Through life and death, and all that lies between
I vow to be yours, forever
The shadows on the seat darkened as she read aloud, creeping closer to her.
“Did you see that?” She gripped the sides of the book with both hands.
His shoulders straightened and he looked out the window. “See what?”
“The shadows. They moved while I read the words. They also moved when I studied the book in Albuquerque.”
“Maybe you’re imagining things.”
“No, I’m not. Raphael said we ruled the shadow realm, so it makes sense that they might be affected by these words. And Raphael and Alex both claim that elementals—that
we—
don’t die but are instead exiled to the shadow world. I haven’t seen anything about that in the book yet.”
“First, it’s hard to trust anything Raphael says. He would have promised you the moon to get you to join with him. But, we can’t dismiss it either, especially if you think the shadows moved.”
She leaned over the book again. “‘With echoes of the beginning of time.’ What do you think that means?”
“Maybe it’s power from the beginning of time. It has to be something powerful to bind us for eternity.”
“It joins our hearts on an endless path through infinity.”
“Another way of saying forever.”
“‘Through life and death and all that lies between.’ That’s the part that scares me. What happens if one of us dies? Does it mean that we’re still bound or does it mean we die together?”
“I don’t know. I’m in no hurry to find out.”
“Me either.” Emma turned her head, positive that a shadow on the dashboard had moved. “Raphael had access to this book before but didn’t seem to know much. In fact, he suspected if we joined that we would know each other’s every thought, but he also said he wasn’t sure. So far that isn’t true with you and me.”
Speak for yourself
.
She turned to him with a glare.
“Don’t worry. I can’t read your thoughts. I purposely sent that thought to you.”
So you can hear this
?
He grinned.
“But can we read each other’s thoughts like Jake could?” She tried to push in to Will’s mind and met a wall. She tried not to let the relief show on her face. Even though she didn’t plan to keep secrets from Will, she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of being an open book.
“No, apparently not, although you look relieved at that.”
“You can’t say you welcomed it.”
His eyes darkened. “There’s something to be said for privacy.”
Emma turned a page. “There’s hardly anything in here about the final confrontation. Only this:
“
The battle shall end the fight
When all four unite
Four will fight, two will remain.
And the end will restore
The balance again
.
“I was reading that part right before Raphael showed up to get the book—I didn’t get to ‘the end would restore the balance’ then.” She read the section again. “Four will fight at the end and two will remain.”
“It says remain, Emma. Not live. That means the two who don’t remain don’t necessarily die. There’s a possibility we could all survive.”
“Not if Aiden has his way. That’s not his intention.”
“Did you find anything else?”
“Two things. The first is another type of oath, as you called it. It looks like the words give a transfer of power.”
“What does it say?”
With the shadows as my witness,
I give to you an irrevocable gift
Power and elemental control,
And all that is mine
.
She looked up. “Do you think this is the oath Raphael and Alex took at the beginning of Aiden’s game?”
Will shook his head. “It says irrevocable. They hope to get their full power back, and it seems like insanity for them to fight Aiden while their powers are partial. Not only does he have his own full power but part of theirs.”
“But you told me, when I first started training, that energy can’t be created. It flows from one source to the next. Wouldn’t creating children weaken Aiden and Marcus’s power?”
Tapping his thumb on the steering wheel, Will shook his head. “It makes sense. I think it would.” He turned to look at her. “But we have to take it a step further.”
Her face rose to look into his eyes.
“You. And Alex. You had Jake. If this theory is correct, your power would have been weakened. Alex’s, too, probably.”
She leaned her head back into the seat. “I think you’re right. But Jake seems so powerful. More so than I am.”
“I don’t know. Maybe he is because both of his parents are elemental. It’s something to think about.”
She suspected he was right. Which meant all the training in the world couldn’t help her. She’d have to outthink her father, rather than overpower him. Now she needed the book more than ever.
“You said there was something else.”
