Roswell Fanatics

Chapter 31

“We have to tell her the truth, Max,” Isabel informed her brother as they both prepared to dreamwalk Liz for another countless time, “She’s being extra nasty to Maria and Kyle and it’s not fair, Max.”

Their mother had been in the midst of their camp for less than a day and already she had wreaked a week’s worth of havoc. Katha made no secret of the fact that she disapproved of her children’s human friends and found them to be totally useless. Already Michael and Tess had begun hounding Max to, not only set his mother straight about matters, but the entire Antarian company. Max sympathized with their plight but, at the moment, he had more pressing matters on his mind. Namely…what the hell was going on with his girlfriend?

“What the hell am I supposed to say,” he demanded in an agitated underbreath as he reclined back against his bed pallet, “She only just arrived this morning. Am I supposed to make matters worse by telling her the truth? You know how she is, Isabel. It would be begging trouble and you know we can’t afford to be distracted right now.”

“She’s treating our friends like shit,” Isabel declared, “Michael and Tess are completely on edge and you know how short-tempered Michael can be. This can get ugly very fast, Max. You should say something.”

The disappointed glare she raked over him was sufficient enough to cow Max into submission. He heaved a disgruntled sigh. “Okay…okay. I don’t like the way she’s treating them either, you know,” Max replied softly, shifting onto his side to regard her, “And I promise I’ll talk to her about it…later. Right now my main concern is Liz, Isabel. I need to be sure she and the baby are okay.”

“And what makes you think we’re going to be any more successful than the last six times we’ve tried to dreamwalk her,” Isabel asked dryly, “I hate to say it, Max, but…I think she might be intentionally blocking us.”

Max jerked away from the declaration, as if turning his back would make it untrue. It was a realization he had come to himself days ago. Liz knew how dangerous a trek across the Antarian desert could be. He had spent months preparing her for the arduous journey. She should know better than to deliberately close her mind to him, especially in such precarious conditions and yet it seemed that was exactly what she was doing.

Still, Max made a weak denial. “She’s not.”

“She is,” Isabel insisted gently, “I’m worried about that, Max. Either she and Alex are having a hard time getting here and she can’t relax enough to let us in or…or something bad has happened to Alex and she doesn’t want us to know about it.”

Again Max jerked in reaction to her words, but this time from guilt and sorrow. All this time he had been obsessing over what was happening with Liz and he had never given a thought to the fact that Isabel was equally worried over Alex. “God, Isabel,” he groaned, scooting around to face her once more, “I’m so fucking sorry. You’ve been worried about Alex all this time and I’ve hardly acknowledged that at all. I’ve been so wrapped up in worry about Liz--,”

“Don’t apologize,” Isabel interrupted, holding up her hand to silence him, “I’m not holding it against you. Liz is pregnant with your baby. I totally understand why you’re so worried about her. I’m just…I’m worried about Alex, too. He’s not equipped for this world, Max.”

She was right about that. Alex wasn’t equipped for their world. But then the more time they spent on Antar the more Max believed that he, Michael, Isabel and Tess weren’t equipped for it either. His longing for Earth continued to grow so that it was becoming almost like an obsession. Everything he did…everything he thought served as a means to an end…

“Do you want to try again?” Isabel asked, breaking through his thoughts, “I didn’t mean to discourage you.”

Max shook his head at her offer. “No, you’re right,” he said, “It would probably be futile to try. I’m sure Liz will dreamwalk me when the time is right.” He said the words but not with much conviction. Unlike his sister, however, Max wasn’t worried that Liz and Alex’s silence had resulted in their being hurt. He suspected something much deeper than that. He dreaded the thought that Liz’s previous memories had returned. He dreaded the idea of what that would mean for him and for Charlie, but most especially for Liz.

Isabel nudged him, recapturing his attention. “You’re drifting again,” she mumbled.

“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” Max replied vaguely, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re not sleeping at night,” Isabel observed sympathetically, “I know that has to be catching up with you, Max.”

“Does it show?” Max wondered.

“Um…no, this isn’t one of your prettier moments,” Isabel replied succinctly, “You need to rest, Max.”

He circled the pads of his fingers wearily in the sockets of his eyes. “Maybe you’re right about that,” he agreed wearily, “I’ll catch a few winks and then I’ll talk to Mother when I wake up, okay?”

Isabel nodded and swiveled around to replace her breast and headgear for the trek across the plain to her own tent. As she stared down at her brother’s prone form, noting the lines of fatigue grooved into his ashen features her heart contracted with pity and sorrow.

“Everything is going to work out for us, Max,” she declared optimistically as she started to duck out of his tent, “I…I really feel that, you know?”

“I hope so, Izzy.” Only when she had disappeared from the entrance of his tent altogether did Max let his eyes drift shut.

However, his placid moment of respite was short-lived because the flaps of his tent were suddenly yanked back. Tess came stalking inside a millisecond later, the metal of her armor clanking with each step. “Get up,” she growled, yanking off her helmet and tossing it to the far end of his tent.

Max watched the headgear bump and thud until it rolled to an unceremonious stop before finally lifting his inquiring stare to Tess’ blazing features. Though inwardly cringing over her bristling expression, Max casually rolled upright and fixed her with a questioning glare. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked carefully, “Did the helmet piss you off or something?”

She actually snapped her teeth at him. “I can’t believe you have the nerve to be cute with me right now,” she hissed, “What’s wrong, you ask? Why don’t you ask your troops? Perhaps they can enlighten you, majesty!”

“My troops?” Max echoed warily, “What do they have to do with barging into my tent unannounced? And why are you yelling at me?”

Instead of answering his questions, Tess hunkered down before him, her eyes spitting blue fire and disdain. “Do you know where Kyle is at this very moment?” she asked with deceptive calm, “Do you even care?”

He was almost afraid to answer her. Max couldn’t remember ever seeing Tess this angry. Cunning and warrior-like, yes, but never angry…at least not with him. The realization was a bit intimidating. It took a supreme act of will not to recoil from the leaping rage in her eyes. “Where is he?”

“Unconscious in his tent, that’s where!” she cried wildly.

Max’s brows snapped together in a bewildered frown. “He’s unconscious? Why? What happened?” With each question his agitation raised a degree. The fear that something serious had happened to Kyle despite all the precautions he’d taken formed a vise grip in Max’s chest. How was he supposed to face Valenti again, knowing he had failed to protect the man’s son? Roswell’s former sheriff had already lost enough because of him.

Panicked, Max started to scramble to his feet but Tess shoved him back to the ground so that he rocked back on his ass. “Hey!” he cried in surprise, “What was that for?”

“The troops,” she ground out through her teeth, “They were too hard on Kyle during the training today. It was as if they were trying to deliberately hurt him! He took a complete beating out there, Max.”

Max slumped in relief. “That’s all it is then,” he sighed, “Well…good. I was worried for a moment.”

“Good? Good?” Tess screeched, “Did you hear what I just said to you? They beat him into unconsciousness, Max! He’s covered from head to toe in bruises and laser burns!”

The King merely shrugged his shoulders. “He wanted to prepare for war,” Max said, “He’s been all up in my face about it for days now. Well, now he got what he wanted. Hard training is as good a preparation as any.”

“There’s a difference between hard training and brutality, Max,” she spat.

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

Tess’ mouth compressed into a thin, embittered line. “I’m not above knocking the absolute hell out of you, Max,” she threatened darkly, “I want you to do something about this.”

Max threw his hands up in disgust. “And what am I supposed to do about it, huh?” he cried in frustration, “Kyle wanted to train, remember? He’s been giving me grief about leaving him behind when we faced Hor-daun. So I give in…I give him what he wants. Now I’m supposed to talk to the troops and admonish them because they’re being too rough with him? Either he wants to train or he doesn’t, Tess. He wants my help or he doesn’t.”

“It’s not that simple and you know it,” Tess muttered.

He did know it but he was at a loss as to what he should do about it. The Kyle situation was…complicated. Max was well aware that Kyle was viewed as an interloper among the troops and he knew why. Kyle’s species had very little to do with it. Instead the hostility was spurred by his very obvious interest in Tess. It also didn’t help matters that he was openly and unapologetically hostile to their king. Kyle was digging an irreparable hole for himself and he didn’t even realize it.

“You’re the King,” Tess insisted in a low tone, “Do something about this. It’s getting out of hand, Max.”

Folding his legs beneath him, Max smirked at her in unconcealed amusement. “I don’t know exactly what you expect me to do,” he said again.

Blue eyes narrowed into menacing slits. “You are dangerously close to being bitchslapped, Evans,” she warned, “Stop jerking me around.”

Recognizing that she was perfectly serious, Max’s smile collapsed. “You know he’s bringing it all on himself!” he cried in his defense, “I haven’t said a word to anyone.”

Tess folded her arms belligerently across her chest, causing the metal of her protective armor to clank faintly. “What the hell are you talking about?” she demanded a little wildly, “Is this some kind of punishment or something?”

Max scowled his confusion. “Punishment? Punishment for who?”

“For me,” Tess clarified gruffly, “For the way I played around with your head when I first arrived in Roswell. Maybe you haven’t forgiven me for it…maybe that’s why you’re treating Kyle like shit…”

“Where the hell are you getting that?” Max fixed her with a cajoling stare and shook his head. “Tess you were manipulated,” he whispered, “First by Il-Kor and then by Orayn. None of this was your fault. I’ve told you that a dozen times already.”

“That’s what your mouth says…but your heart might be another matter altogether. Maybe it’s not a conscious thing,” Tess considered miserably, “Maybe you’re hoping to make me and Kyle suffer the way I made you and Liz suffer.”

“I don’t want to make you suffer, Tess,” Max replied softly, sympathetically, “I love you, Tess. You’re my family…my friend. You know me better than anyone alive, besides Liz. I…I would never hurt you. But…But I can’t control what the troops feel…especially when Kyle goes out of his way to disrespect me in front of them.”

“Disrespect you?” Tess parroted uncomfortably.

“I’m not an idiot, Tess,” Max grumbled, “I hear the rumors going around the camp about you and Kyle. And then Kyle treats me like something he’s stepped in. That doesn’t help to bolster my men’s confidence in me as a military leader. How am I supposed to lead them into battle with the hope for victory when I can’t seemingly control my personal life?”

“You and I are not together, Max,” Tess ground out through clenched teeth.

“I know that and you know that and Kyle knows that, but they don’t know that.”

“Then tell them!” she snapped.

“I will,” Max promised, “The only reason I’ve delayed is because we’ve been up to our necks in rebel forces. I didn’t want anything distracting them from battle.” He sighed deeply, a low, infinitely tired sigh. “I don’t suppose I can put it off any longer though. But you have to tell Kyle to ease up in the meantime. My men see the way he treats me. The fact I don’t make him answer for his behavior only undermines my authority with them. How are they supposed to respect me when I passively allow my queen’s lover to wipe his feet all over me?”

“What about Kyle’s respect?” Tess countered softly, “Doesn’t he deserve any? You stripped him of his dignity when you did what you did the other day, Max.”

“I saved his life,” Max countered implacably, “I’m not apologizing for that.”

“But you should apologize for stripping him of his dignity, Max,” she replied pointedly, “I’ll agree…you saved his life, but the way you did it completely humiliated him.”

Max gaped at her. “Stripping him of his… Tess, what the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re not the only one trying to prove yourself, Max!” she explained in a desperate whisper, “Kyle is trying to prove himself as well. You’re not making it easy for him.”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to make it easy for him!” he burst out dubiously.

“Why do you seem to have all this concern for everybody else but you don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about Kyle?” Tess demanded sharply, “Why doesn’t he matter to you, too?”

“I think I’ve been pretty damned tolerant so far!” Max retorted shortly, speaking like the ruler and warrior he was, “Kyle Valenti hasn’t exactly been my biggest champion, you know, but I’ve always tried to work in his best interests. I’m doing the best I can but he’s not making it easy, Tess.”

“You’re punishing him for his past mistakes,” Tess accused him, “Just like you’re punishing me.”

Max repressed the understandable need to scream. He drew several sharp breaths before he attempted to speak again. “Look, Avarre,” he said, using not only her birth name but their native tongue as well, “You matter to me. Kyle matters to me. I want to get us all out of here alive.”

“And what happens next, Max?” Tess whispered in English, “After you save Antar and restore peace…what? Are we supposed to rule like we never left?”

Taking her cue, Max reverted back to English when he responded. “We’re not staying,” Max declared definitively, “As soon as the political structure on this planet is stable again we’re going back home…back to Earth.”

Tess snorted. “Does your mother know this?”

“Not yet,” Max hedged uncomfortably, “But she will. Again…I’ve had more important things on my mind lately.”

“Yeah…” she snorted again, “Good luck with that.”

“I’ll handle my mother,” Max declared confidently, “And I’ll handle the men, too. You try to talk to Kyle and keep him from making a further jackass of himself.” He reached across the distance between them to squeeze her hand. It was the first time, since she had reemerged into his life, that Max had initiated a gesture of affection between them. Tess had to swallow back the emotion that rose in her throat with his touch several times before she could meet his fervent stare. “I’m going to work this out,” he promised her.

“I believe you,” Tess murmured, “I know you will.”

Chapter 32

He was buried beneath a heavy drift of sand. She could just barely make out the tips of his sneakers beneath the mound of earth. And then the wind shifted, scattering the sand enough to reveal more of his body. He still wasn’t completely uncovered. But even with the golden grains of dust obscuring his face Isabel could clearly make out his dead eyes. Blue and cloudy, fixed ahead in an unseeing stare.

“Alex!”

Isabel woke up screaming. She surged upright, clutching her blanket to her chest as she trembled and perspired in the aftermath of her nightmare. It had seemed so vivid she had a difficult time shaking it off as a mere manifestation of her subconscious. The images clung to her, prompting pitiful sobs to bubble from her lips.

“No…no,” she muttered to herself, “We’ve come too far for me to lose you now.”

She whipped aside her blanket and scrambled to the edge of her tent to fumble around in her knapsack. Inside she found her cherished picture of Alex, worn and faded but infinitely precious. Pressing the photo to her breasts, Isabel scooted back onto her pallet. “You’re going to let me in this time, Whitman,” she decreed stubbornly as she closed her eyes, “This time I’m not taking no for an answer.”

Sucking in a fortifying breath, Isabel touched the tip of her finger to the photograph and stepped into Alex’s dreamworld.

He was huddled beneath the dying branches of an arroya tree. The blossoms had long since shriveled and fallen away. Antar had been in drought for almost one hundred years now. Nothing ever bloomed in the desert anymore. That sentiment apparently extended to its inhabitants as well. Alex didn’t appear to be “blooming” either. He had his knees drawn tightly to his chest as he rocked back and forth in unknown horror.

Isabel hardly recognized him. It wasn’t merely the fact that the lower half of his face was obscured with the bushy beginnings of a beard or that his characteristically lean form bordered on gaunt now. No, instead what made Isabel shudder and doubt his identity was the absence of light from his expressive eyes. Where had her jovial Alex gone?

She whispered his name, nothing more than a hoarse rasp. Alex jerked up in absolute horror, his eyes flaring wide when he saw her standing less than three feet away. For one, horrified second Isabel thought that he didn’t recognize her and then he began shaking his head madly. Rather than being overjoyed to see her, Isabel’s nearness only seemed to increase his terror.

“No,” he cried frantically, “You can’t be here--,”

He was clearly agitated and Isabel wanted to comfort him but she was pretty sure any advances she made would send him right over the edge. She had little doubt that he’d snap out of the dream immediately if he felt threatened. But, when she couldn’t soothe with her hands, Isabel used words instead.

“Alex, I’m here to help you,” she whispered, “Let me help you…”

“If you’re here then that means I’m asleep,” he muttered to himself crazily, “And I can’t be asleep…not on this planet… I can’t sleep. No, no…it’s too dangerous.”

Once more, Isabel attempted to reassure him though she didn’t step any closer. “Alex, I’m here with you,” she whispered, “This is your dream. You control what happens. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“It’s much too dangerous…much too…” he mumbled incoherently, “Much, much too dangerous…”

“This is your dream, Alex,” Isabel said again, “Make it whatever you want!”

At long last it seemed her words had penetrated his senses. His frantic blue eyes locked with her gaze, the pupils dilating into fixed points as his breathing began to even out. Very gradually the desert terrain began to shift and morph around her until they were back on Earth again, seated at their usual Crashdown booth.

“Why’d you bring us here?” Isabel whispered, staring at him from across the table. She wished devoutly that they could touch in dreamwalks but, for now, she was content with drinking him in with her eyes. There was still something fundamental missing from his gaze but for the most part he was the Alex she remembered, the one she’d always known.

“This is the only place that makes sense anymore,” Alex told her, “Does it matter to you that I’m out there somewhere?”

“I think about it every day,” she answered softly, “I wish I had known you were in trouble,” she whispered on, referring to the time when Tess first began her mindwarping, “I wish I could have helped.”

“And what would you have done?” Alex snorted, almost bitterly.

“Anything I could, Alex,” Isabel murmured, “Anything I could.” He made no comment to that and Isabel pressed on. “Where are you, Alex?” she urged, “Tell us so when can come for you.”

“How would I know?” he asked dully, “Everything looks the same on this wasteland of a planet.”

“Try,” Isabel implored fiercely, “May…maybe there’s a landmark around that stands out. You…you could ask Liz. Maybe she’s noticed something you haven’t.”

At the mention of Liz, Alex’s eyes clouded over even more and the scene around them transformed once more. They were back in the desert and the first sun was just beginning to rise over the cliff. “Liz isn’t here anymore,” Alex told her.

Isabel frowned, slightly distracted by the sunrise. The second sun was already beginning to follow and they seemed to be rising so fast… “Alex, what do you mean Liz isn’t there?” she demanded frantically, “Where is she? Has something happened to her?”

“You have to go now,” Alex said woodenly, his eyes fixed towards the sky. Isabel looked as well. The suns were there, flashing forth white rays of light. Her skin began to blister and tingle. When she looked at Alex again he had already broken out in head to toe blisters and his flesh had begun to scorch and sizzle. Isabel screamed. “You have to go now!” Alex cried just seconds before his body was engulfed in flames.

