Page 2 of The Time Of Kings (An Afterlife Story #1)

1

THE TIMELESS VOW

KEIRA DECADES LATER…

“ W ell, that escalated quickly,” Pip said after we had just finished listening to all that my daughter had to say, and in truth, I knew I shouldn’t have been surprised. Not considering I had pretty much dreamt of this very conversation. But then, that was the burden of being an Electus, or so I had been told decades ago.

Of course, I had hoped Amelia’s life would have been easier than feeling the weight of our world on her shoulders like I had. Although, I think after the recent war fought in Hell, I could say that hope hadn’t just sailed. No, it had taken a flying leap out of a burning window and straight into the flaming river of Phlegethon!

Despite this, I couldn’t have been more proud of her. The strength of her soul and will to do good brought tears to my eyes just thinking about all she had endured for the Fate of our world. For those she loved and cared for.

For the man she was fated to.

A man I knew would have Demonic kittens right now if he discovered what she was planning. Just like my own King would if he knew that I was about to help her. Because I made a vow to my daughter long ago. One that promised that I would follow her to the ends of the Earth and all realms in between if she needed me. And well… that included footsteps taken in the past, present, or future.

However, I still had to make my worries known, which was why I couldn’t help but ask,

“No, no, no, no… please tell me this is not what you have in mind?” Because she had just finished telling me about all the nightmares that had haunted her these last months, with a Wraith master at the core of it all. Which meant, once again, she felt a very different Fate baring down at her and another Oracle was the one to put it there.

Of course, I understood her despairing need to do something to help these poor souls that seemed trapped to their mad King’s fate. To fulfill a promise made and do everything she possibly could to free them. And that was the thing with Oracles, they had the uncanny ability to make the unachievable seem achievable, as if it was as straight forward as walking down the clear and easy path to glory.

But it was never clear and easy, for there was no such thing for a Chosen One.

Because they never spoke of the scars such a journey would leave against your soul. The pain and heartache that would cling to your mind like fractures branching out around the edges of the mirror. One that would crack further every time you had to look at your reflection, just knowing the pieces of yourself you were forced to sacrifice.

They also never spoke of the hurt you regrettably had to inflict on those you loved.

Well, I wouldn’t let her do such a thing alone. Because if there was a way I could take some of that burden or guilt away, then I would do it. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it without first trying to be the voice of reason. Despite already knowing my daughter well enough to understand she had already made up her mind. But even Pip knew it was a pointless endeavor to try, as Amelia’s sigh spoke volumes.

“Sorry, Toots, but that sigh isn’t a good sign either.”

I frowned at my best friend. Something that prompted her to hold up her hands and fling even more miniature candy canes from her fingernails my way, making me wonder if there would be any left by the end of the night.

“I have no choice, Mum, surely you can understand that?” Amelia said in what I knew would be her first argument, making me shake my head as my heart broke for her. Because we were so alike, it would have been like arguing against myself. Which was why I knew this was one of those pointless conversations you still felt like you needed to have. An argument you knew you would lose but would never forgive yourself if you didn’t say the words regardless. Which was why I told her,

“That's where you're wrong, you always have a choice.” But even after I had said it, I knew what card she would throw down next, quick to use my own past decisions against me.

“And you, Mum, did you have a choice when you stepped through that fountain all those years ago?”

Naturally, I couldn’t help but react, flinching before closing my eyes and shaking my head.

“Oh, come on, Keira, did you really expect her not to use that one?” Sophia stated, making me want to grit my teeth.

“Okay, that is so not helping… and you, young lady, it's not the same thing,” I added, turning my attention back to my daughter and switching over to my well-practiced ‘mum tone’, despite knowing that these very words made me a hypocrite of the biggest kind. But isn’t that what all parents did when trying to protect their child? Even if it was against themselves. It turned liars into us all because we all knew that at one time in our lives we had made those same mistakes. We were all guilty of trying to steer our children away from making decisions we ourselves had once made and had to learn from. The difference now was, I knew that selfishly I wanted to protect her despite knowing what the ramifications of doing so could mean for our world. But unfortunately for me, Amelia knew it too, hence why she said,

“But you're wrong. You had a duty, just like I do.”

“I was prophecy bound,” I told her, unable to let it go and making her scoff.

“And you think I’m not?” she snapped, and I couldn’t blame her, my past reasons were now her own. Although, at this point, Pip and Sophia started to look at each other awkwardly, making me frown. Because I knew these two better than I knew myself. Which meant I also knew when they were keeping something important from me.

