Chapter 50 Prophesy Be Damned
Skylenna
My heels split and crack as I sprint through the woods, into the shallow Emerald Oak River, over fallen trees, and onto the uneven road that leads to Marilynn’s hidden house.
Jumping onto the front porch, I pound my fists on their front door. I don’t care what time it is. I don’t care if they’re asleep. My mind pulses and goes up in flames. It’s more than the fear of my daughter being lost. It’s Niles being left behind too.
“Marilynn! Open the damn door!” I shriek.
My fists boom through the hum of crickets and early morning birds. I’m two seconds from breaking the door down as it flies open.
“Warrose,” I say out of breath.
He looms over me with a giant shadow that blots out the light coming from the living room behind him. I almost forgot they were staying with Marilynn and Niles a little longer to draw up new trade agreements.
“What’s wrong?” he asks in a raspy, tired yet alert voice.
Ruth appears at Warrose’s side, resting her wrists on the arms of her chair.
I look between them, trying not to let myself fall apart. “Where is Marilynn…”
“We had a lot of wine last night. She’s passed out,” Ruth answers with a yawn.
“Skylenna,” Warrose says, narrowing his eyes on me. “What is it?”
My hands clasp together, pressing against my mouth as I shake my head.
I can’t decide which emotions want to be set free the most. Devastation, because I can feel it…
I can feel death and doom and an everlasting ache hanging over us.
The void gathers a layer of ice awaiting an apocalypse. Something is coming.
Or am I furious? If something happens to my daughter, I won’t forgive Marilynn for knowing and choosing to stay silent.
“Sapphire and Niklaus are missing.” I watch their backs straighten and faces fall. “Not here. They’re somewhere we can’t reach. Krimson believes they’ve moved through time and can’t find their way back to us.”
Warrose was seconds away from pushing past me to start looking for them. Until that last bit. He pauses in the doorway, glancing back at Ruth at a complete loss of words.
“They…time traveled,” Ruth clarifies, staring up at me in thorough disbelief.
“They took—Niles with them,” I add. My blood runs cold at the full description Krimson gave me of what he saw.
Warrose shakes his head, placing his hand over his mouth before speaking. “Maybe that’s a good thing. Niles won’t leave their side. He’ll watch out for them. He knows what our world was like before we fixed it.”
Tears rush to my eyes at the hope he suddenly has.
“It’s true. He’ll know how to keep them safe,” Ruth agrees.
“No. They—” My voice breaks, and I have to breathe to keep the heartbreak at bay. “They left Niles behind. They lost him…in Vexamen.”
Ruth’s face falls. The color leaves her flushed cheeks.
“When…”
“Far enough back when the Blackspire Ward of The North was still around.”
Ruth blanches, moving her chair back as she clutches her hand to her chest.
“NO! Tell me he’s not in there, Skylenna… Tell me they don’t have Niles!”
I look to Warrose, then back at Ruth. “From what Krimson saw, he is currently a captive.”
“No! Oh god, no!” Ruth shrieks, crying in her hand.
“God-fucking-damnit!” Warrose shoves past me, stepping off the porch and pacing the tree line with a horde of pent-up energy.
“Where are the kids?! Are they safe?” Ruth is still crying but trying to straighten up enough to hear my response, desperate for some news.
“We don’t know yet. All Krimson knows is that they are at least better off than Niles.”
“Can Krimson travel too? He must! We need to leave now! We have to—”
I hold my hand up to her. “He’s working on it. I’ve shown him how to search for her in the void, though the place he’s going is different. Similar to the void, but a separate entity entirely. I can’t follow him there.”
“But does he know how to travel like Sapphire did?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“Oh, Skylenna…” Ruth reaches for my hand and tugs me to her. “If Niles is a captive, we have to find a way to get to him now. Most captives there ended up dead or horribly maimed. Especially ones from our country.”
Warrose places a hand on my upper back. “We have to do something. I can’t leave him in that place. Fuck, Dessin would have burned both countries to the ground to get him out.”
“Does it look like I’m going to sit around and wait for a miracle? I don’t care if it fucking kills me—I will bring my daughter, Niklaus, and my brother home,” I say confidently.
The floorboards behind Ruth creak.
“They’ve traveled back in time, haven’t they?”
Down the dark hallway, Marilynn steps forward in her nightgown and slippers.
And I practically float out of body to watch what happens next. Squeezing past Ruth’s chair, I charge Marilynn, sinking my fingernails into her throat and slamming her into the wall. Picture frames clatter to the floor. Her head makes a small hole in the wallpaper.
But Marilynn, though perfectly capable, does not fight back.
She stares back at me with those, rich, all-knowing, blue eyes.
“You knew, didn’t you?” I shout in her face.
No response.
I slam her head into the wall again, to which Warrose shouts my name.
“Answer me, you fucking bitch!”
Marilynn nods. “Yes.”
“FUCK!” I scream in her face until my vocal cords are shredded. “Your son is lost in time, and your fucking husband has been taken captive at the Blackspire Ward in Vexamen! Did you know that?!”
Her eyes give nothing away. Nothing except that constant glint. The one that tells me she has always known how this story was going to end.
“Tell me why! Are you a psychopath? Are you fucking demented? That’s my daughter! My little girl!”
A little fight flashes in her gaze. “Don’t you think I would have tried to stop it if there was any other way?! I’d give my own life to stop them from having to go through all this if that were an option. You have known me for over two decades, Skylenna. Trust me. This has to happen.”
I want to hit her. I want to choke the life out of her for knowing my baby was going to be swallowed through time and left in the worst parts of our history. I’d give anything to shelter her from that horror.
“Fuck. You. I don’t care if I have to sell my soul to the devil. I am getting them back.”
Marilynn shoves me off, taking a threatening step forward.
“It won’t come to that. I’m going to teach Krimson how to travel too. How to take you with him to bring everyone home.”