Timestone

Chapter Forty-Two ϟ Purpose

The longer I delay, the harder my heart thumps. I know I can't leave the time portal without trying to reach her. I cobble together all my courage and go back inside. My mind stretches into the past. I know she won't be able to respond, but I want to push my thoughts to her. I want her to know how I feel about her and that everything is alright.

Well, no—not everything.

I focus my thoughts, and a familiar but uncertain voice enters my mind. "Miro?"

I sit, stunned. I reached into the past for Vela's mind, and she answered.

She . . . answered.

Aberash was able to respond because she used the specially engineered communication antenna. Vela isn't supposed to communicate with me. How is she doing this?

"Hello?" Vela reaches out again, even more timidly.

"Vela? You can hear me?" I ask.

Her beautiful, ghostly face emerges from the white energy. "Sí, Payaso, te escucho. I hear you," she says.

I'm dumbfounded. I didn't expect to converse with her, and now I can't think of anything to say.

"How are you doing this?" she asks. "I thought you needed to be in the temple to communicate like this."

"Uh . . . I am in the temple," I respond, still unsure what's happening.

A silent moment ticks by. I sense Vela is just as confused as I am. "Don't be dumb, Payaso. I just left you outside. I thought you were still asleep. So how are you doing this?"

A light flips on in my head. Vela is communicating with me from inside the temple. When we were here before, I awoke to find her exiting the time portal in tears. She had refused to talk about it. That moment is now for her. She had been talking to me. Why hadn't she told me? Tears stream down my cheeks.

"Vela!" I exclaim, half sobbing, half laughing. "This isn't the me that's just outside the temple. I'm communicating with you from the future. I'm inside the temple also." I feel the same light click on in her thoughts.

"Diablos. Okay, this is weird," she says. An awkward silence follows as we both search for what to say next. "So, how far in the future are you?" she asks.

I take a second to think about that. It feels like an eternity has passed since then, but it hasn't been so long. Still, with the time dilation field around the mountain, it feels like a complicated question. "Not long . . . a little over twenty days or so."

"So, why are you contacting me from the future?" she asks.

I have no answer.

"Miro, what's wrong?" She sounds sad and worried. "Did something happen? Is everything okay?"

Tears of sadness replace the tears of joy in my eyes. Vela feels my sorrow. She knows something is wrong. "I'm . . . not with you, am I?" she asks. "What happened?"

How do you tell someone they're dead? How to explain I could have saved her but didn't even try? I feel sadness building in her.

"I'm not going to make it through this, am I?" she says. "I died?"

I apologize over and over through tears. "You fell, Vela. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," I repeat. "I saw it happen, but I couldn't get to you. I should have been there for you, and I wasn't."

Her feelings penetrate me to the bone. She feels sad but unafraid. Even her misty image in the universal energy maintains a dauntless expression. She doesn't fear death.