Crystal Tomb (Starfire Angels: Dark Angel Chronicles Book 3) (26 page)

Raea hiccoughed on a sob and caught
her breath.

Josh pulled her near and she didn't
care about the unwashed body odor. "Sssh…We're here for
you."

Choked on the tears, she said nothing
and buried her face in his shoulder.

"I'm sorry." Nare's gentle voice came
from close by her. "They told me what happened. He was a good
Keeper, and he loved you very much."

Grief struck her hard at Nare's words
and the tears flowed heavier. Nare meant well, for once
complimenting Elis. Why couldn't she have been nice to him when he
was alive? Why did people wait until that one person was gone to
express their admiration or appreciation?

Nare was Elis's cousin and the only
family he had on Earth. Raea would have expected her to be a little
friendlier to him while he was alive, but it took his death to
change her.

After some time, Raea stood back and
wiped her eyes, sniffing to clear her head. Nare smoothed Raea's
wet hair from her face, a sympathetic expression welling with tears
in her eyes until she pulled Raea close amid the sniffling of her
own crying.

A strength she hadn't expected calmed
Raea. Nare cried over Elis, a sincere expression of grief that
soothed Raea's anger and alleviated her own grief.

"I can't believe he's gone," Nare
whispered. "They're all gone now."

His family? The Shirukan had taken his
parents and his sister and her mate two years ago for the Starfire
shard his father bore. The entire family was now dead.

"What's going on…" The voice came from
upstairs.

Raea pulled away to see Debbie at the
top of the stairs.

"Raea! You're awake." Her feet pounded
quickly in her rush down the steps and across the laminate floor.
In her nightgown and robe, she flung her arms around Raea. "Are you
all right? What happened? Oh, God. You're finally awake. I was so
worried."

Unlike Josh, Debbie stepped back and
waited for her to answer. The others watched Raea with the same
interest. They wanted to know about her vision? She had almost
forgotten about Atia, who had fallen silent since her
shower.

"I was…in a vision."

"That must have been some vision,"
Josh said. "Two days?"

"It was…I saw the founding of
Atlantis."

Josh's eyes widened.
"
The
Atlantis?
How?"

She held up the Starfire pendant with
the black feather—Elis's black feather—and took a breath to calm
herself. "Lady Atia. She and her son Lantis escaped the Risaal
and…" Dared she tell them? They all knew about the Starfire first
used to power Heffin's gate but not the first one. What would
happen if anyone learned about a whole other crystal intact within
the monolith?

Josh jumped into the expectant
silence, saving her the trouble. "You said the Risaal captured you
and Elis."

"Yes—"

"And they're an ancient enemy of the
Inari." Josh looked up at Nare, but she shrugged.

"Never heard of them."

"I'm not surprised," Raea said. "That
was twelve thousand years ago and the homeworld was devastated. The
first emissary to the Risaal homeworld was given a gift the Risaal
demanded back and they attacked in retribution."

Nare shook her head. "I never heard of
anything like that in our history." She shrugged and wiped her
eyes. "But our records don't go back that far, I don't
think."

"I'm not surprised. It was twelve
thousand Earth years."

"Likely not then. I think ours only go
back about eight thousand Inari years."

"Then it is possible," Josh
said.

Nare looked to Raea. "With the
Starfire, anything is possible, although I didn't know we had it
back then."

Raea breathed easier, the distraction
of Lady Atia's story calming her emotions. For a while, the pain in
her heart faded and she could focus again.

"So, the Inari founded Atlantis?"
Debbie looked to Nare, who only shrugged.

"Yes," Raea answered. Why did Debbie
always doubt her? "I saw it, but it was the city of Atia and
Lantis."

"What was it like?" Josh
asked.

"I—" Raea caught the warning in
Debbie's gaze and glanced up the stairs. Her cousins. They didn't
know any of this. She shouldn't even have said what she did in the
open. "I'll tell you later. We shouldn't be talking about any of
this here."

"Later, as in…" Josh motioned with his
head in the direction of the yellow house next door.

"Yes." Evelyn knew everything and
lived alone. They could meet there.

"Besides, you might want to run home
and change before later comes." Raea waved the air from her face,
remembering Josh's teasing a couple days ago when she'd
returned.

One corner of his mouth lifted; he
remembered. "Only if you promise to eat."

Raea put a hand to her middle, which
ached for food. She might not eat much, but she needed something.
"I will."

"All right. I'll meet you at Mrs.
Johnson's soon." He offered a quick hug and rushed to the door.
After slipping his shoes on, he hesitated with his hand on the door
knob. "Take care of her."

"I will," Nare and Debbie both
said.

Josh smiled and left them, the door
thumping shut behind him.

"Now," Debbie said, "What do you two
want?"

Raea's insides twisted with the
torment of her grief still fresh. "Not much."

Debbie put an arm around her and gave
a gentle squeeze. "I understand." Her partial embrace and the kiss
on Raea's head filled some of the loneliness.

"Same here," Nare murmured. She pulled
out a chair at the table and sat down, dropping her head in her
hands. "I didn't want to believe it."

While Debbie pulled out a pot in the
kitchen, Raea sat down with her and dropped a hand to Nare's
closest hand. Their fingers tightened in a firm grip of shared
grief.

"Tell me what happened. Debbie and
Josh tried, but…I want to hear it from you."

If she could get through it, Raea
would tell her the story.

"Keep it down." Debbie set
a spoon on the counter with a clatter and hushed her voice. "Voices
echo. I hope they
are
still sleeping."