Isabel emerged from the dreamwalk with a hitching gasp, her heart tripping madly within her chest. “God…God…” she muttered to herself, more shaken by the second dream than she had been by the first. She might have lain there shaking indefinitely had she not become aware of the ruckus outside of her tents. There was much shouting and running footfalls.

Frowning, Isabel reared up on her knees and erected her shield with the intention of having a peek but before she could Max came bursting into her tent. He was dressed in the traditional Antarian war garb, the green shimmer of his shield surrounding his body. Isabel knew that the news wasn’t good.

“Khivar’s forces are on the move,” he said, “They marching to attack the camp. We have to cut them off.”

“Is Khivar with them?” Isabel demanded, already scrambling to her feet in preparation.

“Not that we can tell,” Max said, “But I doubt it. Our Intelligence says he’s fortifying the Royal fortress. He knows that we’re here, Isabel. This army coming now…they’ll just be the first of many trying to stop us from getting to him…”

She glanced at her brother sharply, cowed by the ominous edge in his tone. “Max?” she whispered fearfully, “Are we going to make it?”

“I hope so, Iz.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

“This fucking bites,” Maria declared succinctly, flopping back onto her bed pallet in groaning despair, “Everybody’s fighting today except for me.”

Though Maria DeLuca did have an affinity for melodrama that assessment was no mere exaggeration. Early that morning, before the suns had even begun to rise, Michael, Max, Isabel and Tess had filed out with the troops. Even Kyle and the queen had accompanied them. Antar was a planet of warriors it seemed but Maria didn’t quite cut the muster. She was having a difficult time stamping down her bitterness over that fact.

“I’m so useless,” she muttered to herself.

“There is something you can do,” came a reply in stilted English.

Maria bolted upright to find her guardian, Jid, watching her with intense green eyes. “Did you just say something?”

“The camp is running low on its water supply,” Jid explained, “I will need to fetch more. You may accompany me.”

“Whoo…fetching water,” Maria mocked, “Be still my heart.”

Jid shrugged. “I was of the impression that you wanted to feel useful,” she said, “Forgive the suggestion. I will have another to come and relieve me shortly.”

“Wait!” Maria cried as she started to duck from the tent, “I want to come, too.”

For all her griping and complaining, Maria wasn’t out on the plain with Jid five minutes before she regretted her decision. Though she still had a burning need to feel useful she had already seen one large bug too many and she was ready to turn back for the camp.

“We must find the jiballa plant,” Jid explained to her distracted companion.

“The jiballa plant?” Maria echoed, pressing so closely against Jid’s side as they trekked across the desert that they could have been one, “What the hell is that?”

“It’s the equivalent of a cactus,” Jid explained, “We’ll only need one to stock the camp with water for a month.”

“Why don’t you need as much water as we do?” Maria asked, trying desperately to stand still as the flying creatures squawked overhead.

That was definitely slowing them down, but Jid warned her that the predators on their planet mainly found their prey through sense and not sight. Any sudden movement would attract attention and then they’d be lunch. Consequently, moving was slow going but as long as it kept her alive Maria was not going to complain.

“My people are like chameleons,” she told Maria, “Our bodies can adapt to whatever environment we live in. It’s how we’ve survived for so many centuries. We are not weak and frail like humans.”

“Well, geez, thanks a bunch,” Maria threw out sarcastically, “If you think so little of my species why’d you choose us as hosts for your royal family in the first place?”

Jid pinned her with an emphatic stare. “Because…you are beautiful, too,” she answered simply.

From that moment on the two females worked in companionable silence, one human, one Antarian but linked together in a mutual goal. They found the jiballa plant after nearly two hours of searching and cut into the stalk. When the water began gushing forth Jid began filling the water jars they had brought along with them. The suns grew hot as they toiled but Maria hardly noticed because Jid’s shield provided such a cooling barrier. Once all the jars were full they began loading their makeshift wagon.

As Jid secured the jars, Maria stood and stretched, staring out across the plain through the green haze of Jid’s shield. The blinding flash of sunlight made it almost impossible to see anything in the distance but despite that a bouncing shimmer caught Maria’s eye. She squinted and used her hand to create a visor, straining hard to see. Sure enough there was a shimmer in the distance…a green shimmer.

“Oh my God, Jid,” she uttered quietly, “I think somebody’s out there.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

Time was running out.

Since learning of Zan’s presence on the planet Khivar had been acutely aware of that fact. His desperation to translate the Granolith’s prophecy became more reckless. Khivar recognized he was working on borrowed time. If Zan managed to penetrate the fortress…

Khivar wouldn’t allow himself to finish the thought. That little fool Asha! She still maintained her foolish decision to hold her tongue. Even after the excruciating pain he’d seen fit to inflict on her today she had not wavered. She had been unable to even stand when he had her taken back to her cell but in spite of everything her integrity remained unbroken. Nothing he had done had worked thus far.

He thought of Orayn, languishing in his cell in a pool of his own filth. It had been Khivar’s intention to kill him today but he had grown distracted with Asha. However, now he wondered if perhaps Orayn might prove some use to him. Spineless traitor he might be, Orayn was still quite skilled at finding out things. He didn’t really need Asha after all…just the translation and her baby.

The idea only half formed Khivar made his way down to the dungeon. The moment he entered, prisoners went scrambling to the opposite ends of their cells, hiding their faces into their knees. Each one was terrified that Khivar had come for them. Each one prayed to be spared.

When Khivar reached Orayn’s cell he found his former servant the same way he’d left him earlier. “Is this what you’ve come to, Orayn?” he asked coldly.

Orayn jerked at the sound of Khivar’s voice, turning his head towards the sound. He licked his dry, cracked lips. Per Khivar’s instructions his husk had been stripped of precious nutrients, leaving the skin to become as dry and brittle dead tree bark. He looked awful, even to Khivar who had seen and done his share of awful things.

Orayn’s eyes were sunken low into his skull. He had no nose, no ears. Those had shriveled up and fallen off hours ago. His fingers were nothing more than gnarled claws and the skin of his lips was pulled back tightly over his teeth. He looked like a living skeleton.

“Have you come to watch me die?” he rasped out.

“No,” Khivar replied with a fair amount of disgust, “I’ve come to offer you a reprieve.”

“Reprieve,” Orayn cackled in consideration, “What sort of reprieve is that?”

“Asha will not give me the translation of her own volition,” he declared tersely, “I want you to take it from her.”

Orayn sucked harsh gulps of air into his wizened form. “And what will I get in return,” he bargained.

“I shall provide you with a new body,” Khivar promised, “You may live out the rest of your days in relative peace…as a prisoner of course.”

“How do I know I can trust you?” Orayn wondered.

“You don’t.”

Orayn turned his head away then to stare up at the ceiling of his cell, rasping loudly as his body continued to deteriorate. “I don’t think I will,” he said finally.

“What did you say?” Khivar demanded in a silky whisper.

“No,” Orayn said again, “I have repented of my sins…I can rest with my ancestors.” He rolled another look towards Khivar, his eyes sparkling brilliantly in spite of the life force rapidly draining from his body. “You are cursed, don’t you know?”

“Cursed?” Khivar snorted, “I am standing only the precipice of a power so great you cannot even fathom it.”

“You will die,” Orayn predicted harshly, “I have seen it.”

“I will rule,” Khivar declared triumphantly, “And with Vilandra at my side. The five planets will belong to me. You had your chance, Orayn. Now you are the one who will die.”

But Orayn never heard the parting shot. His eyes had already dulled over with the glassy sheen of death.

~~~***~~~***~~~

Liz would have wiped at the steady trickle of blood escaping from her nose but she didn’t have the strength. Just the simple coordination it took to lift her hand eluded her.

She might have well been able to endure physical torture. Cuts, bruises and broken bones would have healed with time. However, the wounds Khivar had inflicted on her mind would scar her always. He had effectively blurred the lines between reality and terror.

In those endless hours Liz had been bombarded with a host of images. She had seen her family being maimed and tortured, her friends dying gruesome, bloody deaths. The visions had been so real, so tangible that Liz almost believed they were true. She mourned for their loss, felt her heart constrict with grief. Who did she have now?

But were they dead? Liz tried to remember when was the last time she had seen them but she couldn’t recall. She tried to remember the last conversation she’d had with Max, but she couldn’t remember that either. In those horrible scenes, she had witness Max’s demise countless times, his body ripped apart, desecrated… Was he dead, too? She didn’t know anymore. She didn’t know what to believe or how to believe. She didn’t even know who she was anymore.

“No…no,” Liz whimpered pitifully, “Please help me….someone help me…”

A warm tingling began in her belly with the plea and Charlie turned over within her, reminding Liz of all the reasons why she had to keep strong. Where she couldn’t summon the will to do anything else Liz managed to lift a hand to caress her son, transmitting her abiding love for him through that simple touch. Through touching him Liz reaffirmed what was real…what she had to hold onto.

This was for him…all for him, to save his life…to save them all. She’d endure anything for her child and if she had to…

She’d die.

Chapter 33

Alex Whitman knew he was going to die.

Weeks with no food and very little water were beginning to take their toll on him. He no longer had the fortitude to maintain the full strength of his shield against the sun. His flesh was puckered all over with raised, stinging blisters and burned to an angry red. Walking, bending, hell even blinking caused a fiery agony that brought tears to his eyes. His situation was definitely not looking bright.

In his heart of hearts, Alex accepted that he would probably die in this godforsaken desert. After everything he had endured in the last two months, after having cheated death numerous times this was where he would meet his end…far away from his home, his family and his friends.

He took only a small amount of satisfaction in having seen Isabel one last time. Small because, firstly it had been nothing more than a dream and secondly because he hadn’t even had the opportunity to tell her goodbye. Still, he’d at least seen her beautiful face. He’d seen the love in her eyes even if she hadn’t said the words. Alex supposed that would have to be enough.

Under normal circumstances that realization might have plunged him into a pit of despair but after months of being shuttled around, of being optimistic despite his grim circumstances Alex Whitman was rather pissed off. This was how it was supposed to fucking end, he railed at God. He just couldn’t understand it…to have traveled all this way and not have any payoff whatsoever, to die alone in the middle of nowhere with no family, no friends…

“I thought you had my back,” he muttered aloud, “But this fucking sucks!” His anguished rant towards the heavens reverberated eerily through the desert. Staggering, Alex ran a shaky hand through his hair and grimaced with a good majority of it broke off. “Great…I’m going bald, too.” He cast a disgruntled glance heavenward. “You couldn’t let me die with a little dignity?”

Determined, however, he courageously ignored his aching skin and scorched hair and plodded onward towards his unknown destination. But his body, which had been taxed beyond all human limits, refused to go a step further. As the sunlight continued to filter in through the fissures in his shield Alex felt himself growing progressively weaker. His knees buckled beneath him and he collapsed face first into the sand, his shield shuddering once before winking out completely.

~~~***~~~***~~~

Jid and Maria reached the fallen form just as it began to sizzle and crackle in the sun. Thinking quickly, Jid extended her shield before the damage was irreparable. As she maintained the perimeter and watched for wild prey, Maria dropped to her knees and removed her outer tunic to beat out the smoldering embers. She didn’t have to see the person’s face to know it was Alex.

“Please don’t be dead,” she whimpered in a gurgled sob, “Please…Please…” With a mighty heave she managed to roll him over onto his back but winced instantly when she saw his face. His flesh was cracked and peeling, bloated and crimson with sunburn. She almost hated to touch him but she did, letting her fingers glance carefully over his cheek. Even with the light touch Alex groaned with pain. A sob of relief bubbled forth from Maria’s lips. “Thank you…thank you God.”

“Is he alive?” Jid inquired sharply.

“Just barely,” Maria said, “We’ll probably have to carry him back to camp. He’s in no shape to walk.”

Jid nodded, stooping dutifully to scoop and unconscious Alex under his arms. As she and Maria hoisted him upright Maria had a belated realization. “Where’s Liz?” Jid stared at her blankly. “Put him back down,” Maria told her, “We can’t leave yet. Liz is still out there somewhere.”

She knelt back alongside Alex; lightly slapping his cheeks and cringing as she did because she knew how much pain it caused him. However, she didn’t stop until he’d opened his eyes. “Alex,” she whispered gently, her heart turning over with she heard his mewling moans of pain, “I know you’re hurting right now but…you have to tell me where to find Liz. Is she still out there? Is she hurt? Where is she?”

His eyelids fluttered with the strength he exerted to remain awake. “L…Liz?”

“Yes Liz,” Maria emphasized frantically, “Where is she, Alex?”

“Khivar…” he managed right before his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

Maria fell back at the revelation; her breath soughing in and out of her lungs in harsh, wracking pants. For weeks all she had heard from Max and the others was how dangerous Khivar was and how ruthless. The thought of her pregnant friend in the hands of such an absolute monster was too much for Maria.

“No…no…we have to get her back.”

“Did he say that Khivar has your friend?” Jid queried softly as Maria crouched against to scoop up Alex’s legs.

“He…must be holding her prisoner or…or something,” Maria muttered to herself, “Max will know what to do.”

Jid shook her head sadly. “If it is true…if Khivar has her,” she began ominously, “She’s as good as dead to you.”

Haunted green eyes zigzagged to Jid’s incandescent features. “What did you say?”

“Khivar does not tolerate liabilities,” she told Maria, “I am sorry for your friend.”

“She’s not dead,” Maria ground out, “Stop talking to me like she is. You don’t know Liz. She’s the strongest person I know.” She cut Jid off from further argument with a brusque order. “Grab him under his arms,” she said, nodding towards Alex’s prone form, “We need to get him back to the camp and tell Max what the hell is going on.”

Jid glanced off in the distance where their water wagon sat abandoned. “We can send someone to come back for it later,” Maria suggested.

“As you wish,” Jid conceded, “We should travel by the underground. I do not think I have the strength to maintain the shield for the three of us and carry him the entire way back to camp.”

“Un…underground,” Maria stammered as they began bearing Alex across the plain, “Isn’t that where the giant worms are? I…I thought we weren’t supposed to do that.”

“It will be too dangerous to travel above ground at this time,” Jid told her, “If you want your friend to live we would do better making our way back to camp through the underground caverns.”

“So those are our choices?” Maria cried wildly, “Fry in the desert sun or become some giant worm’s tasty snack? I hate this planet!”

“There are ways to avoid the r’tua,” Jid told her, “Trust me.”

At the mouth of the first cave they found Maria hesitated against going inside, shifting Alex’s weight so that she could lean her shoulder against the sharp, jutting rock of the mountain. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” she declared.

“r’tua have no eyes,” Jid explained, “They operate by heat sensors and movement. There are places to hide. You simply have to find them.”

“Not reassuring me, Jid,” Maria tossed back dryly.

“He’ll most certainly die out here,” Jid said, nodding towards Alex, “We must get him back to the camp to treat his burns. I can feel the lifeforce leaking out of him. There isn’t much time.”

Maria stared down at Alex’s swollen features. “What are we going to do?” she muttered to herself, “Max can’t heal him… He still might die.”

Jid snagged hold of her wrist. “He won’t,” she declared firmly, “Your friend is different now. He’s no longer human…not completely. I can sense that, too. If we get him back to the camp and tend his wounds he will heal quickly…just as my people. There is no need for healing here. As long as our wounds are tended and cleaned, we will heal in a matter of hours.”

“What do you mean he’s no longer human,” Maria asked slowly, but the question was an unnecessary one. She remembered seeing the shield earlier and she knew what it meant even though she couldn’t explain how it came to be. Maria shook her head, forcing herself to concentrate on the situation at hand. “He can explain it to us when he wakes up, I guess. Let’s get moving.”

As they entered the cave, Jid allowed her shield to disintegrate. Maria was prepared for the dank darkness but the smell took her completely by surprise. The cavern was putrid smelling, almost overpowering in its decayed stench. Maria gagged. “What is that awful smell?” she groaned.

“The dead,” Jid supplied brusquely, “We must move quickly. The r’tua forage during this time of day.”

The deeper they descended into the bowels of the mountain the darker the route became. Only the light shimmering from Jid’s body gave Maria any indication of what direction they were going. Along the way they would occasionally pass a half eaten carcass. The only thing that kept Maria from having a reversal of fortune was the simple fact she’d had no breakfast, otherwise…spew city.

Fear churning in her belly, Maria wouldn’t allow herself a break even though Alex’s body was ridiculously heavy. Jid moved them quickly through the underground tunnels, as if she possessed an instinctive sense as to which direction to go. It seemed that they had been toting Alex’s dead weight for hours and yet they hadn’t run into a single bit of danger. Maria mouthed a silent prayer that it would remain so.

She just wanted to see the sunlight again. Maria snorted to herself. Things really were bad if she was praying to see the Antarian sunlight again. She opened her mouth to ask Jid how much further when the cavern began an ominous rumbling. Where nothing else had made Maria stop, the shaking made her freeze in her tracks.

“Um…Jid? What was that?” she asked fearfully, the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickling to attention, “Please tell me it was an earthquake.”

