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  I pulled my hands away and played that beat on my thighs. Rat-a-tat-tat.

  “You feel the music now?”

  “I think I always have,” I mused to myself as I rehashed the visions of her. The only time I had ever seen her at peace was when she, too, played music, a haunting violin that mimicked the sound of her life at that moment. It was what she used to cope in those visions. Apparently, we shared that trait, that addiction to hearing emotions in rhythmic sound.

  I had to smile inwardly; my mother, the only other woman I had ever loved in my life, played that instrument as well. Suddenly, I didn’t feel as divided from her as I once had; I even felt like less of a flaw in my father’s lineage.

  Skylynn looked down at her hands, running her thumbs across her tender fingertips. I didn’t know much about musicians, only what Cashton had spoken about, but I knew she was lacking the marks on her hands, the calluses that were the war wounds of those that created sound.

  I bit my lip as I absorbed all that I had seen. I called lucidity to my defense. In any case, any situation, if you know that the path is wrong, or corrupt, it is only natural to avoid it.

  I didn’t know how we managed to get ourselves lost in the life plan she saw, but I could not bear the idea of her being weak, of her being a pushover, someone that was taken advantage of.

  I reached for her chin, gently raising it so her eyes would meet mine. The speech or plan I was about to say escaped my mind, and my body took over. I leaned into her. My eyes were focused on those rose-tinted lips. My heart was thundering as I pulled her chin to me, as I let my lips fall between the flesh of hers. A volt of seductive, inviting energy wove through me, a mix of hers and mine.

  I was right before: the water was a cruel barrier, the life-saving moment was a distraction. This feeling was pure. It was scorching. I would swear to you that I could feel the beat of her heart under the flesh of her lips.

  She sighed as the tension left her body. I took that as an invitation and swept my tongue across the divide of her lips. I opened my mouth and dared to deepen this kiss. The subtle groan that she let surface in her throat was the key to the lock that was holding my control at bay. I dropped her chin and reached for her waist, pulling her onto my lap, finding that she did fit perfectly in the cage of my arms.

  Her hands moved through my hair as she began to lose her control as well. She was starting to lead this kiss, and I let her. I spent every day, all day leading others, and I wanted to be led right now. I wanted to be submissive to every desire of her being, and I refused to let logic tell me to gain control, to think first, that we were strangers.

  Through the passionate movement of her lips, I felt the emotions we had witnessed. I felt like this was not a first kiss, but the kiss that well-practiced lovers give when they find each other once more.

  When I moved my hands across her back, she sighed and leaned her head back. I took it as a request and moved my lips to her neck, quickly finding myself intoxicated by her scent—that pure ivory scent. I was the one letting near silent groans out now. Instinct took over, and before I knew it I had her lying under me on the settee.

  The only thing that stopped me from wrapping her legs around me was when I caressed her face with my hand and felt another tear. I slowed my kiss, then moved my lips to her cheek, stopping that rivulet of pain. She squeezed my arms as she let out a gasp. I let my body rest beside hers and pulled her against me.

  “What is wrong?” I breathed, trying to calm my pounding heart. I’d kissed girls before, more than kissed, but with them it seemed like a routine, something done to catch a rapid heartbeat or a fleeting rush. That was not what just happened. All I cared about was giving her everything she ever wanted, making her complete and exultant.

  “I never saw the end. I never saw us at peace,” she said as she caressed her hand across my face and her eyes rapidly moved across my stare.

  She knew, just as I did, that something was going to take her from my arms, that we would begin the fight of our lives. That thought was saturating her with far too many emotions at one time, and I had no words to soothe her.

  Chapter Four

  I gazed at her, falling in love with how the setting sun added to the reflection of beautiful hair against her skin. I’d tell you that I was falling in love with her, but that would be the wrong tense. Somehow I knew I had loved her at my creation, that I had been robbed.

  Tarek was right: my time was nearing. If I wanted to give everything I was to Skylynn, I had to sever the ties between my twin image and me. The prophecy spoken over me had to be dealt with.

  If I planned my path, I could travel through that Fall, end my twin, and be back before the sunset.

  “This is the end,” I promised. “You’re safe in my arms.”

  Her eyes watered, but she would not let any more tears fall. That was the stubbornness I had seen in those visions, the girl that refused to give up no matter how many times she had been victimized.

  “I think the end is unwritten, that this time will either break us or save us,” she said, staring at me as if she were demanding that her mind never forget this sensation of lying in my arms.

  Right now, I saw a past that I could change. I saw troubled roads I could avoid. The answers before the problem found a reason to exist.

  I’d lay down my own life before I let her cross The Fall, but I had seen enough mystical elements to know there would always be a risk, a daunting threat that we would have to endure what she was shown. If that happened, I had to make sure she was strong.

  I could not let her become the victim I saw in those swift visions.

  I pulled myself up so I was looking down at her. I reached to cradle her face with my hand, gently tracing the base of her eyes, mesmerized by the haunting glow of them; they had never been this bright.

  “If I can’t stop this, if by some corrupt reason you do end up on the other side of that Fall, you have to make me a promise.” My lips rested on hers ever so slightly; even that brush of a touch set my soul on fire.

