A Guardian's Possession. Amy Blankenship

chains could hold it. He knew the demon could still taunt him with voices and seductive images, but he also knew he could now use that borrowed power to share those memories with the priestess.

      Hyakuhei’s lips curved slightly into a tainted smile knowing he could now use the dream sprites power for his own advantage. He would feed the priestess dreams of what they had once shared on the other side of time… planting himself within her nightly imaginings and mixing memories with the strange bond that held them linked even now within this world.

      His hand rose in front of him… holding what would help him. The slivers of the guardian heart crystal he had collected lit up, reflecting the bolt of lightning that passed right above him. As he watched the tiny crystals glitter to life, her image appeared as a reflection in them. His gaze caressed the softness of her face and the ruby redness of her full lips. He would now become a master of illusion.

      â€œI will have you again,” He whispered sullenly before evil crept back into his voice. “Priestess, I’ll get inside your mind where you cannot escape me or the memories of your own past… our past!”

      The shattered pieces of crystal glowed within his palm as their now tainted power crossed worlds and realities to find the priestess within her own world… where she slept.

      *****

      On the other side of The Heart of Time, in her nice warm bed, Kyoko lay sleeping… but the silence of sleep became disturbed with flickers of images and sounds as she tossed and turned. The confusion broke as the sounds and movements became one within her mind and she was lost within the strange nightmare.

      She broke out in a cold sweat as the dream became almost real… too real as it pulled her in.

      Kyoko could hear the enemy’s scream of denial just as she passed out. She had done all she could. She’d kept Hyakuhei from acquiring the Guardian Heart Crystal the only way that she had known how. Her last thought was sadness… she had shattered the Guardian Heart Crystal and now… she couldn’t go home to her own world.

      Hyakuhei gazed down at the girl who’d spoiled all his carefully laid plans. He had made them all think he was dead… no longer a threat, then he’d silently waited within the darkness.

      He knew as long as the priestess was with her guardians, she was too powerful to approach. So he had hid himself and suppressed his power, playing dead, waiting for her to make the mistake of being alone. She would be weak and vulnerable… enabling him to take the Guardian Heart Crystal from her.

      It had all worked out perfectly. She’d been alone within The Heart of Time gardens… ready to go back through the time portal now thinking the dangerous game was over… the game they’d played for several years with no winner. He’d been within inches of what he wanted more than anything.

      Hyakuhei stood above the beautiful virgin priestess, his raven dark hair flowing like silk down the length of his body, brushing against his calves and still fluttering in the breeze created from the shattering of the Guardian Heart Crystal.

      He was every bit as beautiful as a dark angel, but within him beat the many hearts of enraged demons. He wanted to kill the Priestess for what she had done, but he wouldn't… he couldn’t as his gaze caressed the face he loved. The starlight streaks that coursed from the shattering of the Guardian Heart Crystal were still lighting the sky like a celestial meteor shower… it was too late.

      Hyakuhei knew her guardians would come for her. His brother’s children would once again try to save her from him… and history would repeat itself over and over. The heavens had sealed their fate millenniums ago… only to offer up the continual chance of changing that same fate.

      His angelic face turned into a sneer. The guardian’s would not find their priestess this time. Swiftly, he cradled her limp body within his arms. No one yet knew he was alive and for now he would leave it that way. He would not harm her… instead Hyakuhei decided… this time… he would keep her.

      Again masking his evil aura, he used his power and opened a small black void and stepped inside, taking Kyoko with him through the gateway. The portal silently closed behind them… erasing all clues of the truth. When the guardians came for her, they would simply believe she had gone home, abandoning them to their land of demons.

      Kyoko jerked awake in bed wondering where the nightmare had come from. She searched around the room with wide frightened emerald eyes making sure it had not been real… that Hyakuhei was not there. She could still feel him touching her, and strangely enough, she missed that touch. Yet at the same time, she wanted to erase the memory of it. She pulled the covers up around her in confusion.

      Hearing the silence of the house, Kyoko knew she would never get back to sleep, so she made the biggest mistake of her young life… she decided to head back into a world of demons in the middle of the night. Being with the guardians would be the only thing that would make her feel safe again.

      It was only a couple minutes later that she found herself on the other side of The Heart of Time looking across the clearing that surrounded the maiden statue. She sighed now that she was as far away from the bed she’d just had the nightmare in as she could possibly get. But still, she could feel the dream haunting her as if it were waiting on her to go back to sleep.

      It taunted the recesses of her mind, plaguing her imagination with images that were too corporal to let go. Shaking her head, she took a deep breath and drank in the familiarity of her surroundings.

      Huge white stones jutted up from the ground in remembrance of the magnificent castle that had once housed the gardens known as The Heart of Time. The wind rushed through the limbs of the surrounding trees, lending a soft sound to the quiet darkness.

      Seeing lightning flash way off in the distance, Kyoko turned her emerald eyes to the east. She shivered wondering how something so beautiful… could be so dangerous. Even against the dark sky she could see the clouds blocking out the stars. The lightning danced across the clouds like spidery fingers giving the distant storm a sinister appearance.

      Kyoko blinked when she saw the lightning converge on one place in the clouds. It formed a tiny ball of light before blowing out like a tiny starburst. She wasn’t surprised by this phenomenon… having seen things more shocking than a lightning cloud. What caught her attention was that it kept happening in the same spot.

      â€œWhat am I doing here?” she asked the statue of the priestess who looked so much like her, knowing she wouldn’t get an answer. The angry clouds from the approaching storm had not made it this far yet and the moonlight shone down as if it were spotlighting the maiden shrine.

      Kyoko stepped closer, examining the extraordinary detail of the statue and wondering at it for the hundredth time. They were almost exactly alike… she and the statue… but it had been carved over a thousand years ago in this world… not hers. Once again, she asked herself who could have put it there and why? How could something be carved with a face that no one had known or seen prior to its creation?

      Kyoko sighed again wondering what she was doing. It was almost midnight and she had told the guardians she wouldn't be back until morning. But while lying in her soft bed, in her relatively safe world, she couldn't sleep due to some sixth sense telling her that things were about to change. Whether those changes were for the better or for the worse, she couldn’t say… and the dreams of the enemy weren’t helping.

      Her thoughts pivoted between the guardian heart crystal and the shattered talisman it had become. As always, her daydreams and nightmares shifted through the guardian’s that she had never asked for, and the dangerous demons they brought with them.

      Her thoughts instantly turned to Hyakuhei, their enemy. She couldn’t understand how someone so strikingly beautiful could be so cruel and dangerous. Kyoko saw another flash of lightning streak across the sky in the distance. She cocked an eyebrow reminding herself that looks could be deceiving.

      Beautiful or not… just like lightning,