Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

The corridor looked different this time. Stone columns reached for the stars, and beneath his feet was sand. There were no doors to close. Was that because doors hadn't been invented?

He walked over to a column. There was writing engraved into the stone, but he couldn't read it, not without touching the marking. He reached out a hand.

"I wouldn't do that," Quentin said.

"Each column is a memory. How are they escaping and pushing through?" Some of the columns held up a roof. In other places, the roof had collapsed, and the columns had grown taller as though trying to push through the sky.

"I don't think it matters how. The only way to stop them is to destroy them."

"Will it destroy them completely, or will it only destroy them within the memory of that life?" These memories went all the way back to his creation. And for a few seconds—which might've been hours or nanoseconds—he wanted to go all the way back. He wanted to learn all the answers .

Around them, the columns grumbled, and more of the roof fell into the sand.

"Everest. They need to be destroyed." Quentin grabbed his arm, forcing him to look at the witch. There was fear in his eyes as stones from the roof fell, hitting the sand and making the ground shake. "Now. I will do it if you can't."

Everest exhaled. As much as he wanted to find out what had happened, the past had kept him trapped for too long. "I don't know how to destroy them."

"They're your memories." Quentin took a breath and looked up as another chunk broke free. "If it were me, I'd turn the stone to sand."

He nodded and summoned a breeze. One by one, the columns fell, disintegrating into the sand as if they'd never existed. As if he had never existed. His chest ached, and he put his hand over his heart. A drop of blood fell onto the sand.

It wasn't from his nose but from his thumb.

With a gasp, he sat up, expecting to be in the present. But he was back in that life, only this time, he sat in his bed with three of his brothers in attendance. Two of them, he didn't know. When had they been lost? Here, they appeared concerned.

"We warned you about becoming too close to the memory reader." It wasn't Kaine speaking, but a past version of him. "About playing with the past."

Everest lifted his chin. "Like you haven't dug around for answers."

"I wasn't fucking the witch," past Kaine snapped. "I was seeking wisdom."

"I think what our brother is trying to say is, don't mess around with the servants."

Everest laughed. That was all he'd been doing in this life .

Quentin sat next to him in the bed. "Is that Kaine? It looks like him, but he's so old, and he has a beard."

His brother's short hair was streaked with silver, and his beard was gray and braided and decorated with beads. Everest didn't need to touch his face to know he also had a beaded beard.

"Yes, it is. I don't recognize the other two. Why am I here? And why is my thumb bleeding?"

Quentin lifted Everest's hand. "That's not memory blood. That's your body trying to tell you something."

"What?" Everest got out of bed and stumbled as a wave of dizziness broke over him. The memory shook and faded struggling to find the right frequency.

"Um…" Quentin glanced up as though hearing something. "Your body can't take much more."

His past brothers were still lecturing him. Telling him a memory reader had done the best she could, but it was temporary unless he bound either a witch or a shifter to him. The past version of himself refused, choosing to die instead.

"Why am I here?" Everest shouted. The memory jumped forward. Kaine sat on the edge of the bed, playing a strategy game with him. Everest watched the game, understanding the rules as if he'd played yesterday.

Had he always liked strategy games?

It was clear that he was losing the game and his life. He was gaunt, with hollow eyes, and talking about taking one more flight. One he wasn't coming back from. The headaches and the nausea meant he wasn't living, anyway.

Kaine embraced him, hugging his frail body tight.

The memory faded and flickered.

"Kaine is calling me back," Quentin said. "I can't stay." He gripped Everest's hand. "You can do this. Whatever it is you need is here. "

He didn't want to be stuck in the past, and he didn't want to die alone. He opened his mouth, but Quentin was gone. But his hand wasn't empty. Everest uncurled his fingers, revealing the chess queen. She could do anything…unless taken off the board.

Even if he played with only three pieces, she was one he kept. Why would he only play with three pieces? A man's warm laughter interrupted the memory. Then he was back in the hotel room, and Cadel was setting up the chess board.

"You have to let me win," the lion shifter said.

"Why should I?"

"Because otherwise, there's no game." He swept his hand over the board, and pieces scattered all over the floor. "I want to play with you. But you need to let me in."

Cadel reached his hand toward him. Blood dripped onto the board from a cut on his thumb.

Everest studied the cut on his thumb. "Oh…"

Last time, he'd chosen death.

That memory had been trying to save him, and he'd been running away from the answers. He placed his bloodied queen on the board. "I want to play."