbols. “It looks as if you sought advice on how to decode it; there are answers around the planets, written in code, and foreign words,” Perodine said.