Nare's eyes glazing with tears begged
for sympathy and she pulled off one of her gloves to expose her
Starburst mark. "Will you show me?"

The Starburst mark was smaller than
Raea expected, smaller than even Elis's marks. Somehow Raea had
expected more from Saffir's granddaughter.

"I…"

"Please. I want to know."

Raea hesitated. "I haven't learned how
to connect to the mind of another."

"Then don't. Just remember those last
moments. I'll just see them."

It sounded easy, but it was so
intimate. One could expose their entire lives to another, every
moment, even those they wished to keep hidden, like the shame of
ignoring Elis for two years or the most arousing moments of their
time together.

"I'm sorry. It's personal for
you."

Raea's hand clasped onto Nare's before
she second-guessed herself. "Do it." Nare would finally realize how
generous and brave her cousin was, something she had never
acknowledged. Raea would show her.

"Think back," Nare
whispered.

Raea struggled against the agony of
her heart but remembered their escape from the complex. Sensations
flooded back in perfect clarity since the bathroom escape. She saw
herself kill Risaal and their escape through the emergency hatch.
The pain of growing her wings warmed through her, but not with the
searing sharpness of the actual process. Then she saw it and
choked—the blast hit Elis.

No!
It hurt so much all over again. She didn't want to see it, but
Nare had to know.

Raea watched her own attempt at
reviving him. The tingle of the power through her hands over
his…

Something flashed through her mind,
erasing the scene of blood on her hands.

What was that?
Nare's voice echoed inside her head.

I don't know. I haven't
done enough healing.

I have. That's not right.
That was something else. Think back.

Raea did as instructed and returned to
that moment of healing. Someone called her name from
afar.

That was him!

What?

Elis. He connected to
you…but why?

Why indeed. The prospect
gave her a glimmer of hope. What had he tried to say?
Can you help me?

Focus on that
moment.

Raea took a breath and did as Nare
instructed. In the flash, she was transported to another
place…

.

Sand everywhere. Glaring.
Waving. At the horizon, it turned to water in a mirage of
heat.

Somewhere beyond the
dunes, a precise point broke the smooth lines. Not far from there,
the square, stiff lines of a city thrust from the
desert.

Something pulled her west,
into the desert. Raea closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of
something waiting, something calling to her. A power familiar but
distant burned through her.

When she opened her eyes,
the desert raced past until she stood at the edge of a long canyon
of sandstone and brush. Goats bleated nearby, accompanied by the
tinkle of bells from the collars around their necks and a boy's
voice in a strange language. A shallow stream flowed across the
rocky bed at the bottom of the canyon, accented by green plants
along its edge.

Caves and stone ruins
dotted the far side. Before one of the stone buildings sat an old
man, his gray beard like a cone and a turban on his head. He held
up a gnarled and bony hand, a familiar black symbol tattooed on the
palm, and motioned with a gesture to follow him. In a moment, she
stood by him and he bowed his head and made a gesture she could
only interpret as respect; then he stood and motioned for her to
join him inside the dwelling.

From the darkness, a
single light shone out, a faint greenish blue that warmed her in
its familiarity…

.

Raea gasped and broke the connection
with Nare. "Where'd that come from?" It wasn't like any Starfire
vision she'd ever had. The man was a protector.

"Not your memory?"

"No." She'd never been to any desert.
It started by what looked like…"Giza." Her heart froze on a
realization. It couldn't be. "He wanted me to open a portal to
Giza. He said it was the closest landmark."

"That last part looked like…a shard."
Nare frowned.

"It…was." The fifth shard. The
Eye.

Blue eyes studied her. "That's
impossible."

Raea took a deep breath. Nare had
discovered their secret. Not even Debbie knew.

Not even Debbie knew. They shouldn't
be discussing that there. "I'll tell you more…later."

"Same as Josh later?"

"Something like that."

"Is this something I'm not supposed to
know about?"

Debbie. Raea had forgotten she
listened and grimaced—they had spoken in English. "Kind
of?"

Her aunt set plates in front of them.
"I understand." Her hand stroked Raea's hair. "Just be
careful…please?" Her kiss on Raea's forehead made it impossible to
say no. Although Debbie wasn't truly related, she had been Raea's
mother for thirteen years, and a loving one in spite of her
husband’s objections.

"I will."

Without another word,
Debbie returned to the stove, where the sizzle of eggs came from
the frying pan. Raea's stomach gurgled. "
After
we eat."

The vision replayed in her mind while
she waited silently for breakfast. She could only imagine Nare
dwelled on it also. It had to be the Eye. Elis had said the
Pyramids were the closest landmark. In his final moments, he had
used her healing connection to transfer that image to her mind. He
wanted her to find it. She would do it for him.

And she had a Keeper for it already.
How convenient that Nare had come. She would have the chance to
prove her worth after all this time belittling Elis. They would see
once and for all what the Starfire thought.

* * *

"Now, tell me what this is all about."
Nare closed the door behind her and bent down to pull off her
shoes.

Having already kicked hers
off and moved to the stairway from the foyer, Raea said in a hushed
voice, "Up stairs,
quietly.
Evelyn's still sleeping."

Nare grimaced and followed her to the
room at the top of the stairs, the room Nare had slept in when she
visited three weeks ago. It was the safest place to discuss the
Starfire but above Evelyn's bedroom. The old widow wouldn't
normally awaken for another half hour or more, and Raea didn't want
to intrude. Hopefully Josh would realize that when he arrived. It
was only a half past seven in the morning.