CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Southwell Minster was a large cathedral near the center of modern Southwell that had been built one hundred years before the Norman invasion. It was an enormous place with two beautiful spires that soared into the blue expanse of sky. Rory had seen it before, eight hundred years ago when it didn’t look nearly as it did now. Several transformations had taken place. Dan made two sharp, left-hand turns and ended up in the driveway of Southwell Minster. But the big, iron gate was locked so he left the car in the driveway as he and Rory jumped out and ran down the long, dirt drive to the church.
Southwell Minster was surrounded by a well-manicured graveyard but the crypts of the nobles were, as in most other cathedrals, situated inside the church. Rory rushed into the sanctuary on Dan’s heels, noticing the beautifully kept church and soaring Gothic ceiling. They had never put permanent pews in and folding chairs, in neat rows, lined the floor.
Rory bolted after Dan as he raced to the front of the church, leapt right up on the pulpit, and continued back down the aisle that divided the choir loft. In the very back of the church was a room, separated from the rest of the church by an ornately carved Gothic stone wall called a pulpitum.
Dan disappeared into the room and Rory immediately after him. But as soon as Rory charged in, she came face to face with several crypts, all of them with beautifully carved effigies. She slowed her pace. There was something respectful and holy about a place where the dead maintained their eternal rest. Dan was reading the names on the crypts until he came to one near the south side of the room.
“Here,” he motioned Rory over. “Here he is.”
Rory’s heart was pounding in her ears as she moved to the crypt, noting the spectacular effigy on the top of it. She drew close, feeling more reverence and emotion than she ever thought possible as she gazed at Kieran’s effigy. She could see his profile, the sightless stone eyes, and the helm still on his head exactly like the one he had worn during Richard’s Crusade. She had seen that helm on him many a time.
With tears in her eyes again, she reached out a delicate hand, running gentle fingers on the bridge of the nose. Gazing into the stone face, she was unaware when her tears fell and created small, dark spots on the porous rock. The moment was spiritual, emotional, and powerful. She couldn’t even put it into words. She was so close to Kieran that she could almost taste him.
As she reverently touched the effigy, Dan walked around the entire crypt, inspecting the beautiful stone box with scenes from the Third Crusade carved into it, looking for a way in. He finally stopped, put his hands on his hips, and shook his head.
“I’ve seen this thing many times but never paid much attention to it,” he said. “It’s really remarkable.”
Rory sniffled faintly, not looking up from the effigy that had all of her attention. “More remarkable than you know,” she murmured. “How can we open it?”
Dan scratched his head. “You know that they really cemented these things down. I’m not sure there’s an easy way to get into it.”
As he stood there and speculated, a small man in ecclesiastical garb entered the room. His pale blue eyes were curious until he recognized Dan. Then he held out his hand affably.
“My lord,” he greeted, shaking the earl’s hand happily. “Very nice to see you today. To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”
“Reverend Hogan,” Dan greeted, suddenly wondering what sort of idiot he was about to come off looking like. He was the earl, after all, and had a reputation to uphold. But to hell with it. “I need to get into this crypt. Do you have any suggestions as to how we can open it?”
Reverend Hogan tried not to look too shocked. “Get into it?” he repeated. “Why on earth do you need to get into it?”
Dan could see that the reverend thought he was mad. He wasn’t sure he could adequately explain the need.
“I’ve recently discovered that there is something of extreme value to my family buried with this knight.” He hoped that God wouldn’t punish him for lying to a man of the cloth. “I need to get in here. Is there any possibility you can help me?”
Hogan’s white eyebrows lifted. “But… my lord, I’m sure you understand that this crypt is of great historical significance. The age alone is…”
“I understand all of that and I will pay to replace it,” Dan cut the man off. “I will also pay to re-roof the pepperpot spires on the cathedral. I know you have been trying to raise money for that cause. I will pay for whatever the donations don’t cover if you’ll help me get into this crypt.”
Hogan stared at him. His gaze inevitably moved to the lovely woman standing by the crypt, gazing so lovingly at the effigy. He sensed that she had something to do with the earl’s request and to say that he was confused was to put it mildly. He finally shook his head.
“The Very Reverend Loring will be very thankful for your generosity, of course,” he said. “But we should probably discuss with him the possibility of opening this crypt.”
Dan stood his ground. “It’s my family’s crypt and I want it open. There’s no law that says I can’t open it.”
