The Eternal Kingdom - Chapter 3

<-Chapter 2

(Lux City, Protea, RBE Year 29)

It was slightly before the seventh hour of the morning, but Sherry had been unable to sleep any later despite Justin's attempts to coax her into remaining in bed for a while longer. His attempts normally succeeded, but she had just felt a need to get things started early. The autumn rush and oncoming All Hallow's harvest and festival at the end of the month usually kicked their patronage through the roof in extreme amounts.

She covered a smile as she unlocked the front door of their shared shop and headed inside. Thread & Candle held an odd fusion of sewing and costuming from Sherry and divination and charms from Justin, though Sherry did do plenty fortunetelling of her own. The average person often looked for charms for luck and the like, but over the last couple decades since Jean had first emerged as High Priestess, more and more witches in general and members of the Faith of the Goddess specifically had begun to re-emerge into the open and therefore came to Sherry and Justin for supplies. All Cultivators hoped that by the Resurrection Era and the rise of the third and final High Priestess, the Faith would be integrated with society anew.

She heard the subtle sound of what might be an electric bike and glanced out the front windows as she was making coffee. Two people stood with the bike, a woman still riding on the back and a man standing beside her. The woman's face and features had been blocked entirely by the helmet she wore for safety, but her body shape reminded Sherry of Shana with its taller height and strong muscle tone. In fact, if it hadn't been for the softer almost plump curves overall, she could have mistaken her for Shana. She looked like a wonderfully perfect blend of Shana and Siobhan, actually.

The man pulled his helmet off and stuck it into the side cab attached to the bike, and Sherry could only stare in bemusement. She had honestly not seen hair that particular shade of red before. It looked a dark almost cardinal hue, and he had pulled it into a ponytail with an orange ribbon. It served a perfect foil to his nearly sultry beauty, fair skin, and incredibly striking cerulean blue eyes. The moment he walked in the door, she told him laughingly, "I hope you take this the right way, but, you really make me want to dress you up!"

He grinned at her. "I take it as a compliment! One of my best friends as well as my mother are always dressing me up. Since I'm addicted to stylish and pretty things, I don't find that such a terrible fate, really." He walked closer with a hand held out. "I'm Theodore Mallory, but everyone calls me Theo."

She quirked a brow at seeing how he walked. A warrior to her core, she recognized the signs of training in others. There was power here too, though she was not sure what kind yet. "It's nice to meet you, Theo. I'm Sherry Yamamoto." She placed the back of her hand on his palm to return the greeting, and her eyes went wide as she felt the majik literally shooting through her veins. All those with magic could feel the majik inside any witch, and the stronger the witch, the more likely they were to feel as if they had been punched. Theo felt ridiculously strong. "Uhm."

He winced. "Oops. Sorry. Guess I should have realized you'd notice that. Yeah, I'm a witch. A White Witch with Fire and Glass elements." He smiled as he said it. "Which is sort of why I came by. I'm in town for a while, and I was hoping to find a job. I'm really good with divination through my Sensing skill, and I have some talent with both tarot cards and making charms out of ribbons. You're entering a rush time, right?"

Justin had entered the shop behind him, and he walked over to Sherry with a lifted brow. "You're new to town and know that?"

Theo snorted. "The person who dropped me off is even more talented than I am. She just always knows stuff, y'know? She told me 'get your ass there and offer to help' and I learned not to sass her before I learned how to write my name!"

It made Sherry laugh. "Oh goddess, that sounds like me and my friend Virginia. I never sass her either. Well, about some things. Sometimes Gin needs to be sassed." She smiled as Justin wrapped an arm around her waist. "Well, Theo, if you don't mind hard work, I think I speak for both of us when I say we'd love to have you onboard."

"Great!"

Sherry started to ask when he could start when she felt that all too familiar slimy sensation of evil moving. She reached out, and she Saw it moving not far from their own shop. Justin's hand tightened on her waist as a signal he had noticed her reaction and shared her vision. Before they could speak, someone screamed from somewhere outside. She recognized the voice as a regular customer and abandoned all pretenses of not noticing anything unusual. "Theo, stay here!"

She and Justin dashed out the doors, and neither had noticed the flicker of flames dancing inside Theo's eyes that hallmarked any Aster Defender sensing evil on the move. He watched them go and then smiled to himself as he disappeared into a transport.

Sherry grabbed her Mask and pulled it on as she ran; no time to stop. Justin had also called his weapon, though his actually proved far more subtle than any other Commander weapon. His hands and feet were actually his most potent weapon, so Kellie had long before made him thin metal rings for his fingers to add additional punch to his strength. Sherry's own weapon, a short sword, appeared in her grip as they skidded around a corner.

Their eyes went immediately to the unfamiliar man who had his fingers curled around the throat of a young girl. She came by the shop every week, without fail, to get a charm to help her through her very difficult school classes. She now struggled against his hold but could not free herself.

Sherry grabbed hastily for her magic and it welled up around her in a surge of hot flames. She released it directly at the man, and fired off equally a Ruler-based magic skill that would turn the girl inflammable and protect her. It proved unnecessary. The man looked at the oncoming fireball with utter distaste and majik moved across his eyes. The fireball dissolved.

Sherry's entire body tensed. She had only ever seen witches capable of defusing magical attacks, so he was not the normal run-of-the-mill enemy. She had also never imagined any witch could be capable of doing bad deeds. "Nice blocking spell," she shot at him. "Karma will slap you hard for this one."

Justin narrowed his eyes and held his hands up in a ready position. "We can't attack like this," he told her under his breath. "Not as long as he's holding Elaine. We won't get to him before he does too much damage."

She braced her shoulders and tried to commit the man's image to memory. It wasn't hard, as his face wasn't one to be easily forgotten. He had a sort of rare and perfect beauty that would follow him all days. His hair and eyes alike looked pitch black with the faintest of magenta hues, yet his irises retained enough lighter tone that his pupils remained visible. They were not opaque enough to lose the pupils entirely. His skin looked a lighter mocha tone that offset his otherwise much darker coloring perfectly.

Elaine, unable to get in enough air, finally slumped unconscious in his grip. He lowered her to the ground and pressed his hand to her chest. A glow began to emanate from her body that drew in toward his hand. As he pulled his hand away, the glow started to solidify. By the time he turned his hand over, it had condensed into a multifaceted stone. It looked pretty enough, a little reflective across the facets, but not necessarily fancy or beautiful.

He held the stone up to eye level and cursed. "Not pure. Still, it's powerful." Though he spoke Protean fluently enough, his voice carried an unidentifiable accent. He sensed Sherry and Justin closing in, and he quickly lobbed a ball of ugly energy at them that had them diving out of the way. "Be good heroes and don't interfere." He studied Sherry and then snorted softly. "A Dual Cultivator. How impressive."

She had honestly gotten used to scathing comments from enemies, but this utter lack of concern perplexed her. Even the most confident of evil entities usually had at least a healthy understanding of the danger Defender Cultivators—especially when they were actually Dual—posed. "You sound a bit overconfident," she warned him. "You do realize I've been at this for over five thousand years, right? And that not only am I fully bloomed, but I represent one of the most powerful generations in not just Blossom Field but the universe?"