  I pulled away before I lost this train of thought once again and spoke as I caressed her face. “You don’t care what anyone thinks; you fight and claw your way to what you want. You bargain, you trade, you keep your distance from anyone that you know you can’t trust—and even those that you feel that you can, keep at arm’s length. You never let them know what your price is, what your weakness is. You become fierce, a warrior. You do all of this, and know that it will lead you to me. That one way or another, I will bring you home to me.”

  “I could never wrong you—us. I couldn’t hurt people.”

  “Self-preservation, Skylynn.” She gasped when I said her full name. She knew then that I really did see what she had seen. She was searching for proof and logic, too. Deep down, she already knew how to be defensive. I had helped her unlock that. “Listen. Not everything over there is evil, but you have to understand that all of them are there for their own lessons; they are there to find their truth. You have to defend yourself, love yourself, because if you don’t no one will see reason to do that for you.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Don’t be. It’s just time. Time moves; forward, backward—no matter what, it moves. I will do whatever I have to do to stop you from having any reason to go there, but if I fail, I don’t want to see you that broken, that vulnerable. I want you to be fierce.”

  “How do I know it will not pull you further away? The old man made it seem as if we were to guide others to some point, some rapture.”

  “I have to know that you can defend yourself.” My lips brushed across hers. “There is nothing you could ever do that I would not forgive you for. No point in time that I will not defend you with my last breath.”

  “I just don’t understand.”

  I caressed her hair. “I don’t either. I don’t see myself in those visions as I am today.”

  Fear engulfed her stare. “You feel the same, though. Your energy does.”

  “Shh,” I whi
spered, touching my lips to hers once more. “That’s not odd. That side of The Fall causes us to reveal deep parts of our soul, hidden ones. The path can be hard or challenged.”

  “Did none of them seem familiar?”

  I let out a deep breath and bit my bottom lip before I spoke.

  “I’ve been asleep, Skylynn. At my birth, an Allurest told me I shared my soul with a dark twin. That for me to have a future, any hope of one, I would have to destroy him. That is all I have focused on. I stand at my post, I train those that must travel there, those that are becoming fewer as the years move by. I gaze into history, questioning the path of mankind. Even though I find reverence with it, I become incensed that tragedy is, more times than not, what it takes to awaken souls, that they must lose it all before they discover what they had.

  “For a time, I was grateful that I had nothing to lose, one task to occupy me. I admit, I thought that it was a waste of an existence, that there had to be more to my purpose. You’re the only thing that has ever made me want to figure out what that is.”

  “You’re happy in some of those visions. You’re worried. But you were happy all in all,” she said as she furrowed her brow.

  “I didn’t see happy, I didn’t see calm. I saw a blind search. And I know why. I may not have known what I was looking for, but I felt empty. I felt empty because my soul knew that somewhere you were in pain. I want to change this. Stop it.”

  “I don’t think we can.”

  “I already have two plans: protect you from going at all, and if I fail, then your promise to me that you will be a warrior, that you will not let anyone take advantage of you. That you will keep your intent, your focus, and claw your way to me. And when you find me, you do not rest until my foolish soul awakens once more.”

  She reached to caress my face. “I don’t know what an Allurest is, but I think they were wrong.”

  I raised my brow.

  “I don’t think you are supposed to kill him.”

  Before I could question her, a screeching alarm erupted through the palace. My vim had pulled me to the window that instant. Everyone was rushing to the shores of The Fall.

  I was at her side in the next breath. I wrapped my arms around her and moved her to my grandfather’s study, to the only man I trusted to keep her safe. Tarek didn’t even flinch.

  “It’s all right. You’re safe,” I said quickly to her, then vanished from her side.

  I reached the shore just in time to see a young girl slip from the hold my men had on her and dive in the swirling waters.

  I doubted she could make it to The Fall at all. The only comfort I had was that when The Fall opened at this twilight, no darkness dared to enter. I dove in after the girl and soared as fast as I could to her.

  Today was a day of firsts. The Fall was temperamental. It was a living, breathing entity that judged everyone that dared to pass its borders. Even the most practiced of The Selected had to ensure that the timing was perfect. No one made it through as it was closing.

  Not today. I watched as the waterway began to close completely, then as if it recognized the girl engaged in a fighting swim it paused and allowed her in. A second after she vanished, I crashed into The Fall. The jolt nearly knocked me out; at the very least, it stripped my energy. The only way back to the shore was a slow crawl of a swim, one that lacked any powers those of The Selected carry.

  Halfway to the shore, I felt a pull on me; the next second, I was on the shore. My grandfather had pulled me here. Instead of asking what happened or evaluating the breach, I stared at him, wondering what he had done with Skylynn. Before I could say anything, he said, “Well, guarded, with the Allurest.” I let out a sigh and rushed my hands through my soaking hair.

  That was the second time I’d ended up in that emerald sea today, and I wasn’t thrilled about it.

  “Explain,” I bit out, turning my back on my grandfather to face my men.

