“Pride. And he wanted to seem as though he were a fierce warrior,” Chloe said. It was what she sensed from him when she saw the memory. “It was strange, watching that happen. As though I were standing there with him. As if it were in real time.”
“You have the power of the Past,” Evie said on a breath. “That means, Bri—”
“Has the power of the Future.”
“What does this mean?” Evie asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what purpose it serves for me to see the past,” she said.
“Perhaps there is something more you have to learn yet. Something you have to see about the stone,” Evie suggested. “Maybe something in the past.”
Chloe was shaking her head as she said it. “I don’t want to learn anything else about the past or the keystone.”
“Why not?”
Chloe took another bite and eyed her over the near empty bread bowl. “The power of the stone is all-consuming, Eve. Didn’t you feel it when you used it? And that reminds me. Malcolm told me about your power. Why didn’t you? You left that part out.”
She flushed. “Oh, well. I was throwing a lot at you at the time. I didn’t want to overwhelm you.”
“I’m overwhelmed,” she said tersely. “The prophecy, the keystone, being here. You.”
“Me? Why do I overwhelm you?” She sounded utterly shocked.
“You’re married. No,correction, you’re handfasted. A year and a day. I wasn’t there for you. I thought we agreed we would be in each other’s weddings?”
Chloe hadn’t realized how much it hurt to learn her sister had married the man of her dreams without her. They were thirteen when they had made that pact and Chloe hadexperienced her first heartbreak. Evie, in an effort to console her sister, promised her she would marry one day, and she could be her maid of honor.
“I-I don’t know what to say, Chlo. I’m sorry. Everything happened so fast and, well, you were in the future. I didn’t know if I would ever see you again and I—” She paused as she choked on a sob.
It killed Chloe to see her eyes fill with tears. Guilt swarmed through her. She hadn’t meant to upset her. She heaved a sigh and reached for her hand, squeezing it in hers.
“It’s all right. And don’t be sorry. You’re right. I was in the future, hundreds of years away from you.”
She released her hand and sat back, peering down into the empty bread bowl. She broke off a piece of the rich, dense bread and popped it in her mouth.
“After that happened with the stone,” Chloe said, picking up her story again, “I felt odd. Lightheaded. Weak. My hand started to bleed through the bandage.”
“That’s the power in you. It drains you,” she said.
“If Malcolm hadn’t been there, I’d probably still be passed out on the floor. He caught me. I woke up in his bed with a fresh bandage on my hand.” She held it up so her sister could see.
“I should have done a better job of bandaging you.”
Chloe said nothing at that as she placed her hand back into her lap. She stared at the half-eaten bread bowl. The words erupted from her before she could stop them.
“He kissed me.”
Evie sucked in a breath of surprise. “He did?”
She cut her a glance. “Don’t get excited. That’s all that happened.”
But Evie’s grin was so bright, her face glowed. Chloe frowned.
“Why does that make you happy?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I want you to be happy. And Malcolm is…” She clamped her mouth shut.
“More handsome than Bruce? Stronger? Better? With eyes like the sea after a storm…” Her words trailed off.
