The Shifting Tides of History

By Shiva Winters

~* Book 5 of the Salak'patan Series *~

The clocks have turned and time has passed since Monorth was snatched out of their shared lives on the edge of the unexplored hallways, but for the family he has left behind, Hope is a thing both dangerous and all important. Though they have found proof of his journey through history and been reassured that his fate has not yet been decided as he tries to fight his way back through the quagmire of forgotten history to rejoin them, the answer to that all important question has not yet been written into that history. Will Monorth be able to navigate his way through the past or is it his destiny to be fade into annuls of forgotten lore, far from home and alone. Even though Monorth has fulfilled his promise to guide and nurture a being capable of making time-travel possible and see to it that she reached the future to fulfill an all important role for all the peoples of the Salak'patan, his fate remains in doubt.

For the family he has left behind the Hope that keeps them moving forward even as it threatens to break their hearts, the search has been given a powerful new champion to aid them in their search for answers. Jynx, the Avatar who is the fulfillment of Monorth's promise and a being capable of making time travel a reality, has joined them in their sanctuary and become a part of their increasingly strange family, but she can only offer them hints of where her creator might have been. So it is that the search for answers goes on, and it leads all of them into the last direction they might have expected, into the very same history that has prevented Monorth from returning to them. Will they find the answers they hope to find or will they discover the truth that they all fear, only time will tell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shiva Winters
• Release date: Aug 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301417193

Shiva Winters

I know, I am supposed to come on here and give everyone some deep insight into who I am and the nature of my existence, but for all that I have been writing for better than half my life and have been publishing the results of those efforts for several years, I have not in the past nor will I likely in the future do such a thing. To be perfectly honest, I am simply and without question just not that interesting, personally or professionally, perhaps that is an assessment that is overly humble or unfair, but it's a truth that is nevertheless fundamental. In a day and in the age when seemingly everyone is all too eager to document their every personal detail and display their every passing thought, I personally can find no compelling reason to do the same. Call it a quirk, call it a choice, or call it my own personal form of crazy, but there is me living through the dull-drums of existence and there are my books which at their core are the stories I've told myself over the years, and one category is considerably more interesting to me than the other.When I first started writing, all those years ago, I didn't begin by putting words to a page for profit, or because I had delusions that one day I'd be celebrated for my efforts. I did it because it seemed like it might be a good way to pass the time, and in that moment, though I hardly understood it at that time, I found something when I wasn't looking for it. Since then, as time has passed, and I have honed my abilities, the underlying element of that moment of self-discovery hasn't truly changed, Entertainment. I don't write books because I can, I certainly don't write them for the sake of profit, though there is a glimmer of hope that one day there might be more of that. I write books because it's fun for me, it is my own strange kind of hobby and my own odd form of self-entertainment. And even if were to reach a point on some future day where the scales tip and I feel that this whole attempt to publish the results of my efforts is no longer viable, I will undoubtedly keep writing, if only for my own sake. I first published my books after a long and troubled decision making process, which ultimately weighed out marginally in the favor of the idea, that perhaps because I liked my books a great deal, that perhaps there were people in the world who would find an equal amount of joy in them. While at times there has been good reasons to doubt that belief there have been moments when that belief has proven true.I am not like most writers, that is a truth best acknowledged right up front, I don't write my books thinking to imitate another author with their pulse pounding action, high drama, or unending tension. I write the stories I find interesting, create the worlds I think are cool, to follow the characters I like, through the events that unfold in front of both them and myself as we work our way towards whatever may come. I don't plot out my novels, I don't outline the story, I don't pre-program the dialogue, and often enough even I am surprised by the end of the current chapter as things change on a whim. My books are an organic process that grow and shift, free from over-sight and restrictions and ultimately often lead to place not even I can predict. Whether those who read my books like what comes of my strange hobby is more often than not is my very last concern, and while I might feel compelled to apologize for that being the case, it doesn't or won't change the facts in the end. Each book and each series I write are a result of the page's progress through the succession of each line and paragraph, loyal only to the facts on the page and require only the input of myself as a conduit in allowing those words to progress through their natural courses. So the end results of those efforts often enough take a path not even I expected, but I for one won't and will never change that fact.My books are often strange and unexpected, I feel it is only right to acknowledge this, and there have been some in the past who have taken exception with that fact, angry that I did not meet their expectations. But I did not write my books for them, I wrote them for myself, selfish though that is, and I certainly did not publish my stories for them. Ultimately I publish my books for the small percentage of people who might read them and like them, and for the occasional bits of far flung joy I get from having people tell me how and why they enjoyed something I wrote. If you are one of those readers who starts a book with expectations and the belief that it is the writer's job to meet those expectations, please look elsewhere. But if you are one of those readers who reads simply for the joy of it, without expectations of what you might find, than I hope you will like what I have written.