“Yeah.” She sat up and flipped the pages. “It’s more like a poem than an oath. Maybe even a prophecy. But I know it’s something because I have to use my power to read it.”
“What does it say?”
Earth and Air, Water and Fire,
All are meant to rule apart and also as one
The world suffers from imbalance until the end
When one will be overcome
By that which has no price
.
Will sat up, excited. “That last part. It’s in the prophecy. One will be overcome by that which has no price.”
“One of us will save the world?”
“It sounds like it.”
Emma’s fingertips traced the words. “But which one of us? And what happens to the rest of us?”
“I don’t know. The big question right now is who’s making the rules? Aiden or some supernatural force? Where did the prophecies come from? I suspect it wasn’t Aiden. He doesn’t want to restore a balance of power. If anything, he wants more.”
She looked up at him. “Marcus said
he
wanted to restore a balance of power.”
“Maybe so, but I still don’t trust him.”
“I’m not saying we should trust him, but maybe he’s the one to restore the balance.”
“At this point, it could be any of us.
“So basically, we have a book with an oath and a pointless poem. Neither of which helps us very much.” Emma shut the book, nausea turning her stomach. “I can’t believe I destroyed half of Albuquerque for this. I killed countless people for
nothing
.”
“Emma you didn’t know. And there still might be something in there you missed. Raphael and Alex were desperate to get it. You did the right thing.”
“Did I, Will? It’s easy for you to say. There isn’t blood on your hands.”
He turned her to face him. “Are you so sure? You forget my past, Emma.”
Irritation burned through Emma, not at Will, but at herself for making him remember his time in Iraq and what he’d done since. He’d told her about a small portion of his time there, but she was sure there was so much more he kept to himself. “I’m sorry, Will. I’m worried I’m not strong enough.” She grabbed his hand and held tight. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not giving up, but we both know my power is weak. Probably the weakest of all of us.”
“That’s not true. When it’s available to you, it’s just as strong as Raphael’s.”
“When it’s available. When I’m scared, it’s almost completely gone.”
“We’ll practice. The more confident you feel about using your power, the less scared you’ll be. Besides, you’ll do it to save Jake.”
“And to save you.”
Will brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I don’t need you to save me. I can take care of myself. I need you to focus on yourself, Emma. And Jake.” He rested their joined hands on his leg. “We’ll do the best we can with what we have. We have two advantages the others don’t. First, we’re joined, which we already know is a huge advantage since both Raphael and Alex were desperate to join with you. We’ll figure out how to use our joining to fight. But we have something else they don’t, Emma.” He paused and looked at her. “We’re fighting for something more than ourselves—we’re fighting for each other. That gives us greater power.”
“Or becomes our greatest weakness.”
“Only if we let it.”
She wasn’t sure he was right, but she’d humor Will for now. She needed any scrap of hope she could get at this point.
Hours later, she stood barefoot on the beach, sand squishing between her toes and the roar of ocean waves filling her ears. She stared at the expanse of water as the sun began to set.
Will’s arm wrapped around her from behind and she leaned into his chest, releasing an exhausted sigh. Even though they’d taken turns driving and napped, she was still tired.
Will brought his lips to her ear. “Is it what you thought it would be?”
She wrapped her arms over his and clung to him. Her entire life she’d wanted to see the ocean and here it was in front of her, larger than she imagined. But the ocean’s beauty meant nothing now—all that mattered was that the ocean was a tool that Will could use to test his powers. And a reminder that Jake had been right all those years ago.
“I opened the cabin and put our bags inside. As I suspected, it doesn’t look like it’s been used for several years. It’s musty so I opened the windows to air it out.”
“Okay.”
“I say we try to get a good night’s sleep and start first thing in the morning.”
“Okay.”
“We’re going to win this.”
“I know.” But she didn’t.
She turned to look up at him. His gaze was on the waves, awe in his eyes. “So you really came here when you were a kid?”
