Chapter Twenty-Two
Christien blinked up at the blue sky peeking through the dense leaves of the trees looming over him.
For several long moments he did nothing but breathe.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. By the slant of the sun, it appeared to be early morning.
That wasn’t right because the fight in the clearing had taken place in late afternoon. Unless he’d been unconscious that long.
He pushed himself up and frantically looked around.
Madelaine was gone along with Giselle and Lucheux.
In fact, this wasn’t the same clearing at all.
Confused, disoriented and sore, but not from the knife wound—this was more a dull throb from lying too long on the hard ground—he rubbed his aching head.
His chain mail clanked with the movement and he froze, his hand buried in his hair.
What the hell is this?
In disbelief he plucked at the tunic covering him and stared at the breeches encasing his legs. Tunic? Breeches? Chain mail?
He jumped to his feet, his hand automatically going to the sword at his side. A sword that shouldn’t be there. Like the clothes he was wearing.
Where was Madelaine’s body? The last he remembered was lying beside her in the woods of his home in France. Twenty-first-century France where he’d been wearing jeans and a buttoned-down shirt.
Not…this.
A snort and a shuffle had him spinning around and crouching into a fighting stance, sword raised. A few yards from him a horse grazed peacefully. A horse.
Dumbfounded, he turned in a circle and discovered Michael sitting beside a crackling fire, knees drawn up, elbows resting on them. The angel was dressed as a… Christien swallowed. As a Knight Templar.
Just like he was dressed.
“What the hell is going on?” he managed to ask.
“Something you said right before Madelaine died got me thinking,” Michael said in modern English which made the clothes they were wearing that much more…strange.
Pain pierced Christien’s chest at the mention of Madelaine, dead again. He wanted to rage to the heavens, to scream, to kill Lucheux all over again. She was gone. Here too short of a time. Any length of time would have been too short.
The dull throb in his body moved to his heart where it lodged and probably would reside there for the rest of eternity. How was he supposed to move on when for him, everything was over? When all he wanted was to close his eyes and shut out the world forever?
“What did I say?” he asked.
“You said you wished you had killed Lucien before he turned immortal.”
Christien’s gaze darted around the clearing.
A light fog floated a foot above the ground, giving the area an eerie feeling that had the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.
He quickly assessed the possible dangers, but he and Michael—and the horse—seemed to be the only ones around.
Where had Madelaine, Lucheux and Giselle gone?
Did Lucheux have Madelaine’s body? Had he discovered Madelaine’s sister?
Promise.
He closed his eyes, Madelaine’s plea whispering inside him. He promised he’d protect her sister.
Christien focused on Michael, anything to alleviate the crushing heartbreak inside him. “Where are we?” he asked.
“France.”
“When are we?”
“Fourteenth century.”
“You sent me back seven hundred years?”
“You can’t kill Lucien after he’s turned immortal. So why not try before?”
Christien’s heart thundered. Could he do it? Would it work? And if it did, would he be able to save Madelaine before Giselle killed her the first time?
“We’re at the edge of Count Flandres’s property,” Michael said. “A day or so ride will get you to the castle.”
“Then what?” he asked.
“This is new territory for me, Christien. God has made it very clear that we are forbidden to alter past or future events. What I did, what we’re doing, is very much taboo. If discovered, God’s wrath will be immense.”
Christien had never seen Michael scared and he wouldn’t exactly say the angel was scared now, but he was nervous which made Christien nervous.
“How immense?”
Michael shrugged. “I know not. No one has ever defied God in this way.”
“Then why are you doing it now?”
Michael threw a stick into the fire and watched it burn. “Because something needs to be done about this. Because I’ve watched you and Madelaine struggle for centuries. Because some good must come of this.”
The enormity of what Michael had done weighed heavily on Christien’s shoulders. But he was also extremely grateful to be given yet one more chance.
“Thank you, brother.”
Michael looked up at him and grinned. “I thought you had no brothers.”
“I will gladly call you my brother for all that you have risked for me this day. My hope is that God’s wrath isn’t too massive.”
“Mine too, brother. Mine too. Let us hope you can kill Giselle and Lucheux and I can get you back to the twenty-first century before God realizes what we have done.”