“r’tua,” Jid whispered right before the silence in the cave was rent with the worm’s awful cry. She glanced off into the inky blackness of the cavern as the rumbling grew, closer…louder… “Great One protect us all! Run!”

~~~***~~~***~~~

The first few minutes of battle had been an adrenaline rush. Kyle had run into the battle lines with a war cry and started blasting. At first there was some sense of satisfaction in watching the enemy fall at his feet but then Kyle gradually became aware of other things, namely his comrades falling at his sides. They’re deaths were gruesome, some wounds not even fatal so that they lay in agony on the battlefield only to be trampled alive.

Kyle felt sickened, so distracted that he almost lost his life twice. Tess had saved him the first time, toasting an assailant that would have blown his head off. Max had saved him the second time…taking a shot in his shoulder for the trouble.

Now as they traveled back to camp, bearing the dead and nursing the wounded, Kyle wondered why he’d been so eager to see, what could only be described as, horrors. Legless men, headless men, gaping gut wounds… And blood, so much blood…blue, shimmering blood that soaked into the ground and turned it into a mire. Kyle wrapped his arms around his middle in remembrance and groaned.

“It’s not your fault.”

Kyle glanced up to find Tess watching him with sympathetic blue eyes. “I thought you were with El Presidente,” he muttered dryly, hiding his mental agony behind a mask of sarcasm.

“It’s just a flesh wound, Kyle,” she said, “He’s not going to lose his arm or anything.”

“Who said I cared,” Kyle brazened.

“I know you do,” Tess replied softly.

Her quiet declaration did more to crack Kyle’s protective armor than anything else could. He blinked back the stinging tears gathering in his eyes. “Is this your life?” he croaked, “Is this what you’ve known your whole life?”

Tess shrugged. “My star system has been in civil unrest for as long as I can remember,” she said, “I’ve never known peace. I fought in my first war when I was just fourteen. Khivar was with me…saved my life.” She stared down at her hands. “We fought on the same side then.”

“You still love him, don’t you?” Kyle observed.

“Yes,” she whispered, “He’s my brother. That just doesn’t…change.”

“Does that mean you knew most of the soldiers that fell today?” he wondered softly. Tess glanced at him sharply, not merely surprised by the assumption but the fact he was right. “I assumed…” he said, “Those men were fighting in your brother’s army. It stood to reason that they’d once fought in your father’s as well…that you…um…knew them.”

“It’s true. Some of them served my father’s house for many years,” she whispered gruffly, “I grew up with those men. They trained me in the arts of war…practically raised me…and today I used those lessons to end their lives.”

Her aggrieved words filled Kyle with infinite shame. He had been so busy feeling sorry for himself and his plight that he’d never once considered what hell the day had been for her. “Tess…”

“I thought I wanted this life again,” she croaked, “I remember thinking, ‘if I could just go home again I’d be happy.’ I was deluding myself.” She sliced Kyle with a hard stare. “You don’t want to see the things I’ve seen, Kyle. You don’t want to live this life.”

“I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to fight for me, okay?”

“Kyle,” Tess sighed, “This is my world. I never expected you to come here and turn into Conan. I won’t think less of you if you decide to stay behind at camp.”

“I’ll think less of me,” Kyle muttered in an underbreath, “So is Evans really going to be okay?”

“Are you kidding?” Tess snorted, “Max is too ornery to die.”

“It’s weird to hear you say that,” Kyle laughed, “That’s not exactly the Max Evans I remember from school, you know?” His smile faded with the words. “I don’t guess any of us are who we were anymore.” Once more he had to blink back gathering tears. “I’m so scared, Tess…everyday… I miss my dad so fucking bad. I feel like such a baby…”

“I still miss your dad, too,” Tess said, “Does that make me a baby?”

“You know what I mean,” he groused.

“No, I don’t,” Tess retorted as they shuffled along, “You’re acting like a moron, Kyle Valenti.”

“Maybe,” he conceded with a self-deprecating smile, “I…I just don’t want you to be disappointed in me, Tess. I don’t want to let you down.”

She sidled close against him so that the bubbles of their shields merged into one. “You’re the only person in my life that hasn’t ever let me down, Kyle,” she whispered.

He kissed her lips softly. “Ditto.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

“This is all that human’s doing,” Katha spat as she watched the attendants patch Max’s wound, “Do you not think I’ve heard what goes on between him and your queen, Zan? You should have him put to death!”

“Be quiet!” Max barked sharply, startling Katha into silence as well as the servants attending his wounds, “I don’t want to hear another word about Kyle, Mother.”

His mother stared at him with wide, wounded eyes but Max refused to apologize. For weeks he’d been patient and optimistic, always the rock, always responsible. Now…he’d had it. He was tired and in the worst pain of his life both emotionally and physically. He no longer had the strength to keep up pretense with his mother.

“I’m going to set you straight on a few things,” he hissed to his mother as his wound was sewn shut. Thank goodness his wounds would heal quickly because he wouldn’t be able to bear the prolonged agony. Max set his teeth against the pain and continued, “Avarre and I are not together. We never were. Our marriage was never anything more than friendship and that has not changed. She is in love with Kyle and I’m fine with that. We’re not the people we once were, Mother. The sooner you accept that, the better off we will all be.” For a second time everyone within the tent fell still, shocked once more.

Katha’s surrounding aura faded to a sick yellow. “Great One preserve us…” she muttered, “You do not know what you’re saying.”

Max rolled his eyes. “Mother please, it’s not as bad as all that,” he sighed, “I’m actually in love with someone else as well. I’m expecting a child…a son. I’m happy to let Avarre live her life just as she’s letting me live mine.” He didn’t expect her to be overjoyed with the news and she certainly didn’t disappoint him.

“A child?” Katha groaned, “A child by someone other than your queen. Oh Zan…can you not comprehend the shame you will bring on your father’s house?” She raked him with a disgusted glare. “Is it that little yellow haired girl?” she huffed indignantly, “She is hardly your equal…socially or mentally.”

Despite his pain and fatigue and general annoyance, Max felt the undeniable urge to laugh and simply because he found her logic so appallingly ludicrous. “No…Maria is with Michael, Mother.” His mother stared at him in blank confusion. “Rathalan,” Max clarified, “It’s pretty certain that he plans to marry her someday.”

“Oh Great One, what is he thinking,” Katha muttered again, “What will become of the monarchy? As if our bloodlines weren’t tainted enough…”

Rather than being offended by the comment, Max felt relieved. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a difficulty to wiggle out of his duty as king after all, especially if his mother thought the bloodlines were “tainted.”

“Actually, Mother, speaking of our ‘tainted’ bloodlines, there has been something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you,” Max began hesitantly.

However, Max didn’t need to say a word. His mother had already easily discerned the direction of the conversation. “I do not want to hear it,” Katha declared regal sniff.

“Too bad,” her son tossed back irreverently, “Because you’re gonna. Mother, we’re not going to st--,”

Her brows lifted in affronted challenge, Katha had every intention of walking out in the middle of his declaration but Michael unexpectedly blocked her escape when he came charging into the tent unannounced. He almost knocked her off her feet in his haste but was so agitated he paid his error little heed.

Max took one look at his friend’s ashen features and knew immediately that something was wrong. He shrugged off his attendants and rolled to his feet. “What’s happened?”

“Maria’s gone,” Michael informed him breathlessly, “I checked the whole camp. There’s no sign of her anywhere.”

Max heart began to pound and he reared around to begin securing his armor. After the energy he’d expended on the battlefield that evening he’d never be able to maintain his shield and the suns were still high. Once he was sufficiently covered, Max followed Michael outside the tent. Neither of them thought to make any explanations to Katha as they rushed out.

“Do you know where she could be?” he demanded as he and Michael strode from the camp.

“They said she went to fetch water with Jid,” Michael said, “But that was hours ago, Maxwell. She should have been back by now. I’m scared.”

“She’s okay. I know she is. We’ll find her,” Max promised him.

“Yeah…we will.”

At the sound of Kyle’s voice, Michael and Max lurched around to find him, Isabel and Tess standing behind them. “Come on then,” Michael ordered, not bothering to ask them to turn back, “Let’s find Maria and bring her home.”

Chapter 34

They huddled into a small fissure in the wall of the cave, a woman, a barely coherent man, and an alien.

Maria had never in her life heard sounds as awful as the ones that exploded from the semi truck-sized worm. Though she couldn’t see clearly in the void-like darkness she was nonetheless terrified. The fact that she couldn’t see him only made things worse.

In between his enraged screaming he would spear forth his massive, gluttonous tongue and use it to root about in the interior of the crack. He was searching for them, hoping for a snack. As long as they remained in the furthest right corner he could not reach them yet that knowledge wasn’t enough to provide Maria comfort. She felt very near a nervous breakdown at that moment and the stress of having to hold Alex’s limp body upright in addition to dodging the worm’s lashing tongue was not helping matters.

Jid did what she could to help but, for the most part, she had to remain out of sight because the light emanating from her body attracted the worm’s attention. Consequently, she stayed hidden in the opposite corner while Maria struggled to keep Alex and herself alive. Tears of exertion wet her cheeks but Maria was determined to do whatever was necessary to keep her friend alive.

Alex drifted in and out of consciousness, occasionally muttering unintelligible things about Isabel and Liz. For the most part he remained out of it and Maria was glad for that. The last thing he needed in his weakened condition was to be terrorized into a heart attack. If she could she’d wish for blissful oblivion as well.

As the giant gray tongue made another sweep inside the fissure, Maria pressed back into the rock hard, causing the jagged pieces to cut and tear into the flesh of her back. She could feel the warm sensation of her flowing blood. The wet stickiness mingled with her sweat, causing her tunic to cling to her like a second skin. Yet, Maria hardly felt the sting from the wounds. She was numb all over with the fear that this moment would be her last.

Shaking with terror, Maria sobbed and fell forward a bit as her entire body began to shake as if palsied. The second she lost her footing, the worm’s gigantic tongue swept across her forearm in a slimy arc. She cried out sharply at the raw burn left in the wake of the wet stroke, and she scrambled back against the wall. In the light from rolling off Jid’s body she could see the bloody mess that had been left behind. Maria whimpered.

“Don’t let it touch you,” Jid warned, “r’tua have no teeth. They must dissolve their food instead, and they do so with their saliva, which is highly acidic.”

Maria gagged, an occurrence that was becoming quite frequent. “Ugh…that’s gross,” she grunted, “Now you tell me.” Using her shoulder, she kept Alex secured against the wall while cradling her arm against her middle. “Is this gonna heal?”

“If we get you back to the camp in time you won’t lose it,” Jid said.

“You’re just full of good news, aren’t you?” Maria tossed back in a sardonic whisper, though the thought of losing her arm made her tremble all over.

“Keep against the wall,” Jid told her, “He’ll tire out shortly. There are easier meals to acquire.”

Maria gulped. She couldn’t reconcile the ease with which Jid spoke of being eaten. Her voice didn’t tremble even an iota. Maria could hardly tell if she was scared. She decided to ask.

“What is there to fear?” Jid wondered, “If I die my soul will become one with my ancestors and I will return to the Great One’s bosom. It is…an honor.”

“Then why not step out there and offer yourself up as a willing sacrifice,” Maria hissed in annoyance, “Alex and I will haul ass while you provide the distraction.”

“I did not say I was in a hurry to join my ancestors, now did I?”

Were the situation less dire Maria might have smiled because she could almost swear Jid was making a joke, but the very fact a giant worm was, at that very moment, trying to kill them effectively dampened Maria’s good humor. “Can’t you just blast him with your powers?” she whined, “I know you have them.”

“He’s too large,” Jid replied, “I would do little more than stun him, which would only make him angrier. This way is much better.”

“Yeah…posing as live bait always seems the lesser evil,” Maria muttered with blazing sarcasm.

“We will be fine,” Jid declared firmly, “Shh. Don’t you hear? They’re coming for us…”

“They?” Maria griped, gritting her teeth against the throbbing pain in her arm, “Who’s they, huh?”

Without warning the cave was suddenly rocked with the sounds of laser blasts. The interior of the cave began to flicker like a sky during a Fourth of July fireworks show. Screaming in reaction, the worm rooted around within the tunnel in obvious pain, loosening rock and debris and shaking the interior ominously.

“What’s happening?” Maria cried, holding Alex steady as the cave continued to rumble and shake. Jid said nothing as she helped Maria to hold Alex upright and in place while their surroundings threatened to avalanche. And then…everything went silent. No anguished squealing…no laser fire… Maria was afraid to even bat an eyelash and then she heard Michael calling her.

“Maria? Maria? Are you down here? For fuck’s sake, answer me!”

With a sob of pure relief Maria scrambled down from her hiding place. “Michael, I’m here,” she called out, rooting around in the dark for him. A moment later the cave was illuminated with golden light. The second Maria caught sight of Michael she rushed into his arms, wrapping herself around his body and holding him like she planned never to let go. “Michael! Thank God…” she wept, “Thank God…thank God you found us.”

“What were you doing out here in the first place?” Michael demanded once he reared backwards, grasping her by the shoulders and giving her a little shake, “I thought I told you to stay in the camp.”

“I was helping Jid with the water,” Maria sniffled, “I…I just wanted to help… I didn’t know…I just wanted to help.”

“Michael, she’s hurt,” Max observed quietly, nodding towards Maria’s bloodied arm. He stepped closer to inspect her wound. “It looks pretty bad. Is Jid still with you?”

“She’s up here, Max,” Isabel called, pointing towards the giant crack in the rock wall, “You see to Maria and I’ll help Jid.”

“Hey guys, can we hurry it up,” Kyle pressed as Michael and Max tenderly scrutinized Maria’s arm. He cast nervous glances up and down the darkened tunnels. “What if that thing decides to come back? It was pretty pissed, you know?”

“Kyle’s right,” Max said softly, “We need to get back to the surface.” He started to call to Isabel to ask how she was coming along with Jid when her scream suddenly blasted through the cave, reverberating in the emptiness. Max and Michael took off in the direction of her scream, leaving Maria to slump against Kyle weakly.

Max immediately began climbing the rock face, headed for the fissure. “Is, what’s wrong?” he demanded worriedly.

His sister stuck her head out the crack, her brown eyes sheened over with tears. “It’s Alex,” she whispered almost reverently, “He’s come home.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

Six hours later Alex Whitman opened his eyes and had the girl of his dreams fill his line of vision. “Am I dreaming?” he tried to ask, but his tongue felt thick and heavy. His lips were cracked…painful and the words came out as nothing more than a slurred moan.

Isabel threw a glance at Jid, who hovered protectively near the entrance of the tent. “Go fetch my brother and the others,” she ordered, “Tell him Alex is awake.” When Jid had gone to carry out her order Isabel retrieved one of the rescued water jugs, lifted Alex into the cradle of her arms and brought the jug to his lips.

“You’re dehydrated,” she explained when he frowned in confusion, “You need water.”

Alex couldn’t dispute that. The moment the rim of the jug touched his lips he drank greedily. The cool water soothed his parched throat, swollen tongue and wind-cracked lips. When he had drained almost half he fell back into Isabel’s loose embrace with a grateful sigh.

“That’s better,” he murmured weakly. And then he grinned up at her, lighthearted for the first time in…he couldn’t remember how long. “Hi,” he greeted inanely.

Isabel choked on a teary giggle. “That’s all you have to say?” she demanded, “I’ve been going through hell for months on account of you and all you have to say to me is ‘hi’?”

His trademark grin ghosted across his face. “You’re looking fit,” Alex ventured wryly.

Caught between laughing and crying, Isabel squeezed him tight only to loosen her hold a second later when he winced. “Oooh, I’m sorry,” she whispered in chagrin, “I forgot.”

“S’okay,” Alex smiled in a forgiving tone, “I’m just happy to see you again. Feel free to inflict all the pain you want.”

His teasing pushed Isabel a notch closer to tears. “God, Alex…” she groaned, leaning forward to brush a careful kiss across his swollen forehead, “I’m not letting you go ever again.”

As soon as she finished voicing the words the flaps to the tent parted and their friends all filed in one by one. Isabel fixed them with a hard glare. “Don’t push him too hard,” she warned, “He’s still recuperating.”

“We’ll be gentle,” Max promised.

“Well, look who’s back in the land of the living,” Kyle quipped, falling down beside Alex’s prone form, “You look like an ape’s ass right now but otherwise… It’s fucking great to have you home again, Whitman.”

Alex fixed him with a travesty of a smile. “Thanks, Valenti. I’d forgotten how charming you are.” But the two boys engaged good-natured smiles that were tempered by intense emotion.

“Alex?”

He glanced up and found Tess wringing her hands nervously and staring at him with uncertain blue eyes. “I don’t blame you, Tess,” he whispered, already knowing what she was getting at before she even said a word, “I…I know what Nicholas was doing to you. None of this was your fault.”

Tess bobbed her head in a spasmodic nod, but it was evident to everyone that she would continue blaming herself no matter what. Alex had handed out his absolution freely but Tess would never find any within herself. “I’m…I’m glad you’re alright now,” she told him before taking a reflexive step back, “Welcome back.”

Alex favored her with one last reassuring smile before his eyes landed gratefully on Maria. “So…I get the impression you saved my bacon today, DeLuca,” he said, eyeing the bandage on her arm, “You okay?”

“I’ll heal,” she said with a teary smile, “I barely screamed when they tended it.” Her quip elicited a series of teary giggles and guffaws from their friends. Even Maria smiled for a bit before her tears overcame her once more.

“Oh…it was worth it, Alex. I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you…not after…” She trailed off into silence, her eyes sliding unconsciously towards Max as did the rest of the gang’s.

Alex swallowed hard. “Max?”

Max didn’t make eye contact, but ran a shaky hand through his unkempt hair. He was like a wounded animal, cowering in the corner and waiting for the blow to fall. “Maria…she said that Liz is with Khivar.” It was impossible to ignore the emotional cracking in his voice. “Is that true? Where is she, Alex?”

“It’s true, Max,” Alex confirmed weakly, “I’m sorry.”

Max fixed him with an anguished stare then, golden eyes glistening with pain. “But how?” he half demanded, half sobbed, “The plan… We went over it and over it. She knew it like the back of her hand! I don’t understand. You got away…why didn’t she?”

“She chose to go back, Max,” Alex whispered gently, “I think you know why.”

An odd, choked sound escaped Max’s throat as he nibbled on his lower lip in reluctant certainty. “The Granolith,” he answered, “She couldn’t leave the fucking Granolith behind, could she…” Alex slowly shook his head in affirmation. “So then she remembers who she is?” Again, Alex found it difficult to speak past the emotion closing off his throat so he nodded. “And…and what exactly does that mean for me…for us and our…our baby?”

“I don’t know,” Alex whispered gently, “But…I don’t think there’s an ‘us’ with you guys anymore, Max.”

Max flinched his pain while pandemonium erupted around him.

“Wait a minute! What does that mean?” Maria demanded hysterically.

“Asha has chosen her path,” Max declared hoarsely, “And it’s not me…it’s not our family together.”

“It’s not that simple,” Alex told him, struggling to rise upright. In the end, Isabel and Kyle had to assist him. “Max, you need to understand…Khivar plans to execute your son once he’s born.”

“What?” Max barked sharply, veering from sorrow to terror in a matter of seconds, “Execute? B-But why? I thought he needed an heir! Why would he want to hurt a helpless baby?”

“It’s the fulfillment of the prophecy,” Alex explained tiredly, “Khivar is destined to spill your son’s blood.” Max shook his head in denial of that statement while the others began bombarding Alex with questions.

