~~~
Charity raced up the cliff-side path in front of Bekah. Toren’s and Shaw’s long legs carried them farther ahead and Charity watched them go with her blessing, hoping they could get to Alexander and Col all the more quickly.
The sea raged far below them, churned by the howling winter storm. She was freezing, wet, but couldn’t worry about that, knowing her son had been out in this weather far longer. And then there was Bekah running behind her with bare feet and Alexander’s thin rain slicker as her only protection, yet the girl wasn’t protesting. Her devotion to Alexander was humbling, even to him in his youth, yet Bekah had known Alexander as a grown man first, her leader in the war with the Sifts in the distant future. Once this was over, she’d like the chance to talk with Bekah, learn what her son was like as a man.
Once they got to him.
They had to get to him. The monsters finding Alexander had been her nightmare since learning of them. It’s why they had changed their name and kept uprooting their location. They’d lived all over the world, only coming to Scotland these past months, yet still the creatures had found him.
The slope eased, flattened into a plateau. Toren and Shaw were just up ahead where the land turned soft.
Toren shot out his arm, warning them to stop. He shouted over the rain. “The ground’s collapsing in places from the rain.”
She’d learned of the sinkholes from an overheard conversation between Alexander and Marcie’s twins. And promptly forbade Alexander from venturing up here. Most of the cliff was packed rock, yet there were burrows formed from harsh winds and rain and the erosion of time. One false step beneath the betraying soil and who knew how far down one could fall.
The thought of Alexander in one of those sinkholes stole her breath and locked her muscles. She and Bekah remained where they were and watched Shaw slide to his knees, examining the churned earth, looking for sign.
Seemingly satisfied with the trail he’d discovered, he eased forward onto his stomach to a dip in the land where rain and mud seemed to pour downward. Oh. Charity hugged her arms to her stomach. Alexander was down there. She swayed forward, ready to run to him, but a hand caught around her elbow, keeping her rooted.
“Stay back. They’ll get him.” The waver to Bekah’s voice was not all that convincing.
Toren passed the flashlight to Shaw who cast its beam down into the hole.
Charity held her breath. Please let him be okay, not too far down. Please let him be okay.
Features set in a grim line, Shaw backed away from the crumbling earth and stood, stepping a few yards away to report what he’d seen. Charity and Bekah ran up to them. Toren’s frown deepened. Whatever Shaw was telling him was not good
“…can’t tell who, about twenty feet down. Not moving…”
“Alexander?” Charity clutched at Shaw’s arm.
Shaw shook his head. “I cannot say. All I can see is the top of a dark head and he’s not moving, even with all the earth and rain pouring down on him.”
“There’s only one?” Bekah’s voice came out higher than her usual pitch.
“That I can see. The other may be just below.”
Or so far down in the hole he’s lost to them. Charity didn’t voice that fear, already searching through her mind for the ingredients she’d need to conjure a witch’s spell that would allow her to go back in time and relive one day. Forewarned, she wouldn’t let Alexander out of her sight.
This sinkhole, this monster, they were not taking her son.
Or Toren could… “Can you open a rift in space and go down there?”
The desperation on Toren’s face hurt. It was obvious he’d like nothing better than to do just that. “Charity.” He pulled her in close. “If I opened a rift down there, it could collapse the entire thing on them, rock instead of just sand. I can’t risk it.”
“Then go back in time.”
“I will. If it’s too late.” Toren’s eyes thinned at that admission. “But I must be certain first that Alexander is down there and not somewhere else. If I go back and change events, ‘twill change all events, including where in time the Sift shows up. It may show up at Alexander’s crib or in Paris when he was three. It could show up at any time. How can we protect him if we do not know when the Sift will be coming? We know the Sift is here now, in this timeline. We must let this proceed how it will.”
Charity hated this. She knew he was right, but she hated it. She didn’t want her son to have to have any dealings with these monsters at any time in his life. Why did it have to be him that saved the future?
She pulled out of Toren’s arms and lifted her chin. “Then what do we do? How do we get them out?”
Toren turned to face the sinkhole, sweeping his rain-flattened hair back. “’Tis possible to lift him out with strands of air. If I can feel him.”
“’Twill take a great deal of sorcery. Will that not collapse the hole? What of anyone below him?” A tiny crease furrowed between Shaw’s brows. “You may spare one’s life only to condemn the other once your magic latches on. Pulling the first up will make the walls crumple onto the second.”
“I’ll climb down then,” Toren said. “’Tis my son’s life.”
“The hole is already collapsing around the edges,” Bekah said. “I’ll do it. I’m smaller.”
“And I’m stronger,” Shaw interjected.
“And you’ll pull more mud down on them, trying to squeeze through, and bury them alive.” Bekah placed her hands on her hips. “Don’t be stupid. I’m the best choice.”
Charity’s gaze snapped onto the girl. “I’ll go.”
Bekah blinked against the rain. “No offense, but you’re already about to lose it. I get it. It’s your kid and you’ll do anything for him, but trust me, I can do this.”
Without waiting for further argument, Bekah lowered to her knees and shimmed down to the edge of the hole. Water pooled around her naked legs. She had to be freezing. With a glance back at Shaw, she twisted around and dropped carefully into the flooding hole.
