"Baby . . . it's all right . . . it's-"
"The black mortars kept coming, civilians were everywhere-men, women, and children, families . . . but my husband was dying and no angels came to give us backup! The Guardians . . . they, they . . . everybody was doing everything they could-and-"
"Baby, it's-"
"I shouldn't have left you that long without closing the hemorrhages! You could have died!"
Her voice had become shrill, so unlike Damali that it set his teeth on edge. He could almost feel how much the pain inside her was like a knife, lacerating her insides as her hands became fists at his back.
He pressed her to him tightly and held the base of her skull as she lost it. He looked around at the attending ancient Neterus. "Sedate her. Take this from my wife. It's not her fault." He stroked her hair as she began to hyperventilate. "I love you." Three simple words made her begin to scream.
Eve and Aset surrounded her. Aset kissed her temple, Eve touched her back. Damali went limp in his arms.
"Battle fatigue," Ausar said flatly, and then turned away and swallowed hard.
Adam rubbed his palms down his face. "Your wife loves you dearly, young brother. Never again do you allow the Darkness habitation within you like that. Not for anyone. You are too valuable to your family unit."
"He didn't realize he'd done that-given it habitation," Eve countered gently. "He drew it in him out of a powerful love. That was not wrong-to give one's life for another."
Adam grudgingly nodded and took a deep breath,then spoke in a faltering rumble. "But he is a young man with a family . . . like another of my sons. His father-seer is elderly . . . Carlos's purpose is yet to be fulfilled . . . and I admit that I am biased in my Neteru brother's favor. I want the young Pharaoh to live well and prosper . . . and I never,ever want to see his wife in ruin over his demise like this again." Overcome with emotion, Adam turned away and left the chamber.
"We did not forsake you-tell her that," Ausar said thickly. "Our resources were deployed hunting down the true nemesis halfway around your world, and when we arrived, the battle was done. Yet we sent reinforcements to cover the elderly priest, your father-seer, to be sure he was not harmed as he heals." Ausar stared at Carlos with silver burning in his eyes. "You are our most favored. Your wife is like my daughter. We would never leave you." He lifted his regal chin higher and strode out of the room.
For a moment, silence enveloped Carlos and the two queens. He held Damali's limp body even closer to him and nuzzled her hair.
"I didn't mean to offend them," Carlos said quietly, searching the faces of the older women that stood near.
Aset allowed a single tear to spill from her exotic Egyptian eyes. The moist bead sparkled like a diamond as it trailed along the long black kohl liner to finally roll down her cheek.
"They are not offended, young king. They are so vastly overwhelmed that you survived your ordeal that, they do not quite know how to express the warring emotions within them under the masculine principle. These are old Kings, son. They have been very male energies for a very long time. Even they could not heal you, because they were so outraged that their thoughts splintered from the task at hand to the singular thought of destroying. They needed to kill something to redress the unspeakable wrong that had been committed against you and your family. But we needed to heal something-you-to keep you from dying. This remains the struggle of our polarities. It is the genius of the Divine. We do not question such differences in our designs, as each is needed under different circumstances."
"That's where I was," Carlos said quietly, hugging Damali against his chest. "I needed to stomp the snot. . . ." He closed his eyes for a moment to steadyhimself . "Like even now, when I see what's happened to my wife. . . ." He looked down at Damali. "How can I change what I am?"
Eve and Aset helped take Damali's limp form from Carlos. Aset materialized a golden robe of the finest filament and gave it to him, and bothQueens turned away, holding Damali as he pulled it on and tied it.
"Come with us," Aset said. "You do not have to change who you are. Your rage will be needed in the future. Your righteous indignation was a catalyst. You were tricked to allow something dark inside you that fed on it. Had that not been inside you, the rage of the righteous would have burned as pure silver. The Darkness knew this, knew that you hunting his heir is the greatest threat to it. This is why the beast had to figure out a way for you to invite it inside you, in order to attempt to destroy you from the inside out. Now that you know, and are wiser about shielding yourself, it will never be able to penetrate you again. This was another good lesson that you survived, young king. This, too, you will share with your wife."
"It is no less than becoming immune," Eve said, her gorgeous eyes serene and hypnotically tranquil. "As we draw any residual poison away from your queen, she will also build her immunity."
