He’d let them go, not realizing then what regret and loneliness would follow. It had launched him onto a path of self-destruction. The world had fallen apart. Then Eli had come to his rescue.

“It’s okay to be afraid,” Eli said.

Ben looked at his face through the flames. “Are you ever afraid?”

Eli looked up at the stars that hung over them and let the question stand. The fire crackled and popped. He looked back at Ben, the fire dancing in his eyes. “Not really, no.”

Emotion rose in Ben’s throat. “Then I will try to be more like you.”

“You already are,” Eli said.

For long minutes they sat, lost in their own thoughts, until Eli playfully toppled from the small stump and sprawled to his back by the campfire. “I wish we had donuts now,” he said with a dramatic sigh.

Ben began to laugh. Encouraged, Eli stretched his arms toward the sky and cried, “Will this night never end?”

Then they laughed together, lost in the wonder of what they knew and where they were.

That night Ben dreamed of Jamie and Grace, as he always did, and of the time when they would all be laughing together once again.

Chapter
Five

ROSE PIERCE WATCHED THE ENTIRE CHAPEL STILL AS Jamie Weathers’s words filled the air around them. I’ve been out beyond the perimeter, and there are no more Fury. She felt the vein behind her ear pulse, and she swallowed her panic. That can’t be, she thought.

A sharp whimper broke the silence. The boy’s mother, Julianna. The frail woman had paled and held her palm over her mouth. And for good reason, Rose thought. Her son dared to stand on holy ground and speak blasphemy. Rose felt the urge to stand and defile the sinner herself but knew better.

The Chapel began to stir back to life. Whispers, murmurs of disbelief, silent prayers, confusion. They hummed around her like static. Rose glanced at her three perfectly controlled children and gave them a nod. Stay where you are. She glanced at her husband.

Harrison’s face remained stoic, but she knew his mind better than anyone. Behind his stone expression his brain was churning, uploading the information being presented. He wasn’t easily subjected to his emotions but bound himself to faith and belief above all things—the perfect, incorruptible partner for the radical journey that many couldn’t handle.

Which was why Sylous had picked Harrison for her.

She felt the energy in the room suddenly shift, and the familiar change nearly took her breath away.

Sylous was here.