“Only a couple of summers, but those two summers were awesome. I always loved the water. I guess I know why now.”
Had she loved fire when she was a kid? Not that she remembered, but Jake had always been fascinated by it.
“I know there’s a fire pit around here somewhere. I can get some firewood and run up to the cabin and look for something to light it with.”
“I just blew up half of Albuquerque. Lighting a fire is nothing.”
“Emma…”
“It’s done. We need to move on.” She knew she had to let Albuquerque go, or at the very least, stop making Will endure her guilt. But the soot-covered and bloodied faces of the people rushing out of the buildings still haunted her. “I’d rather just go to bed.”
“Okay.”
“But not yet. I want to stay here a minute.” There was something soothing about the waves washing over her feet. The way the sand was sucked beneath her feet. She realized she’d spent her life like this—digging her toes into the sand while circumstances rushed in and sucked away every bit of her life that mattered. But she was done. Done reacting to the things thrown at her. It was time to take control and seek retribution from the people who’d made her suffer.
Closing her eyes, she reached out to Jake with her mind, calling his name. Her calls disappeared into nothingness and her heart squeezed with fear. Why couldn’t she sense him? Had something happened? She tried to relax, remembering that she’d encountered the same feeling after Aiden had taken Will’s memory and his mark. She’d mistaken it as a sign that Will was dead, but she was wrong. If she’d lost her connection to Will because Aiden had erased his mark, both on Will’s skin and hers, had the same happened with Jake? Had she lost the fire mark that appeared the night her son was conceived?
She stepped away from Will and jerked down her t-shirt, craning to look over her shoulder.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t feel Jake. Is his mark still there?” Her voice shook with fear.
He tugged her shirt down farther, turning her so the moonlight shone on her back. “It’s there. Along with water.”
“But not your mark?”
“No, it’s still gone. But something new is there.”
“
What?”
She stretched her neck, sending a spasm in her shoulders. “What is it?”
“It looks like two triangles. One is upside down and they intersect.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, but they weren’t there a couple of days ago. Trust me, I would know.”
“What does the water mark mean? Is it you? I got it when I discovered your mark.”
“I don’t know. You said Raphael told you it was gone after you lost my protector mark. I didn’t trust him at the time, but maybe he told you the truth. Maybe they both had to do with me. Then the water mark reappeared when I came back.”
“Maybe.” But she had another theory—and right now, she didn’t want to tell him what she really suspected the mark might mean. The thought sent a new shockwave of anxiety through her. Her fire mark had appeared six years ago, when Jake was conceived. The water mark had appeared after she and Will had made love the first time. The night their baby was conceived. And the mark disappeared the night she miscarried.
So a new water mark could only mean one thing…
She cut off the thought, unable to accept the possibility. She could be wrong. Alex was Jake’s father, so shouldn’t she have gotten an air mark the night Jake was conceived? Maybe the marks had a meaning she hadn’t yet thought of.
“There’s a picture of the mark of The Chosen One in the book, but no other symbols. It must have to do with our joining.”
“But two triangles seem weird when the other marks are symbols, not shapes. Do you have anything?”
“I don’t know.” He looked down at his forearm, where his protector mark had been. Emma knew there wouldn’t be anything on his arm. He’d worn short sleeves the last two days.
“Maybe it’s on your back too.” She lifted up the bottom of his shirt. On his right shoulder blade were two intersected triangles.
***
Emma’s hold on his shirt tightened and Will wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or worried.
“I have them?”
“Yes.” Her voice was soft and almost lost in the air.
“Nothing else?”
She lowered his shirt. “No, but I think you’re right. It has to be related to our joining.”
“Agreed.” But what it meant was a mystery, along with everything else in this fucked-up production. The other marks had been more detailed and intricate. The triangles were plain. Elemental. Maybe that was the answer right there. “I say we test it all out tomorrow.”