Hogan wasn’t about to tangle with the earl. He’d known Dan Hage since he had been a young boy, following his career through Eton and Sandhurst, a career in the Royal Marines and even a couple of years with the Leicester Tigers Rugby Club. Dan was a fine, strong example of the current British aristocracy. But the man didn’t hear the word “no” very often and Reverend Hogan didn’t want to offend him. He was forming his careful reply when three more men suddenly appeared in the old room. Startled, he turned to see two men in suits and one very blue-eyed, crew-cut man in casual jeans. The man with the ice blue eyes moved directly to the woman, ignoring everyone else.
“Rory,” Bud went to her, deeply concerned. “What happened? We saw the earl’s car leave and thought we’d better follow. Why are you here?”
Rory grabbed Bud by the arms, her hazel eyes wide with delirium. “I can’t explain it right now,” she insisted quietly. “We need to get this crypt open. Dan is trying to convince the reverend.”
Bud looked to the earl, confused, before turning back to Rory. “Why do we need to open it now?”
“Please, Bud,” there was great urgency in her voice. “You’re the resident genius. Do you see a way into this?”
Bud’s face was contorted with confusion but he’d learned long ago not to argue or make demands of Rory. It was better just to do what she wanted and ask questions later. His focus turned to the crypt.
“Seriously?” he asked. “You want to open this? It’s hundreds of years old, Rory. It’s a priceless artifact.”
“I know that,” Rory nodded eagerly. “But we need to open it.”
“Whose is it?”
“Kieran’s.” She met Bud’s surprised gaze with calm reassurance. “Can you please figure out how to do it, Bud? Please?”
His gaze lingered on her a moment before returning it to the crypt. He put his hand on the slab that held the effigy, tried to move it, before bending over to examine it more closely.
“Are you okay with this, Lord Hage?” Bud asked as he practically stood on his head in order to gain a better look at how the slab lid fit atop the sarcophagus. “It doesn’t look like it will be a problem to lift this top with some manpower and crowbars, but it’s going to end up on the floor and damaged. We don’t have a crane to support it. We’ll have to let it drop.”
Dan waved a hand. “I’ll get it fixed.”
Bud stood up and looked at him. “This effigy is eight hundred years old.” He lifted an eyebrow. “We’ll be damaging a pristine artifact.”
“Bud!” Rory hissed through clenched teeth. “What are you doing?”
He looked at her. “Making sure Lord Hage understands what will happen if we pry this off without taking the time to properly support it. It’s going to fall over and probably break.”
Rory’s expression was both serious and pleading. “What’s inside is more important,” she whispered. “As much as I hate to see the effigy of my husband damaged, I’m willing to take the risk. Please, Bud, you have to trust me.”
Bud’s gaze lingered on her a moment longer, knowing they had come this far. They couldn’t turn back now. “All right,” he sighed reluctantly, looking at the reverend. “If you have a couple of crowbars, we can probably slide this off.”
Reverend Hogan looked stricken. “I’ve not given permission yet.”
“I have,” Dan said in a tone that suggested he not be disobeyed. He looked at Reverend Hogan. “Go get what he needs. I’ll take full responsibility.”
The reverend hesitated a moment before very quickly walking away. Once he left the room, Saladin went over to Dan to engage him in quiet conversation while Bud continued to silently examine the crypt. Rory just stood there, staring at the effigy, her mind already with Kieran deep inside the stone. Every fiber of her being was reaching out to touch him. Marc wandered up behind her, watching her as she stared at the crypt.
“Did the letter tell you anything?” he asked softly.
Snapped from her train of thought, Rory turned to him. “We’re about to find out.”
“Then it really was meant for you?”
She nodded and returned her attention to the crypt. As Marc remained behind her in confused silence, Rory’s attention turned to Bud as he moved around the crypt and ran his fingers in the crevice between the lid and the sarcophagus. Nobody said a word while Bud examined, Rory stood, and Dan observed. The lawyers seemed to be the only ones out of the loop, truly clueless as to what was about to take place. But that ignorance was about to end.
Reverend Hogan returned a short time later with a crowbar, a metal shovel, and two teenage boys. The boys were carrying the implements.
“This is all we had in the gardener’s shed,” he told Dan. “Will these work?”
Bud reached over and took the crowbar from a red-haired, freckle-faced kid of about fifteen. He tested the weight; it was a solid, heavy bar. He slung it over one shoulder and took the metal shovel; it, too, was heavy and well made. He inspected the rounded end of it and shrugged.