“How do you even know all this stuff?” Kyle wondered.

“How much time do we have until Liz gives birth?” Michael demanded.

“Why does Liz’s baby have anything to do with the stupid Granolith’s prophecy?” Maria cried in frustration, “The entire planet is just backwards!”

“Everybody just calm down,” Isabel ordered sharply, “If you’re going to come at him all at once then I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Alex reached out to give her hand a weak pat. “Thanks, Isabel,” he whispered, “But it’s okay. I understand that they have a lot of questions and I wanna answer them.” He turned back to address the group.

“First off, I know what I know because Liz put the information in my head. She did something to me and…I’m not the same. Secondly, I don’t know how much time until Liz gives birth…maybe a few days…maybe a few weeks. She was already showing pretty well when I saw her last. Thirdly, the reason the baby’s death is tied in with the prophecy is because only through her baby’s sacrifice can Asha be redeemed and the planets be saved.”

“What about the planets?” Isabel asked slowly.

“All this time you thought the empire fell because you betrayed Zan to Khivar,” Alex expounded, “But that’s not the reason… Antar fell that night because…”

“…because I took a Holy One to bed,” Max finished thickly, “That’s why, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Alex confirmed direly, “You both defiled the natural order of things. It wasn’t completely your fault, Max. Asha felt for you long before you felt for her. She adored you as a baby, admired you as a boy…but she loved you as a man. The Great One was aware of her feelings, her inappropriate attachment to you. That’s why the five planets had so much unrest.

“Asha tried to curb things by holding you at bay,” Alex continued further, “But you were relentless in your pursuit and, truthfully, she wanted you to be. She wanted you more than anything she’d ever known. She loved you more than anything…even Him.”

“So what?” Isabel uttered in disbelief, “Has all this been…punishment then?”

“Asha’s punishment,” Alex clarified, “You have to understand. She was given a weighty responsibility when she was entrusted with the planets and she failed the first time. Because of her weakness she put you all in peril. She knows she can’t fail again. Either she resumes her rightful place and position and repents completely or the planets are destroyed…and everyone on them.”

“What does that mean for the baby,” Maria asked fearfully.

Alex didn’t make a reply but then he didn’t need to. The sorrow and anguish swirling in his blue eyes said all that was needed.

“That’s bullshit!” Michael exploded, “Are you saying the baby has to die for us to be safe…for Liz to be accepted again? That’s fucking insane!”

“Liz would never let that happen,” Max declared with thorough conviction, “She’s one of the most powerful beings in the Universe. She’d vaporize Khivar first. How could the Great One even expect such a thing?”

“Max, there is a greater plan--,” Alex began calmly.

“NO!” Max screamed, “She wouldn’t do that!”

“Liz might not do that,” Isabel whispered in consideration, “But who knows what Asha might do. She’s got the fate of the worlds resting on her shoulders, Max. You know how seriously she took her position, how much she wanted to protect us all…”

“No one is sacrificing my son for anything…” Max ground out painfully.

“Could everybody just chill for a minute?” Maria ranted, “You’re sitting here talking about Liz like she’s two separate people or something! I don’t care if she’s going by Asha, Kalamazoo, or Son of Sam, okay! That baby is growing inside of her and I know in my gut that she would never let anything happen to him!” When she was satisfied that she’d gained the group’s undivided attention she continued.

“Right now you’re all trying to second guess what Liz will and won’t do but you seem to be overlooking the fact that she needs rescuing right now. Let’s stop arguing and bring her and the baby back to us!”

Max glanced over to where Tess stood, nervously gnawing her lip. He simply couldn’t take the chance. Losing Liz was a painful enough reality. He’d be damned if he lost his son, too. Max’s mind and heart went on autopilot as he began mentally working through what he must do.

“Well?” he prodded Tess.

“He won’t kill her if he needs her,” she said, “But once she’s served her purpose he won’t hesitate any longer. We need to get there before she has the baby.”

“Then we’ll move out at first light to meet with Larek’s army along the mountain ridge,” Max declared brusquely, “Be ready.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

With a harsh gasp, her eyes flashed open.

Liz didn’t need a mirror to know that the changes had already begun to occur. Her forehead burned with the mark that labeled her as holy and her hair was gradually beginning to whiten at the roots. The pull was within her, eons old… She could no more deny it than she could deny the child growing within her. But, unfortunately, the two instincts were at odds, slowly pulling her apart…splitting her in two…

What will you choose?

“I don’t know…I don’t know…” she moaned, “Why can’t I have you both?”

This is not your purpose…your destiny.

“I am his mother…that’s all I am! I love him! I love them both.”

Where is your faith?

“I don’t know…” she whimpered again, “Please…don’t make me do this…”

You were born to this. It is who you are.

“Who I am…” she echoed dully but she didn’t know if she felt that anymore. Once she had but now…she was confused…

Choose Asha. The judgment hour is at hand.

Chapter 35

“How’s the arm?”

Maria started at Michael’s gently uttered inquiry, fiddling with the frayed edges of her bandage. She then fixed him with narrowed eyes. “Does this mean you’re not annoyed with me anymore?”

He shrugged unanswerably. “You could have been killed, Maria,” Michael barked shortly, “Am I supposed to smile about it…do a jig? I still stand by what I said to you. If you’re waiting for an apology…hell will freeze over first.”

“Okay, then we have absolutely nothing to say to each other,” she sniffed, quickening her pace so that she left him behind and fell into step alongside Tess and Kyle.

Michael growled in frustration. He’d been doing a lot of that in the last few hours. He was growling because of the situation with Maria and her being so damned headstrong. He was growling because of Alex’s injuries that were, while healing, still quite extensive. He was growling over the dowager queen, who had been pestering him for days now about the details of his relationship with her daughter. But mostly he growled over Max, who had essentially distanced himself from the rest of the group as he went into a mode of determination like Michael had never seen.

In a completely objective way, Michael could understand the defensive move. Max had the weighty responsibility of leading an army, keeping them safe and his overbearing mother at bay and taking out a psycho power-tripping cretin who planned to offer his son up as a sacrifice to the gods. All this he had to do while worrying about the mother of his aforementioned son, who was probably being reborn as a holy being right that very second. Max was, quite understandably, near to “flipping a script.” Everyone was dreading the moment when he was finally set off.

Yes, Michael totally understood that feeling but then he considered this would be one of those times when leaning on friends was paramount. Pushing away the people who cared didn’t seem the wisest move. Michael knew that from personal experience. He’d spent most of his life pushing people away. He didn’t want to watch Max make the same mistake. The self-isolation only served to make things work.

Michael stared ahead at the back of Maria’s head, his thoughts veering again. She thought he was trying to control her. Michael freely admitted that he was. She could have easily died yesterday. As it was she would probably bear the scar of what had happened for quite a while or…at least until they returned home and Max’s healing powers returned.

Of course, he might have been a bit highhanded in forbidding her not to go anywhere without his express permission. His heart had been in the right place, his fear an undeniable motivator. Maria hadn’t been too sympathetic about that fact, however. Now she wasn’t talking to him at all.

The chances were very slim that he’d be able to clear anything up with her right now, not when she was so determined to ignore him. He looked over in Max’s direction. The King traveled near the front of the caravan, eyes fixed straight ahead like the dignitary he was. Only those extremely close to him knew the shattering pain in his heart right then. He couldn’t better the situation with Maria but perhaps he could help Max.

With no clear idea of what he planned to say, Michael ambled forward until he fell into step beside Max. He was flicked with a wary stare before Max turned his gaze straight ahead once more. Michael responded with a noncommittal grunt.

“How’s Alex this morning?” Max asked brusquely.

“He’s better,” Michael answered with equal brusqueness, “He’s healing. They had to shave his head today though, which I gotta say makes him look weird as hell, but I hear it will grow back just fine. You might know that if you’d come by to see him like the rest of us, Maxwell.”

“I’ve been busy assembling the troops,” Max replied in lame excuse.

Because there was some truth to that Michael didn’t bother calling Max on it. Instead he decided to switch tactics altogether. “So you look like you haven’t slept again…” he began in a not too subtle tone.

“I haven’t,” Max confirmed wearily, “I’m too wound up to sleep. Khivar wants to kill my son, remember? Every time I close my eyes I see Charlie dying…”

“Isabel is worried about you,” Michael whispered, “We all are.”

“And I’m worried about Charlie,” Max ground back, “He’s just a baby. He needs me.”

“And Liz?” Michael prodded carefully.

Max’s jaw tightened. “Liz doesn’t exist for me anymore.”

“Don’t you think you should wait for her to tell you that?”

Max snorted in response to the inquiry, an acrid, derisive sound. “I know this drill by now, Michael,” he sneered angrily, “I’ve done it in two lifetimes already. When it comes to Liz’s duty and me I will always, always take a back seat behind her duty.”

“Only when she’s trying to protect you,” Michael pointed out. Max cut around to stare at Michael, surprised and hurt by the censure he heard in his friend’s tone. “We’re basically fucked if she doesn’t.” Max grunted and Michael resisted the yearning to deck him. “Has it ever occurred to you once that you’re damned lucky to be standing here right now?” Michael demanded.

“How so?”

“Maxwell…you defiled a Holy One, remember,” Michael reminded him brutally, “You banged her with no apology.”

“Thank you for that succinct recap, Michael.”

“The point is,” Michael pressed on, “That’s something that was strictly forbidden among our people…an offense punishable by death and yet…you’re not dead.”

“I’m not dead,” Max agreed slowly.

“The Great One is sparing you for some reason,” Michael surmised, “Have you stopped to wonder why that is? Maybe Alex is right. Maybe there is something bigger going on here than either you or me or, hell, even Liz can imagine.” Max said nothing in response, too stunned that he’d actually received a decent piece of advice from Michael Guerin of all people. Discerning the reason for his silence, Michael laughed and clapped a hand onto Max’s shoulder.

“Give her a chance to explain before you close your heart, okay, Maxwell,” he said, “This is going to work out the way it’s supposed to.”

“That’s just what Isabel said to me the other day,” Max considered with an ironic laugh, “What’s with you two and all the wisdom lately? I’m starting to feel--,”

“Majesty?” The trembling grin on Max’s lips faded away with LuVar’s approach. Bowing respectfully, the sentry met Max’s eyes with a deferential stare. “My apologies for interrupting you.”

“What is it, LuVar?”

“The lookout has spotted fighters,” he told Max, “Just over the mountain ridge, sire.”

“And Larek?”

“I have not seen him, majesty,” the sentry said, “We still have a half a day’s walk before our scheduled rendezvous.”

Max fell quiet to consider that piece of news. “Can we engage them on our own?”

“No, majesty, I would not recommend it,” LuVar replied, “They look to outnumber us 4 to 1. We would surely be slaughtered.”

“Is there a way to go around them undetected?” Michael demanded.

“Only if we go underneath them,” LuVar revealed direly, “If we wish to pass on over the mountain we will have to pass through their mists.”

Max closed his eyes briefly as he pondered the situation. He couldn’t afford to waste time. Liz was due to give birth at any time and he still had three days worth of trek ahead of him before he reached the royal perimeter. Traveling underground was not an option either. The environment was too unstable and he had a host of wounded to think about. They’d never survive such a journey. His last option was to break camp and wait out Larek but Max didn’t want to do that either. If they settled camp now and waited for Larek he would lose precious travel days. For Max that was not an option.

“Find away to contact Larek,” he told LuVar, “Tell him our coordinates…maybe he’ll make it here in time.”

“In time for what?” Michael exploded incredulously, “You’re not planning to face that army, are you? Did you just hear what LuVar said? They outnumber us 4 to 1, Maxwell! That’s certain death!”

“I can’t afford to wait!” Max flung back with equal heat, “Everyday we linger out here is another my son loses. We move!” He glared hard at LuVar. “Make it so.”

“You know this is fucking crazy, right?” Michael muttered when LuVar was gone.

Max’s mouth twisted in an embittered smirk. “We’ll see if I really have the Great One’s favor after all.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

Tess ducked into Isabel’s tent, surprised when she found her friend unprepared to march out. “Isabel,” she said softly, “Max is waiting.”

Isabel didn’t even glance up from Alex’s sleeping countenance. She smoothed her hand over his head, feeling the prickle of new hair sprouting already. “He’s healing so fast,” she murmured to herself, “Doesn’t he look tons better than yesterday? He’s been joking just like his old self.”

“He does look better,” Tess observed carefully, unsure what to make of Isabel’s peculiar mood, “Isabel? We have to leave now.”

“I’m not leaving him,” Isabel replied softly, tracing the bruised lines of Alex’s face. She stabbed Tess with a sudden, hard look. “There’s been enough leaving around here, don’t you think?”

“Isabel, you know he’ll be fine,” Tess argued, “He’ll have the best care here in the camp. We have to move out.”

“I’m not leaving him,” Isabel stated implacably, “Max knows my stand on this mission. I don’t agree. I think we should wait and I’m not going to support him in a decision that amounts to little better than suicide.”

“Larek is on his way,” Tess told her, “We won’t be facing them alone, Isabel.”

Isabel turned away from her altogether. “Well, I won’t be facing them at all,” she declared, “Alex needs me now. I’m never leaving him again.”

Tess stared after her friend in mute appeal. Truthfully, she empathized with Isabel. She didn’t want to leave Kyle anymore than Isabel wanted to leave Alex. Yet, Tess was also wise enough to recognize the differences. Tess wasn’t afraid to let herself lean on Kyle…to let him see her. Isabel, on the other hand, had never let anyone besides Max and Michael see her, especially Alex. Isabel had held herself off from him for a long time and then, when she thought he’d died; she believed she’d lost her chance forever. Tess could understand why she would not want to waste anymore time.

“I’ll tell Max your decision,” Tess said softly, ducking from the tent.

Alex’s lids fluttered up the moment she did and he stared up at Isabel with enigmatic blue eyes. “You could have gone,” he whispered, “I would have understood. I can handle being alone.”

“No,” Isabel protested softly, “You’ve been alone long enough.”

“You know…I don’t need your pity, Isabel,” Alex responded tiredly.

“Pity?”

“Guilt…duty…whatever the hell you’re feeling right now.”

Isabel made a face, her eyes swimming with hurt. “Is that what you think?” she whispered, “That I feel guilty?”

“Don’t you?” he challenged softly.

In nervous habit, Isabel tucked a shank of lank blond hair behind her ear. “That’s not what this is about,” she whispered, “I…I feel bad that I didn’t see that you were in trouble before and we weren’t there to help you but…that’s not why I’m staying with you now.”

“And why are you staying?”

She twittered a self-conscious laugh. “Because I care about you, Alex.”

“For how long this time,” he murmured curiously, his words devoid of bitterness but pointed still the same, “For as long as it takes us to get back to Earth or…or as long as it takes you to feel good about yourself again? Or is it simply okay because I’m half alien now…or whatever the fuck I am now? Does that make me acceptable now?”

“Why are you saying these things to me?” Isabel demanded hoarsely, “When…when we were at prom…I thought we were making progress.”

“Were we?” he queried, his tone suspended somewhere between derision and hope, “I mean, things went to hell shortly after that. Being presumed dead kinda put a crimp in our budding romance. We never had a chance to explore whether the things that happened between us at prom were real or not. Maybe--,”

Isabel cut off the remainder of his argument with a gentle kiss. “Shut up, Alex,” she ordered with a good-natured smile.

His eyes drifted reflexively to her soft lips and he gulped loudly. “Alrighty then.”

“I have something to say to you,” she declared, “so just shut up and listen a sec.”

“You have my undivided attention,” he murmured, still staring at her mouth.

“I love you.”

Her sudden admission stunned the both into silence. Isabel wasn’t expecting the avowal to go tumbling from her lips so easily and Alex wasn’t expecting it at all. He blinked at her. “I’m sorry…” he said, shaking his head as if to clear it, “I think I might still be a little delirious. What did you just say to me?”

Now that mortification and self-conscious doubt had crept in Isabel didn’t have as easy a time saying it the second time as she had the first. Still, she said the words nonetheless. “I love you, Alex Whitman,” she declared shakily, “I love you.”

“Oh wow…” Alex uttered, “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that to me? Do you have any idea?” He laughed but Isabel could see that he was crying, too. She felt touched and humbled that she could evoke such deep and riotous feelings in another person. “Do you really mean it?”

“I really mean it,” she confirmed softly, “I really love you, Alex. You’re the first man who ever looked at me with compete acceptance…the only one who’s ever touched me. That’s why I pushed you away so hard because it scared me. I thought loving you made me weak…vulnerable. But it doesn’t. It makes me strong.”

“Whoa…you’ve been storing up a lot, huh?” Alex quipped with a crooked smile.

“Stop teasing. I’m baring my soul here.” Isabel kissed him again, this time letting her lips linger against his. “So now that I’ve confessed my blind adoration for you,” she smiled into his mouth, “What’s next?”

“Well, I guess I should start by saying…I love you, too, Isabel.” She fixed him with a watery smile. “And I should warn you that you’re never getting rid of me now,” he teased her, “Not even with a crowbar, Ms. Evans.”

“Great…just what I wanted all along.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

Liz lay strapped to the table, features impassive as Khivar loomed over her. It had been hours since she’d felt lucid enough to be aware of the pain he inflicted. But her body was weakened, not merely from the strength it took to resist Khivar but the changes evolving within her as well. She was fighting against both and the effort was leaving her exhausted, drained…devoid of hope…

She forced herself to focus on Khivar and the effort made her entire frame shake uncontrollably. Her body grew damp with perspiration. Khivar’s repeated delves into her mind had already severed several blood vessels. Her senses were fuzzy, distorted. She felt like she was floating away…

“Will you tell me what I want to know?” Khivar queried softly, “Or do I have to find it on my own? I know this is painful for you.”

Somehow she managed to fix him with a glare blazing with contempt. “Fuck…you…asshole,” she spat weakly.

In frustrated retaliation, Khivar took her of her mind again, ripping through her psyche like paper machete. “Do you want to walk again?” he screamed, “Talk? Do you want to be able to feed yourself? Tell me what I want to know!”

“No…” Liz gurgled.

“I can find your family,” he warned, “I know all their secrets, Liz. I know how to make them suffer.”

Liz trembled anew, but not over Khivar’s words. She feared something else entirely…a near imperceptible tightening across her abdomen. The occurrence wasn’t particularly painful but Liz knew it was significant. Liz knew it signaled what was to come.

Taking Liz’s silence for insolence, Khivar formed a tighter hold, eliciting a scream of agonized pain from Liz. Her vision flooded and blurred before she relaxed against her restraints. As she slipped into oblivion, blood streamed from her nose, meandering over the curves of her jaw.

“Wake up!” he roared, shaking her, “Wake up and tell me!”

“You must be careful, my lord,” an attendant to his left warned, “Lest you kill her.”

“Silence!” Khivar growled, prepared to renew his efforts. He had been so close the last time. The prophecy was there, buried in the furthest part of her mind. If he could just go back in once more…

“Lord Khivar?” an attendant spoke up, breaking Khivar’s concentration enough to force him to break his hold on Liz’s mind.