“Maybe we should just leave you two to…” Sophia said, and I was just about to say, ‘oh hell no!’ when Amelia got in there first.

“Oh no, you two are not going anywhere and you are having my back on this.”

I was just about to ask what was going on when once again, my daughter beat me to it.

“Okay, so what am I missing here?”

Sophia sighed and scooted closer to me, which I knew wasn’t a good sign. Especially when she put a comforting hand over my own and took a deep breath. Hell, I should have known just being in this damn library wasn’t a good sign. Ever since it became connected to the Janus Temple, it felt more like some bloody Supernatural bus stop! And I wasn’t even getting started on the time my husband lost his ever-loving Demon mind and tried to kill Lucius. Yep, totally not going back there to that one, I thought with a grimace.

“Amelia is right, the prophecy isn't finished. It isn't finished for either of you,” Sophia told me, and naturally I was unable to hold back my reaction.

“What?! What are you not telling me, Sophia?” As soon as I said this, I looked to the most mischievous member of our Triad and saw Pip trying to look at anything else in the room but us. Oh, and holding her hands behind her back as she was gently whistling was fooling no one. Meaning this was left to Sophia to explain, which given Pip’s colourful language, was probably for the best.

“Pythia might have mentioned something like this might happen.”

“What?!” I screeched, and not for the first time.

“Okay, when she spoke of us being back in time… it kind of didn’t… I mean… it wasn’t so much…” Sophia said, doing a piss poor job of explaining anything and therefore making me snap,

“Spit it out, Sophia.”

To which she sighed. But before she could speak, it was Pip who thought it best to just rip off the time traveling band aid.

“We thought the Oracle made a mistake or you did, when we went through that gate and ended up in the desert, for she said it was all like fields of green and knights with big swords, etcetera, etcetera… what…? I cracked, okay…? But hey, thirty-year-old secret, so YEY me,” Pip said, waving two thumbs’ up to Sophia, who looked just like her brother did whenever he had to deal with anything exasperating, as she was now holding the bridge of her nose, muttering under her breath.

“Are you serious…? I got the date wrong?” I asked, stammering out the question as shock seeped in deep.

“I’m sure it can happen to anyone,” Pip said with a shrug, no doubt trying to make me feel better.

“Yeah, but this isn’t like forgetting your anniversary,” I pointed out the obvious. Because let’s face it, this was a bloody big thing we were talking about here!

“Aww, has he still not forgiven you? Because that was like once, and ten years ago,” Pip said, patting my back and reminding me of the one time that I did indeed forget our anniversary. Of course, when you’re a shit liar like I was, well let’s just say that trying to talk my way out of it hadn’t worked out so well. Not when Draven had found me still working in my PJ’s, instead of being ready for our date when I was supposed to have been.

“No, he has… wait, that’s not important right now… why didn’t you two tell me?” I accused, and it was Sophia who thought it best to answer this time.

“Because we won the war, we beat the bad guys, and the time we travelled back to worked. We just figured that if anything else popped up after that, we would tell you.”

I swear, I think my mouth dropped open at this, and unattractively stayed that way. Even when Pip bowed and rolled her hand under her as she pointed out the obvious.

“Which brings us to now.”

I shook my head a little and said bitterly, “So, what? You're now saying I have to go back to the past again…? That Amelia and I have always been destined to do this?”

I felt my hand being squeezed and looked up into my beautiful daughter’s face, feeling her strength flowing through me as she assured,

“It will be fine, Mum. We will be together.”

I covered her hand with my own and held it back just as tight before Sophia interrupted,

“Er, excuse me, aren’t you forgetting somebody.”

“Yeah, like two bodacious time traveling babes,” Pip answered, jerking a thumb in between the two of them and making me grin. Because of course, they wouldn’t let us go alone. Jesus, but it was thirty years ago again.

“Wait, what are you saying?” Amelia asked in confusion, making me scoff a laugh. Because as we all stood facing each other, as if at the ready to make another vow, Sophia placed each hand at our shoulders and said,

“What, you didn't really think we'd let you guys go alone, did you?”

Amelia looked to each of us and released a deep sigh. One I could tell was born from having a torn mind. She wanted us there as much as she didn’t. Because the comfort of knowing you weren’t alone battled against the worry of getting someone hurt by the decisions you made. And I understood that more than most. But before she could argue against our decisions, I told her,

“Okay, fine, I’m in, but only because Amelia is and not because any Oracle told me to.” But even as I said this, I knew I was lying. Because if Pythia had told me I needed to do this to save others, then I would have. I just wished I could have done this without Amelia needing to be dragged into it with me.

