Chimera Awakened

Chapter Twenty-Five

"Your daughter?" I nearly shrieked the question and his smile became one of amusement.

"Yes. Is that so hard to believe?"

"Well..." I twisted my hands together. "Kind of. Aren't you..." I trailed off awkwardly.

"Dead?" he finished for me and laughed when my eyes widened. "I'm not dead exactly. In some ways I am and in others I am not."

"So," I began, furrowing my brows in concentration, "that makes you my great great great however many times grandfather?"

A grin flashed across his face and his green eyes seemed to glow. "It does indeed."

"But, how?" I asked almost a little too sharply.

My mind was having trouble comprehending how a not quite alive man could possibly procreate. Was the mother not quite alive too? But, Brielle was most definitely alive at some point since she cast that spell.

That heart-stopping grin lessened and his eyes seemed to glaze over like he was suddenly dragged into a memory.

"Now that is an interesting story." He continued, "A very long time ago, when the world was so different from how it is now, I came across a woman. She had an unusual amount of power within her. The magic of the world was stifled by human progress but she... she was different."

"You loved her," I said quietly, seeing the same look Broderick had on his own face.

The man nodded. "I watched her from this plane as she healed wounded animals with her touch and tended to the new life in her colorful garden. Her smile when she saw birds was the most beautiful thing I'd seen in my very long existence."

I was quiet, unable to do anything but listen and see the picture he painted with his words.

A slight smile touched his lips and he continued, "I entered her dreams, unable to see her and not speak to her any longer. She walked this plane with me every night while her body rested in her bed. I looked forward to those walks and conversations when the night became ours.
"One night, she reached out to touch me but her lips passed right through mine. Our souls could not physically touch."

He continued to look out over the bloodsoaked battlefield as he spoke. "There is one night a year when my soul is given a physical body. I usually spent it in a crowd of people, enjoying the ability to speak and be heard by the living. But this night, I went to her. My Hortensia."

Love shone bright in his eyes as his lips curved upward. "Her pale hair and golden eyes wore the moonbeams that night as a queen would wear jewels. We spent that night in each other's arms, knowing that I would be banished to walk the astral plane for another year when the sun rose."

Distant sadness marked his features and my heart clenched for him. One night a year was all they had.

"What happened?" I asked quietly.

"I continued to watch her heal and grow things with her hands during the day and walked with her at night. I watched as her belly began to grow with new life and I wished desperately to be able to hold her and feel them within her. Feel my daughters growing inside my love."

Oh stars, I'd almost forgotten. Brielle told me she was a twin and her sister had died before she cast the spell that changed the world so completely and abruptly.

"I came to them," he continued quietly, "the next time I was given a physical form and held them in my arms, so full of joy for their existence and sadness that I would have to leave them."