“What is it?” he demanded harshly, spinning to face the one who dared interrupt him.

“I believe her water has broken, my lord.”

“What?”

“Look,” the attendant said, gesturing to the growing pool of liquid beneath Liz’s unconscious form, “Her labor has begun, sire.”

Khivar brightened with anticipation, much of his frustration and annoyance fading. “Indeed it has,” he murmured in satisfaction, “It appears the judgment hour has arrived.”

I'm going to be painfully honest here. The next five parts of this story will be incredibly brutal. You will not know what is going on for a large part of it and you're probably going to be pretty frustrated and angry. You'll also probably stop reading and I can accept that, too. I think it's ironic that this story is going to require as much faith to continue on the part of the reader as Liz requires in the storyline. Only me...

But I just want to say again that I know what I'm doing. There's rhyme and reason to everything and it will make sense in the end if you hold on.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and for sticking with me thus far.


Chapter 36

Evidently, Max had found favor with the Great One but the knowledge didn’t imbibe him with any sort of pleasure.

In fact, Max felt very little at all. He watched with inscrutable eyes as his soldiers collected the valuables off the fallen bodies of the enemy, booty from their most recent battle. There was a distant part of him that felt chilled by the sight but then there was a greater part of him that wasn’t affected at all. A means to an end… That was all it had become for him. He didn’t grieve for the loss of life scattered before him…not when it meant he was a step closer to saving his son.

In a deliberate act of avoidance, Max didn’t think about Liz at all. He played over in his head all the things Alex had revealed to them the day before and he knew Liz was lost to him. Perhaps if he had no memories of his prior life he might be able to convince himself that he could change her mind but Max knew better. Even when Liz had possessed no memories of her past life she had been the same at her core. Duty was everything to her and Max knew that it always would be.

Max tried to take heart in what Michael had told him the other day, that there was, perhaps, some great, unhidden plan in all this. He didn’t see it. All Max saw looming ahead was pain and despair and loneliness. He could discern no plan. He could find no hope.

The anxiety was beginning to gnaw at him. He couldn’t sleep…couldn’t eat. Even his belly had begun paining him in the most god awful way. Likely, he was giving himself an ulcer with all the worry. Max snorted to himself. Great! He’d ask LuVar to do a scan when they settled camp for the night.

In the meantime, Max tried to concentrate on the positives of his victory. Not only had the enemy been delivered into his hands with the help of Larek’s forces but also Max had animals at his disposal that would cut the time for his trek to the royal fortress in half. On the back of an uguta Max could make the journey in a day…perhaps less. By tomorrow this time he would be on the royal grounds.

As a result of his newfound transportation, Max and a small, select group of others were traveling at a much faster pace than the remainder of his followers. The rest of his camp followed a few hours behind in a large caravan. Though the split had effectively reduced Max’s fighting forces by half he wasn’t worried. By sheer force of will he would breech Khivar’s defenses. There was no one to stop him.

“You’re brooding again,” Isabel noted as her uguta cantered up alongside Max, “This is becoming too common, Max.”

He glanced around at her sharply, surprised to see her. “When did you arrive?” he asked, “I thought you were traveling behind with the others.”

“Alex didn’t want to be apart from the group,” she replied glibly but his probing stare prompted her to add quietly, “Neither did I.” Max merely turned his eyes straight ahead again, saying nothing. Isabel sighed over his nonverbal rejection. “I really wish you would talk to us.”

“I have nothing to say, Isabel,” he muttered and he wasn’t merely putting her off. The words were utterly true.

If he were to even attempt conversation at present Max knew that he would spew nothing more than venom. He was angrier than he’d ever been in his life. Angry at the world, angry at God…at Liz… But more than that angry at himself for being who he was and where he came from…angry because he had put his child in jeopardy.

Max was also scared. Though he had never felt his son kick or shared any of those baby milestones with Liz, Max loved Charlie with a ferocity that was near incomprehensible. All he wanted was to tuck his son safely in the crook of his arm and hide him away from the rest of the world. He was an innocent. He didn’t deserve to suffer for his parents’ mistakes but, essentially, he was.

Isabel reached over to tap his forearm, her brown eyes pleading. “Talk to me,” she implored, “Don’t pull away just when we need each other the most.”

His mouth twisted into a travesty of a smile. “Shouldn’t you try taking your own advice, sis?” he jeered acridly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I thought you were angry with me,” Max considered glacially, “You said I was going on a suicide mission and you had nothing at all to say to me, remember? Why so chatty now?”

“I didn’t want you to go,” Isabel tossed back, “I was worried, okay! I…I thought if I didn’t support you that you might have second thoughts about going.”

Max fixed her with a hard stare. “I don’t like being manipulated, Isabel.”

She faltered, dropping her gaze. “I…I know. I understand that you’re worried about Charlie,” she whispered, “…and Liz. You’d do anything, Max.”

Max wearily passed a hand through his hair, at long last relaxing his guard so that his sister could see the haunted veneer beneath his haughtiness. “I just don’t understand any of this, Isabel,” he muttered, “Why would the Great One allow Liz to fall in love with me…create a child with me all so He could snatch it back from her in the end?”

“I don’t know, Max…maybe it’s a test,” Isabel considered softly.

“A test,” Max snorted ironically, “What kind of test? Does he want to see just how much we can endure before we snap?”

“I don’t think so, Max,” Isabel told him, “I don’t think it’s malicious. I don’t know…I just feel that…maybe Liz needs to have faith in the Great One again to make this all right…maybe we all do.”

“Like hell,” Max muttered, “Where has faith gotten me thus far? Faith is a fucking joke, Isabel!”

“You shouldn’t talk like that,” she warned him.

“Maybe not,” he agreed with a defeated sigh, his shoulders hunching forward as the full weight of everything settled onto him. Tears fell from his eyes like a torrential stream and sobs violently wracked his entire body. “I’m just so damned tired, Iz,” he wept, careful to keep his back to his men as he did, “I’m so tired. I don’t know how long I can keep doing this.”

His sister reached across the distance separating them to take hold of his hand. “You don’t have to do it alone, Max,” she whispered, “We’re here to help you…whenever you’re ready to let us in.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

“So I never thanked you for what you did for me the other day.”

Max didn’t turn around at Kyle’s soft approach but continued to stare into the firelight as if mesmerized. “Thank me for what?” he asked disinterestedly.

“For saving my life,” Kyle clarified, coming to stand alongside him, “You…uh…seem to be making a habit of that.” Again Max was rather unresponsive to the observation, rather watched instead as the fire crackled and hissed before him. “Is this really the way you want it?” Kyle asked, somewhat disgruntled by Max’s laconic response.

Max tossed him with a sardonic smirk. “The way I want it?” he challenged, “Last I heard you were gunning for me.”

“Potato, potahto,” Kyle replied dismissively, “I’m trying to bury the hatchet here, Evans.”

That earned Kyle yet another sarcastic sneer. “In which part of my body?”

Kyle glared at him. “You just want to drag this out. Nothing’s ever simple with you, is it, Evans?”

Max shrugged at the question. “Believe me…I wish it could be,” he muttered gruffly, “You think I get some kind of head trip off of ordering people around and having people kowtow to me? Well, I don’t. For your information I didn’t ask for this life. It was just dumped in my lap! All I want…all I’ve ever wanted is to love Liz Parker and be loved by her in return. I just wanted to be normal! Certainly not this!”

He whirled away from Kyle to begin an agitated pacing before the fire. “You think all this makes me happy or something?” he ranted, “You think I like making life and death decisions for people everyday? This isn’t a glory job, Kyle! I don’t want to be here anymore than you do! I miss my parents! I miss school! Hell, I just want to fucking graduate, which isn’t looking too likely right now! This is not a dream life for me or even some secret fantasy!” Max threw back his head then and screamed at the darkening sky, “I just want to go home!” His voice carried and echoed off into the distance, magnifying the silence between him and Kyle.

Slowly, once some of his shock began to wear away, Kyle began clapping his hands. “Bravo, Evans,” he sneered, “I’ll give you points for the melodrama. That was certainly the most entertaining pity party I’ve ever witnessed.”

“Fuck you, Valenti.”

Surprisingly, Kyle smirked at that. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said, “I think I finally see some emotion peeking out from behind that robotic exterior.”

“Whatever,” Max mumbled dismissively, presently Kyle with his back. However, Kyle was not so easily ignored. He planted himself before Max and forced the taller boy to see him. “What the hell do you want?” Max cried in exasperation.

“I recognize you, Evans,” Kyle uttered softly, his tone surprisingly empathetic, “You see…I’ve been thinking about you and me lately…why there’s always been this rivalry between us no matter what and I realized something… We’re a lot alike. That’s why we can’t stand each other.”

Max snorted at the very idea. “How do you figure that?”

“Think about it,” Kyle challenged, “We’re both loyal, trustworthy… We’ll go to the mat for our friends in a second and we try our damnedest to be honorable even when the shit blows up in our faces. We definitely have the same taste in women and we both have too much pride for our own good.”

“Pride?” Max scoffed, but he couldn’t deny that Kyle had hit on something, “Maybe you’re talking about yourself Kyle, but not me.”

“Oh, I’m talking about myself and you, too, bud,” Kyle began smoothly, “But let’s focus on me for a second. I’ll admit it…my pride was hurt when you had me gagged and bound and left behind with a babysitter that day--,”

“Kyle, I already--,”

“Shut up and let me finish,” he pressed on, cutting off Max’s justification, “The point is…you made me look like a pansy in front of my woman, dude. I mean, Tess goes off to fight the big bads while I’m left behind like some pathetic mama’s boy because King Maxie wouldn’t let me go. I was totally humiliated.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Max said, trying not to betray his amusement, “I…I guess I owe you an apology, Kyle.”

“Wait a minute,” Kyle interrupted, raising a lone finger, “I’m not finished. Okay, so basically I let those feelings consume me. I couldn’t see anyone else’s pain except my own and that’s fucked because Tess needed me all this time and I was totally blind to that need. Fortunately, I’ve managed to pull my head out of my ass recently and now I’m going to help you pull your head out of yours.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t have a problem with pride,” Max denied.

“Like hell you don’t,” Kyle snorted, “You simply can’t take the idea that there might be something in Liz’s life that is more important to her than you. That’s what’s making you crazy right now, Evans.”

“You’ve lost it.”

“Oh, but I don’t think I have,” Kyle refuted, “See, I know that’s the deal. There’s something bigger than you going on here and you can’t stand it, especially because Liz is your whole world. She always has been but you don’t think you hold that same importance for her. Well, you’re wrong, Evans! You are Liz’s world! I don’t doubt that everything she says and does is for you. Even if it comes down to her letting Khivar take her son away from her I know she’ll be doing it, not because she’s saving our lives or these five godforsaken planets, but because she’s saving yours.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Max asked dully.

“Because you need to wake up!” Kyle griped, “You need to start thinking about Liz the way she thinks about you for a change and stop throwing this fucking pity party you’ve got going. She deserves better.”

“You don’t understand what’s going on here,” Max ground out.

“So what?” Kyle tossed back angrily, “You say you love Liz? Then have some faith in her, man.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

Liz screamed in agony as the contraction tore through her body. She hunkered down against the pain, bending her head forward so that her hair fell across her face like a dull, lanky curtain. Rath and Lonnie flanked her on both sides respectively and held her arms in viselike grips strong enough to shatter bone. Whether they were trying to prevent her escape or her attack Liz wasn’t sure. She didn’t care. At that second she was too delirious with pain to care. When the agony finally subsided she wilted as much as she was able, total relaxation hindered by the fact Lonnie and Rath had her manacled.

She shuddered to behold them. Their faces were those of Isabel’s and Michael’s but their eyes were cold, devoid of human emotion altogether. Her mind was so weakened by Khivar’s repeated mind violations that she had to continually remind herself that it wasn’t Michael and Isabel hurting her right now, but their dupes. But that distinction was getting harder and harder to keep as the pain of her contractions grew and grew.

“Eh…how much longer this gonna take, yo?” Rath demanded of Khivar irreverently, “She may be small but she gots muscles like an ox, duke!”

Khivar sneered over Rath’s disrespectful and uncouth manner but nonetheless turned to the mid-wife he’d procured and asked, “Why is this taking so long?” he ground out, “This labor has been going on for hours.”

The Antarian woman finished bringing water to Liz’s parched lips before turning to face Khivar. “Human women are not as proficient at birthing their children as well as we, my lord,” the mid-wife replied demurely, “She is not fully prepared to push.”

Khivar didn’t bother pointing out to the mid-wife that the girl was anything but human. The woman knew what he needed her to know. His only concern was that she deliver the child and deliver him fast. “Not prepared,” Khivar hissed, “I do not have time to waste for her preparation! I’ve received word just this morn that Zan marches on the fortress. He will be here in a day’s time!”

“I cannot rush the child’s birth, my lord.”

“Is he whole?” Khivar snapped suddenly.

“My lord?” the midwife queried in confusion.

“Can he be born at this moment without complications,” Khivar clarified brusquely, “Will he live?”

“Yes, my lord,” the mid-wife told him, “I have every confidence she will deliver a very healthy child.”

“Then cut him out of her,” he ordered coldly.

Even Rath and Lonnie leveled him with dubious stares. The mid-wife’s aura darkened and winked around her diminutive frame, fading to an icy gray. “There is no need for that, my lord,” she whispered, “The babe can be born naturally. You must only be pat--,”

“I said cut him out of her!” Khivar reiterated viciously.

“She could die!” the mid-wife protested in horror.

“Then she’ll die,” Khivar said, unaffected, “Do it now.”

Liz was too incoherent and confused to grasp the enormity of what was happening around her. She was only vaguely aware of the grip on her arms loosening as she was gently urged back against her cot. She felt a jolt of cold air as the blankets were ripped back abruptly, revealing her nude frame beneath.

She felt no pain or fear in those seconds. There was a deep-rooted certainty within her telling Liz that this was the way. This was the moment. This was the plan. Her eyes flared wide the moment the cold metal of the blade touched against her belly and drew forth a tiny ribbon of blood. And then the words began to gurgle up from her throat as if of their own accord. For months, years, centuries she had been holding them back religiously but now they flowed from her like a raging river. HE was ready for the words to be spoken because the time had finally come.

Liz recited the words as if in a trance, startling the midwife so much that she dropped the blade. A faint glowing began in the symbol branded into her forehead before emanating outward all over her body, growing more intense with each passing second.

“Hey, what the f--!” Rath cried, jumping back from Liz as if the light rolling off her body physically burned him, “What’s going on?”

“Khivar!” Lonnie called, beckoning her lover forward, “Do you hear her? She’s…she’s saying some freaky kind of shit.” Khivar slowly drifted over to stand alongside her, entranced by the Liz’s lilting words. “Does this mean something to you?” Lonnie asked him.

“It certainly does. I can’t believe it. After all this time…the ancient prophecy,” Khivar uttered in bemused awe, “She’s telling me what I must do.”

Chapter 37

Max stepped onto royal soil at the very second his son came screaming into the world. He didn’t understand how he knew with such certainty, but there wasn’t a single second of doubt for him. His every nerve ending was alive and prickling with the knowledge. Charlie had been born and he was healthy…and alive. For now, Max reminded himself grimly. He recognized that the situation was relative and that he was operating on borrowed time.

He turned his gaze towards the fortress looming on the mountaintop. It was perhaps only a thirty-minute ride away but Max knew he would have to face an army to get to it. More killing, more maiming, more destruction… He felt hardened by the realization, distanced…growing further and further from humanity with each passing moment. Only his son could save him now…and Liz. If it wasn’t too late, Liz could make him clean again.

At that moment Max would have given anything just to be back in Roswell, New Mexico watching Liz from afar. Back in the days when he was as ignorant of his past as she had been of hers. Why couldn’t they have that again?

Max didn’t know how long he sat on that ridge, inwardly lamenting events he couldn’t possibly change, before Michael came riding up beside him with the grimmest of expressions.

“There are at least seven hundred of them down in the valley,” Michael informed him, “They’re lying in wait for us, Maxwell. I hardly think they’re going to follow the traditional rules of war.”

“Then neither will we,” Max said quietly, raising his arm high to lead his troops forward into battle, “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

Liz might have fallen back against her grimy cot in sheer exhaustion if her desire to see her son hadn’t been so strong. The moment his piercing cries reached her ears her heart expanded with an emotion so big and fierce that it filled her throat and constricted her breathing. Maternal instinct took over. Her arms were practically itching to hold him but she only caught a flash of his head and his thick brown curls matted with afterbirth before Khivar snatched him from the midwife’s arms.

“No,” she whispered as Khivar started forward with the tiny bundle, “Let me see him…let me hold him.”

Khivar ignored her, as if she hadn’t spoken to him at all. Instead he murmured rapid instructions to his sentry, ignoring the squalling infant in his arms.

“He’s crying,” Liz insisted urgently, “Just let me hold him. Can’t you hear him crying? He needs me!”

“Dispose of her,” Khivar ordered Rath as a nearby attendant provided a blanket in which to wrap Charlie, “I grow weary of her endless whining. I have the prophecy and I have the child. She’s useless to me now.”

But Rath hadn’t taken a single step towards Liz before her eyes blazed with maternal fire. The bars to her cell suddenly ignited with energy so hot and bright that it instantly killed the guards standing near. Khivar jumped back, recognizing his chance for escape had been lost. He ordered Rath forward again, as well as his attendant but neither of them would be moved. He whipped back to face Liz, his aura fading to a sick yellow.

“This is not my destiny,” he reminded her shakily, “Or yours.”

“Do you really think I’m going to let you walk out of here with my child?” Liz asked calmly, as the wind and dust within her cell began to kick itself into a frenzy. It swirled around them like a mini cyclone and with enough force to knock the occupants of the prison cell off balance. They groped pitifully for something to hold onto. Their laser blasts couldn’t touch her.

As her body began to levitate from the bed, Liz’s hair fluttered and crackled around her with growing energy, her eyes whitening with growing rage. “Give me my son.”

“Lonnie, kill her!” Khivar ordered sharply, his voice barely audible over the windstorm within, “Kill her now!”

Lonnie lifted her hand, gathering forth every ounce of power she had to carry out Khivar’s order and Liz merely looked at her. The moment she did Lonnie’s body was engulfed in flames. Her bloodcurdling shriek pierced their ears, reverberating in the screaming wind but only lasted for a few seconds as her body was consumed and she was reduced to little more than ash.

Liz slowly turned her attention back to Khivar, dissolving the floor beneath his feet so that it sank and gathered around her enemies’ ankles like quick sand. As they struggled to free themselves from the mire, all the while screaming in terror and begging for mercy Liz floated from the cot and started towards Khivar…and her son.