“We can give it a shot,” he said, handing the shovel over to a surprised-looking Marc. “I’ll use the crowbar to lift and you use the shovel to shove it forward. Lord Hage, why don’t you, Saladin and the boys shove from this end? Let’s get the momentum working in the same direction.”
Rory stood back as Bud positioned everyone around the crypt. Hands folded before her lips as if praying, she watched anxiously as Bud took charge, positioned the crowbar, and began to pry the lid off. After three grunting heaves, there was a cracking sound and the lid shifted. Dust and pebbles rained down on the floor as Bud heaved again and, this time, the lid slid forward.
Everyone took deep breaths and wiped their hands off; the redheaded teenager had managed to pinch a finger and was nursing a bloody cuticle. But Dan had no patience for the weary or wounded. He wanted to see what was inside almost more than Rory did.
“Come on, now,” Dan boomed. “Put your backs into it.”
He sounded like he was hollering to his rugby buddies and not like a dignified earl with a family over one thousand years old. Rory saw more and more of Kieran in the man. Bud heaved with the crowbar again, Marc shoved with all his might, and the lid suddenly slid about a foot off its base. It was balanced precariously on the edge of the sarcophagus, but the coffin was now wide open and the contents easily viewed. Before Bud could stop her, Rory rushed up to take a look.
“Watch out,” he cautioned. “The lid is just balancing. It could go crashing down and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Rory couldn’t even answer him as she gazed down into the dusty, ancient crypt that hadn’t seen the light of day in over eight hundred years. Around her, everyone else was doing the same thing, including Reverend Hogan. Faces that had been previous filled with doubt or curiosity were now glazed with awe, for laying supine at the bottom of the well-made crypt was an enormous knight in nearly pristine twelfth century battle armor. A thin layer of sheer, white fabric covered him; some kind of linen. It was his burial shroud. Before Bud could grab her, Rory climbed in.
“Rory,” Bud positioned himself next to the lid so he could at least try to hold it back should it shift and come crashing back down. “Honey, get out of there. Let us move the lid off completely.”
Rory heard his words but ignored him. She was straddled over the massive body, her heart in her throat, her breathing coming in harsh pants. Flashes of the first time she had excavated him lit in her mind, an odd sense of déjà vu sweeping her. Once, she had stood in this exact same position over Kieran, inspecting the crusader she had just discovered in the dusty ruins of Nahariya. It was that moment all over again, only now in an ancient English cathedral.
The recurrence, the emotions, were too much to take. Rory went down on her knees, straddling Kieran’s pelvis in much the same fashion as she had when they had made love eight hundred years ago. She could feel him hard and firm beneath her, but cold as the grave. With shaking hands, she carefully removed the thin veil of dusty fabric that covered his face.
It was a shock to see Kieran looking much the same as the effigy on the top of his crypt. His skin was colored by the dust that coated his skin, but the features were strong and handsome as if he were merely sleeping. She sat a moment, gazing at him, feeling the tears come yet again. Only this time, they were tears of joy and fairly short-lived. There was no more time for tears.
Without hesitation, Rory put her hands on either side of the man’s face and leaned forward. Her short breaths were causing the dust on Kieran’s face to flare up and cloud. Slowly and with great reverence, Rory’s soft and rosy lips gently touched his.
It was a tender kiss, one full of the love that had carried them across the span of time and ages. She suckled his bottom lip gently, his top lip, continuing to kiss his cheeks and nose, the only other flesh exposed beyond the mail and helm. Like the first kiss she had ever given him, the one that had awakened him from his grave in Nahariya those years ago.
“I’m here, baby,” she murmured. “Wake up and look at me. I’m here.”
She sat back, continuing to stroke his cheeks. Even though there were several faces watching the extremely odd and rather morbid exchange, for Rory, she and Kieran were the only two people in the entire world at the moment. She leaned down and kissed him again, trying to think back to the first time she had awoken him and wondering how long it took for him to awaken. She had been drunk at the time and had fallen asleep between the time she had kissed him and the time she had noticed he was becoming lucid. Therefore, there was no way of knowing. Only time would tell.
Minutes passed and he remained still. Rory tried not to feel rising despair as she remained straddled on him, gazing down at his face and looking for any signs of life. More minutes passed as she continued to watch and wait. Finally, someone reached down and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Rory.” It was Bud. “What… what are you doing?”
Rory stroked Kieran’s cheek. “Awaking him from his eternal sleep like I did the first time.”