To be fully bloomed as a Defender was to be fully developed and cemented within their magic and skill. Sherry's Defender Mark outright showed such a thing as it had three fully opened orange aster flowers. She had passed through three distinct tiers of power before blooming. Her entire team had fully bloomed years before, and they represented the peak of power for their entire Era; they would be the only generation of their Era—unusual, to be sure, but not impossible to endure thanks to their sheer collective strength.

"Your team does not concern me," the man retorted as he stood. "You do not have magikry." He held up the gem. "And if you did, then this would be enough to deal with you. I'd like to introduce you to a Life Orb. They are sources of unimaginable power. Once I find a pure one, I will have everything I want."

Justin opened his mouth to offer a retort, but he was cut off before he could speak by an immense ball of water flying out of the nearby shadows. Threaded with the water flew sparks of fire, making the attack double-element and doubly potent. The villain stumbled back a step to avoid the attack, but the sparks leapt from the blast onto his clothes and caught flame. He dropped the Life Orb to beat at the flames, and the Orb obediently returned to Elaine. He did not notice; each time he managed to beat the flames out, they sparked up again somewhere else. "Cut it out!" he snarled. The flames winked out, and he whipped around toward the shadows. Smoke curled from his clothes and showed burned flesh beneath. "You! You followed me!"

"Please, as if we wouldn't?" The male voice sounded eerily familiar to Sherry and Justin though they could not place it, not even Sherry with her Shaman gifts. A different sort of beautiful cadence and music to the speaker implied he might himself be a Virtuoso, so perhaps he deliberately disguised himself from recognition.

Another male voice, entirely unfamiliar, spoke up, "Unless you want to drown or die a fiery death—because we would be fine with either—you might want to leave. Say, now?"

The man gave a soft and disgusted oath as he did indeed disappear from the scene. Sherry and Justin swiftly rushed to Elaine's side to make sure she was alright, but then remembered the figures in the shadows. They hastily looked over, but it appeared that they had disappeared as well. Puzzled, the two lovers exchanged a long look. Things just kept making less sense.

Justin scooped up Elaine to take her to the shop, and Sherry removed her Mask and returned it to its earring base. She wore her Mask as one earring and its matching communications mask as the other. She held the door open for Justin to enter and then followed him in. Theo sat patiently on a chair in the shop, and he shot to his feet when he saw them. "What happened?" He hurried over with a frown. "Is she okay?"

"She thought she saw a ghost and it scared her so bad that she fell and hit her head," Sherry lied without compunction. "We've called for someone to pick her up." She let out a long breath. "I do apologize, Theo, but can you come back later this afternoon? We have some things to do. We very much want to hire you, though!"

"Sure." Theo's blue eyes twinkled. "See you then." He headed for the door with his hands linked behind him. His entire body moved with the fluid, nearly musical, grace of an open flame.

As soon as Elaine was picked up, Sherry called for everyone to meet once more. They gathered as quickly as possible, and Yvonne and Chance went to inspect the scene of battle. They returned shortly, and annoyance was plain on Chance's face. Yvonne looked more speculative as she joined Doug on a bench. "Scanner pulled up confirmation of Defender Cultivator magic from the Fire Flower Element of Aster and the Water Flower Element of Orchid."

"Neither had Shadow ability of any sort," Chance muttered, "but the same one from before was nearby covering their tracks. She led me on another wild goose chase."

Yvonne nodded. "I think at this point seeing Iris, Aster, and Orchid, we have to expect to see more of these odd duplicates. I guess the consolation is that they seem to be on our side?"

"Some consolation!" Justin glanced around at everyone. "Does anyone know what a Life Orb is, or what magikry is?"

"Hmm." Shana looped her arms around her knees as she sat in front of a bench holding Siobhan, Edgar, and Rocky. "Life Orbs are sort of like a Seed in that they encompass an aspect of someone, but everyone has a Life Orb. It houses inside each person their memories and experiences. You know how the Hall of Records houses all memories of existence? Well, a Life Orb is a personal version of that. All those memories that fill the books of the Hall started first inside someone's Life Orb. I guess you could say the Orb is the personal scribe inside each living being that records their memories to be passed on to become a book within the Hall."

"So what makes one more pure than another?" Sherry asked. She did not bother to ask how Shana knew things like that; she had learned millennia before not to question where either Apex got their information on anything.

"Basically, a pure Orb belongs to someone who has deliberately confronted their own memories and emerged stronger for it. Since confronting your own memories is not unlike confronting the essence of who you are, it's pretty traumatic and painful. Sometimes it's like going to the edge of insanity without tipping over. Most people wouldn't dare do that, so a pure Orb is really damned rare."

"I'm thinking you and Siobhan very likely have them," her brother pointed out deliberately. He looked at all eight Commanders. "If the Defenders are not available, I expect you to keep an eye on our two queens."

"Goddamn it." Shana's head hit her knees with a thump.

"You had to tell them?" Siobhan muttered.

"Excuse me for not lying," her sister muttered back.

Kellie was a tactful soul and changed the subject. "And what about magikry?"

Siobhan cocked her head. "Well, I don't know for sure, but since it sounds like a mash of magic and majik, maybe it's referencing the ability to use both? Which sounds really crazy rare because I've never seen any witch be a Cultivator of either sort. I mean, I would guess the most likely person to have it would be one of Jean and Byron's kids, but none of them have magic—just majik. So . . . guess that's a good reason for this enemy to be confident."

"He wasn't so confident when those two duplicate Defenders showed up," Sherry said slowly, "which means that maybe they had magikry. And, actually, that's sounding really plausible. The attack was a relatively normal Fire-Water blend with the Water being the dominant attack, but the fire leapt onto the enemy and the creator of it kept manipulating it. Manipulation and control of an element is majik-oriented. I might be able to immolate someone with a fireball attack, or set things on fire as a Ruler, but once that fire leaves me, I lose all control over it."

"Here's the better question over all," Nathaniel Matica spoke up from where he sat with Juliet. "Are these duplicate Defenders, or are they some second generation we never expected in the Rebirth Era? Didn't the one of Iris call Yvonne an Elder? They're also more attuned to this enemy than any of us, which also implies being removed from us."

Clara shook her head. "There is not supposed to be another generation in the Rebirth Era, I can promise that. The next generation of Cultivators will be born after the Resurrection Era starts—Rachel is a part of it, as are Rhya and Leslie. And I've been watching the Hall, but while I can now see the potential for a Paradoxal Pivot, I have not seen any sign of my future self or daughter sending someone through time to here."

"And anyway," Virginia pointed out, "Blossom Field has never produced male Defenders. It didn't even produce male Rulers until we got Evan and Robert, and that only happened because of intergalactic blood from their fathers. None of the Caretakers here other than Tyson are intergalactic, so even if we wanted to assume this was a future generation, there's no way Sherry and Justin or Desiree and Uwe would have anything except a daughter, be she a Ruler only or a Dual like Rhya and Leslie. It seems unlikely that the next generation would have three Duals and the rest split, so we have to assume the entire next generation will be our daughters. So . . . no males, as sad as that is to say."