Meaning, I was once again angry at the Fates, for not giving her a damn minute to catch her breath before they expected her to step up yet again. I just wanted to take the burden from her and wish that she could have sat this one out. But unfortunately, the Fates didn’t work that way.

They never did.

“She’s not gonna let this wrong date thing go, is she?” Pip commented to Sophia, making me shoot them both a look, and it was one that promised we would be discussing this later without Amelia there to witness it. The guilt was easy to see on both of their faces.

“So, we are really doing this… we are going back in the past?” Amelia asked, drawing me back to the now.

It was easy to see the trepidation on her face, and she was no doubt questioning how in all the Gods names we were going to achieve this. Hence why I asked if anyone had any idea to what time period we were going back to, just praying it was one that had toilets and not a sugared mouse in sight.

“If you'd have asked me an hour ago, I would never have been able to guess but now…” Amelia answered, pausing long enough to hand me a scroll of paper that revealed a poem of sorts. “…now I'm thinking it has something to do with the Rosetta stone.”

As soon as she said this, I felt the jolt to my chest as another Fated puzzle piece slotted into place. And Sophia knew, which was why she granted me a look, one Amelia didn’t miss.

“What…? Oh come on, what am I missing now?” she asked, making me sigh before admitting,

“I've been dreaming of a stone cracking, pieces of it being used as foundation, light forming around it. I haven't wanted to tell your father but, well… let's just say now I'm not surprised why.”

Damn it and all those dreams tugging at my Fate tethered puppet strings.

“Er, on that cheery marital note, so about our husbands?” Pip said, pointing out the obvious first hurdle we would all have to jump over.

“Oh shit, yeah, we're not telling them,” Sophia answered first, making me quickly follow suit, after Amelia agreed,

“Yeah, definitely not.”

“Okay, cool, so all on the same page then… Gotcha. Well I would say girly road trip but…” Pip started, only thanks to knowing our naughty Imp too well, Amelia and I were quick to react. However, only one of us chose not to encourage this, whereas my wonderfully geeky daughter was always happy to indulge her crazy aunt.

“Don’t go there, Pip,” I warned.

“Oh yeah, say it, Pip,” Amelia said, grinning.

“Oh, I sooo am gonna, my friend… ‘ cause where we're going, we don't need roads…’ What? I'm sorry, okay, Toots? It just had to be done… I mean, there's gonna be a lot of Back to the Future references here so it would be best if we all just get used to it now, okay?” Pip argued, slapping my daughter’s hand with a high five. This while Sophia and I were left to groan, as like I said, it was thirty years ago all over again.

“So, we're really going to do this then, were really gonna to go back in time?” Amelia asked with all jokes aside.

“We are not letting you do this alone… so yeah, I guess we are,” Sophia said.

I hugged Amelia to me and told her resolutely, “You’re definitely not alone.”

“Woohoo, and the time travelling boobateers are back in business!” Pip shouted, making me groan.

“Yeah, I'm so not going if she's going to do that the whole time,” Sophia added, even as Amelia looked confused enough to ask,

“Are they like, a band or something?”

I shook my head behind said crazy friend, telling her silently that she really didn’t want to know. After this, the conversation quickly turned back to our husbands.

“Oh shit, they're gonna be so mad when we get back,” Pip said, making us all give her a knowing look, considering she was grinning about it.

“Pip, that shouldn't make you look happy,” Sophia was the first to comment.

“Hey, I don't know about your husbands, but my husband, when I'm naughty, well, let's just say stuff can get pretty interesting, and when I say interesting, I mean kinky shit… like a whole sex shop of kinky, like suspended ropes and tools, and not even the type that you'd think would work but they totally do… like a whisk, you would be surprised at what else you can do with a whisk.”

I think we all rolled our eyes at this and wisely put the kinky talk brakes on the steam puffing express. Because when Pip got going, it was like the sex freight train about to barrel out of control, saying to hell with the tracks.

Something Sophia was pretty good at doing, now making a point of getting her to stop. After which, she turned her attention to her niece and asked,

“So just to be clear, and getting back to this poem, we need to go back before the Rosetta stone was even moved, before it got broken… right?”

Amelia nodded at Sophia, making me ask,

“Yeah, and when was that exactly?”

Pip piped up and added,

“And if you could say it like Doc Brown does in the movie, that would be great.”

Amelia naturally obliged her when telling us…

“Back to the year, 1202.”