So much for her not sounding like an idiot in front of strangers, he thought. Bud didn’t dare look at the people around him as he bent over the side of the crypt.
“Honey,” he said softly. “He’s dead. He’s been dead for eight hundred years.”
Rory’s head snapped up, the hazel eyes intense and deadly serious. “No, he’s not,” she insisted strongly. “He had Kaleef put him into stasis again. He’s waiting for me to awaken him again just like I did before. Bud, somehow he knew that once I killed the prince, somehow, someway, Fates or God or whatever you believe in had transported me back to my time. I’ve been thinking about why that happened and the only thing I can come up with is either I did what I was supposed to do, thereby ending my need to be in Medieval times, or I changed history so much that everything, including my own life and timeline, was seriously altered. I just don’t know which it is. But Kieran knew what had happened. He knew that I had come back to my time so he had Kaleef put him back to sleep with succotrine aloes, zedoary gentian, saffron, rhubarb and agaric. It was the same stuff he used before. He had Kaleef do it again and wrote me a letter about it, knowing that I would know how to awaken him.”
She sounded completely, utterly insane. Bud looked at her, feeling so very sorry for her and thinking that she had completely snapped. He reached down gently, trying to get a good grip on her.
“Come on,” he whispered. “Let me help you out of there. It’s not good for you.”
Rory threw herself down on top of Kieran’s body, her head against his mailed chest and her arms gripping him tightly.
“No!” she cried. “Just give him a few minutes, Bud. You’ll see what I mean. I’m not leaving.”
Bud looked up then, glancing at Dan, the lawyers. They all gazed back at Bud with varied degrees of concern. The reverend even closed his eyes and began praying. Bud figured he’d better get her out of there before she started foaming at the mouth so he reached both hands inside the crypt and prepared to drag her out by the arms. But two words from Rory stopped him in his tracks.
“It’s beating!” she suddenly screamed. “I can hear his heart. It’s beating!”
Concerned expressions suddenly turned to those of shock and disbelief. Rory sat bolt upright, such joy on her face that all of the poets in the entire world could not have adequately described her expression. She was positively radiant. She grabbed Bud, pulling him down into the crypt as she struggled to make room for him.
“Listen!” she begged. “Listen for yourself!”
Bud nearly fell into the crypt as Rory pulled, trying not to make an ass of himself in the process. He truly thought she was losing her mind. But there was something so electric in her manner and expression that he couldn’t resist doing as she asked. Rory practically shoved his head down against the dusty, ancient tunic, and Bud was feeling really stupid as he let her do it. But he laid his head down against the chest of the corpse, knowing he wasn’t going to hear anything and genuinely shocked when he, too, thought he heard faint heartbeats. Startled, he remained with his ear pressed against the corpse for several long, painful moments.
“Well?” Dan finally couldn’t stand it any longer. “What do you hear?”
Bud didn’t move and he didn’t respond. He lay there, listening intently, closing his eyes as if that would amplify his hearing. After several long moments, he finally opened his eyes and sat bolt upright, staring down at the body beneath him.
“I’ll be damned,” he breathed. “It… it sounds like heartbeats.”
He looked at Rory, stricken. The truth was that Bud had never believed Kieran was who he said he was; he hadn’t been there when Rory had resurrected him in the morgue at Middlesex Hospital and he’d never been able to accept that the massive, good-looking man had been Sir Kieran Hage in the flesh, the crusader he had excavated in Nahariya. But now here he was, at the beginning of what was looking like, for all the world, a miracle. He simply couldn’t explain it. But his ears didn’t lie.
“Do you hear it?” Rory asked softly.
He nodded, tearing his eyes away from her and looking back at the man beneath him. “I hear it,” he muttered with some disbelief.
Bud leaned down to take a closer look at Kieran’s face, the mucosa membrane, the texture of the flesh. He put his fingers on his carotid artery, feeling an extremely faint yet fairly regular pulse.
“I don’t believe it,” he whispered. “I don’t goddamn believe it. He’s got a pulse.”
Rory was so excited that she was shaking. “I told you,” she crowed, looking around to the faces staring back at her. She came to rest on Dan and her smile broadened. “You wanted to know who I am? My name is the Lady Rory Elizabeth Osgrove Hage. My husband is Kieran Hage and my son is Tevin Hage. I met my husband when Dr. Dietrich and I excavated a crusader’s grave in the Syrian city of Nahariya. Based on ancient texts from a story passed down for centuries, we were looking for the reputed Crown of Thorns that Jesus Christ had worn on Mount Calvary but ended up finding a knight from the Third Crusade instead. What we didn’t realize at the time is that the crusader was linked to the Crown of Thorns.”
