Chapter 24
Rafe
Lina’s soft breaths brush against my chest, her head tucked into the crook of my arm that wraps around her, keeping her bundled into me. Her legs curl in and mine tangle over, locking her in place. Cocooning her in this tight, safe space I’ve created in the corner of the outbuilding.
I wish I had a godsdamned blanket for her.
Her pitiful sobs and choking screams have ceased.
Now the only sounds are our breaths and the wood crackling in the hearth.
She exhausted herself releasing the suppressed rage she’s harboured for so many moons, and despite my best efforts to draw it out like sucking poison from wounded flesh, I know there’s more swimming through her veins. Waiting to be awoken.
My cheek rests on her head, and every so often her fingers fiddle with my dark chest hair, but she doesn’t move or attempt to. Which makes me believe she needed me to restrain her, pull her to the ground and wrap my body around hers as she finally processed some of her pent-up emotions. And trauma.
Fuck, it was intense. In fact, I still sense the tension radiating from her back into the palm currently stroking soothing circles over her skin.
She’s so damn soft. And tender. How can anyone want to hurt her.
I wish she hit me some more. I’m not redeemed in the slightest.
I don’t think I ever will be.
“I promised you a story,” I whisper into her hair. My lips press into her scalp, placing a gentle kiss. “You wanna hear it?”
Her fiddling stops for a moment before she makes a grunting noise, suggesting yes… I think.
I swallow, clearing my throat, remembering the sounds she managed to free from her mutilated mouth. How difficult must that have been for her? I don’t think she’s aware, but she said some words—garbled and muffled—pitiful—but I knew what she said by the syllables.
‘Enough.’ And ‘Yeah, you did, Rafe.’
It plays on my mind in a relentless loop tearing my soul to shreds.
Tormenting me with what I had done to her.
“It was 830,” I start, voice rough. “And I was sat at my desk, reading The Chronicle. I’d just finished reading about the Princess’s mundane death. After fighting like hell in the Battle of Sovo. She fell down some bastard stairs.”
I huff a humourless laugh.
“With no warning, guess who barrelled in through the door?” I glance down, but she’s silent, exhausted in my arms. “Yep… the Chief Defender himself, Zaren.” I take another breath; it hits like I’m there again.
“Said he knew what I was. Ordered my assistance. At the time I had no clue how he knew. Now we’ve met Commander Kharson, it’s obvious. Fuck knows how he found out back then.”
I shift against the cold floor, adjusting my hold on her.
“Anyway. Zaren wanted me to reset the event that killed his mate. He was desperate. Feral. It was hard to say no. Not when, given the chance, and bravery, I’d have done the same.”
I pause, jaw clenching, a flash of my brother flickering in the back of my mind. “I was younger. Less experienced. Not as sure of myself. So, I agreed.”
The fire cracks behind us, giving me a moment in the memory.
“He gave me Taka, a little extra for my services, and went back to the castle. Patiently waiting to wake up with his mate in his arms.”
I shake my head, the memory so vivid it hurts.
“I formed a plan and was on my way. Travelled back to my office before the battle. Should’ve seen my face when I landed—cock and balls swinging—nicking some of his, my stuff, and launched my bare arse through a portal to Sovo.”
I let out a quiet chuckle at that.
“Threw a tin cup at me as I went. Same bloody cup…” I nod to the hearth. “… sat right over there.”
Another breath fills my lungs and Lina’s head bobs on my chest. “I landed here. Same building. My coordinates were off, but I had a map in my bug-out sack. Knew the battlefield was only a day or so’s walk away.”
I adjust again, Lina shifting against me.
“Walked right into a clash of swords and power. The one we almost got stuck in ourselves. Only… in my original time, I barely scraped out of it.” I close my eyes for a moment.
“Soon as I hit the battle camp, I hunted Zaren down. Told him everything. How she dies. How he couldn’t let her out of his sight, no matter how grisly the fight got… because I knew they won. The Chief Defender and his force would survive. Keeping her with them gave her the best chance.”
I rub a hand over my face.
“Wrong,” I mutter. “I was so fucking wrong.”
The lump rises in my throat, and I swallow it down just as Lina rubs small, soft circles on my chest. It keeps me going.