~~~***~~~***~~~

Michael hunkered down behind a large boulder next to Max, trying not to wince as the screams of the dead and dying echoed in his ears. Before them was a battlefield of carnage and destruction. During the fighting they had lost sight of Isabel, Tess and Kyle. Neither Michael nor Max was even sure if the three were still alive. The last they had seen of anyone had been Kyle. He had been standing on a high ridge but he wasn’t there anymore.

“Max,” Michael rasped harshly in between returned laser fire, “This…this is just turning into a massacre. We should retreat.”

Max deftly dodged incoming laser fire and rocketed off several return blasts before responding. “What do you mean retreat?” he balked, “We’re within minutes of the fortress.” For Max, retreat was not even an option. He couldn’t fathom it…not when there was so much to lose.

“Max, our men are dying by the dozens!” Michael cried, “We have to retreat before we’re all slaughtered.”

“Charlie’s there, Michael,” Max whispered softly, pressing down low against the rock as fire rained over their heads, “He’s been born. I can’t leave him now. If you want to take the men and retreat I understand but… I can’t turn back now. I won’t.”

He didn’t give Michael the chance to respond but shoved up from behind the rock and ran forward into the battle lines with a loud warrior’s cry.

~~~***~~~***~~~

Asha.

Hearing her name was enough to freeze Liz in her place, even though she was within inches of seeing her son…touching him. Both instincts warred within her as they usually did, equally strong, equally compelling. But the call of the former went deeper, past physicality to the very essence of her soul. She had answered to the call of that voice for as long as she could remember and she couldn’t ignore it now.

Where is your faith?

“This is my child,” Liz whispered, “Am I just supposed to let Khivar take him…kill him? I can’t. I won’t.”

Where is your faith?

“Where is your compassion?” she spat, reaching for her son.

Have I ever withheld anything good from you?

Liz stopped at the question, inevitably flooded with guilt.

You were my favorite of all things. I gave you the greatest gifts I could and the greatest responsibility.

“Yes,” she murmured, “But then…then I failed you. I lost your favor and this is my punishment.”

You did not lose my favor. You lost your way.

“Why does my son have to pay for my sins?” she cried.

Have I ever withheld anything good from you?

“No,” she uttered miserably, “No, you have never withheld anything good.”

Is anything impossible for me? Did I not create the five planets and you?

“Yes, my lord.”

Then where is your faith? Nothing is beyond me. Liz had no answer. She knew it. As did He. Let them go. Let my will take place. You will be blessed for it…I promise you.

Tears were streaming down her face by the end of it and her body was trembling with such extreme emotion that she could hardly stand but Liz did it. She stepped back and she let them go.

~~~***~~~***~~~

Max cut them down. Two, three at a time and they fell at his feet like dominoes. He was almost a one-man army, sweeping through their battle formation like a raging typhoon. The retreat Michael suggested now seemed unnecessary…unwarranted. Where his army had been losing the battle now they gained the upper hand and pressed towards the fortress gates. Max was invincible, quickly disposing of any opponent that faced him. He could not be deterred.

In those breathless minutes, when his entire world had taken on a hazy reality smeared with blood and carnage, Max could truly believe the Great One was with him.

~~~***~~~***~~~

“What do we do with her now?” Rath demanded as he strode down the long corridor alongside Khivar, “She killed Lonnie…she’s gotta pay.”

“You fool!” Khivar snapped, barely sparing him a glance, “You are no match for her! Haven’t you figured that out yet?” He glared down at the crying infant in his arms, squelching the desire to smother it into silence. “Our only chance is the blood of this infernal squawking brat. If you want to do something, help me prepare him for the ceremony. We don’t have much time left.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

The transformation had begun…slowly at first like a flashing of light over her prone body. She lay there, ignoring the first currents in her limbs until they grew too strong to dismiss. The dried remnants of blood and afterbirth melted away from her skin, leaving it pristine, white…washed clean. She could feel the changes in her body, the shedding of her human form, a transference into blinding white light…beauty… Her hair cascading and dancing about her face as she was lifted into the air, twirling about her like a white cloud of silk as she was restored…made new…

Holy once more.

~~~***~~~***~~~

When Max gained entrance to the fortress, his soldiers made short work of the guards. Max was hardly aware of the efficiency they executed with dispatching the enemy. His mind was saturated with only one thought…getting to his son. He could feel both Liz and Charlie’s energy crackling all around him, beckoning him…

“Which way?” Michael demanded, running up beside him. Their friends quickly joined him. Kyle, Tess, and Isabel all stood around Max in a semi-circle. There was a brief moment of relief and joy that they were all gathered together once again and safe but that quickly died away in the urgency of the situation.

“You should stay behind,” Max told them brusquely, “I can’t afford to be slowed down.”

Michael shook his head. “Where you go, we go, Maxwell,” he said simply, “Now lead the way. Let’s save your woman and your kid and get the hell off this rock.”

“Charlie’s in the temple,” Max told them, already heading off in that general direction, “I can feel it.”

“And Liz?” Kyle pressed urgently.

“I…I don’t know for sure,” Max said, “But she’s here. It’s like…it’s like she’s leading me to him. I have to go. There isn’t much time.” Left with little choice, the others scurried to follow behind him quickly only to be brought up short in dismayed shock when they heard Maria’s cry sound from behind.

“Wait! Don’t leave without me!”

“Michael, I’m going,” Max told him sharply, “Catch up when you can.”

As the others continued to follow Max down the castle’s dank corridor, Michael groaned and pivoted around with a displeased grunt. “You were supposed to stay in the camp with Al--,”

His words died on his lips when he got a good look at her. She had obviously come through the battle lines the same as they had but she wasn’t unscathed. Michael winced as he beheld the charred material covering her abdomen and the equally charred and gaping skin beneath. Even though she had her hand pressed to the wound he could still see the extensive damage that had been done through her fingers.

Her face was white with pain and it was obvious that she remained upright by sheer force of will. There was a fine sheen of perspiration dotting her forehead and her lips were compressed into a tight, grim line.

“Dammit,” Michael muttered, catching her as she stumbled into his arms, “Why didn’t you stay behind?” Bearing her clammy weight, he stumbled over to a nearby wall and lowered her carefully to the stone floor. Maria lay back against the wall; grimacing as her as a queer numbness began spreading through her lower extremities. “Fuck, Maria,” he cried softly, “What the hell were you thinking?”

“Liz is my friend,” she gritted through the pain, “If she’s in trouble then I need to be here. Alex and I agreed that one of us should come…”

“Damned stupid… Look at you now…you’re hurt…” he mumbled, his eyes filling with tears as he recognized that her wound was very likely fatal. Gut wounds always were. “Why the hell did you follow us, Maria?”

“I had to,” she murmured, her features blanching as pain shafted through her body. She fixed him with dull eyes, vaguely noting how the world seemed very dim around her. “Can you fix it?” she whispered faintly, carefully removing her hand from the sticky, oozing wound in her gut.

Michael took one look and he knew he couldn’t. Her intestines were visible through the mangled muscle and tissue. It would not be long before infection set in and then coma and eventually…death. He lifted his eyes back to her chalky face and forced a smile. “We’ll fix it, Maria,” he lied, gently scooping her up into his arms, his heart wrenching when she whimpered in pain. He almost sobbed with relief when she lost consciousness because at least then she was free from agony.