No one immediately responded. Dan wanted so badly to believe. In fact, he realized that he already did. It was the craziest, wildest story he’d ever heard, but he couldn’t dispute the man coming to life before him. He almost felt as if he were living a dream; he was sure at some point he was going to wake up. But right now, he had to admit, it was pretty fascinating. Eight hundred years of a Hage mystery was finally coming to a conclusion.
“Dr. Dietrich?” He looked from Rory’s smiling fact to the back of Bud’s head as the man remained hunched over the supine knight. “Is this true?”
Bud was almost dull with shock and realization, but managed to nod his head. “It is,” he grunted, turning to look at the stunned people around him. “Every word of it.”
Dan swallowed hard, his gaze returning to Rory. “But I still don’t understand,” he murmured. “What’s all this about an eternal sleep?”
Rory’s gaze returned to Kieran, watching Bud as the man continued to feel his neck for a pulse. “Your ancestor, Kieran Hage, was entrusted with a peace mission while at the siege of Acre,” she explained quietly. “The Muslims met with him in secret, asking him to take an offering of peace to King Richard. This offering was the Crown of Thorns worn by Jesus Christ. However, some of the men in Kieran’s peace party didn’t want to see the war end. They turned against Kieran and tried to kill him. Mortally wounded, Kieran went to a man he thought was a physic but it turned out that the old guy was really an alchemist. He gave Kieran a potion that put him into a type of suspended animation so he wouldn’t bleed to death. Eight hundred years in a grave sealed up his wound and that’s when Bud and I discovered him.”
Dan was listening with amazement and wonder. “But there has to be more,” he insisted. “He’s here, in this crypt, and not in a grave in Nahariya. More than that, I have the Crown of Thorns that he brought back from the Crusades in my possession. Nobody knows about it; or, at least, I thought nobody knew about it outside of immediate family but you knew about it. How did you know?”
Rory smiled faintly. “That’s the other half of the story,” she muttered, opening her mouth to explain but Bud abruptly cut her off.
“He’s breathing,” he announced. “It’s faint and slow, but he’s definitely breathing.”
Everyone seemed to crowd around even closer, trying to gain a look at a dead man coming back to life. There was something mystical and magical happening in that ancient cathedral, none of which could be readily explained. Reverend Hogan had collected a Bible and now stood next to the crypt, repeating the book of John, chapter eleven verse twenty-five; I am the resurrection and the life.
“We should probably get the helm and the hauberk off him,” Rory said. “Those things are heavy and uncomfortable.”
Bud shook his head, feeling Kieran’s pulse again and noting that it was stronger. “Let’s not move him around,” he replied. “Everything will come off in good time.”
“Should we call a doctor?” Reverend Hogan blurted, genuinely concerned and fearful about the entire circumstance. He had no idea how he was going to explain this to his superior. “Perhaps the man needs a doctor.”
“And tell him what?” Dan wanted to know. “That he has an eight hundred-year-old patient? I don’t think that…”
A sound abruptly cut him off. It was low, mournful, growling. It was as if the Gates of Hell had just opened up and the Devil was issuing a beckoning call. Everyone looked at each other with wide-eyes, startled by the frightening sound, slowly turning to the source. They knew where it had come from; the knight lying supine in the crypt had emitted the noise. Rory was back on her knees beside him, trying to gain a better look as Bud nearly crowded her out of the way. Standing at the side of the crypt, the reverend suddenly shoved one of the teenage boys sideways.
“Go!” he cried. “Go and get the man some water! Hurry!”
The boy fled. Everyone else remained rooted to the spot, waiting and watching. Like something out of a low-budget horror movie, Kieran’s mouth began to work very slowly and his eyes, closed for eight hundred years, began to twitch. The redheaded teenager standing next to the crypt started to bolt with fear but the reverend held him fast; he didn’t want the lad running from the church, screaming. It would attract too much attention to what was going on inside and he didn’t want any attention on this very mystical, very historic moment. Truth be told, he was swept up in the wonder of it like everyone else was.
“Kieran?” Bud gently tapped the man on the cheek. “Can you hear me? It’s Dr. Dietrich. If you can hear me, lift your hand.”