Christien drew a deep breath, surprisingly comfortable in his old clothes with his old sword clutched in his hand. He settled beside the warm fire. For the first time since learning Giselle had left the States and come to France, he felt hope.
“Am I still immortal?” ’Twas a good thing to know before going into battle.
Michael looked at him sharply, as if reading his emotions. “Aye.”
Christien nodded, fighting the surprising disappointment. Had he wanted to be mortal again? Vulnerable?
If you are vulnerable, you can die a noble death and join Madelaine in heaven.
He picked up a stick and snapped it in half, feeling a coward for wanting to give up.
Was it cowardly to wish for this pain to end?
Or was it smart? There was only so much a mind could take, mortal or immortal.
He threw the two halves of the stick into the fire.
He couldn’t think like that. He had to pray that Michael brought him back here in time to save Madelaine.
And then what? You bring her to the twenty-first century?
He pushed the questions away. He’d come to that when the time was right. For now he had to concentrate on getting there and killing Giselle and Lucien.
“By killing Lucheux and Giselle we are altering history, but hopefully God won’t be too angry for obliterating an evil that should have been obliterated hundreds of years ago.” Michael’s look was grim but determined.
Christien grinned. “Two wrongs equal a right?”
“Something like that.”
They fell into an easy silence, the fire crackling before them. Comrades-at-arms though this battle had far more consequences than any other battle Christien had been involved in.
“Tell me something, Michael.”
The angel grunted, his gaze glued to the fire.
“Why did you reincarnate Madelaine?”
Michael’s gaze flew to Christien. “I didn’t.”
“Then who?”
“It is her destiny.”
“I dislike it when you speak in riddles,” Christien muttered.
Michael grinned. “Her destiny is tied to the treasure. If she fails in one life, she must come back in another.”
“So I am fated to meet her and fall in love with her over and over?” Hope and despair combined inside him. Mon Dieu, he couldn’t keep reliving this intense love and the inevitable grief that followed it.
“Until those seals are broken, yes, I’m afraid so.”
And Christien’s job was to make sure those seals were never broken.
Michael was right. The castle was a day’s ride from the campsite—and what a long, monotonous day it had been.
Christien ran a weary hand through his hair.
It’d been a while since he’d ridden a horse and his muscles were cramping.
He had a whole new appreciation for the power and speed of his Italian sports car and a little less nostalgia for the good old days.
The horse plodded on, giving his mind free rein that he didn’t appreciate.
He thought of Madelaine, grief giving way to hope and circling back around to grief.
The hope was almost as bad as the grief.
The knowledge that he would see her again gave him the strength he needed to go on.
The thought of losing her yet again pitched him into the deepest despair.
He wanted a life with her. A life without danger stalking them. A life of peace. But that was impossible. He knew that, but it didn’t stop him from yearning for it.
People’s voices pulled him from his dreary thoughts. He drew back on the reins and cocked his head to listen. It’d been such a long time since he’d been a soldier. Could he do this? Would he be able to slip back into the soldier he’d been so long ago? So much had happened since then.
A few minutes more of riding and he glimpsed the castle walls, the lowered portcullis and the soldiers walking the battlements.
For a few crazy seconds he stared, disoriented, at the swords swinging from soldiers’ hips and the occasional archer with his bow.
Slowly he slid off his horse and observed carts loaded with grain and produce rumble across the wooden bridge.
Men called to each other, waved and stopped to pass a few words.
Men he’d walked beside seven hundred years ago.
Men he’d broken bread with and trained with.
Men who had been dead seven centuries. Except, now they were very much alive and very real.
The stench surprised him. He’d forgotten the smell of the fourteenth century.
No bathrooms, no running water. Filthy people living in filthy circumstances and not knowing any differently.
The castle was rich, yet had an air of squalor about it.
He didn’t need to come close to know most people didn’t have a full set of teeth, their skin was pockmarked, but their bodies strong from years of hard labor or fighting.
The majority couldn’t read, yet they were smart in ways the twenty-first-century man wouldn’t be, nor would he want to be.
Survival was the name of the game in this time. It was an elemental way of living and yet their worries and heartaches were eerily similar to the men of the twenty-first century.