mythean arcana 06 - master of fate (10 page)

Painfully, she sucked air into her lungs and opened her eyes. She lay on her side in the middle of some type of forest. There was no snow on the ground. 

She kicked out of the only ski still attached and scrambled to her feet. “Mouse!”

A rustle of leaves. Aurora spun. Mouse streaked toward her and leapt into her arms, a warm ball of black fur and a sniffing nose that rubbed against her neck, purrs muffled. A dozen feet away, Felix climbed to his feet. His skis lay on the ground next to him.

“Where the hell are we?” All she could see was forest, and it definitely wasn’t winter.

Felix’s gaze raced over Aurora, checking for injury. “You okay?” 

“Yeah.” 

He relaxed infinitesimally and scanned the area around him. Forest. Huge trees, moss, and mist. No snow, but a lot of green. Definitely not Iceland. It wasn’t entirely unfamiliar, but he had no idea where he was. Possibly Scotland.

“Is this the place you created at the other end of the portal?” he asked.

“No. That was a Mediterranean island. I have no idea where we are. Did you aetherwalk us here?” 

“No. I didn’t take us here. It was the portal.”
Shite.
This was dangerous. They needed to get the hell out of here. “Can you feel the portal now?” 

“Vaguely. I can feel its magic. But I can’t use it. It’s blocked.”

A one-way portal? Fuck. “Try. This could be dangerous. If it’s no’ your portal, it could be a trap.”

“It might still be my portal, just warped.” She started to walk in circles of ever-increasing size, her hand outstretched, clearly feeling for the energy of the portal. “I’m getting nothing. It’s all diffuse magical energy. It’s created a weakness in the aether, so it’d be easier to get to other places from here, but we can’t use the portal to go back. It only goes one way.”

“Then we need to get the hell out of here. We’ll aetherwalk back to my house.”

“Fine.” 

The cat sidled up to Aurora and leaned against her leg. She nodded at Felix, ready to go.

He closed his eyes, focused on the location and image of his home, and felt the pull of the aether. Moments later, he opened his eyes—

—to find nothing but an expanse of green fields that looked slightly off. He whirled. 

His house was gone. So was his barn. The driveway too.

“Where the hell are we?” Aurora asked.

Understanding dawned in him, bringing with it a slightly sick feeling. Not where.
When.
“We’re in the wrong time. It’s no’ the same year.”

“What?” Shock tinged her voice.

“My house is gone. And it’s summertime, no’ winter. We’re in the past.”

“You
timewalked
us?”

“No. It was the portal that took us back.”

“How far?”

“Before 1711, when I arrived.”

“Holy shit. My other self could be in the aether prison now.” She shuddered visibly, deeply bothered by the idea. 

“But you’re here.” His voice was fierce. “You’re free.”

She nodded, her eyes dark and haunted. Her demons were like his. The need for freedom, control over her fate, was vital to them both. He wanted to reach out to her, to touch her in comfort as he once would have done, but the idea was impossible. 

He clenched his fists. “We need to figure out when we are. And why the hell the portal took us where it did. Could your magic have done that? Taken us to another time?”

“Doubtful. I’m not so sure it’s my portal gone haywire anymore. It takes some dark power to manifest that much magic.”

He nodded, grim.

“You’re a timewalker,” she said. “Can’t you take us back to the present?”

“I can only go alone.” Though he had the ability to travel through time, he almost never did. Too much travel scrambled the walker’s mind. Each trip was like a drop in the bucket. The walker became more confused as to which year he was actually in until he was so addled he was a puddle of a man. Great magic came at a great price. “But I doona have the power to take you with me. Only a full-blood timewalker could take you.”

“So I’m stuck here?”

“
We’re
stuck here. I’m no’ leaving you.” The idea was repugnant. Until they could find a way to bring her with him, he wouldn’t go through time.