"So, square one," Uwe sighed.

"Basically," Sam said on an equal sigh. "And trust me, if either Clara or I feel anything we'll tell you."

Something tickled the back of Shana's mind, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what she was thinking. Because of it, she didn't mention anything. When the meeting split up a few minutes later, she remained in thoughtful silence the entire way home to the manor in the mountains where she lived with her husband, brother, and sister-in-law.

Of course, it didn't manage to stay quiet. As soon as the bedroom door shut behind her and her husband, Rocky asked calmly, "Want to tell me what you were thinking, or do I need to force it out of you?"

The fight, needless to say, was on.

 

* * * * *

 

Juliet had just stepped out of the kitchen at the back of her bakery when she noticed two people peering into the display case with lust in their eyes. Even after having owned and run her own restaurant as well as the bakery for almost three decades, it still sent a little thrill through her to know how much people loved her cooking. She loved to feed people and always had; giving food was like giving love for her, and she just really had a need to nurture and care for not just her friends but everyone around her. Par for the course for being a Gladiolus Cultivator. An old joke said they had recipes instead of genes, and she had no issues with that really.

Her shop manager, a young woman by the name of Tani, was watching the customers but she winked and headed out back to take a fifteen-minute break when Juliet waved her off. She had intended to take one, but the two had come in and she had wanted to see if they needed anything. She took pride in working for Juliet Matica, one of the Defender Cultivators who supported the galaxy.

Juliet ducked around the counter and wandered over to the two customers. She looked over their heads at what they were ogling and smiled. She couldn't blame them. They were looking at the tiny castle of cupcakes that she had painstakingly made with a little help from Yvonne for design purposes. It was due to be auctioned off the next day to help the university raise money to upgrade some of their classrooms. The university was owned and operated by Edgar and Shana's company, but the students had insisted on arranging to raise the funds themselves. Juliet, and some other businesses, had chipped in to help.

The two in her shop had to be siblings because they looked remarkably alike to one another despite being different genders; sort of reminded her of Shana/Edgar or Siobhan/Rocky in that. Both were on the taller side, slender but visibly strong, and had the same shoulder-length dark ash brown hair and eyes. The only thing that kept her from thinking they might be twins was that one of them looked closer to thirty while the other might be just past twenty-five. She could not help but feel a little drawn toward the younger; he had a streak of green coming down over his left eye that was the same color as her own eyes. "Isn't it great?" she asked them.

Both straightened and turned to smile at her, and she had to smile back. Both siblings may have looked alike, but their tastes diverged in clothing. The sister wore a denim skirt with a long-sleeved shirt liberally covered in paint splatters that looked more accidental than deliberate—the art portfolio at her feet confirmed it. The brother wore regular denims and a casual green shirt, and he had a backpack hooked over his shoulder. Juliet looked at him a second time and felt a little disconcerted as she saw ageless wisdom and knowledge moving in his ashy eyes. It was as if he just knew things. He smiled as he saw her scrutiny, and she just felt it more that his eyes were older than the face they were set into.

"Are you Juliet Matica?" the sister asked, drawing her attention. "Because if you are, you're ridiculously talented. This is incredible. I could gain weight just looking at it!"

"Not with your metabolism," her brother retorted dryly. "You'll only gain weight when Logan gets you pregnant!" He grinned cheekily at Juliet when she snorted. "We were going to buy snacks for us and our friends but got distracted. Can we get two dozen cupcakes? Half chocolate and half vanilla."

Juliet's brows lifted as she went around behind the counter to begin getting the cupcakes and boxing them up. "That's an awful lot of cupcakes. A party?"

"Nah, just a lot of us. Eleven humans and a bottomless pit of a lizard. I'm Storm Peacer, by the way, and this is my elder sister Raine Fujisawa." Storm leaned over the counter to watch Juliet box the cupcakes, and Raine continued to study the cupcake castle. "Ignore her," he added, "because she's just committing it to memory so she can draw it later."

"Tasia has a world of sweets in her latest story," Raine noted absently. "One of the dream worlds. I could use this in my illustrations. Would you mind, Matica?"

"Juliet, please. And I'll take it as a compliment!" Juliet laughed. She handed the box across the counter and then rang up the purchase. She took twenty percent off since they were new customers, and because she truly liked them. The confident and sassy Storm especially tugged at her heart. She could not help but think he was exactly what she would get from a combination of hers and Nathaniel's genes. The daughter they had someday would be just like him probably.

Storm dug out his wallet and paid for the cupcakes and then tucked the box under an arm and grabbed his sister with his other hand. "Bye!" he called as he dragged his sister with him. "Geez, Rainy. Keep it up and I'll wonder if Logan feeds you at all!"

"I do the cooking, thank you, as he loves me too much to poison me," Raine grumbled as she let her brother drag her out the door. "He and his sister are too much alike for my sanity!"

Juliet grinned as she watched them leave. That refrain sounded much like what she had heard people say about the Toulume and Chivanti siblings—and with good reason. Her mood lighter than before, she started to head for the kitchen again when she heard a shriek from Tani out back. She raced into the kitchen to a window and saw an unpleasant hybrid monster of some sort forcefully extracting a stone orb from Tani's chest. She knew it had to be a Life Orb, and she grabbed her Mask from its bracelet. She pulled it on to call up her armor and dashed for the door.

The Gensome had no idea if the Life Orb it had found was pure or not, so it hefted it to take it back to its master. Lightning crackled across its chest and singed its fur, and it turned on a snarl to see an armored and armed Juliet in the alley entrance. Any fear it had felt evaporated. "A mere Dual Cultivator. I'm not afraid of you."

Juliet's hands tightened on her staff. She had done no damage with that bolt of Thunder magic. She started to prepare a stronger attack when a blast of liquid Metal fired from the shadows and knocked the Gensome off its feet. As it lay there slowly being poisoned, the Life Orb floated back into Tani. A massive bolt of raw lightning from Thunder magic impacted the weakened Gensome and blew it into bits of dust.

"Who are you?!" Juliet shouted at the shadows where the two attacks had come from. "Show yourself!"

"Not just yet," a familiar yet unfamiliar woman's responded. A glint of light rippled over the three-headed spear she held. "We still have things we need to do."

"Just be patient!" a slightly younger man's voice said cheerfully. "You'll get it eventually!"

Even after they had run off, Juliet remained in the alley and tried to understand what was going on. She was still standing there when Nathaniel showed up, having been alerted by the ability inside all Caretakers to know when their Cultivator needed them. Only Defenders could sense their Caretaker in return; Rulers did not have that ability. "Juli?" he asked.

She looked at him. "I haven't a damned clue, Nate."