He pressed a kiss to her fevered brow and bore her limp body towards the temple.

~~~***~~~***~~~

Khivar stepped into the inner chamber of the Granolith and felt energy pulse through his body.

Until that moment, only the most holy had been allowed within its sacred confines and yet here he stood, surrounded by swirling white pulses of light. He had never been so close to the Great One…

Shaking with anticipation and a bit of reverent respect Khivar carefully placed the infant onto the sacred altar in the middle of the chamber. The moment he did the child ceased its crying, as if he knew the fate that awaited him and he was resigned. His wide brown eyes connected with Khivar’s in a steady stare as Khivar began the recitation:

“B’lan ute yen shula ayhe kotah reh hoyah. B’lan ute yen shula ayhe kotah reh hoyah. B’lan ute yen shula ayhe kotah reh hoyah…”

The light around them flashed brighter, faster, churning around them with stunning brilliance as Khivar unsheathed his dagger. The blood pounded in his ears, his lust for power and glory blazing in his eyes. He fisted his fingers around the ornate, jeweled handle, reciting the chant all the while, faster and faster until the words began to echo around him, blending…

He raised the dagger high above his head and whispered, “May your blood bring me honor.” And then…he swung the blade down in a whizzing arc.

...and book it.


Chapter 38

The temple doors swung wide, breaking Khivar’s concentration.

He hesitated at the sudden intrusion, stopping the blade within inches of the baby’s chest. His faltering paved the way for Max’s attack. He sent forth a surge of energy from the palm of his hand, blasting Khivar right out of the Granolith and back into the stone wall behind him. The dagger flew from his hands as he was thrown back and flipped in a macabre kind of dance through the air before falling blade down, slicing through the baby’s thigh on its descent into the chamber’s swirling atmosphere.

Charlie’s cries of pain split the air as thick rivulets of silvery, incandescent blood welled from the deep gash and dropped into the murky energy of the Granolith’s interior. The chamber hummed to life, glowing like a bright beacon in the center of the temple. It rumbled and growled as Charlie’s blood was seemingly evaporated into nothing.

Hearing the desperate screams of his child catapulted Max into a murderous frenzy. “Get the baby now!” he ordered his sister, charging at Khivar just as Rath and his cohorts came scrambling forward.

The ensuing battle was brutal and sanguinary. As Tess and Kyle squared off against Rath and three others, Isabel took on the two remaining in her effort to reach her nephew. Khivar and Max faced one another alone, consumed with the hatred each had harbored for the other for more than fifty years.

Khivar rolled to his feet quickly though not fast enough to escape Max’s backhanded blow across his face. His aura brightened and burned to a sanguinary red and he rocketed off several confused blasts of energy. Max managed to avoid them all, despite the backwards attack from one of Khivar’s minions. While they struggled one of Khivar’s blast struck the sentry, killing him instantly.

His body had barely slid from Max’s arms before he was by Khivar’s head splitting blow. Max crumpled to the floor with a pained grunt. Heaving harsh breaths of vibrating hatred, Khivar stood over Max’s prostrate form, raising his hand for the sole purpose of finishing him off but then…he stopped.

“No,” he sneered viciously, “I’ll finish you off with my bare hands…and this time there’ll be no bringing you back!”

Still groggy from the dizzying hit he’d taken, Max wasn’t fast enough to dodge Khivar’s crushing blow to his windpipe. He choked with the pain of it, his entire throat igniting with fire. The urge to black out was strong but he could still hear Charlie’s cries peeling in the distance and Max set his teeth against oblivion.

When Khivar came in for another attack Max lifted his knees and kicked him back into the wall. Ignoring the burning in his throat, Max scrambled to his feet, in a hurry to pin his stunned enemy there and finish him but Khivar was ready. The two grappled with each other, knocking into the sacred utensils and mantel pieces, straining for the chance at a killing blow while the others played out their own little drama of life and death.

Isabel found her run for the Granolith blocked by a wall of rocketing energy spurts from the enemy. As she hunkered down behind a high altar piece for cover Kyle and Tess did what they could to waylay her attackers. Tess quickly dispatched of one enemy in clean order before Rath’s sudden attack forced a retreat.

Meanwhile, Max managed to scuttle out from Khivar’s hold. During his struggles with his enemy Charlie’s cries hadn’t abated once and Max knew Isabel had failed in her efforts to get to him. Max realized he had to get to the baby on his own.

He shot forth another shock of power, knocking Khivar off balance long enough to allow him time to make a run for the Granolith. He was within inches of the chamber walls when Khivar’s answering blow pummeled into his back and sent him flying half in, half out of the chamber. He struggled to push himself upright, his child’s cries louder in his ears but his limbs felt leaden…dead…

The battle unfolded before Max as if he were in a dream. In those drifting moments he was vaguely aware of Isabel’s horrified scream as she watched his body being pitched through the air. She suddenly sprang up from her hiding place, braving the wild blasts of energy around her in a fierce determination to reach her brother’s side.

Seeing her and recognizing her precarious situation, Khivar veered off course in his direction towards the Granolith and instead ran straight for Isabel. Suddenly his only thoughts were of protecting his beloved Vilandra. He only vaguely noted that his sister, whom he had believed to be dead, was in fact alive. For the moment, his world didn’t exist outside of Vilandra. He yelled at his men to stand down but the ensuing fire was so deafening and constant that no one heeded to his orders.

Watching Isabel’s growing advancement on the Granolith Rath decided to act while Tess and Kyle were busy grappling with the two sentries not trying to kill Isabel. Kyle managed to sear a hole in the chest of his enemy at the precise moment Rath raised his hand to finish off an unsuspecting Isabel. He launched himself forward, knocking Rath to the floor and throwing off his shot so that the blast glanced Isabel’s shoulder instead of sinking into her chest cavity as he’d planned.

Max saw his sister stumble, saw Khivar advancing and did the only thing he could with his remaining strength. He raised one shaky arm, gathered forth the last of his failing energy and fired. Khivar’s body blew apart with the impact, splattering Isabel, the Granolith and his men with blood.

That single, selfless act turned the tide. Seeing their leader so brutally killed, Khivar’s remaining men began to retreat. Realizing that both Isabel and Max had been injured and Kyle was currently trading blows with Rath, Tess made her own run for the Granolith as her own opponent made his getaway. She never saw the final killing shot he fired, meant for a dying Max on the floor until it was too late. It plowed into her tiny frame with the force of a battering ram, hurling her into a graven temple image and effectively snapping every bone in her body. She was dead before she hit the floor.

Kyle rendered Rath unconscious at the precise moment Tess’ body slipped to the ground. After that the silence within the temple seemed deafening. Even the baby had stopped crying. Swallowing past the lump of fear that rose in his throat when he saw his girlfriend lying there so still, Kyle rose to his feet on shaky legs.

“Tess?” he whispered, creeping nearer to her unmoving form, “Tess, can you hear me? Tess, are you okay?” But he could tell by her fixed blue stare that she wasn’t. He fell down to his knees beside her and carefully lifted her head into his lap. He wanted to cry but the tears wouldn’t come. They felt locked inside him, stored down deep where he couldn’t even feel them. He might have closed her eyes but he knew if he did it would be the last time he ever saw them.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, stroking her hair in a loving caress, “I’m sorry.”

Isabel limped over to where her brother lay dying. He had managed to turn himself over onto his side but Isabel could tell from the flickering light in his eyes that his time was short. She gathered up his hand and squeezed it hard but Max’s digits had already grown numb and he couldn’t feel her touch.

“Is…Tess…?” She nodded jerkily, a choked sob tearing from her throat. Max closed his eyes briefly, grief settling into his ashen features. “Michael?”

“I don’t know where he is,” Isabel sniffled, “He never came.”

Max nodded grimly at that, probably drawing the conclusion that Isabel already had…that Michael was dead, too. “Listen to me…” Max rasped weakly as his eyelids began to flutter, “Take Charlie…home…tell Mom and Dad…” He swallowed, his failing vision blurred with tears not for his own pain but for the agony he saw on his sister’s face. “Isabel…” he whispered as the last of his life winked out, “…tell Liz…it was her…always…”

Isabel didn’t cry when he slipped away. She thought she would. She prayed that she would but her heart was shattered, gone… Less than six feet away from her Kyle sat rocking Tess’ lifeless body. For Isabel it was too much grief to comprehend. She simply refused to let herself feel it.

Resolved…numb, Isabel slowly uncurled her fingers from Max’s lifeless grip and entered fully into the Granolith chamber. As she approached the altar her nephew lay wide-eyed and silent, as if he’d been expecting her all long. He was naked, his body still streaked with the dried remnants of afterbirth and blood.

“This is some birthday you’ve had, huh, kid?” Isabel murmured humorlessly.

She started to wrap him up in the thin blanket spread across the altar when she noticed the strange dried patches of silver smeared across his thigh. Upon closer inspection Isabel could not find any sign of injury or origin of the residue. She had no idea what it was but Charlie appeared unharmed and no worse for wear so Isabel dismissed it and carefully lifted his tiny body into her arms. She cradled him close and started to step from the Granolith when a strange sensation assailed her.

She suddenly felt like she wasn’t alone. Her instincts honed to high alert, Isabel turned back to glance about the murky interior. Isabel saw only mist swirling around her though she strongly sensed another presence there with her. Finally, shaking off the eerie feelings, Isabel stepped down from the chamber.

The moment she exited the glowing from the Granolith ceased and it seemed to fall into a peaceful slumber. Isabel was careful to avoid her brother’s body as she crossed over to where Kyle sat. He stared off into space and mumbled unintelligibly, hardly acknowledging her presence at all.

“Kyle, we have to leave,” Isabel said dully, “We need to find Michael and Maria and Liz. They still need our help.” He still didn’t look at her but at least he stopped talking to himself. “There’s nothing we can do for Max and Tess now.” He responded to that in a way Isabel never expected.

“The King and Queen are dead,” he declared softly, his blue eyes seemingly fixed points of light as he stared up at her, “And now a new monarchy will rise. They are free.” For a second there, to Isabel, he looked absolutely crazy, rambling on about things that made no sense. “It’s almost like they’re sleeping, you know?”

“Kyle, what are you talking about,” she grunted sorrowfully, “That doesn’t even matter. We have to get out of here!”

Her words seemed to snap Kyle from his stupor. He stared down at Tess’ still features once more before finally brushing his hand over her lids, closing them forever. When he slid from beneath her broken form his entire body shuddered. “How’s the kid?” he asked Isabel gruffly.

“He’s cold,” Isabel replied with equal gruffness, “He needs clothes…food too, probably… He was only born a few hours ago.” The two stared at one another mutely, shaken and distressed. “What should we do about him?” Isabel asked finally, tossing an uneasy glance over her shoulder at an unconscious Rath, “He’s not dead, is he?”

“Not dead,” Kyle confirmed wearily, “Just stunned.”

“So what do we do about him?” she wondered.

“I don’t know,” Kyle said dully, “What’s the proper protocol for handling prisoners of war. Isn’t this your domain now that Evans is…” He trailed off into silence, unable to say it, unable to think it.

“Hold the baby for me,” Isabel murmured, transferring Charlie into Kyle’s arms before he had even agreed, “I’m going to find something we can tie him up with.”

While Isabel ransacked the interior of the destroyed temple Kyle stared down at the surprisingly demure infant in his arms. He could hardly fathom that this tiny little individual had been the cause of all this fuss and trouble. At present, Charlie looked as if he could use a long nap. Kyle stroked his cheek, his lips quirked in a bittersweet smile. “I feel ya, kid.”

“Come on,” Isabel urged when she was done, “I’ve secured him. We should find the others.” Kyle nodded his agreement and passed Isabel the baby, though his eyes continued to linger on Tess. Likewise, Isabel couldn’t stop staring at her brother. “Wait,” she whispered as Kyle finally started forward, “I…I want Charlie to have some time with his father.”

“Isabel--,”

“It’s important,” she insisted sharply, her eyes dilated with pain, “I know he’s dead but…it’s still important.” Isabel couldn’t understand why the gesture was so paramount to her but it simply…was. She felt compelled to do it. “I’m going to lay him beside Max so they can be together for a little while and I need you to watch over him while I look for the others.”

“Okay,” Kyle acquiesced with surprising ease, “I didn’t want to leave her anyway.” He resumed his spot beside his dead love while Isabel went to kneel down before her brother and carefully lay his son next to him.

“What are you doing?”

Isabel spun around at Michael’s sudden demand. Whereas nothing else had brought her to tears, seeing him stand there looking so defeated and bloodstained caused the sobs to tumble forth from her lips. She ran over into his opens arms with a harsh cry.

“What happened?” Michael demanded harshly, his tone belying the gentle way he cradled Isabel in his arms. But she didn’t need to say a word. Michael felt the truth the moment he stepped into the temple. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Isabel jerked a glum nod. “Tess, too,” she whispered, “It was horrible, Michael.”

“Is the baby dead, too?” he demanded and the words sounded as if they’d been wrenched from his chest.

“He’s fine,” Isabel said thickly, “I’m giving him time with his father.”

Michael’s face flickered with the barest of emotion but his eyes were riotous with pain. They were swollen and rimmed with red, as if he’d been crying already. “How’s Valenti?” he asked.

Scrubbing away her tears with the back of her hand, Isabel shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know…I don’t know…” she murmured in torment, “I don’t think he’s all there anymore. He looked at me a minute ago and I could swear he didn’t see me. God! This is all such a nightmare.”

“It gets worse,” Michael informed her grimly.

At the ominous thread in his voice Isabel stumbled back several steps, her heart contracting in slow beats of fear. “Michael?” she queried carefully, “Where’s Maria?”

“She…uh…she followed us through the lines,” Michael explained gruffly, “She wanted to help…”

Isabel nibbled on her lower lip, feeling herself approach that same precipice of mania she’d believed Kyle to be hovering on as well. “Michael, where is Maria?” she stressed again, each enunciated word made tremulous by fear.

“She was hurt,” Michael recounted badly, “Really, really bad…”

“Is she out in the hall?” Isabel demanded on the edge of hysteria, “We can get her some help. We can--,”

“She’s gone, Isabel,” he interrupted gravely, “She died in my arms.”

“No! No more death!” Isabel cried angrily, as if the verbal denial would somehow negate the veracity of his words, “What am I supposed to tell Liz? What am I supposed to tell Mom and Dad? And, God! Alex! How am I supposed to tell Alex? We were supposed to get through this together!” She sank to her knees. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, Michael.”

He didn’t respond to that but instead stared coldly to where Rath was tied up on the floor. “Is Khivar still alive?” Michael demanded softly.

“No.”

“Then the planet is free,” he pronounced gravely, “They are all free and so are we.”

“What does that mean?” Isabel grated, “What the fuck does that matter anymore?”

“We can go home,” Michael told her, impervious by the harsh slash of her reply, “We find Liz and then we go home. That’s what Max would have wanted.”

“Yes,” Isabel agreed faintly.

Michael stared down at her, waiting for her to rise to her feet again but she never did. “You can stay here if you need to,” he whispered, “I can look for Liz alone. Besides I think…I think she should hear the truth from me.”

At long last his almost robotic responses and demeanor began to permeate Isabel’s pain dulled senses. “Michael, are you gonna be okay?”

“No,” he answered gruffly, “Neither are you.” He hitched his chin over at Kyle. “Neither is he…not until this is made right again.”

Isabel speared him with a sharp stare. “How can it ever be right?” she wept, “My brother is dead!”

He looked away, his throat working spasmodically with unshed tears. “I’ll find Liz,” he said before disappearing almost as silently as he’d come. Isabel stared after him, locked in her own hell while Kyle sat nearly twenty feet away wrapped in the same bitter agony.

Neither of them noticed the incandescent glow rolling off the baby’s body or the fact that Max’s lashes had begun to flutter.

Chapter 39

Michael didn’t find Liz. She found him…or rather she found where he’d left Maria’s body.

At the first sight of her, he stopped short, however. She looked nothing at all like he remembered her…at least not the way he’d known her on earth. Liz Parker had been swallowed up and born again into the godlike being that she’d always been. Only her eyes remained the same, dark, wide, beautiful and full of unfathomable wisdom. She hovered weightlessly above Maria’s prone body, her illuminated countenance brightening with what could only be described as a tender smile.

“She’s sleeping,” she told Michael, her voice seeming to echo through time and space.

He could dispute that. The encrusted blood covering Maria’s abdomen and smearing her thighs were testimony to the fact Maria was NOT sleeping but he said nothing. Asha’s face brightened all the more as she stared down at her fallen friend. “Maria? Maria?” her whispered words like a loving caress, “Wake up.” And Maria did…as effortlessly as if she’d been indeed napping after all.

If Michael hadn’t been standing near a wall at the time he would have toppled over altogether. Michael watched in half horror, half amazement as Maria’s wound repaired itself. Her cheeks began to flood with lively color and her eyelids fluttered endlessly before drifting open slowly. She stared up into Asha’s glowing countenance and frowned. “Who the hell are you?”

Asha floated back for her, her white hair creating an ethereal halo about her face and shoulders. “You don’t know me anymore, Maria?” she asked with a pouting expression, “Has it really been that long? I’m hurt.”

Maria gaped at her. “Liz?” Her eyes bugged out of her head as she took in her best friend’s transformed state. “Liz?” she bleated again, “Oh my God! You’re okay!” She pitched her arms around Asha; seemingly impervious to the fact her friend was glowing and floating in mid-air. “What happened to you?” she demanded choppily, firing off questions one after another, “Where’s the baby? Why do you look so different? Has Max seen you yet? He’s going to die! Holy friggin cow, what am I talking about? Everybody is going to flip out!”

Her friend’s glow buzzed mildly, as if she were harboring the most incredible secret in the world. “Are you shocked?” she asked Maria finally.

“Well…I… Honestly, it’s…um…a little weird and creepy,” Maria told her, “But I guess I was expecting something like this ever since Max told us about your past life.” She tapped her chin pensively. “So what…are you an angel or something now?”

“…Or something,” Asha replied, light blooming around her body warmly, “It’s a long, long story.”

“Don’t even think of putting me off with that tired excuse,” Maria deadpanned, “Now spill everything. Start with telling me what happened to the baby cuz I’m thinking you’re not still pregnant, right?” Asha slowly shook her head negative. “You didn’t give him over to that Khivar dude, did you? Because the others were totally freaking out about that one, babe. But I was like, ‘hey, this is Liz here, okay. She’s not going to let anything happen to that kid.’ You know Max though. He’ll make a mountain out of a molehill and I…”

Michael watched the exchange and felt like he was going a little insane. They spoke so casually, as if the most profound event he’d ever witnessed in his life had not just occurred a few moments earlier. Maria had been resurrected from the dead! Michael recognized on some vague level that he had just seen a miracle.

The fact that Maria was alive…really alive and talking hit him a split second later. He fell down beside her with a keening cry of gratitude, yanking her into his arms for a smothering hug. Maria tried not to wiggle in his hold though she couldn’t pretend his vehemence wasn’t freaking her out a little.

“Spaceboy, what’s with you?” she asked, shoving him off, “Can’t you see I’m talking here? You’re acting like I died or something!”

His mouth fell open in incredulous shock. “But…but you did,” he stammered, throwing confused glances between her and Liz.

“What?” Maria guffawed, “What are you talking about?”

“You were dead,” he confirmed softly, his stare soft with reverence, “I…saw you… And Max and Tess…”

“…Are waiting,” Asha finished quietly, “They just took a short nap. That’s all, Michael.”

“Ooookay,” Maria interrupted drolly, “So what’s going on and what did I miss? And,” she tacked on, scowling when she realized she didn’t recognize her surroundings at all, “where the hell am I?”

“The royal fortress,” Asha told her.

Maria’s scowl deepened. “How’d I get here?” she muttered to herself, “Last I remember Alex and I were trying to play the alien equivalent of War, which totally sucks by the way.”

“Blondie, don’t you remember what you did?” Michael asked gently, “You followed us through the battle lines. You said that you wanted to help.”

She shook her head. “Nope, not ringing a bell,” Maria clipped though it was evident she was panicked and unsure.

“You are where you’re supposed to be…now,” Asha reassured her, interrupting before Maria could erupt in full-blown panic. She knew that there was still much to do. “Come with me. The others are waiting for us.”

She wasn’t kidding.

The moment they reentered the temple Isabel fell on Michael’s neck with a glad cry. She was so distraught she didn’t immediately see Maria and Asha standing off behind him.

“Michael, thank God! You won’t believe what happened,” she cried, stepping aside a little so he could see what she meant, “They just suddenly sat up and started talking. It was totally freaky. They don’t remember anything at all. I don’t know what happened.”

Sure enough, just as Asha had said, Max and Tess were “awake.” Tess was cradled in Kyle’s arms much the way Maria had been in Michael’s earlier. Max sat cross-legged at the base of the Granolith, staring down at his son. Isabel shivered. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she whispered. That’s when she saw …Maria…and Asha. “Oh…”

“I don’t know what happened either,” Michael explained woodenly as Isabel drifted forward to hug Maria, touching her face as if she couldn’t quite believe she was standing there, “I found Liz in the hall and she said that Maria was only sleeping and…she woke her up.”

“Only…she’s not Liz anymore, is she?” Isabel asked softly, staring up at Asha.

“You must have questions,” Asha replied mildly, reaching forward to gently heal the scorched flesh of Isabel’s shoulder. She did so easily, almost second nature. It was a gift she’d always had…a gift she had transferred to Zan’s pod on the ship. Isabel understood that now. The two women exchanged a profound stare and finally Asha nodded. “I will tell you what I know.”

She drifted into the temple ahead of them, only to be brought up short a few seconds later by the sight of Max…and her son. Her breath would have constricted had she the need to breathe but Asha could still remember the tight sensation that filled the chest when it happened and she felt exactly that now. However, when Max looked up at her for the first time across the distance tears of joy and sadness began to fill her eyes.

It was difficult seeing him then when she knew all the things that had changed, when she knew they could no longer be together. Their circumstances were the same as before only with one unique difference: Asha believed this time. She knew they could not be together.

Yet, curiously, the knowledge did nothing to abate the love she had for him. She longed for him the same as she always had, but it was mixed with the bittersweet acceptance that she could not have him. Asha recognized that she could never, never make the mistake of giving into him again. Her sadness over that recognition weighted into an even heavier ball of sorrow when she thought of what that would mean for her son…his son. Asha looked at him and her sorrow exploded into pure anguish.