“Thanks.” Her gaze darted to his, then away. As if she didn’t quite know how to process that he wouldn’t leave her. The idea that she didn’t trust him enough to stay with her hurt, but she had no idea what he’d gone through for her, how long he’d searched, and life had been abominably cruel to her. Why would she expect him to stay?

“We need to go somewhere where we can figure out the year and how to get back to the present. The university library may have answers.” He was pissed as hell at them, but it truly was the best place to find what they needed. 

“The library? That seems a bit slow.”

“No one will be able to see us. When a timewalker goes back, we can only interact with objects, no’ people. We aren’t quite on the same plane as mortals. The only exception is another timewalker. They can see me.”

“That’ll slow us down.”

“True. But there isn’t a better option.” Depending on the year, it was possible his brother would be working there. They couldn’t speak to him, but perhaps they could write a note. His magic and knowledge were so vast that he’d no doubt know a way back to the present. His brother wouldn’t find it strange that an invisible man was writing him notes. He’d know it was Felix from the future.

“Okay,” Aurora said. “But I don’t think I can aetherwalk that far on my own. Wherever we just came from was a long way away. I’ve used up most of my power. I’m absorbing yours now, but I’ve been doing that constantly since I arrived. After all that travel through the aether, now you’re low too.”

He nodded, though he’d hardly noticed the drain on his power. His soul would fuel his advanced wulver senses and strength, along with his ability to timewalk. But on the rare occasions he was around a soulceress, she would draw on the power of his soul until his abilities lessened. The particular combination of wulver and timewalker made him unusually powerful, so it wasn’t often an issue. But with all the traveling through space and time they’d just done... 

“If you still have enough power to aetherwalk, you should take me with you. I don’t want to drain you until we’re both left standing here until your power regenerates.”

The idea made his heart beat faster. If he took her with him, he’d have to hold her. “Come over here. We’ll head to the outskirts of Edinburgh. In the early eighteenth century, there should be a Mythean pub a couple of miles from the city. If it’s there, it’ll be the perfect place for you to collect power.” 

“Okay.” Mouse jumped into Aurora’s arms and she walked to him, stood so close that he could smell her. Something sweet and floral. A woman’s scent. 

His
woman’s scent.

He swallowed hard, then wrapped an arm around her waist. Lust jolted through him, followed quickly by a bolt of pain across his skin where she touched him and a roiling of his stomach. It wasn’t quite as bad as before, but still unpleasant. He closed his eyes and envisioned the pub he’d once stopped by on one of his rare trips to Edinburgh.

The aether sucked them in, a warm, strange feeling. When his feet hit hard ground again, he opened his eyes and stepped back quickly. There was no pub. Just a pile of burned rubble.

“Shite,” he said.

“We’ll have to find Mytheans in Edinburgh, then. Do you have enough power to aetherwalk again?”

He shook his head. “We’ll head toward the road. I believe it’s west. We’re only a couple of miles from Edinburgh.” He glanced at the rolling hills that surrounded them. 

“All right. Let’s go.” Aurora put Mouse on the ground, then followed him across the grass.

They walked in silence across the green hills. It was definitely late spring or early summer. He unzipped his jacket and tugged it off. Dark clouds on the horizon heralded rain. From the look of the sun, it was very late in the afternoon. It would set soon. He hoped they’d make it to the city before the dark or the rain fell. 

It took them fifteen minutes to find the road, a rutted dirt affair.

“The road looks to be eighteenth century or earlier,” he said after analyzing it. The roads hadn’t been great then, but this particular road was one of the major arteries into Edinburgh. By the nineteenth century, it’d been wider.

“Not bad, Sherlock.” Aurora’s voice was lighter, as if she was enjoying herself more. Her mood had been gradually improving since she’d arrived in Iceland. Had it been the shock of seeing him? “Let’s see if we can stumble across some Mytheans that I can suck the power out of. I’ve got some left, but I’m running on fumes here.”

He grinned.

Rain began to patter lightly on his head.