He scooped up Tani to take her inside to safety, and Juliet followed him. She pulled off her Mask and then she and her husband shared a long look. They had reasonably expected to see more members of the same team, but it still did not settle well that there could possibly be a total of seven of these newcomers. If they were duplicates, then whether or not they seemed to be on the side of good, they had gained their powers via unnatural means. That would likely not end well for anyone involved.

 

©Stacy J. Garrett. Do not reprint or redistribute without permission.

Chapter 4->

The Eternal Kingdom - Chapter 2

 <-Chapter 1

(Protea Capitol, Protea; October, Resurrection Era Year 30)

Anastasia Aria looked out the window of her home at the apple trees in full bloom. The next harvest would come soon; the trees bloomed all year, and every season brought a different batch. Either December or January would bring a random freeze of the farm that would turn the pond to ice and make the rare ice apples bloom for a month. The shift in this season, however, brought more as well. It brought an anniversary.

It had been exactly four years since she and her friends had Activated and discovered their destiny as the Dual Cultivators of the Resurrection Era. How funny that such a significant change had not actually changed that much yet. Despite being a Crown Princess and heir to the throne of the planet Iris, she still continued to live in her childhood home on her family's farm. She just happened to live there not just with her mother anymore, but also her Caretaker husband.

Four years. It was enough to make her eyes spin. She shook her head as she headed from her bedroom down into the kitchen for a snack. She had been having the oddest cravings lately for peanut butter and strawberries, and she didn't even really like peanut butter. She was blaming the season change. Summer usually made her want salad, so maybe she was just expanding her seasonal taste buds to include nuts at autumn. Go figure.

The time lapse was not actually invisible. Racine and Allister Statice's twins had turned three earlier that year, and a month later had seen Kacey and Talon Daffodil's son turn the same. It could be debatable which kids were the more terrifying when the twins had their father's charm and their mother's sass, and the non-Cultivator prince was just a tiny replica of his father. His lack of a Seed in no way prevented him from having some sort of power, but even Tasia did not know what power he held—yet.

Most of the Resurrection Cultivators had never imagined being royalty, so having the 'transition' period as they called it, where they continued to live their normal lives while also picking up duties as heirs to the thrones of the Lower planets meant they did not suffer from either culture shock or feel as if they had to sacrifice everything. The queens as a whole had been insistent on that, but the two High Queens had been most determined that it never happen to anyone.

Normal still seemed a bit of a misnomer, though, since all of them had started moving in the higher circles of life even by being their normal selves, Tasia thought as she bit into a strawberry. She heard a sound, and glanced out the window to see a familiar single-person electric carriage coming to a stop in the long driveway. Nearly all Cultivators had graduated university years before and moved into their selected fields. The few left to graduate included the two youngest—Storm Peacer and LeAnn Protea—and the two late starts—Emily Hyacinth and Ryan Orchid. All had less than a year left and would graduate in the following June.

Tasia and Raine Fujisawa had been in their field longest, entering it long before graduation. Tasia wrote novels that Raine illustrated, and they had been in print together for eight years. Tasia also had her farm, which was the best in the galaxy thanks to its rare blooming crops, and she also owned a combat training school focused on hand and foot skills. Her fellow instructors included her soul-brother, Logan Fujisawa, and her best friend Terrence Mallory. Another instructor, though technically also her co-owner, happened to be her husband, though he had only come onboard three years earlier.

Speaking of whom! The front door opened, and Rodi Aria walked into the house. "I'm home, Tasi." He stepped from the living room into the kitchen, and for a moment he could only stop and stare. It honestly never stopped happening to him. If he didn't see her for any length of time, he would find himself emotionally rocked back when they met again. A powerful well of love and desire and joy that took his breath. She had been by his side for nearly all of his life in some form or another, and he never took a minute for granted.

Her lips curved slightly. "You're staring again."

"I think I can be forgiven, considering I have a sorceress for my lover. Where's my hello kiss?"

"Not with that look in your eye. If I kiss you now, we'll be late for dinner at the castle." It was Saturday and therefore it was time for the weekly mass get-together of all royal families. In barely over three years' time, the get-togethers would cycle between all kingdoms and not just Delphinium and Protea. Or rather, a minimum of three years, as that was when the eight Lower worlds still being feverishly rebuilt would finally be ready for full population and the kingdoms entirely restored.

Whether or not it was the Lower Queens who took command or the Crown Princesses and Princes of Tasia's generation who did depended entirely on that younger generation all finding and marrying their soul mates—and several of them had yet to be found, let alone married. Tasia, Raine, and Racine had found and married theirs, Bethany Jackson and Theodore Mallory had at least found and been betrothed to theirs, and both Reagan Delphinium and LeAnn Protea highly suspected they knew theirs. The others of Emily, Ryan, and Storm had not met their other half and future Caretaker at all.

The High Queens had handed down the law that no Ruler Cultivator could inherit their throne without being at least engaged in order to prevent a Ruler from sitting alone on said throne, which had happened more than once in history and proven both lonely and difficult. Beth and Theo planned to marry their lovers soon enough—something actually mandatory either way since no Cultivator could give themselves to anyone but their soul mate thanks to lovers exchanging power. Since Cultivators actually didn't respond sexually to anyone except said soul mate, no one found it a hardship.

Too, plenty of Cultivators had guiltlessly used the laws to convince a stubborn or scared Caretaker to accept more than just a physical relationship. It had gone the other way too! A Caretaker considered it their given duty to seduce their Cultivator at the earliest opportunity, after all. In all of history spanning millions of years, Tasia and Rodi stood as the only couple to ever make it to their wedding night before being lovers. Their friends and family would never let them live it down.

Then again, Tasia and Rodi's relationship had not followed a normal Cultivator-Caretaker arc. It had started with her as a frozen and Deactivated Dual Cultivator of Iris while he had been a fully Activated Ruler Cultivator of Aria, and it had ended with her Activated as Iris' Dual Cultivator and Aria's Defender Cultivator, and Rodi Deactivated as a Ruler. Technically, he was the only Caretaker of them now as a Deactivated Cultivator became all but normal, but Tasia still considered it her duty to Care for him as well because he was as yet beloved to Aria, and she was Aria's Defender.

Tasia loved her Mother world and her adopted Mother world equally. She was honored to be one of Iris' chosen Dual Cultivators as well the one chosen to begin the new royal lineage. It was the whole 'royal' part that still tripped her up a bit. She would miss her farm like mad. It was the best orchard to be offered in the galaxy, and only she and her mother could grow the highly sought after Witch's Apple.

Rodi snuggled her closer and pressed his cheek against hers. Soft sparks flew as their skin touched and the blended Light and Dark within their Gray cores met and melded. "Stop thinking about it," he told her softly. "We can figure out anything together. Olivia will tend the orchard for as long as she is able, and by the time she needs to retire, maybe we'll have figured out how to transport the whole thing to Iris. You have to admit the apples thrive in cold weather, and Iris is the world of snow."

"Fair enough. I'm the same way." She put it out of her mind since it was not yet worth thinking about. Instead, she tugged out of his arms and scooped up another strawberry. "Want one?"

