Timeless

I woke up in a panic realizing it was noon and I was super late for school. Then I remembered how in a week my life had changed and I wasn’t so worried about school anymore. I looked around the empty bedroom wondering where Darien was. I checked the bathroom, but it was empty. Once I got downstairs I realized the house was completely empty. His car was also gone.

I stepped outside and wandered down the driveway checking the driveway next door. The only vehicle was mine. Darien never said I could go see Adriana, and I never had actually promised not to see her so I decided to go over. Besides, I was my own person, I was perfectly capable of doing what I wanted.

The house, as I had expected, was empty. I didn’t say anything as I checked every room downstairs as well as the back yard. I didn’t hear a sound until I reached the top of the stairs, my bedroom door was half open.

“Adriana?” I said softly pushing the door back. She stood there wide-eyed her blonde hair a mess.

“You have to go, Darien will get angry when he finds out you saw me. You shouldn’t know I’m here.” Her voice was pained as she ran over to me wrapping me into a hug. Though she was my younger sister she was six inches taller than I.

“He already knows I know. I think as long as you don’t mention why you are here he won’t.” I pulled back from her and looked into her eyes. “Even if he does I will deal with him.” I walked over to the bed and sat down. “There was something I had to talk to you about. The day before the attack, before I left, you and I were in the garden. Nien came to us and asked why the perimeter guard had been reduced. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, I figured they were off checking the ships that had just come in.”

“Nien, however, was very alarmed. It wasn’t until the next day just before the attack that I had realized what he meant. The guard wasn’t at the docks. Nearly half of them were missing. I had asked just before going out there where they were. No one could tell me. Finally, I found an officer who said that they had been sent out to the west to deal with what was believed to be an attack coming from that side. The funny thing is Adriana, neither Darien nor I had heard about this the day before, and Tulrick’s attack came from the east. I asked the officer who had ordered it.” I watched her face carefully as fear became evident in her expression.

“He looked confused and told me I did. When I told him I had not he then told me that my sister had delivered a letter with my seal on it giving the orders.” I stood up and walked over to the door placing my hand on the door knob. “Be careful sister. Though I don’t know why you did it I will find out. And when I do you should know that if anything has happened to my people or my city you will be the first one I deal with.” I closed the door behind me and left the house.

I knew I couldn’t tell Darien what had happened, he would most likely try to kill her. What she did was wrong, but she was still my sister.

The memories had come flooding back the past few days and I had remembered something very important. I also had control over the air, I just wasn’t sure how to use it.

Those of the royal families who rose to power all has something very important in common. Power over the elements. Some were just born with one, others, like myself, over a couple. My mother had power over the air and my father over the water. When I was born I received their gifts, my sister had not. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for her not to have been born with them. It was just how things were decided. As in Darien and his brothers case things had been different.

Their mother had power over fire, their father had none. His younger brother had inherited his parents gifts over the earth but had died in battle before he came to the throne. Darien and Nicholas were fraternal twins. Though their father had not had any power he had still carried the gene which had been passed onto Nicholas while their mothers had been passed onto Darien. It worked out well seeing as I took power after my parents and someone still needed to run Landock.

They had decided shortly after I was born that Darien and I would marry. Landock was surrounded by mountains and it made sense that Nicholas stay there and take over after his parents abdicated. Nicholas had married Lyla, a princess who had inherited power over air as did her brother. Lyla was a good friend of mine and I had watched as she built one of the greatest armies in nearly a millennia. I knew ours was great, but should we ever find ourselves fighting against them we would be destroyed.

I sat in the backyard for a long time practicing my power of the air. I hadn’t gotten very far when Darien came back. I could manage a small breeze to dry off the sweat on my forehead as the sun began to set.

“What are you doing?” He asked leaning against the sliding door.

“Attempting to manage something larger than a breeze.” I sighed and threw my hands up in defeat. “Or I was, but at the moment I have decided to give up.” I stood up out of the plastic chair, the only thing to sit on back here, and walked over to him. “Where were you?”

“There was something I had to look into.” His tone told me he wasn’t going to explain what it was. “Didn’t you see my note?” I shook my head. “You could have called me.”

“Amazingly I don’t have your number.” I followed him into the house. My stomach rumbled in the silence. I had been so focused on practicing I had forgotten to eat.

“I’ll make you a deal. Let me buy you dinner and I’ll give you my number.” Darien pulled me into a hug kissing the top of my head. I nodded and leaned into him.



“Alana,” Mrs. Caruthers had just walked into the restaurant. “How nice to see you.” Darien wasn’t at the table, he had left just before she walked in to use the restroom. “I saw Jennie, she said the weirdest thing. That you were married to the new neighbor.”

I couldn’t explain the truth to her, and I couldn’t tell her we were, she handled the marriage licenses at the courthouse. My hand were beneath the table and I slid off the actual wedding band. I held up my hand with the engagement ring.

“She must have misunderstood, but we are engaged.”

“But you’ve only known him for a few days!” She cried out, a few people in the restaurant turned to look at her. “He’s so much older than you.” She said quieter.

“What can I say? When you know you know.” As if on cue Darien walked back to the table and slid into his seat across from me.

“Good evening Mrs. Caruthers.” He smiled at her though I could tell he was annoyed by her presence.

“Good evening.” She turned on her heel sharply and walked off.

“What was that about?” He reached over and grabbed my hand examining my ring finger. I quickly held up the other ring and he released my hand so I could put it back on.

“She heard from a certain neighbor we were married.”

“Which I suspect she has a problem with?”

“Which we now do too.” I sighed, “She works at the courthouse dealing specifically with marriage licenses. So I told her we were engaged.”

“I fail to see how this is a problem,” Darien took my hand in his again. “She knows we’re together, and though she doesn’t know the full truth she knows we plan on keeping it that way.”

“She is going to continue to send Jennie over in an attempt to persuade you to be with someone ‘your own age’. She’s super old fashioned and probably thinks, well I’m not entirely sure what she thinks but it can’t be good. And with everything going on we don’t need people constantly poking around. We have to move or something.” I knew I was beginning to sound slightly crazy but I didn’t care. He gently took the wedding band off of my finger before removing his and slipping them into his pocket. “What are you doing?” He didn’t say anything and slid the engagement ring off of my finger. He held it between his thumb and index finger.

“Will you marry me?” I didn’t expect the wave of emotion that hit me. I was sure he was being sarcastic. “I’m quite serious Alana. You are my wife, and if I have to make it official in more than one world I am more than happy to do so.” I nodded as he slid the ring back onto my finger. “We’re also going to do this the right way with a ceremony, guests, invitations, and a cake.” He stood up and held his hand out to me, I took it and he pulled me up wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me close to him. “The first invitation we send out will be to Mrs. Caruthers.” He leaned down and kissed me.

“Now,” he said guiding me to the door. “We need to get home and tell your parents the good news.”

“You do realize my mother will try to plan everything?” I groaned.

“Is that a problem?”

“It is if you want to do this the right way. I’m not a fan of tool.”