As soon as her bright hair disappeared from view, Shaw was on his stomach, crawling forward. At the edge, he angled the flashlight down to see.
Lightning flashed, a mockery of the energy they couldn’t use. Here, they three were magical wielders, yet useless to do anything to help the two young men they loved. Charity slipped her hand within Toren’s as the thunder cracked around them, vibrating through the ancient cliffs.
Bekah’s voice echoed up, muted and indistinct.
Shaw craned his head sideways to relay the news. “It’s Col. He’s alive, but unconscious. She can’t get all the way down to him. There’s a blockage. She fears hypo—“
“Hypothermia,” Charity finished. In this weather that would be expected. “What of Alexander?”
Shaw shouted down, waited for the answer, and then shook his head. “She cannot see beyond Col. He could be below as well as the Sift.”
Fear rooted in Charity’s stomach, clenching it tight. She needed to know what had happened to her son.
“She’s managed to slip past the stone. Col’s elbow is wedged within a vee in the rock. She can’t pull it out.”
Toren edged forward. “I need to get down there.”
Shaw scooted back and pulled up to his knees. “Wait,” he shouted above the storm. “I have an idea.”
Toren leaned in close. Dark wet heads touched as they conferred. Charity only got bits and pieces of what they planned over the howling winds. In truth, her anxiety was so great she felt disconnected like she was in the bottom of an echoing barrel. Whatever they were going to do, they needed to act quickly.
Shaw was going to use his moon magic to feel along Col’s arm and then drill the rock apart with concentrated strands of moonlight, not that the storm afforded much of that light to work with. To counteract the danger of his magic expanding the hole farther and making them all slip, Toren would create a layer of his magic to hold the walls in place.
; “Bekah, brace yourself,” Shaw called down and closed his eyes. Energy vibrated in the air, rattling the pebbles in the mud. A jolt of lightning speared into the ground between Shaw and Toren as though their magic drew it to them.
Charity flinched.
Both brothers ignored the danger, eyes closed, dark hair lifting in an electrical current. With their backs to her, they were so very similar in stance and in stillness, they were mirror images of each other. Light coalesced around them, bright, rivaling the lightning. Toren’s spun blue gold while Shaw’s was violet white, burning like the hottest fires.
The white strands built around Shaw then dived, rippling into the hole like cascading darts in crackling lines of liquid energy. The gold followed, plunging over the edges like a molten waterfall.
Charity hugged her arms around herself, willing them to be successful. The air churned with charged static air.
A voice cried out, weak and washed out beneath the rioting storm. Her imagined fears were getting the better of her.
“Mom,” the shallow voice cried again.
Charity turned back the way they had climbed.
A lone figure staggered up the cliffside path.
Charity’s heart lurched. She’d know her boy anywhere.
He took another step and his leg simply went out under him. He crumpled like a worn rag.
“No.” So close to the cliff. “Alexander!” Charity ran, skidding to her knees, hands flying over her son’s battered back.
Diluted blood covered him, running from a myriad of cuts and bruises. He wore nothing but an old pair of sweat pants. She twisted him around to get his head and shoulders in his lap, wrapping her arms around him. “I’m going to fix this. You’re going to be okay.”
Raindrops stuck to his fluttering lashes. Glassy eyes slitted open. “Mom?”
“Yes, honey. I’m here. I’m going to heal you.”
“Mom.” His voice was raspy. “Col.”
“Shhh, we know. We know. Your dad’s getting him out right now. You just worry about you.”
Drawing deep within the well of her essence, she brought forth her magic. It wasn’t much, but it would be enough. Keeping her palms over the boy’s shuttering chest, he sought his worse injuries, seeking to heal.
“Mom.” Alexander’s hand slipped weakly onto her wrist. “I want the scars. Please, Mom, I need them.”
Tears mixed with the rain running down her face. “No, honey. You don’t need them.” She didn’t want any part of those monsters touching her boy.
Alexander’s wet eyes implored her.
“Charity.” Toren knelt beside them. She hadn’t heard his approach. “Leave the lad his honor.”
She shook her head. “No, he doesn’t...he doesn’t need to be marred by this.”
Toren’s hand covered Alexander’s over hers. He gazed down into their son’s eyes, some indefinable message passing between them. “One scar. Leave him one. A man needs his reminders.”
Stupid Neanderthal males and their stupid man codes. She wasn’t going to leave Alexander like this, but one look at his pleading gaze melted her resolve. She nodded and her heart broke a little more at the relief that relaxed his young features.
Toren scooped him up into his arms off the wet squishy ground. “Do what you must quickly, but spare some of your energies for my brother.
Looking over her shoulder, Charity saw Shaw and Bekah crouched over a naked unmoving man. “Is he okay?”
“He needs your aid.” Worry strained Toren’s tone.
Heartsick, Charity withdrew her healing magic from Alexander. She’d barely begun to work on the deeper wounds tearing the muscles of his shoulders, but he was out of danger. She kissed him on the forehead and left him to her husband’s care, but not before hearing her son’s whisper. “I tried Dad. Tried to be brave like you.”