"Ah, no." He watched in fascination as she ate it whole and then delicately licked her fingers clean. "Remind me again why you like those?"

"I don't know," she countered cheerfully. "I just do. I've been craving them like mad. Maybe it's my new autumn craving to match my salad summers. They're not at all disgusting." She tried to wave one under his nose but he moved the wrong direction to counter, and the peanut butter ended up on his nose. "Oops." She bit her lip but a snort of amusement came out anyway.

"You did that on purpose," he groused.

"I did not!" She saw him reaching for the tub, and hastily ducked to the other side of the counter. "It was just an accident, really!"

He just lifted a brow and scooped up peanut butter with his finger. "Come here, beloved."

She tried to dart to the left to get around the counter, but he had plucked the direction from her mind via their Telepathy and met her head on. He grabbed her around the waist with one arm and held tight despite her wiggles. He calmly smeared peanut butter over her nose as she cursed at him between laughter. If she had really wanted to get away, she would have gotten away. She knew she had earned the retaliation. "Now we match!"

"Having fun, children?" Olivia Martine asked in a very dry tone of voice from the doorway. She never tired of watching her daughter and son-in-law together. They brought a soft sense of happiness to everyone around them, as if what they shared in their hearts and souls just could not be contained and spilled out. She had watched them save each other's sanity to where she honestly suspected they literally could not exist apart. She also did not think either minded that at all.

"She started it," Rodi defended himself on a grin.

"On accident," his wife stressed. She stepped on his toes so that he had to release her. "He moved wrong and I clunked him with a strawberry."

"Covered in peanut butter." Rodi grabbed a napkin to wipe the aforementioned spread off his nose.

Olivia blinked rapidly and then looked at her daughter in bemusement. "You don't even like peanut butter."

"I know, but I do now." She snatched the napkin from Rodi to wipe off her own face. "And with that done, it is time for us to get out of here for the sleepover. Is Tosh coming over to keep you company?"

Tosh Peacer was Raine and Storm's father, and he had been a surrogate father to Tasia ever since hers had walked out over twenty years earlier. He had himself been a widower, so he and Olivia had helped raise each other's children until all three had started calling each other siblings. Tosh and Olivia also happened to be very dear friends, so they took advantage of the sleepovers to just relax with some wine and programs on the Visuality device that brought in productions for viewing from across both Protea and Delphinium.

"He is," Olivia agreed. "Said something about feeling abandoned since Storm is now an adult and planning to move out soon. I told him I had no idea how that felt."

Tasia briefly stuck her tongue out at her mother. "Say the word and Rodi and I will move into the castle."

"Don't you dare. I'm keeping you two until I have no choice."

I can't imagine why she and my mother like each other, Rodi told Tasia wryly. Telepathy for personal conversation was something they used as naturally as they breathed. He could not imagine how lonely and quiet it would be if their minds could not be shared as deeply as their hearts, souls, and bodies. He truly felt sometimes as if they had literally sewn themselves together rather than merely interlock their souls in the normal way of soul mates.

She shot him a smile, and the swirl of infinite power in her pupils glimmered with humor. The shadowy galaxy was the only real evidence that she was a sorceress and not merely a witch. I still say you should call her 'Mom' like Storm and Raine do and make her emotional. She needs lots of kids. She and Tosh are both like that. Another reason why they all but combined our two families. Out loud, she said, "Let's go. Transport magic ahoy!"

Rulers could use their magic to transport nearly anywhere, while Defenders could transport anywhere on their own world or to Protea and Delphinium. Tasia, being Dual, had no limitations, so she transported herself and Rodi directly to the private landing spot within the vast gardens of the Protea palace's grounds.

The moment she landed, a painful sensation burned through her blood and soul alike of warning that someone she was connected to via her soul was in danger. There were three that fit—Rodi, LeAnn, and Logan—but she did not need to check to know which it came from. Each brought a different sort of sensation in her soul because each connected to her differently. The scraping feeling she had now meant that her twin soul was the one in trouble. If it had just been her blood boiling, she would have known it to be more general danger in the immediate area.

Both High Princess LeAnn Protea and High Princess Reagan Delphinium held extremely critical positions as the future High Queens of Blossom Field who would oversee the galaxy as a whole and maintain the literally necessary presence of Protea and Delphinium. Those two worlds produced the Nature and Illusion power that Blossom relied on, as well as the Dark and Light power that the entire universe relied on. Neither Reagan nor LeAnn could use the Dark or Light Flower Elements in any shape, but they did not need to use it because their Apex mothers did. Due to the critical importance of their role, however, all High Rulers received a twin soul mate that would be their most loyal and fiercest protector. The two High Queens and High Princesses each had one of their Defenders for their twin, and the two High Kings each had one of their Commanders.

"Striker!" Tasia ordered. The small rainbow-hued dragon immediately appeared and landed on her shoulder, and she asked, "Where is LeAnn? You were keeping her company at university today."

I was, he answered. Only telepaths could hear him, though he had proven good at enough semaphore to communicate with everyone else. We had just left the university on Delphinium when we got attacked. She got hurt bad before she could get her Mask on, so I evacuated her here. She was not very happy about that . . .

Of the Resurrection Cultivators, Tasia had the most powerful warrior spirit and need to be in the middle of combat. LeAnn, however, being Protean, ran her a surprisingly close second. She would have been as much annoyed to be wounded while off guard as to be evacuated against her will by her twin's dragon. Then again . . . the entire team understood that Striker acted as Tasia's proxy because of being her partner/familiar, so if he did something, it was a given he had merely beaten Tasia to it.

Tasia headed right into the castle with Rodi following, and they went to the first floor medical room. Sure enough, they found LeAnn sitting on a chair with her arms crossed, glaring at no one in particular. Kacey Daffodil knelt beside her and easily and competently mended with magic the gaping wound in LeAnn's left calf.

Seeing the scope of the injury had sheer fury turning Tasia's caramel eyes to gray. Those of purest Light went white, those of purest Dark went black, and if you managed to provoke either True Shadow lover, their eyes went gray. "Where do I go to kill who did this?" The words, mild as they were, carried audible bite.

Arista Hyacinth was also present and recognized the sign of a twin soul mate on the edge of violence. She winced wryly. She had been there often enough since she was the twin soul mate to Shanae. More often, maybe, because Shanae more than LeAnn had never been able to be controlled while she had been an active Defender. "It started at the private university on Delphinium, but the others pulled it away a bit. Emily called me to check on LeAnn, and she mentioned them fighting off hordes of monster birds that keep targeting specific Flower Elements inside people."

Rodi went utterly still. Somehow Tasia kept her face free of expression as she looked at LeAnn, who nodded. "The Nature-based one got me," the High Princess admitted. "Which is why I probably didn't sense it in time." Though she had to be in pain, it did not show on her face or in her voice. At twenty-five, she was fully an adult by all legal definitions, but as with nearly all Cultivators, she had had an adult maturity for almost five years by then. A little on the early side even for Cultivators, but Proteans and Carnationites always bloomed early. "I can join you shortly."