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The Shifting Tides of History

Book 5 of the Salak'patan Series

By Shiva Winters

Copyright 2013 Shiva Winters

Smashwords Edition

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This book is licensed for personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with other people, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it please return to Smashwords to purchase your own copy. This book may not be copied, reproduced, or distributed without the express written permission of the Author. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the Author, and the dedication of the Smashwords staff.

Chapter One: A Tale of Two Tragedies

It was a night that he could never have forgotten not in ten years, and not if he had lived to be five thousand years old. Because it was a night that would forever seared into his memory, and had been replayed over and over across until it was impossible to have forgotten a single detail. He had only been ten years old when it had happened, originally, far too young to be ready to face the world alone, and far too naive and sheltered to ever think that bad things could happen to good people. His parents had been just those sorts of good people, kind and understanding, brilliant and down to earth, friendly and compassionate. And despite having intensely logical and scientific minds, they had never become so separated from reality that they had ever forgotten about the beating hearts and the emotions that drove most people. They had been scientists of the highest caliber, at the top of their fields and highly respected, and if it hadn't been for that night he was certain one day they would have become famous for some major discovery. They had both been recruited out of a privately owned research facilities with promises of the most modern equipment and the most cutting edge research to be found in the Halls. Drawn in part by promises that were only partially the truth, nevertheless they had been lured away from their reputable careers by those promises. Consigned to where they would be slipped behind a veil of secrets and classified projects, and where Amila Canast and Deroon Lambori would never gain the acclaim that they deserved from their community. From that day forward everything they would do, would be classified top secret by the Center, their names and their hard work buried in governmental double talk and bureaucracy. Not even the facts and mysteries surrounding their deaths would ever be told beyond the small mentions of their mutual demise in an 'Incident Report', not even their own child would be allowed to see.

They hadn't known each other, hadn't ever met in the world outside of the top secret facility where they were taken after being recruited, and had known about each other only through their mutual reputations within the scientific community. Rin could remember his father making a fearful face across the dining room table at his mother when he mentioned his wife's 'reputation', in the hushed tones of a man who feared being hunted down for even mentioning it. His mother had laughed and threw a handful of beans at him with loving outrage, and telling him to behave while proclaiming, 'She wasn't that bad'. Their first meeting had been in the ultra-serious environment of a top-secret board room, sat across from each other, at a table packed full of grim faced military officers, stone-faced security officers, and flushed, almost frightened, fellow researchers, and even then they claimed it was love at first sight. They were married a few months short of a year after that first meeting, a service overseen by the base's military commanding officer, and attended by a collection of personnel from the base. Sometimes Rin wondered if even their marriage was officially 'top secret', much less his own birth 2 years later, or if their marriage and his existence had been swept under the proverbial rug as well. His parents had stumbled into one of the classic blunders, allowing themselves to be recruited into the service by the Research Division of the Center military hierarchy, that was an unacknowledged division of the Great Council, the centralized 'Government' of governments throughout the Salak'patan. While they might have been free to retire, so that they could slip out from beneath the heel of an organization that didn't 'officially' exist, and gone back to work for one of the smaller governments or one of the many corporations. But his parents were of the sort who thrived on a challenge, and scientifically, the Great Council, the Center, and all those things that were part of those somewhat undescriptive monikers, were at the cutting edge of science and research.

