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As the excruciating noise marched inside Ashburn’s head, millions of images, graphic and grotesque, squeezed into his head like an army of African cannibal ants. “I’m burning.” Ashburn screamed. “You’re killing me!”

“It is data-overloading, Destined One. You will survive. Your brain is superior,” the Eye of Time said dispassionately. “Five more minutes and it will be done . . . immortal in flesh . . . You’ll end the era . . . end the time . . . as designed . . .”

Ashburn’s free hand grabbed the wand from his wheelchair and hacked at his finger held captive by the Eye, ready to cut off his own flesh to break free. Before the weapon smashed his finger, a black lightning formed in his fingertips and fired at the Eye.

“Nooo!” the Eye of Time cried.

Ashburn jerked back, breaking free, but the impact threw him from his wheelchair.

He crashed to the ground. With labored breathing, Ashburn crawled toward his chair, but it was outside the range of the flame that still confined him.

Before he reached the perimeter of the fire, the Eye’s power pulled him backward again, like wild wind sweeping a thin trash bag.

Ashburn roared in fury. Power and energy poured out of him, more forceful than a hurricane. Trembling, Lucienne smothered her ears with her hands, bent over with a cry, trying to shield herself from Ashburn’s rage.

An ocean of liquid light gushed out of the silvery gate like a mighty waterfall.

“Take me away,” Ashburn commanded. “Far away.”

The torrent of light scooped Ashburn up like he was a tealeaf and lifted him high into the sky. He looked down as Nirvana zoomed out, then the continents and the oceans shrank away, and then the Earth rolled back at the speed of light and became a speck.

Whisking away into space, Ashburn roared again in horror, but it was too late . . . .

The images and the scream faded in Lucienne’s mind and she was back in Ashburn’s bedroom. Complete silence devoured her while waves of vertigo assaulted her.

Ashburn’s hands slid along the arches of her burning cheekbones before they left her face. “That’s how the Eye of Time implanted its terrible purpose inside of me,” he said .

Though she had walked through pain, fire, and lightning, as Ashburn had, Lucienne felt only privileged.

As her dizziness faded, she looked up at Ashburn, her whole face brightening like the first sunshine.

Ashburn gazed at her, lost in her beauty.

Despite the horror he had just relived, he reached to trace her cheek with his knuckles.

When she didn’t pull away, he gently outlined her long, thick lashes.

Lucienne half closed her eyes with parted lips, amazed at how a touch could be so lush and dreamy.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” Ashburn sighed.

“If you go to the outside world, you’ll see plenty of girls like me,” she said. “I’m just a small fish in the ocean.”

“I possess almost everyone’s memories. Lucienne, you’re anything but a small fish.”

As Ashburn’s hand moved to the curve of her lips, Lucienne’s heart hesitated. She remembered Vladimir and pulled away. “Who are you really, Ash?” she asked in a quiet breath, concealing the rapid rhythm of her heartbeat.

“I don’t know,” he said, his eyes shifting to steel gray.

“I know Clement and Peder aren’t your biological parents,” she said, watching him, “and you know that, too.”

“I’ve searched my databank,” Ashburn said, “and I can’t find any records.”

“You broke free before the full upload. Do you think the secret of your heritage is still with the Eye of Time?”

“Maybe.”

“When Peder found you as a baby crying in a basket in the inner garden, Clement had just given birth to a stillborn. They buried the secret of your birth with the dead baby.”

Ashburn narrowed his eyes. “You read her mind.”

“I want to know more about you. I need to know who you are.”

“Any conclusions?”

“There was a card with notes in the basket, but your parents repressed the memory. ”

“The notes forbade them to tell anyone about my arrival,” Ashburn said.

“It threatened their lives if they didn’t obey.

My parents were very fearful of me in the beginning.

They didn’t know what I was. No one else had ever entered Nirvana until you came.

At some point, they suspected that I was a demon child. ”

“You’re actually the first outsider in Nirvana,” Lucienne said.

“Do you have records of the first settlers?” She had read The Book, which Prince Felix had smuggled out of the temple for her.

The Book was all about the king’s ancestors’, their great deeds, and the law of Nirvana.

Nothing useful. “The Book says the gods summoned the first settlers from all the continents to this land to be their chosen people, but I believe there is a hidden agenda behind whatever power called them here.”