"You're staying here," her twin retorted, "and that's an order from your Lead Defender." She turned on her heel and stalked for the door. "Besides, there won't be anything left when I'm done. Move," she ordered Rodi.

He stepped aside to let her out, waited a minute, and then followed behind her. On the other side of the room, Diego Hyacinth was also present, and he snorted softly at the sight. Lead Defenders, by nature of being the strongest, needed an exceptionally strong Caretaker capable of accepting their strength yet also being strong enough to keep them healthy as needed. "It will never not amuse me how neither Tasia nor Veronica will ever realize they can't keep Rodi or Max out of a fight." Veronica Carnation was Lead Defender for Arista's generation, and Maxim was both her husband as well as twin soul to High King Evan Delphinium.

LeAnn grinned at him. "At least we're not bored. Now just think how funny it will be when your daughter finds a Caretaker."

Diego shot a grin at his wife. "I look forward to it personally."

Arista ignored him, but she was smiling. She sort of looked forward to it as well.

 

Tasia pulled on her Mask as soon as she left the castle and called up her armor as an Iris Defender. On first look, no one could actually tell she had been just as thoroughly claimed by Aria since her armor wholly resembled the purple iris rather than the black poppy. It was only if she stood next to her adopted mother, the Elder Iris Defender, that the minute difference could be seen: the portions of her armor that would normally be brown had instead turned gray. Her Defender Flower Mark on her upper left arm also had a sole purple iris blossom with a tiny black poppy blossom nestled under it, but that was covered by her armor.

She transported directly to the fight happening on Delphinium, and landed just in time to see unpleasantly familiar monsters facing off against several of her friends. She snapped off an Ice shield to protect them, and the Thunderwing barreling toward them smashed into the shield, froze solid, and exploded. She didn't pause as she ran toward the other monsters, and she held out a hand where silver-gold majik called up her weapon. The long sword was as ancient as it looked, and had a blade tarnished gray from age. The oaken hilt had been carved with symbols of witchcraft, and even looked the littlest bit like a dragon's claw. It had been in Tasia's lineage for ten thousand years, held only in the hands of the three High Priestesses of Protea: Liena Vanguard, Jean Kinsley, and now herself.

Arcanistry welled up around her body as she attacked the closest monster. It dissolved immediately in the conflicting riot of elements inside the power. Though her magic only encompassed Ice and Shadow Flower Elements, her majik encompassed them all. The 'Wing' breed of monster could only be destroyed in their opposing element, and majik could add an elemental charge to weapons. It took an exceptionally strong witch holding a wand to concentrate majik into a force that could become an attack, but it stripped away all elemental aspects in doing so. In this instance, imbuing was by far the fastest and most efficient method of fighting.

She heard a sound and turned sharply, but the Icewing hurling forward never reached her. It instead impaled itself on the powerful sword Rodi wielded as he smoothly interceded. The long sword had been hand crafted by Raine's Metal Flower Element as a Ruler of Daffodil, and it had the ability to channel Rodi's majik as well; he held Shadow, Air, Fire, and Nature as a witch. An unusual number of elements for a witch, to be sure, but he had always hovered right at the cusp of evolving to a wizard. The Fire he had added to his weapon caused the Icewing to melt rapidly.

"Good timing," she told him. She looked around but saw no other beasts. A flick of her hand melted the shield on her friends. Everyone looked relatively intact, though slightly ragged at the edges. Only Raine, Theo, Reagan, and Emily were present. "What the icy hells is going on, why wasn't I called, and where is everyone else?" she demanded.

Raine sighed as she removed her Mask and sent away her armor. "All are connected!" She immediately got to work healing the injuries sustained. Every generation had at least two Defenders or Rulers capable of using the Physical Healing skill, for obvious reasons. Raine had it via her majik for the Resurrection Cultivators, though Tasia also possessed it, and so did Ryan—although his stayed on the smaller side of the scale.

Since healing skills of a physical sort were not reliant on specifically magic or majik, or a type of element, it could land rather randomly in generations. The Elder Cultivators had healing skills in Kacey and High Queen Sayena Delphinium via their magic. The only difference between whether it came from magic or majik was that magic could only do one thing at a time, or two different things at the same time. Majik could do the same thing twice, meaning Raine could actually heal two friends at the same time providing neither was severely injured. Tasia had the ability to actually take it a step further and heal herself, which no other healer could do—not even Sayena.

Tasia took care of healing Emily so Raine was free to work on the others. The Hyacinth Defender pointedly did not look at her arm; blood from injuries sort of bugged her, even her own. "Basically," she said, "communications are fluctuating pretty badly. I was with LeAnn when she got nailed, and I only managed to get ahold of the other three and Mom before everything cut out entirely. So, yeah. That's why you weren't called, and no one else is here."

"As for what the hell is happening," Theo muttered, "your guess is probably better than ours because we have no clue. I thought these buzzards had been erased when Armand was destroyed."

Racine walked out of transport at that moment, and her brown eyes looked both vexed and concerned. "There's a fluctuation alright, but not just in communications. The entire Hall of Records is feeling it. Mom is trying to determine how and why, but it's looking like someone might well be trying to find a way to move through time without permission. There's not much I can do as Apprentice, but she's doing her best as Librarian to halt it if so."

"But that doesn't make sense." Reagan frowned as she pulled off her own Mask. "How could anyone manage to move through time without a Memory Flower Element? When LeAnn and I went back to help you in the Rebirth Era, Aunt Claret had to send us personally." Something occurred, and she looked at Tasia. "Uhm. Could . . ."

"I have promised Claret and Racine alike that I am not going to even test to see if my majik would allow that," Tasia admitted ruefully. "I just use my Memory majik for stuff like slowing down and speeding up things, no more or less than Racine herself uses her own. I think that's better for everyone's sanity. I honestly didn't even know I had it until recently when I hit that odd plateau of some sort that made my hair grow as well. I had been odd enough for having Light and Dark up until they merged to True Shadow."

The plateau had hit roughly a month or so before. She had finally finished settling into her evolution of four years before, and had reached her capacity in physical strength and skill as well as her magic and majik. Her hair, which had never grown normally to start with by reacting in fits and starts to her power, had gained another two inches in length in the process, bringing it to just past her bottom in full reach. The thick chocolate mess blended straight locks and wild curls in a chaotic tangle, so its exact length could sometimes be hard to determine. She liked long hair, so she did not mind.

The plateau, however, had brought out things she had not yet seen in her skillset, including access to Memory majik. She now had almost all Flower Elements in some shape or form, except one that she had no desire to reach for or attempt to control given her family history. She would stick with its sub-version of Shadow; much safer. "Anyway," she said, "if something or someone has grabbed up evil power, then it could be feasible they attempt time travel. That's why people can be lured to evil; it offers ridiculous amounts of power and the ability to do things against all laws of existence."