Rin had been born a little less than two years later, somewhat to the surprise of his parents who had been honestly too busy to have yet discussed the possibility of children. But despite being unplanned and the result of their genuine love for one another, he was born to parents that loved him even more than the science that brought both of them together. Throughout the ten years that would follow, Rin was never given any reason to think or feel that he was unloved or unwanted, his parents no matter how tired, from their long days in their varied labs with their varied projects, always made certain they had time to play with him, talk to him, and put him to bed each night. Rin was never once given reason to think that there was anything wrong or unusual with his life or theirs, as he and his parents were moved from time to time between research facilities and shifted between projects. As far as he was concerned in his child-like ignorance, all parents and all children had homes deep underground as a part of highly secured military run facilities, and this was in fact completely normal. But just as it was with so many things that related to child like ignorance and innocence, Rin was destined to abruptly and painfully lose those false perceptions. By the time he was ten and had unknowingly reached a predestined day when everything would change, it had not or would not have seemed at all out of the ordinary to see his parents worried about their research, or something they had planned for that night or following day. They had always been working hard to meet deadlines or under pressure from one of their superiors or another. So there was no reason for him to worry his innocent little head over that air of tension hovering over their small shared apartment. And so as they tucked him into his bed, after each in turn kissing and hugging him while wishing him 'sweet dreams', there had not been a single reason to worry as they switched off the lights. All that changed when the whole facility was rocked by a series of intense explosions that threw him out of his bed, while all the lights throughout the entire facility suddenly went dark, with the only sound being that of the exterior door of their apartment locking him inside.

The uncountable hours that had followed could have been nothing less than an endless eternity for a ten year old boy, locked inside a light-less interior of his parent's apartment with nothing but the fear that something even worse might come at any moment. What felt like centuries later there was one last wave of shaking, and then there had been nothing but silence for a great many hours after that. At long last the lights would flicker back into life, but it would be nearly a whole day before the apartment door opened. On the far side of that door he had found nothing more than stern faced men and women who had invaded that once peaceful place that had once felt like his home. It was the dark man with sad eyes that had pulled him aside when no one else seemed to notice a lost and frightened child among them. He was the man who had taken time out of his days to play fight across a practice ring with a boy that he hardly knew and could easily beat, but instead had been patiently teaching Rin the ways of the sword. He was the one to tell Rin that his parents were gone, and had tried to save Rin's childhood spirit from being crushed by the knowledge that he was now alone in the world. With a new kind of darkness stirring in his heart, Rin stayed at that facility for two weeks under the care of his parent's friends and colleagues, who had tried to keep him from falling completely into that darkness. He had been given promises that something better was waiting for him in the future but Rin had not been in mood to listen, because none of those adults would tell him the truth of what happened to his parents. It was another night two weeks later when he was given the very first chance to pull his heart away from becoming hard and cold.

Ever since the night of the accident, he had spent most of his hours hiding in the training rooms, imagining the days when he might find out the truth, and take revenge on those responsible for his parent's death. Only that man who seemed for some reason to actually care about him, the man who helped him that next day, and who continued to give him more than just an imaginary opponents on which to take out his rage, he was the only one who ever really cared to check on Rin's childhood self. They were both there when the alarms sounded throughout the facility and that man launched away towards danger. And without a second thought Rin was launching after him, armed only with wooden practice swords, in some ways eager to recklessly throw himself towards the chances that he might die. He could never have kept up with that man's pace as he launched towards the source of the problem, but Rin blinded by sadness and rage he continued to follow seeking something, anything that would let him bring those empty feelings to an end. So it was that when the man in black appeared in the distance, Rin let out his best battle cry, and lunged into the fight wielding his childish weapons.

