Image (Insight #3)(34)

I felt Landen stand behind me and his lips on the back of my head.

“Those words cut into Drake and Alamos,” he thought.

I knew he was telling me their emotion because he thought I was bringing more harm than good to the situation.

“I can’t help it; I’m sorry,” I said, looking at Drake. I stepped forward and reached for his hand. His touch was just as seductive as it always has been. He looked up slowly into my eyes, and I saw the pain that Landen had said I inflected. “If you forget, it won’t hurt anymore,” I whispered.

He moved his hand to my face, cradling it with his seductive touch. “If you remembered, you’d change your mind; you’d see that we’ve been fooled by our emotions before,” Drake said.

I moved my head side to side. “If we were meant to remember our past lives, it would come to us naturally. The universe has its reasons for that barrier,” I said, moving Drake’s hand from my face and letting go of him. I looked back at Landen and saw the confidence in his eyes that I felt coming from him.

“The universe is cruel,” Alamos said quietly.

“Undo it all,” I repeated.

Looking at her, I felt Perodine’s grief. “We cannot do as you ask, my precious daughter,” she answered.

I looked down, then walked slowly to the couch and fell into it. Dane was at my side. Beth followed, and she wrapped her arms around me as I cried quietly on her shoulder.

“Why not?” I heard Landen ask. “Let her feel him; I assure you, it will change nothing.”

“It is not that we do not want to,” Perodine answered. “It is because time moves forward. We cannot change what we have done. It is not a magic spell; it was a choice we made. If it was possible, I would not only do as Willow has asked - but I would take her memories of the nightmares away. All that you have lived through is now a part of you.”

Beth’s arms tightened around me; we were both grieving – grieving for a life that was taken from Drake. I heard August clear his throat, and I looked up from Beth’s shoulder to see him walking to the center of the room; I felt clarity inside of him. His wise eyes looked over Perodine, then Alamos, before looking across the room.

“This has been a very revealing evening,” August said into the room. “I think that now that all of our secrets are out in the open – we’ll be able to move forward.” He walked to the table where the scrolls were laid and looked down at them, then back to the room. “Forgive me if what I’m about to say offends you,” he said, looking from Alamos to Perodine, “but I think you’ve been both played as a fool.”

I could feel that he’d offended Perodine; she crossed her arms and waited for him to go on.

“We’re fighting darkness – not a man; a darkness that does not know the limits of time. Looking back over you lives, it is easy for me to see how it weaved itself into you. It never had a doubt that Aliyanna belonged to the two of you, or what her purpose was: to kill it. I would even guess that it helped you find the passage to the string – knowing it would take four million three hundred and thirty two years before she would return.” August paused as his eyes moved across the room.

“A lot of damage can be done in that amount of time; it was just too perfect that Drake was born here,” August said, looking looked at Alamos. “a boy that had the path you’d lived in front of him. Both of you were so consumed by your own past that you didn’t see it moving closer, closer and closer to the children – and now it’s upon us, the moment of truth. We need to put the anger and resentment behind us and find a way to beat this demon.”

Drake walked slowly over and sat on the couch across from me. As he stared deep into my eyes, his emotion was strong enough to cause Landen to turn and look at him. Inside Landen, I felt a remorse for Drake that I’d never felt before. Landen turned around and walked to the table, and Marc followed. I felt Perodine move all of her emotions down deep into her soul. Alamos followed the others.

“What are these books of?” Landen asked Alamos.

“Once I discovered your kind – the travelers – I asked them to bring me any knowledge of darkness, of a dark person living in immortality. These are the ones I’ve collected over time.” Alamos opened one of the books and flipped through the pages.

“You find a common story, a leader of many who turned dark. In most cases, it was moved out of the body it possessed with simple words,” Alamos said.

As I looked in his direction, I could feel hope building in all of us. Alamos must have sensed it, too; he looked around at all of us and shook his head no. “Every word I found, I said over Donalt; I thought if he died then I’d be released from this life. None of them worked; in fact, one time he caught me speaking them. His laugh bellowed through the wings of the palace. He said, ‘Those words are for my children; they cannot hurt the father.’ I assumed he’d gone mad at that point and resumed my role at his side, counting the days down.”

“Do you know where the knife is?” Perodine asked.

Alamos nodded yes. “You’ll need both Landen and Drake to retrieve it. The stone will not move unless the hands of the good and bad soulmate touch it at the same time.” We all looked at him, full of astonishment. “I said the words when I discovered that they were both in this life; my intention was to give reason to spare Drake’s life throughout the course of all the planets,” he said, defending himself.