  “You want them to explain?” I heard in sharp response from the soul I loathed, Camlin. He emerged from the men and leered at me. “Really?” He glanced at all the men. “Didn’t I tell you? He’s bewitched. He let that demon in. He has been locked away with her all day! What happened?” he said, increasing his scowl. “I’ll tell you what happened! Your pupil, the soul in your care, decided he wanted a little adventure and went for a swim.”

  My eyes shot to The Fall.

  “That’s right. Cashton jumped. Seconds before The Fall ever opened. What kind of teacher are you anyway? Did you not even bother to tell him the basics, the risk of moving that soon? He is dead. At the very least, lurking with the dead. And if that wasn’t a valiant enough screw up for you, then let me tell you that girl that you could not catch is more than likely dead, too, because that demon sucked your energy dry. That was Cashton’s younger sister. Two crested souls were lost today due to your poor, unmanaged leadership. The Selected are worthless. No one wants this carelessness guarding our borders. No wonder we are facing peril.”

  Every man around him moved, placing him alone and openly stating disapproval, even malice, toward the Hermetic that was sent here only to find fault.

  During his rant, I had evaluated the shore. We had not yet set the mold of Cashton’s crest in the marble, but the place where he always meditated had a guitar lying there, one he always carried with him. Not far from that point was another. When I saw that, I doubted all my lessons given to Cashton were lost; he knew enough to place something that was saturated with his energy there, knew enough to create a tether on his own.

  What was blowing my mind more than anything was that now there were three more spinning circles of ice in the emerald sea, all separate, all perfect.

  I moved toward the guitar, Cashton’s place. This task of emerging was not something he could have done on his own. The process took energy and concentration. He must have believed that whoever was helping him would secure him. That was a fatal mistake; his tether of energy was broken, jaggedly, as if it had been cut in a hasty rush.

  This was a set up, one that I knew no Selected member would have the stomach to do. We respect this process too much.

  Cashton was lost to us at this moment, and it would take every Allurest we had, every Selected we had, years of gazing into that Fall to even find a sign of him. I knew who did this. Just as well as I knew my own name.

  Camlin was blocking me. He was not letting me see his day. Not one moment of it. Something he had apparently picked up on, more than likely right after the last time I had called him on his B.S., the time that I stated verbatim what he was sent here to do: destroy our role as protectors of this barrier.

  “Open your mind,” I growled as I charged him. I had his shirt gripped in my fist.

  “Why? So the evil you have been fondling all afternoon can get her claws into me? I think not.”

  I doubted I could stop myself, even if I had taken the time to think. I reared back and slugged him. If anything, I proved the last thing Skylynn had stripped me of was energy. The vibration of The Fall had left me, and that one punch was powerful enough to send Camlin soaring backward. He was now at least fifteen feet out to sea.

  A second later, he was on the banks—not by his will, but my grandfather’s. Tarek was not taking his side, but protecting the waters. Camlin’s nose was starting to bleed, and the last thing we wanted was his essence in those sacred waters.

  I crouched down next to him.

  “You are too weak to close your mind to me at all times. You must sleep at some point, and when you do I will be right there—and if I see that you destroyed a life, a crested soul of The Selected for the only purpose of proving your false accusations, I will rip your soul into a thousand pieces.”

  The bastard had the audacity to smirk. “One might wonder if you’re more like your twin than first thought.”

  I was taken back. I could not hide the shock in my eyes. No one more than my parents, my grandfather, and a few Allurest knew of my fate.

  “That’s right. I know,” Camlin
said as he wiped his nose, smearing blood across his face. “One must wonder if your creation was the catalyst for our demise. You are divided of evil and cursed with seeing a past that you know you cannot change. You are our omen, that I saw coming.”

  I punched him again, surely breaking his nose that time. “Did you see that coming?”

  “Get him out of here,” Tarek roared.

  Two of my men broke away and drug Camlin away. The rest scattered, and those that could see through The Fall were at their post, beginning the fruitless search for Cashton, surely watching to make sure his sister at least fell in line. I was more than doubtful. If no one spoke a creed over them, if they did not hold a thought or life goal in their mind, they were doomed to move listlessly through that side. They were doomed period, with or without the guitar anchors that seemed perfectly out of place next to the other crest in the marble.

  I leaned forward, bracing my hands on my knees and squinting my eyes closed. I had grown close to Cashton. He was funny, strong, on point. Cashton lived for joy, peace. He was everything that The Selected were meant to be; therefore, I knew he was no fool, that something drove him to do this. What and why, I had no idea. Knowing his family, the legacy he came from, it was a dream, one that he felt he had no choice but to act on; still, he should have come to me, an Allurest, someone.

  I should have said something to him this morning. I should have taken the time to figure out why he looked so lost.

  I felt sick to my stomach when I thought of his sister. I had never met her; her crest had just barely shown itself, but I knew Cashton adored her, that they were nearly inseparable. Their family was a proud one. A close one.

  Tarek came to my side as I rose.

  “I don’t know where to start,” I said to him. My gaze was already on The Fall.

  “The Allurest your father used, was she Hermetic?” he asked.