It took only one crystal blade, three movements, a kick, and less than a dozen heartbeats for Rin to be defeated completely, left bruised and battered and struggling to catch the breath knocked out of him. With that dark unknown figure standing over him holding a glowing crystal blade in a practiced confident grip, Rin knew what it was to face a real opponent, he knew that he was at the end of his short pointless life. Bleeding over one eye, gasping for breath from the kick to the chest, disarmed and defeated he would have welcomed the end of it all, but then came the voice. It was a voice of a full grown man, a man who knew Rin's pain, understood Rin's anger, and who told him to not throw away his life, to not give into the anger, to live towards the day when he could help others and prevent children like him from feeling the same kind of pain Rin felt just then.

That had been the night that changed everything for a second time, that had been the night when his life had started over and the path towards his future had opened up. It would have been impossible at any age to think that he would have to relive the night his parents died for a second time, that he could find out that it was an even more painful experience than he had first known. He could never have guessed that at 26 he would lose the woman he loved to that very same night, that very same accident that had taken his parents. Nor could he have guessed that after a painful and silent 2 weeks of waiting in the shadows, that he would now have to break into that same place and steal what had taken the three most important people in his life from him and snatched them away. But all of these things were true, undeniable, and now even more painful than that original moment of pain that had threatened to close up and lock away his heart once before. He had spent those two weeks of agony hidden away in the broken landscape that surrounded that top-secret facility, with nothing else to have occupied his circling thoughts and no distractions from it, not even in sleep had there been peace and not even in his dreams had the torment truly ended. Only because of the fact that this matter was of an importance that he couldn't accurately measure, had he managed to stay 'on task' when all he wanted to descend into a rage and burn that world clean.

<> Ten whispered to him darkly her own mental voice echoing the same terrible grief that had been chewing away at his own heart all that time. The Fire cat was 9 years old and had already lost one of her own children to the events that had brought all of them 16 years into the past for his destined meeting with his child-like self, and she had endured those hellish two weeks right along side him. Sian, Ten's companion, Rin's love, and the person responsible for saving his life from an accident that would have taken millions of lives and destroyed the planet where all of them now stood, had stopped those events that had taken his parents from him at the cost of her own life.

<> Jario agreed, an Ulin, a member of the spirit children of energy, and Rin's own companion. All at once Jario was carrying the three of them across that distance so that they were suddenly no longer looking down at the facility from the hills above, but rather standing at the entrance below. The accident had been two weeks before, Rin's need and desire to understand what it was that had taken his parents from this world, had all but driven Sian out of their sheltered hiding place and into a facility swarming with the agents from the Center, the same military responsible for his parent's death. She was sent in to investigate the accident and gather information for their predestined break-in and theft of the magical objects blameless and yet still responsible for the intertwined tragedy. During that investigation Sian had been forced to stop an even worst accident from destroying those objects, stopping them from overloading into a explosion that would have taken all of their lives, past and future, and those same objects he now had to steal . Sian might well have remained among the living since she had not yet been born, but her father would have died and forever changed the course of her future, and Rin would have been killed in that same catastrophic moment.

Even as Jario's presence left him and Ten, veering off on a near undetectable path to disrupt the layers of security that would stop them from completely this task, Ten took over carrying him forward past the well guarded front entrance and into the depths facility beyond that. Carried along by a copied Ulin technique, flash-steps, the rapid-fire teleportations sent the two of them burning across that distance, and circumventing the first layers of security effortlessly. Unfortunately this form of movement, could only carry them so far because of the dense magical shield walls resting between them and the objects they were there to retrieve, so their forward progress came to a halt some distance beyond the surface layer of the facility. Rin's senses returned and they were standing in the lit interior corridor, empty save for the two of them, with one of the emergency exit ladders nearby, sealed behind a secured metal hatch. Even knowing that it would take Jario time to get everything into place on his end, Rin's memories had already told them that the alarm would sound before all of this was over, so without a second's hesitation Rin was spinning open the door locks, and pulling open the hatch. As he climbed inside, he gripped the ladder between his gloved hands and feet, just as the intruder alarms began to blare throughout the facility around them. As Rin braced himself, Ten made a surprised sound as Rin suddenly began to fall down the dangerously long shaft, his hands and feet sliding along the outer rails that held the ladder together. The intense heat of the friction made the soles of his feet and the palms of his gloved hands grow quite warm as the two of them dropped twelve stories straight down and deep into the lower levels of the facility. He caught himself on a telekinetic cushion and exploded the next hatch straight of its' hinges, before lunging into a full run through the lower corridors, heading towards the room where Ten had watched her companion disappear from existence.