“He didn’t believe me at first. But in a realm of magic, fate, and curses… how could you not, eventually? I told him things. Little details only he’d know. Old scars. Memories. Apparently, the Princess sheds her baby toenail every few months.”
I lift a weak shrug. “Weird, but it worked.”
“He kept her at his side. The entire time. And I… I watched from a tower, ready to leave, but I just… I wanted to stay. Wanted to see them win. Wanted to witness history. Plus, swinging swords isn’t my thing. I’m more of a get-in-the-ring-and-punch-it-out kinda guy.”
I laugh softly, but it fades quick.
“Just when it seemed over, a wave of rebel soldiers crashed the battle camp. They tried to break into the quarters where the King and Queen were hiding. It was fucking chaos.”
My breathing stutters. The images come unbidden.
“Zaren, the Princess, their cadre were relentless. Beautiful, the way they fought. But he made one wrong move. In his bloodlust, he swung his sword, saw something in his periphery. Another threat.”
My voice cracks. “It was her.”
The fire pops behind us, and Lina’s strokes on my chest halt.
“She’d stepped up behind him. And in a blur… he slit her throat.”
I close my eyes.
“The silence that followed still haunts me. Everyone put down their weapons. Took a knee. No one could grasp what happened. She took four minutes to die. Bleeding, choking, gurgling. Zaren, it… it destroyed him. His grief… the guilt, his rage… it cracked the world.”
I hesitate. The weight of it presses on my chest.
“In his despair, his ability surfaced. Slammed his fists into the earth and shattered it. I’d only read about an ability like that before.
Something so rare, yet so catastrophic. The way his face paled, and his dark eyes widened…
that man had no clue what lurked inside him.
I can only guess it had been bound in him as a child. Someone must’ve masked it.”
I get lost in the firelight flickering.
“The Chief Defender was a Land Breaker. Is a Land Breaker… and he has no fucking clue right now.”
I let that hang in the silence before continuing.
“I saw from my tower how the ground split. Tore open. It took my tower down. I still don’t know how I survived the fall. It swallowed men, women, thousands as far as the eye could see. Zaren’s father. Captain Elwood. The devastation, it just… kept going.”
Lina’s breath is steady against my ribs.
“He couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. Begged Major Zafar to end him. And Zafar, barely alive himself, managed to drive a dagger through his heart.”
The silence is heavier now. Oh, how I wish Lina could talk to me.
“The Chief Defender lay down beside his mate. Died with her in his arms. I saw his lips move, whispering something in her ear before he took his last breath.”
“What Zafar did was brave. But it was too fucking late. The earth, it was weak. The land was caving in bit by bit. I couldn’t stay and see through this new timeline I had created.”
I swallow.
“Remember when I told you you’re a jumper, and time travellers can have one of four abilities.
Well, I’m a Severent. And when I felt the shift, I was able to sever time and create a barren echo.
A dead-end branch leading to nowhere. My echo will always exist, branching off from my timeline, looping, but it’s more of a shadow of what could have been, rather than what is.
Not after I reset the timeline and because not much time had passed, I was able to slip back into my past self with the memory. ”
Any longer and I’d have been stuck, and my past self would’ve made the same mistake.
“I travelled back to the day Zaren stormed into my office. To the time where the Princess was dead, but the people were alive.”
I rub my palm against her back, though I think I do it more to soothe myself.
“Grabbed my shit and hauled my ass through a portal. Stayed away long enough for him to forget me. Forget what I am.” A small, crooked smile pulls at my lips.
“Took myself on a long holiday, mostly travelling Alarithia. It’s beautiful there.
Was there for over a decade.” I smile. “Even met me a pretty girl once. Sweet thing. Feisty. Squabbling with me in front of a pastry shack.”
I let out a long breath, the memory flickering to life after so long. “She… uh… started my love of…” I look down at Lina, peacefully nestled in my arms; none the wiser. “… strawberry tarts and sickly-sweet coffee.”
The world tilts.
It can’t be.
I glance down at her again, there’s a faint tug at my chest. Her finger movements stop, but she doesn’t look up, and I wonder if the memory resurfaces for her too.
No.
No fucking way.