“Seraphen mentioned Nirvana is a failed breeding field. The Eye of Time rounded up the potential humans with specific DNA requirements to breed the Destined One, but no matter how it manipulated the genes of the people in Nirvana, The One never came.”

“Until it found you outside Nirvana. How?”

“I don’t know. I told you I have only partial data, and the Eye was very powerful before it completed transferring the TimeDust to me.”

“I believe the answers—along with your inheritance—are still inside the Eye of Time.”

“I don’t want to be anywhere near it,” Ashburn said. “I think I was responsible for my mother’s stillborn. Its power made sure my parents would take care of me. Only me. It made a monster right from the beginning, but I don’t want to be one.”

“You’re no more a monster than I am, Ash. You’re a force for good, and you’re unselfish,” Lucienne whispered. “Even with the TimeDust in you, you can still choose your own path. I’ll help you. We’ll work things out, together.”

“What about your Russian mother?” Ashburn asked abruptly.

Lucienne blinked. All the warmth left her. “That’s none of your business.”

“Then how come my lot is your business?” Ashburn’s tone was steely sharp.

“You’re the Chosen One, and I’m not. All the Sirens were deceived.

We aren’t privileged. We aren’t special,” Lucienne said with a touch of bitterness.

“If you’re the Destined One, then all the secrets lie in your genetic code.

If we decipher your code, we can have all the answers we’ve been seeking.

We can even neutralize the evil program you believe is in you. ”

“How do you know you’re not chosen in some way? Do you know why your father never came to visit you? Do you know why your mother went off the grid after she gave birth to you?”

“Why should I care about them? They abandoned me, just like your biological parents forsook you.”

“You don’t know the whole truth. And you should have cared.

Have you ever wondered why there’s finally a female Siren after a million years?

The Siren’s line couldn’t produce a girl, and yet you popped out.

You say you seek truth and knowledge above all else, but when it comes to yourself, you’re too afraid to know the truth. ”

“Tell me then,” Lucienne said, her heart pounding. “Tell me about my mother. My grandfather and others tried to locate her, but never succeeded. So please enlighten me if she indeed stood out amid the millions in the gene pool.”

Ashburn gazed at Lucienne, who stared back in defiance. His expression turned sheepish, and he dropped his gaze, his long lashes veiling his eyes. “Sorry, that is also not in my databank.”

Lucienne was so annoyed that she wanted to hit him. Her eyes burned darkly. “Then why did you bring it up?”

Ashburn raised his eyes to face Lucienne’s scowl.

“If I was meant to happen, then you were, too. Whatever force didn’t just create one freak; it created a pair.

It’s all the more reason we must get as far away from each other as possible, so its nasty plan that needs both of us will not succeed.

Think of how you found me. Of all the worlds, you had to come to mine.

It wasn’t a coincidence. Some force drives us together. ”

“What a cosmic conspiracy,” Lucienne said with a laugh of irony, “just to set you and me up.”

“Laugh all you want, but I won’t let the TimeDust lead me down the path of destruction.”

Paranoid, Lucienne thought. “I wasn’t laughing at you, Ash.

Think of it this way,” she said. “If the TimeDust means for us to be tools, we can take advantage of that and use it. If we know what it’s up to, we’ll be able to beat the mastermind behind it.

” Her rich, silver voice was laced with passion. “We choose our own destiny.”

“How are we going to outwit it and the mastermind behind it?”

“We need to figure out your genetic code first.” An encouraging smile curled at the corner of Lucienne’s mouth and her eyes sparkled. “I have the best scientists and the most advanced labs waiting in Sphinxes.”

“Don’t even think about it.” Ashburn’s voice turned cold. “I’m not your guinea pig. And using me is all you care about.”

The smile faded from Lucienne’s face. “Why did you say that?”

“I overheard what you told Vladimir. You said I was only your asset and nothing else.”

Right, she thought. He saw and heard that when he crashed her date with Vladimir that night. “I want to believe I felt that way, but I don’t.” Lucienne exhaled slowly. “You mean more to me than I expected. More than I want to admit.”

Ashburn’s eyes warmed and lit bright silver, but he complained, “I don’t know what you really think. I can’t read your mind.”

“You don’t need to read my mind to know I’ll not hurt you. I do want to run some tests on you, but they’re only normal kinds of tests that will help us learn more. I’ll have myself tested alongside you. We need to start putting the pieces of our puzzle, and figure this all out. ”