They were almost at the doors, having not yet encountered any resistance, when Jario's work was completed and the security systems went down, snapping many of the magical barriers out of commission and ending the alarms. Without having to circumvent the alarms or blow open the doors, Rin only needed to telekinetically force apart the massive steel structures of those doors, just enough to allow them to slip inside. The images that Ten had carried back to them from the room where his parents' final experiment had taken place, seemed far more chaotic than the scene that greeted them that night, two weeks later. Once filled with miles of cables and burnt out scientific equipment, the room had been stripped clean save for the four massive faceted magin objects that had come within seconds of exploding and were partly responsible for that duel tragedy. They were the only contents of the room, each at least 10 feet high and 2 feet thick as they hovered silently in the distance and glowed with the only soft light to illuminate the scene. The only sign that this was indeed the place where his parents were taken from him was the wide shallow crater in the center of the room, scrapped from the concrete floor halfway across the length of that space.

<> Ten whispered, her own sadness whispering through her telepathic reminder. Rin nodded soundlessly and hurried around the edges of his parent's would be gravestone and towards the magin objects on the far side. The fourth form of magical energy, the condensed and hardened by-product of worlds with high levels of magical energy, they were a dangerous substance at the best of times. So when the glow of the objects changed and the energy of the room shifted, Rin was stopped dead in his tracks only to be blinded by the intense light of some unknown thing happening right in front of them.

What the hell!?! The words came from the direction of the retreating light and a voice neither of them expected to hear. When his vision clear he discovered that he was looking up at Sian returned from the grave or snatched back into reality looking around the room with surprised confusion. She turned and found them standing there and that smile that had melted his heart so many times before, it returned to her features as a silent giggle seemed to dance through the air. Are you breaking in young man, that's a very naughty thing to do. She waggled a finger at him just like her frightening mother might have done.

Uh.. Rin whispered feeling almost as if he might start crying or cackling madly into the night at any moment that might follow that one.

No time for that now. Sian stated as all at once her light-hearted mood seemed to vanish, and that cold calculated sense of determination, that was another of her hallmarks, returned in full force. Let's get these and us the hell out of here before anything else can go wrong. That was so very like her and something that was so very welcome to his ears that he was able to shake himself free of those intensely confused feelings. Ten was gone from his shoulder a heartbeat later and on hers in the next, demanding and in desperate need of assurance that she was indeed there and not the figment of their fevered imaginations. With a magical snap and a magical ability more advanced than his own, even if she was a full decade his junior, Sian snatched up all four of the massive objects and stored them away into a pocket reality where they would be safe, secure, and weightless during the escape to follow.

Even as the three of them turned to make for the exit of the now empty room, they discovered that they were no longer alone in the space. An immensely powerful figure of a man holding a golden blade back-lit by the hallway lights was suddenly there blocking their exit, he practically burned with the sense that this was a man who was beyond dangerous and not to be trifled with ever. Sian's breaths went cold, her body seemed frozen, and even Rin felt his own intense pang of uncertainty at memories of his youth. There did not need to be any words between him and his beloved as they both knew who this man was, and who it was that must face him, warned as much by this man's own words and handwriting. He was the man who had watched over Rin all those years ago, Agent Captain Monorth, the first man to encourage Rin along the path he had one day grown old enough to follow. For Sian, this was perhaps even more painful a confrontation than it would have been for him, this was her father, the man who had brought Ten into her life, the one who had given her much of her early training, and set her on the path of life she now followed without question. In those long tense seconds that followed, Sian's fingers found his and something warm was pressed into palm of his hand, tingling with strong unseen magics.