Bud scooted back so they could all have a good look at Kieran’s arms. Rory was in the crypt, wedged in next to his right hand, when it suddenly twitched. After a few seconds of pause, it moved again and began to lift. Dan smiled, the lawyers gawked, and the reverend began to pray in earnest. Rory, however, saw the hand moving towards her and she clasped it tightly.
“I’m here, baby,” she said, leaning over him, kissing him on the cheek again. “I’m right here. Everything is going to be fine.”
It took her a moment to realize that his eyes were half-open, the dry eyeballs beginning to glimmer with a slight amount of moisture now that his heart was pumping and his lungs were working. She knew he could see her and she smiled at him, tenderly kissing his dry lips.
“Good morning, sunshine,” she whispered. “It’s good to have you back.”
Kieran’s mouth worked and very slowly, very laboriously, he licked his lips with his dry tongue. But the raised hand was moving to Rory’s head and, as the group watched, an enormous, mailed glove grasped her gently behind the skull and pulled her down to him. But he didn’t try to kiss her, not yet; he was attempting to speak.
“Bu…Bud,” he breathed.
Rory looked at Bud just as the man moved up beside her, planting his face right next to hers. But that apparently wasn’t what Kieran wanted. He managed to lift his left hand and, putting his dusty gloved palm on Bud’s face, weakly shoved the man backwards. That brought laughter from Rory and Dan.
“So you don’t want to see Bud?” Rory was leaning down, trying to make heads or tails of his halting speech. “What about Bud, then?”
Kieran struggled to take a deep breath, clearing his lungs of centuries of inactivity.
“I… I did not want Bud’s face… to be the first one I saw,” he whispered. “I wanted it… to be yours.”
Rory smiled broadly, kissing him again and feeling him weakly respond. “Here I am,” she murmured against his mouth. “I’ll be here forever. I can’t believe you had Kaleef put you to sleep again.”
He grunted, coughing weakly as his lungs gained strength. “It was… the only way to be with you. And I would do… anything to see you again.”
Tears stung her eyes. “So you voluntarily let him put you to sleep again, knowing I might not even figure out what you had done? God, Kieran, you took such a huge chance. What would have happened if your letter was destroyed over the centuries somehow? What would have happened if…?”
This time, Kieran pulled her down to his mouth for another kiss, cutting her off. “I had faith that you would receive my letter and come for me,” he murmured. It was becoming easier to speak. “Whatever Fates have brought us together will not let us be separated. I have always had faith in the power between you and me, Lib. Always.”
By this time, Dan had moved to the front of the crypt, watching with amazement as a man, his ancestor, believed dead for over eight hundred years gradually came to life. And the manner in which he was holding Dr. Osgrove told him everything he needed to know. He was watching a modern-day fairy tale; Sleeping Beauty as the tale had never been told or Lazarus in the most romantic sense. The man had put himself into some kind of suspended animation simply so he could be with the woman he loved. It was the most astounding thing he had ever witnessed.
Rory caught sight of Dan next to the head of the crypt and she looked up, smiling when their eyes met.
“Now do you understand everything?” she asked softly.
Dan’s gaze moved between Rory and Kieran. After a moment, he shrugged. “Maybe I’m not supposed to understand everything.” He gave her a wink. “I can take a few things on faith.”
As he watched Bud and Rory very carefully remove Kieran’s helm and eventually pull off the hauberk to make him more comfortable, Dan began to remember the words from the parchment that had been in his family for eight hundred years.
As he gazed down at the archaeologist and her crusader, the meaning of the words ran over and over in his head. He still didn’t understand all of it.
But he believed.
My Dearest Libby;
We did wonder of our greater purpose in returning to my tyme. Though you were taken from me, I know our journey is not yet complete. The diadem will be kept with my family and perhaps its only purpose was to bring you and me together and nothing more. Perhaps the greater reason is our son, Tevin, as he grows and becomes a great man. Perhaps he will change history for the better and right wrongs that have been committed. Perhaps he will make my family stronger and perform great deeds. For now, I only know that I myss you with all my heart and soul. I will be with you again someday, I swear.
Kaleef came with us from The Levant for the greatest reason of all. He was meant to put me to sleep again as he did before so that you may once again awaken me with your kyss. I await you in my crypt, sleeping until such tyme as you will once again awaken me as you did before. Know this is true. We are meant to be together, you and I.
With my never ending love I await you.
Kieran
* THE END *