Her vantage of him wasn’t unobstructed, but she easily recognized the brown curls she had glimpsed earlier. They were clean now and appeared shiny in the ethereal light rolling off her body. Her heart called to him…a mother’s natural need to hold, to protect, to nurture. She wanted to touch his delicate little digits, to smell his neck and see for herself if newborns smelled as sweet as she’d often heard. She wanted to look into his eyes. It was a bittersweet pill to acknowledge that she didn’t even know what color they were. For all that had changed for her in the last few hours, her fierce attachment to her son remained the same.

She loved him as Liz. She loved him as Asha. She’d love him for eternity.

Max was unaware of the shattering pain he was causing Asha at the moment. He stumbled to his feet, visibly shaking all over. After weeks of uncertainty and fear and waiting she was standing there before him. Nothing was as he remembered, not the boy he had been or the girl he’d fallen in love with, still… Max recognized her soul. Her innate beauty radiated from within and though physically she had changed on the outside Max knew her heart remained the same.

“Look at you…you’re glowing,” he joked tremulously, but Asha didn’t laugh at his teasing. She said nothing at all. Their friends watched the unfolding drama between them, suspended with dread and fear and hope. “You’re beautiful, Liz,” he whispered, “I was beginning to think I’d never see you again.”

“That was never the plan, Max,” she replied thickly.

Her words didn’t immediately compute with him because he was still so overwhelmed by the reality of seeing her again. He staggered forward a few steps, his heart visible in his eyes. Asha was torn apart to see the raw emotion lurking in the honeyed depth of his gaze. He held the baby out towards her, his features aglow with excited reverence.

“Have you seen him yet?” he asked her with tearful animation, “He’s stunning, Liz. He looks…like you…”

However, when he dared to come closer she retreated from him with a sharp shake of her head. “I can’t,” she choked, “I can’t…”

There was no need for her to elaborate further or explain. His heart plummeted into his belly. Max was painfully aware of exactly why she could not. His anguish over her distance was palpable. And, though he already knew her reasons, though he had seen it coming long before this moment, he still felt the need to ask why. He couldn’t stop himself.

“But…but things are different now,” he whispered hoarsely, “We have a son…that makes a difference, right?”

“He’s your son, Max,” she uttered, though it killed her to say it, “He’s yours now.” He merely shook his head in non-acceptance. Asha closed her eyes and plodded on. “That’s not who I am anymore,” she told him firmly, “I’m not his mother. I’m not…” She didn’t finish that sentence but the thought was implied all the same. I’m not your lover. I’m not your soulmate. I’m not anything to you. She sighed. “There’s another purpose for me now…the one that’s always been.”

“No,” Max said, “I don’t accept that…I don’t.”

“You will,” Asha predicted, “…Eventually.”

He wept before her openly, not harsh sobs but silent tears of grief. In many respects those tears wrecked her worse than if he would have ranted and screamed. “Don’t do this to me again,” he pleaded, “Not after everything…”

Asha could have reminded him that this moment was a foregone conclusion, that she should have never looked twice at him at all but all she could do was whimper, “Please, stop this…”

“Maybe I could forgive you for walking away from me,” Max croaked, hugging the baby close when he started to cry softly, “But not for him…never for him…”

The betrayed look he was giving her was nearly too much to sustain. His hurt was enough to lash her, but the ire he had for his son tore her to pieces. She didn’t have an easy time rejecting Charlie, any more than Max had hearing the rejection. But Asha understood in her heart that this was as it had to be. The Great One was not done with her…not yet.

“There are bigger things happening here, Max,” she told him, “Things yet to be revealed to me. I have to have faith in His will…as do you.”

“Don’t say anymore,” he muttered, turning away from her, “I can’t believe you’re doing this and after everything we’ve gone through to be together.”

She wanted to touch him, if for no other reason than to sooth away the sobbing hitch she heard in his voice but she stayed where she was. She knew the gesture would only prolong his heartbreak. “There was a plan long before us, Max,” Asha whispered, “You have to trust that it will all work out the way it’s supposed to.”

“Stop talking to me about plans!” he barked sharply, “I don’t want to hear anymore!”

A part of him wanted to beg her, to convince her that her plans were insane and they belonged together but he knew better. He’d done this dance before and in two lifetimes. She’d never hear him. She’d never soften because she fully believed she was doing the right thing. She was too afraid of making another mistake and it destroyed Max, absolutely destroyed him to know that’s how she viewed their love…as a mistake.

Asha stared at his slumped shoulders, his dejected musings echoing in her ears as if he’d spoken them directly to her. Of course, he was wrong. Even after all that happened she couldn’t view what they had as a mistake. She couldn’t regret it.

“What bigger things?” Isabel spoke up hoarsely when the tension threatened to suffocate them all, “Why has all this happened?”

It was a long time before Asha could drag her eyes away from Max but somehow she managed. Squaring her shoulders, she swept fully inside the temple with the others trailing woodenly in her wake. As she did the broken relics and disorder within repaired itself. The dead bodies of Khivar’s men dissipated as so much dust. Only Rath remained, bound, gagged and just as unconscious as before. His execution would come soon, Asha knew.

“Many things have occurred,” Asha announced when the temple was undefiled once more, “The Granolith’s prophecy has been fulfilled.”

“And what prophecy is that?” Tess asked, her voice ringing out in the reverberating quiet.

“The five planets have been restored…redeemed,” Asha explained, “Through the blood of a god/prince.” She turned her luminous gaze over towards Max, who jerked his head aside quickly under the guise of kissing his son’s temple. Yet again, she had to stamp down her desire for her child. She had to remind herself that he was no longer hers.

“But Charlie’s alive,” Isabel protested, claiming her attention, “I’m assuming he’s this god/prince you’re talking about but…he’s alive. Khivar never had the chance to hurt him. His blood wasn’t shed.”

“Nevertheless, the prophecy was fulfilled,” Asha said serenely.

“Okay, so what now?” Maria queried, asking the question that was on everyone’s mind.

“There are still rebels in the star system,” Asha explained, “They must be crushed and swiftly. Max, Michael, Kyle and Alex will go.” At the mention of his name, Max whipped around to glower at her but Asha continued on evenly, “The campaign will take a month and then true peace will be restored. When you return you must bring with you Antar’s new King and Queen. They will be found on the planet Tankan.”

“I’m not going anywhere except home!” Max burst out when she finished, “I’m sure as hell not leaving my son for some military campaign!”

His countenance was twisted with anger and frustration as he glowered at her and…something else. Longing… He wanted her to call this off so badly. He wanted her to come to him and Charlie and even as his words were condemning and haughty, his eyes were pleading. Asha couldn’t bear to look at him.

“And what do you mean the new King and Queen of Antar,” Tess asked in confusion, clinging to Kyle tightly, “I thought that was Max and me.”

“You and Max have been reborn to freedom…the Great One’s gift to you,” Asha informed her, passing a secret glance over towards Max. He pretended to be unaffected but she knew he was hanging onto her every word. “A new monarchy has been established now.”

“Well, then if that’s true then I’m going home,” Max said again, “There’s no reason for me to stay here any longer. I want to leave!”

“You must stay to reestablish peace, Max!” Asha cried, “The Great One wills it!”

“What do I care what the Great One wills?” he ranted sharply, “Just leave me the hell out of it!” His outburst was so vehement that he startled Charlie into tears. As he began immediate coos of comfort into his son’s curly hair Asha squelched the instinctive desire to rush forward and comfort him. Finally, when the baby’s cries had died down to small hiccups Max addressed her again, significantly calmer.

“Look…I get that there’s a bigger plan going on here,” he whispered, “But I don’t want to be a part of it. I’m tired, Liz.”

Their eyes met in a profound stare, transmitting so much more than just the surface conflict unfolding between them. “Max,” she implored softly, “He gave you your life… Can’t you do this one thing?”

“He didn’t give me my life,” Max grated bitterly, “He took it away when he took you!”

Once more the silence within the temple became deafening. Everyone seemed afraid to speak, for fear noise would shatter the tenuous veneer of control. But there were too many unanswered questions and Michael burned inside to resolve them. Consequently, he was the first one to speak.

“So what happens if we go on this campaign,” he wondered, “We get all the bad guys, we bring the new royals back here and then what?”

“You go home,” Asha replied, “You’re free.”

“Just like that?” Kyle queried in disbelief, “We can…just go?”

“Yes.” She could feel Max’s eyes boring into her with the answer but this time Asha kept her firm resolve not to return his stare.

“And what about you?” Maria burst out, “Are you going to come with us?”

Asha suspected she already knew the answer to that question or she never would have asked it. “No,” she answered quietly, “I won’t be coming with you.”

“That’s bullshit!” Max exploded in a low tone.

“Yeah, what he said,” Kyle interjected dryly, “Liz, you can’t expect us to leave you on this wasteland of a planet. No offense to you guys,” he adds quickly, sweeping a glance around at the podsquaders, “but this place seriously bites.”

“Can I get an amen,” Maria muttered under her breath.

“Amen,” Isabel volunteered gladly, “We’re not leaving you here, Liz.”

“My path is different from yours,” Asha told them, “This is the one I must follow. Please try and understand.”

Chapter 40

Max and Kyle strode into the large sitting room, startling the three young women there to attention with their unannounced arrival.

The moment Tess saw Kyle she let out a glad cry and crossed the distance in a dead run to catapult herself into his waiting arms. Max bit back an amused smirk over their avid, welcome home kiss and turned his attention towards an anxious Isabel and Maria, who were busily craning glances around him for a glimpse of Michael and Alex. Both girls were silent and smiling but Max could tell from their jumpy demeanor that they were concerned about their boyfriends’ conspicuous absences.

“They’re fine,” Max reassured them quickly before the freak-out fest could begin, “Their convoy is about ten minutes behind ours. They’re escorting our new king and queen here to the palace. I came on ahead because I was anxious to see the baby.”

“And I was anxious to see you,” Kyle murmured, helping himself to Tess’ mouth one last time before setting her on her feet. “It’s been an interesting month.”

“Were there problems?” Isabel asked carefully.

“Not really,” Max said, “Once it became common knowledge that Khivar had fallen people were only all too happy to give up his followers.”

“So what’s the plan for them?” Maria queried pointedly.

“Death,” Max replied, “Apparently our new monarchs have no sort of tolerance for that type of thing. And, since they’re direct descendents from my father’s house, they take Khivar’s rebellion as a personal affront.”

“Wow…” Maria muttered, “That seems pretty harsh.”

Max shrugged. “It’s their decision,” he said, “I’ve kept my end of the deal.”

Tess nibbled her lip at his declaration and slowly pivoted around to face Max, her eyes uncertain and nervous. “So…our new king and queen,” she murmured tentatively, “What are they like?”

“Young,” Max sighed deeply, “Very, very young.”

“Do you think they’re fit to rule?” Tess wondered.

Her question prompted a thoughtful scowl from Max as well as Kyle. “I guess they’re fit,” Max hedged slowly, “They’ve been groomed as our replacements practically since birth. Why do you ask?”

Tess twirled her hair nervously. “Look, I know we’re abdicating the throne and everything but…” she paused to heave a massive sigh, “These people are still our responsibility, Max. We can’t just turn them over to…whoever and hope for the best.”

“They’re not ‘whoever,’ Tess,” Max replied mildly, “They’ve been ordained by the Great One himself. This is they’re birthright. They’re ready.”

“You said they were young. How young are we talking here?” Maria asked.

“Fourteen and fifteen respectively,” Kyle answered dryly, “And we’re speaking in Antar years here so they’re practically babies when you look at it that way.”

“And you’re sure they’re fit to rule?” Isabel wondered apprehensively, “Are they ready for that kind of responsibility, Max?”

“We’ll find out tomorrow,” Max said, “Tomorrow morning is their coronation ceremony.” When Isabel and Tess continued to appear uncertain he added, “Aled and Miyra have been groomed for this their entire lives. They are probably more fit to rule than we are.” He sighed deeply. “At least they’ve spent their entire lives on this planet. We’d always be cleaved between two worlds if we stayed to rule. Besides that they have a legal and blood tie to the throne just as we do. No one will contest their rule.”

“But what about Chuckles?” Tess asked, “I mean…I know we’re pretty much stepping down and that’s our choice but…it’s not the same for the baby? The Antarian throne is his birthright, too.”

“Yes…but I don’t want that stigma attached to him,” Max answered quietly, “When he’s older, if he wishes to come back here and vie for the throne I won’t stop him but I won’t groom him to be a king either. Charlie is going to have a normal life if I can help it.”

“Well as normal as a part alien, part human, part god can get anyway,” Kyle muttered only to receive a vicious elbow to the gut from his girlfriend, “Oof…sorry, not funny I guess…”

“Speaking of Charlie…where’s my baby?” Max asked, ignoring Kyle altogether to dart his eyes about the sitting room for his son, “Is he in the nursery?”

“Yeah, he’s been a holy terror today. I put him down for a nap…Max!” He was already striding from the room before Isabel could finish her sentence. “Don’t wake him up!”

Max took the stone steps two at a time. The entire time Max had been away Charlie had been in his every waking thought and sleeping thoughts as well. Isabel had been good enough to take his son on a dreamwalk every night so that Max could spend time with Charlie while he was away. Via the dream realm Max had been able to watch his son grow and change during the month he was away.

Throwing himself into parenthood and his mission helped to take Max’s mind off the situation with Liz. He tried not to think of her very often because doing so hurt too damned bad. Before leaving with Kyle, Alex and Michael he’d tried to talk to her but she’d been extremely unresponsive. She seemed to have this attitude that what was done was done and she was going to do what she thought was right no matter what. Max didn’t know how to combat that. It was the very same way she’d been after that entire Kyle fiasco, only one hundred times worse.

Thinking about her hurt, wanting her hurt, missing her hurt, seeing Charlie being kept away from his mother hurt…so Max coped the best way he could. He put one hundred percent of his focus into his son and the firm determination to return home and the hope that he could somehow convince Liz to come with him.

With that optimistic goal in mind, Max felt buoyed in spite of his lingering doubts. He went bounding for the nursery the moment he reached the top landing of the steps. However, he was brought up short in the threshold of the door when he found Liz leaning over the baby’s bassinet. Max’s entire world froze in place to see her standing there. There was just a split second of rightness in that moment, of sheer perfection before she sensed his presence and the naked vulnerability on her face was wiped clean. She whipped away from the baby bed with a guilty start.

“I…I thought I heard him crying,” she stammered lamely, light flickering and dancing around her unearthly form, “but he was asleep.” Max made no comment to that but when she started to leave he blocked her exit. “Max…don’t…”

“Have you even held him yet?” he pressed stiffly. She dropped her eyes guiltily, detecting the disgust in his tone. “You’re his mother, for God’s sake,” he spat, “How can you just abandon him? What kind of god expects a mother to deny her child?”

“I haven’t abandoned him,” Liz protested weakly, “He…he has you.”

“He needs you,” Max countered sharply, “What you’re doing to him isn’t right, Liz…what you’re doing to us…”

“Should I leave my natural position then,” she demanded in quiet anger, “That worked out so well the first time around.”

“Stop it.”

“It’s true,” she hissed, “We knew nothing but misery trying to be together in that first life and we knew nothing but misery trying to be together again in the second. Do you really want to go there a third time, Max?”

“Yes.”

“This isn’t simple, Max.”

“It’s simple enough,” he said fervently, “I love you.” Max shuddered a sigh and stared down at his hands. “I…I know things didn’t work out so well for us the first time…”

“…or the second,” she interjected softly, “Max…there’s always something to keep us apart and now I know why. We were never meant to be.”

He glanced up sharply, his golden gaze boring into her features with an intensity that made her want to shrink back. “That’s not true,” he whispered fiercely, “We do belong together. Why do you think it keeps working out that way, Liz? We always find our way back. It took me a long time to believe that, Liz, and now that I do I’m not just going to let you go.”

“You don’t have a choice,” she said, “I’m already gone.”

“What about Charlie?” he beseeched thickly, “How can you look at him and not want him, Liz? I saw you just now. I know you want to hold him in your arms. Just turn around and pick him up…let yourself love him. You want to.”

“No,” she denied softly.

“Liar.”

“He’s better off with you,” she insisted, “I have a different path now.”

“Liar,” Max accused again, “Liz, I died and came back to life again. The Great One didn’t just let that happen just to keep us apart.”

“You don’t know what the Great One wants,” she challenged.

“Neither do you,” he returned softly.

“I am who I am,” she tossed at him angrily, “Didn’t you tell me that once, Max? I can’t be anything else!”

“You’re afraid to be anything else,” he charged her. She didn’t bother to respond a second time but merely floated around him into the corridor. “Running never solved anything, Liz,” he called after her as she retreated down the hallway.

He stared after her until she disappeared from sight before his shoulders slumped with defeat and walked into the nursery to join his son. When he leaned over the bassinet he found Charlie wide-awake and beginning to fuss. “Did you know she was here?” Max whispered, scooping the baby up in his arms to soothe his cries with sweet kisses, “Your mommy is just confused right now. But she’s going to figure it out soon, buddy, and everything will be okay. I promise.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell him things like that.” Max jumped at the sound of his sister’s voice and whipped around to face her. “You should know that Liz hasn’t been to see him since you left, Max. She wants nothing to do with him.” Isabel finished her declaration by passing Max a warmed bottle of milk. “The sooner you accept that, the better.”

Max shook his head in denial and fell into a nearby chair. “You’re wrong, Isabel,” he argued, tucking the nipple into Charlie’s eager mouth, “I just found her in here a second ago. She wants to be with him.” He closed his eyes briefly. “She wants to be with us.”

“She has a funny way of showing it,” Isabel muttered, “She’s been distant from all of us, even Maria.”

“She’s confused,” Max mumbled in return, “Hell, so am I.”

“Well, unless you both manage to figure it out by tomorrow it won’t matter.”

Max jerked upright. “Tomorrow?”

“We have the clear to leave after the coronation, Max,” Isabel clarified, “A ship is being prepared for us as we speak. We can go home.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

He wasn’t surprised to find her on her knees. It was a scene he’d become accustomed to in the first life. She was as devout as she’d always been…perhaps more so. The realization incited deep, abiding respect as well as some fear and uncertainty. This was one of those times when he wouldn’t mind her throwing her devotion to the wind.

“Find absolution?” Max queried softly when she lifted her head and concluded her prayer with a reverent touch to the Granolith’s base.

Asha didn’t jump at the sound of his voice. She had sensed him standing there for some time now. “You shouldn’t be here,” she admonished him.

“Am I not holy enough?” he challenged with raised brows.

“Are you denying the fact that you’ve come to corrupt me?” she queried coolly.

“Are you denying the fact you want to be corrupted,” he countered.

She frowned at him. “Don’t start.” In the silence that stretched between them the Granolith buzzed and hummed, seeming to sing with a low, dancing light.

“How long has it been doing that?” Max inquired with a hitch of his chin, “I don’t remember that ever happening before. It’s creepy.”

Asha pushed herself away from the altar to regard him fully. “It’s been happening since Charlie was born,” she whispered, “It’s a sign. The Great One has spoken to me everyday.”

“And what does he say to you?”

“To have faith. He is not finished with me.”

Max snorted, his bitterness spilling over despite his resolve to keep positive. As much as he admired her loyalty he hated it, too. He hated that she was willing to sacrifice everything to fulfill her duty. Even while he knew it was a good characteristic, even while it made him love her all the more…he still hated it.

When he sought her out his intention had been to woo her over to his way of thinking. Max knew he didn’t have much time to convince her. It was true that the gang could very well delay their departure but Max knew that no one really wanted to, especially since Liz seemed pretty adamant about staying. He’d also considered sticking around a little longer while the others went on ahead but he knew instinctively that Liz would keep up her plan of rejection. Max hoped the news that he was leaving the planet the following afternoon might shock her back to reality.

“I already know,” she murmured gently, watching in silence as he unconsciously revealed his thoughts by his facial expressions.

“Know what?”

“You’re leaving,” she clarified.

“How did you know?” he whispered in surprise though he wasn’t certain why he was.

The light around her body dimmed, indicating her sadness though her expression didn’t waver. “I knew you would leave eventually, Max,” she said, “You’ve fulfilled your part. There’s nothing keeping you here now.”

“You’re keeping me here,” he countered gruffly, “Do you really think I can leave without you, Liz?”

“And do you really think I can go back?” she volleyed in return, “I have a duty to remain here. Ignoring that duty the first time is what caused this entire mess and now you want me to knowingly make the same mistake again? How can you be so selfish, Max?”

“I’m selfish?” he cried in disbelief, “You’re placing your duty over your own son! How do you justify that?”

“I can’t…justify it,” she stammered, “I live with the guilt everyday.”

“Liz, please…”

“You should know,” she told him gruffly, “Even if you stay here for a hundred years I won’t return with you. I can’t betray who I am…not again. Don’t ask me to do that.” For the first time since all this painful business had unfolded she finally managed to prick his conscience with guilt. Here he’d had no trouble pointing out to her the wrongs she was committing by sticking to her convictions but never once had he considered what wrong he was doing by asking her.

The first time she had let herself love him the planets had fallen and they’d all died. The second time she let herself love him the planets were nearly destroyed and they’d all died. Max could understand why Liz might feel the benefits of being with him didn’t outweigh the costs. It was little wonder she’d view it as selfishness that he even dared to ask her to do that again.

“Take him,” she whispered, reading his thoughts, “Take Charlie and go home, Max. There’s no benefit in waiting here for me.”

His throat worked spasmodically at her words but he didn’t shed any tears. He had cried enough already and there was nothing left. “What do I tell your parents?” he asked hoarsely, unable to look at her right then. Had he done so he would have seen that she was weeping the tears he couldn’t.

“Tell them I’m dead,” she whispered. It wasn’t so far from the truth. The Liz Parker they had known and loved was indeed gone.

Though Max knew it wasn’t her fault and recognized she was simply answering to a higher calling, he still found himself wrongly directing his anger and hurt towards her. “Should I tell Charlie the same?” he demanded painfully but then he shook his head sharply without giving her the chance to answer. “Don’t bother,” he grated, “I’ll figure out something to tell…my son.”

He walked out then, never once having witnessed how much he shattered her.



After this it starts to look up. We're over the hump, people!