<> Sian ordered him, this was the confrontation he had wanted to avoid at all costs, and the one that Sian had known was coming and could not avoid. The pocket reality spells that held their cargo of magin objects was transferred over into his keeping silently, and with just the smallest waver as the magics within it warred somewhat with magics containing them. <> There was no hesitation left, Rin grabbed the tiny magin crystal in his fist, and launched across the space straight ahead towards that dangerous figure and the exit he was blocking. Even as he started across the floor, that dark figure and that golden blade were launching towards him in turn making that sense of danger all too pointed and frightening. Almost at the minute that he was about to be struck down Ten was again on his shoulder and he was being snapped across to the other side of the attack figure. Even as his run launched him out of the room he could hear the sharp crystalline strike of Sian catching her father's blade, and giving him someone and something he couldn't ignore in order to pursue Rin.

<> Ten hissed back at her companion as Rin raced for his own predestined meeting, already fingering the magin sword that he remembered being held on him threateningly, so long ago when his life had changed for a second time.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Sian wasn't entirely certain what had happened, how it was that time could have passed without her being aware of it, how she could disappear after stopping that disaster, only to reappear two weeks later as if nothing had happened, but in the grand scheme of things she didn't exactly have time to contemplate these mysteries. Ten had been deeply reluctant to go even though she knew escaping was their priority, she had been desperate to stay with her after thinking her dead and gone for two whole weeks. But Rin would not have gotten past her father without a fight, not without Ten, as he was not yet able to emulate the Ulin flash-step technique, as Ten already could. As her companion disappeared from her shoulder and her boyfriend disappeared from sight, Sian fired across the distance with her blades leaping into her hands to catch her father's sweeping strike and giving him no choice as to who his opponent would be. As it had always been, the shock of stopping his blade was immense, carrying with it a power and precision she would spend her whole life trying to emulate. And she had to fight back a bitter surge of pain soaked memories of all the times they had playfully circled one another across the practice mats of their home, but now was not the time for those thoughts.

You're pretty quick. Came the dangerously low, throaty growl as Sian reappeared locking his three foot long golden blade with her foot long crystal clear dagger held in back hand fashion, while its' twin waited for the fight to truly beginning. Again she had to stop a flood of memories from overwhelming her, only too aware that this would be the first time she would wield her own ultimate weapon against his own.

I'm faster than you.. you may be stronger, but I have no fear of the Seven Legendary Blades, no matter whose hands it might follow. His eyes narrowed with a dark suspicion, an uncertain anger that she knew what it was that she faced, because no one, not even Sian's mother, suspected he carried such a weapon in this portion of that time-line. The words her mother had passed along just before the four of them had started this journey echoed sharply through her thoughts just then, a fearful reminder that her father had been even more dangerous at this point in his life, made more so by his considerable temper.

They declared you dead.. He growled as his weight shifted by a mere fraction, a subtle and obvious warning to Sian's practiced eyes and well trained instincts, that he was about to do something dangerous. .. even though no one knew who you were or why you were here. He added trying to probe the growing mystery that surrounded her and would make him remember this night well enough that he would later provide Sian and the others with the clue that would ultimately make this encounter a reality.

I am no one to you.. yet. Sian whispered back as she prepared herself for whatever was about to come. But I was here to stop a disaster.. and make sure another one can't follow.. He launched backwards and unleashed a explosive wave of magical ice in her direction, that swept across the floor between them and filled the air with sharp sword like protrusions exploding upward at her. Sian pulled a sideways flash-step out of the range of the magical strike, caught herself on one foot, and was just as quickly lunging in another direction to slam back into him on the far side of that spreading spell. Her spinning lightning quick strikes drove him backwards as he tried desperately to fend her off, not quite as skilled he would be in the years to come, and by no means a match for the lessons that he had pounded into her throughout the years of her youth and adolescence. He countered the only way he could by slamming forward with the intense power of his own telekinetic gifts, fracturing the concrete where she had stood just a second before as she dove back and away from him, breaking her rhythm for just half a racing heartbeat. This time he was not to be overtaken and he reversed his steps as quick as a striking snake, and was on her in that faltering heartbeat when she tried to reverse her own instinctive movement of retreat.

