I look over my shoulder, grinning. “Right? It just suddenly came to me.”
Temen turns to the wall, replaces my crystal, and closes the door. After more whirring and sliding of gears, he opens up the door when it’s quiet. The crystal that sits there looks similar to mine, except it’s much shorter, maybe only about three inches in length.
After he hands it to me, I hold it out for Carrick to touch so we can see the event together.
The crystal glows blue as we both touch it and scenes start to flash. Various places and people running past me in a blur, and, finally, a man—presumably, the demi-god who loved Charmeine—hunched over a wooden table with a single candle providing light as he copied words from a long scroll into a leather-bound book.
Carrick was right. It had been copied over at some point.
The crystal stops glowing. It takes a few seconds for all that to settle in as it appears the book was created over several years, transcribing it from many papyrus scrolls.
“Did you recognize the demi-god?” I ask Carrick.
His expression is disappointed as he shakes his head.
Damn it.
Handing the crystal back to Temen, I ask if he recognizes the demi-god. The crystal glows as he closes his eyes, but when he opens them, he also shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but no.”
“It was worth a try,” I reply glumly. I slide my hand in Carrick’s. “Let’s head back.”
“Wait a minute,” Carrick says, his gaze going to Temen. “Pull up the event for the original writing of that story on the papyrus scrolls.”
My eyebrows draw inward in confusion.
Carrick explains. “Just because that demi-god we just saw transcribed the story, it doesn’t mean he was the original author.”
“Brilliant,” I say with a beaming smile.
“Pull up all pertinent events surrounding the original writing on the scrolls,” Carrick instructs.
Temen does his thing, then switches out to a new crystal. This one is much longer than mine, at least eighteen inches, and the cylinder part isn’t smooth but rather gnarled and cracked. It doesn’t look well cared for.
It’s long enough that Carrick and I can both wrap our hands around it as it starts to glow.
Once again, places, people, wars, love scenes. A barrage of images flash through us, and my blood starts racing as I see a black stone chalice with a red jewel affixed to it. All of it blowing by so fast I’m afraid I’ll forget details. Yet, at the end, we see Micah.
He’s more grotesque than the Libri Mysteria’s author had described, his face deformed and hideous. He’s covered with matted fur and his back is hunched. Slime oozes from the corners of his mouth.
And then he’s battling someone—presumably our demi-god—for the chalice, but Micah uses some sort of magic. He expels that person from his realm in a flash of blinding light and without us being able to see many details other than the demi-god was built like a freightliner.
Finally, we see a man bent over a stone table, meticulously journaling his experience on papyrus scrolls.
Not the same author from the first viewing, and we can only see his back as he’s hunched over. When he reaches the end of the scroll, he lifts it and carries it over to a wooden trunk in what appears to be a tent of some sort.
He deposits it gently inside, closing the lid. When he straightens to head back to the table, I gasp so hard I start to choke.
“Fuck,” Carrick mutters as we take in the author of the Libri Mysteria.
Hair buzzed to his scalp, his gray eyes filled with ice and a look of isolation that I’d recognize anywhere.
Carrick’s brother, Lucien.
CHAPTER 8
Carrick
Settled on the couch in his office, Carrick tucked his hands behind his head and stretched his legs out, crossing one over the other at the ankles. It was almost three AM, and he’d just left a warm, naked, and sleeping Finley in their bed.
Not for his decency or hers, Carrick donned a pair of pajama bottoms and a t-shirt before leaving his bedroom. The way things were heating up with the prophecy, people were coming and going at all hours from his condo, which had become command central of sorts.
He could have as easily stayed in his bed to contemplate things, but the lure of Finley beside him was too distracting, which was why he had relocated to his office. Through the pocket doors and to the windows overlooking the Sound, he couldn’t see much of Bainbridge Island. It was mostly blacked out, everyone asleep, and the sky was overcast so the water was darkened. There was some glow from adjacent buildings and some of the smaller ones below him, but there wasn’t much of interest to look at for the most part.
Which was fine. He didn’t need that to think.
He tipped his head back, letting his gaze lift to the ceiling. Plain. White. Blank.
His mind began to wander.
If he didn’t hear back from Lucien soon, he would have to go on a search for him, which would waste time. He’d put in a few texts and one phone call, telling him that he was needed urgently in Seattle.
Carrick did not tell him what it was about, though. That conversation was best done face to face.
Lucien had never been unresponsive before. If he were in the Earth realm, no matter if it were halfway around the globe, he would have replied by now. Carrick could only ascertain he was in some other AltVeritas where cell reception depended on the level of magic within that realm or whether its creator allowed Earth realm technology within its borders. There being thousands upon thousands of realms, Carrick would not know where to start. He would have to appeal to Veda for help, and she’d already done a lot for him. The favors she would bestow were probably running dry.
Carrick let those frustrations go because there was nothing he could do about them. Instead, he thought about his time in the Hall of Histories today with Finley. She had such delight in seeing her past lives, even though each one was abruptly ended when she died.
Sadly, some of those deaths weren’t abrupt but rather a prolonged illness. She hung tough, though, and watched it all.
In the end, she had seen enough to prove that her gut instinct about their love was right. Seeing it over and over again, feeling the same level of devotion in each life, meant that what she and Carrick had was special enough to withstand eternity.
When Carrick watched Finley walk out of there, he knew she could never doubt his love for her and because she allowed herself to trust in her past incarnations, she could have faith that her present-day feelings for him could be trusted.
It was a good evening when they returned to the condo, riding high on Finley being able to learn some of her history.
Learning who was the author of the Libri Mysteria was a huge bonus, shocking as it was. Finley was brilliant to think of asking Temen for the recorded event and frankly, Carrick was embarrassed he had not thought of it himself but, admittedly, he’d been distracted by watching Finley take in the memories of some of her past lives. He was reliving them in his head right along with her.
Carrick wasn’t surprised he didn’t know about Lucien’s past with Micah and Charmeine. They were created together as brothers with Maddox, but Lucien was more often than not off on his own, handling individualized dirty work for the gods. Sometimes, all three brothers fought wars together, but they spent more time apart than in a group.