Very softly, Theo told her, "We really should describe it differently though. I mean . . . you. You're a sorceress, and a Mystic. You yourself can bend existence in any number of ways. So maybe we should say evil power allows people to do things they are not normally allowed to do. Because you are allowed to bend existence, else you wouldn't have your arcanistry. That's not just your magic/majik combined but also utilizing the arcane forces like the Apexes do." He grinned. "Hey, you're not just the High Priestess of Protea. You're the High Priestess of the Apexes, 'cause you act as a proxy for them!"

"Convenient that the Apexes are the High Queens," Rodi said dryly. "Tasia's used to taking their orders, and issuing her own."

"Point being," Tasia said firmly, "is that it is possible something evil made the attempt, and considering that we just faced down remnants of evil from what once infested Aria, we have to be alert to damn near anything." She held up a hand. "Move in. We're transporting back to Protea Castle. Hopefully the others will have assembled by then."

They landed safely in the garden again, and once more headed to the drawing room. They found LeAnn fully intact once more, and she had been joined by the others of their generation: Beth, Ryan, and Storm. Upon spotting their friends, they hurried over. "Was it?" Beth whispered.

Tasia nodded. "Yeah." Striker landed on her shoulder, and she absently rubbed his head. "Where're Aunt Kacey and Aunt Arista?"

"They went to tattle on me to my mother," LeAnn admitted dryly.

A sudden surge of unrecognizable power rushed through the air. No one seemed adversely affected by it, but Striker's scales unfurled and he let out a low growl of clear anger. He said nothing, and he did not begin to calm until Tasia actually held him in her arms and gently smoothed his scales. "Easy," she said softly.

Claret suddenly walked out of a transport of her own and told Racine without preamble, "We have an issue."

"Oh now what?" Shanae complained from the door behind them. She leaned a shoulder against the jamb and eyed both Memory Cultivators balefully. "I don't like the sound of that any more than I liked that power I just felt! Please tell me that someone did not just manage to go into the past without permission."

"I'd love to tell you that, but . . ."

Shanae blew out a breath so hard her bangs stirred. The black locks often fell in her face, and the rest of her perfectly straight hair brushed the floor. Only she and Sayena had hair longer than Tasia; Sayena's exceptionally fluffy and curly white hair also touched the floor. "Great. Another Paradoxal Pivot. It has to be. Why would someone go to the past?"

Storm glanced at Tasia, got a nod, and turned back. "To attempt to kill you Elder Cultivators before you are Elders in an effort to ensure our generation is never found or born," he admitted. He shrugged one shoulder lightly with a smile when all eyes turned toward him. "You wanted an answer. That's the pattern within this. The enemies we were fighting came from Aria, and now someone has traveled to the past." He pursed his lips as he thought about the deceased villain they had removed before he destroyed Aria. "Did Armand have family, Rodi? I mean, other than you and Romalia and Megan, of course."

"He did, actually. He had a wife that died, hmm, ten years before the coup? Something like that. They seemed happy enough together, oddly. They had a son together, so I have a cousin out there. He's a month or two older than I am." He would be turning thirty-one the first of January. He and Tasia shared the same birthdate a year apart, eerily enough. "My cousin also has a wife, actually. He had left Aria before the coup, and I have no idea if he came back during the following year." He shrugged his shoulders. "I never thought of Alloran as being a bad sort. We actually got along well. But given his father, it's hard to say what he was really like. I never even knew evil had been inside my uncle all along until Tasia pointed it out."

She slipped her hand into his. "Then we operate on the assumption it is Alloran who either embraced or found evil and is trying to get revenge for what we did. That sounds very logical, given that Alloran would find it difficult if not outright impossible to attack our team directly because of certain circumstances."

"You being Aria's Defender?" Claret asked.

"That's a part of it."

She said nothing else, and the looks on the others' faces implied they would not be more forthcoming. The Elder Cultivators actually knew very little of the specifics of the events that had happened on Aria. They knew only the very highest points because the Resurrection Cultivators had adamantly refused for four years to talk about it. All Defenders had a few traumatic memories given the nature of their role, but the Resurrection team seemed to have more than most. Tasia's soul would literally carry the scars forever.

Shanae would continue to be patient as needed, but if she saw the wounds continue to fester, she would grab both her daughter and her priestess and shake them until they shared and told—ironic as that may end up being. "Okay. Fair enough. What's the general gist of this apparent trump card?"

Tasia nodded briefly. "For complex reasons, the Arian lineage cannot do harm to my lineage. I also cannot do harm to their lineage in return unless they are actively engaged in the act of doing evil deeds. Guess that abrades against my role as Defender, or something."

"Or something," Shanae countered politely. "Your arcanistry is all but the force of Judgment as far as I can tell. S'why you complement me and Sayena and our arcanery. Over the last four years, it would seem that about the moment we realize someone has done something pretty bad that deserves some sort of justice, within a short time that justice is served in extremely karmic ways. Crime was scarce enough before you became High Priestess, and now it is all but extinct. Arcanistry is brutal to evil, even the mildest dose inside humans."

"It is very probable that all evil will be erased in your lifetime," Claret admitted. "Which, considering what evil has done to your kind across the millennia, is another sort of karmic justice."

A hint of pink climbed Tasia's cheeks. "Let's focus on the evil before us right now. Is this a Pivot, guys?" It was asked of Racine and Claret alike. "Can you Elders handle this in the past, or should we all go back as well?"

Racine looked at Claret; it was the Librarian's call, not the Apprentice. After a moment, Claret said, "There are spectacularly special gifts inside all of you, not just Tasia. You possess what we now call magikry, that blend of magic and majik, that makes you nearly unstoppable. I may lose more and more of my ability to see the future events of this Era as Racine grows stronger and stronger, but I can still see salient things around your team where events do not directly affect me. This is very much a Pivot, and there is something in the past that has to be effected by the future. I could not say what, exactly, but the sheer fact that you were the team that had to handle whatever happened on Aria—and Tasia being Aria's Defender—tells me that if this is a continuation of that war, then all of you have to go back to handle it."

"Racine sees more of this Era than you do?" Beth asked out of sheer curiosity.

"To be sure!" Claret smiled at her daughter. "But she's brilliant as my Apprentice. It may only be a few more years until the torch is ready to be passed entirely. I think when the moment comes that she feels something I don't at all, I will know that Time herself is telling me my duty has ended." She ran a hand down Racine's hair. Despite not sharing blood—at least, not within millions of years—there did exist a resemblance between mother and daughter beyond their similar bronze skin tone. "I think that because this Pivot is directly tied to the Resurrection Era and its first generation, then Racine should be the one to bring you all back."

Racine gulped a little faintly. She had actually never done time travel alone. Her mother had sent her to Resurrection from Rebirth the first time, and when she had gone back years later for another Pivot, again her mother had sent her. "No pressure," she groused.

Shanae smiled. "Hey, you're your mother's kid. You got this. And I think it's up to you guys if you want to contact us in the past. It might not hurt to go incognito until you have no choice. Lull the enemy into a false sense of security and get a scope of how things are before you get in too deep. Who knows how long this will take?"