Forced into being temporarily on the defensive as he slammed into her with the sheer brute strength he had in spades, and he kept her off balance as he drove her back with strikes too accurate to avoid completely. This time when his fire spell struck Sian was prepared for him and his ferocity, simply brushing the strike off like it had come from an amateur with an intense short lived shield that parted that wave of incoming flame out to either side of her. It was his turn to be caught off guard and put on the defensive as Sian countered his instinctive back step, and as she began to drive him back in the other direction with a series of spinning strikes and deadly lunges far too quick for him to fend off easily. When she struck at him with her own telekinetic gift, slamming into the floor right as his feet just as they reached the outer edge of the cratered floor, she managed to catch him unaware and unprepared to fend her off. He was thrown backwards with a decreasing momentum that cost him his balance and footing, as he was sent slamming backwards into the huge steel doors with enough force to knock the wind out of him and leave him stunned just long enough for her to finish the flash-step needed to pursue him to the end of that involuntary movement. Sian skidded into position slamming one of her blades deep into the metal door pinning his sword between the curved guard of her blade and the door behind him while the other just barely nicked his chin from below. Even if he did strike by other means than his weapon he would be killed or seriously wounded just the same as she would be.

Was that what it was about.. saving those things from destruction so you could simply steal them away in the middle of the night? He demanded looking down into her eyes. This was a man who would have welcomed death if it would end his own suffering, so there was no fear in that intense gaze, she knew that without question or doubt. By the time he would come into her life that same pain would have faded, but she doubted that it would ever leave him completely.

No.. It is about so much more than you can understand right now. Sian whispered back to him, knowing she shouldn't be having even the mere ghost of a conversation with him but simply unable to stop herself, because even as her enemy he was still her father. The Center can't be trusted any more with them, they are too powerful, too dangerous. And there are forces at work within the Center that would make them into a weapon, a force for conquest and destruction, and I can not and will not allow that to happen.

Than kill me, if you must. He whispered.

I said the Center, not you.. I don't want to kill you.. you are too important to the future. Just let us go.. tell them you didn't get here quick enough.. Sian whispered back pleading with him to simply let this matter drop, hoping to find just a small glimmer of the man he would one day become, praying that the Universe was not so cruel that she would have to turn her blades against her own father. We can't trust the Center with something like this, please you must believe me. She stared into those eyes, desperately wishing for this to work, even as her eyes got blurry as she was again forced to realize just how very much she missed having this man as part of her life.

Promise me I will never come to regret it.. He whispered down to her his eyes continuing to glare, penetrating straight through her until that sharpened gaze nicked the edge of her very soul.

I swear on my life and that of my father's.. Sian whispered back to him no longer able to meet that intense gaze, dropping her bleary gaze to some vague shadow touching his muscular chest.

Go. He ordered softly and without another word. Almost as if words had been an order, Sian was launching through the doors and down the corridors as fast as she could manage, lunging almost fearfully towards Rin's distant presence. She had almost managed to regain her self-control by the time she found him standing over a little boy in a dark hallway with one of his magin blades drawn. His words barely reached her ears, but as those final syllables dropped across the still air had ended, the power supply to the base kicked out of commission. The next second Jario and Ten were there snatching both of them out of the corridor and carrying them both far away from the base. As they reached some far distant point of temporary safety, Sian couldn't have been entirely certain who had just had the worst experience, and with sheathed blades they were closing the distance between them, both desperate to be in the other's arms, both struggling to hold back tears.