“Just our luck,” Aurora said. She kicked at a pebble in the road. “The aether prison was hell on wheels, but I gotta say, living in the seventeenth or whatever century we’re in and not having a ride sucks. I forgot how much the past blew. I’m not saying I’d rather be in the aether, but I’m damned glad I escaped into the magic that is the twenty-first century.”

“It’s better,” he said.

“Hell, yeah.” 

She was really perking up now. They might be stuck in the past, but she was determined to enjoy herself, it seemed. 

“I mean, computers and cell phones are amazing, but don’t even get me started on plumbing. Holy shit, plumbing. It’s like heaven in pipe form.”

He grinned.

“Seriously. I swear to gods that Mouse uses the toilet. Even my damned cat likes plumbing.”

He glanced at the cat. She ignored him. Probably didn’t approve of their discussion of her bathroom habits.

“I tried to teach her to flush, like in that funny movie?”

He glanced at her. Her face was scrunched, as though she was trying to remember the name of it. “No idea. Doona watch much television.”

“No? It’s awesome! I’m totally addicted.” She tilted her face up to the rain and opened her mouth. 

Guilt struck him that he hadn’t brought water. “You’ve really cheered up.” She was chatting nonstop now, as though the ice had thawed in her, each word more cheerful than the last.

“Eh, well, I’m adjusting. It was a shock to see you. I was finally finding my footing in this new world, then this problem with the soulceress city cropped up and I show up on your doorstep. But this rain... Reminds me of all the good things in the world.”

“Rain?”

“There was no rain in the aether, so now I love it. I spent too long locked up in misery. I’m not going to waste time being miserable. I’m looking on the bright side now.” She grinned.

The sight of her hit him in the chest. She was so beautiful when she smiled. Golden and bright. But the shadows still lay in her eyes. Not as bad as they had been, when she’d been adjusting to seeing him. No doubt he reminded her of when her mother was killed. She was still recovering from the worst kind of mental torture. Solitary confinement in the truest sense. Nothing but her and the dark.

Now that she was out of her nightmare, she probably had good days and bad days like he did. But whereas he liked to keep himself on an even keel and had cut himself off from things that might trigger his issues, she seemed to aggressively banish the harsh memories.

He liked her approach, even if he wasn’t capable of it.

The rumble of a carriage sounded behind them. It had been ages since he’d heard the sound, but he’d lived more years with carriages than with cars. Hard to forget the sounds of life, no matter how old. 

He moved onto the grass beside the road and kept walking. Aurora followed. Mouse ran ahead, loping through the grass. She didn’t seem terribly bothered by the rain either.

He glanced behind him as the carriage approached. He’d likely be able to tell the decade if he could get a good look at it. Two horses pulled an open cart carrying a man. Shame it was a cart. They hadn’t changed terribly much over the decades—not in the way carriages had.

It slowed as it neared them. Apprehension tickled across his skin. He shouldn’t be able to see them, so why was he slowing?

It rolled to a stop next to them. The man within leered at Aurora. He looked like a farmer. Possibly even owned this land. 

“Oy, lassie. What are ye doin’ out here by your lonesome? And wearing breeches, at that?” The man was a hulking brute with the mean look of someone who liked to hit smaller people. He was soaking wet with the rain now pouring down on them. 

“What the hell?” Aurora turned to him and hissed, “He sees us?”

“Who are ye talking’ to, lassie? Your cat? Perhaps ye need a man to pound some sense into yer head? Ye a bit daft?”

“He canna see me,” Felix said to her. Felix wanted to cave the man’s face in, but he was forbidden from interacting with anyone in the past. It was the timewalker’s most vital law. Unless the guy made a move, he’d refrain.

But what was it about Aurora that made her visible to the man?

She gave him a look that said
I’ll take care of this.
He grinned for the second time that day. A new record. As much as he wanted to rearrange that arsehole’s face, he liked watching her do it even better.