LeAnn looked down at her relatively fancy clothes and said, "Not again. Nope." She swung around and marched to the doors. "I'm changing my damn clothes before we go tromping on another journey. Tasia has no need to conjure me pants when I have some in my closet!"

Shanae started laughing, and Tasia grinned. "I know. It amused me too. C'mon guys. Let's get both LeAnn and Reagan alike a little less formal, and then we'll put together the details of making a very long trip where there sure isn't PCA service."

Rodi of course tagged along with the team as they headed to LeAnn's sprawling set of rooms. He honestly had as deep a stake in these events as Tasia; in some ways, a deeper one. Also, after four years, he had gotten used to running herd on the team as a whole. He was the only Caretaker of their generation currently capable of entering combat safely, and as much as Tasia often just felt like everyone's big sister, he had really become their big brother.

As soon as everyone entered the sitting room, LeAnn impatiently kicked the door shut. "Laces!" she said in aggravation as she turned her back to Tasia. "Why do I have to love laced things so much? I almost can't undress myself!"

Her twin smiled and unlaced the gown that she wore. "Because with a figure like yours, laced items look pretty spectacular," she said reasonably as LeAnn disappeared into her large closet. "It allows you to wear some pretty flattering clothes that your cousin can't."

Reagan, who had also ducked into the closet to borrow clothes, said woefully, "I'd kill for her figure. I can't wear all the cute things I want because I'm curved in the wrong places for them!" She had a delicate bust and hip, and plump figure overall. She looked stunning in clothes that played to such a thing, but the way LeAnn eyed the empire-waisted items Reagan could wear, Reagan eyed the laced and plunging neckline on items LeAnn could wear.

"At least you have a figure!" Rachel said in aggravation. "I was so hoping to keep the curves I gained when I was carrying Relisha and Percival. Only half of it stayed."

Rodi rolled his eyes. "It's half more than you had, and you seriously need to stop fussing it. You looked great before, you look great now. Is there anyone in this room who actually doesn't lament wishing to wear what everyone else does?" Fingers pointed at Tasia, and he snorted. "My wife doesn't count. She doesn't care what she wears."

The fact that Tasia currently looked as if she had thrown on literally the first items to come to hand underscored that statement. Yet, ironically, she had such utter confidence in wearing her mismatched style that she always looked good anyway. She shared that trait with Yvette Iris, her adopted mother, actually. She eyed Rodi in return and said, "I just like being comfortable, okay? And it takes too much effort. I'm too damn busy to fuss my appearance."

"This," Theo complained to Emily and Ryan. "This is what Beth and I have lived with for over twenty years."

Ryan grinned at him. "If you didn't amuse her by being so grumpy about it, she might actually change her tune. Besides, I think it just makes it funnier when she does bother to take the effort, because then she stops traffic." He thought about it. "Yeah, actually, it's probably best she doesn't do that often. She'd blind the mortals."

"Damn it, Ry!" Tasia threw a pillow at him, but she was smiling.

"When do we leave?" LeAnn walked out of the closet in a pair of snug denims and a trim pink tank top that showed off her bellybutton ring if she lifted her arms. Her fit body was shown to perfection in both curvature and musculature. She had inherited not only her mother's height, but also her beauty. Muscle lined her visibly and offset an unusually defined hip and bust. She had a softer sultriness to her appearance compared to Shanae, however, thanks to Robert's own genes. The combination of bloodlines had also given her wavy black hair striated with white. She otherwise had the protea pink eyes and golden brown skin with an underlying red hue of her Protean lineage.

Reagan, as ever, made her perfect opposite. She stood many inches shorter than her younger cousin, and looked as soft and plump as her cousin did strong and lean. She had the cream skin and gold eyes of her maternal lineage, but her waist length white hair held far less curls and sheer fluff than either her mother or uncle's hair. Each strand also turned to black an inch before the end, making her hair look almost speckled as a whole. She wasn't the shortest of her generation—she had Beth beat by a single inch—but she stood on the shorter end of the spectrum. Tasia won for tallest at five-eleven, but LeAnn was only an inch shorter. The others fell in varying heights between the cousins. "So when do we leave and how?"

"'When' is as soon as we make the right calls to significant others if we have them and make sure our jobs are covered," Tasia said.

"'How' should be as easy as my using Memory magic to open a transport across time." Racine thought she sounded calm, but she immediately felt Tasia put a hand on her leg in support. "Okay, I'm nervous," she admitted.

"I have Memory majik," Tasia reminded her gently. "And if I have to step out of my comfort zone to help you, then I will. It might actually be a good idea if I do. It might prevent your mother in the past from feeling us, which will help us stay incognito."

Reagan went to grab her PCA from her pocket and could not get a grip on it. "Darn it!" She held up her hands as her sleeves flopped past her fingers. "I look like I'm wearing my big sister's shirt!"

LeAnn grinned. "I wholeheartedly enjoy being bigger than you because you wholeheartedly enjoy being older!" She blinked. "Wow. I sound like my mom."

"Yes," Tasia agreed dryly. "You do."

It took an hour to make all the appropriate calls, and it was to the credit of the significant others in question that no one felt a bit jealous that Rodi got to go and they did not. Not only did he have a personal stake in things, but Tasia needed him by her side in order to sleep an entire night through. Her powerful mind just could not shut down unless her lover was nearby. He had given up his magic when he Deactivated, but he had maintained all majik and he did still have his Seed. Both of those carried the infusion of the black poppy of Aria—a flower known for bringing rest—to where he even smelled like the poppy. All Cultivators actually smelled like their world's flower, which lent itself to helping them identify each other.

Leaving from within the castle was not a good idea. Tasia had placed immense wards around the entire palace grounds that registered fluctuations so that even the Elder Cultivators without majik noticed. It would not be nice to fluctuate the wards for no good reason. The team instead headed a safe distance away, just to the outside of the wall that surrounded the palace grounds as a whole and separated it from the city encircling it. Once there, they all formed a circle and linked hands tightly. Striker rode on Rodi's shoulder because he was wearing a leather jacket and gave his claws something to grip onto. Striker had been a requirement of the trip as well, due to his reaction to that power of before; clearly, he had a connection as well.

Racine stepped into the middle of the circle and removed her hourglass from the bracelet where she carried her two Masks. The hourglass marked her as Apprentice Librarian and allowed her to utilize the same abilities as her mother—including move through time. It grew to full size as it hovered over her palm and she fought back her nerves. Pink and lavender magic began to well around her.

Tasia stepped into the middle with her and touched the hourglass with a fingertip. Silver-gold majik welled around her equally. Racine suddenly felt her nerves ease and confidence build. The magic grew larger until it formed what looked like a swirling galaxy not unlike what existed in Tasia's eyes. It swept out to consume everyone, and they disappeared from the Resurrection Era to move backward toward the connecting point of the Rebirth Era.

Because they had already passed through, none noticed the figure that dove into the portal after them. Moments after his passing, the portal closed and the future was none the wiser for what had happened.

 

©Stacy J. Garrett. Do not reprint or redistribute without permission.

Chapter 3 ->