Let's get the hell out of here. He whispered even as in the near distant gates began snap into being, bringing reinforcements into the area, a flood of people much like ants whose hill had just been kicked over. There was little debate and no hesitation as Sian snapped a gate of their own into focus, one that would snap them across a series of worlds and render their ultimate destination untraceable.

What is this place? It was a question with a pretty good answer, but an answer that was not by any means a short one. In truth they should never have gone there, under just about every circumstance, especially when carrying an arsenal of some of the most destructive objects yet known, but Sian, of course, wasn't about to tell her boyfriend about that. After all, there was perhaps only so much his mind he could take, and he had been through enough for the time being without further straining his sanity. It was hard enough for her to think that she stood in a time and place nearly two months before she would be born, and she was used to the level of crazy her family played at. She and Rin were currently hovering in a state of temporal displacement, having been sent back into time 16 years into their own pasts, so the fact that they had just committed a theft against the most powerful military organization in the Halls, barely registered on the strangeness meter in the back of her mind.

The last place that we should ever go, and therefore the very last place someone would think to look for us, even if they suspected a world like this might exist. Sian whispered to him as the winds danced around them and across the massive and empty city that spread literally out past the horizons in every direction. This time and on this visit there was just the touch of a presence on those winds, a feeling too ill-defined to ever put into words and perhaps present in the changed perspective she had for those familiar scenes seen 15 years in the future when she had her very first visit to this place. This was one of the cities of the Ancients, a place older than their was history to go along with it, and one that had abandoned and forgotten so long ago even she struggled to comprehend the amount of time since someone last stood there. The super-city around them had long since been over-run by encroaching nature so while it was still possible to make out the lines of buildings, it was harder to define them among the softer lines of the canopy and greenery trying to consume what was there. They called it the Stronghold of the Stars.. She added as she turned away from the wind and refocused on him, putting aside some her slightly disturbed thoughts.

They? He asked with a simple precision that was enviable in a family that had more secrets than the stars in the sky over their heads. It perhaps did not help the warm tingly feelings Sian felt for him, that he was perhaps the most handsome man she had ever encountered, and in those shifting winds the air stirred through his dark blue-black hair in such a way that took her breath away. His sea-blue eyes turned towards her and he smiled in such a way that told her she was not the only one to find a sight of beauty directly in the sights of their wandering gazes. As he watched her his head tilted just a little to the side as he waited for his answer making it even more impossible not to realize how beautiful he was, even as that smile stirred her heartbeat into a quicker pace. It was hard to think that their relationship had only just begun some three months earlier, and had only seen a month where she felt ready to talk freely of all the things that shifted through the foreground of her daily existence, since in so short a time she had developed feelings for him that penetrated to a depth she had never known had existed within her.

We don't know.. or rather we never had the chance to figure that out. Sian told him with a small smile. I suspect that the Tribe of Energy was initially behind the construction of this city.. but this place is so massive it might take decades for us to find the proof of that. Rin's eyes grew wide as he turned again to gaze out across the broken landscape of the city searching for the man-made lines against those created by the nature that was reclaiming it. The spells hovering just out of sight from Sian's mage-sight gave another twinge as if reminding her silently that they were too powerful to be contained by her spells. Now was the time when she needed to make a decision as her magical efforts began to wear at her strength.

Why come here? He asked her softly, as if knowing without words being exchanged that she was never so careless to do something for simply one reason, a habit picked up from both her Mother and her Father.

This is the furthest point in the Halls from the Center that I know of and can create a gate too. That also means that Jynx's location is far enough way.. Sian released her containment spells and shifted the mass of magin crystalline objects out into the area around them making that already limited space seem much more cramped than before. The four massive objects were large enough to fill up the relatively small space of their high perch atop on of the massive towers that dotted the landscape of the city around them. Sian could still remember the night eight of them had spent on that very same tower a year ago and 15 years into the future. Sian watched the objects appear from within the spells and prayed that this might not be as bad an idea as she feared it to be, but made ready