Eve sighed, gazing first down at Damali and then toward Carlos, with tears beginning to fill her liquid brown eyes. "Children . . . as much as you love us, as much as your parents mean to you-you are the future. We are never meant to become an impediment to your progress . . . to do so would be selfish and would undo all of the hard work and every sacrifice we'd ever made on your behalf. You are our future, our hope, our lighthouse. Your father-seer knows this deep in his soul, and if you could ask him whether or not he would have rather died in that cathedral than to have you harmed in any way by Satan-as a parent, I know his answer. He would have even taunted the Devil to draw whatever horrors he could hurl his way, to give you and your wife time to escape. It was never his own survival that concerned your father-seer, it wasyours . But you do not have such wisdom yet, Carlos, because you do not have a child. However, coming from a mother, trust me . . . believe what I say is true."
"But he was suffering . . ." Carlos whispered.
"As a parent, you would give a vital organ for your child that they not suffer." Eve stared at Carlos. "If that old man awakened to find you dead so that he could live . . . if Satan's blast didn't killhim, that surely would."
Carlos locked his jaw hard to hold back the tears. It was bad enough that he'd come into Neteru chambers all busted up, had upset his wife so badly that after all these years she finally had to be sedated . . . he would not add insult to injury by allowing tears to fall. After a moment, he'd composed himself enough to speak to the elder Queen without his voice betraying him. "I just wanted to give that old man a fighting chance . . . after all he'd given me." That was as much as he trusted to get out before emotion reclaimed his throat.
Eve's eyes searched Carlos's face and her voice was calm and tender. "We that precede you will eventually pass away to become ancestors on the other side. This is the grand design. Therefore, we assist, even from On High . . . and when you honor us with a life well lived, we are proud beyond measure. This makes the sacrifice worth it-to see you flourish. This is how you best honor thy mother and father, with respect. If we are lucky, we shall predecease you-the natural order is currently out of phase, with children dying before parents in the greatest heartbreak of the cosmos."
Eve's voice faltered and the building tears finally fell in quiet streams down her regal ebony face, but she did not turn away. She lifted her chin and bore the glistening moisture like they were jewels. "This was howI knew it was the end of days. It was a deeply personal heralding for me. I buried my son, Carlos, and there's not a day that goes by that I don't wish I could have chosen wiser choices for him, given him my Light, and taken the darkest influences that beset him into myself for his sake, so that he would flourish . . . so that he would have lived on . . . so that his children's children's children would come to inherit the promise. But that was not to be. I could not, even with all my power, do that for him-because it was his choice. This is what I know Father Patrick would tell you . . . that he would have taken any horrors delivered so that you could keep going and your future could flourish. Do not renounce his gift. He loves you. All is in Divine order."
Aset reached out to Eve with her free hand and touched her cheek with trembling fingers. She then looked at Carlos. "Don't you see, son? You and Damali belong to all of us up here. Just as you belonged to your parents down there . . . you have been claimed in love by us, too. This is why Adam and Ausar were beside themselves with near-grief, and are over-wrought with relief. You are our dreams deferred, our sacrifices paid forward. Eve lost Cain, but she gained you, just as Adam lost Abel, but gained you . . . and Damali.A daughterand a son which means legacy. Thus, when it is your father-seer's time to transition, as long as you are flourishing, you will allow him to smile in his heart and spit in Satan's eye as the angels come to collect him. That is the ultimate last laugh."
"It is a blessing to close one's eyes on the earth plane before one's children, dear young King," Eve said quietly. "Our love never dims; it only increases in the Light. But no parent dead or alive who truly loves their progeny would want their child tosuffer, to give their life for theirs, to experience any indignity that they'd lived. Not if they are a real, evolved parent, they wouldn't. They would want to spare you all they'd been through and more in unconditional love sublime. Carlos, haven't you come to understand that by now?"
"Let us allow the young King's mind to rest," Aset said in a gentle voice, staring at Eve. "They need to rest, recuperate, and be still for a while outside of the pressures of their responsibilities. It will all be there waiting for them upon their return."
"We have to get back, though-no disrespect, but we've already been gone too long," Carlos said, feeling panic suddenly surge within him. "The team, the safe house where Father Pat is . . . the darkside LoJacked me, had a tracer on my where-abouts . . . my boy told me. I have to make sure the house is safe or they could smoke the entire team while I am up here-"